Superhero: Being Who God Says You Are

By Stephen K. Moore

We live in the most anxious, depressed, sleep-deprived, addicted, overweight, divorce-prone, and angry generation ever. Those of us who embrace the good news of Jesus Christ are different, right? Unfortunately, no. All too often, believers find themselves in the same sad condition as those they want to save.

In an inspirational guide, Stephen Moore shares scripture, personal experiences, and a glimpse into societal temptations while illuminating an enlightening path that leads believers through a transformative and introspective process to shun temptation and outside influences and shine the beautiful and peaceful light of Christ onto the world. As he challenges previous misconceptions we may believe about God, society, and ourselves, Moore shares insight on how to overcome the incessant fears and programing of a strong culture to become the people God says we are, and affirms why the world needs more courageous, selfless, bold, loving, and grace-filled superheroes now to accomplish the purposes of Christ.

Superhero outlines the path to becoming who God says we are—and changing the world in the process.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: May 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781489747679

Stephen K. Moore

Stephen K. Moore earned a master’s in marriage and family therapy and is a combat-veteran Air Force pilot and a seminar speaker and writer. Moore, a former evolution-believing atheist, is now a complete God-guy. His passion is encouraging churches to be bold in reaching out in love to their communities and motivating individual followers to live boldly wherever God has placed them.

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Copyright © 2023 Stephen K. Moore.

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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®). Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Interior Image Credit: Abigail Grace Moore

ISBN: 978-1-4897-4671-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-4670-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-4767-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023909129

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 07/18/2023

CONTENTS

Read This before You Read This

Introduction

Section I: Breaking the Barriers to Being

Chapter 1Our, Not My: No Lone Superheroes

Chapter 2Perfect Fear Casts Out Love

Chapter 3If It Hadn’t Been for My Parents

Chapter 4Un-Hack Your Life

Chapter 5Privileged and Oppressed Jesus

Chapter 6Stop Medicalizing Normal Life

Chapter 7Traditions versus Traditionalism

Chapter 8If You’re Not Failing, You’re Not Trying

Chapter 9Ditch the Cape

Section II: The Antidote

Chapter 10The Ultimate Life-Giving Connection

Chapter 11The Life-Giving Mission of the Living Dead

Chapter 12Free-Floating Shalom

Chapter 13The Ultimate Superpower

Section III: The Practical Superhero Doing What God Puts in Front of You

Chapter 14Learn to Use Your Mouth

Chapter 15Being Who God Says You Are Where He Places You

Chapter 16Should We Get Political?

Chapter 17The Wrap-Up—The God Who Loves Village Life

Appendix

Endnotes

READ THIS BEFORE YOU READ THIS

When people talk, listen completely, most people never listen.

—Ernest Hemingway

Captain, Titanic—West-bound steamers report bergs, growlers and field ice in 42º N, from 49º to 51º W, April 12th. Compliments, Barr.

—Telegram message to SS Titanic

I think back to the testimony of a Holocaust perpetrator who was asked on his trial by the prosecutor, How did you come to think it was right to kill Jews? And his response was incredible. He said, It’s not that I thought it was right to kill them. I thought it was wrong if I didn’t kill them.

—James Edward Waller

D ave was uneasy.

He was a new navigator on the giant C-130 military aircraft—he was also the new guy in his squadron—and on this mission, he was suddenly feeling tense.

The six-man crew was tasked to fly to Sondrestrom in Greenland in the winter. The airbase there lies at the end of a fairly narrow fjord, with ice-covered, tall mountains on either side—and at the end. Plus, being winter, it never really gets light.

So they were in the weather, in the dark, shooting the instrument approach down the fjord. Everything had to be just right—there was no room for error.

Although these C-130s were fairly new, they had an old monochrome radar on board; it was pretty marginal and required a lot of skill and preferably experience to operate and interpret.

Being the new guy, Dave’s skill was likely suspected to be on the low side. Everyone knew these radars were pretty bad—and his lack of experience caused even him to doubt what he was seeing as they continued toward the runway.

