Thursday, February 14, 2013

The Truth About the Illuminati



In the Batman movie triology that recently completed this past year, the overarching story line is the work of The League of Shadows, an underground organization that spends years solidifying control over society's powerful elite in order to carry out its own nefarious mission. 

Sound familiar? 

It should. Throughout human history, rumors have come always existed about secret societies and international conspiracies. Nero blamed a group of people who called themselves Christians when a great fire burned down the majority of Rome (which, coincidentally, the League of Shadows takes the credit for in Batman Begins). Both Hitler and the Russian Tsars believed that the Jews had a secret plan to take over the world. And people have always suspected the Freemasons of being up to something. 

The latest group to start trending on Google is the Illuminati. Here's the basic breakdown: in the 1700s a Bavarian Catholic priest named Adam Weishaupt began an organization called the Illuminati. This organization has allegedly been behind a secret movement to enslave the whole world in a satanic plot for a one world government. Specifically, the plan has is to divide all of human civilization into 
"opposing camps in ever increasing numbers on political, social, economic, and other issues...The opposing sides were then to be armed, and incidents were to be provided which would cause them to fight and weaken themselves, gradually destroying national governments and religious institutions." 
The method would include obtaining control over men in high places of authority, faculty at colleges and universities, and media executives and producers. Controlling the people in power would allow the Illuminati to drive human civilization into more and more disunity while controlling the media would allow them to hide what they were doing from the masses. 

Source: http://www.prolognet.qc.ca/clyde/illumin.htm 

What Would Jesus Say About the Illuminati? 

By their very nature, conspiracy theories cannot be proven or disproven, so I'm not going to try. But one thing you cannot deny is that conspiracy theories take our thoughts captive. Soon we start seeing evidence for them everywhere. Mark Dice, who regularly publishes YouTube videos aiming to expose the Illuminati, has over 50,000 subscribers and 9 million views on his YouTube channel. Thousands if not millions believe that recent Super Bowl halftime shows were actually Illuminati rituals meant to brainwash unwitting viewers. Type in "illuminati" on youtube and most of the videos have hundreds of thousands if not millions of views. 

Conspiracy theories take our thoughts captive. 

But what does scripture say? 2 Corinthians 10:5 says to take captive every thought into the obedience of Christ. 

Let's take a moment and imagine ourselves at the End of Time, the Last Day. As believers who have put our faith in Christ, we will be standing before God as his children, seen as perfect and without sin, completely justified by his son Jesus Christ. There will be great joy, all of creation will be made whole once again, and I'm sure there will be much time to share in perfect fellowship with one another and with God. 

Now, in that moment, how high would your thoughts and/or suspicions about the Illuminati be on Jesus' list of things to talk about? Likely not very: hasn't Jesus already made clear what his priorities are? Are they not spreading the good news of God's grace and the breaking in of God's Kingdom into our world?

The truth is, Jesus just isn't all that concerned with secret societies or conspiracies, so why should his followers be? Even in Revelation, where John is given a clear look into past, present, and future supernatural reality, there is no mention of secret societies or underworld rulers controlling our destinies without our knowledge. Even the rise of the dragon, beasts, and false prophet in John's Revelation are seen not as secret events or conspiracies, but direct attacks that happen out in the open.

But conspiracy theories abound and each tend to take our thoughts captive, when we are called to instead take every captive to Christ. Yes, followers of Christ need to be wise and should test everything. But being wise is different from being paranoid. Followers of Christ, be warned: do not be drawn in by these theories.

A few links that provide some interesting (and sometimes humorous) views on conspiracy theories, from both Christian and non-Christian sources: 

http://www.acts17-11.com/conspire.html 
http://deliveredfromdarkness.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/christians-and-conspiracy-theories/
http://gawker.com/5981088/this-years-illuminati+super-bowl-connection-is-more-sinister-than-ever

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