Day 5: The Maze with No Exit

Pulpit Puppet Masters and the Curated Gospel Reclaiming the freedom to choose in an age of manufactured faith

Yesterday we examined the mise-en-scène. The stage. The production. The carefully arranged elements designed to shape your response before you even realize you’re responding.

But the production doesn’t begin when you walk through the church doors.

It begins long before. In the information you consume. The algorithms that feed you. The options you think you’re choosing from. The questions you’ve never thought to ask because no one ever showed you they existed.

Today we go deeper. Into the maze itself.

The Illusion of Infinite Choice

We live in an age of unprecedented access. Endless streams of content. Infinite scrolling. A world of information at our fingertips.

And yet.

We are more herded than any generation before us.

The grocery store offers forty varieties of cereal, but they’re all made by three companies. The news gives you left and right, but both channels are owned by the same conglomerate. Social media promises connection with anyone, anywhere, but the algorithm decides who you actually see.

Choice without options isn’t freedom. It’s a maze designed to feel like a meadow.

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” — Matthew 7:13-14

Jesus spoke of two gates. Two ways. But what if someone built a thousand false doors around the narrow gate? What if they made the narrow way invisible by flooding the landscape with paths that all curve back to the wide road?

You can’t choose what you’ve never been allowed to see.

The Architecture of the Maze

The maze isn’t accidental. It’s engineered.

Every search you make is filtered. Every feed is curated. Every recommendation is calculated to keep you engaged, not to show you truth. The algorithm doesn’t care about your soul. It cares about your attention. Your clicks. Your time.

And attention is worship.

Where you place your attention, you place your allegiance. What captures your gaze captures your heart. The architects of the maze know this. They’ve built a system designed to capture and direct the worship of billions.

“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” — 2 Corinthians 4:4

Blinded minds. Not by removing information, but by burying it. Not by banning the gospel, but by making it invisible in a flood of noise. The light is still shining. But the maze is engineered so you never recognize the exit.

Curated Reality

Consider what you believe about the world.

Where did those beliefs come from? Which sources shaped them? Who decided those sources would reach you?

You didn’t choose your information diet. It was chosen for you. By platforms optimizing for engagement. By publishers optimizing for profit. By systems optimizing for control.

This is the pseudoreality. Not reality itself, but a constructed version of it. A simulation fed to you through screens and speakers and carefully managed narratives.

The word “pseudo” comes from the Greek pseudos, meaning false or lying. Jesus used it to expose the devil’s nature: “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

This is the wizard behind the curtain. The architect of the maze. He doesn’t just tell lies. He is the father of them. Every false path, every counterfeit option, every door that leads nowhere traces back to him.

That’s the stakes. Eternity hangs on this. The maze isn’t just uncomfortable. It’s fatal. And everyone in it, whether building the walls or wandering the halls, is headed to the same end.

And everyone who propagates those lies or follows them is culpable. The builders and the wanderers alike. Both are trapped in the maze of deception, headed toward destruction. Not just in this life, but in the one to come. For all eternity.

This is why finding the Way, the Truth, and the Life in this life is so imperative. There is no second chance on the other side of the grave. No exit interview. No appeal. The maze ends in fire for those who never found the Door.

Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). He is not one option among many. He is the exit from the maze of lies. But if the maze only offers you lies dressed as choices, you’ll never recognize the Door standing right in front of you.

“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” — Colossians 2:8

Taken captive. That’s the language Paul uses. Not convinced. Not persuaded. Captured. Imprisoned. You can be in a cage and not know it if the cage is all you’ve ever seen.

And the cage has one rule: don’t ask how you got here.

The Questions You Can’t Ask

Every system of control has forbidden questions. Not questions that are explicitly banned, but questions that simply never occur to you because the framework doesn’t allow for them.

In the pseudoreality, certain questions have been made unaskable:

What if the categories I’ve been given are false? What if left and right are both wrong? What if the experts are compromised? What if the information I trust has been curated to keep me compliant? What if there’s a door I’ve never been shown?

These questions feel dangerous. Uncomfortable. Conspiratorial, even. And that’s by design. The maze is built so that questioning the maze feels like madness.

But Jesus was constantly asking forbidden questions. Questions that exposed the systems of His day.

“Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” — Mark 3:4

The Pharisees had no answer. The question broke their categories. It revealed that their system, for all its religious language, was a cage that trapped people rather than freed them.

The Spirit of God asks forbidden questions. He shines light into corners the system wants kept dark. He reveals doors the maze was built to hide.

The Religious Maze

The maze isn’t just cultural. It’s religious too.

Within Christianity, options have been curated just as carefully as anywhere else. You can choose Calvinist or Arminian. Charismatic or Cessationist. Traditional or Contemporary. Conservative or Progressive.

But what if all those options exist within the same cage? What if the debates that consume so much energy are themselves a distraction from questions the system can’t afford to have asked?

Questions like:

Is this church producing disciples or consumers? Is this gospel the gospel of Jesus Christ or a gospel that serves the institution? Is this worship directed at God or at the production? Am I being transformed into the image of Christ, or managed into compliance?

These questions threaten the maze. So the maze offers you endless debates about secondary issues to keep you from ever reaching the primary ones.

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” — 2 Timothy 4:3-4

Notice: they accumulate teachers. Plural. Options. Choices. A marketplace of voices telling them what they want to hear. The illusion of freedom in a cage of their own construction.

The Narrow Way Hidden

Jesus said few find the narrow way.

