Doubt is not a small thing. It came between God and I for thirty years and brought me to the brink of disaster and insanity. It is hard to write those words. They seem melodramatic; as if I am trying to big-up my conversion by over-dramatising the situation I was in when it began.
I had a discussion about liars with a friend recently and it made me think about doubt.
We disagreed about the line between wise scepticism of pharmaceutical companies and politicians and unsupported conspiracy theories about them. In particular, we were talking about some people in USA, Britain and Scandinavia who are peddling blatant lies about vaccines. These are exactly the same kind of barefaced untruths that the American Christian Evangelicals are screaming at the congregations in “mega churches” throughout the land; although in their case it is about fraud in the Presidential election. Claims of election fraud by Evangelical leaders such as Eric Metaxas are examined in a Washington Post article by Michael Gerson published in early December. Metaxas has committed his life to the service of Donald Trump. That might seem quite extreme in anyone, but he went much further when he claimed that both God and Jesus are in favour of Donald Trump being reinstated against the results of the most widely participated, openly fair and meticulously examined election in US history. That is blasphemy plain and simple. Paragraph 2148 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that using the name of God to perpetrate or cover up a crime can cause others to repudiate religion. It therefore contradicts the Second Commandment. I doubt that Metaxas cares much about that as I do not think he likes Catholics very much. However, he is not the only one teaching these ideas and spreading falsehoods.
Some Catholics are also telling lies about vaccines, spreading doubt and dismay just as people begin to hope for a return to some sort of normality. There concerns are not the understandable worries over stem cell lines from abortions. They are joining with Christians from non-trinitarian denominations in promulgating seditious fantasies such as how electoral fraud is incredibly linked with Jewish conspiracies funded by communists, George Soros or Bill Gates. When Christian leaders, whether they be Catholic bishops or Protestant preachers, sign up to and promote these absurdities it calls into question all their other beliefs; the beliefs we all share that are the cornerstones of our faith.
When we Christians proclaim our faith, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary to save all people from sin through his death and resurrection, others are justified in pointing out, “That’s all very well, but Bishop So and So or Pastor Wassername also believe that vaccines are a Deep State plot to connect us to the AI Interface, and that Jewish bankers are forming a World Government, and that Trump is the victim of election fraud.” Such a conflation is incorrect but entirely reasonable as a few loud-voiced leaders have made us all sound like credulous fools.
We live in a time when we cling to the teaching of the Church like a life raft in stormy waters. We must not fall for the deceptions invented to spread dismay and denial. They will lead us into darkness and despondency. A place of fear and distrust of our governments, doctors, regulators and institutions. It is a Charybdian spiral that will drag us down in disunity and doubt.
We will doubt each other, doubt ourselves and doubt our faith.
Advent comes in direct opposition to this doubt-mongering. Our faith cannot be judged by the quality of our intellects, our bishops or the maniacal yelling of Bible-belt pastors. We wait with hope that burns ever brighter in our hearts as some of the most beautiful and triumphant passage sin the Bible are given to us each day. We wait, as Mary did in her faithfulness and love of God, for the coming of Christ. Our hope matures and grows like the rising sun or a shoot emerging from the soil, or a baby growing in his mother’s womb. Jesus is coming and all else is just distraction.
Advent is not about us. As John the Baptist tells his disciples in John 3: 30 “He must increase, but I must decrease.” If we can let these selfish worldly concerns drop away then we can be so much more open to the Holy Spirit and prepare ourselves for Jesus’ birth.
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