The issue of leaders who fail to acknowledge Jesus as Lord, or the Trinity, came up.
The obvious example being Vox Day, who has claimed to not believe in the Trinity, and who is right in the middle of a great deal of what we see going on in the world today.
He has a logically-structured argument in an old blog post, which starts with a very specific definition of the Trinity:
"1. The Trinity is God as three divine persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial. These three divine persons are combined in one being we call God."
He then proceeds to argue that since God is omniscient (which he does not believe either), then Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not God.
I personally doubt that the nature of God is very comprehensible to us. What Jesus said was that blasphemy against the Son would be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit would not be--see Matthew 12 and Mark 3. Which strongly implies that the Holy Spirit is God.
It seems to me that the Temple layout reflects the three Persons: the Holy of Holies God the Father, the inner area where priests made sacrifices Jesus the Lamb--and also the High Priest as Hebrews tells us, and the outer areas the Holy Spirit.
At the "cleansing of the Temple" (Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19, John 2), it was the animal dealers and moneychangers that Jesus went after. I've been told they were in the court of the Gentiles. Jesus did not go after the priests or the high priest at that time, and did not enter the Holy of Holies at that time either.
Christ's actions there fit the pattern of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit being unforgivable sin--it is not only opposition to God, but also it severely hinders the spiritual progress of others. That is what Jesus dealt with first.
We are in a spiritual war, as Vox Day has also said. Maybe he has been able to get this far without much help from the Holy Spirit. I have not; there have been critical points where specific direction and help were given to me.
A smaller example: People at church reminded me earlier this week of Ephesians 2, where God the Father, Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all mentioned.
This song is haunting, although not directly applicable to my personal experience.
There's an interesting semi-parallel in Revelation 7:17 and 8:1:
"...and God shall wipe all tears from their eyes. And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour."
Some years back there were some public comments from famous authors about the Susan in the Narnia books not being present for the Final Battle and what followed. It was framed as bigotry against women and people of average morals.
Neil Gaiman's came in the form of a short story, "The Problem of Susan," which from an excerpt I found is apparently quite vile.
Gaiman has fallen out of public favor as allegations against him have begun to surface.
Two other authors were J. K. Rowling, who ought to know better, and Phillip Pullman, who also writes vile stories, I've been told.
Pastor Douglas Wilson has a lucid, sensitive, and rather long rebuttal to the Problem of Susan; link below.
My own, lesser contribution here, is that C. S. Lewis was a fan of George MacDonald, and MacDonald wrote some vivid portrayals of spiritual devolution. In The Princess and Curdie, Curdie was given the ability to discern which beast a person's moral character was descending into by holding their hand. In ...
