"The Darkness Will Soon Become General"

So goes a line from a prophetic document, entitled "Words from Jesus", that a friend of mine recently passed along. The intended meaning of the verse, in context, is that there is a spiritual "darkness" has descended on our world at the present time and that it is spreading everywhere.

I tend to agree.

However, the problem with spiritual darkness is that we can only see it with the eyes of faith. I can find many Christians these days, of various denominations, who would agree with me that we have spiritual darkness - heck, in a certain sense it's the one thing we can all agree on. But I find it curious that beyond agreeing on the existence of the spiritual darkness, there is far less agreement about it's nature or what to do about it. Some pray for revival, some want massive excommunications of Christians who stray from the tenets of the faith, some say it's time to drop out of society altogether, some are waiting for a supernatural prophetic signal that will give them direction in a looming crisis, some are preparing for a rapture. I find elements of truth in all of these.

But even more curious, in the face of such widely differing perspectives on the part of Christians on the nature of this spiritual darkness (awareness of which should ultimately drive how we deal with it...), I also sense a rise in a certain "polemical" tone among Christians in general. Now, polemics is not wrong per se, but it seems that many Christians think that this spiritual darkness is a fairly simple thing - the thinking seems to be "We all know what the answer is".
But do we? Are we really "seeing" with the eyes of faith? Or is it more accurate to say we are sort of "smelling with the nose of faith". It seems to me as if we are smelling something nasty around us and our entire response is based on the same level of knowledge we would have if we were in a dark room relying on our nose to defend us - where does it smell like the enemy is now? Does it smell high or low? Does it smell big or little? I don't know, but it stinks! Attack!

Historically, and contrary to all modern sensibility, tolerance has been the virtue of Christians and their spin-offs. Warren Carroll makes an interesting point that the Catholic Church, in particular, has never exercised greater power than when it exercises it's power to forgive it's persecutors. This power to forgive has been the key to it's historical longevity. Over and against the modern stereotype of popes sitting on golden thrones commanding mindless masses to do their bidding, the first 1000 years of the history of the Church is a story of pope's pursued, captured, threatened, tortured and terrorized. These were the last significant "dark ages" or ages of darkness. And, in each case, just when it appears that the Church is about to be crushed forever, these heroic leaders have time and again uttered the words that send a chill down the devil's spine: "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." These are the words that have caused centurions of all ages to pause, to stop short, to say "What?" and, ultimately, to declare "Truly, this was the Son of God". History shows that it has been in the conversion of her bitterest enemies that the Church has received her greatest strength. It is in the act of running the lance into the side of the crucified Church that the water of rebirth is released and washed the darkness out of the eyes of the persecutors.

We Christians need to pray for all the things I listed above, but we must not forget to pray for light that empowers us to be both "right" (as in "conforming to the truth") and beautiful at same time. It is in our seeming destruction that we find the power to destroy spiritual darkness with a light that shines from heaven through us.

God give us the grace.