The Church and the Cult of Love

In the history of the world, there have only been two approaches to life. One approach is to base life on God’s ways and words, the other to base it on our own ways and words. Whether it is the division between Isaac and Ishmael, or Billy Graham and Richard Dawkins, the dichotomy has always existed. All social issues, all life decisions and their implications rest upon the fundamental question of whether or not we are going to do things our way, or God’s way.

Never has this been so true as it is today. The greatest battle facing our generation isn’t terrorism or financial insecurity. It isn’t education or ignorance, peace or war, but the battle between the Church and the Cult of Love. It is the single most pressing issue in our culture today, because it is the same ancient struggle that began in the Garden of Eden; will we choose God’s will or our own?

I will begin by defining The Cult of Love and end by defining the Church. I’m unsure exactly where the conflict began in relation to America, though I suspect that it’s rooted in postwar Europe. Nationalism lost its savor amongst the war weary, the economy began to take a more global shape, and mass communication allowed us to be more in touch with the world around us. In a new way, isolated peoples were confronted with the reality of other cultures, other races, strange religions and beliefs. The rift between cultures that had been invisible to many for centuries was stripped bare. Simultaneously, the world’s powers began the bitter war over democracy and communism. As is the case for anyone who endures prolonged conflict, there was a cry for peace, an end to war and animosity, and a surge of civil rights. A new banner, painted on the base of postmodernism, was flying over the west, the banner of human unity.

The Sexual Revolution gave the Cult of Love a refreshed vitality, luring many young intellectuals into its pews. Beyond mere discussions of economic systems and political opinions, the old enemy was rearing its head in the bowels of this cult’s ideology. Underlying all of the platitudes about peace, all the passionate discourse about brotherhood was the assumption that mankind was basically right, and God was basically wrong. The archetypical conflict reemerged in the bright faces of baby boomers.

The central doctrines to the Cult of Love are following: the acceptance of all faiths as equally valid, the acceptance of all forms of sexuality and gender as equally valid, the basic goodness of mankind, care for the poor, social and income equality, and the rejection of traditional authority. A combination of Syncretism and Universalism, as promoted by a number of influential pop-culture figures in America, is the tip of the spear for the Cult of Love. This religion attracts people because it offers all the nice parts of religion and leaves out the uncomfortable parts. The Cult of Love therefore rejects the existence of Hell and sin, and replaces them with heaven and humanism. Its main downfall is that a belief in everything is essentially a belief in nothing. They believe that all religions are right, and therefore none of them are right because they only give partial pictures. I’ve addressed this in, “The Parable of the Soda Can.”

From the foundation of ambiguous religion comes ambiguous sexuality. A society’s view on sexuality is mostly influenced by the religion of the society, or lack thereof. For the Greeks and Romans, orgies, pedophilia, homosexuality, and infidelity were social norms, reflected in the lustful mythology they invented. The Cult of Love uses sex as the bait and hook to their ideology. Get young people addicted to their version of sex and they will cling to the Cult like a junkie to a seller. In our society, billions of dollars are poured into the peddling of sex, from pornography to sex slavery. It’s about the rebellion against God’s version of sex, the version that is exclusive to marriage. The Cult of Love screams that anyone who feels sexual attraction to another person should be able to express it. Except, they use the word love, dirtying its real meaning by reducing it to romance. As our divorce rate proves, love is more than sex and romance. As our obsession with porn proves, love and sex aren’t synonymous. This ambiguous sexuality delivers pain, disease, bitterness, and disillusionment. Just as the Proverbs say, those who follow that path will end their life with a groan.

The Cult of Love confuses many good people by its trumpeting of social justice. The hands of the Cult have given countless meals, hours of education, and medical supplies. In themselves these things are good, but there is a more insidious end to the philanthropy that those who align themselves with the Cult may not even know. Instead of giving food to show that God loves a person, food is given to show that mankind loves that person. The apparent meaning is that life is through humanity, but the implied meaning is that it isn’t through God. It’s like the Pharisees mocking Jesus’ charity to the poor by saying, “We also can give to the needy, but without you.” At the root is the same old battle; we have chosen our way and forgotten God’s way. 

