The twin movements of social change turning British society upside-down.

I’m sure there must be days when our Prime Minister regrets having won the leadership contest for the Tory Party when David Cameron departed in 2016, after he backed the wrong side in the Referendum. The media assault upon Theresa May has intensified since her success in negotiating the first stage of Brexit with Brussels.

Those who are determined to keep Britain under the authority of the European Union are using every weapon at their disposal. They are actively seeking to destabilise the country by concentrating their fire upon Theresa May and her leadership in the hope of creating such confusion that public opinion will swing around against Brexit.

The central issue is not political and it is not economic. In fact, all the prognostications of gloom and doom from the Remainers have not happened. Unemployment has not soared, it has fallen; the economy has not collapsed, it is doing moderately well; we are not back of the queue in doing trade deals with America and other parts of the world; both the USA and China are eager to make trade agreements with Britain.

The central issue, as we have said many times before on Prophecy Today, is spiritual. In fact, the battle for Brexit is part of a much bigger spiritual war for the heart and soul of Britain - and the West at large. This war is changing the fundamental structure of our nation, and yet most people, even if they are aware of it, do not understand it.

The battle for Brexit is part of a much bigger spiritual war that most do not understand.

A Tale of Two Movements

If we are to understand the battle currently assailing Mrs May and the Brexit process, therefore, we must zoom out and take a longer-term perspective. Such a perspective reveals that there are two movements of social change running parallel in British society, which are also visible across the whole of Western civilisation.

One is the philosophical movement of secular humanism, the roots of which go back to 18^th Century Enlightenment philosophers, and through which emerged both the pseudo-scientific theory of Darwinian evolution and the political ideology of Marxism. Secular humanism seeks to set society free from the restrictions of religion and elitism to enable each individual to make their own decisions and to determine their own destiny in line with secularised principles of liberty and equality.

The second movement is far more deadly and destructive because its objective is simply social anarchy. This is the LGBTQ movement – the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and queer movement. Their major objective, quite publicly stated since the early 1970s and the rise of the Gay Pride Movement, is the destruction of the family, which they see as a fundamental ‘source of oppression’.

If the LGBT movement can destroy traditional family life based upon the covenant of marriage with its roots in Judeo-Christian biblical teaching, they can achieve their goal of a society entirely free of all restrictions, in which all forms of sexual activity, including paedophilia, are legal. That is what they are aiming to establish and that is what lies behind the most recent campaign to promote ‘transgenderism’ as a normal part of society, starting with little children in infants’ school.

There are two movements of social change running parallel in British society – secular humanism and the LGBT movement for sexual liberation.

Both of these movements of social change have a spiritual basis, being driven by the powers of darkness rather than philosophical concepts. Both became entwined about 30 years ago and since then have run parallel, feeding upon each other and causing confusion in the public square, such that the true objectives of each are not discerned. Both are fundamentally connected in with the EU project. So, the danger of the destruction of all our social institutions and the collapse of social order in the nation is not being perceived.

Church Decline and Weakness

All this has happened during a period of Church decline and weakness and when biblical truth has not been taught to children in schools or at home. We now have a situation where half the population have virtually no knowledge of the God of Creation and ultimate standards of truth. Only a tiny minority of those under the age of 50 have any knowledge of the Bible, upon which the whole basis of Western civilisation is founded.

It is this spiritual vacuum in the nation that has paved the way for a major assault upon truth, which has also given us today’s fake news, driven by the enormous power of social media.

Sadly, we have a generation of clergy and preachers who have little or no understanding of what’s going on. I remember my confusion when I began in my first church in London. I was fresh out of college and I was expected to preach twice on Sundays and minister to an ethnically mixed working-class congregation among whom I had never lived or had any experience. Virtually none of my theological education and training was any use to me. I had won my university’s prize in classical Greek, but it was about as much use as yesterday’s newspaper in dealing with the issues I now faced on a daily basis.

It was for this reason that I enrolled at the LSE to do a Masters in Sociology leading to a doctorate. I was determined to understand the forces of social change that were sweeping through society at a bewildering pace.

While forces of change have swept society at a bewildering pace, the Church has been in decline and weakness and biblical truth has not been taught to children in schools or at home.

As far as I’m aware, theological education of clergy has not changed much since my day, so most of them are like King Saul’s army facing the Philistines – “On the day of battle not a soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or spear in his hand; only Saul and his son Jonathan had them” (1 Sam 13.22). If church leaders are not armed for the battle they will not be able to teach their people to understand the complex mission field that faces us today, nor equip them to fearlessly declare the truth to a dying nation.

Unconditional Affirmation?

Hence, we have the appalling ignorance of an Archbishop and a House of Bishops who have just declared, “The House of Bishops welcomes and encourages the unconditional affirmation of trans people”. Clearly, they do not understand either the biblical and theological significance, or the sociological significance, of what they’re doing. They are like the religious leaders who Jesus faced, “though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand” (Matt 13:13).

Writing about the new ‘liberal democracy’, which he sees as a quasi-religious movement that has swept away most of our Christian traditions, Dr Joe Boot says:

The seemingly unstoppable and rapid advance of this neo-Marxist and neo-pagan worldview, aided by a largely unprepared and ineffective church pulpit, means a religious revolution has left many Christians stunned, confused and often afraid to do anything but retreat or concede.¹

The plain fact is that we don’t know what to do to stop the total secularisation of our society in which, once the older generation has gone to glory, Christians will become a tiny, persecuted minority. Our greatest need is for clear direction from the Lord. In this editorial we have simply outlined the problem and not attempted to offer a response. That is what we hope to seek the Lord for in the next few weeks. We would greatly appreciate feedback from readers.

References

1 Boot, J, 2017. GOSPEL WITNESS: Defending and Extending the Kingdom of God. Wilberforce Publications, London, p2.