"Heaven on Earth"

- and other fables we were told

It is not the exalted exclamation I refer to, that sometimes escapes our lips when with family and friends we behold a beautiful sunset for example and exclaim that the moment truly was like “heaven on earth!”

I refer rather to the much more serious, much more delusional and very dangerous tendency that has beset mankind from its earliest inception - which is, to ascribe the “heaven on earth” phrase to a situation that pertains to centralized power or government of any kind.

Though numerous examples exist throughout our chequered history as the human race, I shall confine this essay to three examples that are pertinent and urgent to our time - the centralizing of governmental power, the centralizing of religious power and the centralizing tendency of atheism, which is a form of religious power.

When the communists or fascists of the twentieth century took control of the tools of government, the centralizing of power was fundamental to their ability to exert their murderous rule and to stay in power. The Bolsheviks of Russia and their Stalinist successors had to rule from Moscow. Allowing the districts in Siberia their own form of government or (later), allowing a localized, free administration in the countries of the Soviet Union would have sounded the death knell to their tyranny. Every, single murderous fascist and communist regime of the last two hundred years has relied on the centralizing of power - and indeed this is true every single time, throughout recorded history.

Whenever therefore, we discern even the slightest tendency by our national governments to take away the people’s power to make local decisions that benefit their local societies, we must instinctively realize that there is an attempt by the central, national government to abrogate the people’s power to itself. Like the bird that senses danger and moves its head tersely from side to side and gives darting glances all around, we must be on a very heightened degree of alert when national governments seek to centralize power.

The examples of this are everywhere. Canada’s impending “online harms bill,” the ever increasing, federal “carbon tax” and exhortations to “stand with Ukraine” - all these are very serious alarm signals that the road to tyranny has already been embarked upon and if we do not resist this gathering together of power at the centre, we will all be sucked into the vortex of this advancing whirlwind, almost without us knowing it.

In the United States, a small group of people in Washington DC control what happens in local communities across the nation and around the world (see my essay, “The Uniparty Union”). The long arm of the FBI for example, reaches deep into local jurisdictions and carries out arbitrary arrests on behalf of their masters in DC. The numerous “security”and “intelligence” agencies (CIA, NSA, DIA etc) are not run from local communities, but from the centralized hallways of power in Washington. From this centralized concentration of power, coups are organized (by the Central Intelligence Agency) abroad and American citizens are spied upon and harassed at home, by the CIA and NSA. From the Middle East to Africa, from Eastern Europe to South America, the sum total of human suffering and murder (from coups, wars, “colour revolutions” and insurrections) caused by the CIA and its centralized minions is incalculable.

Jeffersonian democracy as conceived by America during the heyday of its miraculous, unique brilliance and genius in the latter half of the eighteenth century, was not without its own vigorous debate and controversy. On the side of a strong, centralized, Federal government were James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. In Federalist paper no. 10, Madison argued that “no man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause; because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.”

A strong, centralized government on the other hand, was seen by Jefferson, Patrick Henry (yes, he of “give me liberty or give me death”) and George Mason as the very opposite of the ideals of the American revolution which was fought to free America from the monarchy in England. Mason, author of the Virginia Bill of Rights addressed the Ratifying Convention in June 1788 thus: “Is it supposed that one National Government will suit so extensive a country, embracing so many climates, and containing inhabitants so very different in manners, habits, and customs? It is ascertained by history, that there never was a Government, over a very extensive country, without destroying the liberties of the people.”

There is another form of centralizing power that I wish to address, which is just as destructive of the liberties of individuals and societies - that of religion (any religion) and the belief that one person or governing body holds the key to all the answers.

A neo-pagan religion for example, has become very popular in the West - it looks with longing toward what is deems a more “muscular” West, before the impact of Christ upon the Western centuries. (They do not wish to confront the historical fact of human sacrifice in Western nations before Christianity arrived; or that the Greeks and Romans referred to the pre-Christian British and Irish people as “barbarians”). Like Nietzsche, they believe Christianity to be lacking in the hyper-masculinity and strength that is necessary to overcome the weak.

