Stan

Celestial has said many times over that America is Mystery Babylon, and in here it’s Mystery Babylon for enabling the sin or vice of idolatry. As God is a jealous God, it would be hard to not make him jealous when we turn to something else. I personally think some charges about idolatry should be best applied to secular fandoms, which makes much more sense since I see fandom as concentrated idolatry. It’s not necessarily wrong to like something, for as long as it doesn’t overshadow your faith in and love for God. It’s not wrong to like cats, dogs, football, rugby, foreign countries and so on. Though the hardest part is not make them into idols.

I feel what America has done is to enable so much idolatry of almost everything and anything that it’s going to be punished by the Lord for doing this, despite proclaiming itself to be a Christian nation and it gets worse when you have otherwise self-proclaimed Christians like Brian Littrell enabling this in some way. It would be super horrifying if he and his bandmates have the audacity to dress up as demons in a concert in Mexico, one would only wonder who Brian Littrell is more loyal to. He may sing about praising God, but at times he doesn’t do as he should’ve been told to. Perhaps this is the natural outcome of him enabling idolatry of his band a lot.

There are other musicians who’ve done the same, but I think it would be more shameful if it was a Christian doing this. Gerard Way may not be a Christian, at least not yet, but for most of the part he doesn’t know any better. Brian Littrell should know better as he’s a Christian, he should know that idolatry is a sin and that pride is also a sin. But I don’t think it’s something he’ll be comfortable realising, if because he actually likes the attention his fans give to his band a lot.

Burk Parsons dodged a bullet by refusing to join the Backstreet Boys and became a pastor instead, he himself has his own demons from time to time. The only real difference is that he strives to do better by God, while he never became a famous musician he’s done better by actually introducing people to something spiritually substantial as a pastor. We may not be called to ministry but it’s best to introduce people to God, than to wallow in being worshipped as an idol ourselves no matter how tempting it is.

I admit being prone to time from time to time, though it’s something Littrell fell into and he got really deep into it. I said before that he never seems to make fans read the Bible and devotionals, never makes them listen to sermons in whatever medium they appear in and take them to church. He’d rather invite them over to Backstreet Boys sponsored cruises and concerts, than to actually take them to church to worship the Creator. Perhaps him turning to the Devil is an inevitable consequence of his own pride and enabling his fans’ idolatry of himself and the band, if because the Devil himself is very proud and resides in the world.

It’s easier to talk about Donald Trump, Taylor Swift and Beyonce enabling idolatry of themselves as they’re relevant to more people these days, but I think the Backstreet Boys deserve more mention if because what they’re doing is more shameful because they have a Christian member. That shows if you have somebody who should know better, but don’t do anything about it then it’s on them for turning themselves into a stumbling block for others. Christians shouldn’t cause others to sin, however hard it may be at times, it seems Brian Littrell took the path of least resistance. Perhaps the world is too strong for him to resist in any way, which proves my point about him.

It should also be noted that Disney and Warner Bros are pretty guilty of enabling idolatry in people, not just with the usual suspects but also something more unexpected like superheroes. Sort of like how Stan Lee co-opted the whole ‘true believers’ thing from Christians when he applied this label to diehard Marvel readers, though at some point he actually considered doing a line of Christian superhero comics and stories. That could work to some extent, especially with something like Power Mark. But I suspect a superhero who bothers to forgive their enemies, believes in God and is rarely ever violent in any way is a harder sell than a superhero who acts vindictively and gets into a fight because they can.

So it seems despite Lee’s good intentions, Marvel has more staying power than his proposed Christian superhero imprint. Easier to enable somebody’s idolatry and satiating it perpetually than to lead them to God, no matter how uncomfortable or preachy it would be and get. DC’s no different in some, though similar regards with one editor rejecting one writer’s proposal to turn one superheroine into a Christian, I personally feel Gail Simone is somebody who does respect and understand Christianity well despite being secular. She can be considered an ally, one who’s an ally to Christians which is increasingly rare in the realm of storytelling as time passes.

If Narnia is any indication, it’s possible to have a religious story and still have any renown outside of religious circles though Narnia’s biggest fans are always Christians. So DC and Marvel go for the easy way out by pandering to somebody’s idolatry, satiating them a lot and enabling them in ways where and when it shouldn’t be, than to make them actively seek out God in hard times like these and those. The path to least resistance is what they undertook, this is what they ended up with and why they do anything to reward people’s idolatry of their products. It’s not wrong to like DC and Marvel, or even Disney and Looney Tunes.

