I have seen a connection somewhat between the survival community and Christianity. I mean somewhat because what I mean here is that many who are into survivalism are professing Christians. Now without getting into a long discussion here on my belief that most people who claim to be Christians are not followers of Christ (and such a claim is Biblically based), it’s important to keep this in mind when discussing such a connection. Note: if you want to discuss this previous statement further, leave a comment or contact me – I’m happy to discuss further.
Now, let’s get this out on the table, I’m a Christian. I believe the Bible is the Word of God and I believe Jesus Christ is the only path for salvation for mankind. As I’ve grown in my faith, much over just the past year, I’ve really wrestled with my tendencies to embrace “survivalism” as most “survivalists” define it. Like many things in life, as we read the Bible, God reveals things to us and confronts us with things and makes us question areas of our life, namely things we hold onto over God himself. This is the process of sanctification and is an absolute part of life for any true believer.
Here are a few areas that I’m wrestling with:
Isolation
A main point of the survivalism crowd is isolation. Famous survivalist, Rawles of the survivalblog.com website (who is a self professing Christian) lives somewhere out in Idaho in his isolated “retreat.” I understand the reasons behind such a move, but how does a Christian reconcile this with the commandment given by Christ himself to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20)?
Hoarding
Hoarding is another major point of survivalism. While the Bible does discuss saving up for hard times to be a wise move, the Bible also clearly condemns hoarding when so many individuals have nothing. Did you know that approx 3 billion people on the planet live on $1-2 per day? Read the account of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16 for a chilling example of someone who is rich. Again, I don’t have the answer here, but this is something I wrestle with. I personally have some stored food for potential hard times, but I am personally convicted about the desire to continue to pile up more and more for myself while I completely ignore literally billions of people who have absolutely nothing. How will I answer to God when I’m called to give an account for my resources (again, read Luke 16)?
I thought that this was an interesting discussion to open up to people interested in survivalism, especially since I seem to see a common inter-weaving between survivalism and Christianity – some Biblical, some maybe not so much? What do you think? Do you wrestle with these things? As Christians, it’s important to read the Scripture for what it is. We far too often twist the Scriptures to our own liking according to our culture, our desires and our wants.
I hope you will add your input to this discussion.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
God created the heavens and the earth. Do you REALLY think that if you isolate yourself from the hoardes that God will not use you to preach the Gospel? I mean, really? Just do what you have to do but continue to be willing. Maybe your purpose, your calling is not to be the maker of disciples. It may be to survive for a later time and then be the maker of disciples. Cliff Notes Version: If you are willing, God will use you regardless of how isolated. But! Only if you are willing.
Again, do you think that God won’t lead people to you that need what you have? Essentially the isolationism and the hoarding are the same thing. Hoarding Gods love in one instance. Hoarding material goods in another. BTW, the Bible never said anything against storing up for what you need and preparing for the future. What it does say is that putting your salvation in your preps is futile. “What if thy life is required of thee tonight?” This after the rich man spent all his life filling his barns thinking he would be saved. The Cliff Notes Version: Don’t think barns full of asbestos clothing and bottles of water will save your from hell. It won’t.
…also, on hoarding, hoarding by nature is not just getting a lot of stuff. It has two components: 1) a near psychotic devotion to acquiring stuff and way, way, WAY more than you would ever need. 2) not sharing it with people in need. Rawles even asks, “If the old lady down the street comes begging for food, will you turn her away?” Rawles believes that its not only necessary but it is OUR DUTY BEFORE GOD to not turn them away empty handed. In his book “How To Survive The End Of The Word As We Know It” he explains that you have to store enough food for you, your family and as many il-prepared neighbors, friends and relatives that will show up.
Bear in mind, you will be required to use the resources you have stored for the glory of The Kingdom. …and you will be glad to do it! Trust me on this. I’ve been there.
As your faith deepens, you will realize that so much of the Bible, when viewed through the lens of modern society, gets completely out of focus. What seems like compliance is really rebellion and what seems like hate is really love. Like all things good, satan attempts to trick us. With our perceptions, there is no reprieve.
I think you are right on! If you are storing food to provide for your family, you are not hoarding. You are simply making wise discussions to provide for your family. I am 53 years old and have been a Christian for 33 years. I attend a non-denominational bible church in Dallas Texas. I recently had my wake up call after doing a little bit of research. Check out these links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
http://mises.org/media/5005
Please also watch the documentary: Collapse – Based on the book by Michael Ruppert
It looks like you have a lot of content here. I will definitely be back!
