The Royal “We”
The Royal “We” is the replacement of “We” instead of “I” in a sentence, usually used by a sovereign. The King will speak of “We” in the sense of subjects of his realm. Today, I would like to speak of “We” as the followers of Christ, all Christians, who are the subjects of Jesus, our Lord and King. In that sense, “We” are being confronted a by new religion, which is overrunning our culture and threatening our civilization. It is time We named our enemy and made a decision about confronting the evil We all see.
As an example of this new religion, I would like to turn your attention to the 12th Annual Decolonization Conference, which just recently concluded in Toronto, Canada. Under the theme of “Speaking out & Speaking up in Fugitive Spaces,” the congregants were privileged enough to hear such scintillating presentations as, “The decolonial potential of Islamic feminist hermeneutics: Towards a transnational model of gender equality,” “The role of anti-colonial solidarities in nurturing generative relations and anti-colonial pedagogies,” and “Boundless Englishes: Striving for linguistic equality on campuses.” I invite you to peruse the conference website and see this for yourself: https://www.decolonizingconference.ca/.
What are we to make of this? I myself experienced two reactions: First, I burst out loud in hysterical laughter at such absurd word-salad insanity; then I felt abject horror that there are many people who actually take this gobbledygook seriously. How do we explain this profound level of derangement? There is only one explanation: This is a new religion, with zealots belonging to the Church of Postmodernism. They are consciously competing against Us, as the followers of Christ, with the goal of supplanting Us and overtaking our culture. And, so far, they are winning.
These new cult members have had an advantage over Us, in that they know We are their enemy. One of the central prophets of the Church of Postmodernism is Jacque Derrida, who coined the term, “Phallogocentrism” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallogocentrism). By “phallo,” Derrida meant to connote the phallus, and by “Logos,” he meant to name Christ, as the divine reason implicit in God’s creation, ordering it and giving it form and meaning. Derrida was saying that Christian civilization is based on two things: the polarity of the masculine and feminine, and the belief that, through reason, mankind may understand God’s creation in the universe. These two things are what the congregants of the Church of Postmodernism are explicitly and aggressively against. Derrida was identifying to his cult members what they are called to destroy.
There are important historical precedents, which We should soberly recognize. Christianity itself out-competed and supplanted the paganism of the Greco-Roman world. A closer historical analogy is what occurred to the Christian Byzantine Empire when confronted with the new aggressive religion of Islam. It is difficult to imagine today, but, at one time, Africa and the Middle East were integral and enlightened parts of the Western Christian world. In the year 600 AD, Christendom stretched from Ireland to Ethiopia; from Morrocco to the Euphrates River. When Islam emerged in the 7th Century, the Christian Byzantine Empire did not initially grasp with what it was confronted, failing to perceive the threat emerging in their adjacent territory. As a result, Christendom lost the Middle East, Africa, Anatolia, Greece, the Balkans and even Spain. Much of what was lost has never been recovered.
What are We losing today to this new religion aggressively confronting Us? We have watched, first, the humanities departments in our universities being overrun; with entire universities following thereafter. We have seen this cult infect and overtake even our seminaries. As these zealots have entered the job market, We have seen them overwhelm mainstream media outlets. Supposedly for-profit companies no longer seem to care about their customers, opting instead to spew this ridiculous ideology. Incredibly, We have lost our mainline Protestant denominations. Now, the Church of Postmodernism zealots are even attacking our children.
How have We responded? If We are being honest, We have retreated. Initially, many of us felt isolated, alone, not knowing what to do; feeling like some invisible Goliath was turning the world upside down. At Grace, we found each other, praise be to God. However, in my opinion, the time has come to ask what we must do, looking to Christ’s example. While Jesus was non-violent, He was never non-confrontational. This is the man who rightly called out “hypocrites,” who told his disciples to shake the dust off their feet and, who, with righteous anger, overturned the tables at the Temple.
Let’s return to the Royal We. We live in the already-but-not-yet Kingdom Age. Though the final Kingdom is not yet realized, We can see glimpses of it, even today. If the Kingdom is at hand, though not complete, do We even have a choice whether to confront this enemy? As we remember the life of Sharon Ritchie, I am reminded of her comment to me, when she said, “I need Grace Church.” I know so much what she means, for Grace is our harbor in the tempest. It would be tempting to see Grace solely as a cloister from the world, but perhaps the time is coming where We will need to heed these Holy words:
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Ephesians 6:10-17)
In Christ,
Mort Taylor