Maybe it is because we are approaching Halloween that I am thinking about these things, but it is magnified by a spiritual decline in the west and around the world that provokes a strong sense of foreboding. The spirit of the current age is very different from anything I have experienced in my lifetime. Paganism is on the rise in the west, even to the displacement of the Enlightenment informed atheism that was in ascendancy for so many years. Cultural Christianity is in steep decline. The war in Ukraine is/was disconcerting, but the new war in Israel has distinct apocalyptic overtones–especially with the saber rattling of Turkey and Russia in conjunction with the already heavy Iranian involvement that evokes remembrances of Biblical prophecy. The response around the world to all this seems demonic. Right now I am reading through the Old Testament, just finishing Joshua and starting into Judges this morning. The Old Testament narrative arc culminates in a cataclysmic end and new beginning with fierce spiritual warfare. Now is not the time to be complacent.