Terry Applegate | On December 22, 2020

The recent pandemic has led more and more people into the world of ‘virtual reality’.  Unable to travel, downloads of virtual-travel apps have doubled in a matter of months.  People are getting accustomed to living in a make-believe world in their head rather than reality outside their body.  Virtual reality companies stock prices are being gamed by the jump in demand.

Share prices of gaming companies likewise are benefiting from the American penchant to succumb to the utterly sinister simulacrum of computer games.  Increasing numbers of adults play games for hours every day – withdrawn from reality in a simulated world where their time and efforts are totally wasted other than to gain a short-lived ‘high’ from an imagined thrill.

Whereas gaming serves the naturally useful function of teaching and training the young in the simple elements of functioning in the real world, in adults it only serves to wasting time of talented individuals, keeping them from being productive and useful.  Of course, the same holds true for others addicted to TV, movie-watching, etc.

God gave our minds incredible creative power.  Through prayer and intellectualization, we can imagine, describe and then bring forth into actuality things only hoped for before.  This aspect of being made in His image was not meant to be turned on its head and used to create, only in our minds, imaginary worlds that take us out of the flow of the true objective reality.

Yet, we are witnessing an ever-increasing ‘subjectivism’ to the extent that we witnessing people unable to forge and maintain ties to the external world.  Familial, political, vocational connections are never formed or, are cut, if formerly established, in lieu of internal subjective sources of relational satisfaction.

Everything is becoming psychological not, physical.  We look to ourselves and our own internal conditions for what is really matters to us.  This fascination and concentration on the self is supplanting traditional faith as demonstrated in the lowering numbers of the churched.

Truth is no longer to be found in an external text, it is exclusively the domain of our internal feelings, which is why we must stay self-absorbed.  This obsession with subjective rather than objective truth is resulting in the increasing public irrelevance of Christianity.

As Christians differentiate their faith from reality, moving it into their virtual inner space, only attempting to keep a ‘pure’ heart and mind, they abandon the public space to those not quite as likely to be righteously inclined.

This retreat from the objective to the subjective is a leading explanation of the unrelenting advance of the ‘progressive’ agenda, as those who should naturally oppose it are impotent – residing in a state of cognitive dissonance when it comes to the external world.

And, our enemies know how to exploit this disconnect to reality.  They have become expert at, selectively, of course, invoking the mantra that they are “personally opposed” to a policy (typically, abortion) but can’t impose “my personal beliefs on others”.  In other words, it wouldn’t be proper for me to actualize or, make real, my internal truths – it can’t come to life any more than the aborted babies are allowed to.

The reality, of course, is that there is no point of possessing a truth if it isn’t brought into fruition in the real world.

Theology 101 tells us that God moves from the spiritual to the material.  He starts with an idea, moves to speaking and ends up creating a hard material universe.  This is good.

Satan on the other hand, entraps men by moving from the material to the spiritual.  He starts with a drug (or alcohol, sex, food, gaming, etc.) moves to inducing a ‘pleasurable’ spiritual state – creating an unreal cerebral state of existence disconnected from Gods created reality.  This is not so good.

By creating us in His image, God intended man to create just as He does.  We are to participate in His never-ending flow of creativity in our joint effort of redeeming this world from its fallen state.

The Lie, on the other hand, immobilizes us to the true work God has put before us by creating a surrealistic subjective world that we become content with even though it keeps us from our true vocation and, isn’t even real besides.

It might be good to remember that God glories in the material – He came to earth in physical body and we get a new glorified physical body (with a never-ending warranty), even as Christ already has.  We’ll live in the New Jerusalem – a physical/material city – a fit abode for physical bodies.

Our purpose is subverted when we give up re-fashioning our world for the better and trade that opportunity in for a mesmerizing internal experience that has no redemptive value other than to selfishly make us feel good…for a moment.

Terry Applegate

Terry Applegate writes from Utah in the winter and Michigan in the summer. He is CEO of Applegate Insulation, serves on the board for Citizens for Traditional Values, Cellulose Insulation Manufacturers Association and the European Theological Seminary and is married to Val with three children and four grand-children.