Coming soon to a neighborhood near you...

Remember the anarchist riots in France in the Fall of 2005? Did you think then that it could never happen here? Don't kid yourself.

If I had a tinfoil hat mentality I would almost believe that much of what is happening in our government today is specifically designed to lead to the level of disaffection and unrest witnessed in France. Whether or not it is intentional, many of the Obama administration's actions are putting us on the same road.

In an attempt to "know your enemy", I have recently obtained an electronic copy of the English translation of The Coming Insurrection, written by an anonymous group of French anarchists who are calling for a violent uprising against all structures. It is a chilling read, and I may have more comments later. For now, the following excerpt was interesting:

The West is a civilization that has survived all the prophecies of its collapse with a singular stratagem. Just as the bourgeoisie had to deny itself as a class in order to permit the bourgeoisification of society as a whole, from the worker to the baron; just as capital had to sacrifice itself as a wage relation in order to impose itself as a social relation – becoming cultural capital and health capital in addition to finance capital; just as Christianity had to sacrifice itself as a religion in order to survive as an affective structure – as a vague injunction to humility, compassion, and weakness; so the West has sacrificed itself as a particular civilization in order to impose itself as a universal culture. The operation can be summarized like this: an entity in its death throws sacrifices itself as a content in order to survive as a form. -pg. 60, The Coming Insurrection, by "The Invisible Committee"

As far as the writers of this tome are concerned, Christianity is on the ash heap, and only functions as an "affective structure" without power or substance. Unfortunately, this is 100% true of much of Western European "Christianity", and also describes much of American "Christianity" from main-line churches to evangelical circuses.

Have we sacrificed Christianity as a religion in order to survive as an affective structure? It would be difficult to argue against this point based upon an examination of the sorry state of the visible church.

Yet, we know that the true Church, the Body of Christ, transcends worldly structures: I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18b, ESV). While this is true, it might be that we will be called upon to testify for Christ in the midst of great turmoil: Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake (Matthew 24:9, ESV). Remember: But the one who endures to the end will be saved (Matthew 24:13, ESV) and:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Romans 8:31-39, ESV)