FaithAndDominion.com

When the US Government Gets Desperate, They'll Steal Your Money!

2009-03-17T13:43:00.000-07:00

I'm not speaking of indirect theft through taxation, bailouts, or inflation due to government interference in the real free-market. I'm talking about robbery through coercive force.

Investors and everyday wage laborers have long tried to protect their assets through the conversion of week or unstable government currencies into gold and silver. Why? For many reasons, but in the simplest terms:

Gold & silver have always been accepted world wide as a valid currency.
Gold & silver have traditionally increased in value when the dollar (or any fiat paper currency for that matter) falls due to inflation.

For these reasons, if no others, many people today are flocking to precious metals due to the current economic crisis. What many do not realize however is that twice in American history the government has invoked emergency powers and confiscated, by force if necessary, the people's gold (and at a later date silver). And what compensation do the people receive? The face-value of the coins in question. So, if you purchased an American Silver Eagle (1 troy oz of 99.9% pure silver) today you might pay almost $30 (even though the current spot price is around $12.75) and, if the US gov were to confiscate it today, would pay you only $1. And gold? A 1oz US double eagle, market value of almost $1000 would bring you a mere $50 of rapidly depreciating paper.

Don't believe me? View the 1933 executive order from your favorite Socialist and mine, FDR! So much for asset protection!

Do you really think it can not happen again?

When it comes, it will come wrapped in the flag and a solemn face. It will come with a promise that it is necessary to protect our freedom. It will come with the phrase, "I believe in the free-market, but ...." And all those who do not rush to the bank's doors, throw their gold and silver at the feet of their sovereign, while out of love for the State their hearts burst forth with adoration thanking their country for the opportunity to serve, will be labeled unpatriotic or even traitors punishable by heavy fines (possibly requiring more confiscation) and imprisonment.

Welcome to tyranny.

About Men and Presidents

2009-01-20T12:19:00.000-08:00

Given the salvific and almost messianic accolades given to President Barack Hussein Obama upon his election and inauguration, I thought it wise to share this quote in the hopes that it would bring some back down to earth. Enjoy!

(The following is excerpted from Country Squire in the White House, by John T. Flynn)

1
A Tide and a Name

THE CITIZEN WHO SETS ABOUT forming a judgment on a president—something every American citizen is called upon to do—must brush away many illusions, good ones and bad.

A president is a party leader. His own party is forever busy displaying him in a favorable light. The opposition party is equally busy blotting out these friendly colors and putting in others of a more forbidding hue. Both hire publicity men; both have powerful journals on their side. One party woos the imagination of the voter with ceaseless stories of the leader's wisdom, benevolence, courage and vision. The other as continuously exploits fictitious tales of his folly, selfishness, weakness and shortsightedness. In the end the figure that emerges is apt to be very far from corresponding with the flesh-and-blood occupant of the White House.

It is probable that no such person ever lived as that strong, silent combination of homespun wisdom and superhuman cunning known as Calvin Coolidge. The figure in the public mind was created by advertising, publicity, twice-told tales. The image that most people had in their heads and that they named Calvin Coolidge was as completely a fiction as Lydia Pinkham, Father John, Dr Munyon or any of the other characters of advertising fiction. One can get a picture of the true Calvin Coolidge— the man who really existed, not the imaginary one in the White House—by reading that delightful and wise biography by William Allen White, A Puritan in Babylon.

To be fair, however, we must recognize that much of this fiction about presidents is not the work of paid propagandists. There is the unconscious propaganda that newspapers, radio, movies and people generally carry on without plan or direction from anybody. Republican critics of Mr Roosevelt are greatly wroth at what they call the "five hundred newspaper publicity men carried on the pay rolls of various New Deal bureaus, passing out daily hand-outs to the press proclaiming the glories of the New Deal." But they seem to me unduly disturbed. It is of course true that the President has organized an immense battalion of publicity men in the numerous bureaus of the government. But it is doubtful if all this army of puffers accomplish very much for or against their chief. A far more effective force is to be found in the wholly uncontrolled, undirected build-up that takes place with very little external stimulation in the minds of the people.

The office of the president is the most powerful on earth. No sooner is a man made president than he is at once caught up in a glamorous cloud of popular esteem. The people generally pay homage to the great office. But men do not distinguish very nicely between the office and the man. And so the man himself becomes the beneficiary of the esteem that originates in the office he holds.

He moves about amid scenes of power. Senates, courts, diplomats rise at his approach. Multitudes gather to see the human being who wields such power. Everything he does, even his slightest whisper, is reported. If he speaks publicly, every radio station carries his words to every home. If he has a fine voice, like the President, the effect will be attributed to that. But we must remember that people gathered reverently around their loudspeakers to listen to the dry, rasping Yankee cackle of Calvin Coolidge coming through primitive microphones mixed with a heavy ingredient of static. If the President goes in his motorcar from one place to another, crowds gather in the streets, scores of roaring motorcycles precede and follow him, and a scene of great power and majesty is created.

Now all this may very well do the President a very great injustice and often a great disservice. It is inevitable that people get the impression after a year or two of this that the man who is president is a figure of heroic mold—a greater orator, a greater student and thinker, wiser statesman, more resourceful leader than other public men. They therefore expect him to do only wise and resourceful things. Having made a hero of him, they insist on his performing like one. They are prone to measure what he says and does, after a while, alongside this enormously exaggerated pattern of a leader. It is hardly fair to him. As a rule he is just a human being, usually honest, patriotic, intelligent and eager to do what he thinks is right and frequently as completely bewildered as any other public man. This very excess of adulation and dramatization provokes a corresponding vehemence among his critics. His supporters rhapsodize about him, calling him the greatest of all presidents. Obviously it is in the light of this estimate that he is judged, first by those who hold this estimate and second by those upon whom it is imposed. Presidents get blamed for not solving problems that no man can solve.

That is what has happened to Mr Roosevelt. His opponents point with glee to the great army of unemployed, to the rising national debt, to the still suffering farmer, to the stagnation of business and a score of other problems that remain unsettled. The President's supporters reply, and with much justice, that perhaps he did not solve these problems but that at least it must be conceded that he has tried and with the best intentions; that he has done his best in every direction; that whatever may be said of the final result, he has been on the side of the poor and the underprivileged and, even though he has not been able to bring recovery, he has brought into being a number of splendid reforms in the interest of social justice.

This is a rational argument, and any honest-minded citizen seeking light will see the basis on which it is made. But this does not correspond with the picture of the superman who, we were told, was going to bring abundance. This description of a perfectly well-intentioned man who tried to end our woes and didn't is quite different from the vision of the giant of statecraft who was going to do it. The practical student of affairs will see at once the disadvantage at which this places the President. It makes it difficult for his supporters to claim credit for a good measure of performance because they had expected and promised so much; it makes it difficult for them to defend the President as a generous and well-intentioned person when they had built him up into one of the great statesmen of all times.

We shall all do the President—this one and all to follow—more justice and we shall serve the cause of the people more justly if we recognize that we are dealing, not with a superman, but rather with an ordinary man who, for the moment, holds vast power—a plain American citizen.

In Light of the Recent Events ...

2008-09-25T20:41:00.001-07:00

(An excerpt from John T. Flynn's As We Go Marching (Doubleday, 1944), p. 161-162)

[Fascism] is, put briefly, a system of social organization in which the political state is a dictatorship supported by a political elite and in which the economic society is an autarchial capitalism, enclosed and planned, in which the government assumes responsibility for creating adequate purchasing power through the instrumentality of national debt and in which militarism is adopted as a great economic project for creating work as well as a great romantic project in the service of the imperialist state.

Broken down, it includes these devices:

A government whose powers are unrestrained.
A leader who is a dictator, absolute in power but responsible to the party which is a preferred elite.
An economic system in which production and distribution are carried on by private owners but in accordance with plans made by the state directly or under its immediate supervision.
These plans involve control of all the instruments of production and distribution through great government bureaus which have the power to make regulations or directives with the force of law.
They involve also the comprehensive integration of government and private finances, under which investment is directed and regimented by the government, so that while ownership is private and production is carried on by private owners there is a type of socialization of investment, of the financial aspects of production. By this means the state, which by law and by regulation can exercise a powerful control over industry, can enormously expand and complete that control by assuming the role of banker and partner.
They involve also the device of creating streams of purchasing power by federal government borrowing and spending as a permanent institution.
As a necessary consequence of all this, militarism becomes an inevitable part of the system since it provides the easiest means of draining great numbers annually from the labor market and of creating a tremendous industry for the production of arms for defense, which industry is supported wholly by government borrowing and spending.
Imperialism becomes an essential element of such a system where that is possible—particularly in the strong states, since the whole fascist system, despite its promises of abundance, necessitates great financial and personal sacrifices, which people cannot be induced to make in the interest of the ordinary objectives of civil life and which they will submit to only when they are presented with some national crusade or adventure on the heroic model touching deeply the springs of chauvinistic pride, interest, and feeling.

Where these elements are found, there is fascism, by whatever name the system is called. And it now becomes our task to look very briefly into our own society and to see to what extent the seeds of this system are present here and to what degree they are being cultivated and by whom.

THE SOIL OF FASCISM: ITALY, I The Bad Word

2008-02-18T14:06:00.000-08:00

excerpted from
John T. Flynn's
As We Go Marching

PART ONE

THE SOIL OF FASCISM: ITALY

I · The Bad Word

FASCISM HAS ATTAINED to the dignity of a cuss word in America. When we disagree with a man's social or political arguments, if we cannot reasonably call him a communist, we call him a fascist. The word itself has little more relation to its original and precise object than a certain well-beloved American expletive has to the harmless domestic animal it actually describes. But fascism is something more than a bad name. If we are to have an eye cocked for fascism and fascists in this country we had better be sure we know a fascist when we see one. Of course we will recognize him in an instant if he will go about in a Bundist uniform or storm trooper's black shirt. But what if he wears no such uniform, has never learned to goose step, speaks with no German gutturals or Italian gestures but in excellent seaboard English and is, in fact, a member of a patriotic American society or labor union and actually hates Hitler and Mussolini and wants them trapped, tried, and strung up—how then will we detect him?

There is a difference between a fifth columnist working in America for Hitler, Mussolini, or Stalin, and an American who would give his life for his country but would also like to see its social and economic life changed in the direction of the fascist pattern. You will get no such American to admit that what he believes in is fascism. He has other and more agreeable names for it. He would be provoked to knock you down if you called him a fascist. That is because he does not know what fascism is and makes the mistake of supposing that a fascist is one who is on the side of the Führer or the Duce. Dollfuss was a fascist and so was Schuschnigg, but neither of them was noticeably on the side of Hitler and one was assassinated and the other seized and imprisoned by Hitler. Metaxas in Greece was a fascist, but he was far from being a champion of his warlike neighbor who finally drove him from his fascist dictatorship and his country.

There are far too many misconceptions of the meaning of this explosive word. Many suppose that fascism is just a trade name for the modern, streamlined dictatorship. Hence they see little difference between the fascist Hitler and the communist Stalin. Both are dictators. They preside, however, over very different systems of society. They are despots ruling over totalitarian states, but the social structure of Russia is no more like the social structure of Germany and Italy than the State of Stalin resembles the State of Nicholas II.

Because our attention is fixed upon the element of dictatorship— which is just one ingredient of that order—we dismiss the whole thing as merely a form of gangsterism. Hence we hear such loose and superheated definitions as this: that it is a "revolt against Western culture" or "an attack upon our civilization." It is, alas, not a revolt against Western culture but a fruit—bitter and poisonous— of that culture.

We get far too much of our information about fascism from the daily reports of its dramatics—its marching black or brown shirts, its saluting legions, its posturing leaders, its violent techniques for obtaining power, its persecution of Jews, its suppression of free speech, and, finally, its inevitable adventures in the dark field of imperialism. These are the products of regimes that are built on violence; and violence is the essential weapon of every kind of dictatorship whether it be the dictatorship of the royal Louis XIV or the proletarian Joseph Stalin. It is violence and force that create the incidents and episodes that make the material of news. There are other weapons and instruments of policy in the arsenal of the fascist besides the castor-oil bottle, the torch, and the sword. What we must seek are those other instruments which distinguish the fascist dictatorship from all other dictatorships. What we must understand is that these fascist dictators are popular dictators, by which I mean dictators who, though by no means loved by the people, nevertheless hold their power through them. They are demagogic dictators as distinguished from purely military dictators. The regime includes a group of social and economic ingredients without which the dictatorships could never have been established and without which they could not have lasted so long.

There is a whole library of pamphlets, books, and orations produced to prove that fascism was caused by the Treaty of Versailles or by the greed or stupidity of Britain and France, or by the ingrown wickedness of the German or the supine flabbiness of the Italian, by anti-Semitism or munitions profiteers, by the conspiracies of business magnates or the rising hatred of the free world of the scholar. Yet fascism grew up in Italy without any push from anti-Semitism and it flourished there before it did in Germany, which is supposed to be the peculiar victim of Versailles. It has made its appearance in Greece and the Slavic Balkans as well as in "Nordic" Germany and Latin Italy and in Portugal where there were no munitions magnates to stir the broth.

You may hear any day angry discussions of the course of events in Washington. You will hear ardent New Dealers assert that the government is building a great buttress around the crumbling walls of democracy. Others tell you, with equal assurance, that the order being fashioned there is obviously National Socialism, while still others are quite as sure that it is communistic. Certainly it cannot be all these things. It is, I fear, reasonably certain that most of those who damn the present Washington regime look upon it as Red—and take Mr. Dies's revelations of the number of Communist party members and fellow travelers who have penetrated the bureaus as evidence that we are on our way to bolshevism. The fears of these critics are very much alive, and they grow in virulence. Yet we cannot afford to be in doubt about the real meaning and direction of our policies.

If we have any doubt, therefore, about what fascism is we would do well to resolve them. And the best way to do that is to examine it in the land where it began. If we will look at it in Italy, how it rose, what produced it, and what it in. turn created as a system of national life, we cannot possibly be in doubt about what it is. It was in Italy where it was first established, where it reached its full flower and had its longest experience. If we will look at it there we can isolate its essential elements. And when we do this we will perceive that its roots run deep and long through the very structure of that society; that they are roots not indigenous to Italy but are to be found in all Western societies.

What follows, therefore, is not a history of fascism or the story of Mussolini's rise to power, but rather a search for the elements of this outrageous growth in order to make a list of those elements that must be united to produce it in America.

AS WE GO MARCHING by JOHN T. FLYNN

2008-02-14T08:24:00.000-08:00

"The Senate on Tuesday approved new rules for government eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails, giving the White House much of the latitude it wanted and granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that helped in the snooping after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks." (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080213/D8UP3K000.html)

Okay, so in addition to the removal of habeas corpus, the ability of the gov. to confiscate land at will (even if it is simply to bring in more tax dollars), the government can now legally eavesdrop on any and every phone and email conversation. And all of this from our "conservative" President and Congress.

In my first post on this blog, I wrote:

America has embarked upon a path of socialism and every year she is gaining speed toward that mark. The people of America and her governmental institutions have forgotten “the Christian foundation upon which this nation is reared and the importance of its relation to the form of government established by the Constitution. We as a people, [are] allowing ourselves to become separated from the keystone of our national structure – our Christian heritage.... By omission, America [has] deflected into socialism.”[1] Our omission is that we have failed to acknowledge Jesus as Lord in all things. That includes government.

The only thing that I'd like to change about the above statement is that America has past becoming Socialist, is now full into fascism, and fast on its way to totalitarianism.

What does this have to do with Faith and Dominion, you might ask?

Everything!

No, my solution is not to take up arms and forcibly institute a Christian take over of the government. This would be a metaphysical solution to an ethical (i.e. moral) problem. Just as I discussed in my first post, the problem is with the issue of Sovereignty. In our present time the State believes that it is sovereign over all things. They are wrong, dead wrong. Only God is Sovereign. It really is that simple. Unless our nation bows the knee to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and recognize Jesus as the only true Sovereign (Matt. 28:18, Phil. 2:9-11, others), He will crush her with a rod of iron (Ps. 2).

"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan" (Pro. 29:2). The State which thinks it is God, is a fearful thing because to be God, one must have the ability to both save and destroy (James 4:12). But since the State cannot really save anyone from anything, the full force of its power is focused into the act of destroying. For God to say He is Sovereign means that His laws never change. For the State to say that it is sovereign means that its laws must forever change and even be self contradictory to prove its absolute power.

It is for this reason that I first suggest you read Sovereignty by R.J. Rushdoony, and second will begin posting chapters to John T. Flynn's As We Go Marching. As far as I know, As We Go Marching is in the public domain. If one can provide proof that it is not, I will gladly remove this and subsequent posts.

Here is the first post from the book -- the author's note:

Author's Note

THIS BOOK is divided into three parts. One is about Italy, another about Germany, a third about the United States. But actually the book from beginning to end is about the United States. It has to do with the direction in which America has been drifting and in which she now moves with accelerated pace under the drive of war. When the war ends, in what direction will she go? Toward socialism or fascism? Or into some heroic struggle to reinstate the capitalist society? What socialism is, is fairly well understood. But this is not true of fascism. And we cannot have an intelligent answer to this question unless we know precisely what fascism is.

This book is about fascism in America. The fascism of Italy and Germany is examined because that is the only way in which we can decide what fascism is. Having examined it in Italy and Germany, not to tell again the oft told story of Hitler and Mussolini but to isolate the essential ingredients of fascism, we will be in a position to put our own society under the glass to determine whether any or all of those essential ingredients are here.

Books about Mussolini and Hitler are countless. Mostly they deal with the foreign aggressions of these men and the brutalities with which they maintain their regimes at home. Those offering a sober analysis of the whole structure of the societies they have built are not nearly so numerous. I have, I believe, examined patiently all or nearly all of these volumes. I have treated them as the testimony of witnesses and I have sought to study, to sift, and to arrange these testimonies in order to make the picture as clear as possible, so that the reader may himself apply the tests to his own or any other country to identify there the fascist state or partisan.

The European war may end quickly. But we must not make the mistake of supposing that because Mussolini has been unhorsed or that when Hitler is finally destroyed this will mark the end of fascism or national socialism in Italy or Germany. Fascism, as we shall see, is nothing else than an expansion of forces and techniques in government which have been developing in Europe for decades.It is something we shall have to fight for many years to come—long after the war is over—here as everywhere. We are not fighting fascism when we fight anti-Semitism. They are quite different evils though they may be found together. We probably shall see men set about the impossible task of purging fascism of its ugly features, cleaning it up, offering us a polite, religious, democratic fascism. It is a hopeless task. But we cannot have intelligent opinions about the problem today or in the future unless we know first what fascism is. The first objective of this book, therefore, is to define it and then to search for its elements in America.

JOHN T. FLYNN
Bay side, L. I.
October 19, 1943

Biblical Self-Government

2007-09-25T10:59:00.000-07:00

Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible, or by the bayonet. —Robert C. Winthrop, Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions, 1852

Biblical Self-Government: The desire and the ability to willingly submit to God-given authority without being forced, coerced, or constantly reminded to do so.

When man refuses to be self-governed, he asks to be a slave. This sums up the whole history of mankind. It started in Eden, and it is still true, even in our country today.

When God created Adam in the Garden of Eden, Adam was to be self-governed, ruled only by God. God gave him the law by which he was bound, “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:15–17). Once Adam had received the law, it was up to him to willingly submit to God and obey His law. God did not stage guards around the tree forcing Adam to stay away. God did not place a fence around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil keeping Adam at arm’s length. Self-government is the primary means by which man was to be governed.

Go to Chalcedon's website to read the rest of my article >>

Thought Police Strike Again

2007-02-05T20:32:00.000-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 5, 2007

Thought Police Strike Again
Newest 'Hate Crime' Bill Violates Constitution: Attempts End-Run Around Free Speech

Lancaster, PA: The Constitution Party, the country's third largest political party in terms of voter registration, warns Americans that the latest federal 'hate-crime' bill introduced in the House of Representatives is a dangerous threat to Constitutionally protected rights.

H.R. 254, introduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, is another version of proposed legislation passed by the House in 2005 and the Senate in 2004. Only strong public outcry and a Republican controlled Congress kept this type of legislation from becoming law. Now that Democrats are in charge there's a tough fight ahead to keep this dangerous bill from passing. H.R. 254 would make certain types of speech a federal offense. So-called 'hate crimes' legislation is dangerous for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the blatant unconstitutionality of such laws. 'Hate crime' laws would allow federal "thought police" to interfere in the law enforcement authority of states and localities - something our founders were clear was NOT to be allowed.

H.R. 254 would require every state to pass and enforce 'anti-hate' laws. It would outlaw stating a "bias" against certain 'federally protected' groups such as homosexuals.

Constitution Party National Chairman Jim Clymer warned "So-called 'hate crime' laws could mean the Bible would be considered 'hate literature' and preaching from it would be 'hate speech' because of references to religious teachings on homosexuality or other behaviors. The Orwellian implications of these types of laws mean Bible-believing Christians could become criminals simply because they spoke out about their beliefs."

Citing a 2004 case in Philadelphia, where 11 Christians were charged under a
'hate-crimes' statute for peacefully protesting at a gay rights rally, Mr. Clymer, a practicing attorney, said "Law-abiding Americans became criminals because they exercised a right our forebears fought and died for".

"By introducing the Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) federal 'hate crime' bill into Congress for the second time, Rep. Jackson-Lee shows she's bound and determined to stifle your First Amendment Rights no matter how many times she has to make a run at it", noted Constitution Party Communication Director Mary Starrett who added: "The Constitution Party condemns H.R. 254 as an affront to our liberty. Today, ADL-inspired 'thought crime' laws are stripping nations of free speech.

"In Canada and many European countries, it is a crime to use the internet to
criticize 'federally protected' groups, such as homosexuals and Muslims. In England, two men who called Islam 'wicked' were indicted under Britain's 'hate crime' law and now face seven years in prison. Those horrors do not belong in America!"

Referring to the group behind this bill, Clymer noted: "Congresswoman
Jackson-Lee's H.R. 254 is being pushed by the same group, ADL, responsible for the British law that says truth cannot be used as a defense in court. only the complaints by members of specially protected groups who say their feelings have been hurt are being allowed. The reality of what these types of laws are doing and have done to people across the world should be a chilling reminder to Americans to oppose these laws while we still can" warned Clymer.

-30-

To interview Constitution Party National Chairman Jim Clymer on 'hate crime' legislation and other issues of vital importance to Americans, contact:
Mary Starrett, Communications Director (602) 315-6195 mstarrett@constitutionparty.com

Moved to www.chalcedon.edu/blog

2006-02-24T11:13:00.000-08:00

I have very little time to blog now days, but when I do you can read my entries at http://www.chalcedon.edu/blog.

Proverbs 3:9-10

2005-11-15T12:47:00.000-08:00

Honor the LORD with your possessions, And with the firstfruits of all your increase; 10 So your barns will be filled with plenty, And your vats will overflow with new wine.

It is difficult to read just these two verses without first making note of the context of chapter 3. The entire chapter is an exhortation of Solomon to his son. He first exhorts his son to cleave with joy to the righteous and just law of God for in obedience to it, one finds peace and long life (v. 2). This is an allusion to the 5th commandment, "Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you" (Deut. 5:16). Solomon wants his son to love the Law of God just as his father David did, who in Psalm 1:1, 2 wrote "Blessed is the man ... [whose] delight is in the law of the Lord and in His law he meditates day and night."

It is within this context that we can fully appreciate these two verses. Verse 9 is a restatement of God's Law as given in Exodus 23:19 and Deuteronomy 26:2. The command is to give God from your first fruits. By doing so you honor God with your possessions and you affirm that He is the giver of all things. In his commentary on the whole Bible, Matthew Henry writes:

God, who is the first and best, must have the first and best of every thing; his right is prior to all other, and therefore he must be served first. Note, It is our duty to make our worldly estates serviceable to our religion, to use them and the interest we have by them for the promoting of religion, to do good to the poor with what we have and abound in all works of piety and charity
(Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. III [Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company], 804)

It is also important to note that there is a promise tied to Solomon's exhortation. This promise is found in verse 10. I believe the promise is two fold. It is first a promise of abundance so that we may enjoy the fruit of our labor and give charitably to those in need. And second it is an acknowledgement that God provides the increase. History has shown us that when man fails to acknowledge God as the Almighty Sovereign over all creation, he is driven to ruin. This is true whether we are speaking of the individual, church, or nation. King Nebuchadnezzar was driven to insanity for 7 years because he refused to acknowledge God as the source of his greatness. Israel was repeatedly ransacked and finally destroyed by pagan nations because she played the harlot with other gods.

While the overbearing tax of the State is a witness to its tyranny, God's tax, the tithe, paves the road to temporal freedom.

The Holy Spirit and God's enscriptured word possess a wisdom far surpassing man's wisdom. If we pay God's tax, the tithe, we can create God's government: churches, schools, hospitals, relief agencies for the poor, and more. We can provide for godly arts, and we can create Christian arbitration courts, and so on. This was done once, and it can be done again.

The earth is the Lord's and so too is man (Ps. 24:1). Out of the increase of the earth God's government is to be financed. To by-pass the Spirit and the tithe is to depend on a humanistic state for God's Kingdom.

(R.J. Rushdoony, "The Holy Spirit and the Tithe," Systematic Theology, Vol. II [Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1994], 994-995.)

If we can trust that God will keep His promise regarding our salvation and eternal life , we can also trust that what He promised here will also come to pass.

The Continuing Legacy of Christian Reconstruction

2005-10-10T20:48:00.000-07:00

Chalcedon has just posted Mark Rushdoony's excellent explanation of Christian Reconstruction given during the Chalcedon Foundation's 40th anniversary conference. Even if you do not agree with all the points, this is the best breakdown of Reconstructionism you'll get anywhere and it destroys many of the myths, lies, and half truths floating around out there. Read it! It's worth your time.

http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/article.php?ArticleID=180

AOL Time-Warner Censors Alex Jones Websites

2005-10-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

In a nationwide blackout AOL Time-Warner is clearly attempting to shut down free speech.

Visit the PropagandaMatrix to read the entire story.

As soon as I find a way to file a complaint, I'll post it here.

Update: I called Time Warner and they told me to call AOL. So I called AOL and they told me to call Time Warner. When I told them about the run around, they said they were sure it was a technical problem and that I should call my local tech support - right, this is a nationwide blackout so they are sure it is a local tech problem. They also are trying to tell me that they can not control who I use as an ISP, so it's my fault. When I asked them who owns RoadRunner, there was a small pause and then he said AOL Time Warner, which is who I was talking to. The conversation ended very quickly after that.

When Will It Stop?

