All government is a conspiracy; people conspire to hold power over others because we wouldn’t call it “government” if some small group were not exercising authority over others.
Let’s unpack this. The Internet has done more to place information in the hands of the common folk than all previous means of communication. Even the plutocrats are whining about the level of awareness, that it hinders what they could accomplish in the good old days. Not everyone spewing data onto the Network is honest, not all well-informed, etc. So we end up with a large portion of humanity utterly certain that there are some conspiracies to make life bad for us nobodies.
This is generally correct. People do have credible evidence of various conspiracies to do things we don’t like. Does anyone really believe the official story about JFK’s assassination? I sincerely hope not. However, at some point, the vast majority of those who exercise some level of awareness about all this ugly stuff tend to confuse things by letting it all run together.
Are you not aware of the very real likelihood that any given plutocrat is involved in multiple conspiracies, connected to multiple parties who are not all allies? That is, any given conspirator is involved in juggling multiple schemes that may overlap and even conflict. These are not aliens with superior intelligence we are talking about; these are real people who happen to be in the seat of power. A significant portion are psychopaths, but not all of them by any means. On top of that, psychopathy does affect a sliding scale, so saying someone is a psychopath leaves open the question of just how bad their psychopathy is and what they actually plan to do.
There is no single master plan, but several. Whether any of them progress toward some measure of success remains in God’s hands. Most likely they will all fail at some point and we will have new threats to entertain us.
Brothers and sisters: You can only track so many of these conspiracies before you start to lose track. That is, unless you are some sort of flake who devotes an inordinate amount of time cataloging and chasing them. If you are certain that’s your calling, then go after it, but the rest of us cannot share your enthusiasm. I know for sure my readers are hardly enthralled with the things that drive me, so the one most important thing I want you to take from my writing is that you not take yourself so seriously.
Keep track of the conspiracies that impinge on your mission from God. Not in the sense of “preparing to do battle with the forces of evil” — that’s a false image. The only real battle is inside your own soul, not out in the world around you. Be aware of the conspiracies in the sense of “wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” You are supposed to be aware of the earthly impact of your actions in pursuit of divine favor, not so much to act on the awareness, but so you aren’t surprised at how folks respond. You cannot witness of God’s glory to people you ignore. Don’t shrink from crazy wild exuberant obedience to the Lord, but also be well aware of how the rest of humanity views it as crazy. You don’t even need to calculate your next move based on a good grasp of human nature so much as be aware of the various factors God might want to add to the formula.
We are servants, ever ready for whatever God throws at us. We are obliged to be fully aware of everything our feeble minds can grasp. Seek His face to improve your understanding, largely by subjecting your mind to the spirit-Spirit dominance. Never assume your knowledge of something requires a specific response. Be ready to respond, but be prepared to suffer the sorrows of watching people torture themselves, or even watching them torture others. Not every human wrong is your business beyond simple awareness. This is what ruins our Christian witness, sticking our nose in where it doesn’t belong. We are not saving this world; we are advertising God’s ownership. He’s already said He won’t save this world, but plans to destroy it. We should never assume we know what’s best for someone else, because we should never assume God has shown us what they need in order to hear His call.
We know only what we need for ourselves — if that. If we do not change our cultural instinct to jump into the big middle of things, we shall continue flailing uselessly against mere symptoms and never treat the actual disease.
Satan is the Enemy, not the people he uses.
