by Mark Fairley

As I write, Alex Trebek, star of the game show Jeopardy! for 37 seasons, has just died. One of the astute comments about him was that he fostered a love of trivia in the minds of his vast audience. I am longing for someone to foster the love of Truth in the hearts of Christians. Instead, we have a decided war on truth. Does it not seem that the world has taken leave of its senses? Do we see even an aversion to Truth?

Author Mark Fairley from Scotland is a prolific, articulate and passionate writer and speaker with a worldwide network of churches. [1] His investigation into the humanist attack on our society is thorough and compelling. He makes the point that what marks our current state of affairs is that we can no longer name things as bad or warped. Previously we could challenge idiocy. We no longer can, or we will be labeled hateful and intolerant bigots. What would have made you sane a decade ago now makes you an insufferable and narrow-minded jerk. Scientifically verifiable facts are now heard as hate speech. The author attempts to explain the mechanisms of where we are headed through a biblical lens. In fact, he even guarantees that if one looks at the world through his prism of faith, things will make sense.

It's NOT All about Love

Fairley speaks about the liberal mindset: "Their god, if they believe in one at all, is so timid a softie that he would never condemn them for their behavior. Their god is basically a hippie." [9]  And from this window into their world we can see that the idea of correction or judgment is totally absent and foreign to their thinking. This is an insightful point; since they are biblically illiterate, when they are confronted with the idea of punishment for sin, they react badly. Their ignorance has undone them; into the vacuum of that ignorance a new morality gained a strong foothold.

Mr. Fairley suggests that by placing all their emphasis on feelings and heart, liberals end up shutting down their brains. When one denies Truth, one begins to hate it. And then blame is heaped upon it and the bearer of Truth becomes an intolerant bigot. So upside down is our world that when Truth is spoken, it is heard as hate speech. And the tragedy is that since they have come to hate the Truth, it actually is hate speech to them.

Mr. Fairley refers to the above as the "Left Pit." It is characterized by: 1) being increasingly permissive, 2) immoral, 3) disease-prone, 4) taking the lives of unborn children, 5) engendering mental illness and irrationalism, 6) criminalizing Truth, and 7) being destructive, repressive, and bullying. Left unchecked it will lead to self-destruction.

We are reminded that it is Satan who draws us from one error to another. The "Right Pit" is most starkly exemplified by the Pharisees and their ungodly stance with law over compassion and love. One has only to consider the man with the withered hand [10] and the eating of the grain by the disciples. In both cases, the Messiah was furious with the Pharisees; in fact our author perceptively points out that they had become imbalanced, giving cause for Richard Dawkins' caricature of the Messiah as a wrathful monster. What was so desperately missing here was the application of Truth, i.e. the Truth of the Messiah's overwhelming (and overriding) love. Truth without love is a misnomer, a biblical impossibility because it ceases to be the truth when absent of love.

What is at stake here would be the failure to be in obedience to the Great Commission. Pharisees would just not be interested, and it is candidly pointed out how very many Pharisaical attitudes and mindsets Christians have. Conservatives, like liberals, have created a god in their own image. "We must never say, 'I could never believe in a God who...' because we are then saying we don't want a God above our comprehension. The real God of the Bible will challenge you and disagree with you and tell you that you're wrong and mould you into his image." [11]

Those in the right pit are characterized by: 1) unpleasantness, 2) lack of love, 3) legalism, 4) jealousy, 5) pride, 6) pettiness, and 7) unforgiveness. The Messiah hated Pharisaism. The Christian must be wary of both camps. Fairley emphasizes that counterbalance is required and that the hard and soft virtues must be held in tension but without hostility.

"Truth is exclusive. As soon as you say something is true, you automatically infer that all competing claims are false." [12] Fairley compares the modern era with the bloody Dark Ages and finds that it only got worse. That leads me to think that in this post-modern era we have excelled all previous cruelties and inhumanities (albeit without the blood). We have done it not with blatant persecution but by the principle of shunning: you won't say the right words; therefore you are not a valid Christian.

This new age of post-modernism is characterized by throwing out all absolutes. Why? Because the ones making the headlines feel that when people subscribe to absolute truths, the inevitable result is conflict. They feel that surety and confidence about YEHOVAH God is hateful. Relativism is the new way. "Truth is just whatever you want it to be." And as this new age progressed, a different sort of spirituality took hold. It was a "confusing, vague, mish-mash of whatever you wanted it to be...A pinch of Eastern mysticism, a sprinkle of occultism...Christianity was rejected, of course." [13]

And how has this affected us? Fairley's conclusion is that under these influences we have become permissive, immoral and hedonistic, with the hard virtues increasingly absent from public life, with liberals in charge of education and most of our institutions for well over thirty years. The not-so-subtle "don't believe your own eyes; believe us" suggestion has contorted our thinking. "With Truth suppressed, our generation has witnessed absurdity taking over." [14]

What Happens Next? Abandoning Reality

"In the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons" (1 Timothy 4:1).

"And when you add to this picture the Biblical prophecies describing globalisation, cashless payment technology, the rise of world leaders, a rise in natural disasters, disease and war, and you look around and see that all these signs are coming to pass in front of our eyes today, you start to get the impression that we may not be very far away from Jesus' return at all." [15]

He hastens to say that we don't know when it will be. He does, however, make two very grim prophecies that I will not speak to. (I am sensitive to some of our international readers whose countries are not so "progressive," a term which can be a cover for uncivilized behavior. He compares our demise to that of other wicked civilizations.)

This book reminds me of an accordion. Only when Truth is stretched out like this do we get the full impact. Ignorance will prove to be devastating. Could it be that we know no better than Pilate who asked: "What is truth?" (John 18:38).

There is fascinating and essential information on Islam and the character of Mohammed, which exemplifies the earlier assertion that the ideology of Islam cannot be questioned or criticized without shouts of "racist." Here, as with many other subjects, Fairley reveals how and why it is that we have abandoned reality. This situation, however, leaves us in great peril and necessitates an examination of our nation in light of a humanist attack.

Mr. Fairley bravely and frankly speaks the facts surrounding transgenderism, feminism, indoctrination of children, religion, and politics as well as our moral breakdown in many other respects. His aim is that having seen through the dangers of both "pits," we will be strong enough to avoid them. He points out on the positive front that as we see the unfolding of events prophesied in Scripture, we can be joyful about the fact that we must be on the final approach to YEHOVAH God and the Messiah's return. Although there might be hundreds of years left, "the route through which the world is returning to the Days of Noah and Lot is painfully clear." [16]

"If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both." [17]

Perhaps we will see the brightest light in the darkest darkness. Fear not; our Father's perfect plan will not be delayed, nor will it be cancelled.

-- Edited by John D. Keyser.

Footnotes:

[2] The War on Truth: How A Generation Abandoned Reality, 2016, p. 10.

[7] The War on Truth, p. 54

[8] Ibid., p. 65

[9] Ibid., p. 72

[10] See Greg Deuble, "A Withered Hand and Some Shrivelled Souls!" www.thebiblejesus.com

[11] The War on Truth, p. 90.

[12] Ibid., p. 103

[13] Ibid., p. 110

[14] Ibid., p. 117. He gives the examples like a Norwegian woman identifying as a cat, a man identifying as a dog called Spot.

[15] Ibid., p. 125

[16] Ibid., p. 227

[17] Horace Mann, 19th-century American educator.

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