But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. (2 Tim 3:1-5)

As the culture collectively abdicates a Judeo-Christian worldview and descends into postmodern paganism, there is a rising tide of anarchy. The Judeo-Christian worldview is grounded in objective truth. But once the culture cut loose from that anchor, the floodgates were open for the poison of moral relativism—which in turn ultimately leads to anarchy. When I was in high school in the late 60s and early 70s, typical discipline problems were chewing gum in class, dress code violations and talking in class. Despite the availability and ease of buying weapons, mass shootings were unknown and unthinkable. Today, the discipline problems are much more likely to be drugs, violence, profanity and even physically assaulting the teacher. Mass shootings are a tragic occurrence. A school resource office (a cop) is now required full-time in virtually every public school to maintain order, and many schools have metal detectors to screen for weapons.

Objective truth allows us to perceive reality as it really is. In revealing objective truth, the Architect of Reality gracefully provided us with a window into all of reality, both immanent and transcendent, allowing us to successfully and fruitfully navigate life. But once we close and abrogate the window of objective truth and instead open a window of relative truth, we plunge down the rabbit hole into Wonderland where literally anything goes, no matter how harmful, ridiculous, insane or delusional. But this “Wonderland” that we now find ourselves in is nothing like the fairy-tale “Alice in Wonderland” . . . instead it is the stuff of nightmares. And only the church has the key to release the culture from this nightmare.

The Old Testament book of Judges pulls back the curtain on this inevitable descent into anarchy and insanity with this verse: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judg 17:6; 21:25). Until or unless the culture returns to the window of objective truth, nothing can stop the descent into insanity and rising tide of anarchy short of a supernatural move of God.

I greatly respect and admire William Lane Craig. However, in reviewing his excellent book (and one that I highly recommend) Reasonable Faith, I wrote, “In the introduction, Craig discards postmodernism as an impossibility because he deems the rejection of objective truth as ultimately “unlivable”. He argues that people are not relativistic when it comes to matters of science, engineering or technology. I’m not sure if his perspective was in the original 1984 release or one of the subsequent updates. But fourteen years after the last update, it now is clear that Craig badly underestimated where the culture was headed and was mistaken. On the irrefutable science of gender, every cell in human females have two copies of the X chromosome, while males have one X and one Y chromosome. This is impossible to change. In addition, males and females are distinguished by differing genitalia. Yet, in today’s postmodern culture, in defiance of the irrefutable science, males can arbitrarily decide they are female and vice versa, with the culture accommodating (and even welcoming) their defiance of unalterable objective science . . . In March 2022, the state of Oregon instituted “Menstrual Dignity”, bizarrely mandating the placement of tampons in all boys bathrooms. There can be no further question that our culture has fully embraced postmodernism. As we descend down the rabbit hole into the Wonderland of postmodernism, it is painfully obvious that Craig was sorely mistaken.”

There is a final and inevitable, fatal dead-end awaiting many of those who embrace relative truth: Nihilism. As I warned earlier, “Nihilism is a denial of any philosophy or worldview—a denial of the possibility of knowledge, a denial that anything is valuable. If it proceeds to the absolute denial of everything, it even denies the reality of existence itself. In other words, nihilism is the negation of everything—knowledge, ethics, beauty, reality. In nihilism no statement has validity; nothing has meaning.” (The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog by James W. Sire) . . . Nihilism is a toxic understanding of reality (i.e., a worldview) that is spreading like a cancer throughout our culture. Of all the false worldviews, it is the most dangerous. Nihilism is the spawn of the worldview of naturalism. When one takes seriously the idea that matter is all there is, the Biblical concept of humanity is annihilated. If one follows naturalism consistently to its logical conclusion, they will inevitably end up with nihilism . . . When one embraces full-blown nihilism, nothing is real . . . not even themselves. People who reach this state are in deep trouble for they can no longer function as human beings. We usually do not recognize this situation as metaphysical or epistemological nihilism. Rather, we often prefer to blame a physical cause in the brain and call it schizophrenia, or bipolar, or delusion. And we treat the person as mentally ill.”

