How is it that Christians at large can oppose sin and then later, come around to support it? How can a Christian be deceived toward lies?
Here's where I'd like to talk about the degrees of deception. But first, I want to lay the groundwork of who Satan is and how he works.
The nature of Satan
First, to be clear, Satan is a liar and "the Father of Lies" as our Lord calls him. Satan's nature is an angel - but a fallen angel, as we also gather from Scripture. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, angels are pure spirit yet have pure intellects. They can know. In fact, he says, they know things and actions in a far more superior way than humans can know. Their intellects are far more superior than ours. Because of this high intelligence, Satan can know and ascertain things in a way we humans can't. This is why St. Paul tells us to be on watch and vigilant with regards to our weaknesses and the things unfolding in the world around us because the devil "prowls about like a lion." He watches and waits, observes, abstracts information about us and our surroundings; he understands, he is patient, waiting for the right time to devour us and lead us astray in a moment of weakness.
In a few words - the devil is no dummy.
The roots of today's moral breakdown are satanic
We've all heard that saying about how you can't throw a frog in a pot of boiling water or else he'll hop right out. But, if you put him in first and boil him slowly, he won't even know he's dieing.
That's a great analogy for our culture right now; or, as Pope St. John Paul II rightly calls it, "The Culture of Death." We are indeed surely decaying and bringing about a slow death.
It's been something slow happening over the past few centuries, but has accelerated in recent decades.
To be pointed, I'm referring to the moral breakdown of our culture which now touts and supports as "rights" such moral evils as abortion, contraception, sexual promiscuity and fornication, adultery, pornography, so-called same-sex marriage, homosexuality/transgender and the erroneous and absurd idea of gender "fluidity" and all that goes along with the novel idea of gender theory.
Ultimately, while various underground and secret societies have been planning to purposely undermine the family for centuries in order to breakdown Christianity, we are seeing the full rotten fruits in our time. While these sects, elites and societies have been instruments in doing this, the root of this evil is Satan himself. This is precisely why Sister Lucia - one of the visionaries at Fatima to whom our Blessed Mother appeared - called these novel and "progressive" ideas we are seeing today regarding marriage and the family a diabolical disorientation. It takes everything beautiful and good and true from the plan of God and inverts and perverts it to a mockery of God's designs.
How did we get here? And how can those who identify as Christian support such diabolical evils?
The devil's strategy
Satan could never get a person to commit sin if they saw it for the evil it actually is and the painful consequences it brings one to (including the eternal and ultimate one: Hell). That would be too obvious of a giveaway to his master scheme (which is to drag souls to Hell).
Instead, he acts in the disguise of an "angel of light." If we could see the reality of sin for what it is - ugliness, eternal death, pain and suffering - he could never lead souls to hell. BUT - if he can pose as an angel of light - masking sin as an apparent good and way to happiness - then yes! Yes, this would work!
...for even Satan masquerades as an angel of light. So it is not strange that his ministers also masquerade as ministers of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. [2 corinthians 11:14-15]
In our times, we have many people, including elites of global organizations and governments who also "masquerade as ministers of righteousness." They tout evil things such as same-sex marriage, contraception, gender theory, transgenderism, pornography, sexual promiscuity and fornication, abortion and the like as "rights." They have convinced the masses that anything or anyone that opposes these "rights" are bigots, sexists, old-fashioned and out of touch, and even threats that must be taken care of.
This is why we have a duty to echo St. Paul's concern for his fellow Christians in our times:
But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts may be corrupted from a sincere [and pure] commitment to Christ. [2 Corinthians 11:3]
Many have been deceived - not only by these powers - but the underlying "power" of these powers that be: The devil.
If we read the account of the fall of man in Genesis 3, we see the same tactics of Satan being employed today. God gives a command to Adam and Eve. But when the serpent approaches Eve, he first gets her to doubt God's goodness and design. When she tries to defend the truth of what God said, the serpent responds with a contradiction to what God says and then he presents Eve with a lie about the nature of God's command.
He (the serpent - a symbol of the devil) asked the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any of the trees in the garden’?”
The woman answered the snake: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; a it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, or else you will die.’”
But the snake said to the woman: “You certainly will not die! God knows well that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, who know good and evil.” [Genesis 3:1-5]
In our times, we see this strategy employed with many mortal sins that our society perpetuates. But I will use same-sex marriage to illustrate.
God [speaking to us]: I made them male and female; marriage is a union between a man and a woman.
