I'm concerned about what's going on in Europe. Very concerned. Consider the following developments. Europe is coalescing. It will soon form a union that is larger than the U.S. in population and comparable in economic strength. Already there is the "euro," which is now the world's valued currency (significantly more valuable, at the moment, than the dollar).

Now add to that the irreligion. Europe is not only turning into an unchristian "nation," but an anti-Christian one. The Vatican has said as much. Last week, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger warned of the continent's "radical secularism." "We are in a very grave moment," said the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, addressing a meeting in Rome.

The kind of secularism Ratzinger mentioned has a tendency for overt antagonism to Christians -- so much so that in the same breath the Vatican has suggested the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe include "Christianophobia" as an evil to be monitored in the future. That Vatican alarm -- and it is alarm -- springs in large part from the decision of the new European Union to exclude mention of Europe's Christian roots in its new constitution. It also springs from the EU's disapproval of Italian politician Rocco Buttiglione, a conservative Catholic and confidant of Pope John Paul II, for a position in the European Union's cabinet because he called homosexuality a sin. "In Europe, it is fashionable to be anti-Christian," he noted.

The "United States of Europe" (there are currently 25 nations that belong, and four applying, from Bulgaria to Croatia and Turkey) is rising as a superpower at the same time that other political and technological advances are causing general globalization.

We are heading to huge alliances that could one day form what long has been predicted as a "one-world government." Unlike the United States, however, it would not be founded upon God.

This is dangerous because a single power would be just that -- exceedingly powerful and let us add without precedent, leaving the door open both to a nefarious leader and religious persecution. Earlier this week China and Russia announced a joint military exercise. China and Russia! Could they one day find a kindred spirit in the EU?

"I see a time of great persecution coming, which will drive Christianity all but underground in the West. I believe that this will primarily take the form of a social and economic persecution, where Christians will be ridiculed for their faith and pressurized into making it a purely private matter," wrote Jayne Ozanne, a senior adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury, this past week.

Which brings us to the microchip.

The microchip?

What used to be considered an exercise in paranoia is now a rapidly forming reality: companies and governments are developing microchips that can be inserted under human skin and contain information about that individual. In the wrong hands -- such as a large global force -- such information would translate into control.

A microchip is part of the computer revolution. It's a tiny device that can be accessed through what is known as "radio frequency identification." In short, radio waves interact and read information from the chip, including, potentially (through "global-positioning" satellites), the whereabouts of the product -- or person -- tagged with it.

Theoretically, if a person can't speak, medics could scan that person and quickly be linked to a database that would provide crucial information like the patient's identity, blood type and drug allergies. Sounds good. And it may be okay in extreme cases, but when we get to tagging people, we get to the point where we begin to have control over them. Information is power, and information about where everyone is and the medical or other data concerning that person are another issue.

Just a couple months ago the United States government (under President George Bush, who is supported by many evangelical Christians and conservative Catholics opposing such technology) gave its okay for use of microchip implantation in humans.

Already thousands of animals from livestock to pets in both North America and Europe have been "microchipped." Some governments have current proposals to mandate chips in dogs. Certain people are already clamoring to have the insertion, including reporters. Will we see the day when a president urges everyone to get a microchip like it's a vaccination?

Future versions could have all the information about a person from medical records to bank accounts.

That information is in a chip the size of a Tic-Tac under the skin. And it can be scanned like you scan a bar code.

Some would like to see technology get to the point where we just stick out our hand instead of a debit card. It goes hand-in-hand with a cashless society (which likewise grants a central power more control). USA Technologies, Inc. announced last week that it has invested in an extensive product line of cashless technology that can capitalize on the Federal Reserve finding that electronic transactions had outpaced check payments for the first time. "The Federal Reserve's findings support our vision of a wireless networked, cashless global marketplace," said a company executive.

Meanwhile, there is iris recognition -- machines that can identify you by scanning your eyes -- and governments want to install face-recognition cameras on highways as well as insert microchips into passports or national identification cards.

Currently the main player in all this, Applied Digital Solutions of Palm Beach, sells a separate system for tracking and monitoring called Digital Angel -- which consists of a device similar to a wrist-watch and a module worn on the belt. It is marketed to the families of Alzheimer's patients because it can locate loved ones anywhere in the world -- from any personal computer.

Sounds good, does it not? One is tempted to get it so that children cannot be kidnapped.

Into the wrong hands, however -- in the hands, for example, of a global entity -- such information is dangerous.

We live at a time when globalization is nearly unstoppable. There are the multinational corporations. There is the U.N. There are the banks. There are international courts. There are global treaties. There are even agencies attempting to globalize religion.

It is time for our vigilance.

Whether or not you believe in the "mark of the beast," the bottom line is that microchips will dehumanize humans, and anything that dehumanizes -- that makes us a number (see Revelation) -- is not in the Plan of God.

12/16/05