The occurrence of mental illness in our culture today is approaching epidemic levels, fueled in part by the deinstitutionalization that occurred in the 60s and 70s along with powerful psychotropic drugs that make people much more susceptible to the demonic. If we lay objective truth aside to appease the culture, we put our most powerful nuclear weapon into mothballs.

Significant portions of the church today are fatally embracing relative truth and capitulating to a culture descending into insanity. Their light is quickly dimming—and in some tragic cases—already extinguished. We have a responsibility to reach out to the culture, with a clear and explicit focus on objective truth. Social justice and ministry, while indeed important to physically help the hurting, is nothing more than a band-aid on a cancerous tumor. Only the objective truth of the gospel and a collective return to a Judeo-Christian worldview can bring us out of Wonderland and restore sanity.

If you are unfamiliar with the increasing prevalence of “sovereign citizens”, they are defined as “individuals who believe they are not subject to government laws and regulations, rejecting legal documentation and engaging in anti-government activities. This movement is associated with various illegal actions, including tax evasion and the creation of fraudulent legal entities.”

In fact, the FBI classifies the movement as domestic terrorism. People identifying as sovereign citizens often already have warrants for their arrest, a revoked car registration and/or a suspended/revoked drivers’ license, or no license at all. They frequently claim to be “Moorish” citizens or citizens of made-up nations. Youtube is prolific with videos of sovereign citizens in court and being arrested by law enforcement. (I have a friend who is in law enforcement as a senior officer and he encounters these people with increasing frequency. As soon as any of his officers recognizes they are dealing with a “sovereign citizen”, they are instructed to immediately call for backup.)

Sovereign citizens are indicative of an escalating rebellion against lawful authority who seek to “burn everything down.” The book of Judges perfectly describes the phenomenon of “sovereign citizens”—Everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judg 17:6; 21:25). (Together with the transgender movement and organizations like Antifa, sovereign citizens are symptomatic of movements willfully defying the Creator and created order with increasing violence.) The insanity of the “sovcit” worldview dictates they are “exempt” from the law, and yet simultaneously (and ironically) claims protection and rights under the same law. They spout nonsense that they glean from youtube “legal experts.”

Why am I posting about sovereign citizens on an apologetics web site? For four reasons:

1. It is a consequence of closing the window of objective truth and foolishly opening a window of relative truth where literally anything goes. Their delusions make perfect sense within the worldview of relative truth; if a man can become a woman, then of course one can claim to be a native of fictional “Titeria” (as you will see in the video below). Who is to say otherwise?
2. It is clearly in defiance of Romans 13:1 (a verse emphasizing the importance of obeying government as part of a Christian’s duty) which states that everyone must submit to governing authorities because all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God (the exception would be when the governing authorities mandate something that clearly contradicts Scripture [Acts 5:29]). Sovereign citizens are a law unto themselves.
3. Many of these sovereign citizens buy into the movement because they are already in trouble with law enforcement (i.e., suspended drivers’ license, revoked car registration, warrants for arrest, etc.). Others are delusional and have foolishly paid “sovcit” experts and ebay con artists for worthless paperwork, fake license plates, meaningless identification and legal mumbo-jumbo paperwork. The “sovcit experts” who con and fleece people into becoming “sovereign citizens” often prey upon the poor, gullible, mentally ill, homeless, substance abusers, uneducated and those who already have a revoked/suspended drivers’ license.
4. Unfortunately I’ve seen more than a few sovereign citizens who also claim to be Christian and are a dark stain on the Body of Christ. Worse yet, there are a few who recruit the gullible into their movement and astonishingly claim to be leaders in the Body of Christ. Sovereign citizens reflect a growing cancer in the Body of Christ with a growing number of Christians falling prey to con artists and wolves in sheep’s clothing because of their ”itching ears.” For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear (2 Tim 4:3).

Sovereign citizens are the sobering poster boy for where our culture is headed if we don’t collectively come back to objective truth. Here are two videos of the delusional insanity of “sovereign citizens”. The first video is of a driver claiming to be a native of the fictional land of “Titeria” (with a suspended license) that is stopped by law enforcement; the second video is of a sovcit in court with a no-nonsense judge. They are a blight on society, and when claiming to be a Christian——on the Body of Christ as well. Beware this movement and don’t fall for the con artists. Don’t make the fatal mistake of opening the window of relative truth.