Francis Berger

Those Who Instill Fear Always Aim to Manipulate

8/30/2026

I have been in my current position at a university for just over a decade. Every year the institution hints that it may close the department I work in.

The reactions of the department heads for whom I have worked over the years have been uniform and predictable—general panic followed by the vigorous need to prove the department's worth by increasing revenue flows, improving results, raising efficiency, and innovating ideas and methods.

So, over the years said department heads dedicated themselves to increasing revenue flows, improving results, raising efficiency, and innovating new ideas and methods.

After achieving all of this, they confidently presented the results to the institution leaders who, after a few months of seeming satisfied with and placated by the progress, once again began muttering direct threats of having to dispense with the department.

It’s like clockwork. And it works, year in, year out.

And it's been the same at nearly every place I have ever worked.

The department I work in will never be safe. It must perpetually prove itself, day in, day out, or cease to exist.

Nothing it has done or will ever do will be enough. It’s all about instilling and activating survival instincts grounded in fear.

I have learned to be insouciant about such matters by reminding myself that those who instill fear always seek to manipulate.

The same holds for those who insist that fear must form the basis of any personal relationship with the divine.

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The Only Thing I Miss About Living in Canada

8/26/2026

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I spent most of my formative years and early adulthood in Canada, a country in which I never really felt "at home" nor particularly liked all that much.

Of course this had nothing to do with my being born in the United States, where I also lived and worked for nearly a decade as an adult. Although I preferred America to Canada, I can't say I really ever felt at home in the U.S. either.

I also lived in Germany for a while (felt like a stranger the whole time), spent nearly a year in England (not enough time to feel at home but I very much doubt I would have ever felt at home there regardless of how much time I happened to remain there), and now reside in the northwestern part of Hungary, the country of my heritage.

Hungary has been my home for over a decade, and it will likely be the country I die in; all the same, that "at home" feeling has yet to materialize here.

It doesn't seem like I will ever really feel "at home" anywhere in this mortal life.

So be it.

Anyway, of all the countries in which I have lived, I disliked Canada the most.

In fact, the only thing I miss about the Great White North is its indie pop and rock scene, which has produced some real gems as far as songs go, like this one by Alvvays, an indie band from Prince Edward Island.

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Denying the Development of Human Consciousness While Acknowledging That People No Longer Fear God or Hell

8/20/2026

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There is a line of thinking that posits that society and the world in general were far superior when people feared the eternal punishment for transgressing God’s laws. The prospect of eternal roasting in hellfire not only kept most individuals in check but also served as the glue that held society together morally and ethically.

The thinly veiled implication within this line of thinking is easy to discern—society will continue to go to hell in a handbasket for as long as people reject the idea that they could suffer the same fate individually. Thus, the only way to get society and the world back on track is for people to obey God’s laws again for the rational reason of avoiding eternal agony and torture.

What strikes me about the above is the unacknowledged acknowledgment that people in the West no longer think about God or hell in the same way that their hell-fearing ancestors did. I mean, yes, the blatant change in consciousness about how people understand God and hell is acknowledged, but it is generally not regarded as a real change in consciousness per se—more like some sort of blatant disobedience, rebellion, or falling away.

Recognizing the general indifference to and lack of fear of hell that modern people exhibit as a genuine change in consciousness would devastate all arguments supporting the return of hell-fearing as the only real hope for society. Such recognition would amount to an implicit admission that it will likely never occur.

And it is not as if modern people in the West are fearless. Far from it! People today are the most fearful horde of humans the world has ever seen. We live in dread of everything—failing health, aging, plagues, viruses, the sun, sex, taxes, poverty, people, and public speaking, to name but a few. At the same time, this chickenshit mob of humanity displays virtually no fear at the prospect of burning eternally in hellfire for transgressing God’s laws.

You can utilize almost anything to strike fear in modern Westerners, but striking the fear of God into them seems infeasible if not impossible.

I interpret this development positively rather than negatively. Modern Westerners need to rediscover God, but it needs to happen through love, not fear. Fear may have served some positive purpose in the past, but it cannot do so anymore. Fear has become the chief weapon of those who oppose God and Creation. As such, it cannot be wrenched from them and employed for “good” purposes, neither individually nor en masse.
The only way back to God is through love.

How will that work? I’m not sure, but I will turn to my teaching experience for an analogy.

