Nick Routledge@nick_routledge

For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God. And the deepest reckoning is judgment upon judgment itself: evil unseen in ourselves, seen clearly in others, comes home to us. "You are the man!" (2 Sam. 12:7) Shadow. Finger. Scapegoat. Stone. Cross. Mirror.

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Yes, and from the get go, Jesus explicitly clarified that misrepresentation of the Gospel would reach its fullest, most perverse and mature expression among whom? The Second Advent does not amount to the rubber stamp we perhaps presume. "The ability to disguise sin defines Anti-Christ", #IvanIllich and represents the defining feature of this 'mysterium iniquitatis', and how our world is essentially turned topsy-turvy and inside-out through its elaboration in both religious and secular form. 4/ Subtweets: Girard specifically identified such systemic mimetic escalation as the "Panic in the system" indicating the truth approaching of the Second Coming and the threat the Cross ultimately represents to “the infrastructure of all religions and all cultures", the Church first. Bailie: [Excerpt from Gil Bailie's 'Girardian' take, 'Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads' which Sam Keen describes as “the single most important book of social analysis and prophetic theology to appear in our generation.”] "Those living closer to the Gospel’s epicenter, beginning with Christianity itself, are more likely to experience its cultural destablilizing effects than those at a greater distance from it. Christianity no more owns the Gospels than do multinational corporations own the earth." 1/ Evil's perverse capacity lies in its powers to camouflage the 'false sacred' as true - as something like common sense, justice or wisdom (2 Cor. 11:14). Whether in forms conscious or unconscious, secular or religious, “The ability to disguise sin defines Anti-Christ." (Illich) ‘The final enigma of history is therefore not how the righteous will gain victory over the unrighteous, but how the evil in every good and the unrighteousness of the righteous is to be overcome.’ [Quotation from Reinhold Niebhur’s The Nature of Destiny and Man: II Human Destiny] [“The ways of history do not lead directly upwards to the Kingdom of God, they pass by way of the final unveiling of the anti-Christ who conceals himself under] the last mask to be stripped away - the mask of what is good and what is Christian.” - Von Balthasar –

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Nick Routledge@nick_routledge · 13 Aug 2026

@Plough The unexamined assumption in familiar critiques of Christendom is that Christianity still gets to narrate its own renewal. But the Parousia is not a self-directed recovery project. “When did we see you?” asks Matthew 25. The Day arrives like a thief in the night, confounding us.

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