Many advocates of this neo-pagan faith are ethnic supremacists of one form or another, who yearn for a mythical, utopian past (say the 1920s or 1950s) which never really existed. They openly advocate for violent revolution and the arrival of a certain kind of dictator who will violently and gloriously rid the West of all its ills, reverse its many decades of decline and create a veritable “heaven on earth” for particular ethnic groups. The new pagans should be under no delusion - such neo-pagan dictator movements have occurred in the recent past; and they always end in cataclysmic failure and with the killing of millions of people. They should remember that the “antichrist” of the Bible is also portrayed as a dictator, who will rule centrally, from earthly Jerusalem!

Only a little different for the neo-pagans (but perhaps more dangerous) is the movement that has been called “Christian Nationalism.” This new iteration of a new version of “heaven on earth” shares many features of the neo-pagan dictator movements, but invests it with the idea of a “Christian prince” who will gather enormous power to himself and lead the decadent West with violent revolution into a mythical version of earlier Christian societies (which again, never really existed).

This “Christian prince” is conceived of being of a particular ethnic group and is supposed to make sure that other ethnic groups are excluded (by both violent and non-violent means) from participating in this latest version of “heaven on earth.” Of course, the “Christian” label to these advocates of dictatorial power ignore (or suppress) Holy Scripture itself, in which Jesus declares, “my Kingdom is not of this world.” And the passage in Acts of the Apostles that declares that “God hath made of one blood all nations of men.” And indeed St. Paul’s declaration that in Christ, “there is neither Jew nor Greek - for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” The dictator, “Christian prince” of Christian Nationalism is also destined, like all dictators who “take up the sword,” to “perish by the sword.” And again, it will all undoubtedly end in tears.

“Christian nationalists” should also remember how centralized concentrations of power have consistently turned against Christians - from the fierce persecution of Christians by the Bolsheviks (which outdid by far the various persecutions by the Nazis), to the Nazis themselves and (in our own time), the Bolsheviks in charge of America. The “Christian prince”-charming will turn ugly and revolting when his power is inevitably threatened by a greater, individual and local allegiance to God. And indeed, as Western Europe demonstrated in the  "30 years war (1618-1648), “Christian” princes have often turned on each other and destroyed millions of their own citizens in their pursuit of power.

For the same reason, the atheist religion (which also has its own tenets and sets of belief) will never allow decentralization of its tyranny. Atheist governments with centralized power have led to the massacre of millions of people in the Soviet Union, in Cambodia and in China. Atheism depends upon a total allegiance to the power that proclaims it as the State religion - and any challenge to the dictatorship at the centre of power is ruthlessly suppressed. Many of my readers will realize that the Bolsheviks in charge of Washington DC today are making their unmistakable moves to centralize power - and in an almost exact repeat of the takeover of Russia by the Bolsheviks (1881-1917), there will be a coming blood bath, unless we wake up and resist.

The covid tyranny and the multiple centralizations of power (CDC, WEF, national Governments etc) that it led to, should have warned us against any  attempt to remove local control in favour of centralized control. But there are many similar attempts to centralize power that war against the human soul and we may be taken prisoners by a totalitarian regime whose advance and encirclement we never suspected (like the covid tyranny).

The resistance to the many “heaven on earth” movements and the centralization of power must come from a divine resolve within, to honour and defend individual liberty and individual freedom. The peaceful defiance of the covid tyranny by individual acts of courage and resistance led to the Trucker’s Freedom Convoy - which finally overthrew the covid tyranny. The beginnings of this resistance were spawned in individuals and in local movements and networks that valued individual liberty, truth and freedom - and were prepared to defend these essentially libertarian values.

Elsewhere (see here and here) I have described how such a resistance can be organized and give itself the best chance of success.

The “Kingdom of God” which Jesus preached and brought about, does not recognize an earthly ruler. It does not need earthly power for its validation and spread. It owes its allegiance only to God. It arises from the transcendent, cosmic realization that each individual is empowered to choose for himself/herself their own destiny and that in Jesus’ immortal words, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”

When Christians pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” they are not praying for the coming of the rule of an earthly “Christian prince” of Christian Nationalism, but for the coming of the Kingdom of God.

Those who owe their allegiance to Christ and His Kingdom do not look for a geographical or physical centre of power on earth as any kind of “heaven on earth.” Instead, they are continually trying to create a world that conforms to the values of the Kingdom of God.

But as the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews declares, “here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.”