The real problem lies with turning them into idols, but this is something they ended up enabling a lot. Instead of stories where a character like Cassandra Cain does become a Christian and quit a life of violence for good, it’s easier to keep people hooked on their favourite characters a lot without making them read the Bible in some way or another. Perhaps telling them about sin is a particularly heavy pill to swallow, one that’s too bitter to be easily digested by many secular people.

While Christians shouldn’t preach to the choir that much, in fact they’re called to preach to many unbelievers and help them on their path to worshipping God. But then again they’re also pressured to not rock the boat, that’s to hammer the nail that stands out too much, to cut the tall poppy because it’s getting too preachy. Enabling somebody else’s idolatry is one example of the path of least resistance, spiritually speaking.

Disney pretty much developed a habit of enabling somebody’s idolatry for years, to the point of creating the Disney adult and from a business perspective, this is an excellent example of brand loyalty implanted since childhood. But from a spiritual perspective, with Walt Disney being bent on destroying anything Christian, that the well is poisoned even if it’s possible to love Disney products from afar. That’s by not turning Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Carl Barks into idols, but Disney would rather encourage people’s idolatry of its products and characters. It will do anything to enable it, no matter how spiritually unhealthy it is.

Disney is one of those companies that perfected the art of brand loyalty with a lot of people, that people will try out anything Disney-related because it encourages this a lot. Not just with Disney merchandise, divisions, brands and the like but also other things like Radio Disney, which is still a thing in many Latin American countries to this day oddly enough. Disney will find ways of keeping people interested in it in some fashion, which if done carelessly would enable somebody’s idolatry of Disney or a certain Disney product. Unfortunately, it would be that easy to swing into that direction, no wonder why it’s perilous for Christians.

It’s not necessarily wrong to like Disney products, the best a Christian can do is to love them from a distance. That’s by not making it into an idol, even if it’s not always easy sometimes. Anything else really, because God gets jealous real easily. But it’s much easier to lead somebody to sin, sometimes deliberately not just with porn and gluttony. But also idolatry especially when it comes to the very nature of every secular fandom around, it’s not wrong to like sports and it’s not necessarily wrong to love athletes for as long as you pray for their salvation then God will take care of the rest. It’s also not wrong to like comics, video games and film though not all of them edify somebody spiritually.

There are too many things that Americans make an idol out of, sometimes it’s the innocuous stuff like cats and dogs as well as sports and science. Sometimes it’s the more dubious stuff we should steer away from like certain celebrities and stories, especially if they don’t glorify God in any way. It’s not necessarily wrong to like cats and dogs, but the trick here is to not be too obsessive over them. So you have grounded dog owners who do see their dogs as mere animals, rather than substitute humans where they know this is where it gets worrying when they’re treated as proxies for people. The problem is Americans have glorified these things, worshipping the creature instead of the Creator.

No sooner or later we’ll get a series of Jezebel like situations where dogs turn against their owners by eating them, a comeuppance for what these people have done and arguably a case of God using the wicked to punish the wicked since dogs don’t seem to be esteemed that highly in the Bible. If he has done this to Jezebel before, then he will do it to women similar to her when he needs to. It’s not necessarily wrong to like dogs, the Bible does have some instances of dogs being used for good though depending on the Bible verse and also edition of the Bible. But this is tempered by a recurring suspicion, so the precipice of turning them into idols is something writers knew too well.

Known Babylon, as I’d like to call it, was a major hotbed of idolatry that would’ve easily tempted God’s people at any point. It made idols out of dogs, anything and everything which sounds like what a supposedly Christian country like America ended up doing, except that other people don’t recognise many secular fandoms for what they really are: concentrated idolatry where one would do anything to attend to fandom activities and meetings where one would do with churchgoing and worshipping God.

Things like comic books, fantasy novels and video games have been treated as a sort of religious text with fans co-opting religious terminology like canon. Canon as in it meant whatever that is officially part of the Bible, biblical canon would vary depending on the denomination where some editions of the Bible would officially include texts like the Book of Tobit and the Maccabees, others like the Book of Enoch and some just have them as apocrypha.

They have their place, but it’s not the main place. There are people who argue that Christianity is a fandom but whenever fandom tries to bring Christianity to its level, if God is like a king then fandom’s like a pretender to the throne. It claims pretensions to the king but has no official relation to him whatsoever, this is why God is referred to as a father, his church is like a bride and family, why nuns and monks are referred to as brothers and sisters. Fandom is really a commoner wanting to be recognised as part of a royal family, but it’s never noble and it’s never going to be royal if you get the pun. So it’s better to recognise fandom for what it is, that’s being concentrated idolatry.