Dave saw on the radar screen what appeared to be, directly in front of the aircraft, a mountain. He looked forward; the aircraft was on course according to the flight instruments, and the two pilots and flight engineer were very calm. They were completely enveloped in clouds, so he could not see outside—and it was dark. All seemed normal.

Dave looked back to his radar, checked the settings—still a mountain. He wondered, Am I wrong about this? If I say something, will they listen to the new guy? If I’m wrong, my reputation, which I don’t have yet, could forever be ruined. If I’m right …

Hey, guys, Dave said suddenly on the intercom, I know I’m the new guy here, but on the radar, it looks like we are flying into a mountain!

Mel, the aircraft commander, looked back, thought for a second—and then added full power and began a climbing turn. They abandoned the approach, leveled off over the ocean, and began checking the approach and the way their radios were set up.

Then they saw it.

The radios being used for the approach had been left on the wrong frequency—the two pilots were flying a perfect approach into a very large mountain.

And thanks to my very dear friend Dave having the courage to speak up, even though he was nervous about his own perception of what was happening, this crew of six who are all precious friends of mine are still alive.

It is important to note that the aircraft commander, Mel, also saved the aircraft. He was willing to be challenged in his comfort and belief that all was going well on that dark night—and that maybe a new guy with not much experience and who he did not know very well had something important to say. Mel put his pride aside and turned away from the looming disaster.

Mel was one of my first and most important mentors in the military—he changed the course of my life. But had it not been for Dave’s courage in saying something that might be hard to hear, and Mel’s humility in being willing to consider himself to be wrong, my life would have been much different than it was.

Mel had a huge positive impact on my life. I fear had he died on that mountain, my life would have been lacking something very important.

Dave made a big impact on me too; he was and still is a loving and encouraging friend.

Thank God there was a Dave to have the courage to speak up and a humble-hearted guy like Mel who listened.

Can I Be Your Dave?

If you are a believer in Christ in this age, I suspect that you may be pretty comfortable about your beliefs and the way in which you serve God. If so, I want to be your Dave.

I’m no one special—other than being an adopted child of the King of the universe like you. That is something that is given to me freely, but I perceive our loving Father has directed my heart to a particular crisis in our age.

For the body of Christ, I see a mountain straight ahead. We as the household of God are calmly and resolutely flying to our own destruction.

In this book, I’m likely to interrupt your comfortable ways and say, "Hey, I know you don’t know me, I’m new in your life, but I perceive we are heading for disaster."

In other words, I’m going to challenge some things you may believe very strongly about God, society, and yourself.

In our society today, to challenge what someone believes is to hate them. Many consider disagreement to constitute actual violence. We are used to verbally attacking one another instead of listening, questioning, and reflecting on what others have to say.

The quote in the header by J.E. Waller is what I plead with you to think deeply about. The one where a perpetrator of the Holocaust thought it was wrong not to kill Jews. This is one of the attitude types I see forming in our society, even in our churches today.

Not against the Jews but against white males, the unvaccinated, the politically conservative, the cisgender heteronormative whatever—there is an emotionally induced justification building for the mass mistreatment or worse of many based upon their assigned identity group.

This hatred is being built up by emotional, guilt-inducing rhetoric. It has been highly effective. We are moving at a very high rate of speed toward a mountain, all while feeling very virtuous about ourselves for our dramatic stances.

And I beg of you, in the name of our Lord Yeshua the Christ, to turn away. Turning away is another way to describe the biblical term repent. Please listen and consider what I perceive on my radar screen of faith. Perhaps add power and momentarily turn away from the course you are on and diligently evaluate whether or not what I have to say is true. I ask you to pray to our God and beg for humility and the grace to see whether or not there is a problem with the way you are viewing the world and God’s kingdom.

Let me be, for a few hours, your Dave.

I ask you to have the humility of my friend Mel. Consider where we are headed as God’s elect. Challenge your strongly held beliefs, if you hold them, that all is well.

Or put the book back on the shelf. My prayer is that when you impact the mountain, your death will be swift.

