The Search for Enemy and Spiritual Pseudo-reformation

Adam said "the woman is guilty", the woman said "the serpent is guilty", and some Christians today argue along the line: "The Communism is guilty" and "different religious sects are guilty" for the moral and spiritual degradation of our society.

How much is Eve dangerous for Adam? How much power has the serpent over Eve? How much are Communism and religious sects dangerous?

Just as much as man is weak spiritually, as he finds in their theories the excuses for his own sins! A misconception has not a power in itself. It is just a theory whereby man appeases his conscience. The force of misconception is a sin of human heart.

Likewise, a system can be bad just as much as it has permitted men to express their real nature; to reveal their real character. It can not be worse than the people it is made by. Have the things gone so far that the character and strength of a Christian depend on the qualities of the political system he is in? Should the things not be opposite?

"In those days there was no king in Israel..." (Judges 21:25) It was not God's will that His chosen people has a mundane king, (1 Samuel 8:6-7), and still, "every one of them, they resembled the sons of king" (Judges 8:18). Israel was not kept in well-being by the civil law of a mundane king, but by the moral law written in their hearts by Heavenly King:

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit in to you and make you conform to my statutes, keep my laws and live by them." (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

Our people need a spiritual transformation. It is a law in heart, differently from the political option imposed by a law from outside: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit; says the Lord of hosts." (Zachariah 4:6)

Do the Orthodoxy or Catholicism represent such a spiritual reformation? Does conversion of a Communist into an Orthodox or a Catholic leads to a change in his spirituality?

The most recent sociological studies show that a mass of people have converted from Communism to Christianity, but retained the so-called Stalinist (totalitary) consciousness.

Men are enthusiastic about religion now by those very motives they were moved by as Communists.

They are still looking for idols, but not in terms of people's heroes anymore, but in Christian saints.

They still have a need for a culprit in enemies, well paid from abroad, but they do not see him in dissidents any more, but in religious sects.

The question who talks is still more important than what is said.

They still live sinfully, but not under the cloak of partisan interests, but under the form of religious and national goals.

Has such a pseudo-reformation brought blessings to our peoples?

It is enough to open newspapers and see an increase in all kinds of criminal. Human relationships, art, ways of entertainment are showing just that the state is even worse than in the time of Communism and of the "ban" on religion. That shows that religion gets a wrong function today - that of an opium for conscience.

Whether one tries to suppress the awareness of the problem of his soul by getting drunk by alcohol, a disco-club atmosphere or religious excitements, it is all the same.

A true religion should liberate man from the burden of psychological needs, and not to be a response to the psychological needs. It ought to liberate from fanaticism, not just to change the form of the fanaticism.

In order to succeed a true religion must preach the sublime criteria (God's law) that will reprimand the sin and fanaticism of man's heart.

Thus, the true religion is the fulfillment of man's spiritual (but not the psychological) needs.

But popularity of today's religiosity lies in its spiritual and moral superficiality. Its demands are not obliging spiritually. In other words, it does not demand a reform of motives of man's heart:

"It is not relevant whether your motives are selfish, arrogant, self-righteous, revengeful! It is relevant whether you are for your religion, but it is not relevant what motives you are moved by! It is not important to observe God's commandments (which require reformation of the hart), but you need to observe customs and traditions (which spiritually do not bind, but only placate guilty consciousness)!"

It is no wonder that such a church can not fight by arguments of truth against various fanatical and perverse religious sects, for it would reprimand with such an argumented critic also a majority of its own believers who advocate the same sins and same fanatical mechanisms under a form of official church teaching!

A spiritual unity is not achieved by belonging to same ideology or church. Should we ask every believer of the official church to define the elementary notions: love and sin, God's law and salvation, resurrection and Second Christ's advent, then one would notice the same differences between two believers like those existing between various sects of the West.

Moving all religious, national, class and other differences, we do not move cause of the sin but only the reason for its manifestation.

We see that by the conversion itself of a people into Orthodoxy or Catholicism one can not achieve spiritual unity of a people. The fight should be waged on a quite different plane - again one's own sins, and not against some other enemy:

"Do not trust in these deceptive words: 'This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.' If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly..." (Jeremiah 7:4-5)

Only when a church has lost its spiritual power it has a need for a political power. When due to its spiritual apostasy it has lost the ability to raise the thoughts of men toward Christ, then it begins to deal with itself, with salvation of its own institution. Apostle Paul says: "For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake." (2 Corinthians 4:5)

And what did Jesus preach?

"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; If you love only those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?" (Matthew 5:44-47)

Therefore, a love just toward the same religion and same nation is not love but a paganism, and nationalism is right that. A nationalist does not really love his nation, but he loves its values, and he will sacrifice the very nation because of the national values. The hearth itself is more important to him than the man itself. However, man does not exist for the sake of his values, but they exist for his sake.

A genuine church does not make man worth in order to be able to love him, but makes him worth by loving him.

Is not it a hypocrisy when a church that has brought thousands of people to death by its indifference becomes suddenly interested now in saving the nation from "dangerous" religious sects?

If a genuine God's church is the point, that can not be overcome "even by hell's doors", then how can it fail, and even look for an exterior culprit? Can it be that its truth is powerless in front of a misconception?

The believers of early Christian church were persecuted, tormented and killed, and yet that did not prevent them from overwhelming the greatest empire of the time with the Gospel. Their inshakebility, self-sacrificing and loyalty to God's commandments were right a testimony to all the world that God was with them.

Temptation represent attest of character of the church itself. Only when it has lost spiritual power, it has a need for political power over it's subjects. Only when it lies lost the power of the truth, it defense itself from "misconception" by intolerance.

An indisputable argument of a genuine church is in its character of a real love, and love can not be imposed by political means. Holy Scriptures teach:

"Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness, and lawlessness? ... Therefore come out from the, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean; then I will welcome you." (2 Corinthians 6:14.17)

When distortion comes to the point that, instead of preaching the Gospel, a church begins to deal with politics (due to a spiritual weakness), and politicians to deal with church (in order to gain approval of the crowd), then we can be sure that we are on the brink of a national disaster.

Our greatest enemy is not outwards, but in the evil of our own hearts, and that is we should fight against.

That is the Gospel, and all the other is a politics.

Milos Bogdanovic, (Former General secretary of the Movement for Human Rights and the President of the Ethic Council DHS, Belgrade, Yugoslavia)