2005-10-05T22:07:00.000-07:00

"We shall have World Government whether or not we like it. The only Question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent."
-- James Paul Warburg, Foreign agent for the Rothschild dynasty on Feb. 17, 1950 speaking before the U.S. Senate

"We are on the verge of global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order."
--David Rockefeller to the United Nations Business Council in 1994

"Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will pledge with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the 'unknown'. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government."
-- Henry Kissinger

"Major Crisis" Timeline

9/11
The war on "Terror" (a blanket excuse to invade any country we wish: Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria [yes, we are now going into Syria - funny no US press about this]. It is rumored that Iran and/or North Korea are next).
Hurricane Katrina aftermath
Using US military to forcibly quarantine US cities

When will it stop?

This is the result of the complete rejection of God's Law. When man deems himself god, he may do as he wishes to whomever he wishes. Man-as-god believes in nothing except total power and he will stop at nothing to achieve it. It is written "There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy" (James 4:12). The one Lawgiver and Judge is God Almighty, the God of the Old and New Testaments. Since man-as-god can neither truly create nor truly save, he seeks to destroy to prove his divinity.

I now understand how so many German's were duped by Hitler.

Bush wants his domestic SysAdmin force-now!

2005-09-29T04:50:00.000-07:00

Bush wants to build a massive military force on our own soil (Police State anyone?). While I do not agree with every conclusion in the source article (I do not think it uncovers Bush's full intent), I really apreaciated this quote:

"Meanwhile, Bush demonstrates his continued willingness to bite off more than the GOP is comfortable chewing. He is definitely moving into LBJ range. In the end, he will outdo Reagan in his massive expansion of the federal government."

By the way, Thomas Barnett (the author of the article) is the author of a book titled "The Pentagon's New Map [for globalization]." I do not agree with his vision for the future, but he has great insights into what is going on in the world as far as the US military is concerned (the US military is being sold to other countries [in his words] as a "service"). Seems like an expensive service to me; paid for with the blood of our country men.

NEW FEDERAL "HATE" BILL MEANS FUNERAL OF FREE SPEECH

2005-09-28T10:32:00.000-07:00

The following bill not only means the death of free speech, but more importantly, it means the end of biblical preaching in America. Any pastor who is faithful to the Word of God should now be prepared to go to jail. In fact, under the new bill (if passed into law), my last sermon would land me in jail. When will American Christians wakeup? When will they realize that their "Christian" Republican party and President are a fake, a facade, a lie?

By Rev. Ted Pike

On Sept. 14, the US House of Representatives passed, 223-199, the ominous federal "anti-hate" bill, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2005. It was inserted as AMDT.2662 into the Children's Safety Act. If approved unaltered by the senate judiciary, this legislation is ready for the President to sign into law.

Here is a summary of what the bill would make law:

Although AMDT.2662 ostensibly empowers the government to assist states in prosecution of violent hate crimes, its actual effect will be much more far-reaching. AMDT.2662 will lead to enforcement of the working definitions of "hate" and "hate crimes" which are enforced by the many "anti-hate" bureaucracies in countries throughout the western industrialized world. In such countries, it is now a "hate crime" to criticize members of federally protected groups such as Jews and homosexuals. Utilizing such definitions, "hate crime" indictments have been made or are currently being pursued by Canada, England, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Australia and New Zealand. AMDT.2662 builds a foundation for a "hate crimes" bureaucracy in America, also ending free speech.

Here are some of the specially protected groups which AMDT.2662 defends:

Homosexuals. Any public criticism of homosexuals will soon be considered a hate crime, just as it was for 11 Christians under the Pennsylvania hate crime law on Oct. 10, 2004. These Christians were arrested as "hate criminals" for preaching during a huge "gay pride" rally and faced 47 years in prison and $80,000 fines each.

Women. A woman who claims her boyfriend used a sexist word against her and raped her the last time they had sex, can press charges for a "hate crime" of rape. Punishment will triple the usual penalty, about 30 years in prison.

Jews. Already the Dept. of Global Anti-semitism, being established in the US State Dept., makes it "anti-semitic" to express "strong anti-Israel sentiment" against Israel or its leaders. It also says upholding the New Testament charge that Jews killed Christ is "anti-semitic." Under "anti-hate" laws in Canada and Europe, such statements are "hate crimes" punishable by harsh fines and imprisonment.

AMDT.2662 will hasten such anti-Christianity in America as well.

ENDING FREE SPEECH RADIO

If this amendment is approved, FCC restrictions will soon descend on American talk show hosts, with lists of banned topics. Hosts will be fined or imprisoned and stations will lose their broadcast licenses, just as in Canada, if they violate these restrictions.

In Canada in Aug. 2004, "CHOI FM," Quebec City's most popular talk show station, was dissolved by the Canadian government. Its 33 employees were put out of work. Its offense? One of its talk show hosts criticized African dictators whose children were educated in Canadian universities. This was considered a "hate crime" against blacks.

If AMDT.2662 is passed, exactly the same will soon happen to broadcasters who stray from the new "politically correct" FCC guidelines. AMDT.2662 will also invite pedophiles, witches, warlocks, Satanists and even "sinners" to acquire special federal protection from those who criticize them, including pastors. In England especially, Satanists and witches are included under Britain's new, stiffer "anti-hate" law.

If passed, AMDT.2662 will provide immediate special FBI, Justice Dept. and local police assistance to protected groups that claim to have been offended. As the nation saw last October in Philadelphia, on the slightest evidence of bias, police will descend on Christians, pastors, talk show hosts and station managers, indicting them with trumped-up "hate crime" charges and exorbitant penalties.

FEDERAL TAKEOVER OF LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT

The sovereign rights of states to enforce the law as they see fit has posed a huge barrier to establishment of a federal "anti-hate" bureaucracy. Until now, the government has had to prove that such abuses as jury tampering, voter fraud, slavery, or crimes involving interstate commerce existed in states before they could meddle in state law enforcement. AMDT.2662 would legitimize as law several devious strategies to break down all barriers to federal intrusion.

AMDT.2662 asserts that if a violent bias crime within a state in any way affects interstate commerce, the federal government has the right to invade state law enforcement. This means that if a homosexual has been called a "faggot" and threatened to have his butt kicked by a gas station attendant, and as a result does not patronize that gas station whose products have come from across the state line, the federal government can intervene. Or if the homosexual buys a Greyhound ticket (vehicle of interstate commerce) to resettle in San Fransisco as a result of such threatened "violence," the federal government has a green light to take over state hate crime law enforcement in that state.

AMDT.2662 asserts that bias in states is a "relic" of slavery. This bill contends that the presence of bias-motivated violent crime within a state is proof that slavery still exists in that state. This provides the same justification for intervention that the federal government had in putting down slavery during the Civil War!

Under AMDT.2662, the government can take over local law enforcement if:

States do not have "anti-hate" laws. Sec. B (b)(2A)
States are not enforcing state and federal hate laws as zealously as the federal government wishes. Sec. B (b)(2A)
States do not produce the kind of verdicts in hate crimes trials that the federal government wants. Sec. B (b)(2D)

VIOLATING THE CONSTITUTION

AMDT.2662 flatly violates the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits government from favoring any particular group.

AMDT.2662 will give hate crimes bureaucrats control of the federal anti-hate agenda. Very quickly, via enabling legislation and judicial precedent, any pretext of respect for the rights of Christians or dissenters will dissolve, as has happened under anti-hate laws in Canada, and under Pennsylvania's ADL hate law in Philadelphia on Oct 10.

All criticism of protected groups via politically incorrect terms, such as "homosexual" or "sodomite," will become a hate crime, just as it is under British hate law. A huge number of legal precedents will continuously widen hate law jurisdiction. Courts will quickly clog with federal indictments. Staggering backups of unresolved cases will make the federal hate law, like Roe vs. Wade, virtually impossible to repeal.

Canada provides a telescope to American legislators, warning them of the legal confusion and financial exhaustion which comes to those who run afoul of hate crimes bureaucracies. Members of the senate judiciary committee are in a position now to insist that our time-tested legal system be allowed to continue to do what it has done so well for centuries: punish all crime, including "hate crime," according to physical evidence--- not according to the vagaries of "bias motivation."

National Prayer Network, P.O. Box 828, Clackamas, OR 97015

The New World Order And The Treaty of Versailles

2005-09-22T14:14:00.000-07:00

In the previous post, originally written by Dave Black, Bush senior's "New World Order" (NWO) is mentioned. However, the NWO did not originate with Bush senior. It has been building for a long time. In fact, it has been in it's present form since the days of Woodrow Wilson and the Treaty of Versailles.

I recently listened to a speech given by Dr. George Grant in 1992 where he talked about "The New World Order" which was officially set in motion at the Treaty of Versailles to end WWI. Where Woodrow Wilson and the other Western Allies, "the masterminds of the New World Order," "played at being God and rolled men like dice." All of the quotes below are from Dr. Grant's speech.

Winston Churchill said, in reference to the Treaty of Versailles, "This treaty is the sad story of a complicated idiocy in the making of which much toil and virtue has been and surely will be consumed. We are in for hell over the next few generations and no furies will stop this hell from consuming our children."

"Most of the agonies of the 20th century, the redrawing of the maps [at Versailles], can be traced back to the foolishness of the framers of this treaty. Framers who actually believed that they could fabricate some sort of novsis ordo seclorum [see the back of the $1 bill], a New Age, a New World Order. In fact, in the minutes of the meetings at Versailles, that phrase, which occurs again and again and again on all of the lips of the greatest of these great western leaders. 'We are here to forge a New World Order.' Woodrow Wilson reported back to Congress when he presented the treaty to them. 'We have the opportunity' he said, 'to forge on the anvils of our own experience the foundations of freedom and liberty for all times to come.'" George Grant said in his speech. "All of the world's modern flash points can be traced back to a genesis at Versailles."

G. K. Chesterton said "Democracy, and its impulses, are perhaps a good thing, in their place. And their place is set by the great traditions of Christian civilization. But this treaty [Versailles] departs from it all together! The foolish prejudice of egalitarian usurpers and socialist rabble-rousers has robbed us of our true democratic heritage which is justice, righteousness, freedom, responsibility, civility and Christian cohesiveness and thus it has wrought us the gross afflictions of our day and of days to come. You can't catch rabbits with drums or pigeons with plums -- a good thing is not good out of its place."

Grant also states that all the nations of the world and the traditions behind them, were "suddenly usurped in a moment, in a passion to recreate the world in the image of some vain imaginings. It's rather difficult to fathom. The world literally went through a convulsive revolution at Versailles that changed its character forever."

The great historian Phillip Johnson said that "at Versailles, the 20th century was set on its course. And its course was set on the basis of 3 great overriding principles that threw out all of the traditions of Christendom, perhaps forever." What were the three principles? They were first, bureaucracy, second, pluralism and third, faith in contemporaniaty (which also means a loss of an understanding of history - their greatest weapon in leading the sheep to the slaughter).

There is more good information in Grant's speech and you can purchase it at http://www.wordmp3.com/search.asp?item=5512 for $1.99 (it is actually part 1 of 4 of the speech, but I do not have the other parts).

You can also read this article which outlines "The New World Order Timeline" (http://www.threeworldwars.com/nwo-timeline1.htm and then http://www.threeworldwars.com/nwo-timeline2.htm). Unfortunately, it leaves out at least two very important links. The first being the Treaty at Versailles (but it does mention Colonel Edward M. House, a close advisor of President Woodrow Wilson who promotes "socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx") and the other being 1971, when Nixon converted America's economy from the gold standard to, in the words of R. J. Rushdoony, a "fascist economy" as the American people watched and applauded their new form of slavery.

Patrick Henry Was Right

2005-09-22T13:35:00.000-07:00

by David Alan Black

What does liberty mean in the twenty-first century? Can it be maintained? “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”— do these words have any relevance for a society that has largely forgotten its historical roots?

Consider the plight of the American people. We have become apathetic, even apologetic of our heritage. We have forgotten that the original intent of the Constitution was to place limits on the government’s ability to intrude into people’s lives. We have bought the Devil’s lie that humans can build a utopian heaven on earth through what Bush the Elder called a New World Order.

Perhaps more than any other Founding Father, it was Patrick Henry who tried to warn his compatriots that adopting the U.S. Constitution would eventually lead to a consolidated empire instead of a federated republic, which they had under the Articles of Confederation. If our Founders had foreseen that the Constitution would be used to overthrow liberty and establish despotism, they probably would never have ratified it. The Anti-Federalists like Patrick Henry were distrustful of a central government that was built at the price of liberty. That’s why they insisted on the Bill of Rights—to stay the hand of tyranny for as long as possible.

Henry said,

We are descended from a people whose government was founded on liberty…but now the American spirit assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation is about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire; if you make the citizens of this country agree to become the subjects of one great consolidated empire of America, your government will not have sufficient energy to keep them together; such a government is incompatible with the genius of republicanism.

Years later, Alexander Stevens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America, would say,

The great vital question now is: shall the federal government be arrested in its progress and be brought back to original principles, or shall it be permitted to go on in its present tendencies and rapid strides until it reaches complete consolidation?
More recently James Hall, writing in Etherzone, noted:
The events of September 11, 2001 were tragic, but hardly provide justification to abandon our Constitution or deploy the military to every corner of the globe. The security of the United States is not enhanced by perpetual intervention and permanent war. The Presidency is meant to lead the country, not to transform the nation into an empire.... President Bush has overseen an expansion of the federal government, that no Democratic administration could accomplish. His use of executive orders has only increased the scope and reach of central authority. Resonantly absent are any efforts to enact fundamental conservative policies, or to reverse past policies of liberal administrations. Appointments and procedures all reinforce and expand a dominant role of bureaucratic agencies over local jurisdictions. The defense of liberty has been forsaken and is the ultimate causality of the Bush legacy.

In the end, Patrick Henry and the Anti-Federalists were right: People are far too trusting of government. Henry realized what few of us are willing to admit any longer—that men are basically evil, intrinsically power-hungry, and inherently incapable of being anything but tyrants in their feeble attempts to play God.

September 19, 2005

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

Detecting Wisdom From Above

2005-09-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to my latest sermon. It was given on 8/28/05 and covered James 3:13-18.

For Once, An Honest Assessment

2005-09-21T10:17:00.000-07:00

Here is an honest assessment of Reconsturctionism, by a non-reconstructionist who attended Chalcedon's 40th anniversary Conference:

http://lawnrangers.blogspot.com/2005/09/reconstructing-recontructionism.html

YOU MUST WATCH THIS! BRAINWASHING 101

2005-09-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

You can express any opinion you want ... as long as it matches those of the academic authorities (which is Marxist by the way). Otherwise, they'll throw you in jail.

http://academicbias.com/bw101-mov.html

Thomas Jefferson: Conspiracy Theorist

2005-09-14T06:56:00.000-07:00

"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to accidental opinion of the day; but a Series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (administrations) plainly proves a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery."

- Thomas Jefferson, referring to the future of the Illuminati

FEMA Purposefully Cutting Emergency Communication Lines in LA!

2005-09-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

Broussard on Meet the Press:
" We have been abandoned by our own country."

There is something seriously wrong people!

My wife just watched the head of FEMA blame the local officials saying that the first responsibility is theirs (which is true). However, after watching the above clip, there can be no doubt that the local officials were impeded from doing their job by FEMA!

Please note: It has come to my attention that the sob story at the end of this clip, may have been embellished or falsified, which is very sad. Never the less, the other activities by FEMA have not been disputed what-so-ever.

How to be a 'True Christian'--When There's No Such Thing as Truth

2005-08-27T04:33:00.000-07:00

By Lee Duigon
MichNews.com
http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_9209.shtml

Over the past several months, angry leftist e-mailers have been instructing me in how to be a Christian. Not that the Christian faith is true, mind you. After all, no one's set of beliefs is objectively "true." Except theirs.

I don't understand why atheists and moral relativists should want to set me straight about Christianity. But I'm beginning to grasp their theology, and I can now identify some highlights of the version of Christianity they want me to believe in.

1. Make no moral judgments whatsoever--unless they're directed against George Bush, the United States, capitalism, heterosexual white males, evangelical Christians, Republicans, the Boy Scouts, and anyone or anything else targeted by the Left. Everyone's morality is "right for him," unless it's wrong.

2. The essence of Christianity is the use of coercion to redistribute wealth. If you can't find Bible verses to support this, fall back on the other Sacred Writings of the Left: the New York Times, the Nation, Marx and Engels, etc.

3. There is no such thing as sexual morality or immorality, and to say otherwise is immoral. If you have any trouble with the logic of this statement, you're not alone.

4. It's self-righteous and evil to believe that the Bible is the only authoritative source of truth, when everybody knows that Michael Moore, Joan Baez, Cindy Sheehan, and Jimmy Carter have that honor. In fact, every single Senate Democrat is an oracle.

5. A real Christian believes that all religions are equally true. For that matter, so does an atheist.

6. Defending the United States is always wrong, unless a Democrat is in the White House. You "support the troops" by insisting that they are engaged in a corrupt and immoral enterprise, dying for nothing, massacring civilians and torturing prisoners on a scale not seen since the Third Reich--and, of course, identifying the "Iraqi insurgents" (especially the ones from Syria and Saudi Arabia) as the good guys and rooting for them to defeat the U.S. Army. That's how a true Christian supports the troops, according to my advisers.

Moral relativists identify conservative Christians as immoral. The fact that logical consistency would forbid them to brand even the Spanish Inquisition as immoral is a fact they consistently ignore.

Yes, there are rational and even Biblical grounds for dissenting from America's current policy of trying to "democratize" the Arab world. There has always been a Christian calling to relieve the poor--and we might well ask what effort along those lines the secular Left has ever mounted to compare with the steadfast labors of the Salvation Army.

But when it comes to taking religious instruction from the Grey Ponytail Brigade--thanks, but no thanks.

--------------------------
Lee Duigon is a Christian free-lance writer whose work can be seen regularly at www.chalcedon.edu.

The Validity of Biblical Law

2005-08-10T11:58:00.000-07:00

By R.J. Rushdoony
Reprinted with Permission

A central characteristic of the churches and of modern preaching and Biblical teaching is antinomianism, an anti-law position. The antinomian believes that faith frees the Christian from the law, so that he is not outside the law but is rather dead to the law. There is no warrant whatsoever in Scripture for antinomianism. The expression, “dead to the law,” is indeed in Scripture (Gal. 2:9; Rom. 7:4), but it has reference to the believer in relationship to the atoning work of Christ as the believer's representative and substitute; the believer is dead to the law as an indictment, a legal sentence of death against him, Christ having died for him, but the believer is alive to the law as the righteousness of God. The purpose of Christ's atoning work was to restore man to a position of covenant-keeping instead of covenant-breaking, to enable man to keep the law by freeing man “from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2), “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us” (Rom. 8:4). Man is restored to a position of law-keeping. The law thus has a position of centrality in man's indictment (as a sentence of death against man the sinner), in man's redemption (in that Christ died, Who although the perfect law-keeper as the new Adam, died as man's substitute), and in man's sanctification (in that man grows in grace as he grows in law-keeping, for the law is the way of sanctification).

Man as covenant-breaker is in “enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7) and is subject to “the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8: 2), whereas the believer is under “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ” (Rom. 8: 2). The law is one law, the law of God. To the man on death row in a prison, the law is death; to the godly man, the same law which places another on death row is life, in that it protects him and his property from criminals. Without law, society would collapse into anarchy and fall into the hands of hoodlums. The faithful and full execution of the law is death to the murderer but life to the godly. Similarly, the law in its judgment upon God's enemies is death; the law in its sustaining care and blessings is for the law-abiding a principle of life.

God, in creating man, ordered him to subdue the earth and to exercise dominion over the earth (Gen. 1: 28). Man, in attempting to establish separate dominion and autonomous jurisdiction over the earth (Gen. 3: 5), fell into sin and death. God, in order to re-establish the Kingdom of God, called Abraham, and then Israel, to be His people, to subdue the earth, and to exercise dominion under God. The law, as given through Moses, established the laws of godly society, of true development for man under God, and the prophets repeatedly recalled Israel to this purpose.

The purpose of Christ's coming was in terms of this same creation mandate. Christ as the new Adam (I Cor. 15:45) kept the law perfectly. As the sin-bearer of the elect, Christ died to make atonement for their sins, to restore them to their position of righteousness under God. The redeemed are recalled to the original purpose of man, to exercise dominion under God, to be covenant-keepers, and to fulfill “the righteousness of the law” (Rom. 8:4). The law remains central to God's purpose. Man has been re-established into God's original purpose and calling. Man's justification is by the grace of God in Jesus Christ; man's sanctification is by means of the law of God.

As the new chosen people of God, the Christians are commanded to do that which Adam in Eden, and Israel in Canaan, failed to do. One and the same covenant, under differing administrations, still prevails. Man is summoned to create the society God requires. The determination of man and of history is from God, but the reference of God's law is to this world. “To be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. 8: 6) , and to be spiritually minded does not mean to be other-worldly but to apply the mandates of the written word under the guidance of the Spirit to this world.

Lawless Christianity is a contradiction in terms: it is anti-Christian. The purpose of grace is not to set aside the law but to fulfill the law and to enable man to keep the law. If the law was so serious in the sight of God that it would require the death of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, to make atonement for man's sin, it seems strange for God then to proceed to abandon the law! The goal of the law is not lawlessness, nor the purpose of grace a lawless contempt of the giver of grace.

The increasing breakdown of law and order must first of all be attributed to the churches and their persistent antinomianism. If the churches are lax with respect to the law, will not the people follow suit? And civil law cannot be separated from Biblical law, for the Biblical doctrine of law includes all law, civil, ecclesiastical, societal, familial, and all other forms of law. The social order which despises God's law places itself on death row: it is marked for judgment.[1]

[1] Rousas John Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law Phillipsburg, NJ: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co, 1973, p 2-4

Why We Must Preach Jesus As Lord

2005-08-08T15:09:00.000-07:00

By David Alan Black

The dawn of the third millennium has seen discernment fly out of the Christian window. This is especially true, it seems to me, in the area of evangelism. Health and wealth preachers have gained a wide audience at home and abroad, but they do not obey the Scriptures. Then there are those who preach Jesus as Savior and leave it there. What about the lordship of Christ?

The consistent theme of New Testament preaching is the lordship of Jesus Christ. Note the following examples:

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11).
“God has made this same Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36).
“For we preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord” (2 Cor. 4:5).
“As you have therefore received Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk in Him” (Col. 2:6).

Therefore, when the biblical gospel is preached, there will always be an emphasis on the lordship of Christ, not as a second act of consecration, but as the hinge upon which all else rests. Referring to the entire New Testament, Matthew Henry put it this way: “All the grace contained in this book is owing to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior; and, unless we consent to Him as our Lord, we cannot expect any benefit from Him as our Savior.” Similarly, the Willowbank Report of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelism stressed the importance of the lordship of Christ (p. 19):

We are clear that the fundamental meaning of conversion is a change of allegiance. Other gods and lords – idolatries every one – previously ruled over us. But now Jesus Christ is Lord. The governing principle of the converted life is that it is lived under the lordship of Christ or (for it comes to the same thing) in the Kingdom of God. His authority over us is total. So this new and liberating allegiance leads inevitably to a reappraisal of every aspect of our lives and in particular of our world-view, our behavior, and our relationships.

It is tragic in our day to witness the loss of this understanding. It is not an idle question to ask, Do our present-day altar calls, with their emphasis on “accepting Jesus as your personal Savior,” conform to the teaching of the Word of God? We are badly deceived if we think our man-centered and needs-based evangelism will issue in lasting fruit. Evangelism is more than saving people from their sins; the scriptural call is to yield one’s entire life, without reserve, to Jesus Christ as Lord.

Those who look in the New Testament for the formula, “Accept Jesus as your personal Savior,” will look in vain. Rather, the biblical gospel calls for “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus” (Acts 20:21). Let me emphasize again, the New Testament knows nothing of receiving Christ as one’s Savior and then later making Him Lord. Why, then, do we put asunder what God has joined together? Why do we emphasize the blessings of forgiveness but fail to mention what it costs to follow Jesus? Such thinking reflects Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous dictum that a god without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment and to a Christ without a cross!

There are only two categories of people in this world: those who acknowledge Jesus as Lord, and those who do not (1 Cor. 12:3). This is not something about which non-believers should have any doubts!

August 4, 2005

David Alan Black is the editor of http://www.daveblackonline.com/. If you would like to know more about becoming a follower of King Jesus, please feel free to write Dave.

The Last Word's of Godly Men

2005-08-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

In the last words of dying men, their true character is often revealed. The facades are torn down; the defenses that we have worked so hard our entire lives to build up are stripped away and our true nature is left bare and exposed to the world. At the same time, when a man dies well and in a manor consistent with his life, we can take it to heart that he really was the man we thought we knew.

Although I never met either R.J. Rushdoony, or Greg Bahnsen, I have the witness of their voluminous works and their last words, both of which attest to the quality of their life and their deep devotion to God and His Son, Jesus Christ.

This morning, I had the honor of reading for the first time R.J. Rushdoony's last "sermon," his last words. Tears came to my eyes as I witnessed, through the his words, a godly man dying the same way he lived. Lying in his bed, surrounded by his family, he died proclaiming the Word of God with strength and passion.

I have also recently had the great privilege of listening to the final sermon given by Dr. Greg Bahnsen in 1995. It is titled "For Me to Live" and is an exposition on Philippians 1:12-27. He delivered this sermon with a full understanding that his life would finally end in only two day's. In this sermon he says:

"Death helps to focus the mind. Death helps to focus the mind, even among believers who have lived their lives for themselves, lived their lives perhaps in quiet or even open defiance of God. When the time of death comes around, all of a sudden, the flippancy, the irreverence, the lack of serious and sober reflection on the meaning of life is gone. And the most defiant of people will be shown to be humbled in the presence of what the Bible has called the last enemy. The one which no one can avoid until the Lord returns."

R.J. Rushdoony and Dr. Bahnsen were two truly great and godly men. As a witness to the influence they had on shaping the lives of so many Christians, festschrifts were written in their honor:

I pray, that when God calls me home to Heaven, I will die with the same honor and dignity, giving glory to God.

"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."
Philippians 1:21 (NASB)

Alligators and Gibbons

2005-07-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

Imagine yourself coming within inches of a live, eight foot long, alligator at nine o'clock at night in the middle of the street! Well this is exactly what happened to me.

To make matters even more interesting, I also came face to face with a Gibbon, a Lemur and a great horned owl! All of this happened quite unexpectedly in the middle of the street under the cover of darkness in a neighboring, sleepy little town.

