That Hideous Strength at 10X

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Preambulatory Note

As per our November standards, there are no qualifications in the slow-build material that follows. It is not until the last section that it goes hard, so you can jump down there if you like. But at some point you will want to come back up and take in the premises.

Introduction

Comes now a new advance in science, if by science you mean dark arts and sorcery. As if science meant shaking your fists at Heaven as though daring the Almighty to consume our planet in a giant fireball. As though science meant that our techbroslords of the earth somehow don’t breathe through their mouths while sleeping at night.

If you have the stomach for it, you can read more about the latest monstrosity here.

I am referring to the fact that our lizard overlords have figured out a way to fashion a human egg out of a skin cell, and are apparently quite pleased with themselves. They have done this thing, and then they have fertilized some of these eggs with human sperm and then, being the kind of people they are, they have nurtured the zygotes until it came time to wash them down the sink.

We are technological prodigies and ethical morons, always a bad combination. They glide around in their godless laboratories, moving from beaker to beaker, unable to hear the creepy music.

Sinful Moths and the Flame of Judgment

There were two named trees in the Garden—the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. The former was forbidden, at least for the time being, and the latter was included among the rest of the trees, all of them available. Our first parents were told that they could eat from every tree but one. That meant the Tree of Life was open to them.

But as soon as they disobeyed, it was the Tree of Life that went off limits instead. God stationed a guardian cherub at the entry to the Garden to prevent them from eating from that tree while they were in their wrecked condition. This was an act of true mercy, one that prevented them from sealing their disobedience with damnation. By barring the way to the Tree of Life, the cherub created historical room for us to wend our way down through the aching centuries, finally coming to the Tree of Life through a different path, through the gospel of Christ (Rev. 2:7).

And so man in his rebellion has either wanted to get back at the tree of life, the way Gilgamesh wanted to, or, failing that, to come up with his very own tree of life. And the names that we give to our own devices vary, but they all betray the lust for immortality—but always on our own terms, and never on God’s. We seek out many devices (Ecc. 7:29), and we call them things like the Fountain of Youth, or the Philosopher’s Stone, or Cryonics, or Young Blood Transfusions, or Brain Uploading. The point is the hot pursuit of that famous Woody Allen wish—”I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.”

But because this flight from death is a frenetic and foolish one, conducted in a hatred of wisdom, the ironic result is the sentence pronounced by Lady Wisdom in Proverbs: “All they that hate me love death” (Prov. 8:36). They flee from death by pursuing it.

The best they can hope for is longevity, which is not the same thing as life. Gollum lived for a long time, and being stretched that far is not the same as being filled (1 John 5:13). Pursuing extension in time without the knowledge of God is the same thing as pursuing damnation and Hell. And men labor for it, chasing after it until they are out of breath.

Nothing New Under the Sun

The ancient pagan myths are filled with accounts of the gods sleeping with human women, with great heroes resulting. In the quest for immortality, they would try anything. And there was the legend of Queen Pasiphaë of Crete, wife of Minos, who was cursed by Poseidon with an unnatural lust for a great white bull. Daedalus built a contraption for her that looked like a cow so she could climb inside and position herself. That bull mated with her and so she conceived the Minotaur. But the ultimate point is not the kinky sex, but rather the genetic outcomes.

And Jude refers to exactly the same kind of perverse rebellion, as recorded in Genesis 6.

Jude is very clear about what happened. They didn’t just want to couple with strange flesh, they wanted to conceive strange flesh. The sodomy of the Cities of the Plain involved “going after strange flesh,” and Jude says it was the same kind of thing that the angels did, the ones who left their proper estate. They went after strange flesh also—”in like manner.” So the sons of God fathered the Nephilim, and so we attained to the rank of superman, a makeshift messiah, the equivalent of a Marvel Comics uber-goober. Even so, it looked as though they had the run of the place, and everything was going their way.

And then the Lord God Almighty spake.

So we don’t really need to worry about all this scientific impudence succeeding. No, God is still in His Heaven, and He remains as just and as powerful as ever He was. But we do need to be concerned about what His judgment is going to look like, and how close we might be living to the blast radius.

Crabs in a Bucket

The people in hot pursuit this strung-out and etiolated immortality don’t care who they need to step on in order to get to the place where they want to be. In the service of what they call science, they are willing to wash children down the sink. Like crabs in a bucket, they do not care who gets pulled down, or how many people, created in the image of God, get stepped on.

R.L. Dabney warned of a generation that would be simultaneously sentimental and inhumane. No need to go check on our progress for we have certainly arrived at that point. Do you have surplus or unused embryos as leftover detritus from your cavalier use of IVF? Too many kids in the freezer? No need to worry. A company in Australia will cremate the extras for you, and then mix the ashes together with resin in order to fashion jewelry for you, the bereaved parents. Such a thoughtful gesture. You can wear a sentimental memento of your murder around your neck, while shedding a sentimental tear about what might have been. I don’t know . . . do they offer boy ashes and girl ashes?