Not because it’s hidden by God. But because it’s been buried by man.

The narrow way requires surrender. The maze offers self-improvement. The narrow way costs everything. The maze offers comfortable religion. The narrow way leads to a cross. The maze leads to a conference.

The wide gate has been dressed up to look like many gates. A thousand options that all lead to the same destination. And the narrow gate has been made invisible, not by removing it, but by surrounding it with so many counterfeits that finding it seems impossible.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” — John 14:6

One way. One truth. One life. In a world of infinite options, this exclusivity feels offensive. Limiting. Narrow-minded.

That’s because it is narrow. Deliberately so. The narrow gate doesn’t accommodate your preferences. It doesn’t offer customization. It offers Christ, and Christ alone.

The maze hates the narrow gate because it can’t be co-opted. It can’t be franchised. It can’t be managed into a system. Jesus Christ is not an option among options. He is the exit from the maze itself.

Breaking Out

How do you escape a maze you didn’t know you were in?

First, you have to see it.

The first step out of any deception is recognizing the deception. This is painful. It means admitting you’ve been fooled. It means questioning things you thought were solid. It means sitting with the disorientation of not knowing what’s true.

But this is where the Holy Spirit does His work. He is the Spirit of truth. He guides into all truth. Not into better options within the maze, but out of the maze entirely.

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” — John 16:13

The Spirit doesn’t offer you more options. He offers you truth. And truth is a person, not a position. A relationship, not a religion. A door, not a debate.

Second, you have to want out.

This is harder than it sounds. The maze is comfortable. Familiar. The pseudoreality feels like home because it’s all you’ve known. Leaving means loss. Disorientation. The death of certainties you built your life on.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” — Matthew 16:24-25

Escape costs everything. But staying costs more.

The Door That Finds You

Here’s the mystery: you don’t find the narrow gate. It finds you.

You can’t navigate your way out of the maze through superior intelligence or better research. The maze is too vast. The deception too thorough. Left to ourselves, we wander in circles, calling our cage freedom.

But Jesus Christ is not waiting passively for you to stumble upon Him. He is actively seeking. Actively calling. Actively breaking through the walls of the maze to reach the lost.

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” — Luke 19:10

Seek and save. Not wait and watch. He came. He comes still. Through His Spirit, through His Word, through moments of disruption when the pseudoreality cracks and something real shines through.

The Paraklētos is calling. In Greek it’s translated “Comforter,” but remember what we uncovered in Day 4 (if you haven’t read it, go back). He is not the One called to your side to make you comfortable. He is the One who calls you to His side. Out of carnality. Out of deception. Out of the maze. He convicts. He confronts. He calls. And He is calling you now. Into truth. Into Christ. Into freedom you didn’t know existed.

Will you follow?

Damascus Road Moment

The maze surrounds you. The options have been curated. The questions have been managed. The exits have been hidden.

But there is a door. And He’s calling your name.

STOP

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling. — Isaiah 30:15

Stop scrolling. Stop consuming. Stop accepting the curated feed as reality. In the silence, the maze loses its power. In the stillness, you might hear a voice that doesn’t come from the algorithm.

LOOK

“Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in your faith.” — 1 Peter 5:8-9

Look at the walls around you. Who built them? Look at the options you’ve been given. Who curated them? Look at the questions you’ve never asked. Why not? The lion doesn’t just prowl outside the maze. He designed it.

LISTEN

“Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” — Joel 2:12-13

The Holy Spirit breaks through every algorithm. He speaks truth that no platform can ban. He reveals Christ, the door that leads out of every maze. Listen for the voice beneath the noise. He is calling you out.

LIVE

“Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” — John 17:3

This is eternal life. Not a better version of this life. Eternal. The question isn’t whether the maze is comfortable. The question is whether you’ll die in it. And suffer through it for all eternity.

Today, identify one belief you hold that you’ve never questioned. One source you trust that you’ve never examined. One category you accept that you’ve never tested against Scripture. Take it to the Word. Take it to prayer. Ask the Spirit of truth to show you what’s real.

The maze has no exit you can find on your own. But there is a Door. And He’s been looking for you longer than you’ve been lost.

Tomorrow: Babylon Baptized — The curated gospel and the domesticated Christ

Day 4: The Mise-en-Scène

Pulpit Puppet Masters and the Curated Gospel Reclaiming the freedom to choose in an age of manufactured faith

Yesterday we traced the strings back to Nicaea. We saw how the stage was built. How the church traded prophetic freedom for imperial favor. How the first compromises became institutionalized.

But a stage is just a platform. Wood and nails. What matters is the mise-en-scène.

It’s a French term from theater and film. It means “placing on stage.” Everything arranged within the frame to create a specific effect. The lighting. The set design. The positioning of actors. The costumes. The movement. The atmosphere. Nothing accidental. Everything intentional.

Every element placed to make you feel something. Believe something. Do something.

The question for today: What has been arranged to shape your faith?

The Theater of Religion

The connection between theater and religion runs deeper than you might think. It’s woven into the language of Scripture itself.

When Jesus confronted the Pharisees, He called them hypokritēs. We translate it “hypocrites,” but that translation has lost its edge. In Greek, hypokritēs meant a stage actor. Someone who puts on a mask. Someone who assumes a character that isn’t their own.

Jesus wasn’t just calling them phonies. He was calling them performers. Actors playing a role for an audience.

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.” — Matthew 6:1

That phrase “to be seen” is theaomai in Greek. It’s the root of our word “theater.” Jesus is literally warning: don’t turn your faith into a theatrical performance.