Oh, yeah, I also ran into Dan Breeding of "Creatures of Creation" as he was returning home from a show. It's the first time I've met Dan and he seems like a great guy. Our meeting was quite happenstance. He told me and the other men I was with his amazing story and about how God's hand can be seen through the many amazing turns in his life. In the past year he has appeared on many programs like "The Tonight Show," "The Late Show," "Live with Regis and Kelly," "Good Morning America" as well as many others like Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom" (one of my absolute favorite programs when I was a kid). His animals have also appeared in many films and commercials. One of the best things about Dan and his animals is that he uses them to spread the gospel of Jesus wherever he goes. He has even had the opportunity to witness to many celebrities. He also works with another ministry which provides Bibles to Hollywood so that he can deliver tracks and personalized Bibles to the "Stars."

If you'd like to book a show just call 1-800-604-0984 or visit www.creaturesofcreation.com.

Dan, thanks for letting me pet the Gibbon!

The Magi Foundation — Bringing Gifts of Slavery

2005-07-13T07:10:00.000-07:00

"[A] society designed by professionals,
managed by unelected bureaucrats,
imposed upon the people who are governed."

One would imagine that I'm describing a Communist country, but I'm not.

All over America, "sustainable communities" are being formed without the consent of the governed. The power of local elected officials are being eroded, private property rights are being destroyed, and the people are being forced to live by the rules and regulations imposed by unelected officials. All of this is being forced on the local populace by the Magi Foundation in their "Pacific Ring Initiative."

This is not fiction. This is really happening right now in our "free" country. And it is a direct result of UN Agenda 21.

The first such "sustainable community" was in Santa Cruz, California by a process they proudly called "Local Agenda 21." The name, because of it's blatant association with the UN, has now been abandoned for the kinder and gentler name...

"Pacific Ring Initiative"

After reading the full article linked below, it should leave no doubt in your mind as to the motives behind the recent Supreme Court decision. They are making it easier for similar initiatives to control the people outside the election process. They are doing exactly what Sandra Day O'Connor stated on October 31, 2003: "I suspect that over time we will rely increasingly, or take notice at least increasingly, on international and foreign courts in examining domestic issues" ("O'Connor: U.S. must rely on foreign law", WorldNetDaily, October 31, 2003).

Read the full article describing the Magi Foundation and the Pacific Ring Project:
"IS YOUR COMMUNITY BEING TRANSFORMED?" by Henry Lamb.

This is a direct result of a fallen world who has rejected God and views man as nothing more than a pliable, evolved creature. In their view, men are fit only to be totally controlled by the elite (this elite group or ruling class can be either a scientific elite or a political/military elite or both). In other words, the view of man as an evolved creature always leads to socialism and communism in all its various forms. Below, I've included a list from a fellow Christian's website of the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto and how they are already in place today in America:

The Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto — Translated
(http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/com-man.html)
1. Abolition of private property and the application of all rent to public purpose.
The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1868), and various zoning, school & property taxes. Also the Bureau of Land Management and the recent Supreme Court decision.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
Misapplication of the 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 1913, The Social Security Act of 1936.; Joint House Resolution 192 of 1933; and various State "income" taxes. We call it "paying your fair share".

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance
We call it Federal & State estate Tax (1916); or reformed Probate Laws, and limited inheritance via arbitrary inheritance tax statutes.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels
We call in government seizures, tax liens, Public "law" 99-570 (1986); Executive order 11490, sections 1205, 2002 which gives private land to the Department of Urban Development; the imprisonment of "terrorists" and those who speak out or write against the "government" (1997 Crime/Terrorist Bill); or the IRS confiscation of property without due process.

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
We call it the Federal Reserve which is a credit/debt system nationally organized by the Federal Reserve act of 1913. All local banks are members of the Fed system, and are regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). This private bank has an exclusive monopoly in money creation which in reality has ended the need for revenue from taxes. So why do they tax? To FOOL YOU into thinking they need them.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the State.
We call it the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Department of Transportation (DOT) mandated through the ICC act of 1887, the Commissions Act of 1934, The Interstate Commerce Commission established in 1938, The Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission, and Executive orders 11490, 10999, as well as State mandated driver's licenses and Department of Transportation regulations. There is also the postal monopoly, AMTRACK and CONRAIL

7. Extention of factories and instruments of production owned by the State, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
We call it corporate capacity, The Desert Entry Act and The Department of Agriculture. As well as the Department of Commerce and Labor, Department of Interior, the Evironmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Mines, National Park Service, and the IRS control of business through corporate regulations.

8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of Industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
We call it the Social Security Administration and The Department of Labor. The National debt and inflation caused by the communal bank has caused the need for a two "income" family. Woman in the workplace since the 1920's, the 19th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, assorted Socialist Unions, affirmative action, the Federal Public Works Program and of course Executive order 11000. And I almost forgot...The Equal Rights Amendment means that women should do all work that men do including the military and since passage it would make women subject to the draft.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
We call it the Planning Reorganization act of 1949 , zoning (Title 17 1910-1990) and Super Corporate Farms, as well as Executive orders 11647, 11731 (ten regions) and Public "law" 89-136.

10. Free education for all children in government schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. etc.
People are being taxed to support what we call 'public' schools, which train the young to work for the communal debt system. We also call it the Department of Education, the NEA and Outcome Based "Education" .

So where does this leave us? Does it leave us to respond in fear trembling? Never!

Isaiah 8:11-22 (NASB)
For thus the LORD spoke to me with mighty power and instructed me not to walk in the way of this people, saying, 12 "You are not to say, 'It is a conspiracy!' In regard to all that this people call a conspiracy, And you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it. 13 "It is the LORD of hosts whom you should regard as holy. And He shall be your fear, And He shall be your dread. 14 "Then He shall become a sanctuary; But to both the houses of Israel, a stone to strike and a rock to stumble over, And a snare and a trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15 "Many will stumble over them, Then they will fall and be broken; They will even be snared and caught."
16 Bind up the testimony, sea the law among my disciples. 17 And I will wait for the LORD who is hiding His face from the house of Jacob; I will even look eagerly for Him. 18 Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are for signs and wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion. 19 When they say to you, "Consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter," should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living? 20 To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. 21 They will pass through the land hard-pressed and famished, and it will turn out that when they are hungry, they will be enraged and curse their king and their God as they face upward. 22 Then they will look to the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be driven away into darkness.

The U.S. Supreme Court's War on the Sovereignty of God

2005-07-08T19:43:00.000-07:00

July 8, 2005
By Douglas W. Phillips, Esq.
www.visionforum.com

Can the State Acknowledge God?

The defining legal issue of our generation is not the right to life or even the definition of the family, but whether the United States of America — through its laws, its charters, its magistrates, and its public institutions — can and will meaningfully acknowledge the God of the Bible.^[1] The acknowledgment of God is the first principle of liberty, a fact which was recognized by the Founding Fathers who declared that “we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.”^[2]

Upon the acknowledgement of God and the recognition that He is the supreme lawgiver rests the legal principle which dictates the preservation of the life of the unborn and the integrity of the family. Moreover, it is only by publicly acknowledging and submitting to the lordship of the God of the Bible that America can enjoy security against international terrorism, the well-being of our people, and the hope that future generations will enjoy the liberties so dearly purchased by our fathers.

As we plunge further into the twenty-first century, with the very real threats of nuclear and biological terrorism looming large on the horizon, we are being presented with test after test as a nation to determine whether we will look to the God of our national charter and covenant as our guiding light and lawgiver, or whether we will continue to revile Him and His law as a matter of policy.

Dedicated Minorities, Not Half-Hearted Majorities, Will Win the Day

Though our courts and public officials may be in rebellion against the Lord, there is hope for America if only God’s people will be faithful to live by, publicly declare, and hold our leaders accountable to those objective and unchangeable standards declared by Jesus Christ in Holy Scripture and binding at all times for all nations.

Judgment must begin in the house of the Lord. The need of the hour is not for a strategy based on helping the majority to simply be a little less — well — wicked, but on helping the Christian minority to be a whole lot more righteous (and committed to promoting public righteousness). The answer is spiritual and practical obedience to the commission we have been given by our Lord (to disciple the nations, teaching everything God has revealed in the Bible). Herein is the source of political fruits and national blessings. The strategic hope for America’s future, therefore, is not in majorities, but in one dedicated minority — the people of God. God has always worked through the dedicated minority, and there is no reason to believe that our current crisis is different. To put it another way: God may save the city for the sake of the faithful remnant.^[3]

In the context of our American citizenship, the Church of Jesus Christ has a duty to be God’s representative before the gates of our land. The duty of sounding forth a clear trumpet blast rests with the people of God. We are to be the most principled and the least pragmatic members of society. We are to heed President George Washington’s biblically sound advice by being above and beyond political partisanship, because our mission transcends partisan objectives. We recognize that our duty is obedience before the Lord Jesus Christ who alone determines outcomes.

When professing Christians place pragmatism and partisan interests above principled action, when they turn a blind eye to wickedness (ungodly judicial nominations,^[4] the execution of innocent starving women,^[5] the appointment of known homosexuals to positions of leadership in the present administration,^[6] etc.) we do more damage to the soul and spirit of our nation than a thousand Planned Parenthoods. We must be more concerned with us than with them. Simply put — judgment must begin in the house of the Lord.

The latest test for the people of God is how we, as a people, will respond to the Court’s present rejection of God, and to what extent we are willing to encourage the President and the Senate to select future justices who will repudiate such wickedness, and to hold both accountable if they fail to act with principled courage to faithfully execute their duty to do just this.

The United States Supreme Court Breaks
at Least Four of the Ten Commandments

It has been a busy fortnight. Two weeks ago, the United States Supreme Court renewed their declaration of war against the Creator — the same Creator to whom our Founding Fathers appealed as “the Supreme Judge of the world”^[7] and who is recognized as such as a matter of federal law.^[8]

By banishing the meaningful acknowledgement of God from the public sector,^[9] which is explicitly required by Scripture and specifically applied to all judges and civil magistrates (for example by Psalm 2),^[10] and by permitting only those public acknowledgments of God which are deliberately intended to present Him and His law as mere historical anecdotes,^[11] the Supreme Court is guilty of breaking the First and Third Commandments.^[12]

That same week, the Court played Jezebel to Naboth’s vineyard^[13] by granting local governments broad and arbitrary powers to seize private homes and estates,^[14] thus further destabilizing the American family. Here again, the Supreme Court is institutionally guilty through complicity of breaking the very Ten Commandments they have banished — in this case, the Eighth and Tenth Commandments which declare that man may neither steal nor covet another’s goods.^[15]

Last week, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement, thus ending her two-decade reign of terror against the unborn, the biblical doctrine of marriage, and the United States Constitution. Now America awaits the decision of President George W. Bush. Will the President repeat the practice of his last two Republican predecessors of appointing biblically and constitutionally unqualified justices to the highest court of the land, or will he act to establish a legacy of hope by making a courageous nomination?

Pro-Homosexual, Pro-Abortion, Pro-International Law
O’Connor Ends Her Reign of Terror

Republican nominated Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female Supreme Court Justice of the United States of America, was complicit in baby executions (Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 [1992]), a destroyer of marriage (Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 [2003]), while also a friend to foreign law, but an enemy to Constitutional jurisprudence.

O’Connor should be best remembered for her opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992) in which she offered Supreme Court sanction for the vivisection of precious babies on the grounds that abortion rights are necessary to help women stay in the workforce:

Men and women of good conscience can disagree, and we suppose some always shall disagree, about the profound moral and spiritual implications of terminating a pregnancy, even in its earliest stage. Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that cannot control our decision. Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code. The underlying constitutional issue is whether the State can resolve these philosophic questions in such a definitive way that a woman lacks all choice in the matter, except perhaps in those rare circumstances in which the pregnancy is itself a danger to her own life or health, or is the result of rape or incest....

To eliminate the issue of reliance that easily, however, one would need to limit cognizable reliance to specific instances of sexual activity. But to do this would be simply to refuse to face the fact that, for two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail. The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.

O’Connor will also be remembered for her decision undermining nearly two thousand years of Western legal tradition concerning marriage by advancing the cause of sodomite marriages in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), for her commentaries on the propriety of using international law to interpret the constitution,^[16] and for her role in banishing the formal acknowledgement of God as the lawmaker from the public square through the recent Ten Commandments decisions of this past week.

The Fruits of Dogmatic Partisanship

Mrs. O’Connor is the poster child for the dangers of dogmatic partisanship. Her selection and unanimous confirmation as the first woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court inaugurated nearly two decades of Christian political leaders remaining silent in the face of Republican appointments of biblically and constitutionally disqualified candidates for the highest court in our land.

With the exception of a few men,^[17] the majority of Christian political leaders rolled over and played dead through one outrageous judicial nomination after another. In some cases, Christians and conservatives were told by leaders within the Republican administration to “trust the President (wink, wink) because the nominee is secretly very conservative.” This, despite clear public track records to the contrary.^[18]

Like Lucy holding the football in front of a trusting Charlie Brown, Christians fall prey to the same tricks over and over again. You know the old expression: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” I would add: Fool us five hundred times in a row... and, well... you get the picture.

But why do so many well-intentioned professing Christian leaders succumb to endless political manipulation, low standards, and fundamental compromises, especially when it comes to the judicial nomination process? I think there are a dozen reasons, from an ungodly fear of bad results, to ignorance, to poor theology, to naïveté. But the reason which too often raises its ugly head is that many Christian politicos and their followers take their cue from dogmatic partisans, not the Word of God.

Dogmatic partisans view events in terms of the perpetuation and success of the party at all costs. Consequently, dogmatic partisans have double standards. Dogmatic partisans voice moral outrage at Democratic wrongdoing, but refuse to hold Republicans to the same standard. Dogmatic partisanship advances the practice that we set aside intelligent analysis and objective standards when selecting leaders because the goals of the political party are paramount. Dogmatic partisanship is pragmatic by nature, making subjective political decisions based not on objective biblical standards, but on a man’s reason, deifying short-thinking analysis of what constitutes the lesser of two evils. In my view, dogmatic partisanship is inherently unbiblical because it posits a blind loyalty to a political party over the revealed and objective standards of Holy Scripture. God has given us in Holy Scripture clear, identifiable standards for selecting civil magistrates and judges. We are ! never, ever at liberty to diminish, improvise upon, or set aside biblical standards of qualifications for leaders.

For years, Christian partisans have been saying, “We need Republican Presidents because we need to control the judiciary.” O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter are examples of the fact that Christians need to stop thinking like dogmatic (and sycophantic) partisans and need to start thinking and acting like Christians. Candidates for judicial office who will not acknowledge the Lawgiver (Psalm 2) or abide and rule by His moral code may not serve in office, cannot be supported for positions of civil leadership, and should not even be considered for such positions.

Let’s be clear: Democrats cannot be blamed for the mass murder of babies when Republican judicial appointees have helped lead the charge. Democrats cannot be blamed for the attack on the biblical family in favor of homosexual rights, because Republican judicial appointees helped to carry the day. Democrats cannot be blamed for the move toward international law, because most of the worst thinking has come from Republican Supreme Court Justices.

President Bush must now select a judicial nominee to replace O’Connor. Based on his recent track record and his public statements, and absent strong accountability from the Christian community, it is unlikely that the President will select a candidate for Supreme Court Justice who differs fundamentally from Republican-appointed O’Connor, Souter, and Kennedy.^[19] (I hope I am wrong and will gladly say so with praise to the President if he acts courageously.) That is why it is the duty of the Christian community to thoroughly support the President if he appoints a candidate who meets God’s requirements for judicial office (is there anyone who really wants to suggest that God’s requirements don’t matter?) and to vehemently oppose President Bush’s wrongful actions if the President demonstrates a lack of courage and Christian commitment by taking the typical political route.

The bottom line is this: The President must fear God more than the political implications of the judicial nomination process. Christians must fear God more than the Democrats or other dogmatic partisans.

How Should We Select Supreme Court Justices?

Everybody has a test. The test may be clear and principled or ambiguous and pragmatic, but every President has a standard by which he selects nominees for judicial office. For some, the test is simply, “what nominee will gain me the most political leverage?” For others, the test concerns specific judicial objectives. The Democrats, for example, are honest about their litmus test — they only nominate pro-abortion judges. I believe that tests are not only valid, they are inescapable.

The issue, therefore, is not whether there should be a test, but which test is the right test. I would like to suggest that while there may be many secondary issues which may rightly be considered as part of a litmus test, there are two foundational, non-optional tests which always must apply to the selection of judges in the United States of America. The first test involves biblical requirements for judges. The second test concerns the Constitutional requirement of an oath of office to uphold the Constitution.

In my view, these tests are not in conflict with each other because American Christians are faced with the happy circumstance in which the guidelines established for the selection of justices by our national charter (the Constitution and its preamble, the Declaration of Independence) are not in conflict with what the transcendent Law given by “the Supreme Judge of the world”^[20] declares concerning the duties and qualifications of judges. Thankfully, we are not faced with the choice of deciding between the revealed will of God, and the law of our nation when it comes to the selecting of justices.

It is important to note, however, that though the constitution indicates that denominational religious tests shall not be required, it does presuppose that office-holders will take oaths to God and enforce a document which acknowledges Him and is based largely on principles derived from His revealed law. The irony today is that Democrats and many Republicans have currently given us a constitution-denigrating religious test for Supreme Court nominees. It is this: “Men of faith who acknowledge the lawgiver need not apply.” This is a perversion of the Framer’s intent which was to prevent the Christian denominational tests found at the state level from applying to the selection of federal, God-acknowledging magistrates.

Test One: Publicly Fearing, Trusting, Serving,
and Acknowledging God as the Lawgiver

The first test comes from God’s revealed Word, the Holy Scripture. It is found throughout the Bible, but is beautifully summarized in Psalm 2 which declares:

Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

The test is this: Will the nominee publicly acknowledge and fear the God of Scripture as the lawgiver from whose revelation all valid laws of man are derived? It is important to note that Scripture, which communicates the transcendent law of God to all men at all times, reveals that all judges (regardless of their national background or preexisting law system) are bound to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ (the “Son”) and rule by his righteous commands. The First Commandment of the Ten Commandments is thus universally binding on men and nations. Judges are not only to acknowledge “the Son,” they are to have no other gods over the land than the God of Scripture.

While the Bible actually has much more to say about the proper selection of judges than the question of their acknowledgement of Him and submission to His lordship (including numerous character issues), the other requirements rest on this foundation. Apart from “kissing the Son,” no judge is truly qualified to serve, nor should a man who is defiant of the Son be nominated to the highest court in the land.

Test Two: The Oath of Office and the Acknowledgement of God

The second test pertains to the Constitutional requirement which demands that a Supreme Court Justice take an oath to uphold the Constitution.^[21]

The test, therefore, is this: Will the nominee uphold his oath of office taken before God to uphold the United States Constitution as written, based on the text itself as interpreted in light of the original intent of its authors.^[22] The oath is the foundation of legitimacy for a Supreme Court Justice. The ability to understand this oath and the absolute commitment to abide by it are non-optional prerequisites of qualification for serving as Supreme Court Justice. The commitment to the oath is what distinguishes faithful men from tyrants. The existence of this oath is what distinguishes us as a nation of laws, rather than of men. The oath presupposes that the Document is to be interpreted in terms of objective standards, not evolving mores.

Consequently, nominees who believe in evolving standards of interpretation, or evolving standards of truth, are inherently disqualified from serving because they do not understand the oath and will not abide by its terms. This disqualification would also apply to those who believe that the Constitution may be re-interpreted based on the laws of foreign nations. Legitimate debates may ensue about the objective meaning of the text as drafted by its framers, but those who reject the text, who change the meaning of the text to accommodate social change, or who interpret the text using standards foreign to our charter and system of government can no more rule wisely on the Constitution, than an Olympic tennis referee who is determined to judge the contestants in his sport by the rules of water polo.

Finally, those justices who will not acknowledge God as the “Supreme Judge of the World,” or who would inhibit the acknowledgement of God from public office, are inherently disqualified from serving as judicial nominees for the United States Supreme Court for two reasons: First, they cannot maintain a valid oath of office, being incapable of swearing “so help me God” without blaspheming the name of God. Second, such individuals cannot and will not enforce the very Constitution which formally derives its powers, not merely from the people, but from the God of the Declaration and the Constitution, who delegates to freemen the right to be self-governing under Him — a fact which was boldly proclaimed by the authors of our national charter.

America is bound by a charter which is distinctively (though not perfectly) Christian. The Founders established for our nation a charter which begins by acknowledging God as lawgiver, proceeds to reference Him and appeal to Him, incorporates the common law system twice by reference^[23] (a system built on the Ten Commandments and the case laws of Scripture), and ends by declaring Him Lord in the important subscription clause of the Constitution.^[24] Consequently, one cannot understand or interpret the Constitution apart from a one thousand-year English common law system rooted in the laws of Moses and built upon the foundations of Christianity^[25] which the Framers specifically adopted.

Simply put, those who would divorce the Lawgiver from the law are not merely disqualified from holding the highest judicial office in the land by Scripture, they are disqualified by virtue of the constitutional requirement that they uphold their oath to enforce the Constitution which presupposes this same Lawgiver.

Alberto Gonzales Fails the Test

At this time, our prayers must be with the President as he selects a nominee to fill the seat of Sandra Day O’Connor. (In addition, late breaking news reports indicate that the resignation of Chief Justice William Rehnquist is imminent, thus giving President Bush the responsibility of placing two justices on the Court.) One specific prayer which Christians can offer with confidence is that the President would only nominate biblically and constitutionally qualified men. An example of a man who is being floated as a potential Supreme Court nominee, but who is both biblically and constitutionally disqualified, is current Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez.

Mr. Gonzalez has an unfortunate record of facilitating abortion^[26] and endorsing the use of torture,^[27] but the fundamental problem with the Attorney General is that he believes that the Supreme Court is a law unto itself, trumping both the transcendent moral law of God and the Constitution. Consequently, his beliefs are in conflict with the constitutional requirements that Supreme Court justices preserve the Constitution.

Gonzales is on record that Roe v. Wade should be upheld and enforced,^[28] and that the Supreme Court, not the Constitution itself, is the Law of the Land. This last point was made crystal clear when he declared: “The constitution is whatever the Supreme Court says it is.”^[29] This statement, often repeated by nominees for judicial office, is a declaration of war on the document itself by reducing our laws to the opinions of whatever group of tyrants and legal social Darwinists are in office at any given point in time. To put it another way, under Gonzalez’s theory of constitutional jurisprudence, were the Supreme Court to mandate child slavery, to require the forced euthanizing of people age thirty or older, or to legitimize marriage between man and animals, such declarations would be legitimate, accurate, and binding reflec! tions of the Constitution, because the Supreme Court declared them to be so by fiat.

Our Moment in History

It is time for Christians to once again assert objective and transcendent standards for the selection of our highest office holders. We are not at liberty to improvise on those standards when they do not fit our political objectives and short term vision for “success.” Our goal must be obedience. We must be God’s people in this nation, a holy remnant who insist that men and nations must acknowledge Him and no other God. Political pragmatism is fruitless. Dogmatic partisanship is destructive. In fact, more important than who is ultimately selected for this position on the Supreme Court, is how God’s people represented His interests before the magistrates of this land. Taking a principled stand may, in God’s providence, result in a temporary political loss, but refusing to take a principled stand will result in the long-term comprehensive loss of the blessing of God in our land and the joys of political freedom for our children. Our hope is in th! e Lord, a hope which we have no right to claim if we fear men more than Him.

^[1] This was the question posed by federal judge Myron Thompson to Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore in the oral arguments of Glassroth v. Moore, 229 F. Supp. 2d 1290, when Judge Thompson asked, “Can the state acknowledge God?” The answer he declared was “No.” Bill Pryor’s rise to fame was also built on his declaration that Roy Moore was “unrepentant” for insisting that he would acknowledge God, even when another court told him not to. See So Help Me God by Roy Moore.

^[2] The Declaration of Independence.

^[3] Genesis 18:23-33: “And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes: Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it. And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradve! nture there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty’s sake. And he said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there. And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty’s sake. And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake. And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.”

^[4] President Bush has appointed former Attorney General of Alabama William Pryor to the Federal District Court of Appeals for the 11^th Circuit.

^[5] See “A Cup of Water for Terri, Part I” and “A Cup of Water for Terri, Part II” by Douglas W. Phillips.

^[6] “In 2001, President Bush appointed the practicing homosexual Michael Guest to serve as America’s ambassador to Romania, a largely Catholic country. The U.S. Senate confirmed Guest’s appointment without any debate. When Guest was sworn in as ambassador, Sec. Powell publicly acknowledged Guest’s homosexual lover, Alex Nevarez, who sat onstage with Guest’s parents. Today, the two homosexuals live in sin and practice sodomy at the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest, all at taxpayers’ expense” (Michael Cooper, The Remnant, February 28, 2003).

^[7] The Declaration of Independence: “We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually ple! dge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

^[8] The Declaration of Independence has been declared part of the organic law of the United States by “U.S.C.A. The Organic Laws of the United States of America Westlaw.”

^[9] McCreary County vs. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, et. al., No. 03-1693. Justice Souter, writing for the majority, said: “Nor do we have occasion here to hold that a sacred text can never be integrated constitutionally into a governmental display on the subject of law, or American history. We do not forget, and in this litigation have frequently been reminded, that our own courtroom frieze was deliberately designed in the exercise of governmental authority so as to include the figure of Moses holding tablets exhibiting a portion of the Hebrew text of the later, secularly phrased Commandments; in the company of 17 other lawgivers, most of them secular figures, there is no risk that Moses would strike an observer as evidence that the National Government was violating neutrality in religion.”

^[10] Psalm 2:10-13: “Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”

^[11] Van Orden vs. Perry No. 03-1500. Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for the majority, stated: “This case, like all Establishment Clause challenges, presents us with the difficulty of respecting both faces. Our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being, yet these institutions must not press religious observances upon their citizens. One face looks to the past in acknowledgment of our Nation’s heritage, while the other looks to the present in demanding a separation between church and state. Reconciling these two faces requires that we neither abdicate our responsibility to maintain a division between church and state nor evince a hostility to religion by disabling the government from in some ways recognizing our religious heritage.... The placement of the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds is a far more passive use of those texts than was the case in Stone,! where the text confronted elementary school students every day. Indeed, Van Orden, the petitioner here, apparently walked by the monument for a number of years before bringing this lawsuit. The monument is therefore also quite different from the prayers involved in Schempp andLee vs. Weisman. Texas has treated her Capitol grounds monuments as representing the several strands in the State’s political and legal history. The inclusion of the Ten Commandments monument in this group has a dual significance, partaking of both religion and government. We cannot say that Texas’ display of this monument violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.”

^[12] Exodus 20:3,5: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”

^[13] 1 Kings 21.