There are generally three kinds of students:

Those who don’t like learning and studying but do it primarily to avoid negative consequences and punishment.
Those who may or may not like learning and studying but are motivated mostly by avoiding punishment/bad grades by getting good grades and receiving praise.
Those who learn and study not out of fear of consequences or the desire for praise but because they genuinely love to learn.

I get the sense that Christians today should aspire to be like the students in the last group when it comes to their Christianity. Set aside the reward-and-punishment scheme and generate the love of God internally through agency and freedom, largely independent of external factors.

Note added: The student analogy is quite weak, but I hope people will be able to draw some connections from it as it pertains to human consciousness.

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We Recently Experienced a Striking Example of Christian Unity, But Few Christians Want to Acknowledge It

8/6/2026

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Now and then, some Christian blogger or other dons his Deus vult armor and issues a stentorious rallying cry for this-worldly Christian unity and the exalted cause of defending “Christendom”.

The motive driving such noble sentiments usually stems from the desire to reinstate, maintain, and defend a bona fide Christian society; the kind that is attainable if, and only if, the broad spectrum of Christian denominations and sects set aside their quibbling differences and courageously unify around a common, this-worldly goal.

As gallant and majestic as all of that sounds, those who promote the idea of Christian unity and alliances for the sake of achieving the unified mission of resurrecting Christendom fail to recognize or accept that Christian denominations and sects around the world did unite in a common cause not that long ago—the church closures during the dreaded birdemic plague.

All in all, 2020 was a banner year for Christian unity.

For the first time in my living memory, Christian institutions of every stripe and color—Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, even Mormon (you know, those Christians few Christians accept as Christian)—unified around a common objective—the closure of churches and the suspension of services.

They willingly shut their doors and in unison declared themselves to be “nonessential services.” They abandoned their congregations for weeks, months, years, or, in some cases, forever (some churches never reopened due to the financial burdens they brought upon themselves by closing in the first place).

Though not many Deus vult types want to admit it, the 2020 church closures represented a highwater mark of this-worldly Christian solidarity.

Few times in the history of Christianity had the variegated mosaic of Christian institutions found such an uncontroversial common social cause to take up in the name of Jesus.

Thus, I ask the following of those who continue to petition for Christian unity and Christian alliances around a common, this-worldly social goal--

What makes you think any future Christian alliance or display of unity would be any different than the unity the churches displayed in 2020?

Seriously.

The Deus vult types should understand that in this place and time the most dangerous this-worldly ideas for Christians to hold are not the ones that divide them, but the ones upon which they all agree.

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A Masterclass in Cinematography

8/5/2026

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I recently watched the 2024 Netflix series, Ripley, which proved to be a fairly faithful adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, originally published in 1955. Regardless of what you may think of the story or the subject matter, the 2024 series directed by Steve Zaillian deserves a watch for the masterful cinematography alone.

It has been a while since I have watched anything so visually stunning. Each shot and scene is carefully crafted to the point of near perfection. Lines, frames, shadows, foreground-background, patterns, composition, contrast, light—the visuals comprising every shot and scene add layers of depth and meaning that are nearly too much for the mind to absorb. Brilliant stuff.

Highly recommended for the cinematography alone.

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Un-Obedience — What Christianity Needs Most

8/1/2026

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William Arkle offers a lucid interpretation of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, which I first encountered via Bruce Charlton’s Arkle-focused blog:

When Abraham "passed" his test over his son's killing, to my mind he only got 60% for obedience.

If he had said to God, "This is not like you, I won't do it", he would have got 100% for unobedience.

What arises from this conflict is unobedience, which is a condition beyond the relatively automatic stages of disobedience or obedience, and has become autonomous and calculated and chosen.

Dr. Charlton adds the following:

Arkle explains that un-obedience to God arises from the black and white of disobedience and obedience being in conflict.

In other words, what God most wanted was not that Abraham would obey, or disobey, a specific instruction that he regarded as coming from God; but that Abraham would instead recognize that the real and proper question was at an altogether larger and more general scale.

Neither disobedience nor obedience was required, but un-obedience.

For me, the above addresses the inherent limits of the free will doctrine and free will choosing, indicating that the exercise of true agency and freedom often extends beyond selecting from options to obey or disobey, particularly in circumstances when neither obedience nor disobedience are optimal.