And yet.

Look around at what modern Christianity has become. The production value. The lighting rigs. The fog machines. The carefully timed musical crescendos. The pastor emerging from backstage at precisely the right moment.

When did worship become a show?

And when worship becomes a performance, who are we really worshiping?

This is the question we avoid. Because the answer implicates everyone on both sides of the stage.

The Oldest Rebellion

Satan’s fall was a worship problem.

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high… I will make myself like the Most High.'” — Isaiah 14:12-14

Five times: “I will.” Satan wanted worship directed toward himself. He wanted to sit where only God should sit. He wanted the attention, the glory, the position that belongs to the Creator alone.

This is the original mise-en-scène. Satan arranging himself at the center. Positioning himself as the object of worship. Demanding what only God deserves.

And this spirit has never stopped seeking a stage.

How many church leaders have built platforms that direct worship toward themselves and the ministries they’ve created? How many have positioned themselves at the center of productions designed to gather followers, build influence, accumulate power?

They may use the name of Jesus Christ. They may sing songs with biblical lyrics. But when the lights are positioned to highlight the pastor, when the production exists to build his brand, when the ministry becomes an empire with his name on it, who is really being worshiped?

The spirit behind it is ancient. It’s the same “I will” that fell from heaven.

Why We Go Along

But here’s what we don’t want to admit: we go along with it.

We fill the seats. We follow the celebrities. We share the content. We buy the books. We attend the conferences. We make the pilgrimage to the megachurch.

Why?

Because we’re worshiping our own gods too.

Belonging. Influence. Position. Power. Provision.

These are the altars we bow before. The production offers us something we want. Community without accountability. Identity without transformation. Blessing without sacrifice. A seat at a table that feels important.

John named these gods plainly:

“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” — 1 John 2:16

The lust of the flesh: provision, comfort, the meeting of our desires. The lust of the eyes: image, appearance, the aesthetic of success. The pride of life: position, influence, being somebody.

And then the verdict:

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” — 1 John 2:15

Where these are, the love of the Father is not.

We can call it Christianity. We can dress it in worship songs and biblical language. We can feel deeply moved by the production. But if we’re bowing at the altar of our own desires, we’re not worshiping Him.

The production continues because we keep buying tickets.

The Arranged Experience

Walk into most churches today and you’re walking into a carefully constructed experience.

The parking lot greeters. The coffee bar. The lobby music. The countdown clock. The lighting shift as service begins. The worship set building to an emotional peak. The video announcements. The sermon illustration timed to land with the graphic on screen.

And the pastor? Positioned center stage. Elevated. Spotlit. The focal point of the entire production.

This is mise-en-scène. Every element placed with intention. Nothing left to chance. Everything arranged to produce a specific response.

But here’s the question no one asks: Who is the director? And what response is being elicited?

Watch the altar call. Listen to the invitation. What are people being asked to do?

“Make a decision.” “Raise your hand.” “Repeat this prayer.” “Take a step.”

But is anyone being called to meet Jesus Christ?

There’s a difference between making a decision and encountering the living God. A decision is something you manage. An encounter is something that undoes you. A decision can be added to your existing life. An encounter with Jesus Christ ends your existing life.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” — John 3:3

Born again. Not improved. Not upgraded. Not added to. Born again. The old passes away. Everything becomes new.

But that’s not what most productions are offering. The response they elicit isn’t surrender, it’s sign-up. Not sacrifice, but membership. Not death to self, but elevation of self as the owner of the grace and mercy you’ve been given.

“God has a wonderful plan for your life.” “You’re a child of the King.” “Walk in your destiny.”

All of it delivered before the cross has done its work. Before the old man has died. Before you’ve lost anything at all.

The curated gospel invites you to receive grace without being broken by your need for it. To accept mercy without mourning over what made mercy necessary. To join the system, attend the services, follow the program, and call yourself Christian without ever being born again.

Jesus told Nicodemus, a religious leader, a man who had the system mastered, that none of his credentials mattered. He needed to start over entirely. Be born again. From above. By the Spirit.

Nicodemus asked, “How can these things be?”

That’s the question the production never wants you to ask. Because the answer requires something no mise-en-scène can manufacture. It requires the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit, not the manipulation of a sound engineer or the charm of a charismatic pseudo-preacher.

The response being elicited in most churches isn’t rebirth. It’s recruitment. Not transformation, but transaction. And the transaction is designed to benefit the system as much as the sinner.

The Invisible Arrangers

The mise-en-scène didn’t emerge from nowhere. It was designed. Taught. Funded. Distributed.

Follow the trail backward.

Seminaries shape pastors before they ever reach a pulpit. What gets taught in those classrooms determines what gets preached in those sanctuaries. Who decides the curriculum? Who funds the institutions? Who sits on the boards?

Denominations determine acceptable belief. Step outside the boundaries and you lose your credentials, your network, your livelihood. The boundaries aren’t set by Scripture alone. They’re set by committees, by tradition, by institutional self-preservation.

The Protestant church was born in protest against this very thing. Luther nailed his theses to the door because Rome had made itself the gatekeeper of truth. But five centuries later, Protestantism has built its own gatekeeping system. Elitism and credentialing have replaced anointing and calling. One is led by man, the other by God. And God has always chosen the foolish things to confound the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27). He called fishermen, not Pharisees. Tax collectors, not theologians. But today, try standing behind a pulpit without the right degree, the right ordination, the right connections. The system protects itself.