But for those with the courage to listen, may the kingdom of God be advanced! We have work to do.

It’s time to turn a different direction.

Repent …

One More Thing

I love teaching, writing, and preaching about our amazing Creator God. He is my continual go-to closest friend. He is my everything.

But in my attempting perhaps to be Dave for some of you, I am definitely being Dave for me.

I have shared with my home church that just about every class I’ve ever taught was something I needed myself. One of the reasons I am so tied in with God is because of his incredible patience and love shown toward me. He saved my bacon in this life and for eternity.

So yeah, this book is written to me as well—as the Spirit leads.

I pray you’ll let me be our Dave.

INTRODUCTION

Genocide Imminent? Superheroes Needed

Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

—Genesis 1:26

The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.

—Aldous Huxley

To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law.

—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I n Soviet Russia, you did not want to be identified as wealthy. Bourgeois was the term Marx and the Soviets used, but in his theory, if you were identified as a member of that group, you were less than worthy of life. Millions of Russians died as a result of being pegged into this identity group.

The Kulaks, primarily an old and large ethnic group, specialized in farming. As the Marxist ideology was tried, life in Russia deteriorated. Some hungry people noticed that the people producing so much of the food for Russia were doing better than others, so they identified them as bourgeois. The Kulaks were artificially shoved into an identity group. The locals seized their land and either put the Kulaks into forced labor camps or killed them outright. Millions of Russians starved to death in the aftermath.

Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Party in Germany followed a similar ideology. Except that they added a scientific explanation—from a correct interpretation of the writings of Charles Darwin. It became Germany’s form of the trust the science motto ringing through our media today over COVID-19 jabs, masks, hyper-cleaning, remote learning, and social distancing. Never mind that this fallacy that science is infallible and settled is wrong; trust the science is a form of another fallacy known as the appeal to ridicule. After all, you wouldn’t want to be seen as unscientific, right?

In Darwin’s fanciful views, the existing humans on earth had not only evolved but still represented several ongoing stages of progression. He and his cronies saw certain defined races (a man-made term, not a concept found in God’s Word) as inferior and less evolved than others. Of course, those with dark skin, a lot of hair, or who seemed less intelligent or not as clean were not as evolved and thus not as worthy of life.

Hitler and his ilk took this idea and worked it into a campaign of identifying Jewish people as less evolved. Eliminating them was not genocide or criminal; it was just a solution to a problem of refining the human species.

They would be doing society a favor.

To be identified as even one-quarter Jewish was more than enough to be taken to an internment camp—or straight to a death camp. He did not spare black people or Gypsies either.

Ideas have consequences.

Evil ideas have evil consequences.

The New Evil Identities

Hitler and Lenin do not have anything on our new purveyors of identity hate. Boston University professor and author Ibram X. Kendi wrote about Supreme Court Justice Amy Comey Barrett during her nomination process. Ms. Barrett has two black children adopted from Haiti. Notice the underlying identity issue that Kendi sees:

Some White[sic] colonizers ‘adopted Black[sic] children,’ he wrote. They civilized these ‘savage’ children in the ‘superior’ ways of White people, while using them as props in their lifelong pictures of denial, while cutting the biological parents of these children out of the picture of humanity.¹

This is a challenging statement to unpack, especially since he provides zero evidence for the truth of his assumption. Yet understand the position on which Kendi presumes to sit. His arrogant hatred is fully evident, but there is something even more hubristic. He knows Ms. Barrett’s (and her husband’s) motives for adoption.

He also knows the motive of every other white person who adopts or has adopted a child not of their own supposed identity group.

Think about that for a minute. When someone does something to you that seems wrong, you might suspect what their motives are, but can you truly know?

You might think that the person committing the offense would, and that is possible. But sometimes, perhaps often, isn’t it true that only God knows our true motives? For we humans in the midst of our pain and struggles have a virtually unlimited ability to rationalize our reasons for doing what we do and thus delude ourselves about our own motives.

