If You Want to Fit in, You’d Better be a Nonconformist

I watch a lot of car shows. I don’t care that much about cars, but I like watching people use tools. I love metalworking. Car shows are full of that kind of thing.

The other day I sat down to watch, and I made a remark to myself about how it was time to watch more guys with black T-shirts and creepy beards. Then I thought about what I had said.

The people who customize and restore cars on TV tend to fall into a certain demographic. They really do wear black T-shirts, and many of them have very creepy beards, like convicts. Many are covered with vulgar tattoos (redundant). Quite a few have fallen prey to the fad of body mutilation modification. They are neck-deep in modern hipster culture. Most are not what you would call devout Christians, although there are exceptions. There was a show called Fat & Furious which featured Christian car builders.

I’ve noticed something else. Many of them like to preach. They talk a lot about family, warmth, and doing the right thing. At least a couple of the shows (The Ride That Got Away and Overhaulin’) make a pretense of building cars out of altruism. They find people they claim are especially deserving, and they build cars for them (oddly, one free-car recipient was wealthy then-Depp-wife Amber Heard). One show modified a car so a disabled vet could use it. Another fixed up a car so it would lift a cancer patient up to the seat.

These shows feature what I call “the alternative righteousness.”

Christians are demonized in today’s American culture. We are seen as bullies and haters. Non-Christians love using homosexuality and sexual confusion to beat us up. When we offer correction, intending to help people get out of the clutches of Satan, we are characterized as vicious bigots.

Non-Christians love giving us Bible lessons. They have decided they own Jesus. They have learned one phrase from the Bible: “Judge not.” They have discarded everything else, including the verses condemning perversion and fornication, as well as the verses obligating us to warn people who are in sin. They tell us they’re more like Jesus than we are. They think Jesus’ entire message was this: “Be nice and never criticize anyone.” They aren’t interested in the Bible passages that say the lustful will not enter the kingdom of heaven and that Jesus will return and make his robe wet with the blood of sinners. He is returning, and what he will do will not be nice at all.

Many non-Christians have decided they’re better than we are, because (in their minds) they’re nicer than we are. To them, this is righteousness. They’re not interested in God’s righteousness, which includes justice and obedience. Whether they realize it or not, they think they’re better than God.

Satan has lots of gimmicks, which he recycles. If you don’t fall for one, he brings out another. The alternative righteousness is one of his current projects. He intends to convince unbelievers they don’t need Jesus, because they’re so good without him.

Today God showed me what’s behind all this. It’s the spirit of Antichrist.

“Antichrist” doesn’t just mean “against Christ.” It refers to spirits and ideas that are intended to REPLACE Christ. People who are caught up in the alternative righteousness aren’t just rejecting Jesus; they’re trying to prove they can do a better job than he would. They think they can give the world love, compassion, and kindness, plus homosexuality, fornication, drug abuse, and pride.

It doesn’t work, of course. First of all, they’re not really all that loving. They pretend to be, but it’s superficial. God wants us to have invincible love that comes from the Holy Spirit living within us. He wants us to have supernatural love. You can’t get that by wearing cause ribbons or getting tattoos featuring the faces of your dead relatives. Second, they’re working against themselves. You can’t indulge your flesh with sexual sin and pride without inviting things like anger and cruelty. Sexual sin and pride are selfish; there is nothing good or altruistic about them. You can’t give yourself to selfishness and self-sacrifice simultaneously.

If you insist on doing a thing your own way, on your own terms, you’re not doing it for anyone but yourself.

The alternative righteousness people are working to create a world in which man creates righteousness without Jesus. They will invite us to participate, while making it impossible for us to do so in good conscience. When we turn them down, we will be condemned for it. This already happened in Rome. The Romans had many false “gods,” and they were perfectly willing to include God himself, but Christians refused to acknowledge the fakes, and for that reason, they were considered divisive and dangerous.

A whole lot of “nice” people are going to try to drive us off the planet. They won’t all wear scary uniforms like the Gestapo. They’ll wear yoga pants and torn jeans and black T-shirts. They’ll be covered in tattoos that say things like, “In Loving Memory of Tito.”

It makes sense. The Antichrist himself is supposed to be a man who brings peace and prosperity to the world. He’ll suck people in by making their problems go away. He’ll be the nicest man who ever lived. When we criticize, people will think we’re against a shiny, happy world with single-payer healthcare, no wars, and no homeless people.

My guess is that the alternative righteousness will morph into open wickedness, including cruelty and murder, once the ball really gets rolling. Think of Islam. In places where Muslims are in the minority, Islam is called the Religion of Peace. In places where Muslims are powerful, they bomb churches and pass discriminatory laws. When the black T-shirts are too powerful to oppose, they won’t have to pretend to be nice any more, and their boss won’t want them to. Satan may pretend to be nice in order to get the upper hand, but he won’t be able to stomach it for long. He loves making human beings, who resemble their creator, suffer. He will want to fly his true colors as soon as the act becomes unnecessary.

People who think Jesus was always nice, or that he only cared about being nice, will make excellent dupes for the Antichrist. They already do, and churches are full of them. They don’t want to hear about God drowning the human race. They don’t want to hear about the time Jesus beat strangers with a whip, or the time Peter fatally cursed a man and his wife. They want us all to be pro-gay vegan Buddhist pacifist Christians who practice mindfulness. They’ve converted most American churches already.

I don’t know why I’m writing about this. It’s going to happen regardless of what Christians do. I suppose it’s good to see it coming, though.

I still like watching the shows, but now I remember to pray for the people who appear in them.