As the Ghislaine Maxwell trial enters its final stage, it is an opportune time to make a few observations about the trial as a whole. After all, at this point, the trial’s outcome and Maxwell’s fate are essentially a foregone conclusion, but the impact its outcome will have on our culture remains to be seen.

Just as I was skeptical about how much the Dobbs vs. Jackson case will really affect Roe vs. Wade or abortion in general, there are even more reasons to doubt that anything of substance will come out of this trial. For in the same way it seems that the SCOTUS wants to tinker with existing abortion laws as much as possible without having to deal with its Constitutionality, from the very beginning the Maxwell trial has been about punishing a specific criminal without addressing the culture of crime and criminality that Maxwell and Epstein were a part of.

A criminality that is both cultural and spiritual.

A Case That Stunk Like Hell

Ghislaine Maxwell was a wealthy British socialite and companion of the late Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy and powerful financier who was acquainted with and connected to, the world’s most powerful elites in business, politics, and the media. He managed their money, mingled among them, and entertained them on his private island. Underneath all of it though, Epstein was a sexual predator who abused and prostituted out vulnerable and underage girls. Maxwell is accused of playing the role of procurer and groomer of these girls, as well as being the manager of Epstein’s properties in New York and Palm Beach and his other day-to-day affairs as far back as the 1990’s.

It was Epstein’s abuse in the Palm Beach house that first drew the attention of the Miami police, and later the FBI. After a 13-month investigation Epstein was arrested for his sexual crimes in 2005, but through a controversial plea deal he plead guilty to lesser charges and received a cushy jail sentence.

However, in 2018 the Miami Herald ran a three-part investigative report that detailed the decades of abuse by Epstein and Maxwell by interviewing their victims, and so after another long series of investigations, the FBI arrested Epstein in New Jersey in 2019. He was placed in the notorious Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he was found dead a few weeks later.

After Epstein’s death, Maxwell went into hiding until she was found and arrested in July of 2020, and held in protective custody until her trial began. She is facing several counts of enticing, transporting, and trafficking minors for Epstein. Maxwell claims she is innocent and her attorney’s have stated that she is a “convenient stand-in” for Epstein and being made the scapegoat for his crimes. In this respect, she is 100% correct but not quite in the sense that she meant it.

The Gaslighting of Justice

Although it was ruled a suicide, the events surrounding Epstein’s death had all the hallmarks of a classic conspiracy theory, and thus became a social meme and a meta-narrative for our time. Was he was killed to protect the powerful people he provided “services” to?  Was he, as Eric Weinstein believed a construct used by intelligence agencies to blackmail certain powerful figures? Or were he and Maxwell part of the satanic pedophile elites running Q-Anon’s version of the world?

Whatever the truth is, it is unlikely that a full accounting of his life and deeds will ever be known (save perhaps by our great-grandchildren). Especially since all of the evidence in the case, such as the photos, videos, and Epstein’s infamous “little black book” that contained all the names of Epstein’s clients have, as of this week, been officially sealed by the Department of Justice. It is the sealing of those records that epitomizes what is so galling about the whole Epstein/Maxwell case, and is why Maxwell is correct in saying that she is being made a scapegoat.

For not only will she be made to carry the weight of her and Epstein’s crimes, but also the crimes of anyone who was a part of Epstein’s sordid world. We will be told by the same ruling elites that Epstein and Maxwell ran with, that “justice” will have been achieved and the victims can begin the healing process. Then, we will be told to drop the issue and ignore the full extent of the depravity that all of the sealed evidence points to, as it is stuffed down a memory hole.

This is the gaslighting of justice, which unfortunately most Americans will accept and rationalize as the way of the world. After all, the rich and powerful like Harvey Weinstein, Theodore McCarrick, or Andrew Cuomo have always engaged in such debauchery, and at some point they will get their just deserts (usually).

However, for those who are willing to see past the “gas light” and follow the stench of its fuel, they will see that justice will only tangentially be done, while the cultural and spiritual malady that gave rise to and protected Epstein and Maxwell will continue. Jennifer Robach-Morse of the Ruth Institute calls this the “Sexual State” which is the title of her book The Sexual State- How Elite Ideologies are Destroying Lives and Why the Church was Right All Along.