Publishing houses platform certain voices and silence others. The books that fill your church bookstore weren’t selected by the Holy Spirit. They were selected by marketing departments, by sales projections, by what moves units. There is an approved narrative. An acceptable range of voices. A curated menu of ideas.

This is the same system many pastors preach against. They decry the control and propaganda of mainstream media. They warn their congregations about narratives shaped by corporate interests and hidden agendas. And then they platform the religious version of the same thing. Same gatekeeping. Same approved messaging. Same silencing of inconvenient voices.

This is the leaven of the Pharisees. Jesus warned us about it (Matthew 16:6). It spreads quietly. It puffs up the whole loaf. And it does not produce the Bread of Life. It produces processed food that makes everyone fat and spiritually sick. Full bellies. Starving souls. Silenced Spirit.

Conferences elevate certain teachers into celebrity status. Who decides who speaks? Who pays for the stage, the lights, the production? Follow the money and you’ll find the puppet masters. These gatherings have become merchandise bazaars. The product being traded is your flesh, what feels good, what keeps you coming back and funding those who produce it. It’s bizarre that we’ve forgotten what Jesus said: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1). The food He offers is real food. It costs you nothing to receive and everything to follow. But there’s no profit margin in the Bread of Life. So they sell you something else.

The script is written before the pastor opens his mouth. Shaped by the seminary that credentialed him. Bounded by the denomination that ordained him. Approved by the publisher that platformed him. Amplified by the conference that celebrated him.

The mise-en-scène is arranged before you walk through the door.

You think you’re making choices. But you’re choosing from a menu someone else prepared. The seminaries, the denominations, the publishers, the conferences. They are the invisible arrangers. And the production they’ve built has one purpose: to keep you seated, satisfied, and spending.

But never transformed.

The Two Wisdoms

How do we discern the difference? How do we know when we’re being fed the Bread of Life versus processed food in biblical packaging?

James drew the line clearly:

“This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.” — James 3:15

There are two operating systems at work in religious spaces: the wisdom from above and the wisdom from below dressed in Sunday clothes.

The wisdom from above is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17).

Without hypocrisy. There’s that word again. Without the mask. Without the performance. Without the stage actor playing a role for an audience. The wisdom from above has no use for theater.

Notice what comes first: pure. Not polished. Not professional. Not persuasive. Pure.

There is nothing pure about performance. Performance is manufacturing at its finest: the careful assembly of atmosphere, emotion, and expectation to produce a predetermined response. The fog machine isn’t anointing. The lighting design isn’t glory. The emotional crescendo timed perfectly to the altar call isn’t conviction. It’s manipulation with a music budget.

This is the spirit of this age at work. Paul called it “the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). It’s the spirit of merchandising. Buying and selling in the temple. Trading in human souls (Revelation 18:13). It packages the sacred and sells it back to you at a profit.

But the Holy Spirit cannot be marketed. He cannot be manufactured. He moves where He wills (John 3:8). He convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8).

He is the Paraklētos. We translate it “Comforter,” but we’ve softened the word beyond recognition. The traditional reading is passive: one called to your side. He comes to you. But consider the reverse: one who calls you to His side. He calls you out of your carnal state, out of your flesh, to abide in Christ. The conviction of sin isn’t Him coming down to make you comfortable. It’s Him calling you up, out, away from where you are.

“Come out from among them and be separate” (2 Corinthians 6:17). “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8). “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4).

The Spirit doesn’t coddle you in your carnality. He calls you out of it. He convicts. He confronts. He draws you toward Christ, not toward your own comfort.

The comfort comes from abiding in Christ, not from the Spirit making your flesh feel better. The comfort is the fruit of obedience to the call, not a sedative for disobedience.

Marx called religion the opiate of the masses. He was wrong about Jesus Christ, but he saw something real. He saw religion being used to pacify, to dull, to keep people compliant in their condition rather than transformed out of it. The tragedy is that compromised Christianity has become exactly what he accused it of being. Not because the gospel is an opiate. But because the production replaced the gospel with one.

One spirit fills seats. The other empties tombs.

The Doctrine Beneath the Doctrine

The Hebrew word chaneph is often translated “hypocrite” in the Old Testament, but its root meaning is different from the Greek. It means to cover, to hide, to becloud. The pollution underneath is hidden by what’s placed on top.

This is what happens with inherited doctrine. The appearance is orthodox. The language is biblical. But underneath, there may be human tradition, institutional convenience, or outright error. All covered by the stage dressing of religious authority.

“Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” — 1 Samuel 16:7

The Hebrew word for “outward appearance” is mar’eh. It means the thing seen. The view presented. The mise-en-scène.

Man looks at the mise-en-scène. God looks at what’s underneath.

Doctrines of Demons in Designer Packaging

Paul warned Timothy:

“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.” — 1 Timothy 4:1

We imagine such doctrines arriving with obvious horns and a sulfur smell. But the most effective lies wear choir robes.

The doctrine of prosperity theology: where God becomes a vending machine, faith becomes a transaction, and the poor are blamed for their poverty while the preachers fly private.

The doctrine of therapeutic moralism: where sin becomes dysfunction, repentance becomes self-improvement, and the bloody cross becomes a symbol of God’s support for your journey.

The doctrine of experientialism: where feelings validate truth rather than truth governing feelings, where “I felt God say” carries more weight than “It is written.”

The doctrine of easy believism: where the narrow gate has been widened into a turnstile, where “just believe” replaces “take up your cross,” where the cost of discipleship has been marked down to nothing and the product matches the price.