As someone who is new to prepping and returning to christianity I have also struggled at times with your dilemma. I do have a retreat in the country, I do prepare for what i think will be the fall of our nation and all the ills that may come our way. As i try to put more of my trust in the lord everyday I hope that his divine guidance will set me on a path that will be the right path and reveal to me what he wishes me to do.
With that said, I feel that I or someone in my family will never be able to be used by the lord if we don’t think ahead and prepare for the future. I will look after my own first and foremost but will be willing to help the one’s who are not as prepared as i am and who may be of help later on.
prepare for the worst and hope for the best. We will need many good people to rebuild this great nation
Hello, I am a fellow Christian and I just now found your blog. I also struggled a few years ago with my thoughts and feelings concerning preparing for the change in our country and in modern society. I was led years ago to purchase a gun for self defense and acquire a permit to conceal. My wife feels the same and we both have taken many training classes locally with NRA certified instructors. We have been moving more and more toward self-reliance which to me is more about being able to respond to my own needs and not have to draw off the system thus leaving medicines and food for those who had no resources to prepare. I have also done some things to have emergency back-up power in case of temporary grid failure. Many times I asked God why these feelings were coming up inside of me. I talked with my wife about it and she feels the need also. I have noticed that I have a new level of energy about these things and how all of it can be for preserving the church as a whole. My wife and I believe that God does not expect nor desires for His church to be removed from this earth and we are that church. While we live and seek God’s face as David did we invite Jesus into our hearts and can be Jesus with flesh on to those around us who are in need. Many needs are coming up in the near future and one of the most important is spiritual. Those of us who have given their hearts and lives to Christ Jesus can be living road signs for others who are seeking a refuge from the impending storms.
I do agree that we can take something from our bounty and share with others whether it is food, time, money or wisdom. Many in this country (USA)either choose to ignore or are blind to what is happening politically, morally and spiritually and choose to do nothing. Some of our neighbors may not have the means to put up extra food or buy water filtering supplies that is why it is important for us who have awoke because of God’s call in our spirit, to learn how to make home made charcoal filters for water, learn how to utilize solar power to cook food. Share our talents with one another in the building and construction areas. Share science, food production methods, how to properly handle guns and how to reload ammunition when your able. The point is sharing, if our hearts are open to sharing from what God has enabled us to acquire then we are not closed off. As long as we continue to at least make room for God in all we do we are at the ready to hear His voice in our prayer time, in our children’s laughter, in our dreams and visions. We are one through Christ Jesus. We are his church. It must survive, we must survive, we must put on the helmet of righteousness and cloak of truth. Be true to who you are and you are then being true to who He is in you.
I have tried to involve my neighborhood in the ‘self-reliance’ concept but nobody seems to believe that a catastrophe of any kind, be it earthquake, storm, emp, solar flares, or even a breakdown in society can or will possibly affect them — how short-sighted! I have offered to show them how to grow food – but I can’t get past the political hawks in the neighborhood. So, I’ve just decided that we will do this on our own and with our one neighbor who is a like-thinker. Now, should something occur??? I have stocked up and would be happy to share with those senior citizens who are not capable of the hard work or financial strain of stocking the necessities. I hope I don’t sound cold – I’m not. But I’ve tried to involve others – they just can’t see past their noses and their politics!
I have recently, myself and my wife, been attending a small group for church. I have talked to the elders & pastor, some feel as I do. But the majority believe if you prepare for the down fall of our society, it is hoarding, and that it is wrong. How ever I believe as long as it is in your heart to share what you have stored with those in need, it give’s you the chance do it in christ name. I found in prov.6-6-11 God would not want us to sit with folded hands, waiting for some one else to take care of our need.s. Our society has led us to think we are intitled a lot of the thing,s we would need to survive. But I believe that God has always supplied our need,s. Even when we have to plant, harvest,and prepare the Blessing,s God has furnished for our survival. Please forgive my comp. eliteracy. hope some one understand,s
I am a Christian struggling with the same issues. I feel I should be more prepared for the possible collapse of the grid. For my family’s sake also.
However, Christ wants us to be in the world enough to evangelise it. How do we do this if we are waaaaay out in the boondocks on our self-sufficient farm? Currently I preach the gospel publicly on a regular basis, but I wonder how to continue to do so if I get off the grid…
Blessing in Jesus,
kerusso777
The time is closely approaching when Christians will be persecuted by all. Churches will be burned, christians hunted down, and imprisoned/executed. The time is spoken of in the Bible. The great falling away and great coming unto christ. As christians, we must prepare our families spiritually/physically. We must protect our christian brothers/sisters/children as best we can and lead as many non-believers to christ as we can before our time on earth is done. All christians must die and the whole world must have been given the choice to follow God before the great judgement occurs. May the love and forgiveness of the holy trinity be with all you my brothers and sisters. Spread his word and know God is with you.