We live in a time when men in white lab coats believe that if they can do something, then they should do that thing. They believe that there is no transcendent authority over them at all, and they think this because millions of Christians have connived at the notion that ethics can be suspended in mid-air without falling down around our head and shoulders. Which is absurd.

When you object to those kids being washed down the sink, the answer will come back that these zygotes are “just protoplasm.” Don’t get so worked up. It’s not like they are people or anything. Of course, it won’t do to press them on the point because they think that you are just protoplasm also. You are not people either, but we haven’t gotten to Act 3 of this particular nightmare screenplay yet.

Complicit Christians

And so all of this is happening in a nation containing millions of Christians. Salt-that-has-lost-its-savor Christians, to be sure, but still Christians. Fit-for-nothing-but-to-be-trampled-on-by-the-Gentiles Christians, certainly, but nevertheless sweet and compliant when it comes time for the trampling. Assume the position. So important to be winsome—simper reformanda.

Here is the thing that hangs these compromised Christians up. If you point out the obvious fact that we cannot condemn and outlaw such iniquitous behavior without an authoritative Word from the living God, they will begin to worry aloud about a Presbyterian regime in which Baptists are fined twenty dollars for having an incorrect view of Romans 11. Like that’s the current threat? That’s the immediate danger?

Look. And because I am running hot, I will even say look, pal. You cannot enshrine a relativistic standard over all of our heads—which is what the secular state is—and not find yourself dealing with the relativistic results. Follow the argument. God is not mocked, and there is a strong correlation between sowing and reaping.

If relativism is the case, then anything goes, including the worst forms of absolutism. You might think, in your faith community, that people ought not to be washed down the sink, and so you stand personally aloof. But your Christian standards have no authority whatever over their laboratory, because they are operating in accordance with a different worldview, one that Christians carved out space for. All the complicit Christians agreed to that deal. And they defend it, as though it were somehow not a pig’s breakfast of a deal.

We gave that compromise a shiny name—pluralism—but the theological name for such an approach is polytheism. Many gods, many voices, many laws. If in principle you allow for the pantheon at all you are going to find yourself hard pressed when Chemosh and Molech request admission. But I misstated how that goes. They don’t request admission—they bang on the door. They demand admission, and they do so on the firm foundation of the dreams and rationalizations of all the blinkered Christians. So if you are the one who put the welcome sign up . . . go answer the door.

You heard me. Go open the door—your door—to the people who think that if they can do something, they should be allowed to proceed with abandon. Sure, they might want to do some gene-splicng so that NFL linebackers might gain some of the advantages currently possessed by silverback gorillas, but who are you to say no? If you try to say no, on your premises to date, that would make you a Christofascist. Can’t have that.

Solomon doesn’t get to say that sure, he built a temple for Chemosh, but he didn’t expect him to actually be worshiped there.

And if we conservative Christians grow restive, and start to point out that murder is only murder because the living God has revealed His will to mankind, they will start calling us Christian nationalists, and as people who are the real threat—a threat to the liberties of us all. But their idea of liberty is pluralistic, which would include the liberty to wash image-bearers down the sink. So that would appear to be a problem. The problem, in fact.

But the go-along-get-along Christians remain adept with rationalizations. They can find academic dens and cubbies to hide away in, like Horton in Escondido or Hart at Hillsdale, and they will no doubt be up to the challenge of finding conservative Christians to be the actual threat.

So if this makes sense to you, reject polytheism. Reject pluralism. Reject secularism.

If you register your objections effectively enough, unattractive women in red dresses will be hired by somebody out there, and they will start showing up at your events. They will be protesting your attempts to establish and impose the Republic of Gilead, where the women are brood mares in scarlet. These people could make a cat laugh. They are the ones growing babies in labs . . . and killing them there. They are the ones establishing breeding farms. They are the ones with the sperm banks. They are the ones establishing the technology to allow adoption agencies to start putting together designer-baby packages. Blue eyes will be fifty dollars extra.

To be frank, and just between us girls, I don’t think we conservative Christians should be embarrassed by the jibes of people who made Minotaur-erotica #700 on the Amazon Kindle store. It is kind of my view that it is other people who should be ashamed of themselves. But I am old-fashioned that way.

Don’t Ever Neglect the Giveaways

Remember, remember . . . there are two places to go for your giveaways. The first is the special page that Canon set up to process their giveaways, which can be found here. The offers will change throughout the month, but for the Canon titles, they will always be found in the same place. As there is a new post up today (this one), there are new free titles. Get over there, man.

The second place to go would be to my Mablog Shoppe. Concise and to the Point and Virgins and Volcanoes remain as free as they were on Monday. In addition, Blue Sky Vision and The Pink Spiders of Empathy are also free.

Happy browsing.