Unravel the Mental Tricks to Obey Christ

I heard a passage from a certain novel that promoted Christianity as self-acceptance and a lack of homophobia, but with overt reference to Jesus. This was strongly contrasted with a televangelist type working with a militia group and hanging pictures of himself in expensive places, but none of Jesus. The question was raised about how this preacher knew that the enemy of the giant church and the militia aligned with his rhetoric about being a satanic force that they should oppose. The preacher in the depths of mental trickery imposed by the novel's author said 3 things that defined his enemy's attributes with descriptions of satanic work, though they are mostly vague: they steal in a way that precludes being caught, they do harm with magic, and they play tricks and sow the seeds of chaos. In this setup of contrasting views of Christianity where, in fact, both have elements that Christianity opposes, but the first is the type the World likes, these 3 descriptions of alignment with Satan are entirely correct! It seems that section was intended to add to the atmosphere of villainy, like the pictures of luxury without Jesus hanging around, because no comment was given afterward. The conversation simply moved on. In real life, loose conversational ends happen sometimes, but never purposely in a well-written novel, which this was, because the reader is being led word by word in a strictly controlled environment to gain maximum effect. The lack of commentary shows that the list is intended to add more of the same of what was explained before it, like a cherry on top that doesn't need to be remarked upon.

This is the devious level of trickery that we've been exposed to all our lives. The World's modern culture commonly uses methods that wouldn't work against Jesus, but we've been slowly dominated and enticed, instructed and pressured, to accept such things placidly. But once you start to think about things deliberately, slowly, with openness to being shown wrong about any given fact when it's been compared with common external meanings as well as internally to the text, trends emerge, and those trends show a depth of mental trickery that go beyond the common representations of such things. That is, Hollywood might have examples of such semantic trickery to expose, or some novel, or even a textbook on sociology, but they're rarely very layered or complex.

In this example, two tricks happen in parallel and one is amplified by the existence of the other, even though they're not directly related. One trick defines good Christianity with descriptions of modern congregations that are being enthralled by subjugation to popular culture, where homophobia and self-acceptance mimic and edge out real love. The other trick defines evil Christianity from the mouth of a properly discredited pseudo-pastor's descriptions of classically true properties of good discernment.

The wise discernment is edged out by the vagueness of those descriptions, because vague accusations are often leveraged by charlatans who scare people without being specific. That's another trick, but one that Hollywood and a novel might overtly describe, because it's simple enough and the cat's already out of the bag about it. It wasn't mentioned overtly here, but, like the descriptions themselves, sometimes an elements potency is increased by not highlighting it, so long as enough information exists within the greater informational background to bring it to the reader's mind.

The second trick is made more potent by the existence of the first trick, because it's contrasted against it to confuse any vestigial discernment the reader might have when passing over the brief set of descriptions.

To sum up the example, Christ's name is used to cover evil, and then good is spoken of in a way that seems evil due both to its evil speaker and its contrast with the covering good of the first part.

If it's heard in a few seconds without the preparation of unraveling such trickery, the evil might have appeared good and the good appeared evil even to the honest and humble Christian who loves the truth; that Christian might have a twinge when the things go by, because the fast preprocessing of the subconscious mind alerts to some inconsistency, but the conscious mind is already listening to the next thing being said after the trick completes. Practice discernment, unravel things you've already heard, because the same patterns will come again and again, and be ready to follow the biblical directive to capture every thought to make it obey Christ.