the end times?

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 13, 2005

“Are We Living in Apocalyptic Times?”

Michael O'Brien, the very thoughtful Catholic artist and author of Father Elijah and other novels, asks that question and gives a long, provocative answer.

Just a quick sample:

And if so, how will our enslavement be accomplished? It will be accomplished by increasing the voltage of state power combined with a gradual decreasing of civil rights, the lifting of burdensome responsibilities from our shoulders combined with the increase of pleasurable rewards, the growth of a power class of “knowers”, who enshrine a multi-faceted gnosticism in organs of institutional governance. If at the same time, man’s ability to exercise his healthy critical and analytical faculties has been limited by corrupt education, by media indoctrination, and by a generalized loss of the sense of human identity, the new world order can be achieved—and achieved most effectively, it should be noted, to the degree that it is understood as a “moral” cause, a great leap forward in the name of humanity.

O'Brien's approach is not sensationalistic, but it is sobering. Definitely worth a read.