^[14] Kelo v. City of New London (04-0108).

^[15] Exodus 20:15,17: “Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.”

^[16] On October 31, 2003, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stated: “I suspect that over time we will rely increasingly, or take notice at least increasingly, on international and foreign courts in examining domestic issues” (“O’Connor: U.S. must rely on foreign law,” WorldNetDaily, October 31, 2003). See also “Justice Ginsburg and My Two Goats” (Douglas W. Phillips, August 8, 2003).

^[17] I must give thanks to my father, Howard Phillips, the only former executive branch office holder who publicly opposed O’Connor’s nomination.

^[18] Both O’Connor and Souter had records promoting abortion.

^[19] All three were appointed by Republican Presidents: O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy were both appointed by President Ronald Reagan and Justice David Souter by President George Bush, Sr.

^[20] The Declaration of Independence.

^[21] Article. VI. Clause 3: “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

^[22] This would include the original signers and those who subsequently acted to amend the Document. The difficulty of this task does not nullify the duty to presuppose the integrity and coherence of the Document for purposes of interpretation and to be bound by the written text.

^[23] U.S. Constitution, Amendment VII: “In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”

^[24] U.S. Constitution, Article VII: “The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same. Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names.”

^[25] “No doubt there are many causes for this superiority; but in my humble opinion, the most important is that, while the Roman law was a deathbed convert to Christianity, the common law was a cradle Christian.” Fountain of Justice A Study in the Natural Law by John C.H. Wu Sheed and Ward New York 1955 Wu was a former Research Scholar at Harvard.

^[26] As an associate Justice on the Texas Supreme Court, Alberto Gonzales voted to overturn a Texas Parental Notification law in 2000, giving a seventeen-year-old girl the ability to murder her child. (“Al Gonzales and Jane Doe” by Terrence Jeffrey, Human Events, 2001)

^[27] In August 2002, as White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales helped prepare a memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, “advising that torturing alleged al Qaeda terrorists in captivity abroad ‘may be justified’ and that international laws against torture ‘may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations’ conducted in the U.S. war on terrorism. Gonzales held a news briefing to distance himself from the memo after it became public, calling it, in part, ‘irrelevant and unnecessary’ and ‘overbroad.’” (“Gonzales Named to Succeed Ashcroft as Attorney General” by Dan Eggen, The Washington Post, November 11, 2004)

^[28] As quoted in Human Events, posted July 6, 2005, an interview by Dr. Jack Willkie with Alberto Gonzales: “Q: Judge Gonzales, we’re hearing conflicting reports about your position on abortion. Can you tell us where you stand? A: As a judge, I have to make judgments in conformity with the laws of our nation. Q: Would you say that, regarding Roe vs. Wade, stare decisis would be governing here? [Note, stare decisis means that he would continue to uphold that decision because he would regard it as a binding precedent.] A: Yes.”

^[29] Ibid. “Q: Judge Gonzales, it’s well known that the Clinton administration had a very clear and consistent litmus test in regard to judicial nominations. If that person was not pro-abortion, they were not nominated. In light of this, do you ask your nominees what their position is on abortion? A: No, we do not. We judge them on a very broad basis of conservatism and constitutional construction. Q: Many of us feel that the Constitution does not speak to permissive abortion. Would you comment? A: The Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is.”

When the Government Plays at Being God

2005-06-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

One more step to a socialist, police State:

The "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision by the Supreme Court allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

Exodus 20:15 "Thou shalt not steal."

But I love this man's reaction:

"On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter's home" (Mr. Souter is a Supreme Court Justice who voted for the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision).

Get the whole story!

"It"

2005-06-25T18:41:00.000-07:00

"It" is not about "Left" or "Right," "Liberal" or "Conservative." It is not about maintaining strict denominational or party lines. Our allegiance is not to The Democracy or The Republic, the flag nor the Constitution. All of these words are man-made and their meanings, and the ideas which they represent, change over time. So what is "it" about then?

"It" (our life) is about whom we serve. Will we serve God or man? Life is about the kingdom of God. Life is about the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

I am not suggesting ecumenicalism (which sacrifices truth to the god of unity) or any other such heretical thing. What I am suggesting is that Christians wake up and act like what we call ourselves. Stop worshipping the world and its tantalizing tidbits and its delectable delicacies, all of which have no more value than a child's plastic beaded necklace. We have called out to be a holy people, a priestly nation.

The vast majority of those who profess to be Christians, have isolated God to a matter of the heart, a personal religion. God is good for Sunday and sappy T-shirts, but nothing else. Christianity, by a large majority, has been swallowed up by our megatainment, egocentric culture. They are blind, deaf and dumb to the overtly humanistic, Satan worshiping world around them. So what are we supposed to do?

We are to read God's Word and do what it says. We are to listen to His voice and keep His covenant (Ex. 19:5). We are to build and rebuild the world around us in terms of His Word, His truth. We are to bow our knee to Christ and worship Him as Lord and King.

Here are Jesus', our Savior and Lord's, own words:

Matt. 6:33
"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

John 14:15
"If you love Me, you will keep My commandments."

Matt. 22:37
And He said to him, " `YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.'

Matt. 28:18-20 (ISV)
Then Jesus came up and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore, as you go, disciple all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you each and every day until the end of the age."

These are not easy things to do. I struggle with this every day. I struggle with how to train up my children in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6). But it is a struggle that I must wrestle with, a struggle that I must attack head on, for the consequences, if I do not, are eternal.

Proverbs 8:32-36
32 "Now therefore, O sons, listen to me, For blessed are they who keep my ways. 33 "Heed instruction and be wise, And do not neglect it. 34 "Blessed is the man who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at my doorposts. 35 "For he who finds me finds life And obtains favor from the LORD. 36 "But he who sins against me injures himself; All those who hate me love death."

1 John 2:15
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

"Learn not the way of the heathen"

2005-06-20T23:29:00.000-07:00

Jeremiah. 10:2a "Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen" (KJV).

The Hebrew word translated in Jeremiah 10:2 as "heathen" is Goyim. The Hebrew word can be translated as "heathen," "people" or "nations" and refers to non-Jewish peoples -- the Gentiles or unbelievers. We can understand the passage this way:

The Lord commands us not to learn the ways or customs of those who do not believe.

Young's Literal Translation has it as "Unto the way of the nations accustom not yourselves"

Do believers really need any other argument to pull their children out of the pagan public school system? The Lord has explicitly commanded His people not to learn the ways of those who do not believe in Him - this is exactly what the statist, humanistic, anti-God, public school system is doing. It is teaching your children the ways of the heathen.

Don't believe me? Read their words, written by their own pens:

Charles Francis Potter, signer of the Humanist Manifesto and author of Humanism: A New Religion, wrote, "So Humanism is not simply another denomination of Protestant Christianity; it is not a creed; nor is it a cult. It is a new type of religion altogether." Potter also directed attention to the battleground where the humanist religion dominates ? the public school system. Potter said,
"Education is the most powerful ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of Humanism. What can the theistic Sunday Schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?"
... "Humanist educator John Dewey [father of modern progressive education], also a signer of the Humanist Manifesto, called for a new humanist religion in his work A Common Faith.
http://www.contenderministries.org/humanism/humanismreligion.php

This is not simply a natural "evolution" of education as might be claimed. It is a direct assault against God, Christianity, and your family.

In 1897, John Dewey wrote that the teacher is always "the true prophet of the true God, and the usherer in of the true kingdom of God." (Lawrence A. Cremin: Public Education, p. 76f. via R.J. Rushdoony in his The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum, p. 175) But what "God" and what "kingdom of God" is Dewey talking about? Is it the God of the Bible? The answer is an emphatic "NO!" His idea of God is the union of the "ideal" and the action or experience which supports the realization of that ideal - the human experience. In his A Common Faith, Dewey writes:

The idea of God, or, to avoid misleading conceptions, the idea of the divine is, one of ideal possibilities unified through imaginative realization and projection. But this idea of God, or of the divine, is also connected with all the natural forces and conditions - including man and human association - that promote the growth of the ideal and that further its realization. We are in the presence neither of ideals completely embodied in existence nor yet of ideals that are mere rootless ideals, fantasies, utopias. For there are forces in nature and society that generate and support the ideals. They are further unified by the action that gives them coherence and solidity. It is this active relation between ideal and actual to which I would give the name "God." I would not insist that the name must be given.
(John Dewey, "Faith and its Object," Abridged from A Common Faith, http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/dewey.html)

His god being now the creation of man's own experience as he works toward realizing his own ideas, Dewey destroys any foundation for the existence of an absolute truth. By defining God this way, Dewey has created a god who is constantly evolving as man's ideals change and as he experiences new ways to actualize these new ideals.

His philosophy, his god, has actualized into what we see today in public school system:

Moral Relativism (no absolute truth - no ethics or morals - no fixed standards)
Academic Dumbing Down (everyone must be equal - lowest common denominator)
Far-left Programs/Socialism (cradle to grave security - complete dependence on the State)
Near Absence of Discipline (No concept of real authority)

20 years ago, parents would have been appalled at the idea that the State owned their children, now many are appalled at the thought that the State does not and should not own their children. "Yes," many of today's parents would say, "parents have certain responsibilities toward their children, but in the end it is the States responsibility to feed, educate, train and employ them."

But what does God's Word say?

4 "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. 6 "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deut. 6:4-9, NKJV)

We are to teach our children. And what are we to teach them? "These words which I command you." We are to teach our children to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength." We are to teach our children that Jesus is the King which rules and has dominion over all things.

9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:9-11, NKJV)

We must teach them that since God created everything, they must understand all things according to how He defines them in His revealed Word.

A Great Deliverance

2005-06-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

When you have a post like my previous one, you had better be prepared to subject yourself to the same scrutiny.

If you are interested here is a link to the sermon on Genesis 47 I had the honor to preach this past Sunday. http://www.trinitybaptist-church.org/sermons/tbcwf_sermon_2005_06_12.ram

I have not listened to the whole thing yet, as that is always a little painful (especially since I stutter).

More Lies Women Believe

2005-06-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

In the not too distant past, my wife read a very popular book for women by Nancy Leigh DeMoss entitled Lies Women Believe: And the Truth that Sets Them Free. Unfortunately, instead of freeing women from slavery to a worldly system of thought and belief, it enslaves them further to it.

At one point in the book she tells women that Eve's sin in the garden of Eden was that of "overeating." When my wife tried to argue with some other ladies that this was not the correct interpretation of Scripture, she posed the question "If God had said do not walk within so many feet of the tree, would her sin been over-walking?" I believe the overwhelming response was, after a short pause, "Yes." The author's interpretation of the Bible at this point, is at best manipulative, if not outright deceitful and it clearly leads women away from the clear teaching of Scripture and the freedom found therein.

Man's sin in the garden of Eden is wanting to be his own god, determining for himself what was good and evil. This is exactly what the Bible says in Gen. 3:5-6 (NASB):

"5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

"6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make {one} wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate."

Eve disregarded the clear Word of God (which she already stated she knew in verse 3), and decided that her own thoughts and desires were of a higher authority. She looked to something outside of God to make her wise.

Nancy DeMoss, by interpreting the Bible this way, has succumbed to the same sin. She has ignored the clear, explicit teaching of Scripture, and interpreted it in a way that no one would have ever interpreted it, so that it would fit her desired agenda.

Lest you think I'm trying to pick a fight with Mrs. DeMoss, this is the same sin that is at the root of all of our sins. Every man wishes to be autonomous, thereby interpreting God, himself, and the rest of the world on his own terms, according to his own wisdom.

Our starting point as Christians, must be that since God is Creator of all things, He is the only interpreter of all things. We can not do as the ancient philosopher Descartes did and start with ourselves, "I think, therefore I am." By doing so, one makes himself as the sole interpreter of all things, including God.

Because we all are tainted with sin, we all make mistakes interpreting Scripture. But because this is such a gross misinterpretation, it deserves a stern correction. If she wants to teach women about overeating or proper care for their physical bodies, there are plenty of other verses in Scripture that she could use to do this.

Recommended Reading:
By What Standard? by R.J. Rushdoony

NC Voters - Take Action!

2005-06-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

“The first American Revolution had to be fought with guns and lives because they had no recourse before a tyrannical king. Our war is different. We have recourse, that is, our vote. We can affect the course of our future and regain our freedoms by participating in the system our forefathers secured with their blood.”
Stiles J. Watson, Why You Should Vote for Michael Peroutka

The following is from the desk of webmaster@constitutionpartync.com

Forward this to anyone you know that may support it.

House Bill 88 (Electoral Fairness). Two years ago House Bill 867 was introduced, which would have lowered the petition requirements for ballot access from 2% of voters in the last gubernatorial election to .5%, and would have lowered the threshold for maintaining ballot access from 10% to 2%. Though it passed committee, the co-speakers in the Legislature denied it a vote. The bill has been reintroduced as House Bill 88 and has already passed committee.

The state Representative who introduced House Bill 88 (the one that will reduce our signature requirement from 69,000 to 17,500 to get on state ballots) says if we want this bill heard this year, we need to pressure the Finance Committee to move on it.

Paul Luebke is the sponsor and one of the Finance chairs. He suggests writing the other five co-chairs of the Finance Committee and asking that they hear House Bill 88.

Below are emails and phone numbers:
Martha Alexander, Marthaa@ncleg.net, 919-733-5807
Pryor Gibson, Pryorg@ncleg.net, 919-715-3007
Julia Howard, Juliah@ncleg.net, 919-733-5904
Paul Luebke, Paull@ncleg.net, 919-733-7663
Danny McComas, Dannym@ncleg.net, 919-733-5786
William Wainwright, Williamw@ncleg.net, 919-733-5995

After Four Decades, Democrats Admit Liberals Are Socialists

2005-06-01T08:09:00.000-07:00

Originally posted at http://www.etherzone.com/cgi-bin/gm/blog.shtml

From May 22, 2005 Meet the Press

MR. RUSSERT: In your home state of Vermont, there's a vacancy for the United States Senate about to occur. Bernie Sanders, the congressman from Vermont, wants to run for that seat. He is a self- described avowed socialist.

DR. DEAN: Well, that's what he says. He's really a populist.

MR. RUSSERT: But is there room in the Democratic Party for a socialist?

DR. DEAN: Well, first of all, he's not a socialist, really.

MR. RUSSERT: He...

DR. DEAN: He hasn't said that for a while.

MR. RUSSERT: Oh, he has a--he wrote in his book: "Outside or in the House, I am a Democratic socialist."

DR. DEAN: Well, a Democratic socialist--all right, we're talking about words here. And Bernie can call himself anything he wants. He is basically a liberal Democrat . . .

___

Ever since LBJ changed our nation from a Constitutional Republic to a socialist nation, the Democrats have avoided confirming that the liberals' agenda is socialism.

Howard Dean admitting that a socialist is just a "liberal Democrat" is what conservatives have been noting for four decades, something neither high-level Democrats nor Republicans want to confirm to the naive masses of this nation. Never before has a socialist "leader" of the Democratic party admitted that liberals are socialists. Yesterday was a watershed "coming out of the closet" event for the Marxists that control the Democratic party.

The astute minority has known this before Dean's acknowledgement. The majority--that great mass of naive apathetic sheep--don't know this because they rely on the mainstream press and the "high-level politicians" to format their thinking.

With the head of the Democratic party making it official, we can now confirm it: the Democrats are socialists.

Robert Sentry, Publisher
Sentry Over America

Related FaithAndDominion.com blogs (in no particlular order):
http://faithanddominion.blogspot.com/2004/12/basis-of-all-our-civil-constitutions.html
http://faithanddominion.blogspot.com/2004/10/why-you-should-vote-for-michael.html
http://faithanddominion.blogspot.com/2004/12/not-creature-was-stirring-not-even.html
http://faithanddominion.blogspot.com/2004/12/two-great-articles-on-socialist-pledge.html
http://faithanddominion.blogspot.com/2004/12/christian-social-action.html

This Day in History

2005-05-24T20:21:00.000-07:00

I'll get back to posting articles soon, but here is a interesting resource: http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory. I've added to my RSS Feeds.

Here is what happended on this day in history (May 24th, 1884):
Samuel Morse transmitted the first telegraph message, in which he asked, "What hath God wrought?"

If you recall a few posts back, I mentioned a book I am reading titled Building Godly Nations: Lessons from the Bible and America's Christian History by Stephen K. McDowell of the Providence Foundation. In this book he provides proof from Samuel Morse's own hand that he gave ALL THE GLORY TO GOD for his invention. Also, interestingly enough, Mr. Morse was NOT the one who selected this message. Annie Ellsworth, a friend of Morse's "selected a sentence from a prophecy of the ancient soothsayer Ballam." Of this sentence, Morse wrote to his brother:

"That sentence of Annie Ellsworth's was divinely indited, for it is in my thoughts day and night. 'What hath God wrought!' It is His work, and He alone could have carried me thus far through all my trials and enabled me to triumph over the obstacles, physical and moral, which opposed me" (page 8).

A Blessing to Her Father

2005-05-23T09:05:00.000-07:00

I know it may seem like a small thing, but my oldest daughter (9 years old) has blessed her father with a pair of newly mended socks. So I'd like to say thank you, I love you, and they feel great!

My Busy Schedule

2005-05-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

Whatever is left of my "readership" will know that it has been over a month since I last posted anything. The reason for this is that I have been extremely busy. What have I been so busy with?

I am now the webmaster for the web sites belonging to The Chalcedon Foundation (http://www.chalcedon.edu & http://www.chalcedonstore.com).

The previous webmaster, Darlene Selbrede, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. You can contribute to the Darlene Selbrede Memorial Fund which has been created in her memory. Darlene passionately put in several years of work on this website and I am honored to have been asked to take on the role as the new webmaster.

Right now I am working on some back-end changes that will hopefully make way for an increased level of service to Chalcedon's customers -- some of these are already in place -- many more are to come.

The Voice of Homeschoolers in North Carolina Have Been Heard! (Part 2)

2005-04-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

I've not been able to blog lately because a massively increased work load, but I had to take time out for this. (By the way, there is much talk below about "budget," but recently NC legislature gave millions of dollars away to several companies/organizations - some of which did not ask for it or want it! Hmmm ...)

Click here for Part 1

This was originally posted by the great folks at NCHE
(http://www.nche.com/alert.html)

In an official statement today, Governor Easley's senior fiscal advisor said that the proposal to move the Division of Non-Public Education under the Department of Public Instruction is no longer part of the governor's budget, saying it was "not an appropriate solution".

On Wednesday, advisor Dan Gerlach met with several representatives from NCHE, the N.C. Christian Schools Association, and the N.C. Association of Independent Schools, along with Secretary of Administration Gwynn Swinson and DNPE Director Rod Helder.

Apologizing for "insensitivity" to the history and concerns of the non-public education community, Gerlach said that the proposal was an attempt to find additional funding for DNPE staff to address the growing homeschool community. In the written statement, he stressed that "[the] expansion in staff is NOT due to any desire on the part of anyone in the Administration nor DPI to change policy, but to deal with [the] increased responsibilities and caseload".

"The Easley Administration will not push the proposal further to transfer the Division to DPI, " the statement reads, concluding that "the Governor's Office will inform legislators that the proposal to shift the Division to DPI is no longer part of our budget proposal and is not an appropriate solution" to financing issues in the Department of Administration.

NCHE thanks every homeschooler who wrote, called, and otherwise supported our effort to intercept this proposal early in the process. Your quick and respectful response impressed legislators and helped them understand the importance of keeping private educational options independent of the public school authorities.

However, the budget process is only beginning, and NCHE will continue to monitor the situation until it is concluded several weeks from now. We are committed to protecting your right to homeschool in North Carolina, and we appreciate your prayers, encouragement, and support.

The complete statement from the Governor's Office is posted below:

Letter from Governor's Office,
received this afternoon, April 8, 2005

From: Dan Gerlach
Date: Friday, April 8, 2005

As I promised, here is my recapitulation of Wednesday's meeting that included representatives from North Carolinians for Home Education, the North Carolina Christian School Association, and the North Carolina Association of Independent Schools, Secretary Gwynn Swinson, DNPE Director Rod Helder, and General Counsel Brooks Skinner from the Department of Administration, and Dan Gerlach (myself) from the Governor's Office.

First, many thanks to everyone for taking time from their busy schedules to travel to Raleigh to share their views on the Division of Nonpublic Education. It was a fruitful, constructive meeting from the Administration's perspective.

I explained that the proposal to transfer the Division of Nonpublic Education from Department of Administration to the Department of Public Instruction was a budget-driven, not a policy-driven, proposal.

Early in the budget process, the Department of Administration made an expansion budget request - that is, a request for more money - for staff and related expenses for the Division of Nonpublic Education. The Division has three full-time people and staff has not increased, despite new responsibilities (such as the driving eligibility certificate program introduced in 1998) and substantial growth in the number of North Carolinians choosing nonpublic alternatives to educate their children, notably home schooling. The number of home schools has increased from 8,171 in 1995-96 to 28,746 in 2003-04. The budget request was for roughly $150,000.

In recent years, the state budget has been tight and most agencies have had responsibilities increased with no new dollars. This is not a sustainable trend. Any new funding for some areas has come from cuts in other areas.

The Department of Administration has two main functions: a) to undertake the General Services functions of government - maintain state property, oversee state construction, take care of the motor vehicle pool, provide utilities, etc and b) provide the home for a variety of functions that do not fit easily in other departments such as Division of Nonpublic Education, Veterans Affairs, Advocacy for People with Disabilities, Indian Affairs, etc. Budget cuts have come all from the general services side, as policymakers do not want to cut funding for the divisions that serve constituencies that are growing.

Frankly, the Department now has shortfalls in some of its general services areas and more cannot be reduced without jeopardizing core services.

For this reason, our thought was to move to the Division of Nonpublic Education to DPI. DPI is a much larger agency, and we felt that it would be easier to find and redeploy existing resources there to help administer the current law. The expansion in staff is NOT due to any desire on the part of anyone in the Administration nor DPI to change policy, but to deal with increased responsibilities and caseload described above.

Obviously, this decision to advance this proposal has caused substantial concern. I confess to insensitivity to this concern, and apologize for it. The decision was a budget one, not pushed by Sec. Swinson nor by DPI.

The Easley Administration will not push the proposal further to transfer the Division to DPI. At the request of several who attended the meeting, I have personally communicated this already to Sen. David Hoyle, a key legislator on the General Government Appropriations Subcommittee. Sen. Hoyle agrees that the transfer should not be done.

But the status quo of 3 staff is not sustainable, nor can Sec. Swinson's department find the money elsewhere in her department.

We discussed several ways to improve efficiency - including use of web-based solutions, the use of the nonpublic organizations to disseminate information, and so forth - and ways to increase resources - including examination of policies used in other states and the possibility of legislative support for additional appropriations. The nonpublic school organizations agreed to think about solutions to the current challenge. All the nonpublic school organizations agreed that the transfer to DPI was not appropriate.

There was discussion about ways to keep dialogue open and increase input from the nonpublic school community, and we welcome that dialogue. Many concerned citizens shared their views with the Governor's Office and the Department of Administration two weeks ago, and we appreciate hearing from taxpayers about their concerns because this is America and people have a right to speak out on issues important to them.

There was also discussion about the good job that the Division does right now and that the current law is one of the better ones in the nation.

To sum, the Governor's Office will inform legislators that the proposal to shift the Division to DPI is no longer part of our budget proposal and is not an appropriate solution, the nonpublic school organizations will offer input on how to ensure that the current law can be carried out effectively and efficiently, and we will all keep lines of communication open.

Again, we are grateful for your time.

Dan Gerlach
Senior Advisor for Fiscal Affairs
Office of the Governor

"Release for us Barabbas!"

2005-03-29T21:32:00.000-08:00

Today (3/29/05), in an Associated Press story, the "Colorado Supreme Court threw out the death penalty for a convicted murderer [and kidnapper, and rapist] because jurors discussed verses from Scripture."[1] Why should we be surprised? The God of the Bible, Who's Word is the basis for all Law (both in actuality and historically in the US), has not only been abandoned by our legal system, but now cases are being thrown out and right convictions overturned because His Word is discussed among professing believer jurors.[2]

How fitting that on the heals of the Terri Schiavo case, where the innocent is being sentenced to death, that the murderer should be allowed to live. This sounds very similar to Jesus' trial before the Roman Governor, Pilate in Luke chapter 23, verses 14-25:

. . . I have found no guilt in this man regarding the charges which you make against Him. 15 "No, nor has Herod, for he sent Him back to us; and behold, nothing deserving death has been done by Him. 16 "Therefore I will punish Him and release Him." 17 [Now he was obliged to release to them at the feast one prisoner.] 18 But they cried out all together, saying, "Away with this man, and release for us Barabbas!" 19 (He was one who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection made in the city, and for murder.) 20 Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, addressed them again, 21 but they kept on calling out, saying, "Crucify, crucify Him!" 22 And he said to them the third time, "Why, what evil has this man done? I have found in Him no guilt demanding death; therefore I will punish Him and release Him." 23 But they were insistent, with loud voices asking that He be crucified. And their voices began to prevail. 24 And Pilate pronounced sentence that their demand be granted. 25 And he released the man they were asking for who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, but he delivered Jesus to their will.

Only in this case it is the people who are insisting that the innocent [3] be set free (Terri Schiavo) and the murder (Robert Harlan) be put to death, but the governing bodies will not hear of it.

Notes:
[1] http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=621862
[2] This information was gathered while watching a ABC News interview with the juror who brought the Bible to the deliberations. She said that one of the jurors, who professed to be a Christian, felt that giving the death penalty would be a violation of the 6th Commandment: "You shall not murder" (Exodus 20:13). Certain Bible verses were discussed between believers to see what saith the Lord.
[3] By "innocent" I mean she has broken no civil law which is punishable by death. Whether or not she is innocent in God's eyes, that is, if she has been given the righteousness of Christ through faith, God only knows. "[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) and "the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8,9).

The Voice of Homeschoolers in North Carolina Have Been Heard!

2005-03-28T12:40:00.000-08:00

On 2/16/05 I posted an article originally written by Lee Duigon Oct. 1, 2003. His article was titled "A Quiet Threat to Homeschooling." Following is a small excerpt:

Children have a constitutional right to learn about beliefs and ways of life other than those of their parents, and the state has a duty to secure that right for them.

So argued Rob Reich, political science and education professor at Stanford University, at the 2001 convention of the American Political Science Association, reading from a paper entitled, Testing the Boundaries of Parental Authority over Education, the Case of Home Schooling. He included the paper as a chapter in his 2002 book, Bridging Multiculturalism and Liberalism in Education.

. . .

