The virtue spirals of this life are but a delusion. You cannot earn your way into the favour of God. Our salvation is costly, for it took the death of a the one perfect man, God incarnate, to atone for my transgressions, let alone yours.

The idea that we can somehow show that we are righteous by approving of groups is acting out the gospel is false. It leads at worse to an alliance with evil, couched in terms such as tolerance of differences and the tag of teh current day #TransRightsareHumanRights.

It is not about approving the perversions of the narrative. It is not about how we restrict our diet (we should: the current advice from governments is designed to give us diabetes) or our politics or what we do that is good or our fitness.

Even the best we can do is akin to sewage in front of a righteous God. The Apostles did this, and they stood against the Pharisees and their virtue cycle [1].

Acts 15:1-11

¹Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” ²And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the elders. ³So they were sent on their way by the church, and as they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, they reported the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the believers. ⁴When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. ⁵But some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, “It is necessary for them to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses.”

⁶The apostles and the elders met together to consider this matter. ⁷After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers. ⁸And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; ⁹and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. ¹⁰Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? ¹¹On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

There are a couple of other problems with virtue cycling. One is that this conspicuous activity can cover all sorts of evil: the intelligent psychopath keeps the small rules so he can smash the big ones, and very intelligent psychopathic organizations virtue signal while using legal machinations to silence any critics.

Avoid those who signal too much their virtue. Mistrust their products. Worry about those who this world praises.

This heathenish thinking extends to the time before death. Every now and then you read of “brave” people who, once told they are going to prematurely kick the bucket, decide to “do something”. Normally, this something is linked with “fun” (the Paris alcohol binge), or with something “they wanted to do” (the exotic travel) or with someone “they wanted to meet” (a spiritual giant of our time like, say, an actor).

It is as if their spiritual (and otherwise) dumbness would want to cling to them until death, not even the announcement of the end to come being enough for a much-needed realignment of priorities. It is, in fact, fair to say that in an age in which fun and self-centredness are a religion, people who focus on those on their last stretch are considered examples worthy of following, as if they were the pious faithful of our time. A great waste of immortal souls, sadly, as the announcement of his impending demise is the last massive opportunity for, say, an atheist to send his brains into overdrive and (with God’s grace) start working on his salvation until there’s time.

Nor is there any warning, anywhere, of the judgment to come. People who die positively unable to think – and to publicly say they do – about their judgment are called “courageous”, when all generations before ours would have called them foolish. But hey, they launched a hashtag that made an awful lot of people of every conceivable degree of stupidity feel good with themselves. Isn’t it wonderful?

And by the way: is it surprising? Nowadays even the Pope tries to make you march to your death without thinking of judgment; unless he suggest that you become a member of the Communist Party perhaps, because Jesus was kinda lika sorta Lenin, no?

The way we die is a very good indication of the rest of our – infinitely long – existence.

In a heathenish time, you see these indications all the time, whilst the press applauds.

All our glory should go to Christ and Christ alone [2].

We cannot earn our salvation. We cannot keep ourselves in a state of grace. Our salvation, and preservation in faith, is a complete and finished work. Christ will win: what we are living is seen with an eternal eye, as history.

We have forgotten our chief end: to know God and enjoy him forever. We are fools, and our virtue signals show this.

Brother Mundabor is correct. Far better that we look towards Christ, and contemplate how we can show him glory. We should meditate on our flaws and weaknesses, for it is in that struggle that we show our faith and glorify God.

And we shall not be like this elite, doomed to destruction.

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1. The neoPharisees of Judiasm still virtue spiral. They call it Tikkum Olan. They have infected the liberal churches of the JudeoChrist, to whom the Unitarians are a warning.

2. I note that Froning, who was overt about his faith and performing for the glory of God, has been sidelined as the crossfit HQ converges.