It’s my belief that we will see the culmination of this Cult of Conformity, in the face of a world united under the creed of man. At first it will solve economic woes and quell the surge of wars, just as every young tyranny does. As the adolescent and old flock to its shelter, hiding beneath the shadow of its wings, an ineffable loyalty will be birthed. Love for humanity will morph into love for one man, the symbol and hand of the human race, because the Cult of Love is not only the Cult of Conformity, it is the Cult of Idolatry.  Humanity needs something to worship, and it’s common for us to worship other men. History proves our affinity for despotic leaders, from Caesar to Napoleon. The desperate song of unity and safety will be answered, as it was by Hitler, with the exultation of a world leader.  Then the parades and galas, documentaries and textbooks will applaud the beginning of the Golden Age, the Age of Man. Men and Women will wipe their teary eyes as their hearts swell with patriotic love for one nation under humanity.

That, however, isn’t the end. No happy ending will accompany that story, because the face of the world diplomat will be unveiled as the face of the world conqueror. The protector of choice will become the enforcer of oppression.  Suddenly, the masses that murdered and slandered the people brave enough to speak against the Cult of Love will face the same sword they offered to others. It will be loyalty or death. That’s where the Cult of Love leads, because when mankind imagines they are fighting for their own will, they are actually fighting for that of the devil. Then, the movement of Love will stop being a soothing melody and become a cruel joke, a brutal irony that breaks the bones of its minstrels. The flocks of people who hide under the shadow of Satan’s wings will waste in the grip of his talons.   

The Church is God’s answer to fallen humanity. In the most basic terms the Church is God’s family and God’s nation. Just like the tribes of old, those who believe in Jesus are members of a nation family. We have a capital, the New Jerusalem, a King, Jesus the Messiah, a Father, a Brother, a culture, a set of laws, and common blood, Jesus’ blood. Where the Cult of Love establishes unity on man’s terms, we establish it on God’s terms, and the Church is therefore far superior. While the Cult of Love tries to quench fires of racial animosity with common humanity, the Church extinguishes them with a common Christ. Just as an army with a higher goal will out fight a band of mercenaries, so will the Church of God out love the band of religious mercenaries known as the Cult of Love. Eventually the Church will always win because we follow the God who is love, while they follow the god fallen from love. 

To be less poetic, the Church’s central doctrines are as follows. There is only one valid faith and only one true God, human sexuality is narrow because it is a sacred representation of God, all mankind has fallen from God, unity in God, the care of the poor and needy, and equality in value, not in function.

As I stated earlier, Syncretism and Universalism are really the belief in nothing. The Church is the stark opposite, the only reasonable alternative to the smokescreens of western mysticism. By nature religion is narrow, just as a road must be relatively narrow to be a road. This is because all roads, and most religions, have a destination they are supposed to reach. For the Hindus its Nirvana, the Muslims Paradise, and for the Atheist it may be death. God’s Church is heading towards God, literally and metaphorically. In the literal sense every Christian should want to be physically near God, which is either fulfilled when they die and are in heaven, or when Jesus comes back to the earth to set up His nation. Metaphorically, every Christian should want to be like God in word and deed. Just like we change our hairstyles and clothes to match celebrities, a real Christian adapts their habits to those of Jesus. To sum up, the end goal of the Church is to be with God and to be like Him. We are to be as narrow as God, and it was God who said, “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”