In his writings, Reich proposes that homeschooling should be monitored by the state to ensure that parents teach their children beliefs and lifestyles that they may oppose that parents may even believe to be evil.

Last week, the legislature in NC met to discuss moving the Division of Non-Public Education (DNPE) under the authority of the Department of Public Instruction (DPI). If approved, this action would, in effect, move homeschoolers under the authority of the public school system, a move that would bring homeschooling one step closer to being "monitored by the state to ensure that parents teach their children beliefs and lifestyles that they may oppose." However, thanks to an alert from the great people at North Carolinians for Home Education (NCHE), this threat may have been stopped (for now).

After hearing about the legislature's committee meeting, the NCHE sent an alert out to many homeschool "channels" asking homeschoolers to contact their Senators, Representatives, Governor Mike Easley, and Secretary of Administration Gwynn Swinson. And homeschoolers did! Apparently committee members received thousands of email messages and phone calls and as a result "there was no action on the proposal" and the Committee is willing "to re-examine this move in a different light." [1]

I personally sent an email to every committee member, the Govenor, and the Secretary of Administration. So far (as of 3/28/05) I have received a response from only Senator Brock. Here is his response via his Legislative Assistant:

Thank you for your email regarding the Department of Non-public Education. Your comments are very important to the Senator and he appreciates your correspondence. He wants you to know that he does agree with you and feels the DPNE and the DPI should remain separate. He will keep your thoughts close in mind as the General Assembly continues it's deliberations during the 2005-2006 Session. (Emphasis added.)

Many NC homeschoolers are already upset that we have to register with the State, keep attendance and immunization records and administer annual testing.[2] My personal opinion is that NO other restrictions or restraints should be tolerated.

Notes:
[1] http://nche.com/alert.html
[2] http://www.doa.state.nc.us/dnpe/hhh103.htm

Terri Schiavo

2005-03-23T12:34:00.000-08:00

As you've noticed, I've been silent on the Terri Schiavo case. I think there are a lot of Christian articles and blogs around that cover it pretty well so I did not have much to add until now.

This will not be earth shattering, but it gets back to basic biblical principles:

This past Sunday, I dropped into the middle of a conversation among some of the men in our church. The conversation covered many different topics, but revolved around one basic principle: do you believe in situational (relative) ethics or do you believe that morals are absolute? Being that all morals are a religious and based on one's view of law and ultimate authority, I of course am a moral absolutist. I do not believe that God and His laws are relative. There is absolute truth and it is found in God's Law/Word. God will never put us into a situation where we have no choice,but to sin. There is always an obedient way out. Because we are fallen sinners, we may not always see the righteous way out, but it is always there. The Holy Spirit, through our reading and studying God's Word and through prayer, will reveal the way of righteousness to us over time (I am not speaking of extra-biblical revelation).

When talking about Terri Schiavo and similar situations (I believe abortion falls into the same general category) one can not make arguments of the "quality of life" or " 'health' of the mother" (in the case of abortion) type. Once you do, you open the flood gates of relativism; it is a very slippery slope. These are the same types of arguments that the Natzi's used in justifying the mass murder of the mentally retarded, Blacks, and Jews. Who defines "quality of life? Who defines "health?" By what standard are these loose terms defined? Dan Horn, a good friend of mine, pointed out on Sunday that the only question one should ask in these situation is "is this person alive?" If the answer is "yes," then you have you answer to what should be done - everything possible!

One objection raised to this question is that, "Yes, someone in Terri's state is alive, but only because a machine is keeping her alive unnaturally." But what does one mean when they say "natural?" There is a underlying belief in this statement that science is somehow outside of and opposed to God, a thought that God and science are two mutually exclusive entities battling it out to see who will win. In truth, science is God's creation and therefore is under his sovereignty and rule. Just like everything else in life, man can choose to use God's creation for His glory by using His Law as our standard or man can choose to make himself his own standard, which always leads to using God's creation for evil. Terri is still alive because God has chosen to let her live. All the medicine and science and collective medical expertise in the world can not lengthen a life for even a second if God's appointed time has come.

Gary DeMarr, in this article, makes an appropriate connection between Terri Schiavo's case and King Solomon when he faced a similar dilemma as two harlots claimed to be the mother of a child (1 Kings 3:1628).

Freedom and the Law (Part 2):The Root of the Delusion

2005-03-21T19:27:00.000-08:00

[You can find Freedom and the Law (Part 1) here.]

The root of the humanist delusion is simple to find, simple to uncover. The delusion is rooted in the thought that man is fundamentally good. Even a cursory study of history proves this wrong. After all, were not Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein simply doing what ever they wanted without any limitations whatsoever?

Humanism Defined
The basic beliefs of Humanists are summarized as follows:

Man is not natively depraved.
The end of life is life itself, the good life on earth instead of the beatific life after death.
Man is capable, guided solely by the light of reason and experience, of perfecting the good life on earth.
The first and essential condition of the good life on earth is the freeing of men’s minds from the bonds of ignorance and superstition, and of their bodies from the arbitrary oppression of the constituted social authorities.
Carl Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Centry Philosophers (Yale, 1932), p. 102.[i]

To a Humanist, “To speak of something as ‘supernatural’ is therefore to imply that it is imaginary, and belief in powerful imaginary entities is known as superstition.”[ii]

These ideas are founded in the Enlightenment’s humanistic rationalism, naturalism and the fictitious theory of evolution which is being pumped into our public (State) school children (a theory, by the way, which takes more faith to believe in than God’s Word). “Enlightenment thinking operated on the premise that there was no supernatural in a purely naturalistic world. Truth, ethics, and law was to be determined by man’s reason; theistic reasoning was an imposition on man’s freedom.”[iii] A simplistic rendition of the theory goes something like this: Given the fact of evolution, a creator does not exist. Therefore man is the highest form of life. He has evolved from the primordial slime into his current form and will continue to evolve into higher life forms. The only thing holding him back is the bondage of a primitive society still holding on to a now useless creation of man: religion and its ridiculous moral codes.

The problem with Humanistic mantras like the one which is the focus of this article is that when the rubber hits the road, those who pontificate such nonsense are really only talking about themselves and the same “rights” which they hold so dear are never extended to others (such as murders and rapists). The reason for this is because deep down they know that there are such things as right and wrong (good and evil), but they do not what to admit to it until their “rights” are infringed upon.

The current state of Humanism can also be called “Liberal Rationalism.” Phillip Johnson, in his book Reason in the Balance, has an amazingly insightful breakdown of the modern humanistic position:

In the philosophical sense in which I employ the term, liberalism refers not to a position about the level of government spending or to the desirability of change, but to the secular legacy of philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. Its essence lies in a respect for the autonomy of the individual. Because liberalism starts with the individual, the most characteristic liberal political doctrines are the social contract as the foundation of legitimate government and individual rights as the basis of liberty. Contemporary liberals will speak enthusiastically of natural rights, but they tend to reject the concept of natural laws, in the sense of obligations that are superior to those created by governments. Obligations in contemporary liberalism come not from nature, and certainly not from God, but from society, and they are clearly legitimate only to the extent that individuals have in some sense consented to be bound by them. Rights, on the other hand, are founded directly on our assumed status as autonomous beings.

Although the initial founders of liberalism were theists, the dominant contemporary form of liberal rationalism incorporates the naturalistic doctrine that God is unreal, a product of the human imagination. The famous "death of God" is simply the modernist certainty that naturalism is true and that human beings must therefore create their own standards rather than take them from some divine revelation. We cannot look to anything higher than ourselves, because there is nothing higher, at least until we encounter superior beings from other planets. That means we have to start with human society (socialism) or with the individual (liberalism) as the unit that is fundamentally real.[iv]

The problem with basing all standards on one’s own thoughts and inclinations is that individualistic, autonomous standards will always tend “to become progressively more relativistic and even permissive.”[v] Humanism is simply man attempting to make himself into his own god. As each individual, autonomous god becomes increasingly relativistic and permissive, the fullest expression of one’s godhood are repeated acts of guiltless, gratuitous, unmotivated evil.

Guillaume Apollunaire (1880-1918), called by Shattuck "the pressario of the avant-garde," was a champion of the gratuitous act, "l'acte gratuit," as the means to human freedom. Uncaused wickedness was for him (as for the Marquis de Sade and others) a liberation, because uncaused wickedness manifests a purely disinterested act, unmotivated evil. Because such an act is performed only to satisfy a totally personal whim, it becomes a free, uncaused, and therefore divine, act. In that act the perpetrator becomes a god. Because the act has no external reference, and no relationship to the situation, to gain or loss, to good and evil, it is ostensibly a pure act, a free act, or an infallible act or word.[vi]

True Humanism, when it brought to its natural and undeniable conclusion, is man trying to be god, desiring to what ever he wishes. But that is not man’s prerogative; it belongs only to the one true God, the God of the Bible:

“But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases” (Psalms 115:3).

All of this provides excellent support the Christian world and life view, that man is basically evil, and therefore, in need of a Savior:

Gen. 6:5 “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
Ps. 14:3 & Ps. 53:3 “They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one.”
Isa 64:6 “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”
Rom 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”

(Part 3: What is Freedom? Coming soon)

[i] Colin Brown, Philosophy & the Christian Faith (IVP, 1968), p. 227.
[ii] Phillip E. Johnson, Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law & Education (IVP, 1995), p. 38.
[iii] Mark R. Rushdoony, “The Grace of Law,” Chalcedon Report (The Chalcedon Foundation, February 2003 Issue)
[iv] Phillip E. Johnson, Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law & Education (IVP, 1995), p. 40-41.
[v] Ibid., P. 41.
[vi] Rousas John Rushdoony, Infallibility: An Inescapable Concept (Vallecito, CA, Ross House Books) 1978, p.34-35

An Excellent Book

2005-03-21T10:30:00.000-08:00

I recently picked up a book by Stephen K. McDowell, President and co-founder of the Providence Foundation. The book is entitled, Building Godly Nations: Lessons from the Bible and America's Christian History. What I've read of the book is excellent and very well written. I did not even get past the second page of the first chapter when I called my family together and read to them the following excerpt:

Purpose of salvation in Christ
The complete purpose of salvation in Christ cannot be understood unless we understand the original purpose of man. Salvation goes beyond getting man to heaven. It includes restoring man to his original position. Christ brought to man the restoration of the convenant he had with God, of the glory he had from God, and of the dominion mandate. Jesus also brought His kingdom rule and reign to all creation. He proclaimed and demonstrated the gospel of the Kingdom (that is, the government, righteousness, truth, and peace of God in all areas of life).

His atoning work also reversed the curse due to the fall of man. The curse affects individuals through death, sickness, bondage, etc., and in turn also affects all spheres of life. Christ brought redemption to individuals, but also institutions and all spheres of life (including law, government, education, arts, business). Redemption is as broad as the sweep of sin.

God's desire, as Jesus taught us to pray, is for His kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. We have been redeemed for a purpose. In Christ we have been restored to sonship and are now in position to obey both the Cultural and the Evangelistic Mandates. With respect to the Cultural Mandate, God has restored us to stewardship. Through Christ we are called back to God's original purpose--to live in His image and to "be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over ... every living creature that moves on the ground" (Gen. 1:28). We have been restored to serving God as his vice-regent over the earth.

...

Redeeming the earth
The Cultural Mandate calls us to use all our resources to express His image and likeness on the earth. Fulfilling this mandate requires us to discover truth through science, apply truth through technology, interpret truth though humanities, implement truth through commerce and social action, transmit truth through education and arts, and preserve truth through government and law.

I have not finished the book, but I expect to be only more thrilled with the book as I approach its completion.

Freedom and the Law (Part 1):Introduction

2005-03-11T09:09:00.000-08:00

I recently read one of the most irresponsible statements man has ever uttered:

“In a truly Free Country anybody could do what ever they damned well wanted to do with out any form of limitations whatsoever!”

This statement does nothing less than exalt man to the status of a god and then condemns him to the worse kind of bondage and misery – It is the mantra of Humanism.

This is not a new sentiment however. It is as old as man himself. It has been Satan’s strategy from the very beginning, a strategy which encourages man to ignore the infallible Word of God, and to become his own authority and source for truth. This is what Eve did in the Garden of Eden when she no longer accepted God’s word as truth and decided to determine good and evil for herself (Gen. 3:1-6). It is this kind of corrupt thinking that leads man to make statements like the mantra above. When man ignores God, he begins to believe that he can “have a meaningful and proper understanding of reality apart from God’s revelation,” which is unsustainable and unsupportable.¹ Why is it unsustainable and unsupportable? Read the words of Paul to the philosophers at Areopagus in Athens, Greece:

"The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; 25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; 26 and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, 27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and exist." (NASB, Acts 17:24-28a)

Whether individual or nation, "we live and move and exit" in Him and he created us to seek Him.

It does not take much to show this mantra as what it is, foolishness. It only takes one pedophile to molest one of the mantra’s author’s children to send his worldview into a tailspin. It only takes one rapist to attack his wife or daughter, to show how ridicules this statement truly is. It only takes one person to decide to murder the author of the above statement to completely shatter his delusion.

The Land of Boobies
According to Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, the word “booby” has the following meanings: “a dunce or idiot,” “a buffoon,” “a stupid fellow,” “one void of wisdom, or intellect.”

If you are familiar with the original story of Pinocchio (not Disney’s version) by Carlo Collodi, you will remember that the “Land of Boobies” was the place where Pinocchio and his friend Candlewick, a confirmed rogue, joined multitudes of other disobedient and lazy boys to live a life without rules or authority where they can spend their days in “play and amusement from morning till night.”² In other words, to quote the mantra above, Pinocchio went to live in a land where “anybody could do what ever they damned well wanted to do with out any form of limitations whatsoever.” If we followed the same path, we would transform our once great Country from the “Land of the Free” to the “Land of the Idiots” and its people would, like Pinocchio, all turn into proverbial asses. For when “these poor deluded boys, from continual play and no study had become so many little donkeys, he [the little man who brought them there] took possession of them with great delight and satisfaction, and carried them off to the fairs and markets to be sold.”³ This is exactly what Satan wishes to do to those who dream of creating the same “utopia.”

[Part two: The Root of the Delusion]

¹ Dr. Greg L. Bahnsen, Always Ready, p. 96.
² Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio, p. 166.
³ Ibid., p. 187.

A Loaf of Bread, The Epcot Center, and R. J. Rushdoony

2005-03-03T12:58:00.000-08:00

My wife is becoming very good at making homemade, whole grain and yeast-free sourdough breads. I love the way the house is filled with the aroma of fresh baked bread and I love the taste of warm bread slathered in REAL butter. All in all, it's a beautiful thing.

Now you might be wondering how on earth I can find a relationship between a loaf of bread, Disney's Epcot Center, and R. J. Rushdoony, but here it is:

As I was musing on my wife's new found abilities to make bread, I was wondering why the whole process brought me so much joy. And it came down to basically one thing: this is one more link which has been broken between our family and the false science that is killing Americans. I am not against large companies. I am not against science (I have a BS degree in Computer Science and my skills are in information technology). I believe in entrepreneurship and in free enterprise. But the ends do not justify the means.

Both my wife and I were raised on mostly processed food. This is not a slap in the face to our mothers, it is just fact. Several years ago, there was a faith in science. A faith that science and technology would always gives better lives and correct all evils. It was believed that if science approved of it, it must be good. I believe we are now coming to the end of an age of putting our faith in science.

I remember going to Disney's Epcot Center when I was a kid. One of the sections of Epcot (I do not remember where) was full of future-looking technology. It was full of hands-on scientific exhibits. Well last month my in-laws very generously paid for both of their children's families to spend a week with them at Disney World. It was a great time for a family reunion and for the grandparents to show how much they loved their 8 grandchildren. As you can imagine I hoped my children would have at least as much fun as I did playing with all the exhibits at Epcot as I did when I was a kid.

...As far as I was able to discern, whatever that exhibit was, it is completely gone.

The only hands-on exhibits left were old IBM laptop and desktop computers and a few computer games that kids can play at home on their own systems (some of the computer stations did not even work). Oh yeah, there was also a fire safety exhibit and one about saving trees. It really was quite sad and rather disappointing. Why the change?

I understand that as an adult I have a different perspective on things, but I believe the change is due to the fact that there is no longer any excitement about what the future holds. People are realizing that science and technology will not save us, in spite of all the promises from scientists claiming that all of man's diseases would be cured by now. Instead we are finding just the opposite.

Yesterday, I was listening to the last tape of R. J. Rushdooy's A Christian Survey of World History series. The title of the lecture is "The 20th Century: The Intellectual-Scientific Elite." Keep in mind that this lecture was given in the year 1971 (I may be off a year or two either way), but he spoke on this exact topic - man's failed attempt to save himself through science. It was a very interesting lecture and series, I highly recomend it.

Much of the food that is sold in stores today can not be really considered food at all. It is a mixture of various chemicals, super heated, and shaped and formed into a food look-a-like substance. It is a creation of science. It is man's attempt to produce a better food than God. And what has been the result? Cancer, diabetes, obesity and heart disease rates are higher than ever before in our history. Our scientifically processed animal matter is killing us by the thousands. The lab rats (us) are dieing - the experiment has failed (by the way, the humanistic "scientific elite" do see people as expendable lab rats - don't believe me? Just study the history of Communist Russia and Germany.). It is no wonder that much of the world will not accept food aid from the USA. All of our corn and grain has been genetically modified. We produce sterile fruits and vegetables that take a great deal of resources to produce because they can not reproduce themselves - they are a violation of God's natural order. But hey, we don't have to worry about seeds in our grapes - glad we got that one fixed!

Which brings me back to my wife's lovely, natural, truly whole grain, healthy bread, free from hydrogenated and trans fats, free from pesticides, free from man made vitamins, and free from all the other nasty things injected into our food.

Like I said, "it's a beautiful thing."

The Kids Were Right, [Public] School Is a Prison

2005-02-22T13:18:00.000-08:00

by Scott Bradner

original article is found here

The school board in Sutter, Calif., and the superintendents of the Brittan Elementary School seem to want to prove that generations of students were correct when they felt that school officials cared more about confining students to classrooms than educating them. At this point the school board is well on its way to achieving that goal.

Like petty little dictators, school officials imposed a new ID system on elementary school students. Students were issued ID tags they must wear around their necks - just like in some prisons - and school officials have threatened disciplinary proceedings against any student who fails to do so. The tags include the student's name, picture, school, class year and school ID number. The tags also include an RFID chip that responds to a scanner with a student-specific serial number. As part of an initial test, the school was equipped with RFID scanners above the doors to some classrooms and bathrooms. The system was installed without any advance notice or discussion with students or parents.

School officials said the system would provide better information about attendance, which the school needs to report to the state, would let folks know if a student failed to show up for class and would help discover intruders (because they would not have ID tags). According to news reports, the school has not had a problem with truancy, so school officials seem to be fixing a problem they do not have.

Note that unless all people in the building, which includes teachers and officials, wear ID tags, it's not clear how such tags will help pinpoint intruders. But what the ID tags do is pinpoint students while in school and while walking to and from school. Sounds like an ideal enabler for someone wanting to snatch a kid - just set up an RFID scanner beside the path in the woods, and you will be told when the target kid walks by with his ID tag in his bag.

It is real bad that school officials decided to install such a system without prior discussion with parents. But what is worse has been the reaction of these school officials and their lawyer since the word got out. Instead of instantly stopping the test when parents began to complain, which is what anyone with any hint of common sense would have done, they threatened students who do not want to wear the tags.

An example of the stupidity being demonstrated was the school's lawyer offering to let some students whose parents complained wear blank tags, while insisting that the students would be disciplined if they failed to wear the useless tags. Even after the company making the system pulled out of the trial one school official said he was disappointed that the trial would not go on.

The school could get the information that it actually needed to report to the state by having students swipe a magstripe card when they entered or left the school building with far less threat to student safety and privacy. But that would be too sensible.

By the way, don't laugh at the plight of these students - your pointy-haired boss might suddenly decide that finding out when you go to the bathroom is critical to the health of your company.

Bradner is a consultant with Harvard University's University Information Systems. Reach him at sob@sobco.com.

Bush's Inaugural Address and the "Moral" Election

2005-02-21T11:00:00.000-08:00

President Bush said in his inaugural address:

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary. Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way.

Should our goal really be "to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way?" Should our money, our blood, our loved ones be spent so that others can do what they wish with the results? Should they be spent so that others can form Islamic states? Will this really result in the ending of "tyranny in our world?" The answer is emphatically "NO!" We will have only sent our loved ones to die so that we could help set up alternative tyrants. As Christians, our goal is to conform all peoples to the Word of God, not "to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way?"

The Moral Election
We have been told that this past election was won based on moral ideals, but what is the basis for America's (and the President's) present morality? The President says that "Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self. That edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran, and the varied faiths of our people." Are all of the "varied faiths of our people" equally true and valid? Again, the answer is emphatically "NO!"

The Christian's belief that Jesus is exactly who He said He is undeniably contradicts the claims of all other religions: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me" (John 14:6 NASB). It is exactly this claim that enabled our Founding Fathers (and enables us) to be self-governed. True self-government can never exist without the saving power of Jesus, the Christ and the sactifying power of the Holy Spirit. (By the way ALL religions contradict each other in irreconcilable ways - it is impossible to have a country lead equally by all religious "truths").

R. J. Rushdoony had these wise words to say more than 5 years ago:

The new America taking shape around us is a very religious America, but its religion is humanism, not Christianity. It is a very morally minded America, but its ethics is the new morality, which for Christianity is simply the old sin. This new, revolutionary, humanistic America is also very missionary-minded. Humanism believes in salvation by works of law and, as a result, we are trying, as a nation, to save the world by law. By vast appropriations of money and dedicated labor, we are trying to save all nations and races, all men from all problems, in the hopes of creating a paradise on earth. We are trying to bring peace on earth and good will among men by acts of state and works of law, not by Jesus Christ. But St. Paul wrote, in Galatians 2:16, "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." (R.J. Rushdoony, Law & Liberty)

Celebrate with a Fellow Blogger and Give a Gift of Love

2005-02-21T09:58:00.000-08:00

by Jennifer Watson (my lovely wife)

Congratulations to Carmon Friedrich on the occasion of her one thousandth blog entry! All day long today (Monday), Carmon is celebrating by hosting a cyber-party at her blog, and everyone is invited. What makes it even more fun is that it’s also a surprise party of sorts for the guest of honor (be sure to read the whole story).

We first read of Azanou at Dave Black Online last fall (here's a link to the original story). Dr. Black is a trusted friend of the Watson family. We consider it an honor to partner with his family in a gift of love for Azanou. Please visit the blogs of these talented writers (spiritual mentors in my book), and prayerfully consider your involvement in sharing the love of Christ in a very tangible way to a young boy made in His image.

Truth or Consequences

2005-02-18T06:28:00.000-08:00

By James N. Clymer
Constitution Party National Chairman

While listening to President Bush’s Inaugural Address and remembering the actions and policies of his administration, I was struck by the ability of politicians to numb the mind with great sounding statements that are at once frightening in their implications and without truth or Constitutional foundation.

I was reminded of two books I read far too long ago which I need to dust off and read again, George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984. In fact, I believe it’s time for us all to give these classics a reread to remind us of how we can be fooled and manipulated on the road to tyranny. Just like “All animals are created equal” gets unobtrusively changed to “All animals are created equal but some are more equal than others”, so freedom and liberty become hallmarks of an administration that has people passively taking off their shoes at airport security checks, allowing Big Brother to snoop into their homes, their bank accounts their emails and their irises, and even sending our troops to die in the desert all to protect us from the big bad enemy. Remember how there always had to be an enemy in both those books? Ah, the prescience of George Orwell.

Mr. Bush’s opening statements regarding the “durable wisdom of the Constitution” and his promise to uphold his oath, are most remarkable for their difference and distance from the reality of his actions. The irony is that Mr. Bush broke his oath of office before he even finished his speech by promising to do a host of things forbidden by the Constitution he swore to uphold and defend. Yes, I say forbidden because any power not authorized by the Constitution is forbidden by it and by usurping such powers, Mr. Bush violates his oath.

It would be an exhaustive work to try to list the ways in which he has violated his oath but a few striking examples come to mind, starting with the right to life. “Americans, at our best, value the life we see in another, and must always remember that even the unwanted have worth”, intoned the prez. Unless of course that unwanted one hasn’t yet been born. Why the multitude of so-called pro-life conservatives believe this president is pro-life is a mystery to me.

The Animal Farm critters begin believing the falsehoods they are told (which they really know are false but can’t deal with the consequences of the truth and thus believe the lie) and the 1984 Ministry of Truth and Newspeak deludes the subjects. In like manner millions of Americans hold the president up as “the most pro-life president ever” (as one writer put it with unintended hyperbole) because they don’t want to believe the truth. Of course GW has never claimed himself to be pro-life, to desire the end of Roe v. Wade or to take any serious step toward stopping or even significantly curtailing abortions. But the pro-life perception is a lot more comforting than reality.

Of course Bush also breaks his oath with his policies that deny Americans the right “to be secure in our persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”, and “the right to keep and bear arms” as well as when he promotes the prohibiting of “the free exercise “ of religion and speech through his tolerance of tyrannical federal judges.

What concerns me is the propensity of virtually all elected officials to lie, distort the truth, give words new meanings and employ every manner of deception to aggregate power. It didn’t start with this administration. Clinton was one of the smoothest liars ever but I had the sense a lot of people knew he was lying and didn’t care. In the case of this administration, the Christians not only seem to have no inkling of the deception being foisted on them, they aid and abet in its proliferation.

Many times I have felt like Diogenes, out with my lantern searching for the honest man in the political realm, a perpetual search that goes unfulfilled.

But we must not despair. In our quest to restore the Republic of the Constitution, we must continually shine the light of truth, exposing the lies of those who would deceive us into tyranny. We must demand the highest standard of honesty among ourselves and our public servants from the local alderman to the president of the United States. We must expose their failure to live by their oath of office and demand their removal when they violate the trust of their office. It is the lack of outrage and failure to hold them accountable that has allowed such dishonesty to proliferate.

May the Constitution Party ever be the one to “raise the standard to which the wise and honest can repair, recognizing that the event is in the hand of God”.

A Surprise Endorsement for Doctrine

2005-02-17T06:10:00.000-08:00

February 16, 2005 — Fresh Words Edition
By John Piper
Permanent Link

God gives good press to doctrine. But surveys of evangelicals usually do not—until recently. In God’s book, knowing his Son and believing true things about him is liberty. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). God’s self-revelation in the Bible is not a wax nose. Paul calls it “the standard of teaching to which you were committed” (Romans 6:17). It’s a standard, a yardstick, a pattern. You measure truth by it. Elsewhere he calls it “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), and the “pattern of the soundwords” and “the good deposit entrusted to you” (2 Timothy 1:13-14). It does not change. Our everlasting salvation is determined by whether we believe it: “Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son” (2 John 1:9). Depart from the doctrine, and you depart from Christ. Or, better, keep watch over your doctrine and “you will save . . . yourself” (1 Timothy 4:16).