Satan [speaking to us]: He did not! Gender is changing. Marriage can be between any two people who love each other. If you are one to believe this, your eyes will be opened and you will be enlightened. It is those who uphold traditional marriage who are narrow-minded, eyes closed to what's best for humanity.
The truth of God is given to us by God in Scripture and through the Tradition of the Church, but Satan contradicts with a lie.
Then, we see in the following verse that Satan presents the temptation as something that is "good, pleasing, and desirable."
The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. [Genesis 3:6]
Here we see how Satan operates: As an "angel of light" in order to convince us that what in actuality a sin is something that is apparently good, pleasing and desirable. Again, I say, if we had the eyes of faith and love of God to see sin for what it is - a choice of ugliness, pain, deprivation from the life of God and happiness and in the end, eternal torment and suffering in hell - we'd never buy into it. But ah yes! Propose sin as something appealing (i.e. an apparent good), as something that seems to lead us to happiness (i.e. pleasing) and as a choice that seems to leads us to fulfill our humanity (i.e. desirable for gaining wisdom), then yes, it will be much easier for us to buy into sin.
This is what has happened to the largely supported mortal sins of our times, even among those who call themselves Christian. People would never support such sins if they could see the eternal end of them for what it is - hell. They wouldn't choose them if they could see clearly the way they would destroy their lives, their relationships, their incredible dignity as sons and daughter of God made in His image and likeness and, in the end, their life with God. Instead, these grave sins are proposed as apparent goods. Same-sex marriage is masked as "love," "equality" and "a right." Gender theory/homosexuality/ and transgenderism and all that fall under that umbrella are touted as a "freedom of expression" and "a right to be happy." Pornography is masked as "freedom of speech." Contraception is masked as a "duty to responsibility."
You see, all of these sins are masked in the name of things that are good. Love, responsibility, happiness, etc... are all good things. But when they defend actions and things that are objectively sinful, then we have been deceived by the Father of Lies. And sadly, many people, want to believe the lie.
As Scripture speaks so clearly of this time we live in...
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie... [Romans 1:25]
But how do we move in this direction if we are Christians?
The degrees of deception
We begin at one side: That of opposition to sin. For many Christians, it is easy to oppose sin in its general sense. But when we begin to get specific about what is sinful, then the compromise of Christians begins.
First Degree of Deception - Desensitization to the gravity of sin.
In order to desensitize us to the gravity of sin, doubts concerning its seriousness are presented to us in the form of "jokes" about it, or making light about it. To give concrete examples of these degrees, I will speak explicitly of the grave sin of homosexual actions. In order to move a people away from the gravity of this sin, the culture (at large) first began being exposed to it through the media in the form of "making jokes" about it. "I didn't mean it but I did mean it." This is the testing grounds for pushing to make a sin more publicly acceptable. An example - when Madonna and Britney Spears kissed on-stage at the VMA's back in 2003, dressed in attire that mimicked bridal gowns. (Even though there were many more sexual innuendos and references to this kind of behavior in the 80s and 90s too, in subtle, "joking" ways).
If we could contemplate the beauty, goodness and infinite perfection of God and His ways, if only we could contemplate deeply and experience intimately His unfathomable love, we would see how contrary these actions are to the dignity of the person made in the image and likeness of God, to the sacrament of marriage as God made it, and to God's infinite love, goodness, beauty and perfection. They are evil to the core, sinful and speaking of sins that destroy marriage and the family, make a mockery of God's design. (Remember too, that since only God can create, the devil can never create; so what he does instead is he mocks, perverts, and counterfeits God's designs). However, the more a culture can "make light" of sin and throw it in your face, the less evil the culture will see it as and the more desensitized we'll become; mortal sin - sin that, if unrepented of, will drag a soul to hell - will not seem so big of a deal and then we can begin to move in the direction of normalizing it because there's been conditioned less of a resistance to it.
Second Degree of Deception - Tolerating the sin.
After "the waters have been tested" and the culture at large is desensitized from the perversity and gravity of sin, we can now begin to get people to tolerate it. The more we highlight these behaviors in the news, in movies, in advertisements, music, television, commercials, among celebrities, and so on, the more people will be inclined to tolerate it. Let's work this into the fabric of society by appealing to sentimentality, people's emotions, and relativism (the denial of objective, universal truths that apply to all mankind for their happiness, as given by God our Creator). Let's instead say "If that's true for you, then that's your truth. This is my truth and that's different, but as long as we're happy..." Again, here we have a good desire - happiness for ourselves and others - gone bad and created in a deception. True and eternal happiness can only be found by living in according with the truth, in the ways of God.