These didn’t emerge organically from communities reading Scripture together. They were developed, packaged, and distributed through the infrastructure we’ve already traced: seminaries that embraced cultural accommodation, publishers that prioritized market appeal, conferences that rewarded crowd-pleasers.

The demonic genius is this: the congregation never sees the script because they mistake the performance for spontaneity. They think the pastor just “felt led” to preach that message. They don’t see the publishing contract that shaped his reading, the conference circuit that shaped his style, the denominational expectations that shaped his boundaries.

The assembly line keeps running. The converts keep counting. The stones keep sitting in pews, unmoved, unchanged, unconverted, but confident. After all, they said the prayer. They have the paperwork.

And the system calls it revival.

The Director’s Chair

Every mise-en-scène has a director. Someone calling the shots. Someone deciding what you see, what you feel, what you’re led to believe.

In the theater of modern Christianity, who sits in the director’s chair?

Is it the Holy Spirit? The Paraklētos who calls you out of carnality and into Christ? Is He directing, or is He listed in the credits while someone else calls “action”?

Is it Scripture? The Bible claims to be living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12). Does Scripture direct your church experience? Or has it been reduced to a proof-text, a decoration, a few verses on the screen to legitimize what was already planned?

Is it Jesus Christ Himself? He said He would build His church. The gates of hell would not prevail against it. But is He building, or has the construction been contracted out to consultants, growth strategists, and brand managers?

The curated gospel has a director, but it’s not the One it claims.

Tearing Down the Set

So what do we do?

The Bereans show us the way. When Paul came to them with the gospel, they didn’t simply accept his mise-en-scène. They examined everything against Scripture.

“Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these things were so.” — Acts 17:11

Every day. Not once. Not when it was convenient. Every day they tested what they were told against what was written.

This is how you tear down the set. You stop accepting the arranged experience. You start examining everything against the Word.

“To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.” — Isaiah 8:20

The law and the testimony. Scripture. The unchanging Word in a world of shifting stages.

Jesus Himself modeled this. When Satan came with his temptations in the wilderness, each one was a mise-en-scène. A carefully arranged presentation designed to elicit a specific response.

And Jesus responded the same way every time: “It is written.”

Not “I feel.” Not “My tradition says.” Not “The experts agree.”

It is written.

The Word cuts through every production. It exposes what the lighting was meant to hide. It speaks when the music stops.

The Damascus Road Collapse

Consider Saul on the road to Damascus.

He had the ultimate mise-en-scène. Trained by Gamaliel. Credentialed by the Sanhedrin. Authorized by the high priest. Everything arranged to confirm his position, his righteousness, his mission.

Saul had every credential the system could offer. He was the product of the religious production of his day. Elitism and credentialing at their finest. And it was leading him to persecute the very Body of Christ.

He was so certain. So arranged. So directed.

And then a light. Brighter than the sun. Brighter than any stage production.

A voice cut through the carefully arranged narrative. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

In that moment, the set collapsed. The lighting changed. The script was torn up. Every credential became worthless. Every position crumbled. The fishermen he would have dismissed, the tax collectors he would have despised, they had what Saul’s degrees could never give him: an encounter with the living God.

Everything Saul thought he knew, everything he’d been arranged to believe, everything he’d been positioned to do, all of it came crashing down.

And a new Director took over.

“Who are you, Lord?”

That’s the question that tears down every mise-en-scène. Not “What should I believe?” Not “What does my tradition say?” Not “What will my community accept?”

Who are you, Lord?

When you ask that question honestly, when you’re willing to let the answer overturn everything you thought you knew, the production ends and relationship begins.

Damascus Road Moment

The stage has been set for your faith. The lights are positioned. The script is written. The cues are marked.

But you don’t have to play the part.

STOP

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling. — Isaiah 30:15

Stop performing. Stop following the cues. Step off the stage long enough to ask whether any of it is real. In the silence, away from the music and the lights and the program, what remains?

LOOK

“Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in your faith.” — 1 Peter 5:8-9

Look at the mise-en-scène of your faith with clear eyes. Who arranged it? Who benefits from your compliance? What have you accepted without examination? The lion doesn’t always roar. Sometimes he directs the production.

LISTEN

“Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” — Joel 2:12-13

Hear the invitation beneath all the noise. Not the amplified voice from the stage. The still, small voice that speaks when the production stops. He is calling you out of the theater and into relationship. Will you come?

LIVE

“Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” — John 17:3

Today, identify one element of your faith that was arranged for you rather than chosen by you. One doctrine you inherited without examination. One practice you follow because of the production, not because of the Producer. Take it to Scripture. Take it to prayer. Let the true Director speak.

The set can be torn down. The script can be rewritten. But only if you’re willing to stop performing and start seeking the One who stands outside every human production, waiting to be found.

Tomorrow: The Maze with No Exit — The pseudoreality of curated options

Pulpit Puppet Masters and the Curated Gospel Reclaiming the freedom to choose in an age of manufactured faith

This is a longer teaching. A deeper dive. But it matters. Before we can name the puppet masters, we need to see how the stage was built. Stay with me.

We’ve talked about the stolen voice. We’ve seen the God who waits. Now we need to understand how the theft became institutionalized.

How did we get here?

The church that once shook empires now serves them. The faith that turned the world upside down has been turned right-side up, made comfortable, made safe, made useful to the very powers it once defied.

This didn’t happen overnight. There was a moment. A bargain. A string attached. And once the first string was accepted, others followed.