That’s high praise for good doctrine. You would think evangelicals would agree. But we are more likely to hear things like, “Christ unites; doctrine divides,” or, “Ask, ‘Whom do you trust?’, not ‘What do you believe?’” The minimization of biblical doctrine is common. But if we are not willing to get a high estimation of doctrine from God, perhaps we can get it from George Barna.

He has been surveying American evangelicals to see if we practice what we preach. He is finding that we don’t preach doctrine from the Bible, and therefore don’t practice differently from the world. For example, he says that evangelicals divorce at about the same rate as the nation at large. Only 9 percent of evangelicals tithe. Of 12,000 teenagers who took the pledge to wait for marriage, 80% had sex outside marriage in the next 7 years. Twenty-six percent of traditional evangelicals do not think premarital sex is wrong. White evangelicals are more likely than Catholics and mainline Protestants to object to having black neighbors.

According to Barna’s definition an “evangelical” is willing to say, “I have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in my life today.” In addition, they agree with several other things like: Jesus lived a sinless life; eternal salvation is only through grace, not works; Christians have a personal responsibility to evangelize non-Christians; Satan exists. Barna says that 7 to 8 percent of the US population is in this group. And they do not live substantially differently than the world.

But Barna has now developed a new set of criteria that defines a group within evangelicalism who has a “biblical worldview.” This means they say that “the Bible is the moral standard” and “absolute moral truths exist and are conveyed through the Bible.” In addition they believe that God is the all-knowing, all-powerful Creator who still rules the universe, and that salvation cannot be earned by their deeds, and that the Bible is totally accurate in all it teaches. This group is substantially smaller than the broad evangelical group.

For those who belittle doctrine as troublesome, it may come as a surprise that this group lives differently from the world. Ronald Sider, in his new book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience, describes the difference:

They are 9 times more likely than all the others to avoid ‘adult-only’ material on the Internet. They are 4 times more likely than other Christians to boycott objectionable companies and products and twice as likely to choose not to watch a movie specifically because of its bad content. They are 3 times more likely than other adults not to use tobacco products and twice as likely to volunteer time to help needy people. Forty-nine percent of all born-again Christians with a biblical world view have volunteered more than an hour in the previous week to an organization serving the poor, whereas only 29 percent of born-again Christians without a biblical world view and only 22 percent of non-born-again Christians had done so.

The conclusion is that doctrine matters. Sider puts it like this:

Barna’s findings on the different behavior of Christians with a biblical worldview underline the importance of theology. Biblical orthodoxy does matter. One important way to end the scandal of contemporary Christian behavior is to work and pray fervently for the growth of orthodox theological belief in our churches.

Who would have thought that the very survey system that lures so many to put their finger in the wind of opinion would tell them, Take your finger down and teach the people what the Bible says?

I'm Back

2005-02-15T22:40:00.000-08:00

Just in case anyone was wondering why there has been a HUGE laps in posts, it is because I have been on vacation.

I plan to add more posts soon. I also have been working on my Freedom and the Law article, so that is taking up more time than I anticipated.

A Quiet Threat to Homeschooling

2005-02-15T22:34:00.000-08:00

by Lee Duigon

Will homeschooling Christian parents be compelled to teach their children to embrace “safe sex,” abortion on demand, and moral relativism?

It sounds absurd, but it could happen tomorrow, next month, or anytime. The proposal is on the table, waiting for a judge to pick it up.

Children have a constitutional right to learn about beliefs and ways of life other than those of their parents, and the state has a duty to secure that right for them.

So argued Rob Reich, political science and education professor at Stanford University, at the 2001 convention of the American Political Science Association, reading from a paper entitled, “Testing the Boundaries of Parental Authority over Education, the Case of Home Schooling.” He included the paper as a chapter in his 2002 book, Bridging Multiculturalism and Liberalism in Education.

As dry and academic as that seems, Reich’s new children’s “right” has attracted the notice of America’s education elite. “Reich’s material is being read and referenced,” reported Home Education Magazine News & Commentary recently. “He has the ear of the media.”

In his writings, Reich proposes that homeschooling should be monitored by the state to ensure that parents teach their children beliefs and lifestyles that they may oppose — that parents may even believe to be evil.

One lawsuit brought to the right court — the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, for instance, (famous for declaring the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional) — could allow a judge to rule that Professor Reich is right, that children do have a right to learn beliefs and behaviors opposed to those of their parents. And if the parents refuse to teach them such, then the court may order them to secure their children’s “rights” by sending them to public school.

“We see that danger,” says Thomas Washburne, J.D., of the Home School Legal Defense Fund. “You might see it come up in a case where homeschooling parents demonstrably failed to educate a child. Some advocacy group might file a suit and try to mount a case for the child. They might claim the child has this right Reich has identified, and the judge might agree.”

In a recent Amazon.com reader review of Reich’s book, the reviewer declared, “The leading goal of education is to develop autonomy in children.”

Reich was quoted in Home Education Magazine News & Commentary* as saying: “The state has a role of promoting the independent interest of children, including the right to live a life other than that their parents lead.”

These astounding statements — are we to believe that until today’s hip educators came along, children were doomed to be carbon copies of their parents? — show that Reich’s ideas have fallen upon fertile ground.

Reich asserts, “Children are owed as a matter of justice the capacity to lead lives—adopt values and beliefs, pursue an occupation, endorse new [sic] traditions—that are different from those of their parents. Because the child cannot … ensure the acquisition of such capacities and the parents may be opposed … the state must ensure it for them” (emphasis added).

“It is at this point that we can begin to see the implications, indeed danger, of Reich’s ideas for home education,” Washburne says.

Reich has also written, “Neither parents nor the state can justly attempt to imprint indelibly upon a child a set of values and beliefs.”

Are you listening, Christian parents? Consider Biblical injunctions, such as:

“And ye shall teach them (God’s words) [to] your children … (Dt. 11:19), or “Train up a child in the way he should go …”(Pr. 22:6). To obey these injunctions, in Reich’s view, would be unjust.

Yet he argues that state interference in home education may be necessary to secure the children’s religious freedom: “[T]he state cannot relinquish its regulatory role in education in cases where parents invoke their religious beliefs as a bulwark against secular authority” (emphasis added). Translation: homeschooling is okay, as long as you don’t teach your children to be Christians.

“What Reich is doing,” Washburne says, “is setting an academic framework by which an activist
judge might rule in favor of heavy restrictions on home education.”

What is the purpose of Reich’s proposals?

Says Washburne, “The education elite sees homeschoolers as traditional moralists, raising their children to be traditional moralists. They teach their children truth — truth that the elite doesn’t believe in, doesn’t recognize. It drives them crazy that they can’t get at these homeschooled children.”

For many parents, the whole point of homeschooling is to get their children out of the public schools and away from corrupt ideas and values. Now Reich proposes that these corrupt ideas be brought into the home by the parents themselves — or else.

“It’s been quiet so far this year,” Washburne says, “but Reich’s ideas are out there. We’re waiting to see if anyone tries to implement them.”

Perhaps Christian parents ought to start planning what they will do if an activist judge rules that their children have a “right” to be taught Practical Paganism 101. From the view of this writer, it’s only a matter of time before such an answer will be needed.

For more information, contact the Home School Legal Defense Fund, (540) 338-5600.

* In an earlier version of this web article, Chalcedon incorrectly attributed to Home Education Magazine News and Commentary its quote of Rob Reich. Their intent was, like ours, to alert Christians to the danger of Reich's position. We apologize for the error.

Lee Duigon is a businessman and free lance writer from New Jersey. The original article can be found here.

The Proverbs of Dominion

2005-01-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

Proverbs 1:1-7 (NASB)

The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:
To know wisdom and instruction,
To discern the sayings of understanding,
To receive instruction in wise behavior,
Righteousness, justice and equity;
To give prudence to the naive,
To the youth knowledge and discretion,
A wise man will hear and increase in learning,
And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel,
To understand a proverb and a figure,
The words of the wise and their riddles.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

These are the first seven verses of the Book of Proverbs. They are a "description of the writing and a recommendation of its importance and utility. Its object is partly moral and partly intellectual; it seeked to instruct in the way of wisdom, to edify those who have already made progress, and to discipline hearers to receive and assimilate the highest teaching." "It teaches what God requires of man, how God would have man behave in all circumstances of life; it teaches piety, duty, justice" (The Pulpit Commentary, vol. 9, p. iii, iv.). They are the foundation of the rest of the Book. They are the pillars which outline and support the Christian life.

So how do the Proverbs relate to dominion? According to Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar
the word which is translated "proverbs" in verse 1 is derived "from the verb mashal, signifying (1) 'to make like,' 'to assimilate,' and (2) 'to have dominion' " (The Pulpit Commentary, vol. 9, p. 1.). As is true for every are of life, being able to apply God's wisdom appropriately enables the believer to take dominion over the earth and the wicked alike.

Examples from the Book of Proverbs

2:21-22 For the upright will dwell in the land, And the blameless will remain in it; 22 But the wicked will be cut off from the earth, And the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.
12:24 The hand of the diligent will rule, But the slack {hand} will be put to forced labor.
17:2 A wise servant will rule over a son who causes shame, And will share an inheritance among the brothers.

Christians would be wise to take the entire counsel of Scripture to heart, to shed the wicked inclinations and ideas of our own hearts and return to God's Word for direction and guidance. Use the Book of Proverbs to train yourself and your family to think God's thoughts after Him. Use them to discipline your children - lovingly take them to God's Word and show them what God has to say about their particular sin. Implore your children to "Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight" (Proverbs 3:5,6).

New "Covenant Media Foundation" Link

2005-01-22T20:34:00.000-08:00

I wanted everyone to know that I have just added a new resource link under the "Related Links" section on left-hand sidebar. The organization is called "Covenant Media Foundation." Here is an excerpt from their "Company" page:

Mission Statement
It is the purpose of Covenant Media Foundation to promote sound biblical education and training for Christians at all levels. We are committed to working with believers from a wide range of theological backgrounds and associations, in the Spirit of Christ, with the common goal of advancing the kingdom of God both in the lives of individual Christians and throughout the culture. We are represented by speakers from several denominations.

Gods Unto Themselves

2005-01-21T19:38:00.000-08:00

On January the 11th, I posted a blog about Children's Television uniting to promote homosexuality (you can read it here). Well, tonight on ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, they "reported" on the Christian right's objection to the "tolerance" video that is being sent to 61,000 public schools. The "objective" report failed to mention that WAFF, the driving force behind the video, actively promotes sodomy through their alliances with the following:

Anti-Defamation League (read this article on their own web site)
Tolerance.org - which provided them with
- "Writing for Change: Raising Awareness of Difference, Power, & Discrimination" curriculum geared to Parents and Teachers (also found here).
- Tolerance Pledge (America is stronger because of sexual and other diversities)
others

At the end of the report, the self proclaimed conservative Christian, Michael Medved, had this to say about the Christian right's objection (rough quote):

My fellow conservative Christians should place a moratorium on attacking cartoons. It's kind of silly.

Are cartoons now above reproach? Have they been elevated to the status that education and government now enjoy in our society? Are they gods unto themselves, infallible in their teaching? No doubt someone will argue that we do not get our theology from cartoons. And they would be half right, they may not, but kids will. The humanists have long understood the importance of infiltrating the educational systems. If you can subvert the parents and gain direct access to the children, you have won the future. The same tactic worked for converting the churches. The liberals and humanists infiltrated the seminaries and thus produced like-minded pastors who then led entire generations away from Christ and from the Bible as their only standard. The humanists already own much of the public school system and children's television which means if your family is anything like the average American family, THEY ARE TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN AT SCHOOL AND AT HOME.

I suggest that Mr. Medved read the Scriptures: "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1).

Please read the following excerpt from the "1.5 Uncovering Attitudes About Sexual Orientation" lesson which is a part of the "Writing for Change: Raising Awareness of Difference, Power, & Discrimination" curriculum:

Instructor directions
Ask your students to study the definitions of the terms "homophobia" and "compulsory heterosexuality" and identify ways in which these forces are at work in their lives.
Have them discuss ways in which they are affected by each.
Definitions
Homophobia: Thoughts, feelings, or actions based on fear, dislike, judgment, or hatred of gay men and lesbians/of those who love and sexually desire those of the same sex. Homophobia has roots in sexism and can include prejudice, discrimination, harassment, and acts of violence.
Compulsory heterosexuality: The assumption that women are "naturally" or innately drawn sexually and emotionally toward men, and men toward women; the view that heterosexuality is the "norm" for all sexual relationships. The institutionalization of heterosexuality in all aspects of society includes the idealization of heterosexual orientation, romance, and marriage. Compulsory heterosexuality leads to the notion of women as inherently "weak," and the institutionalized inequality of power: power of men to control women's sexuality, labor, childbirth and childrearing, physical movement, safety, creativity, and access to knowledge. It can also include legal and social discrimination against homosexuals and the invisibility of or intolerance toward lesbian and gay existence.

The facts are that God teaches that homosexuality is an abomination, "If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them" (Lev. 20:13 - this is not the only verse, just the clearest).

The Mantra of Humanism

2005-01-19T04:23:00.000-08:00

The Most Outrageous Legal Decision in American History

2005-01-18T19:14:00.000-08:00

Every week our elders send an email to the congregation letting us know how we can prepare our families for Sunday. Below is this week's email by Scott T. Brown, teaching elder.

Today, January 18, 2005 Norma McCorvey, the original "Jane Roe", of Roe v. Wade filed a legal appeal with the Supreme Court of the United States with the hope of overturning the legal decision that made her famous. Several years ago, Norma came to faith in Christ and revealed that she was used by two young feminist lawyers as a pawn in a political scam, was never raped (as she testified under oath) and never had an abortion. She has become a radical pro life activist.

January 23 is Sanctity of Life Sunday which commemorates one of the most outrageous legal decisions in American history - Roe v. Wade. The cries of the murdered millions - 45 million US babies and the nearly one billion babies worldwide - are heard before the throne of God - and they must be heard by the common church member. We cannot forget the global slaughter that continues to roll daily in nearly every culture on earth. And we cannot turn our heads in good conscience and look the other way.

On Sunday we will be focusing our attentions upon the foundations of our resistance against this global holocaust.

Following are several flagship passages that form the scriptural case for the pro life position. My counsel to all the people of Trinity Baptist Church is two fold: First, engage in this fight and resist the comforts that ignoring it affords. Second, that you and your households be able to articulate the Christian position and that you are able quote verbatim the following passages of scripture so that you will be ready to defend babies in the image of God.

These passages of scripture answer the question: "Why do we defend babies and stand against abortion?"

Genesis 1:26-27 "Let us make man in our image, according to Our likeness" ...man is made in the image of God

Exodus 20:13 "Thou shalt not kill"

Psalm 139:13-16, "You knit me together in my mothers womb; you formed my inward parts...your eyes saw my substance before I was unformed" See also: Ephesians 1:4,

Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you"

Luke 1:35,41 "and it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the baby leaped in her womb"

Luke 1:15 "He will be filled with the spirit, even from his mother's womb"

Proverbs 24:11 Deliver those who are drawn toward death

Summary:
Abortion is an attack on the entire Bible. In the Law, the Prophets, the Poetic books, the Pauline Epistles and the Gospels we find evidence of the sacredness of life in the womb and the sovereignty of God at work in conception. There should be equal protection under the law for life in the womb.

The Dead Sea Scrolls in America

2005-01-18T18:33:00.000-08:00

from http://www.deadseascrollstoamerica.com/

What is being hailed as the single greatest traveling exhibition touring America today will be on display in North Carolina. Some of the rarest artifacts and earliest Biblical manuscripts from around the world will visit North Carolina from Jan 14, 2005 thru February 27. The exhibit will present a display of the History of Scripture from Antiquity to Modern America, highlighting the importance Dead Sea Scrolls to the founding fathers.

This awe-inspiring collection of artifacts, manuscripts and Bibles comes together to tell the story of the complete history of the Bible.

MUSEUM HIGHLIGHTS

Biblical as well as historically important non-biblical Dead Sea Scroll Fragments
Four (4) fragments from a Greek Septuagint from the Book of Exodus on papyrus, circa 350A.D.Fragment 1: The New Stone TabletsFragment 2: The Tabernacle (a bifolium)Fragment 3: The PassoverFragment 4: The Plague of Locusts
The earliest witness to Paul's Epistle to the Colossians, on papyrus, in Coptic, circa 275 A.D.
The "Gospel of James" fragment in Coptic, colophon leaf, circa 4th Century A.D.
A "Gnostic" Creation Story in Coptic, on papyrus, circa 4th Century A.D.
An ornamental initial from a religious text, on papyrus, in Greek, circa 4th Century A.D.
An interlinear correction on a tiny (approx 32 x 20mm) Greek fragment from Exodus from a Septuagint on papyrus, circa 350AD.
Four (4) leaves from a 10th Century Greek Gospel Book.
Five (5) leaves from a 13th Century Parisian Bible.
Four (4) leaves from a 13th Century Psalter.• Medieval Yemenite Torah Scroll
Two Mesopotamian clay pictographs with images and numeration on both sides, circa 3000 B.C.; One with a Biblical reference to Erech, son of Nimrod (Genesis 10).
Other fine examples of Sumerian and Akkadian Cuneiform.
Examples of The Egyptian Book of the Dead (circa 1000-100 BC);
Two ancient Christian Letters on papyrus (one sealed) (circa 3rd/4th Century AD);
A fragment of Homer's Iliad on papyrus (3rd Century AD).
A 15th Century Ethiopian painting of Saint Mark writing his Gospel.
A gospel book parchment fragment in Coptic circa 4th-6th Century AD;
The Magna Carta, on vellum, circa 1300 A.D. (first two weeks only)

EARLY PRINTED BIBLES

Gutenberg Bible Leaf from Isaiah, 1455
The 1519 Erasmus Greek Latin New Testament
The Luther Bible of 1536
A Tyndale 1526 facsimile (1862) New Testament
Tyndale "Matthew's" Bible of 1549
The Coverdale "Great Bible" of 1539 with Second Edition of 1541
Tyndale New Testament 1553
Tyndale's Wicked Mammon
"Geneva" Bible of 1560
Cassiodoro de Reina First Spanish Bible of 1569
Douai-Rheims (Catholic English) Bible of 1582 & 1609-10
Queen Elizabeth's "Bishops' Bible" of 1568
The first edition King James Bible of 1611, grand pulpit folio
All five folio editions of the King James Bible (1611, 1613, 1617, 1634, 1640/39)
First Printed Edition of a Wyclif New Testament (1731)
A 16th Century folio of Foxe's Book of Martyrs

AMERICAN BIBLES & AMERICANA

The Eliot Indian Bible, 1663
The Christopher Saur Lutheran German Bible, 1743
The first English Bible in America: The "Bible of the Revolution" printed in 1782 by Robert Aitken
The first America Catholic Bible, 1790
The first American "Family Bibles" - Collins, Thomas, and Brown.
The first American Hebrew Bible, 1814
The first American Bible printed by a woman, 1808

Plus Much, Much More:-The 1777 "Dunlap" Broadside of the Declaration of Independence-The first pamphlet of the Constitution-The First Printing of the Bill of Rights

Go to http://www.deadseascrollstoamerica.com/ for more details - mabye I'll see you there!

Health "Wise?"

2005-01-13T18:29:00.000-08:00

Our federal government has just released a new set of dietary guidelines as it does every 5 years. Doesn't the fact that the government schedules the guidelines to be changed EVERY 5 years tell us something about how much faith we can place in their guidelines or in modern science? At some point in the not so distant past, I took one of my children to the Pediatrician. While we were waiting in an examination room, I looked at the "food pyramid" poster hanging on the wall. At the base of the pyramid, our most wise government has placed "breads, cereals, rice, and pasta - all foods from grains" signifying that we need more servings of these foods than any other (you know more than fish, fruit, vegetables, etc.). So what do you imagine was pictured at the base of the food pyramid poster? Cookies, white pasta, crackers and other apparently "healthy" items which could be classified in the "all foods from grains" category! It should come to no surprise that the government and food industry giants are not really concerned with the health of the people; their main interest is money and power. I don't remember anything about dietary guidelines in the U.S. Constitution. Even more importantly, I don't see God specifying this as a function of government anywhere in His Word.

To give you even "more" reason to trust our scientists and dietitians, I just heard about two health studies. The first study was conducted to discover the effect eating red meat had on cancer. The results indicated that men should once again stop eating meat and return to eating fiber (which we were told not too long ago to stop eating and eat red meat). The second was a study on the effects eating healthy amounts of fruits and vegetables had on preventing breast cancer. According to the study the effect was, well, they are embarrassed to say, NONE. So did the health officials react the same way as they did to the first study? Of course not, they gave some lame excuse, passed the study off as inconclusive and encouraged women to keep eating fruits and vegetables (which I applaud). So what are we to do? We are to emphatically trust the results of the first study and not trust the second study. Why? Because the the conclusions were already predetermined and if, as in the second study, the actual results to not match, we simply ignore them and go on. So much for the objectivity of science.

Placing your faith in modern science is a fools course!

Exodus 15:26
And He said, "If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the LORD, am your healer."

Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Applying your faith to every area of life includes diet. When the Israelites followed God's food laws they were the healthiest people on the planet able to take dominion as He directed. Don't you think they will do the same for His people today? God created you and his Word provides us with a wealth of knowledge.

Recommended Reading on Diet:

The Holy Bible by God
None of These Diseases by S. I. McMillen M.D.
The Maker's Diet by Jordan S. Rubin
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon (not all info in this book is biblical - take the Bible as your guide)

Titus 2 Women Invited to Wife-Swapping Show

2005-01-11T19:10:00.000-08:00

by Doug Phillips of Vision Forum

Its a crazy world out there when the Christian vision of societal relevancy is to tell us that too many babies are bad, that mothers may be sent to war to die in Baghdad, and that Bono is the sina qua non of Christian culture. But every once in a while we get a zinger from the secular world sure to challenge even the most avant-garde, relevancy-drenched, pagan syncretistic, and libertine. Consider the following letter from the producers of the ABC show “Wife Swap” sent to the dear ladies who defend biblical patriarchy at the Ladies Against Feminism website:

Greetings!

I am writing in the hopes that someone who espouses the traditional values presented on your website, might be interested in appearing on a new ABC television series. The show, (entitled Wife Swap), has two mothers exchange families for 2 weeks, such that both can explore another family’s values and lifestyle, and share their perspective too. It’s a format that has won numerous awards in the UK, and been critically acclaimed on this side of the Atlantic as well.

We are always searching for families with a lifestyle that others could learn from. Currently, we are eager to feature a mother who embraces the concept of biblical womanhood, and develops her husband’s leadership role.

Is there anyway that your organization might be able to help us find some families? This could be as simple as a message about us in a mass email, a notice in a newsletter, or sharing the information with anyone you know personally that might be interested...Thanks for taking the time to read this, and please give me a call or write should you have any questions or concerns.

Kind regards,
Stacy Woods
Associate Producer

As Jennie Chancey observed to me: Where would I even begin to explain why a woman who “embraces the concept of biblical womanhood and develops her husband’s leadership role” would never swap husbands and children with someone else? (!!!) It [the request from the show’s producer] is just a testimony to the wacky, subverted culture we live in. [“What? You think there’s a problem with living with someone else’s husband for a TV show?”]”

Amen Jen.

Hey wait a second. Maybe, I am just being a legalist to think that my wife should not participate in Wife-Swap. After all, God did not explicitly condemn Abraham for sharing his wife with pharaoh. But more to the point, nowhere does the Bible explicitly forbid our wives to be on the “Wife-Swap” television show. In fact, I can not even find the name of this show in my Strong’s Concordance (a fact which ipso facto proves the Bible is silent on such issues and, consequently, the Scriptures are not sufficient to equip the believer for making wise decisions about every conceivable subject as the Reformers argued). Wife-Swap is not mentioned in the Ten Commandments or any of the six hundred-plus explicit commands of the Old Testament. In fact, no matter how hard one looks nowhere does the Bible say that my wife can not care for another man’s family as part of a TV show. Since being on wife-swapping shows is not explicitly forbidden by the Bible, it is therefore un-condemnable. Right? Isn’t that the clear teaching of the Westminster Confession? After all, only God can define sin, and nowhere in the Bible is participation in a wife-swapping show explicitly labeled as sin.

Hold on further! I have another revelation. If Bono (the standard of virtuous cultural relevancy) can represent Christ by supporting sodomites, praying to Mary and screaming lyrics on MTV, then surely our wives can do the same through their comparatively tame appearance on Wife-Swap. (Let's not forget that the Bible is silent on Wife-Swap, and thus no one has the right to question such a decision.)In fact, maybe if we let our wives participate in this show we are really advancing the kingdom of God. Maybe we are reclaiming the “Wife-Swap” show for Christ. Maybe we can incrementally work our way through the halls of ABC, and ever-so-gradually capture the show for Christ. Maybe we can rename it “Christian Wife Swap” to let people know of this amazingly relevant victory. Maybe home school moms can be “Amish in the City” after all?

Postscript:

Jennie Chancey of LAF writes: “This is the second time the producers of “Wife Swap” have contacted LAF, asking us to find women who believe in biblical womanhood and are willing to participate in the show. I’m sure you know the show’s premise: get two moms to swap places with each other for two weeks, each one living as the wife of another man (no physical adultery involved, of course) and playing mommy to someone else’s children. The first time I got the letter, I thought it was someone playing a joke on LAF. Then I got another letter with a phone number and contact information that checked out. Ditto this third letter from ABC. I still find myself shaking my head in disbelief.

Children's TV Unites to Launch Pro-Homosexual Campaign of 'Tolerance'

2005-01-11T11:44:00.000-08:00

What do Arthur, Barney, Blue's Clues, Bob the Builder, The Book of Pooh, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Dora the Explorer, Jimmy Neutron, Kim Possible, Lilo & Stitch: The Series, Little Mermaid, Madeline, The Magic School Bus, The Muppet Show, Rugrats, Sesame Street and SpongeBob SquarePants have in common? They all want to encourage your children to accept and embrace homosexuality as a normal and valid way of life. Should your children be watching programs that actively promote what God calls an "abomination?"

Lev 20:13 "If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them."

Please read the following article by Ed Vitagliano of Agape Press:

It is as unprecedented as it is cunning, using all the right words and happiest faces in an attempt to speak directly to the nation's children about "tolerance and diversity." Once again, of course, those ideas include homosexual advocacy.

