If you are like most of us, you watch the news and think that it is reporting reality. It is a channel for letting us know what is happening around us in our neighborhoods, cities and countries. We can rely on the news for accurate information about our worlds. We assume that the issues which are covered are reflections of the concerns, interests and facts which exist. We are getting a good grasp on the world as it is. What we fail to recognize is that the news is the product of careful agenda setting. People, institutions and entities choose to let us focus on what they want us to see. “Reality” is carefully crafted to produce a particular outcome for us to live with.

 

Similarly, we go through our everyday lives often assuming that life and reality are random. Our experiences are series of coincidences as we travel from our home to offices, stores, airports and places of business. If we are fortunate, we get to where we are going incident free. Sometimes we may encounter mishaps which might range from the mild and inconsequential (if we are lucky) to the extremes where we are severely injured or killed.  We make decisions, pursue our careers and participate in life’s events without noting the small or big rational choices which constitute the series of events which run together to make up the courses of our lives. We attribute the sum total of our life’s activities and events which happen to us to luck if we do not subscribe to any religious beliefs and God or some other supreme being if we do.

 

Contrary to the seeming randomness of life and chance that happens to us, our realities and lives are shaped by people and forces which make decisions, influence agendas, manipulate, and constantly strive for control over our minds, thoughts, lives, and futures.  A frightening thought, many of us dismiss these possibilities as “conspiracy theories” and relegate them to the fringe where weirdos and paranoid people live. In all of this, we rarely think about who sets the agenda and who is behind the seemingly random things and consequences we are experiencing.

 

That reality is not so random as we believe has been studied in major universities. For example, there is a whole body of theory that looks at choice, decision-making, the nature and exercise of power, and their effects on human reality and behavior in the Social Sciences.  Accomplished sociologists like Steven Lukes identified three “faces” or dimensions of power. The first is Decision-making (who makes which decisions for others).  It is in the first face or dimension of power that powerful people or entities make decisions about others. They make choices that affect our ordinary, everyday realities as we move through their spheres of influence in the course of our existence. For instance, government makes decisions which translate into laws and policies which have direct bearing on our behavior or the alternatives available to us. Heads of companies and chairmen of boards make decisions which influence their companies, leaders of nonprofits and communities make choices and decisions about the directions of their organizations.

 

The second dimension of power is distinguished by non-decision making or agenda setting. If you want to know who holds most power in a group or country, just look at who sets the agenda. Who determines what comes up for mention or is considered important. This can be seen in policy priority areas, what items the media and other news outlets give prominence to, what is promoted or suppressed.

 

The third dimension of power is characterized by ideology and manipulation. In this dimension the person who is able to influence or shape the wants of others is demonstrating this kind of power. It is here for example, that education, media, marketing, culture, political ideologies, and other paradigm shaping mechanisms are used to mold the wants, worldview, and moral values of the people over whom they are exercising power. This is where popular culture can be tweaked to instill certain notions of what is good or bad, what is acceptable or not, and what is desirable so that those who are experiencing this manipulation come to want what those who are more powerful determine that they should desire.

 

Although we would probably want to retreat to the comfort zones of the mundane, predictable chaos of our seemingly random lives (Where we do not have to contend with forces out of our control, nor the implications of our actions and choices on the outcomes of our lives) Christianity also teaches that our lives are not random, nor do our realities form in a chaotic, uncontrolled fashion. Psalms 37:23 indicates that our steps are ordered by God, and Jeremiah 1:5, 29:11 tells us We are called into being for purposeful lives.

 

In this ordered stratum (1 Ch 16:31, Ps 47:1-8,93:1-2, 96:10, Is 40:21-23) God governs as King. He sets the agenda of our lives. He has a definite will and rules in the affairs of human beings (Da 4:17). When our lives are submitted to God, believers respond to, shape, activate, and carry out this agenda in our everyday worlds. God designs the incidences and courses of our lives so that nonbelievers (knowingly or unknowingly, deliberately or inadvertently) also play roles in carrying out God’s agenda or will. This divine weaving ensures that all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose (Ro 8:28).

 

The Divine agenda is expected to dominate the believer’s worldview and activities. It demands absolute allegiance and comes into sharp conflict with the dictates of this world. There is an inherent dichotomy between the rules, principles, operations of the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of this world.

God is constantly working towards the ultimate fulfilment of His Agenda. This agenda necessarily conflicts with what those who wield power in the decision making, agenda setting and the ideological dimensions of power want. The Scriptures teach us that human beings are rebellious and do not want to be controlled by God (DE 31:27, IS 53:6). It also informs us that those in power deliberately promote their own agendas. Although they may believe that they are actually in control, they are subject to manipulation from Satanic forces which are bent on promoting the objectives of the Kingdom of darkness.

 

More often than not. Those who rebel against God are carrying out the wishes of the Satanic agenda. They often use institutions such as government to make decisions and legislations which directly contradict God’s moral laws, oppress people and destroy opportunities for those who are poor and disenfranchise. They fail to provide beneficial services such as justice and security for their populations because of the destructive decisions and choices they pursue in the political, social and economic spheres. God repeatedly decries these practices through the voice of His prophets in the old Testament. In doing so, God inserts a set of contrasting information that both condemns the sins or wickedness of bad decisions, and presents an opportunity for decisionmakers to choose godly alternatives. Decisionmakers are constantly reminded of the outcomes of bad or good decisions so that those who choose to wield power in this realm have no excuses for failure or advancing the satanic agenda.

