Tyrants, Tyrants Everywhere but Not the Ones You Think

 A note on our Enlightenment-oriented, egalitarian assumptions and how it influences our view of the world and the actions of others. If I must know the truth through myself for myself and I must therefore have a voice in my destiny and government of life, then autonomy makes me human and anyone who limits or restricts my autonomy is an oppressor of my humanity. An oppressor is a tyrant who must be overthrown, violently if necessary. He must be called the worst of names, thrown out of social circles that would accept him, lose his ability to function in society, and even imprisoned or executed if such power is given to those who are oppressed by him. Oppressors are monsters, not human beings, so they must be addressed with any weapon possible, whether it is fair to use such things against them or not. 

Even Christians have assumed this in their conversations with one another. If you make an exclusive claim with authority, you are an arrogant jerk and disrespectful toward others because you are not allowing their views to be true as well. This sort of speak is the neo-evangelical version of the oppressor. No one cares if you have your views and hold them as authoritative only for yourself. It's when you claim that these things are true over others that the demons of the Enlightenment come out to defend their autonomy. Because the Enlightenment eventually leads to the Post-Enlightenment (i.e., the Enlightenment on crack) everything is about power since no one can know the truth, particularly spiritual truth, that excludes the claimed beliefs of another with any sort of absolute authority, it must be that to do so is tyranny. 

This is why a person who presents ideas in a modern Christian context that has been affected by this religion is acceptable only if he presents those ideas in an inclusive manner. They can be presented as just someone's individual truth or conviction or offered up as a possible truth for the person to consider for themselves; but it cannot be presented as having absolute claim to the other person's life. The person has to decide if they want to accept that truth that you merely offer up in a similar fashion to offering people dinner options. They choose so that their autonomy is never disrupted. The decide if it is true for them. They get a voice in whether it is true. And when you take away that voice and tell them that something is true and has authority over them, that their views are wrong and they are not in favor with God with their falsehoods? That's when the mob forms. That's when names fly. That's when the crosses come out. 

It is clear that the prophets, apostles, teachers throughout history, and Christ Himself did not present truth to others in an inclusive way. No one would have ever cared. They would be chalked up to the status of rabbi and simply put into the pantheon of opinions and human wisdom from which all autonomous human beings may draw, only if they want to of course.

This is why the false religion of the Enlightenment is not something that other people believe. It is has been driven deeply into our unconscious assumptions about how truth should be presented, who is godly in their tone and who is not, who is respectful and humble and who is not, all in accordance with whether one presents what he says as optional rather than mandatory. 

In this regard, and ironically, those influenced by the Enlightenment religion are the only tyrants around. They do not allow truth to be absolute, and therefore, do not really allow truth to be truth. It is oppressed, and anyone who speaks it in accordance with its own true nature, rather than respected for speaking reality, is exiled in one way or another, for not obeying each and every human being as his lord.