On November 10, 2004, a video remake of the song, "We Are Family," was created using the voices and images of over 100 beloved children's TV characters. On March 11, 2005, the video performance will air simultaneously on the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon and PBS.

...

Also in March, the DVD of the song will be distributed to 61,000 public and private elementary schools across the country. It will be accompanied by a teacher's guide, designed by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a group that, among other things, promotes the normalization of homosexuality.

Driving the project is the We Are Family Foundation (WAFF), which states on its website that the song was remixed "to speak the message of diversity and tolerance to elementary school children nationwide."

...

One of the teacher's guides available online at the WAFF website is called "Writing for Change: Raising Awareness of Difference, Power, & Discrimination." Full of politically correct lessons on feminism, it is also a primer for teachers who want to indoctrinate children regarding sexual orientation issues.

Lessons include such topics as "Talking About Being 'Out'" and "Uncovering Attitudes About Sexual Orientation." In these lesson plans, teachers are taught how to introduce students to "the concepts of homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality."

According to the teacher's guide, children should be taught to reject the idea "that women are 'naturally' or innately drawn sexually and emotionally toward men, and men toward women," or that heterosexuality is normal and should be the only model for marriage.
...

Click below to read the entire article:
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/1/102005a.asp

Fading Freedom

2005-01-10T09:10:00.000-08:00

Birthdays are special days in my household. The day starts off with me taking the birthday boy or girl out to an early breakfast at the restaurant of their choosing. We then spend a little time talking and walking hoping to stretch the morning out as long as possible before I have to take them back home and then head off to work. These are always special times for me and my children.

As I was thinking about having breakfast with my oldest son today, on his special morning, I began to reminisce about my own boyhood and some of the exciting adventures my brother and I went on (well, they were exciting to us anyway). We lived south of Houston, TX, a short bikes ride to the Gulf of Mexico. In the long, hot, sunny days of summer, my brother and I would hop on our Husky bikes with "mag" wheels and ride down to Kemah, the next city a few miles to the south. We would fish a little or, in many cases, our fishing poles would lay dormant while we just explored. We never caught much (actually, I'm not sure I ever caught anything, but I am sure my brother did - he always was and still is a better fisherman than I am), but I remember wading along the shore line and looking at rocks or shells or even picking up the occasional "baby" (non-stinging) jellyfish and marveling at how something that looked and felt like that could actually be alive. We also lived near a large field where my brother and I would spend the entire day chasing grasshoppers, playing army, making dirt bike trails, or when we were older, launching model rockets. Occationally, our parents would give us some lunch money and we would ride our bikes to the nearest Dairy Queen (again a mile or two away from home) and grab a "Hunger Buster Meal" and play a few video games while eating an ice cream sunday. Those were some of the best times of my childhood.

As I was thinking on these things, my joy quickly turned sorrowful as I realized that my children would not be able to explore their world with the same freedom. Why not? Because I would never allow them to travel several miles from home without supervision. Our country has changed a good deal since those days and even though it was not perfectly safe for a child to be out on his own, things have become much worse. Occurrences of all manner of violent crime has risen drastically, as have child abductions and exploitations. This past Sunday I spoke with a man who lived in California during his Junior High years. He told me that he and several of his friends would often hop the buss to the beach, explore the beach and the surf most of the day (again unsupervised) and then hop the buss back home. After telling me this with a smile on his face, the joy also left his eyes as he said he would never let his three boys do the same.

So what has happened to our country? That, I'm sure, is a question that would elicit a multitude of responses. But in reality it comes down to one simple thing: people in mass have rejected God and His Word. God is being systematically removed from the public and private sector whether that be government, business, school, the medical field, or whatever; people are being submerged in humanism, socialism and evolutionary thought. Our state schools are pumping these lies into our children, our modern media programs are building upon this foundation, and our American mega church mentality with their family dividing programs cannot combat it. As long as parents leave the raising and educating of their children to others (especially pagans), society will be lost (Don't believe me? Read this post!).

The "state of the Union"
Romans 1:25
"For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen."

2 Timothy 4:3,4
"3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables."

The above two verses briefly outline the current "state of the Union." Mankind has turned away from God and worships himself. Thereby trusting in himself to save himself - which he can not do. Then can government save us? The answer of course is an emphatic "NO." Not even a godly form of government will save us. Even though I voted for Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party (and will continue to do so as long as the CP names the name of Jesus as King), his winning the election would not have solved America's problems. The change in our country (and every other country) has to come from the bottom up, not the top down. Righteousness can not be created through legislation. The hearts of the people must be changed.

When our country was founded, we had a godly form of government because we had a godly minded people who where, for the most part, self-governed. True self-government can only be accomplished through the work of the Holy Spirit in a life which is totally surrendered to Jesus, the Christ. When this happens, fathers will turn their hearts to their children, children's hearts will turn to their fathers, wives will submit to their husbands, husbands will love their wives as Christ loved the church and churches will be filled with families who have a heart for God, for each other and for the lost. Those families will then, of their own accord, act as the fingers of their local church body, doing the work of evangelism and ministry "as they go" about their daily work:

Matt. 28:18-20a
"18 Then Jesus came up and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore, as you go, disciple all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you" (The ISV translation brings out the true meaning of the Greek here. Instead of "go" as most translations have it, it is "as you go").

These families can then affect their communities and then godly local governments can be formed - and then it spreads upward from there. But it all starts with surrendering your entire life to Jesus. Man has only on Savior and King, Jesus the Son of God. "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).

South Carolina's pro-life bill to end "legalized" abortion.

2005-01-06T08:37:00.000-08:00

by Steve Lefemine

One of the great misconceptions that has paralyzed pro-lifers over the years is that only theUS supreme Court can bring an end to abortion in the United States. This is a great mistake, and one that "history future" may well reveal to us has cost literally millions of lives becauseof the unnecessary and tragic delay in mobilizing pro-life advocates to persist in advancingprincipled pro-life legislation to end America's 32-year abortion holocaust, which has nowmurdered approximately 45 million unborn human beings by surgical abortion alone (andprobably multiple times that number by chemical abortion through Norplant, Depo-Provera,the birth control pill, RU-486, etc.).

There are in fact numerous ways that decriminalized abortion can be ended in America.US supreme Court decisions are not the final, unalterable "Law of the Land." They are not even Legislative decisions!! See Article VI. of the United States Constitution for whatthe U.S. Constitution says are the three things which are the supreme "Law of the Land."You will be surprised to see that noticeably absent, is any mention of decisions by theU.S. supreme Court!

Please call, write, or e-mail your SC State House of Repesentative member today toask him or her to co-sponsor H. 3213 (you can also write/email to Rep. Davenport andRep. Vaughn to thank them for doing the right thing in re-introducing this bill).

Also, Please call, write, or e-mail your SC State Senator today to ask him or her to co-sponsor S. 111 (you can also write/email to Senator Mike Fair to thank him for doing the right thing in re-introducing this bill).

January 3, 2005
Steve Lefemine, pro-life missionary
Dir., Columbia Christians for Life
CCL lobbyist
www.ChristianLifeandLiberty.net
Columbia, SC

__________________________________________________________

The "Right to Life Act of South Carolina" - H. 3213 - www.scstatehouse.net

South Carolina's pro-life bill to end "legalized" abortion.

Please contact your SC State House of Representatives member to sign on as a co-sponsor of H. 3212, the Right to Life Act of South Carolina to end "legalized" abortion in South Carolina. At present there are only two co-sponsorsof the pre-filed bill (the SC Legislature comes back into session on Tuesday,January 11, 2005). If your SC State House of Representatives member signsonto the bill, you will be able to see their name listed as a co-sponsor at:http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess116_2005-2006/bills/3213.htm

The SC Republicans have controlled the SC House of Representatives since1995 (and have been led by Rep. David Wilkins (R-Greenville) since 1995 asthe Speaker of the House), and have only passed the Right to Life Act of SCout of Subcommittee in 2004. The Right to Life Act was first introduced in the SC State House of Representatives in 1998, and has been an active billevery year since (1998 through 2005). The current primary sponsors of theRight to Life Act of SC are Rep. Ralph Davenport (R-Spartanburg) andRep. Lewis Vaughn (R-Greenville). There are 74 Republicans and 50 Democrats, in the 124-member SC House of Representatives for the 2005-2006 session.

If you need the name, addresses, e-mail, or telephone number of your SC State House of Representatives member, go to:

http://www.scstatehouse.net/html-pages/house2.html

http://www.scstatehouse.net/members/bios/0020454543.html

HOUSE MEMBER MAILING ADDRESS
You may also write any Member of the House at:

Post Office Box 11867

Columbia, S.C. 29211-1867

__________________________________________________________

Note: Identical companion bill S. 111 has been introduced in the SC State Senate

by SC State Senator Mike Fair (R-Greenville).

Please contact your SC State Senator to sign on as a co-sponsor of S. 111, the Right to Life Act of South Carolina, to end "legalized" abortion in South Carolina. At present there is only one sponsor of the pre-filed bill (the SC Legislature comes back into session on Tuesday, January 11, 2005). If your SC State Senator signsonto the bill, you will be able to see his name listed as a co-sponsor at: http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess116_2005-2006/bills/111.htm

The SC Republicans are the majority in the SC Senate. There are 26 Republicans and 46 Democrats in the 46-member SC State Senate for the 2005-2006 session.

If you need the name, address, e-mail, or telephone number of your SC State Senator, go to:

http://www.scstatehouse.net/html-pages/senate2.html

http://www.scstatehouse.net/html-pages/senatebios.html

SENATE MAILING ADDRESS
You may also write any Member of the Senate at:

Post Office Box 142

Columbia, S.C. 29202-0142

__________________________________________________________

Please help add co-sponsors to the Right to Life Act of South Carolina.Make a copy of the SC House bill, H. 3213, from the internet: http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess116_2005-2006/bills/3213.htm and send by regular mail or e-mail to your SC State House of Representativesmember, and ask him or her to sign on as a co-sponsor of H. 3213.

Likewise, please help add co-sponsors to the SC Senate version of theRight to Life Act of SC. Make a copy of SC Senate bill, S. 111, from theinternet: http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess116_2005-2006/bills/111.htm and send by regular mail or e-mail to your SC Senator, and ask him orher to sign in as a co-sponsor of S. 111.

The "Chalcedon Report" is now "Faith For All of Life"

2005-01-04T13:30:00.000-08:00

If you're interested in knowing more, here is an article explaining the reason for the name change written by my good friend Chris Ortiz, Director of Communications, Chalcedon Foundation.

Another Reason God Hates Divorce

2005-01-03T19:17:00.000-08:00

In the Book of Malachi, God refuses to heed the offerings that are brought before Him on the altar. Why? Because the men of Israel have dealt treacherously with the wives of their youth.

Malachi 2:13-16 (NASB)
13"This is another thing you do: you cover the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and with groaning, because He no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 14 "Yet you say, 'For what reason?' Because the LORD has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 "But not one has done so who has a remnant of the Spirit. And what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring? Take heed then to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth. 16 "For I hate divorce," says the LORD, the God of Israel, "and him who covers his garment with wrong," says the LORD of hosts. "So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously."

As the divorce rate climbs, the surrounding culture will continue to decay. It is a curse brought on by those who deal treacherously with their wives, their wives BY COVENANT (Mal. 2:14). Divorce tears apart all lives involved, husband, wife, children, extended family, etc. God says in Genesis chapter 2 verse 24, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh." When a man and a woman divorce they are ripping the "one flesh" that God has created into two bleeding halves; they are not simply "separating" into two, whole, independent beings. This fact is completely ignored even by many professing Christians (the divorce rate among Christians is the same OR HIGHER than those among non-Christians [1]). What the vast number of divorcees who are also parents do not understand is the damage they are doing to their children. They are creating a generation of extremely angry, bitter children who have no honor or respect for any authority what-so-ever let alone their parents.

God desires godly offspring (Mal. 2:15), but divorce is driving many children away from their parents, away from His church, and away from God Himself. Consider the very words of Jesus in Matthew 18:5-6, "5 'And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; 6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.'" What implication does this verse have on our divorce laden culture? It is not to hard to make the connection.

Mary Eberstadt, author of Home-Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavioral Drugs, and Other Parent Substitutes, writes a very long, but insightful article connecting the incredible grief children are suffering due to divorce to the vulgar and violent nature of today's alternative, metal, punk, and rap music. Take the time to read it. It will open your eyes.

I have included her article entitled Eminem Is Right in its entirety below for posterity (you never know how long links on the internet will last), but you can also link directly to it at Policy Review Online.

Note: Her article contains some graphic language.

----Start of Article ----
Eminem Is Right
By Mary Eberstadt
Mary Eberstadt is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, consulting editor to Policy Review, and author of Home-Alone America, from which this essay is drawn. Reprinted by arrangement with Sentinel, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. from Home-Alone America by Mary Eberstadt. Copyright © 2004 by Mary Eberstadt.

If there is one subject on which the parents of America passionately agree, it is that contemporary adolescent popular music, especially the subgenres of heavy metal and hip-hop/rap, is uniquely degraded -- and degrading -- by the standards of previous generations. At first blush this seems slightly ironic. After all, most of today's baby-boom parents were themselves molded by rock and roll, bumping and grinding their way through adolescence and adulthood with legendary abandon. Even so, the parents are correct: Much of today's music is darker and coarser than yesterday's rock. Misogyny, violence, suicide, sexual exploitation, child abuse -- these and other themes, formerly rare and illicit, are now as common as the surfboards, drive-ins, and sock hops of yesteryear.

In a nutshell, the ongoing adult preoccupation with current music goes something like this: What is the overall influence of this deafening, foul, and often vicious-sounding stuff on children and teenagers? This is a genuinely important question, and serious studies and articles, some concerned particularly with current music's possible link to violence, have lately been devoted to it. In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry all weighed in against contemporary lyrics and other forms of violent entertainment before Congress with a first-ever "Joint Statement on the Impact of Entertainment Violence on Children."

Nonetheless, this is not my focus here. Instead, I would like to turn that logic about influence upside down and ask this question: What is it about today's music, violent and disgusting though it may be, that resonates with so many American kids?

As the reader can see, this is a very different way of inquiring about the relationship between today's teenagers and their music. The first question asks what the music does to adolescents; the second asks what it tells us about them. To answer that second question is necessarily to enter the roiling emotional waters in which that music is created and consumed -- in other words, actually to listen to some of it and read the lyrics.

As it turns out, such an exercise yields a fascinating and little understood fact about today's adolescent scene. If yesterday's rock was the music of abandon, today's is that of abandonment. The odd truth about contemporary teenage music -- the characteristic that most separates it from what has gone before -- is its compulsive insistence on the damage wrought by broken homes, family dysfunction, checked-out parents, and (especially) absent fathers. Papa Roach, Everclear, Blink-182, Good Charlotte, Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Eminem -- these and other singers and bands, all of them award-winning top-40 performers who either are or were among the most popular icons in America, have their own generational answer to what ails the modern teenager. Surprising though it may be to some, that answer is: dysfunctional childhood. Moreover, and just as interesting, many bands and singers explicitly link the most deplored themes in music today -- suicide, misogyny, and drugs -- with that lack of a quasi-normal, intact-home personal past.

To put this perhaps unexpected point more broadly, during the same years in which progressive-minded and politically correct adults have been excoriating Ozzie and Harriet as an artifact of 1950s-style oppression, many millions of American teenagers have enshrined a new generation of music idols whose shared generational signature in song after song is to rage about what not having had a nuclear family has done to them. This is quite a fascinating puzzle of the times. The self-perceived emotional damage scrawled large across contemporary music may not be statistically quantifiable, but it is nonetheless among the most striking of all the unanticipated consequences of our home-alone world.

Demigods of Dysfunction
To begin with music particularly popular among white teenage boys, one best-selling example of broken-home angst is that of the "nu-metal" band known as Papa Roach and led by singer/songwriter "Cody Dick"Shaddix (dubbed by one reviewer the "prince of dysfunction"). Three members of that group, Coby Dick included, are self-identified children of divorce. In 2000, as critics noted at the time, their album Infest explored the themes of broken homes and child and teenage rage. The result was stunning commercial success: Infest sold more than 3 million copies. mtv.com explained why: "The pained, confessional songs struck a nerve with disenfranchised listeners who were tired of the waves of directionless aggression spewing from the mouths of other rap-rockers. They found kinship in Papa Roach songs like 'Broken Home' and 'Last Resort.'"

In fact, even their songs about other subjects hark back to that same primal disruption. One particularly violent offering called "Revenge," about a girl hurting herself and being abused by her boyfriend, reflects on "destruction of the family design." Of all the songs on the album, however, it is the singularly direct "Broken Home" that hit its fans the hardest, which summarizes the sad domestic story it elaborates in a pair of lines: "I know my mother loves me / But does my father even care."

Another band that climbed to the top of the charts recently is Everclear, led by singer Art Alexakis (also a child of divorce, as he has explained to interviewers). Like Papa Roach, Everclear/Alexakis explores the fallout of parental breakup not from the perspective of newly liberated adults, but from that of the child left behind who feels abandoned and betrayed. Several of Everclear's songs map this emotional ground in detail -- from not wanting to meet mother's "new friends," to wondering how the father who walked out can sleep at night, to dreaming of that father coming back. In the song "Father of Mine," the narrator implores, "take me back to the day / when I was still your golden boy." Another song, "Sick and Tired," explicitly links the anger-depression-suicide teen matrix to broken homes (as indeed do numerous other contemporary groups): "I blame my family / their damage is living in me."

Everclear's single best-known song, a top-40 hit in 2000 that ruled the airwaves for months, is a family breakup ballad ironically titled "Wonderful" -- to some fans, the best rock song about divorce ever written. Though the catchy melody cannot be captured here, the childlike simplicity of the words brings the message home loudly enough. Among them: "I want the things that I had before / Like a Star Wars poster on my bedroom door."

Another group successfully working this tough emotional turf is chart-topping and multiple award-winning Blink-182, which grew out of the skateboard and snowboard scene to become one of the most popular bands in the country. As with Papa Roach and Everclear, the group's interest in the family breakdown theme is partly autobiographical: At least two members of the band say that their personal experiences as children of divorce have informed their lyrics. Blink-182's top-40 hit in 2001, "Stay Together for the Kids," is perhaps their best-known song (though not the only one) about broken homes. "What stupid poem could fix this home," the narrator wonders, adding, "I'd read it every day."

Reflecting on the particular passion with which that song was embraced by fans, Blink-182's Tom DeLonge told an interviewer, "We get e-mails about 'Stay Together,' kid after kid after kid saying, 'I know exactly what you're talking about! That song is about my life!' And you know what? That sucks. You look at statistics that 50 percent of parents get divorced, and you're going to get a pretty large group of kids who are pissed off and who don't agree with what their parents have done."1 Similarly, singer/bassist Mark Hoppus remarked to another interviewer curious about the band's emotional resonance, "Divorce is such a normal thing today and hardly anybody ever thinks how the kids feel about it or how they are taking it, but in the U.S. about half of all the kids go through it. They witness how their parents drift apart and all that."2

Then there is the phenomenon known as Pink, whose album Missundaztood was one of the top-10 albums of 2002, selling more than 3 million copies. Pink (dubbed by one writer the "anti-Britney") is extremely popular among young girls. Any teenager with a secular cd collection will likely own some of her songs. Pink mines the same troubled emotional territory as Blink-182 and numerous other bands, but even more exclusively: Missundaztood revolves entirely around the emotional wreckage and behavioral consequences of Pink's parents breaking up. A review of the album on abcnews.com noted, "Missundaztood is full of painful tales of childhood -- divorce, rebellion, disaffection and drugs. It's the stuff that may make parents shake their heads, but causes millions of alienated kids to nod in approval."3 In Pink's especially mournful (and perhaps best-known) song, "Family Portrait," the narrator repeatedly begs her father not to leave, offering even the pitiful childish enticement, "I won't spill the milk at dinner."

Yet another popular group generating anthem after anthem about broken homes and their consequences is Washington, D.C.-area-based Good Charlotte, profiled on the cover of Rolling Stone in May 2003 as the "Polite Punks." Their first album went gold in 2002. Led by twins Benji and Joel Madden, whose father walked out one Christmas Eve and never returned, Good Charlotte is one band that would not even exist except for the broken homes in which three of its four members (guitarist Billy Martin being the third) grew up. The twins have repeatedly told interviewers it was that trauma that caused them to take up music in the first place, and family breakup figures repeatedly in Good Charlotte's songs and regularly shapes its stage appearances and publicity. (In a particular act of symbolic protest, the twins recently made the legal changeover to their mother's maiden name.)

For Good Charlotte, as for many other newly successful singers and groups, the commercial results of putting personal trauma to music have proved dramatic. Their first and eponymous album sailed up the charts partly on account of a teenage angst ballad ironically entitled "Little Things." The song opens with a dedication to every teenager wrestling with the issues of adolescence -- all those "little things," including Mom's stint in a mental institution and Dad's abandonment of the kids ("We checked his room his things were gone we didn't see him no more"). Another song on the album is "Thank You Mom." Rather anomalously by the standards of yesterday's rock and punk, but not at all anomalously in the worlds of their descendants today, this song is devoted wholly, and without irony, to the mother who raises children after their father walks out ("You were my mom, You were my dad / The only thing I ever had was you, It's true").

Rolling Stone groused about this band: "What the hell happened to punk?" Now that's a fair point. But whatever happened, the result has literally turned to gold; Good Charlotte's second album, called The Young and the Hopeless, sold more than a million copies. Two of its thirteen songs are apotheosized lyrics for an absent father. One is "My Old Man" ("Last I heard he was at the bar / Doing himself in"). Another song, "Emotionless," reads much like the related narrations of Everclear, Papa Roach, and many more. The narrator here reminds his missing father of his sons and little girl, wondering, "How do you sleep at night?"

Like numerous other groups, Good Charlotte weaves another prevailing theme -- teenage suicide -- in and out of the larger theme of parental abandonment. Perhaps the best known is the antisuicide clarion "Hold On," in which the singer implores a desperate teenager to remember that although your "mother's gone and your father hits you . . . we all bleed the same way you do."

Papa Roach, Everclear, Blink-182, Pink, Good Charlotte: These bands are only some of the top-40 groups now supplying the teenage demand for songs about dysfunctional and adult abandoned homes. In a remarkable 2002 article published in the pop music magazine Blender (remarkable because it lays out in detail what is really happening in today's metal/grunge/punk/rock music), an award-winning music journalist named William Shaw listed several other bands, observing, "If there's a theme running through rock at the beginning of the twenty-first century, it's a pervasive sense of hurt. For the past few years, bands like Korn, Linkin Park, Slip-knot, Papa Roach, and Disturbed have been thrusting forward their dark accounts of dysfunctional upbringings. . . . As the clichéd elder might mutter, what's wrong with kids today?" Shaw answers his own question this way: "[T]hese songs reflect the zeitgeist of an age group coping with the highest marital-breakdown rate ever recorded in America. If this era's music says anything, it's that this generation sees itself as uniquely fractured."

As he further observes, so powerful are the emotions roused in fans by these songs that stars and groups themselves are often surprised by it. Shaw relates the following about "Coby Dick" Shaddix of Papa Roach, who wrote the aforementioned song "Broken Home": "He's become used to [fans] coming up and telling him, over and over: 'You know that song "Broken Home?" That's my f- life, right there.' 'It's a bit sad that that's true, you know?" [Shaddix] says.' Similarly, singer Chad Kroeger of Nickelback reports of a hit song he wrote on his own abandonment by his father at age two: "You should see some people who I meet after shows . . . . They break down weeping, and they're like, `I went through the exact same thing!' Sometimes it's terrifying how much they relate to it." That Nickelback hit song, titled "Too Bad," laments that calling "from time to time / To make sure we're alive" just isn't enough.

Shaw's ultimate conclusion is an interesting one: that this emphasis in current music on abandoned children represents an unusually loaded form of teenage rebellion. "This is the sound of one generation reproaching another -- only this time, it's the scorned, world-weary children telling off their narcissistic, irresponsible parents," he writes. "[Divorce] could be rock's ideal subject matter. These are songs about the chasm in understanding between parents -- who routinely don't comprehend the grief their children are feeling -- and children who don't know why their parents have torn up their world."

That is a sharp observation. Also worth noting is this historical point: The same themes of adult absence and child abandonment have been infiltrating hard rock even longer than these current bands have been around -- probably for as long as family breakup rates began accelerating.

Both musically and emotionally, many of today's groups owe much to the example of the late grunge-rock idol Kurt Cobain, who prefigured today's prominent themes both autobiographically and otherwise. A star whose personal life has legendary status for his fans, Cobain was a self-described happy child until his parents' divorce when he was seven. The years following were a miserable blur of being shuffled around to grandparents and other caretakers, including a spate of homelessness. The rage and frustration of that experience appear in some of Cobain's famously nihilistic lyrics, including the early song "Sliver," about a boy kicking and screaming upon being dropped off elsewhere by Mom and Dad yet again. The later, markedly cynical "Serve the Servants" reflects on how his traumatic childhood became exploited for personal gain. As with Cobain, so, too, with his friend Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder. For more than a decade Pearl Jam has reigned as one of the best-known bands in current rock, and Vedder as one of the most adulated singers; indeed, the band's distinctive sound commands instant recognition among almost every American under the age of 30 with working ears. And Pearl Jam, like the aforementioned groups, has achieved that success, according to Vedder, partly because of the group's frankness about the costs of fractured families and about related themes of alienation and suicide.

In a 1994 interview that focused on the death of Kurt Cobain, Vedder noted with particular insight:

"We [that is, Vedder and Cobain] had similar backgrounds, yeah, things that happened with our families and shit. . . . I think that's something that comes out in what we wrote in our songs, definitely. . . . But what makes it more similar is the way people responded to what we wrote and sang about, the intense identification. . . .
"And I think it was maybe a shock to both of us that so many people were going through the same things. I mean, they understood so completely what we were talking about . . . . Then all of a sudden, there's all these other people who connect with them and you're suddenly the spokesman for a f- generation. Can you imagine that! . . . when our first record came out, I was shocked how many people related to some of that stuff . . . . The kind of letters that got through to me about those songs, some of them were just frightening
"Think about it, man," he says. "Any generation that would pick Kurt or me as its spokesman -- that must be a pretty f- up generation, don't you think?"4

Well put. And as it turned out, Cobain and Vedder were only the beginning.

Where's Daddy?
Even less recognized than the white music emphasis on broken homes and the rest of the dysfunctional themes is that the popular black-dominated genres, particularly hip-hop/rap, also reflect themes of abandonment, anger, and longing for parents. Interestingly enough, this is true of particular figures whose work is among the most adult deplored.

