The Woking Dead

 On a bright sunny day, a shadowy creature named "Decoy," clothed in daylight enters a church building to meet his fellow damned spirits to discuss the best means of keeping as many people among the condemned as possible. He approaches a stunningly beautiful creature of light sitting upon a throne at the head of the sanctuary. 

Satan: Welcome, Decoy. I have summoned you here because I have devised a plan to make the Western church my servant.

Decoy: How so, my lord? Will you convince them of another Christ?

Satan: Some, yes but many will not be so convinced.

Decoy: Will you convince them of another gospel then?

Satan: Certainly some but the many will not buy that either.

Decoy: Will you tell them the Bible is unreliable?

Satan: Absolutely but the many will still trust in it.

Decoy: Then how will you subject the majority of the Western Church to your will and keep so many of the souls bound for hell? 

Satan: I will drown out the gospel as one dilutes a glass of wine with a keg of water so that the gospel is a mere echo heard faintly only by those who already know it. 

Decoy: How will you do this, my lord?

Satan: I will send you to convince the church, not that another Christ is true or another gospel is the right one or that the Bible is not trustworthy (I have others for that job) but that other concerns are so important that they should take up the majority of the messages spoken by Christians in the pulpit, in their books, their blogs, their social media posts, their conversations. 

Decoy: But, my lord, surely they will not replace the gospel with these.

Satan: You must convince them that they are "gospel issues" so that they make little distinction between the gospel and social justice, political campaigns, and all of the other culture wars with which I have stirred up the pagans who belong to me. In this way, they will be convinced that they are preaching the gospel even while it is barely heard in a sea of temporal concerns that are being linked in some way to Christ, the gospel, and biblical teaching.

Decoy: But what if they make a utopia upon the earth by achieving the purest form of equality with their perfect candidates? Can we tolerate such an ordering of the world when we desire chaos instead?

Satan: We are no fools if we trade the salvation of minutes for the damnation of eternity. Let men have the peace and order for a moment as long as they remain sons of hell forever. Only the gospel could foil us and we will have made it unnoticed in the shade of the mighty oak of our "gospel issues." Now go and convince the church to preach the good that damns.

Decoy: Aye, my lord, it will be done. With it, I will give the dead a false resurrection.