Neo,
I am an Orthodox & Coptic Christian, so I also believe in traditional Church history as well as the Holy Scriptures.
1. During the Roman Empire, Christians had networks for mutual survival, since they were hunted like wild animals. I have been to the Coliseum and the Catacombs: there was nothing anti-Christian about their survivalism. Blessed martyrdom was voluntary, not mandated. Christ did not expect his followers to commit suicide in a vile society.
2. How is what you are doing any different than the Hebrew people who isolated themselves from deadly societies?
3. Are the Amish, Mennonites, Bruderhof and Hutterites wrong by “coming out from among them and being separate” and supplying their own needs?
4. Where does the Holy Scripture condemn storing for possible famine? What exactly did Patriarch Joseph do with the grain in Egypt? How did the storage ultimately help others?
5. If you are keeping yourself from hunger while avoiding gluttony, isn’t there more food ultimately available for the hungry?
6. Did Our Lord command us to feed every hungry mouth in the world? As tough as it may sound, what did he mean by “the poor you shall have always”? Isn’t that merely a fact rather than a darwinian exhortation?
7. What do Aboriginal peoples do in Winter? What do the ants do that King Solomon admired so much? Maybe store up for the winter?
As long as you do not deprive a hungry person who directly asks of you, then you are not violating Holy Scripture. In fact, if you are storing away more than you need through personal harvesting, then you are creating a potential reserve to help feed close neighbors and fellow Christians in time of famine.
Respecting our own survival, the Holy Savior is not as harsh as you may have been lead to believe, imho.
The Lord bless and keep you.
You could always try looking into the reasons why people leave christianity or religion in general.
I know that may seem to be a dealbreaker, with hell and/or lack of going to heaven and all to be worried about…but once you decide to become curious about the history of your own religion, religion in general, and seeing it for what it is and understand it’s place, those fears start to evaporate and you can more critically evaluate the importance of the consideration of some factors over others.
Far be it from me to try to convince you to leave your faith…it takes quite a while, but many people of strong faith have left it aside (even very hardcore fundamentalists and ministers) and continue to live fulfilling and moral lives of substance, if not more so, for the sake of not having arbitrary and often contradictory passages of a holy book to try to unweave and try to compare themselves to.
That is not to say whatsoever that once you’re beyond religion, that you’re free to do whatever that may have been forbidden in your religion before. Morals predate religion and exist thereafter. But much of what religion brings to the table can be unnecessarily arbitrary. At the same time many others can use whatever they want in a religion to justify whatever contradiction you might be facing (meanwhile there still usually exists a contradiction in reality regardless of some ‘justifying’ passage).
I know you’re looking for answers from others of the same basic faith for another angle to justify certain ways of survivalism, but it really depends on how far you want to define survivalism and the base level philosophy to which you want to exist by. Tough questions come to people regardless of particular faith or lack thereof. Just always try to keep your brain online for new information as it pertains to your situation, that may sway you into the more correct path than to go strictly by what a book or somebody else’s interpretation of that book might edge you to strictly adhere to.
I highly recommend watching the video on youtube called “Morality 2: Not-so-good-books” which gives a very condensed but cogent rundown of the various problems of holding to the bible.
Even if you’re offended by me even suggesting any of the above, I do intend on it to be something to take a look at and be helpful, and I respect the fact that people of faith haven’t been afforded the chance earlier in life to consider the other side of the coin they’re on and have invested so much time and energy into.
Biblical Christianity when applied to the field of economics as well as in other areas of life, provides the answers we need to solve problems as well as be the ultimate safe haven from disaster.
Hey, I just wanted to say that there are a lot of people in the Bible who lived in isolation. In the Gospels even, Jesus goes into the wilderness to get away from the crowds that follow him. His most famous sermon was on the side of a mountain! John the baptist is said to live in the desert eating loucuts and honey. Elija lived by himself in the wilderness for a very long time. That was also when God had ravens bring food to him during a famine. As for hoarding, Jesus once said that we shouldn’t worry about tomorrow. He brings up the point that flowers and animals are all cared for by God and that God is all the more willing to care for us.