False prophets
The endemic corruption of organized religion is nothing new, from debauched Popes to terrorist Mullahs and the ruthless greed of “televangelists,” we have seen the oldest sins committed in the newest way by the “holiest” of men.
The line of men claiming to serve God while fighting for a position in Satan’s bed seems endless. If this line of corruption is any indication, hell must be a very congested place, with false prophets and false priests occupying its hottest quarters. It was hard to imagine it could get any worse. Until it did.
Even in this modern world, jaded as it is by the endless scandals emanating from seemingly every temple, tabernacle, cathedral and prayer hall of nearly every religious persuasion, the slatternly obsequence which a certain Russian Patriarch has heaped upon the Demon of Moscow is still shocking.
Indeed, the open and shameless corruption of the Holy Gospel by this morally derelict termagant of a priest would make even Judas Iscariot blush with shame. Of course, Judas was never paid anywhere near as much by his masters as this false priest is being paid by the Beast of the North.
I was shocked at first, not by the spiritual corruption that occupies headlines from the Throne of St. Peter to the Court of Rus, as stated above we are used to that, but rather by the flagrant failure of the Patriarch to cover his service as Putin’s concubine with at least a fig leaf of hypocrisy. One normally expects corrupt men in powerful positions to maintain a form of righteousness even if within they are full “…of all uncleanness…” (Matt 23:27 KJV). But in this case the Patriarch has not bothered with such niceties, perhaps he is afraid that Putin would not think him sufficiently dedicated. And Christ? Well, Christ already knows the evil that lurks in the man’s heart.
Still, it remains an assault on the psyche to hear a supposedly “Christian” priest refer to the wholesale rape and murder of women and children as a “holy war.” We have gotten more used to hearing that kind of fanatical blasphemy from the terrorist Mullahs of Radical Islam over the last few years, but it may be important to remember that that is exactly what the Spanish priests did to American Indians during the colonial era. History repeats itself as they say, perhaps we are only shocked because we did not learn the lessons of history. At least not well enough.
Putin has ruthlessly and flagrantly corrupted and co-opted the Russian Church over the past couple of decades. Not surprising for an Atheist whose route to power came through the infamous KGB, the much-feared Soviet secret police. A man with no God and no conscience, we should expect no less from him. On the other hand, we are right to expect better from men who claim to be Christians and who claim to believe in an immortal soul and an eternal judgement. But then, most people I meet who claim to be Christian prove to me every day by their behavior that they have never met Christ. They are far more familiar with the owner’s manual of an AR-15 than they are with the books of the New Testament.
The leaders who founded the American Republic were men of philosophy, deep thinkers educated in the tradition of the Enlightenment. As such, they knew full well the abject darkness which often occupies the souls of the children of men. They also knew the dangers presented by the corruption of power, both in the halls of government and beneath the vaulted ceilings of the church. They used this knowledge in their quest to create a government dedicated to liberty, with sufficient checks and balances to protect us from ourselves and the evil of which we are capable in our darkest recesses. It is for this reason that the separation of church and state is enshrined in that great document of liberty, the American Constitution.
The founders knew full well that when the Priest commits adultery with Caesar, they bring forth a monstrous demon equally powerful and deceptive, and very dangerous. They knew this from their study of the Dark Ages, a time in which evil and corrupt men committed unspeakable atrocities and unmentionable blasphemies in the name of both the King and the Church. My friends, let us learn both from history and from our own time, let us learn a lesson from the Demon of Moscow and from his concubine, the corrupt Patriarch, never trust a politician who tells you how to pray. Never trust a
Preacher who tells you how to vote. The separation of spiritual and temporal power is the cornerstone of liberty.