Apocalypse – the Unveiling
By Dave Doveton, Anglican Mainstream.
“We do not see our signs, there is no longer any prophet….” Psalm 74:9
Iconography is the study of pictorial symbolism, a window as it were into reality that is beyond language, for it has the power to captivate and to convey–even subliminally to subconsciously indoctrinate–the viewer. Iconographic memes are everywhere if we bother to look. Sometimes they assault us from unexpected quarters. They convey a reality that the political and cultural elites wish to propagate. Take this example. In writing a most powerful commentary on the dissolution of the Christian basis of English culture and values, Joshua Treviño writes,
“Yet there is still iconography. The Anglo-Saxon England of one thousand years ago in which the small parish of St Benedict was erected, stone tower and all, was replete with iconography. Men and women alike encountered imagery of the saints, of the faith, of Christ as a matter of routine in their lives. Today the images remain, and today they are encountered daily, but they are of something else entirely. We walked through an Underground station whose long dirty white corridors were decorated with easily hundreds of images of London’s “queer” population. Each icon — let us use the word, for this was the intent — contained a headshot of some sort, with explanatory text below. One of them struck me and exemplified the rest: a man named Fotis, whose pronouns are Ve / Vir. Elsewhere in a train station, we encountered an image of two African women in passionate embrace: its caption reminded the passer-by that “loving who you choose” is what makes Britain Britain. Of course it does not, but it is a purposeful substitution of the new and confected nation for the old and rooted one. The new religion clambers upon the ruined edifice of the old and apes its forms.”
Iconography is deliberate and it has a purpose, that is to teach, to instil in the general population an approved way of seeing the world and thus a way of seeing themselves – more from Joshua Treviño,
“All this is tutelage, of course. The images of Fotis the Ve / Vir and the like pervade the public square in London for instructional purposes. They teach the English their new narrative, their new understanding of self, and their new permitted ambit of thought and belief. In Trafalagar Square, after telling my son about Nelson, I noted that the crossing lights throughout the busy intersections were not the usual green-and-red walking men. Instead they were sex symbols: literally so, two male symbols intertwined on some crossing lights, two female symbols interlocked on others, and (less common) a male symbol and a female one paired. The regime narrative is that this is intrinsically British, and therefore belongs in a quintessentially British space —”[i]
Often the iconography entails live, dramatic mimetic representations of familiar scenes. However, stripped of their original face, they display their desecrating images to be viewed by millions across the globe. One instance of this is the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.
The symbolism is obvious for those who know something of pagan worship and spiritual belief. The last supper is replaced by another feast containing a farrago of underlying pagan doctrine. Christ is replaced by a lesbian; the disciples are replaced by men in drag. This unveils as the pagan celebration of gender bending, the ‘non-binary’, and the confusion of male and female. In Greco-Roman culture, this was exemplified in the cult of Cybele. The cult of the mother goddess, Cybele had attendant priests – called “Galli”, in her temples. These were men who castrated themselves as a way of offering themselves to the goddess. Rituals were held in temples but also in the streets where her devotees paraded in women’s clothing, hairstyles and wearing perfume, jewellery and makeup. They celebrated the rites with wild music and dancing, and at the climax of her yearly festival the Megalensia, in frenzied excitement, scourged and cut themselves and initiates were driven to emasculate themselves. In general, Roman society reacted adversely to their transgression of gender norms. The Roman writer, Firmicus Maternus said,
“…they say they are not men… they want to pass as women.”
Tertullian commented on them, saying,
“…the Galli also worship her (Cybele) by the punishment of their emasculated body.”[ii]
Perhaps the height of the desecrating symbolism seen in Paris, is the symbol of another Greco-Roman god, Bacchus. Also known as Dionysus, he was the god of wine, sensuality, and orgiastic behaviour. He is presented as to us as the ‘bread’ instead of a holy Christ, he is the one offered to us – blue and grinning. This is a diabolical inversion of the Christian message in which Jesus gives his life for us as the sacrifice – pagan gods demand our lives – and our sacrifice.
Another deeply disturbing image was of course the appearance of a headless Marie Antoinette, with a backdrop of a building façade dripping in blood. A reminder of the bloody French revolution no doubt, but perhaps a reminder also that every pagan empire from the Aztecs and Inca to Babylon and Rome ends in violence and bloodshed.
If we had not yet got the message, the closing ceremony featured Apollo, Nike and other gods of Greco Roman devotion. Often the dark spirits behind the age reveal themselves and their plans for us.
Several Christian writers have asserted that we are passing from a purely secular, unbelieving culture ambivalent toward the church to an openly hostile culture. In addition, they assert that it is not a slow, incremental shift, but a collapse akin to the destruction of Rome or the fall of Constantinople.[iii]
Jesus used symbolism to shock his hearers into realising the urgency of their situation. John likewise uses symbolism in the book of Revelation[iv]. Jesus also exhorts us to be watchful and recognise the signs around us that portend realities to which many are blinded. In Matthew’s gospel in response to the blindness of the Pharisees, Jesus says,
“…you know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.”[v]
Jesus had been using parables. The imagery he used forced his hearers to see reality in a different way, often shocking them. Jesus’ used symbolic language in a manner similar to the Old Testament prophets. Their purpose was to shock people into seeing the reality of their situation, so that they would make the changes that God required of them. Jesus, and later Paul, observed that the symbolic language would have either one of two effects on hearers. In explaining the purpose of the parables, he says,
“To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.” and, “This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.”[vi]
Then Jesus refers to Isaiah’s prophecy, which described the effect of his own parabolic preaching to the apostatising people of Israel several centuries previously.
“…you will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see, but never perceive….”[vii]
Jesus is saying the parables would have either of two effects – for those who had open hearts and were following him in obedience, they would be given understanding, but for those who stubbornly clung to their rebellion and apostatising ways, they would be hardened.
Thus,
- They would see spiritual truth and make necessary changes to bring themselves into line with God’s purposes. OR
- They would be blinded and numbed and descend into greater apostasy. This particularly applied to religious leaders. In the Old Testament, this most often applied to the false prophets, priests and kings. In the Gospels, this applied to the Scribes and Pharisees, and in the pastoral epistles and Revelation, to false teachers.
It should therefore not surprise us that we see many prominent church leaders (especially in churches that are apostatising by allowing heretical practices such as gay ‘blessings’), who are quite blind to the realities of the cultural collapse around them. Because they do not see ‘the signs of the times’, they are not preparing themselves or their flocks for the developing confusion and deception that is accompanying the accelerating cultural and spiritual shift in the Western world. They and their flocks are being swept into a new and pagan way of seeing themselves and the world.
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[i] https://www.armas.co/p/this-sceptred-isle
[ii] Fathers of the Third Century : Tertullian Part 4, ch 21 https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf04.iv.iii.xxi.html
[iii] See: Rod Dreher, “The Benedict Option”; and, “Live Not by Lies“.
[iv] For a discussion on the use of symbolic language by Jesus and John see especially Gregory K. Beale, The Purpose of Symbolism in the Book of Revelation, CALVIN THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL, 41 (2006): 53-66.
[v] Matthew 16:3b.
[vi] Matthew 13:11-15.
[vii] Also referenced by Paul in Acts 28:26,27.
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