It is no longer fashionable to preach on the “Four Last Things” during Advent. Death, judgement, hell and heaven are not easy to digest for many immured in the Christmas shopping season. This may be a pity, because we are in the middle of trying to subdue a vigorous secular heresy, made up of two elements that have their place in Christianity, but have been twisted out of shape.
Secular religiosity is marked by a veneration for two things: victimhood and the “Nice”. Victimhood, once the key to interpreting the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, has been wrenched out of context and re-laid in a political and psychological framework, offering secular sanctification to those who appear to be victims of power relations.
