(1122) This one is a promise and is for a few readers, not intended for all. As I just wrote at Ool and at Jstack:

|https://jameshigham.substack.com/p/cris-of-faith-in-our-institutions

… those two are secular blogs and I try to keep it to Brit politics today. UHC-HQ has a secular readership in the whole but now and then … as in right now … I reserve the right to the occasional metaphysical post. (1159)

 

The crisis of faith

If the posts at OoL (and at Jstack) address Brit politics right now in the Mr. Flip-Flop versus Count Tinhead pantomime … this below is more serious. It’s about the central idea behind faith … do you believe you can be helped, saved?

Coz if you’re just crying out for help, chanting vaguely Holy phrases, catechisms, dressed in fine regalia with dog collars (see the High Church of England, plus Rome) … then I suggest that that’s nothing whatever to do with faith itself … it’s just gobbledegook, with heaps of gold and other wealth lying around.

The nitty-gritty is this … when you call on the Triune God, in anguish, to help you, to save you … do you actually believe, deep down, that He can, that He has that capacity? You see … that is the crisis of faith … do you actually believe it possible?

And if you look back at the history of ancient Israel … not the modern Babylonian, Ashkenazi version … they fell away, did they not? They broke the Covenant with that very God they paid lip service to.

And that’s what this long excerpt from Masquerade is all about below. Yes, it’s fanciful in plot … it’s the end of part three of my long novel Masquerade. Why bother? Because it does address the very question of crisis of faith … but in a fictional setting.

Why fictional? Well who can know the exact details of how the world ends? There are many indicators, but who can actually know? So I devised this following scenario as possible.

In this scenario, an angel has appeared, called Gabriella and she acts as an emissary of sorts, at certain parts of the end times. The two main protagonists, Hugh and Nicolette, are not in the actual final slaughter, though later they do have a sudden earthly end.

They’re actually spirited up to this “orb” in the sky (maybe don’t ask why at this point, just roll with it) and from there, they’re taken to the outer shell of the orb, which turns transparent and they can look down … upon the Jezreel Valley, near Har Megiddo, not far from Haifa.

Below is a scene of utter, gory slaughter, people being torn apart, massed armies trying to kill one another (modern Babyl-israel versus The Ten Northern Armies) … and it is totally nauseating to our protagonists. That’s where the excerpt starts:

………..

They followed her to an area near the shell of the orb which showed a panorama below and they were both rooted to the spot.

There was no sound inside the orb, no smell but they could see mayhem and wanton destruction below, as far as the eye could see, to the end of the Plain of Esdrael and then, on the bubbling sea, were flotillas. Humanity grimly waited in ranks, expectant, terrified, held in place by the occasion and by the threat, over the other side of the valley was the same scene but of a different hue.

Opposing armies were lined up – but for what? To slaughter each other for no reason? On someone’s orders?

Above, in the putrid sky and quite close to them in fact, were creatures clearly there to strike terror into hearts. One of these creatures swooped, took a soldier in its talons and four metres above the ground, tore him in two, his uniform, insides and two halves, viscera spilling from them, tumbled to earth, splattering the silent soldiery, a constant reminder that even words and thoughts were known.

‘You will have many questions, both of you.’ They just stared at Gabriella, who added, ‘Come – you have both seen enough.’

She led them to a quiet area, most likely near the centre of the orb and bade them rest but how could they rest when they were nauseated? She nodded and said, ‘All right, let’s have the questions now. Ask as you would wish.’

They looked hard at her and if it had not been for her history in which they had never once been let down, they would have been deeply fearful now.

‘Ask,’ she repeated.

‘Why do you allow this carnage?’ Hugh opened the questioning.

‘I have not the power to prevent it.’

‘Then why doesn’t He give you the power?’

‘To become just like the enemy?’

‘It’s all … horrible!’ cried out Nikki but in her heart, she knew there was far more to come.

‘That man had the chance, the choice, it was offered to him and he might have been saved. He refused.’

‘You should have made him!’ almost shouted Nikki.