It’s calling the spade for what it really is to the Lord, so we shouldn’t pussyfoot around its true nature. When you have people who spend a lot of their time not just watching Good Omens, but also making a lot of fanworks around it with virtually no time for the Lord then it is idolatrous. Many geek fandoms are practically idolatrous, though it takes a brave soul to call them out for what they actually are. It’s not necessarily wrong to love characters like Catwoman, Batman and Superman but one would have to draw the line at worshipping them like one would with the Lord, so this is something one would have to tread carefully as Christians.

God is jealous, so we shouldn’t make him jealous even though sometimes we do anyways. It’s not going to be easy, given human nature being sinful, but the best we can do is to ask for repentance from God and learn from our mistakes, however hard and shameful it may be.

Dominion/Mother Russia

Celestial had this prophecy where Russia will dominate America and Europe, quite frightening to think that America will no longer be the top dog of the world. But in reality it hasn’t been top dog for a long time until sometime between the 19th and 21st centuries, throughout history the big Western powers of the day were Britain, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal. So America hasn’t been a world power for as long as Britain had, in fact it’s nowhere as extensive until now. But with Russia taking over much of Europe, that’s to give an idea of how big God is shaping that country up to be.

Just before he uses it to smite America with, as if he purposefully engineered the BRICS nations before he uses two of them to punish America. In all honesty, having a multipolar world around is going back to where we were in the early modern period. Surely the new boss isn’t exactly like the old boss, but enough to give an idea of how the world used to be dominated by multiple superpowers. I actually prayed to God to turn Nigeria, India and Brazil into world powers, so if they ever became world powers it could happen any time in my lifetime. But having multiple superpowers is nice.

I also think America has too much of a chokehold on the Philippines, so having China replace it in influencing the Southeast Asian sphere is a nice touch. But the fact that God will make Russia bomb America for its sins and what it has done to other countries is pretty damning, she said that America has done to other countries is what Russia will do to it. Nuclear bombs, sexual harassment, so on and so forth. America would become a penal colony of Russia, if that were to happen and there’s no stopping it. He could use other countries to do this and it will be the same.

America is a good example of absolute power corrupting things absolutely, perhaps the best nation-wide example of such. So much so that it is the best candidate for Babylon the Great, an entity personified by a woman in the Bible. Much like Babylon the Great, America was something of a great merchant selling its wares to the entire world but also corrupting it in the process. Even if there are countries that have people who do prefer local brands and merchandise, but American products are widely exported the world over. You could even find pirated copies of American books online.

America will no longer be a world power for long, given various prophetic warnings about its downfall. As Babylon the Great, it is the successor to the original Babylon in a way any one of the Arab nation-states aren’t. Especially when it comes to how it carried itself with a decadent air that gets widely and heavily condemned in the Bible, something people need to take note of and realise America isn’t always the best ally around in this light. Likewise, both China and Russia aren’t as bad as others make them out to be.

Celestial also had this prophecy where Russia will take over much of Europe, including France, that it gives an frightening idea of how much power this country will yield over the European Union. The Soviet Union will be reborn in some manner, perhaps known as the Russian Union from then on and it would include much of the former European Union. But the fact that Russia will invade America big time means the Russian Union will include much of the Western world as we know it. Russia will be the face of the west, just as China is the face of the east.

We might as well welcome our new overlords from then on.

This is where they got the idea

As for dogs scavenging on corpses, this undoubtedly inspired their association with the underworld and if I’m not mistaken some Ancient Egyptians (and possibly Greeks) sent their dead on boats to the rivers. In fact some contemporary Indians do bury their dead in rivers, only to be eaten up by dogs strengthens how this idea/belief/practise came to be. The idea of the dead being sent on a boat and encountering that dog Cerberus (his closest Egyptian equivalent’s Anubis) makes more sense in this context.

The idea of dogs as scavengers willing to eat their owners’ corpses weirds people out even if that’s been reported often and gives an idea of why the Ancient Greeks (according to Cristina Franco, though dog attacks on owners’ children should also be included) associated them with treachery. I also think the Aka Pygmy community with reports of women hunting with their dogs and superstitions of dogs being witches help deconstruct not only Greek but also Babylonian belief and ambivalence around dogs.

Especially when it came to Gula/Bau and Lamashtu. (Their Greek equivalents are Artemis and Hecate.)