Instead of agonizing over whether to sacrifice his son, Abraham should have realized that God’s apparent command was inconsistent with God’s Goodness.

Rather than obey or disobey the command, Abraham should have understood that a benevolent God would not burden him with such a monstrous and murderous request and should instead have unobeyed the command by questioning God’s motives and pressing for an explanation.

Disobeying God at every turn is unquestionably sinful and self-destructive; however, resolute, unquestioning obedience to God via external avenues of authority or insistence upon one's own "finite" limitations are also self-destructive in the sense that it diminishes the self to the level of an unthinking, impersonal, uncreative, automatic, and largely passive automaton.

Thus, obedience cannot be the highest ideal or virtue to which a Christian can or should aspire, particularly if such obedience stems from a fear of God’s power.

Christianity is (or should be) a religion of self-realization, not self-negation and self-destruction.

A big part of that self-realization involves knowing and loving God and working in harmony with his Creation through love.

It is only through that that we can build up or uncover the sort of self needed to affirm Jesus’s Second Creation and accept his gift of everlasting life in Heaven.

As Dr. Charlton concludes:

God's ultimate wish for us is that we should transcend obedience to become an un-obedient participant, and eventual collaborator, in God's creative work.

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Creation From Chaos

7/16/2026

2 Comments

I featured Ivan Aivazovsky's painting Chaos a couple of years ago. At the time I thought it did a good job depicting creation from chaos rather than creation from nothing.

Chaos - 1841

Of course, I don't believe Aivasovsky shared that assumption. Nor do I think he implies such through the painting.

Nevertheless, it is interesting that he called the painting Chaos, leaving The Creation as somewhat of a subtitle.

Aivasovsky revisited the creation theme nearly a quarter of the century later with his The Creation of the World.

Stylistically, the painting mirrors his Chaos. I see it as yet another depiction of creation from chaos rather than creation from nothing; however, I have no doubt that Aivazovsky would vehemntly contest such an interpretation.

The Creation of the World - 1864

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Old Age is Wasted on the Old

7/10/2026

1 Comment

Youth is wasted on the young.

Everyone has heard the phrase and understands what it expresses. The seemingly limitless vitality, energy, vigor, time, curiosity, bravado, and optimism inherent in a stage of life are also tainted by a glaring failure to capitalize on those attributes due to a lack of experience and wisdom, resulting in squandered opportunities, misguided pursuits, and wasted time.

Although I acknowledge the general truth within the expression, I don’t like it much. Those who utter the expression rarely, if ever, wish to communicate anything spiritual. Thus, the phrase comes off as too cynical, too regret-infused, too this-worldly, and too hedonistic in focus.

There’s also the whole obsession with youth, but I won’t go into that here.

How about this instead?

Old age is wasted on the old.

Now there’s a phrase that could offer immense spiritual benefit to many, provided they sincerely consider the spiritual implications.

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von Stuck's Most Romantic Painting

7/5/2026

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Franz von Stuck is usually referred to as a Symbolist painter, which he is. However, he easily qualifies as a Romantic painter as well and is sometimes classified as such (Late Romantic).

His Falling Stars is a good example of his Romantic side on full display. A simple, straightforward painting depicting von Stuck and his wife under a night sky pulsating with stars, the work gently captures the enchantment, and wonder inherent in an experience of the sublime.

Sternschnuppen (Falling Stars) - 1912

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Two More Wild Hunts

7/2/2026

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Yesterday, I featured a Franz von Stuck painting called The Wild Chase (The Wild Hunt).

The following two renditions of The Wild Hunt of Odin (Åsgårdsreien) by Norwegian Peter Nicolai Arbo (1831 -1892) offer clearer examples of what Odin's (Wotan's) wild hunt was about.

Excerpted from Wikipedia:

"The Wild Hunt of Odin is based on the Wild Hunt motif from folklore. In the Scandinavian tradition, the Wild Hunt is often associated with the god Odin. It consists of a terrifying procession that hurl across the sky during midwinter and abduct unfortunate people who have failed to find a hiding place.

In the Norwegian material, figures other than Odin who have been named as leaders of the hunt include Guro Rysserova, a supernatural female being with a mysterious male companion.[1] The folklorist Christine N. F. Eike has argued that the motif might have its origin in European traditions where young, unmarried men wear masks and move in processions during Christmastide."

1868

1872

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