Gabriella looked at her and Nikki knew the answer already. ‘To make us no better than the other side, Nicolette? And there is another question – what of the martyrs? Was their sacrifice in vain?’

‘Is there no vengeance for these monsters?’

‘Oh yes, there is vengeance and it is at hand.’

Hugh was stunned. They’d driven in cars through that valley, towards that hill and apart from the Egged Company busloads, it had been largely peaceful – the view from leafy Har Karmel had been tranquility itself … and now the sky was darkened, orbs hovered, glistening, above the smoke and carnage below, blood flowed along the contours of the land as those involved in the centre of the melee died, the blood flowed about the ankles of the soldiers who awaited their turn to die – it trickled down towards the sea.

Gabriella continued. ‘They curse us, curse you, curse their Maker. They are now beyond reason, in that survival state where every pestilence is blamed on good.’

Nikki was sullen. ‘I understand why these people are there but it’s still wrong.’

‘Yes, it is very wrong. Every one of those people you see had the chance to make the choice you have made. Every one of them made his choice, her choice, in the fullness of that knowledge. They hardened their hearts. It is wrong but as free choice is inbuilt, there was no alternative.’

‘So you punished them.’

‘No, I see that you still do not understand. They were not told, ‘Believe or you will be punished.’ It was explained in good time, ‘Believe so that you can escape this terrible fate. They were told that we can only rescue those who believe they can be rescued. That is the be all and end all. Now we take a short break, then I shall return and answer more fully – it is necessary that you finally understand. ‘Do you feel fear?’

Nikki was choked and he wasn’t far off. ‘Yes.’

‘That is lack of faith in both of you. When you stop fearing, then you are at one. There is no need to fear anything they can do, no matter how bad it seems. He cannot take your spirit by force and his power over your body is not real this time, not if you have faith that it is not real. This is all about faith.’

‘We get the general idea,’ said Hugh.

She left them for a time.

.o0o.

Gabriella returned and with a gesture, invited them to continue the questions.

Nikki opened. ‘Why can’t you help those people still on earth – just because they don’t believe, they must die?’

‘Inside both of you is … let me find a word you would understand in human terms … let’s call it a code, an embedded code -’

‘Who embedded it?’

‘Who wrote your DNA? This code alerts us, enables us to assist you, keeps you alive, even now. Without that code, we have no communication channel with you and we have no mechanism by which we can send aid your way.’

‘You could stop all that below if you wished,’ cried Nikki, her anger rekindled.

‘Again and again, Nicolette, we offered to deliver each and every last person from it but each refused our help. The two of you did not refuse it, therefore here you are.’

To Nikki’s dismayed look, Gabriella added, ‘you, Nikki, have not refused but neither do you believe. You are here because of the one who does believe. Would you have Hugh and your child pass over and go one way, you the other, down to the valley?’

‘What! You’d separate me from my family?’

‘No, you continue to fail to understand. We would most certainly not separate you from your family, quite the opposite. You would separate yourself from your family in your obstinacy – it’s entirely your choice, entirely your decision.’

‘Jean-Baptiste goes with me!’

‘Fine, Nicolette, you would choose that death below then, not only for yourself but for Jean-Baptiste as well? You would take him with you down there?’

‘This is … chantage!’

‘It’s choice – that’s all it is and all it’s ever been.’

Hugh asked, ‘What about someone good – say a Buddhist holy man who’s paid homage every day? Does he die too?’

‘He has more chance than most because his mind is already open to possibilities – he is given his chance. The world cannot end until all have had their chances – all.’

‘Can those down there change their minds?’

‘Of course – at any time and then they join us here or on one of the other orbs.’

‘And what must they believe in order to get onto one of these orbs,’ asked Nikki.

‘That they can escape that fate by believing they can be saved from it.’

‘Just that?’

‘Just that. Belief seems an easy thing. In reality, it is an insurmountable obstacle for so many.’

They wanted to ask more but felt they’d only be going round in circles if they pursued this line.