The Ancient Bargain

I’m not a church historian, but the pattern is undeniable.

In 325 AD, Emperor Constantine called the bishops of the church to Nicaea. For the first time in history, the Roman Empire wasn’t feeding Christians to lions. It was footing the bill. Bishops who once hid in catacombs now traveled on the emperor’s coin.

Think about that shift. One generation, you’re hunted. The next, you’re honored. One generation, the empire kills your leaders. The next, the emperor himself opens your council, draped in purple and gold, presiding over your deliberations.

Constantine wanted unity. A divided church was a divided empire. So he gathered the bishops to settle their disputes, and he made clear which side he favored.

The church traded persecution for position. Bishops who once faced lions now faced a different threat: losing their seats if they didn’t comply with imperial preference.

The first string was attached.

The Dissent That Was Silenced

The council debated. Voices rose. And when the vote came on the creed, seventeen bishops refused to sign. After further pressure, that number dropped to five. After threats of losing their positions, it dropped to two.

Two. Out of over three hundred.

Secundus and Theonas of Libya held firm. Along with Arius, they were declared heretics and exiled.

But what about the others? The fifteen who eventually signed? The hundreds who may have had doubts but chose silence?

Eusebius of Nicomedia signed the creed. Then he went right back to teaching what he’d always believed. He signed under pressure and kept his convictions private.

Here’s what history reveals: when the emperor was Nicene, the church was Nicene. When the emperor was Arian, the church was Arian. The theology followed the throne.

The church learned to follow power.

Let me be clear: I am not saying the dissenters were correct in their beliefs. Arius may well have been wrong about the nature of Christ. But at least they stood for their convictions. They faced exile rather than sign what they did not believe. That courage is a fruit, and fruit reveals root. There was something true at work in them, even if their doctrine was flawed.

Can the same be said of those who signed under threat and then kept teaching what they’d always believed? Which is the greater integrity: wrong conviction held firmly, or right words spoken without conviction?

Scripture lists the cowardly alongside the unbelievers, the murderers, and the idolaters. All of them consigned to the same lake of fire (Revelation 21:8). We rank sins. God does not. The bishops who signed out of fear may have had correct doctrine. But cowardice is not a small thing in the Kingdom.

They Were Not Gods

We look at the early church fathers as if they were gods, incapable of the sins we commit. We treat the councils as if they were conducted by infallible beings in perfect conditions, untouched by politics or self-interest. We should not worship them as such.

Human nature is human nature, and it has been fallen since the first man.

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind.” — 1 Corinthians 10:13

When Constantine offered power, position, and protection, those bishops faced the same temptation we face. The same temptation Israel faced.

“Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the LORD.” — Isaiah 31:1

Egypt was the old source of provision. The place of slavery they’d been delivered from. And yet, when threatened, Israel’s instinct was to go back. To trust in horses. To rely on the strength of men rather than look to the Holy One of Israel.

Would you have refused Constantine’s offer? Would you have been one of the two? Or would you have signed and kept your doubts to yourself?

This is why we cannot trust in our history. We cannot treat church tradition as if it were formed by sinless men in perfect conditions. We trust in a God who is outside history.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” — Hebrews 13:8

The councils were not perfect. The creeds were not Scripture. The men who created them were common men with common temptations, trying to articulate truth while navigating the same pull toward the power of chariots and horses that we feel today.

The question isn’t whether they failed. The question is whether we view their decisions and motivations correctly.

Let me be clear: I am not critiquing the theology that emerged. I am looking critically at the politics and power dynamics at work. The Nicene Creed has truth, but it is not truth, nor is it the inerrant Word of God. And I am not saying God was absent from church history. He was there. He moved. But He is the one we follow through history, not history itself. By discernment and being led by the Spirit, we can see where He moved people, and where He moved despite them. The Spirit guides us into all truth. Councils and creeds do not. “Test the spirits” and “hold on to what is true” applies as much to us as it did to them.

The Prosperity Trap

There’s a prayer in Proverbs that the church has forgotten:

“Keep falsehood and deceitful words far from me. Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the bread that is my portion. Otherwise, I may have too much and deny You, saying, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, profaning the name of my God.” — Proverbs 30:8-9

“Otherwise, I may have too much and deny You.”

The writer understood something we’ve ignored: prosperity creates its own temptation. When you have too much, you forget who provided it. You start saying, “Who is the LORD?” Not with your lips, maybe. But with your decisions. With your dependencies. With where you place your trust.

Jesus promised us trials. He promised tribulation. He promised the world would hate us because it hated Him first (John 15:18-19). But prosperity offers an escape from all that. A way to avoid the contempt of those outside of Jesus Christ. A seat at the table with the very enemies of God.

Perhaps this was the trade made at Nicaea. It is certainly the trade we seem to be making today.

The church gained too much. And it forgot.

But what does “too much” look like? We think of wealth in terms of bank accounts. Scripture sees it differently.

What “Rich” Really Means

James warns: “Come now, you who are rich, weep and wail over the misery to come upon you. Your riches have rotted and moths have eaten your clothes.” — James 5:1-2

James sees what we miss. When it comes to “riches”, decay works in two directions.

Riches that rot. This is internal. Spiritual. The rot happens when you replace being Spirit-filled with being self-sufficient. When human reasoning replaces Holy Spirit leading. When political maneuvering replaces prayer. When wealth accumulation for sustenance replaces sufficiency in Jesus Christ for provision.