According to Robach-Morse, the Sexual State comes out of the Sexual Revolution and while groups like the #MeToo movement have tried to shed light on the prevalence of sexual abuse, their efforts have not amounted to much because “the movement’s advocates do not seem to want to surrender the intellectual framework that enables it.” As Robach-Morse has pointed out, the same left-wing feminism that supposedly empowers women, also empowers sexual predators because “sex is seen as an entitlement”.

This fact can be seen all around us with the ubiquity of internet pornography and online chat rooms that provided a means for sexual predators to find their prey, as was seen years ago in that classic NBC show To Catch a Predator.

More recently is the abuse that people in power turned a blind eye to, such as the CNN news producers like John Griffin who has been accused paying mothers to bring their underage girls to him to abuse or an (as yet) unnamed producer who’s fiancé released the vulgar texts of his predatory intents on her underage daughter.

Or even worse, the revelation that the CIA covered up pedophiliac acts committed by their own employees and its contractors. To say nothing of the complete return to the pre-Trump status quo of ignoring our southern border and sea ports, which are the largest source for human trafficking and sexual slavery in our country.

The Unholy Geist of Our Times

On a cultural level, the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell is not only an indictment of Epstein’s and her own actions but that of an entire segment of our culture that ignores the sexual abuse and trafficking that is knowingly happening all around us. Moreover, it is the underlying ideology of the “Sexual State” that empowers that abuse by grooming the hearts of people to sexually act out in small ways, so that they will be conditioned to accept or ignore more serious forms of abuse later on.

On a spiritual level though, the trial highlights the perennial choice people make all the time between walking in the light of the gospel or to wander in the darkness of, what I have called in the past, the badspel. The gospel (which comes from Old English “godspel” which means “good news or story”) is the good news that “God so loved the world that he sent his only son", Christ our Lord, as “the way, the truth, and the life” so that “whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The gospel exhorts us to “love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbor as thyself.”

Contrast this with the badspel (which in Old English would mean the “bad news”) which comes from the evil one who was a “liar and a murderer from the beginning” and who (like Epstein and Maxwell did) “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for a soul to devour.” The badspel tells its adherents that their way, their truth, and their life are determined by their will and desires and it exhorts them to love themselves as a god with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind; and to use their neighbor for themselves.

The Passion of Ghislaine Maxwell According to the Badspel of Epstein

With that in mind, as we watch the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, we are watching a kind of passion narrative play out. Not of an innocent person like our Lord who was put through a kangaroo court, but more akin to the two thieves who were condemned with him.

At this point in her life, her condemnation is assured and there is only one path ahead of her to the place of the Skull, either in this life or, as in the case of Epstein, in the next. She will be made to make her own ‘perp walk’ while bearing a cross on behalf of herself, Epstein and everyone in his “little black book”, i.e. the Badspel according to Jeffrey Epstein.

And while the gospel is the story of our Lord who died for our sins so that we might have eternal life, the badspel of Epstein echoes the intended meaning of the words of Caiaphas “that it was expedient that one man should die for the people” rather than upset the whole apple (think the Garden of Eden) cart.

Based on Maxwell’s behavior and a New York Times column by James Stewart, who was one of the last people to interview Epstein, both “seemed unapologetic” for their actions, and thus are playing the role of the unrepentant thief. Nevertheless, we cannot forget that as despicable a person as Maxwell is, there is still hope for her soul. For as much as we might not like the thought (given the cantankerous tenor of our times), our Lord is right beside her on her Via Dolorosa and exhorting her to be numbered among those whose names are written in the “Lamb’s book of life” rather than in Epstein’s little black book of death.

Finally, when it comes to the “Sexual State” and our prurient culture that tolerates the pornography and sex trafficking occurring in plain site, the Ghislaine Maxwell trial is a poignant reminder of our need to preach the gospel at all times and places, and to combat the badspel. This is the true path to redeeming our culture and offering hope and healing to all those who have suffered sexual abuse and slavery. For just as Moses exhorted the Israelites to chose life over death, Christ is calling us to make a similar choice, to walk the path of the gospel of life or the badspel of death. Take your pick.

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