This series is an update of a series of the same name I wrote some years ago. With the current craziness going on in the world, specifically in America, I felt compelled to update the information using some of the current happenings as prime examples of the power of the Separation Syndrome within the human species.

SEPARATION: To differentiate between two or more entities and separate them from each other. SYNDROME: A group of traits that characterize a condition. SEPARATION SYNDROME: The art of separating a condition from the one who exhibits the condition. An example of SS is to separate a thief from his act of thievery so that one is in no way connected to the other. “Sam a great fellow, he just steals things.” SS translation: He is good, but bad things just happen when he is around. The fact that he does the stealing and the stolen items are in his garage are irrelevant. Welcome to the new and improved Separation Syndrome world, headquarted in the United States of America.

My introduction to the social SS world took place many years ago when I read that a judge had exonerated a killer because “He lives in a dangerous neighborhood.” I had hardly gotten over that shock when another judge refused to convict a young killer because, “It was his first murder.” That was when I realized that my beloved nation was headed downward socially, and as I would later realize, spiritually. As the evening news makes clear, America’s descent into Satan’s spiritual sewer is picking up speed.

The Separation Syndrome is not supposed to be applied in a court of law. For example, the thief is supposed to be held responsible for his thievery, found guilty and punished. That is the way it once was in America. But no longer. The social aspect of the nation has followed the church into the spiritual abomination that I have labeled the Separation Syndrome.

The SS movement had already taken over the Institutional Chruch by the time of my birth in 1941. By that time everyone knew that man’s (including churchman’s) sins were caused by Adam who, according to church theology, had performed perhaps the most monumental miracle since the creation of man: HE HAD ARRANGED FOR HIS SIN GENE TO BE TRANSFERRED INTO EVERY HUMAN BEING WHO WOULD EVER BE BORN. After a thorough study of the Holy Scriptures, no thinking person would believe that Adam had that kind of miracle-working power. But a Catholic priest in Africa named Augustine said it was so. That settled the issue; case closed. Read the series on Original Sin. Key word: Original. As I have stated before, I was born into a dirt-poor sharecropper family which could not afford such luxuries as books, magazines and newspapers. The only written material to be found in our “shotgun shack” (I was born in a cotton field) was my mother’s ancient Bible. Early on in life I developed an insatiable appetite for reading. Having nothing else to read, I read the Holy Bible. I thank God that I had only His Word to satisfy my craving. Poverty made me the man I am today and I am eternally grateful for it.

The first Satanic lie I can remember coming from the pulpit was that sin in a Christian’s life was in fact ADAM’S FAULT and that Jesus died so that the sinner could be SEPARATED FROM HIS/HER SIN AS QUICKLY AS HE/SHE COULD REPENT OF IT. A corresponding lie was that I had no choice but to sin due to Adam’s miracle. Very early on God revealed to me that this was a triple lie. He revealed to me that sin was a choice and that His Son died so that I could receive Holy Spirit power to resist Satan’s temptations, and that I had not inherited Adam’s sin gene. Then later He told me that Jesus of Nazareth was a man like me and every other man, that He had divested Himself of all divine power when He came to earth, that the power He exhibited while on earth was the power God gave Him, and that the same power is available to anyone who believes and obeys Him as did Christ. I also learned that Jesus had to resist Satan’s temptations using the same power that is available to anyone who will “walk as He walked” (1 Jn. 2:6). Read Revelation 3:21. I also learned that most of what I had heard in church were lies, either totally or partially. He then arranged for me to tell the world what He had told me.

In my early adult years there appeared on television a popular comedian who was famous for explaining his sins and other mistakes by saying, “The devil made me do it.” The audience ate it up, for he was saying what they believed. This was at a time when the nation as a whole was still somewhat religious. The vast majority of the population claimed to be Christian. They enjoyed hearing from a celebrity what they believed–that Satan was the cause of their inevitable sins. By this time the church had long ago stopped blaming Adam for their faux paus and was now pointing the accusing finger at the devil. Churchman had figured out how to separate himself from the sins he repeatedly committed. The popular theory dictated that sin was not something man did, it was something that did itself to him. Man, the church believed, was a victim and Satan was the victimizer. As man had become more intelligent, he had switched victimizers from Adam to Satan. But, as they say, what goes around comes around. Today, I find that when the subject of sin arises, which it rarely does, Adam is once again the culprit. To many in the church, Satan is a figment of the imagination.

I have found that the two subjects one will rarely hear preached or written about are sin and obedience. Which is strange, because that is what the prophets, Jesus and the apostles spoke and wrote about most. Sin has become taboo as a subject because many believe that it does not exist. Obedience to the Law is also a shunned subject because, as I am told, it is impossible to obey God. Or, as one woman put it, “It’s just too much trouble to obey God.” Did not Jesus take care of all that sin business? And Satan smiles. Today, nothing is sin because everything is relative. In reality, the Bible has been discarded as the source of Truth, having been replaced by church doctrine–what God actually meant. Because of this, there is no longer an objective source of spiritual truth. John 17:17 no longer applies in spiritual matters. The Bible is no longer ground zero for making life’s decisions. Man has become his own god.

Man has become his own truth-determiner, which is exactly what Adam and Eve did following Eve’s conversation with the Serpent of Eden. Adam and Eve’s spiritual descendants are following in their footsteps. The results of that fateful decision is evidenced today on every newscast. Though the Separation Syndrome has a long history, until recently it was kept under wraps and manifested itself only in society’s shadows and behind church walls. Not so now. The work of Satan in the lives of modern day people can be seen 24/7 on television and the internet.

I will end this segment with a quote from a former U.S. president who, when caught having an affair with an intern, said: “THESE THINGS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME.” The poor fellow was an unwilling victim. He is the poster child for the Separation Syndrome Society. L.J.