God made sex, and therefore understands it much better than we do. As religion is narrow for the sake of reaching a goal, sex is also narrow to an end. Homosexuality and many other forms of sexuality our culture endorses are excluded from the Biblical standard of sexuality because they keep people from reaching the intended goal. That end is firstly to show something about God, and secondly for procreation. Sex unites two humans in a mysterious way, cementing the bond of marriage. Christian sex speaks of the utter devotion God shows in relationship. That’s why monogamy is infinitely more beautiful than so called liberated sex. Marriage gives us the opportunity to see a piece of God’s faithfulness. A non-sexual truth is shown to us through a sexual lens. We have foolishly assumed that since sex with one person is good, sex with multiple persons is better. It’s like the boy who thinks it would be better to have three girlfriends instead of one, but quickly finds out how much of a problem it presents. We are wired to be sexually monogamous, and when we aren’t it kills the joy and life that sex is supposed to bring. Godly sex raises the value of a person, but the sex our culture offers lowers a person’s value. The Church, therefore, endorses monogamous, heterosexual, marital sex because it best reflects God and dignifies those who participate in it.

Christianity is diametrically opposed to humanism. The Church, unlike the humanist, acknowledges the fact that all of humanity is fallen, flawed in many ways. Our shortcomings are painfully clear, and any sane person can see that something is wrong with the human race. Humanism tries to fix that by denying the core issue, human sinfulness, and replacing it with self-esteem. The Church finds its esteem in Jesus. Our confidence isn’t based on our own goodness, but the goodness that Jesus works through us. We can pray longer, give more, suffer more, and understand more because its God power that propels us, not human grit.

The Church finds its unity in God. This hardly needs explanation; it undergirds all we’ve been discussing. The Cult of Love finds unity in humanity, and like humanity, that unity will ultimately fail. The Church has a solid unity because ultimately, just as God is one, the Church will be one. All differences aside, the Church is one Church; there is only one Body of Christ.

            Defending people in poverty is an essential doctrine in Christian thinking, though unlike the philanthropy barons of today, we don’t stop at merely filling someone’s stomach. Christian philanthropy is meant to introduce men, women, and children to the Nazarene who feeds the five thousand, not just the fish and bread that He breaks. What good is a hot meal if the recipient spends eternity in a hot hell? What good do new clothes do if their owner stands naked before God when they die? Generosity is the communication of the God who bubbles over with kindness and goodwill toward the weak.   

The Church doesn’t value equality in the way that our culture does. Just like Jesus, who didn’t view surrendering part of His glory in becoming human something to be despised, the Church is called not to covet equality. There are two reasons that the Church values submission. First, it’s a frame of mind that’s consistent with reality. It’s doubtful that we will experience total equality in any capacity, and if we can be satisfied without it, our life will be much better. This isn’t to say that the Church bows to injustice, quite the opposite; we turn injustice on its head. We take away the power of the oppressor because we free the soul of the oppressed. Oppression is about control, and when a person isn’t bound in fear and hate, their oppressor has failed in their aims. Second, if the whole Church submits to each other, then everyone is protected, everyone belongs. We have leadership, but our leaders are called to serve the people they lead, not lord over them. This is another fundamental difference between the Church and the Cult of Love. The Cult of Love trumpets equality, but when it gains power it enforces tyranny. Their focus is essentially selfish; the defense of entitlement and self defined rights. When these rights are gained they will lie, steal, and kill to keep them. The Church knows that humans forfeited their rights when we rebelled against God. Human rights can only exist when endowed by the creator, as our founding fathers knew well. The Church is, or should be, focused on serving other people. We are willing to give up our rights to help our fellow believers. We are willing to restrain our desires and strengths so our families and neighbors can come to God and experience the dignity that He gives. The Cult of Love will always fail in establishing equality because they topple tyranny with tyranny. The Church will prevail because we topple tyranny with the holy bondservant Jesus.

            The Cult of Love is seducing America, but we have the opportunity to break free from her poisonous doctrines. The Church is the gift of God to America, the only alternative to the pantheistic tyranny emerging today. As a society we are at the fork in the road where we must choose between God and humanity. We must decide between the self-centered crusade of humanity and the inevitable rule of the Just King Jesus. If America chooses the Cult of Love, she will be destroyed, but if America chooses Jesus again, we may see God’s mercy and the restoration of the country we love.