Yet Kendi knows Ms. Barrett’s motives! And if you are in the identity group white, he knows your motives as well. If you are white, your motives are evil. If you are white and you deny your motives are evil, that proves you are evil.

When challenged after making this statement, Mr. Kendi, who was proudly standing in the same ideological stance as Marx, Engels, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Chairman Mao, would give no quarter. He boldly stated, It is a belief that many White[sic] people have: if they have or adopt a child of color, then they can’t be racist.²

Do you get it?

Ms. Barrett is irredeemably in the wrong because of her identity group. She belongs to the group white. And as Kendi specifies, to be white can only mean that you are racist. So her motives, being a white woman, can only be racist.

It is not possible, according to Kendi’s ideology, that Justice Barrett has a mother’s heart and wants to love and raise children who are orphaned and doesn’t care what dominant or recessive genetic traits they have for the expression of melanin. Because she is white, her motives are evil (colonizing savages, etc.).

This is a version of the classic Kafka trap, in which a white person denying they are racist proves they are racist. The proof of your racism isn’t anything you have done, said, or even thought; it is imputed to you. Your denial of any wrongdoing is full proof you are wrong. Someone belonging to the identity group white is simply not as worthy of the good things in life as are the oppressed groups.

Categorizing certain people into identity groups rather than as individuals was the starting point for the worst atrocities of the twentieth century—with more than one hundred million people killed in the process of identifying people who belong to certain identity groups as being worthy of different treatment.

We as a nation are well along this path with the vilification of the white identity group—a tragic and ignorant notion given what we know about what makes a white person white. There is nothing genetically significant about it—just either a dominant or recessive genetic trait for the expression of melanin. While some ignorant and hateful people in the past have lived in such a way to cause people who were perceived to be different badly, this was also ignorant and evil.

Unfortunately, we have a new crop of ignorant and evil hate-mongers.

There Is More …

We have seen in America a trend (and even more draconian restrictions in Australia and Europe) toward hostility toward the unvaccinated. The movies of old often portrayed citizens of Germany or the USSR being stopped by an agent of the state with the demand, I need to see your papers. This used to shock Americans in particular, who were used to freedom of movement, but now many in the United States are backing restrictions against those who are unvaccinated against a disease with a 99.96 percent survival rate. How did we get to that level of fear and stupidity?

The list goes on. One congresswoman suggested after the 2020 elections that the supporters of a certain presidential candidate should be put on a list—once again, a thinly veiled threat to do harm to someone who doesn’t go along with a certain narrative. Have you ever seen how many dictatorships’ elections are held in which the current tyrant is regularly reelected with 100 percent of the vote? If this congresswoman had her way, that is what we would begin to see in America. You either vote for the right candidate or face punishment.

Of course, the followers of Christ and the Jewish people have always been in a state of open season for ridicule, discrimination, and hatred.

More than one hundred million voices cry, Stop! from the mass graves dug in the twentieth century—precious souls killed primarily due to the concept of guilt by identity group. These deaths were certainly the responsibility of those who led those nations, but honestly, it was the average everyday citizen of those countries (especially in Germany, good and God-fearing Lutherans, etc.) who carried out the executions of their neighbors.

It wasn’t that the people were necessarily forced in many cases. While many initially found their homicidal duties difficult, over time, due to certain factors, most became amazingly efficient at their murderous task.³ But through the continual ideological indoctrination imposed by their governments, too many citizens came to believe that killing their neighbors because of their supposed identity distinctions was virtuous and would offer relief from much suffering.

As you might expect, due to the gravity of these events, the conditions that produced a citizenry more than willing to execute their neighbors has resulted in serious study as an attempt to prevent future occurrences—yet may I say that in the western world, we are on the precipice of yet another tragic piling up of bodies into mass graves.

Superheroes Needed Now

Sounds like the evil plot of a DC or Marvel movie, no?

The problem investigated about such human tragedies as occurred in the USSR, Germany, China, Cambodia, and other places has produced an understanding of the conditions ripe for such horrible events. Through a process known variously as mass formation, mass delusion, or mass psychosis, a large segment of the population of a country or region willingly takes part in what they would have earlier or after the fact considered unimaginable.