You still look like a church. You still use the language. But the engine has changed. You’re no longer running on the Spirit. You’re running on resources. And resources rot from the inside out.

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” — Psalm 20:7

Moths that eat your clothes. This is external. The natural world devouring what we cling to. Clothes represent covering, status, identity. Moths don’t care how fine the garment is. Everything returns to dust.

The devouring nature of the world reminds us that nothing here is permanent. Status fades. Platforms collapse. Empires fall. The Roman Empire that Constantine ruled? Gone. But the church is still here. At least, whatever remains of it that didn’t tie itself to Rome’s fate.

“Rich” isn’t just about money. It’s influence. Power. Position. Platform. Access. The rich are those who have accumulated something and now have something to lose. And having something to lose changes how you make decisions.

“Those who want to be rich fall into temptation and become ensnared by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. By craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.” — 1 Timothy 6:9-10

Notice: they “wandered away from the faith.” This isn’t about unbelievers. This is about those inside the church who craved what the world offers and lost their way.

Peter asks the question we should be asking:

“Since all these things are to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness?” — 2 Peter 3:11

If everything the world calls rich is burning, what should we be pursuing? This is the richness we should be seeking. The wholeness that doesn’t rot. The wealth that moths cannot devour. Holiness. Godliness. Sufficiency in Jesus Christ.

But this isn’t what the world wants to hear. And it isn’t new.

“Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.'” — 2 Peter 3:3-4

The scoffers say nothing changes. The pattern continues. The fathers came and went, and here we are, still waiting. So why not get comfortable? Why not accumulate? Why not make peace with the world?

But Peter warns: they deliberately overlook the fact that judgment came before and will come again. The world that existed was deluged with water and perished. The world that now exists is stored up for fire, kept until the day of judgment.

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” — 2 Peter 3:9

The delay is mercy. Not permission. And the pattern that repeats in the church, the cycle of compromise and comfort, is not evidence that all is well. It is evidence that the scoffers have crept inside the walls.

The Pattern That Repeats

This isn’t ancient history. This is the pattern.

From Rome to the Reformation to right now, every time the church gains worldly power, it loses prophetic voice. Every time it accumulates influence, it protects that influence instead of speaking truth.

The warnings are everywhere in Scripture:

“If someone comes and proclaims a Jesus other than the One we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit than the One you received, or a different gospel than the one you accepted, you put up with it way too easily.” — 2 Corinthians 11:4

“I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number, men will rise up and distort the truth to draw away disciples after them.” — Acts 20:29-30

From your own number. Not outsiders. Insiders. Leaders. Bishops. Pastors.

“There will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies… In their greed, these false teachers will exploit you with deceptive words.” — 2 Peter 2:1-3

“Certain men have crept in among you unnoticed, ungodly ones who were designated long ago for condemnation. They turn the grace of our God into a license for immorality, and they deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” — Jude 1:4

“See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, which are based on human tradition and the spiritual forces of the world rather than on Christ.” — Colossians 2:8

Human tradition. Spiritual forces of the world. This is what captures the church. Not persecution. Prosperity. Not lions. Influence.

“They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD.” — Jeremiah 23:16

The pattern repeats because human nature doesn’t change. The temptation to trade prophetic freedom for worldly position is the same today as it was in 325 AD.

The Strings We Accept

If the pattern keeps repeating, something must be holding it in place. Something keeps pulling the church back to the same compromise.

Money, influence, access, respectability, tax status, platform. These are the obvious strings.

But the strings aren’t just political or financial. They’re spiritual.

Behind every puppet master is a spirit. Behind every curated gospel is a spirit.

We’ve been talking about exchanges. Truth for a lie. Creator for creature. Prophetic freedom for worldly position. Glory for idols.

Every exchange leaves a mark. You become what you worship. You bear the image of what you serve.

This is what Revelation is pointing to when it speaks of 666:

“This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.” — Revelation 13:18

It calls for wisdom. Understanding. Calculation. It is wise to try to understand who the puppets are and the mark they leave.

We wait for chips and scanners, watching for some future technology. But the mark is simpler and more terrifying than that. Not a machine. Not a technology. Man.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him… And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” — Genesis 1:27, 31

Six is the number of man. Created on the sixth day. 666 is man, man, man. Humanity elevated. Humanity worshiping itself. The image of God rejected for the image of self. The creature in the place of the Creator.

The mark of the beast is the world’s image stamped on those who conform to it. You don’t need a chip to take it. You take it when you bear the image of the world while claiming Christ’s name. When your church runs on human reasoning instead of Holy Spirit leading. When you trade the conviction of the Holy Spirit for the approval of the crowd. When you follow the spirit of this age instead of the Spirit of God.

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world.” — 1 John 4:1

Every spirit leaves a mark. The Holy Spirit marks those who belong to God. The spirit of this age marks those who belong to the world.

The church at Nicaea wasn’t just making political calculations. They were choosing which spirit to follow. Which image to bear. And every generation since has faced the same choice.

Which spirit marks you?

What We Traded Away

The mark doesn’t appear out of nowhere. It’s the result of an exchange. Something given. Something taken. Something lost.

“They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise!” — Romans 1:25

The exchange. Truth for a lie. Creator for creature. Freedom for strings.

This is the pattern throughout Scripture:

“My people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols.” — Jeremiah 2:11

“They exchanged their Glory for the image of a grass-eating ox.” — Psalm 106:20

“They pursued worthless idols and became worthless themselves.” — 2 Kings 17:15

Became worthless themselves. That’s the cost of the exchange. You become what you worship. You take on the image of what you serve.

