As modern societies continue their long disintegration, reverting to inhuman savagery in the name of “progress and science,” the question of telling the true Church from the false one becomes more and more paramount. Nearly every day new sects pretending to be “Christian” arise, all claim to be “from de Bahiiiible” and have the truth of the Christian life “finally revealed.” Such nonsense is usually transparent, but in today world, the lack of serious education and moral grounding, conditioned by the television and other media, the average citizen is utterly confused and bewildered with respect to the sheer number of sects in American life. Many hapless Amurrricans either give up, become secular or contemptuous of “Christianity” (and who can blame them), while others simply become ecumenists out of desperation, saying that the sectarian nature of these groups “still worship the same ‘god,’” and hence doctrinal or sectarian differences mean little.
Ecumenism holds that God has not given humanity a test to tell the true Church from the false, and hence all are false, and all are true and it really does not matter. The truth of the matter is slightly more rational than this, and more specifically, the prophet Ezekiel, unread, as all the prophet are, has given a specific test for telling the true prophet from the false. In our terms, the true “preacher” from the phony. Ezekiel 13 is the specific chapter dealing with this test, a test made very necessary since the true prophets were always in the minority and the false, in the majority.
1. The first test is whether or not the prophet/preacher places his “own thought” first, or the church’s. (verse 2). The question here is not merely individualism and relativism, which are evil enough, but the understanding that one crates one’s own theology not arbitrarily, but through what is considered “mainstream” or “extreme” at any given time. In other words, one believes what one believes because it is a majority faith, or at least fits into the majority faith. Hence, those who “change with the times” and place their own interests first are false.
2. The second test is “building a wall” around the church (verse 3). God commands all his prophets and ministers to do this, to protect the church from all outsiders. This is the first command given by God in this chapter. Now apart from the nature of the true church, this is an open condemnation of ecumenism, and is ignored in the mainstream for precisely that reason. Hence, those who do not build walls around the faith, that seek “interfaith gatherings” for the sake of respectability or the rejection of the value of truth, are openly condemned here. The specific context is to “build a wall that will withstand attack” from without. In other words, it is a faith that is armed against its enemies, and recognizes outsiders as enemies is the true one. As will be seen below, the idea that the true faith is always warred upon is central to the vision of God in this chapter.
More importantly, this wall must be able to “withstand the day of attack” (verse 6). Hence, the true faith can only that which never changes, that preaches the same thing century after century, always to an audience mostly deaf. Those who come to the truth do so to their own detriment, knowing full well that the truth might set them free, but will enslave them in purely earthly terms. Their life, in other words, is over for coming to the truth. They will save their lives by losing them.
God speaks of this wall as something weak and flimsy, but “whitewashed” (verse 10). The arbitrary and self-interested theologies of the mainstream are false, but are covered over with a thin veneer of academic defenses and economic power. The wall cannot stand serious scrutiny, but is whitewashed with the primary purpose of making it seem other than it is. God says that no only will He Himself destroy that wall, but will “destroy the white-washers” as well (verse 14).
3. God explicitly says (verse 7) that the false churches will see visions. But these visions are false. Hence, miracles and prophesy is not a sign of truth, but can equally be a sign of falsehood. Those who see these false visions and call them “true” will be “assaulted” by the Lord.
4. The central claim of the chapter is that the prophets who speak of peace and well-being are the truly false, the lowest of the low (verse 10). In other words, the true faith is ever at war, never at please, and will always be attacked by enemies. Not only is this another attack on ecumenism, but holds that the “feel good” preachers are already condemned and are a sure sign of falsity. Many preachers in all religions preach “good news” for money and respectability, and hence, Ezekiel 13 already eliminated most of the mainline churches from truth at this one swoop.
The context of this passage is that Ezekiel is being commissioned to tell the Jews that they are evil, against God and have sinned grievously to their father, of which the penalty is death. Ezekiel realizes he may be killed for this, but must preach anyway. This is the central element: the true church does not preach “good news” but bad, condemns sin always and is always under attack. Preaching the truth means death, it means exile, it means a complete lack of social respectability. Hence, again, most of the mainline churches are out. For those who preach “warmth and goodness,” God says “In my fury I will let loose storm winds; and because of my anger there shall flooding rain, and hailstones shall fall with destructive wrath.” (Verse 13). No fewer than three times does God condemn those prophets who speak “their own thoughts” in the space of a short chapter.
5. Those who practice magic are condemned. This is more than the pagan practices of times past and present. This is an attack on all those who accept the technocracy of modern times, itself an explicit form of magic, or the control of the natural world for gain. In fact, God explicitly condemns technology in a mass scale by saying “Woe to those who sew bands for everyone’s wrists and make veils for every size of head so to entrap their owners. . .” (Verse 18).
These practicing were proto-technological in the sense that they were considered “magical amulets” that might protect the wearer from harm. But certainly this passage is not merely talking about a specific pagan practice, but rather is a general condemnation of the belief that “civilization” and “technics” can save someone and protect them from harm. In other words, the notion that modern civilization is good, but the bad needs to be eliminated is not sufficient, one must reject the modern world and its promises of a technical utopia and plenty for all. God says, “See! I am coming at those bands of yours in which you entrap mens lives: I will tear them from their arms and set free those who you have caught” (verse 20). The fact that God refers to these magical practices as “bands” (in the sense of chains) he is speaking about a web of relationships that is animated by Baal, or the spirit of trade and ownership, the spirit of money that motivated the rulers of Tyre and Phenicia more generally against the worship of God. Tyre is the archetypal “New York” or “Amsterdam” of the Old Testament, a wealthy trading city controlled by a pagan oligopoly of apostates from the True Church. Pagan rites both justified, ritualized and extended their power, and such power was conceived as the power over nature, to force her to “yield her fruit,” for a price.
Hence several things are dealt with here in telling the true church from the false ones. First, the true church is always battened down for attack. She is “paranoid” in the vulgar media-language of the masses, and “sets up walls” between herself and the apostates and heretics. These walls must be of truth, and not of opinion.
Second, the true church views herself as true, and not merely “another denomination.” Hence she is intolerant to the point of fanaticism. Third, she is not impressed by visions and miracles, though those have a place. It is often the case that visions confirm the heretics in their error more than confirm the faithful in the truth, a truth that needs no visions.
Fourth, the true church preaches the end of all things, the vanity fo the world and its power relationships. It preaches the bad news that the people do not want to hear, but that remains true. Hence, the true church is attacked and vilified for refusing to conform to the dictates of established power. Hence, there will be no positive media treatment, rumors will fly about the true church and many will be prosecuted or worse. Yet, a strange and inexplicable joy will dominate the countenance of every one who lives within the truth.
Fifth, it refuses to accept the promises of the Enlightenment, technocracy and modern ideologies of any kind. It will not accept the world, not even seek to reform it, but will condemn it and attempt to live its own life as much as it is able.
One won’t see “big name” professors or writers speaking about the truth, there will be no CNN appearances or major media interviews. They will be ignored and spat upon. They will be accused of every crime and held in utter contempt. They will be seen as fanatics and lunatics, and every device for their destruction will be considered by the Tyrian elite and their hangers on.