The Fallacy of Neutral Ground

One of the greatest delusions of our generation is that there is “neutral” ground.  Having been brainwashed to believe that there is such a thing as a “secular” non-religious component to this life, has blind-sided many and deceived many.  How often we have heard it said that in the “name of religion”, wars are waged…and, so the argument goes: World and societal affairs should remain “neutral” and “secular” if we are to avoid a "religious" war.  If this premise were true, then it is a reasonable and logical conclusion…if this, then that…  Unfortunately, the problem lies with the premise.  There is no neutral ground.

It doesn’t matter how many people believe that there is neutral territory, it does not in any way, dissuade from the truth of the matter.  People are either in the Kingdom of God, or they are in the kingdom of the world. They are either joined to Christ, or they are not.  It is written that Jesus declared: ”He that is not with Me, is against Me, and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth abroad.” (Mt.12:30) This is not a provocative declaration, such as one would declare before heading into a battle, this is a simple statement of fact. As long as a person is not joined to Christ, he is subject to the spiritual principalities and dominions of this fallen and captive world.  If a person is not “translated from the kingdom of darkness, to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ”, he remains a vessel through whom the devil can operate.  This is easy to see betwixt believers and non-believers of God, but what is less discernible, is the influence that this kind of premise has over the thinking of a Christian. 

We have been brainwashed to accept this fallacy of neutral ground, and as a result, we tend to compartmentalize our faith.  We may have our devotions in the morning, our worship services and our Bible studies, but our mindset once we leave these sacred places, is we are now venturing out into the neutral world with some evil elements around us.  As a result, we are living our lives with a double-mind, or as the more accurate translation of the greek, a “double-soul”.   Having our faith compartmentalized, we box in our faith, and are left handicapped.  We relegate many of the occurrences of the day to non-consequential   events.  We live a sort of “haphazard” Christian walk, because we walk in a daze when we walk with a double soul.  We cannot see the correlation of events as it pertains to the spiritual world around us. We are ignorant of cause and effect and we don’t connect the dots. We are divided on the inside and as Jesus said: “ Every kingdom divided against itself, is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand”.(Mt.12:25) Our integrity is compromised, because we are “double-souled” and there is little wonder that we find ourselves stumbling so often in our pursuit of Perfection in Christ.  When we step into a world that we believe is neutral, we become careless, and as Christians, we cannot afford to be careless. The spirit of this world is by no means neutral, on the contrary, the spirit of this world despises Christians.

It doesn’t much matter if a non-Christian is careless in his day to day life as he remains faithful to the “god of this age”. But when we, as children of God,  are careless, we slip from our place of safety and sustain injury because we have not been diligent to put on the whole armor of God, whilst we walk in this sin infested world.  Scriptures describe  friendship with the world as “enmity against God” and “whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world, makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4) This is not to say that we should be hostile, fearful or combative, for we are admonished that if at all possible, so much as it depends upon us, that we should live peaceably with others (Rom.12:18)…but that we ought to know that those who are worldly, whether they consent or not, are subject to the kingdom of this world, and this kingdom is the kingdom of darkness.  

All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world (1Jn.2:16) and this carnal mindset, is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the Law of God, nor indeed can be. (Rom.8:7)  God has made it clear in His Word, that there are only two choices…as it is written “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing…therefore, choose life that both you and your descendants may live (Dt. 30:19) From the very beginning of time, there were only two choices: obedience or rebellion.  There was never a third neutral choice, and there is nothing new under the sun even today.  We are either walking in obedience, or we are slipping into rebellion.  

 When we maintain the false notion that we live in a secular, non-religious environment that is neutral towards God, the creator, we live much of our lives in utter ignorance and are vulnerable to error.  God declared that we are destroyed because of our ignorance. (Hosea4:6) How can we be strong in Christ, if we are ourselves, a divided temple?  How can we, as a church, the bride of Christ, be united as a body, if we are divided in ourselves?  It is necessary to put away this nonsensical doctrine of the existence of neutrality in this captive world, if we are ever to be fully integrated Christians.  

One effective measure, I have learned, of “mind-control” is to “splinter” the personalities of the victims. Having accomplished this, the perpetrator creates new and unopposed personalities that he is able to manipulate because the splintered personality is vulnerable and the person is disintegrated and compartmentalized.  It is the same method that the adversary uses on the individual member of the body of Christ regarding spirituality. His aim is to partition off one’s faith and having locked it up in compartments, he is able to manipulate their mind, which is left unguarded as they meander ignorantly in the world, having the belief that they are in neutral territory.  The devil knows well that the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. (James 1:8) But God says “Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts you double-minded...gird up the loins of your minds…be sober, be vigilant for your adversary, the devil, prowls around seeking whom he may devour…” (James 4:8; 1 Peter1: 8,13) We are not living in neutral territory, on the contrary, we are living in a hostile and predatory territory.

The disintegration of each individual Christian, explains the disintegration of families, fellowship, and society. It has been this indoctrination of neutral ground that has seduced the children of God to sleep in the meadow of poppies, while a war is waged upon them.  Because we have been so indoctrinated in this lie, we have been unarmed and unprotected and slapped silly so that while we may remain devoted to God in Christ, we are weak, weary and self-absorbed in our private battles and find little in the way of help from our church leaders.  Our task is to ask God to transform and renew our minds so that we are not double-minded or divided, but that we are fully integrated, having the Word of God as our lamp and light. We are at a disadvantage in trying to do this in our own strength, can a leopard change his spots? (Jer.13:23) We must ask God to make us whole in Christ.  But we must also endeavor to “gird up the loins of our minds”, this is not an effortless transformation. Our mind is washed and renewed by the faithful study of the Word of God.  That is our work in reintegrating ourselves so that we are perfected in Christ. There is no neutral ground. The world’s territory is hostile and predatory. It is in bondage to the devil and the devil is vehemently hostile to Christians.

 Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth. (Col.3:2) We must be constant in prayer and ask the Lord to open our eyes to see what we have been missing in our slumber. If we do not see it, how can we pray about it? If we are sleeping in our worldly interactions, how can we see Jesus, never mind fix our eyes on Him.  We must integrate ourselves to be whole in Christ, so that we may be healed, and that we may be a people who are effectually fervent in prayer, knitted together in the bond of love and peace, a bride that is without spot or wrinkle, a church ready for her husbandman.  We have confidence that in this endeavor we will prevail, for this is the will of God, in Christ Jesus our Lord.