God loves us all no matter what, but I absolutely accept your implied point that we cannot know that love and experience its effects in our lives (individual and communal) unless we are at least prepared to embrace truthfulness and humility (and therefore own up to our faults and failings). I certainly agree that there is something peculiarly horrible about what you have pithily termed the “Christian Industrial Complex”, and we should be very grateful to people like Warren for his untiring efforts to oppose it and all its works.

I understand your point. “The world” in the spiritual sense is counter to “the Spirit”. But the world is, along with everything else, God’s labour of love; while they are not OF it, Christians are, during their earthly lives, IN it (and are part of the created order). We are not called to be like rats leaving a sinking ship; rather we should, with God’s help, try to do what we can to stop the ship from sinking.

That is what I am trying to do. To me it is obvious that the whole world’s ship is sinking because we have ceased to be the salt and light we are supposed to. Hence the need for blogs that report on the reality of a Christian Industrial Complex that supports liars and scammers like KP Yohannan instead of what is right. There is also the reality of the foolish donors like I once was giving Mammon to very evil narcissists destroying the harvest fields they claim to work in. This is part of the reason why God shut down all of the churches world-wide in March. Christians need to repent and until we do to a degree that satisfies God this season of judgment will not end. This is not revolutionary at all. All you have to do is read the O.T. and how God worked with his original people to see what his ways are for He does not change. I have hope because God loves us enough to discipline us. If he does not discipline us then we are not his children. A “hope” that wants God to stop the discipline short of this goal is just a wish for God to abandon us to our own delusions and sin. That is not something I want to see happen.

The short of this is that their is a dust storm coming next year and it will be very confusing. Christians will need to be led by the Spirit in order to navigate through the hazards and minefields. If we are deaf and blind then we will not be able to stop your sinking ship from going down. We cannot call pagans to repent while we are being just like our celebrity hypocrites who refuse to do so. There is a purpose through this and it is not about us returning to the comfort we once knew without learning the lesson of how to follow a Spirit that will keep our collective ship from sinking. The ship is sinking because we Christians are the ones who damaged it in the first place. Hence, again the need for actual repentance.

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chron 7:14 Do notice the if that begins the verse. There are many times in history when the people refused to humble themselves and that always led to circumstances far worse than the ones we are facing. So what will we do this time?

I am very hopeful about the future, which runs the opposite of how things go in the world. Optimism is something very different. But each Christian must follow the Spirit of God wherever that leads.