The act of tolerating these gravely sinful things also comes from cowardice and apathy on the part of Christians. Christians are afraid to speak up about these things in fear of losing worldly privileges and positions, in fear of losing friendships or out of a fear of losing the respect of others and feeling like "the odd one out." The other reason is that Christians are apathetic - which is even worse. An apathetic Christian who does not make the effort or care to really defend God's law and His glorious designs is a Christian who has no spine, no backbone and no conviction. They are a Christian when it is convenient to them, and that's about it. Otherwise they are weak. The apathetic Christian is the lukewarm Christian whom our Lord says He will spit out of His mouth:
I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, ‘I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything,’ and yet do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white garments to put on so that your shameful nakedness may not be exposed, and buy ointment to smear on your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and chastise. Be earnest, therefore, and repent. [Revelation 3:15-19]
Our lukewarmness and apathy is a sin we need to repent of. Christians who tolerate this sin by remaining silent in the face of it are often the ones who say, "I personally don't agree with it but if that's what others want to do, then fine." We have no concept of the gravity of sin and its consequence; we also have slacked on our apostolic duty to proclaim Gospel truths. Or, we just want to mind our own business because that's just easier to do; we want to stay a great distance from "rocking the boat." We need Christian courage and need to become more zealous for God! Our love shouldn't be lacking at a time like this.
Third Degree of Deception - Acceptance of the sin.
At this point, the Christian has well-compromised his salvation by being in favor of things that are vehemently opposed to God's design and His love. This would include the mass of Christians who support so-called same-sex marriage. Out of a desire for something good - the happiness of others, the desire to life-long love, and so on - they condone the gravely sinful actions. At this stage, because the media has been an instrument in saturating us with the "goodness" of same-sex marriage and many have bought into it, more and more Christians begin to join rank. They'd rather not stand out and in their desire to not stand out, they begin looking for good in what is objectively evil. This causes more and more confusion among Christians and greatly weakens the stance we should all have against it. Because of the more widespread acceptance of this, those who oppose it begin to be seen as threats and so persecution picks up.
The final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about marriage and the family. Do not be afraid, because anyone who works for the sanctity of marriage and the family will always be fought and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue. However, Our Lady has already crushed his head. [Words of Our Lady of Fatima visionary, Sister Lucia, to Cardinal Caffarra]
Fourth Degree of Deception - All out encouragement, publicity, and flaunting of the sin.
And this is where we are at today with many mortal and gravely sinful things. At this point, the masses and mobs of people are proud and overtly supportive of things that are diabolic lies from hell. It is interesting, to say the least, that Gay Pride parades and June being called "Gay Pride month" and the whole Gay Pride movement are named after the very sin by which Satan was cast out of heaven for eternity: Pride. In this degree of deception, the sin becomes a right, a law of the land, supported not only by individuals and Christians who have compromised, but entire government and global bodies. Those who oppose, get persecuted - they get fined, lose their job, their business, their status, and so on. Greater persecution than this in our time will come soon. Those people who oppose these evil things are deemed "bigots and sexist" in order to create a growing hatred and animosity toward them. The mass deception has taken full place and the truth of God has been exchanged for a lie. They have called evil good and good, evil.
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil,
who change darkness to light, and light into darkness,
who change bitter to sweet, and sweet into bitter!...
Therefore, as the tongue of fire licks up stubble,
as dry grass shrivels in the flame,
Their root shall rot
and their blossom scatter like dust;
For they have rejected the instruction of the LORD of hosts,
and scorned the word of the Holy One of Israel.
[Isaiah 5:20,24]
In the face of this massive diabolical deception and the overt support of what seems to be "everyone," recall the words of St. John Paul II who said...
...do not be afraid to call things for what they really are. [The Priest and the Third Christian Millenium]
Our victory, our reward, is in heaven. You have been born in this time, you are a Christian in this time, to particularly take up the battle that's raging against the goodness of God and His truth. We get it all wrong when we fear the judgments and perceptions that others might have of us. The opinions of the world should have no effect on us; the only "opinion" that matters is God's. We have nothing to fear but that of committing sin against an infinitely lovable and adorable Lord, who will render us our judgement at our death.
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna (hell). [Matthew 10:28]
This does not mean it's easy to live out! But we need to grow in our love and fidelity to God, daily. We need to take ever more seriously our Christian commitment. Even though the tide seems against the faithful Christian, let us not forget that God is with us! As Christ our Lord told us:
I have told you this so that you might have peace in Me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.
[John 16:33]