The societal conditions necessary to produce mass delusion⁴ are as follows:

1. Lack of Social Bonds

In a 2018 study of twenty thousand Americans, well before the COVID lockdowns, more than half of respondents reported feeling sometimes or always alone. Forty percent stated that their relationships are not meaningful and that they feel isolated.

A 2021 Harvard study showed something in more alarming and significant detail; they found that 36 percent of the respondents felt serious loneliness. The serious part is that among young adults, the rate was 61 percent!⁵

Historically, it was the elderly who were the loneliest—and that made sense. As we age, we usually retire from the workforce, losing a core friend group. Health issues often restrict a person from getting out in social settings. For many in previous generations, it was more natural for the elderly to be the loneliest demographic.

But now, the healthiest and most active social group is the loneliest?

We should be very alarmed at this new trend.

Suicidality, substance abuse, addictions of all types, depression, and out-of-control weight gain are all on the rise since the lockdowns. People who are isolated do harmful things.

Historically, isolated people are easily drawn into a mass delusion. Loneliness and a lack of connection with others is understood to be the most critical factor in large numbers of people doing horrific things to one another in a desperate and sad attempt to connect with a virtuous group.

2. Lack of Meaning Making

People who are isolated and lonely by nature come to see life as lacking meaning. Working from home and not being involved in the lives of others naturally produces a sense of futility—of not making a difference in the world. Not being embedded in a strong social network, as is typical of an office or other work setting, leads one to sense that what they do doesn’t make a difference.

This lack of meaning is becoming stronger over time. With the increasing technological nature of life, less importance is placed on people interacting, and more is done virtually through a device. Efficiency and profit have become more important than contact, grace, and kindness. Smart devices are making humans seem less needed—although this too is a delusion.

Our ever-electronically-connected state has only increased the likelihood and strength of the conditions needed for a mass atrocity under the conditions of mass delusion.

3. Free-floating Anxiety

Even before the COVID debacle, anxiety was on a significant upswing, especially among young adults.⁶ Free-floating anxiety is not something related to a specific threat that a person perceives they have control over; rather, it is a vague sense of fear and even panic about something threatening that is out of one’s control. People experiencing this anxiety feel helpless, which is very important when it comes to mass delusion.

Anxiety and depression used to be more common for people in their forties. Now it is rampant for people in their twenties. Antidepressants and psychotropic drugs are being prescribed at record levels; the people of the western world are coming completely unhinged.

Anxious people naturally seek relief from their discomfort. They are prime targets for delusion.

4. Free-floating Aggression and Frustration

This naturally follows from the first three conditions.

An isolated person desperately needing purpose, control, connection, and calming, yet seemingly unable to achieve it, becomes aggressively angry and frustrated. And this need for aggression is directed at no one in particular.

Quite naturally, people in this agitated state begin looking for an object to attach their anger to. Such people become extremely willing to participate in a cause that is identified to them as the problem.

For the Soviets, it was the wealthy.

For the Germans, it was the actions and the scientific pseudo-inferiority of the Jews.

Embracing the pathetic reasonings of the ideologues who promoted these solutions gave the isolated people a feeling of connection. They were united in a common cause to address the problems and anxiety they were facing. The cause gave hope for relief from their isolation, anxiety, uselessness, and rage.

Imprisoning, torturing, and even killing their fellow citizens and neighbors gave those embracing the mass delusion feelings of control and of agency. The work may have been unpleasant, but they thought they were doing something that would solve their problems and soothe their pain.

Their atrocities were seen as solutions.

Has the Mass Psychosis Problem Morphed into Something Worse?

I perceive that some other societal factors, two specifically, have led to an even more virulent and dangerous form of mass delusion.

First, our society, because of numerous factors, is more narcissistic than ever. Continual and increasing self-admiration and shameless self-promotion are not only accepted; they have become expected.

Our promotion of self-esteem, a thoroughly antibiblical heresy, has led to