 

In the agenda setting sphere, major social institutions such as political parties, the media, educational and school systems are used to advance the issues and priorities which powerful elites want to have promoted to the detriment of others which are beneficial and godly. These priorities are in conflict with God’s will and teaching, and serve to advance the Satanic agenda. We can think of many social and cultural issues which directly contravene God’s will. These issues are paraded on our television screens and promoted as political agenda items which ungodly politicians use to propel themselves into office. Moreover, when in office they resort to the mechanisms of decision-making to enact on an unsuspecting population.

 

Many of these agenda items are sold to the potential voting population as beneficial, when in fact they are destructive and deadly. More significantly, they are ensuring the achievement of the Satanic agenda which is in deliberate and outright opposition to God. Those who promote a satanic platform can identify godly issues and policies which they can advance if they so choose. Those who are actively working against god’s agenda are inexcusable as God provides through Christianity, godly, wholesome priorities and not the selfish destructive issues which now parade before us.

 

At the ideological sphere where people are manipulated to want or desire things which are to their detriment, social institutions and mechanisms such as media, popular culture, government policies, education systems, and entertainment are used to obviously or subtly shape the desires of an unsuspecting population. For example, advertisement and marketing campaigns are used to sell products or services which people are bluntly told are good for them.  These products and services are promoted in ways that entice the unsuspecting potential consumer. More subtly, political ideologies promote lawlessness, destructive behaviors in attractive and sophisticated policy language which eventually become enacted.  Universities are tools that advance paradigms and ideologies which help to carefully indoctrinate or plant particular ideas and notions in the minds of students who are seeking to be educated. These educated people then gravitate towards the desired objectives, and go out into the general population to further the agendas of those who want to have them promoted. Stripped down to their barest elements, many of the goods, services, ideas, paradigms, and desires have been shaped or inculcated into unsuspecting individuals and groups. These recipients then begin to express desires, ideas, and behavior patterns which line up accurately with a Satanic agenda that seeks to steal, kill and destroy human beings who may not realize that they are effectuating the dictates of the dark realm.

 

Christianity presents a powerful alternative ideological framework for influencing and shaping people’s wants and behavior. It sets up a potent, contrasting moral code that is inimical to the interests of the Satanic Kingdom. Further, it pierces through the propaganda of the dark realm to empower its adherents to resist evil programming that fosters sinfulness and wickedness, and leads people away from God.

 

Us ordinary people are for the most part unaware of the battle between the Kingdom of God and that of the Kingdom of darkness. We live every day without realizing how the conflicting agendas spill over into our mundane, ordinary existence and are shaping our choices, activities, and life events. We, by and large, take it for granted that our worlds are just the way things are, not recognizing that what we call reality is being shaped by beings and groups who are presenting to us what they want us to see. We are ignorant that there are other alternative realities which can be implemented and that our current constructs of reality are not inevitable. Most important and to our detriment, we do not comprehend the amount of power we also possess over our own malleable reality and we relinquish control to other entities who wield power over us.

 

We are often blissfully unaware that the events and occurrences which seem so detached, inexplicable, and meaningless have their origins in this epic conflict. For instance, some random stranger drinks to excess and runs into someone’s vehicle on our way to wherever. That random offender, unbeknown to us, is in the throes of an addiction to alcohol that was introduced to him or her through others who are bent on making money at all cost. This addict cannot help him or herself, but still needs to carry on his or her daily existence. This existence requires a trip to the supermarket. This unfortunate addict chooses to drive him/herself and winds up killing another random stranger. Sin’s consequences have played out on many levels in both random strangers’ lives with deadly consequences right before our eyes.  The Satanic objective to use others to introduce that random stranger to addictive substances which eventually steals his or her self-control leads to that individual destroying an unknown innocent victim. To our minds, this happens so frequently that we accept it with the stoic understanding that this is just one of life’s tragedies. Meanwhile, if we had enough information to analyze the chain of events in their entirety, we could trace their origins back to the conflict raging in the unseen realms. We might even find out that the Satanic agenda was to destroy both the addicted perpetrator and the victim of the accident.

 

Christianity is dangerous to the powerful on many levels. It conflicts with the satanic designs against humanity. It challenges those who wield power to do right and carry out God’s will. It empowers the individual to resist the machinations of the dark realm and those who would promote dark agendas. It enables us to withstand the wiles of the enemy which are packaged in enticing paradigms and ideologies.  It empowers and liberates those over whom power is being exercised by granting them access to alternative power sources from God’s unlimited divine reservoir.

 

Finally, its danger also lies in the fact that it is guided by God’s inexorable, invincible will. This means that any design that emerges in opposition is surely doomed to destruction and failure. Translated simply, all the machinations and cunning devices which humans or Satan can devise are doomed to fail. God consistently reminds His children of this fact as He inserts hope in the lives of those who submit to Him. This constant reminder also empowers those who work in this kingdom to resist the Devil and his proxies, regardless of where they manifest.

 

Learn more about God’s personhood, nature and power in:

 

Sproul, Wendy “March to Maturity: Grounded and Built (2017) Create Space. USA.

 

Learn More about Steven Lukes three faces of power from:

 

 

http://changingminds.org/explanations/power/three_faces.htm

 

And:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Lukes#The_three_dimensions_of_power