And here’s the terrifying part:

“For this reason God will send them a powerful delusion so that they believe the lie, in order that judgment may come upon all who have disbelieved the truth and delighted in wickedness.” — 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12

When you exchange truth for a lie long enough, God sends a delusion so you believe the lie. You can no longer see clearly. Isaiah describes a man who makes an idol from wood, burns half of it to warm himself, and worships the other half. And he cannot say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?” (Isaiah 44:20).

The church traded away the freedom to speak truth to power. The ability to say, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). The prophetic voice that once shook empires.

And in exchange, we got position. Respectability. A seat at the table.

Was it worth it?

The String We Tie Ourselves

But before we blame the bishops of the past or the church leaders of today, we need to look in the mirror.

“These are the ones who cause divisions, who are worldly and devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God as you await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you eternal life.” — Jude 1:19-21

There are those who cause divisions, worldly and devoid of the Spirit. But you. Two words that shift the weight. We are not released from our responsibility because others have failed. Build yourselves up. Pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God. The call is to us. The responsibility is ours.

But to build up, God must first tear down. And we must sacrifice our flesh on the altar of His love, not our faith on the altar of acceptance by the world and its systems, the church and its traditions, our flesh and its desire for temporal pleasure. We are called to be living sacrifices. To die daily.

This is how the strings are cut. Come out from among them and be separate. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. The strings must be cut, for sure. But those who hold the strings in the shadows, the shadows of history, of the hypocrisy of the modern church, and the darkness in our own hearts? We are called to shine a light on them as well.

“Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” — Ephesians 5:11

Our flesh craves acceptance too. We don’t just follow compromised leaders. We want what they want. We twist the strings ourselves toward the table of compromise and away from the altar of surrender.

“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world.” — 1 John 2:16

This is why we do it to ourselves. When we are in the world and not in the Spirit, the strings don’t need an outside puppet master. The lusts of our flesh pulls. The lusts of our own eyes pulls. The pride of our position in this life pulls. We become tangled in strings of our own making.

And don’t forget: if you have not the Spirit, you are none of His (Romans 8:9).

“For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” — Galatians 5:17

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” — 2 Timothy 4:3-4

Notice who is doing the accumulating. The people. They seek out voices that tell them what they want to hear. They choose teachers who scratch the itch rather than expose the wound.

We do this. Our flesh does this.

We choose self over God. We choose the crowd over conviction. We choose the easy road over the narrow way. And then we blame the preachers for leading us astray when we were the ones who sought them out.

The puppet masters can only manipulate those willing to be manipulated. The curated gospel only sells to those eager to buy.

The Unstrung Life

What does it look like to cut the strings?

It looks like the two bishops who refused to sign. It looks like exile. It looks like losing your position, your influence, your seat at the table.

It looks like the prophets who spoke truth to power and were killed for it. Like John the Baptist, who lost his head for confronting Herod. Like Stephen, who was stoned for preaching Jesus Christ.

“To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.” — Isaiah 8:20

“No one can lay a foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.” — 1 Corinthians 3:11

The unstrung life is costly. You lose things. Relationships. Reputation. Acceptance.

But what did those things cost you? The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, the pride of your position, these are the strings that kept you tangled. These are the altars where you sacrificed your faith for the approval of men.

The unstrung life means coming out from among them. Being separate. Having no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. It means shining a light into the shadows of history, the hypocrisy of the modern church, and the darkness in your own heart.

It means dying daily. Being a living sacrifice. Letting God tear down so He can build up.

But you gain something the puppet masters can never offer: freedom. Real freedom. The freedom to obey God rather than men. The freedom to speak truth regardless of consequence. The freedom to be marked by the Spirit of God rather than the spirit of this age.

The strings promise a false security. But the unstrung life offers something better: wholeness in Jesus Christ, and Him alone.

You cannot serve two masters. You cannot walk in the Spirit and in the flesh. You cannot hold the strings and be free.

There is a road. A road where strings are cut. Where scales fall from eyes. Where the one who held the strings of religion discovers the freedom of relationship.

It’s called the Damascus Road. And Jesus Christ is waiting for you there.

Damascus Road Moment

Saul was a man with strings attached. Position. Prestige. The approval of the religious establishment. He was going places in the system.

Then Jesus Christ knocked him off his horse.

The same Jesus is asking you today: which strings are you willing to cut?

STOP

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”

But you were unwilling. — Isaiah 30:15

Stop trusting in chariots. Stop relying on horses. Stop looking to Egypt for help. Be still long enough to see what you’ve been trusting instead of God.

LOOK

“Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in your faith.” — 1 Peter 5:8-9

Look at the strings attached to your faith. Where did they come from? Who benefits from them? What would you lose if you cut them? What have you already lost by keeping them?

LISTEN

“Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” — Joel 2:12-13

Hear the call to return. Not to a system. Not to a position. Not to respectability. To Him. The God who is outside history. The God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is calling you back.

LIVE

“Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only TRUE God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” — John 17:3

Today, identify one string. One compromise. One place where you’ve trusted in something other than the Lord. Name it. And ask Jesus Christ for the courage to cut it.

The unstrung life is waiting.

This was Paul’s desire after Damascus. It should be ours:

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” — Philippians 3:7-9

This is the unstrung life. Everything counted as loss. Everything counted as rubbish. In order to gain Christ.

Tomorrow: The Stage and the Script — Who writes what you believe?