Here is an interesting post from Roosh V who was, like St. Augustine, a womaniser, but who eventually saw the light and found Christ. So, in this world of chaos and conflict, is Satan and the forces of evil winning?
“How about faith? Since evil is obviously growing, shouldn’t that mean that faith is dying? Not so. You’re reading the words of a man who turned to Christ in 2019, well after Drag Queen Story Time and transgender kids became a national phenomenon. I went on tour that year and talked to hundreds of men, many of whom confessed that they are also making their way out of the darkness and into the light of Christ. I’ve lost count how many emails I’ve received from both men and women who are new to professing the faith and turning away from the evils of the modern world.
It’s tempting to look at surveys and polls and lament the decreasing number of self-identifying Christians, but a human body present in the pews is not necessarily faith. There may be 10,000 souls in a megachurch, but if true repentance is not found there, and their faith ends as soon as they walk out of their rock concert experience, it may be more pleasing to God if a lone monk recited the Jesus Prayer, because if your faith doesn’t re-orient your body away from worldly things, should it be counted in national surveys that attempt to quantify the faith, or does it belong in the box of “other,” of something New Age, in between true good and true evil but leaning more toward evil than not?
From my perspective, true faith is growing. Men are renouncing their past and immoral lifestyles to donate their lives to Christ. There are not many of these men, I will admit, but their prayers will resonate deeply instead of bouncing around the sterile walls of the modern church with a woman at its pulpit. In spite of the growing evil that is undeniably visible, many men are landing on the path to salvation.”
It is a question of quality, not quantity, which the key question presupposes. As well, it is not about preserving some affluent life style as the be-all and end-all of life, because the purpose of life is to struggle to be worthy of the next life, not to be a consumer slug.
https://www.rooshv.com/worshiping-comfort-is-satanic
“Not everyone worships at the altar of comfort. The Slavic peoples of Russia and Ukraine, for example, have seen darker recesses of humanity. Alongside their Orthodox faith, they have come to see suffering as the same as the early Christians: a cross to bear. And many eagerly bear it. If things in life go a little too smooth for a prolonged period of time, the most devout of them cry out to God—“Why have you forsaken me?” Without tribulation, we do not build virtue. Without a fire, gold cannot be molded and fashioned into objects of beauty. If we do not face difficulty, we do not get closer to God, for why do you need God if everything in this life is perfect? Ask a 22-year-old man at the peak of his physical energy, hormonal drive, and worldly optimism how much he needs God, and he will respond, “What God?”
The Orthodox ask God to help them bear the cross, to help them endure, but Americans ask for the cross to be removed. “Please God make me rich and alleviate all my health problems!” Americans foremost ask for material blessings, and they worship the prosperity gospel, because their god is not God—it’s comfort. They want to be comfortable in the material sense, and so they donate millions of dollars to a man like Joel Osteen who says that God blesses the congregation if their pastor saves souls through the television box.
Many Americans see Jesus Christ as a man who can help them buy a winning lottery ticket, that we are not called to endure like He did, to suffer humiliation and pain even though he could have chosen otherwise at any time because He is God. We ignore His example and pray for the cross to be removed, but be careful what you wish for, because if Christ in his infinite love grants your request to remove the cross He wants you to bear, He may then give you a bigger cross for your own good, because He knows that our virtue cannot be built through comfort, our purification cannot proceed without trials, our sanctification cannot happen without perseverance. It may seem masochistic to see an Orthodox embrace his cross of suffering, but this is what our Savior did. It’s demonic not to.
Is Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior? Tomorrow He may come to the conclusion that, for your salvation, you must lose all things in this world as happened to Job in the Old Testament. You must lose your property, your money, all your family members and friends, and even your health, and you must endure this until the end of your earthly life. He has deemed it, because without this loss, you will not be saved. Now, is He still your Lord and Savior? Unless you can immediately and unequivocally say Yes, you have not put Him first. You have become too comfortable in this world, too attached to its rewards. Every day you are making dozens of little decisions to maintain the comfort you desire while ignoring the cross that you have to bear.”
I welcome this alternative, old school point of view.