Once again, when it comes to the deploring part, critics have a point. It is hard to imagine a more unwanted role model (from the parental point of view) than the late Tupac Shakur. A best-selling gangsta rapper who died in a shoot-out in 1996 at age 25 (and the object of a 2003 a documentary called Tupac: Resurrection), Shakur was a kind of polymath of criminality. In the words of a Denver Post review of the movie, "In a perfect circle of life imitating art originally meant to imitate life, Shakur in 1991 began a string of crimes that he alternately denied and reveled in. He claimed Oakland police beat him up in a jaywalking arrest, later shot two off-duty cops, assaulted a limo driver and video directors, and was shot five times in a robbery." Further, "At the time of his drive-by murder in Law Vegas, he was out on bail pending appeal of his conviction for sexual abuse of a woman who charged him with sodomy in New York."

Perhaps not surprising, Shakur's songs are riddled with just about every unwholesome trend that a nervous parent can name; above all they contain incitements to crime and violence (particularly against the police) and a misogyny so pronounced that his own mother, executive producer of the movie, let stand in the film a statement of protesting C. DeLores Tucker that "African-American women are tired of being called ho's, bitches and sluts by our children"

Yet Shakur -- who never knew his father and whose mother, a long time drug addict, was arrested for possession of crack when he was a child -- is provocative in another, quite overlooked way: He is the author of some of the saddest lyrics in the hip-hop/gangsta-rap pantheon, which is saying quite a lot. To sophisticated readers familiar with the observations about the breakup of black families recorded several decades ago in the Moynihan Report and elsewhere, the fact that so many young black men grow up without fathers may seem so well established as to defy further comment. But evidently some young black men -- Shakur being one -- see things differently. In fact, it is hard to find a rapper who does not sooner or later invoke a dead or otherwise long-absent father, typically followed by the hope that he will not become such a man himself. Or there is the flip side of that unintended bow to the nuclear family, which is the hagiography in some rappers' lyrics of their mothers.

In a song called "Papa'z Song Lyrics," Shakur opens with the narrator imagining his father showing up after a long absence, resulting in an expletive-laden tirade. The song then moves to a lacerating description of growing up fatherless that might help to explain why Shakur is an icon not only to many worse-off teenagers from the ghetto, but also to many better-off suburban ones. Here is a boy who "had to play catch by myself," who prays: "Please send me a pops before puberty."

The themes woven together in this song -- anger, bitterness, longing for family, misogyny as the consequence of a world without fathers -- make regular appearances in some other rappers' lyrics, too. One is Snoop Doggy Dogg, perhaps the preeminent rapper of the 1990s. Like Shakur and numerous other rappers, his personal details cause many a parent to shudder; since his childhood he has been arrested for a variety of crimes, including cocaine possession (which resulted in three years of jail service), accomplice to murder (for which he was acquitted), and, most recently, marijuana possession. ("It's not my job to stop kids doing the wrong thing, it's their parents' job," he once explained to a reporter.) In a song called "Mama Raised Me," sung with Soulja Slim, Snoop Doggy Dogg offers this explanation of how troubled pasts come to be: "It's probably pop's fault how I ended up / Gangbangin' ; crack slangin' ; not givin' a f-."

Another black rapper who returned repeatedly to the theme of father abandonment is Jay-Z, also known as Shawn Carter, whose third and breakthrough album, Hard Knock Life, sold more than 500,000 copies. He also has a criminal history (he says he had been a cocaine dealer) and a troubled family history, which is reflected in his music. In an interview with mtv.com about his latest album, the reporter explained: "Jay and his father had been estranged until earlier this year. [His father] left the household and his family's life (Jay has an older brother and two sisters) when Shawn was just 12 years old. The separation had served as a major "block" for Jay over the years . . . . His most vocal tongue lashing toward his dad was on the Dynasty: Roc la Familia cut "Where Have You Been," where he rapped 'F-- you very much / You showed me the worst kind of pain.'"5

The fact that child abandonment is also a theme in hip-hop might help explain what otherwise appears as a commercial puzzle -- namely, how this particular music moved from the fringes of black entertainment to the very center of the Everyteenager mainstream. There can be no doubt about the current social preeminence of these black- and ghetto-dominated genres in the lives of many better-off adolescents, black and white. As Donna Britt wrote in a Washington Post column noting hip-hop's ascendancy, "In modern America, where urban based hip hop culture dominates music, fashion, dance and, increasingly, movies and tv, these kids are trendsetters. What they feel, think and do could soon play out in a middle school -- or a Pottery Barn-decorated bedroom -- near you."6

Eminem: Reasons for Rage
A final example of the rage in contemporary music against irresponsible adults -- perhaps the most interesting -- is that of genre-crossing bad-boy rap superstar Marshall Mathers or Eminem (sometime stage persona "Slim Shady"). Of all the names guaranteed to send a shudder down the parental spine, his is probably the most effective. In fact, Eminem has single-handedly, if inadvertently, achieved the otherwise ideologically impossible: He is the object of a vehemently disapproving public consensus shared by the National Organization for Women the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, William J. Bennett, Lynne Cheney, Bill O'Reilly, and a large number of other social conservatives as well as feminists and gay activists. In sum, this rapper -- "as harmful to America as any al Qaeda fanatic," in O'Reilly's opinion -- unites adult polar opposites as perhaps no other single popular entertainer has done.

There is small need to wonder why. Like other rappers, Eminem mines the shock value and gutter language of rage, casual sex, and violence. Unlike the rest, however, he appears to be a particularly attractive target of opprobrium for two distinct reasons. One, he is white and therefore politically easier to attack. (It is interesting to note that black rappers have not been targeted by name anything like Eminem has.) Perhaps even more important, Eminem is one of the largest commercially visible targets for parental wrath. Wildly popular among teenagers these last several years, he is also enormously successful in commercial terms. Winner of numerous Grammys and other music awards and a perpetual nominee for many more, he has also been critically (albeit reluctantly) acclaimed for his acting performance in the autobiographical 2003 movie 8 Mile. For all these reasons, he is probably the preeminent rock/rap star of the last several years, one whose singles, albums, and videos routinely top every chart. His 2002 album, The Eminem Show, for example, was easily the most successful of the year, selling more than 7.6 million copies.

This remarkable market success, combined with the intense public criticism that his songs have generated, makes the phenomenon of Eminem particularly intriguing. Perhaps more than any other current musical icon, he returns repeatedly to the same themes that fuel other success stories in contemporary music: parental loss, abandonment, abuse, and subsequent child and adolescent anger, dysfunction, and violence (including self-violence). Both in his raunchy lyrics as well as in 8 Mile, Mathers's own personal story has been parlayed many times over: the absent father, the troubled mother living in a trailer park, the series of unwanted maternal boyfriends, the protective if impotent feelings toward a younger sibling (in the movie, a baby sister; in real life, a younger brother), and the fine line that a poor, ambitious, and unguided young man might walk between catastrophe and success. Mathers plumbs these and related themes with a verbal savagery that leaves most adults aghast.

Yet Eminem also repeatedly centers his songs on the crypto-traditional notion that children need parents and that not having them has made all hell break loose. In the song "8 Mile" from the movie soundtrack, for example, the narrator studies his little sister as she colors one picture after another of an imagined nuclear family, failing to understand that "mommas got a new man." "Wish I could be the daddy that neither one of us had," he comments. Such wistful lyrics juxtapose oddly and regularly with Eminem's violent other lines. Even in one of his most infamous songs, "Cleaning Out My Closet (Mama, I'm Sorry)," what drives the vulgar narrative is the insistence on seeing abandonment from a child's point of view. "My faggot father must have had his panties up in a bunch / 'Cause he split. I wonder if he even kissed me good-bye."

As with other rappers, the vicious narrative treatment of women in some of Eminem's songs is part of this self-conception as a child victim. Contrary to what critics have intimated, the misogyny in current music does not spring from nowhere; it is often linked to the larger theme of having been abandoned several times -- left behind by father, not nurtured by mother, and betrayed again by faithless womankind. One of the most violent and sexually aggressive songs in the last few years is "Kill You" by the popular metal band known as Korn. Its violence is not directed toward just any woman or even toward the narrator's girlfriend; it is instead a song about an abusive stepmother whom the singer imagines going back to rape and murder.

Similarly, Eminem's most shocking lyrics about women are not randomly dispersed; they are largely reserved for his mother and ex-wife, and the narrative pose is one of despising them for not being better women -- in particular, better mothers. The worst rap directed at his own mother is indeed gut-wrenching: "But how dare you try to take what you didn't help me to get? / You selfish bitch, I hope you f- burn in hell for this shit!" It is no defense of the gutter to observe the obvious: This is not the expression of random misogyny but, rather, of primal rage over alleged maternal abdication and abuse.

Another refrain in these songs runs like this: Today's teenagers are a mess, and the parents who made them that way refuse to get it. In one of Eminem's early hits, for example, a song called "Who Knew," the rapper pointedly takes on his many middle- and upper-middle-class critics to observe the contradiction between their reviling him and the parental inattention that feeds his commercial success. "What about the make-up you allow your 12 year-old daughter to wear?" he taunts.

This same theme of awol parenting is rapped at greater length in another award-nominated 2003 song called "Sing for the Moment," whose lyrics and video would be recognized in an instant by most teenagers in America. That song spells out Eminem's own idea of what connects him to his millions of fans -- a connection that parents, in his view, just don't (or is that won't?) understand. It details the case of one more "problem child" created by "His f- dad walkin' out." "Sing for the Moment," like many other songs of Eminem's, is also a popular video. The "visuals" show clearly what the lyrics depict -- hordes of disaffected kids, with flashbacks to bad home lives, screaming for the singer who feels their pain. It concludes by rhetorically turning away from the music itself and toward the emotionally desperate teenagers who turn out for this music by the millions. If the demand of all those empty kids wasn't out there, the narrator says pointedly, then rappers wouldn't be supplying it the way they do.

If some parents still don't get it -- even as their teenagers elbow up for every new Eminem cd and memorize his lyrics with psalmist devotion -- at least some critics observing the music scene have thought to comment on the ironies of all this. In discussing The Marshall Mathers lp in 2001 for Music Box, a daily online newsletter about music, reviewer John Metzger argued, "Instead of spewing the hate that he is so often criticized of doing, Eminem offers a cautionary tale that speaks to our civilization's growing depravity. Ironically, it's his teenage fans who understand this, and their all-knowing parents that miss the point." Metzger further specified "the utter lack of parenting due to the spendthrift necessity of the two-income family."7

That insight raises the overlooked fact that in one important sense Eminem and most of the other entertainers quoted here would agree with many of today's adults about one thing: The kids aren't all right out there after all. Recall, for just one example, Eddie Vedder's rueful observation about what kind of generation would make him or Kurt Cobain its leader. Where parents and entertainers disagree is over who exactly bears responsibility for this moral chaos. Many adults want to blame the people who create and market today's music and videos. Entertainers, Eminem most prominently, blame the absent, absentee, and generally inattentive adults whose deprived and furious children (as they see it) have catapulted today's singers to fame. (As he puts the point in one more in-your-face response to parents: "Don't blame me when lil' Eric jumps off of the terrace / You shoulda been watchin him -- apparently you ain't parents.")

The spectacle of a foul-mouthed bad-example rock icon instructing the hardworking parents of America in the art of child-rearing is indeed a peculiar one, not to say ridiculous. The single mother who is working frantically because she must and worrying all the while about what her 14-year-old is listening to in the headphones is entitled to a certain fury over lyrics like those. In fact, to read through most rap lyrics is to wonder which adults or political constituencies wouldn't take offense. Even so, the music idols who point the finger away from themselves and toward the emptied-out homes of America are telling a truth that some adults would rather not hear. In this limited sense at least, Eminem is right.

Sex, drugs, rock and roll, broken homes
To say that today's popular music is uniquely concerned with broken homes, abandoned children, and distracted or incapable parents is not to say that this is what all of it is about. Other themes remain a constant, too, although somewhat more brutally than in the alleged golden era recalled by some baby boomers.

Much of today's metal and hip-hop, like certain music of yesterday, romanticizes illicit drug use and alcohol abuse, and much of current hip-hop sounds certain radical political themes, such as racial separationism and violence against the police. And, of course, the most elementally appealing feature of all, the sexually suggestive beat itself, continues to lure teenagers and young adults in its own right -- including those from happy homes. Today as yesterday, plenty of teenagers who don't know or care what the stars are raving about find enough satisfaction in swaying to the sexy music. As professor and intellectual Allan Bloom observed about rock in his bestseller, The Closing of the American Mind (Simon & Schuster, 1987), the music "gives children, on a silver platter, with all the public authority of the entertaining industry, everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up and would understand later."

Even so, and putting aside such obvious continuities with previous generations, there is no escaping the fact that today's songs are musically and lyrically unlike any before. What distinguishes them most clearly is a the fixation on having been abandoned personally by the adults supposedly in charge, with consequences ranging from bitterness to rage to bad, sick, and violent behavior.

And therein lies a painful truth about an advantage that many teenagers of yesterday enjoyed but their own children often do not. Baby boomers and their music rebelled against parents because they were parents -- nurturing, attentive, and overly present (as those teenagers often saw it) authority figures. Today's teenagers and their music rebel against parents because they are not parents -- not nurturing, not attentive, and often not even there. This difference in generational experience may not lend itself to statistical measure, but it is as real as the platinum and gold records that continue to capture it. What those records show compared to yesteryear's rock is emotional downward mobility. Surely if some of the current generation of teenagers and young adults had been better taken care of, then the likes of Kurt Cobain, Eminem, Tupac Shakur, and certain other parental nightmares would have been mere footnotes to recent music history rather than rulers of it.

To step back from the emotional immediacy of those lyrics and to juxtapose the ascendance of such music alongside the long-standing sophisticated assaults on what is sardonically called "family values" is to meditate on a larger irony. As today's music stars and their raving fans likely do not know, many commentators and analysts have been rationalizing every aspect of the adult exodus from home -- sometimes celebrating it full throttle, as in the example of working motherhood -- longer than most of today's singers and bands have been alive.

Nor do they show much sign of second thoughts. Representative sociologist Stephanie Coontz greeted the year 2004 with one more op-ed piece aimed at burying poor metaphorical Ozzie and Harriet for good. She reminded America again that "changes in marriage and family life" are here to stay and aren't "necessarily a problem"; that what is euphemistically called "family diversity" is or ought to be cause for celebration. Many other scholars and observers -- to say nothing of much of polite adult society -- agree with Coontz. Throughout the contemporary nonfiction literature written of, by, and for educated adults, a thousand similar rationalizations about family "changes" bloom on.

Meanwhile, a small number of emotionally damaged former children, embraced and adored by millions of teenagers like them, rage on in every commercial medium available about the multiple damages of the disappearance of loving, protective, attentive adults -- and they reap a fortune for it. If this spectacle alone doesn't tell us something about the ongoing emotional costs of parent-child separation on today's outsize scale, it's hard to see what could.

Notes
1 William Shaw, "Why Are America's Rock Bands So Goddamned Angry?" Blender (August 2002).
2 Gabriella, "Interview with Mark Hoppus of Blink 182," NY Rock (August 2001).
3 "Miss Pink: This Pop Star Speaks the Universal Language of Teenage Rebellion," ABCnews.com (November 6, 2003).
4 Allan Jones, interview with Eddie Vedder, Melody Maker (May 21, 1994).
5 Shaheem Reid, with reporting by Sway Galloway, "Jay-Z: What More Can I Say," MTV.com (November 12, 2003).
6 Donna Britt, "Stats on Teens Don't Tell the Whole Story," Washington Post (January 23, 2004).
7 John Metzger, review of "Eminem: the Marshall Mathers lp," Music Box 8:6 (June 2001).
----End of Article ----

[1] http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=170

Making Christmas about Christ

2005-01-03T13:25:00.000-08:00

I originally was going to title this post as "Putting Christ Back in Christmas," but after a moments thought, I changed it. As many people know Christmas was originally an attempt to "Christianize" pagan celebrations that already existed around this time of year and as such some Christians decide not to celebrate Christmas at all. However, my family and I choose to make Christmas about Christ. This is an ongoing process, as I continually review how we celebrate Christmas (and really this is what Christians need to do about every facet of their lives).

Here are some of the ways we make Christmas about Christ:

Our children know that Santa, Rudolph and such are not real. We've also talked to them about the various Saint Nicholas legends (which may or may not be true) to give them a historical context of where the idea of Santa comes from. The older ones already knew this, but didn't like officially letting go of the idea.
The children also know that Christmas is a day chosen to have a focused celebration of the birth of Jesus, and not the actual day on which He was born.
We talked to our children about the fact that none of us deserve gifts. If we are given anything, if is because someone has chosen to give it to us from the generosity of their heart. Therefore we never have the right to complain about a gift.
All gift giving at Christmas is a reflection of the gift of eternal life that God has given to us through his Son (Eph. 2:8,9).
We reduced the number of presents they get from us to one. We then have the children swap names so that they think about someone other than themselves (they REALLY enjoyed this).
Our church gets together and acts out the Christmas story - the whole church is involved. All the children dress up as either sheep (the littlest ones), angels (the girls), shepherds (boys), or wise men (older boys). One father, mother and new baby (we have lots of those) are Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus. The others follow the grand procession around as the Scripture is read and the story is acted out by all.
Leading up to Christmas, we read "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever." It is a great short story (seven chapters) which confronts legalism and should get everyone thinking about how they view the well known Christmas story. We always work it so that we finish the story on Christmas Eve.
Also on Christmas Eve we have a Happy Birthday Jesus cake for the kids (Mom really out did herself this year!).
This year for our Christmas dinner, we had leg of lamb instead of the usual turkey, ham, or roast beef. We used the dinner to talk to our children about the Passover story and shared with them that Christ is the final Passover Lamb -- He is "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).

There are many other was that you can make Christmas about Christ. What are some other ideas that you have?

Finding God in the 2004 Asian Earthquake and Tsunami

2005-01-03T01:54:00.000-08:00

The world is still reeling from the recent earthquake and resultant tsunami in southern Asia. The current stats predict that over 150,000 are dead and that number will rise with disease and starvation. Just as with the 9/11 terrorist attack in the USA, there is much discussion about finding God’s hand in this tragedy. Some Christians will say it is a fulfillment of this or that prophesy proving that the end of the world is at hand. Some will say that it is punishment and condemnation for a largely Christ-less people. In a December 31st Washington Post article Shlomo Amar, Israel's Sephardi chief rabbi, is quoted to have said, "This is an expression of God's great ire with the world. The world is being punished for wrongdoing -- be it people's needless hatred of each other, lack of charity, moral turpitude." The article also notes that “Some organizations in India say the tsunami is ‘divine retribution’ for the arrest of … a Hindu religious leader.” But what does God’s Word say about such things?

In the Book of Job, Job and his friends are severely reprimanded by God for thinking that they know His mind and His will. In chapter 38 verses 1 through 24 we read:

1Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said,
2"Who is this that darkens counsel By words without knowledge?
3"Now gird up your loins like a man, And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!
4"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding,
5Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it?
6"On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone,
7When the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8"Or who enclosed the sea with doors When, bursting forth, it went out from the womb;
9When I made a cloud its garment And thick darkness its swaddling band,
10And I placed boundaries on it And set a bolt and doors,
11And I said, 'Thus far you shall come, but no farther; And here shall your proud waves stop'?
(Click here to read more)

This goes on for several chapters. We are not able to accurately discern the mind of God and Job answers God’s charge correctly in Job chapter 40 verses 3-5, “3 Then Job answered the LORD and said, 4 ‘Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth. 5 ‘Once I have spoken, and I will not answer; Even twice, and I will add nothing more.” And again Job answers God in chapter 42:1-6:

1 Then Job answered the LORD and said, 2 "I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. 3 'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' "Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know." 4 'Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You instruct me.' 5 "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You; 6 Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes."

It is inappropriate and shameful for us to make a pretence at knowing the mind and will of God in such things. So what is the Christians response? I think John Piper gives an appropriate response:

The heart that Christ gives to his people feels compassion for those who suffer, no matter what their faith. When the Bible says, “Weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15), it does not add, “unless God caused the weeping.” … It is right to weep with those who suffer. Pain is pain, no matter who causes it. We are all sinners. Empathy flows not from the causes of pain, but the company of pain. And we are all in it together.

… Christ calls us to show mercy to those who suffer, even if they do not deserve it. That is the meaning of mercy—undeserved help. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27). (Desiring God Ministries: Tsunami, Sovereignty, and Mercy. Dec. 29, 2004)

God is sovereign over all and nothing happens without God allowing it to happen – even when we can not comprehend any goodness coming from it. It is God who allowed this to happen. Why? We will most likely never now, but we can know that it is also God who stopped the waves from going any further than He wished (see Job 38:11 above).

Asian Earthquake and Tsunami Hits Home

2004-12-27T11:09:00.000-08:00

There is an English family in our church congregation. The wife of the family has a brother and sister-in-law who were vacationing in the Maldives when the tsunami hit. She reports that "We have not been able to contact them since the earthquake, they are in a part of the world where communication is difficult at the best of times."

It has now been confirmed that her brother and sister-in-law are okay. It seems that they lost everything in the tsunami, but they themselves are not seriously hurt. They will be flown back to England in a few days. Praise God for His protection!

Please pray for their safe return home.

Christian Social Action

2004-12-22T16:45:00.000-08:00

For leftists, the phrase "social action" brings heavenly visions of a utopian humanistic society where everyone is perfectly equal (except for the controlling class of course) and without wants or needs. It is a place where the State (the controlling class) takes care of everyone and holds the place of savior.

Unfortunately, for those on the "right," the vision is no longer much different. Bush and the other Big Government Republicans are proving this to be true.

What should the Christian’s position be on social action? After all, in the New Testament Book of James, chapter 1, verse 27, James writes "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress ...," but to what end?

Mark Rushdoony, son of the late R. J. Rushdoony, has a great article on the purpose of Christian social action entitled "The Christian and the Social Agenda." Read it and find out why the increasingly humanistic right is looking more like the left every year (hint--it has something to do with ones view of the Kingdom of God).

Congratulations Michael and Emily!

2004-12-22T15:17:00.000-08:00

I would like to congratulate two of my friends, Michael and Emily on their engagement! They have been dating for seven months and they have never kissed each other. Thankfully more single Christians are making these kinds of choices to keep themselves pure. And keeping with their decision, Michael gave Emily a bag of Hershey's "Hugs" instead of "Kisses" on the day he proposed (oh yea, and a nice ring too) -- Michael is such a kidder!

Michael is finishing is Masters of Divinity in Biblical Counseling. You can read his blog here.

Chrismukkah?????

2004-12-21T13:32:00.000-08:00

While performing a search for a previous post, I stumbled across a "new" holiday celebration, Chrismukkah. Here is a brief description of this most diverse and tolerant holiday:

Chrismukkah is a hybrid holiday. While it's not found on the calendar (yet) it's the "state of mind" shared by many interfaith families during the holiday season. Chrismukkah is a gumbo of favorite secular, (non-religious) traditions from both Hanukkah and Christmas. Chrismukkah is celebrated by intermarried couples, interfaith families with both Jewish and Christian members, people with partial Jewish heritage... or anyone who just feels like it. Chrismukkah is a festive celebration of diversity and tolerance - a fresh way to describe how millions of us experience a "merry mishmash" holiday. http://www.chrismukkah.com

Hey, as long as we are taking Christ out if Christmas anyway (notice it is not CHRISTmukkah) - why not have Chrismukkwanzaa?! That way we can all pat ourselves on the back and wish each other peace, love and joy all the way to hell.

Matt. 10:33-39 NASB
33 "But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven. 34 "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 "For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW; 36 and A MAN'S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD. 37 "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 "And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 "He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.

Well, at least practicing Jews don't like it either.

The Pledge of Allegiance: How to Take a Stand, Part II

2004-12-20T21:35:00.000-08:00

Henry Family,

I’m sorry I misunderstood your original question.

I wish I had a solid, personal example to give you, unfortunately, I do not. My children are young and we are not big sports fans, so we do not go to many games. I do understand what you are dealing with however. My stance on NOT voting for George W. Bush has earned me ridicule from Christian friends and co-workers. Similar to your situation, many Christians that I run into on a day to day basis feel that you are not a “good Christian” unless you think Bush is the man for President.

Even though I can not give you a personal example, I can point you to numerous biblical examples of believers standing up for what is right (which is better than my personal opinion anyway):

Daniel 1: Daniel refuses to break God’s food laws.
Daniel 3: Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego refuse to worship the golden image.
Daniel 6: Daniel refuses to stop praying to God and pray only to the King.
Acts (practically the entire book): The apostles and other believers refuse to stop preaching and teaching the Gospel.
Others…

You can also read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs for many historical, extra biblical examples.

I am sure that you are familiar with all of these examples, but please know that they are not given lightly. I know it is easy for me to point you to others who have been persecuted for their faith, but these are real people who really lived and really died for their faith. So how does this apply to the Pledge of Allegiance? Christians can not pledge allegiance to the flag for the same reason they can not simply use the phrase “higher power” in place of Jesus. The flag and a “higher power” do not stand for anything except current cultural philosophies. Everything we do is an expression of our religious beliefs.

Besides, when you do not say the Pledge, I'm sure that someone will be bold enough to ask you why, which gives you the opportunity to share the truth (and gives your children the opportunity to see you do it)!

New "Wall Builders" Link

2004-12-20T15:38:00.000-08:00

I wanted everyone to know that I have just added a new resource link under the "Related Links" section on left-hand sidebar. The organization is called "Wall Builders."

Here is an excerpt from their "About Us" page:

WallBuilders is an organization dedicated to the restoration of the constitutional, moral, and religious foundation on which America was built—a foundation which, in recent years, has been seriously attacked and undermined. In accord with what was so accurately stated by George Washington, we believe that "the propitious [favorable] smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation which disregards the eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself has ordained."

The Pledge of Allegiance: How to Take a Stand

2004-12-20T14:48:00.000-08:00

Henry Family,

Thank you for the kind words and the great question!

My wife and I homeschool our children so this is not an issue that I personally have had to deal with, but here are my suggestions:

Regardless of where your children attend school, God has placed you, the parent, as the child's protector, guardian and spiritual guide. They are YOUR responsibility and as such it is up to you to first teach your children what is right in the sight of God, and second to communicate the same truth to those to whom you have delegated your children’s education.

I was not homeschooled. I attended public (State) school for all but one or two years of my K through 12 education. I distinctly remember during one semester of Junior High school in which part of our Physical Education curriculum was to learn how to square dance (I grew up in Texas). At the time my father was the pastor of the local Southern Baptist church and he did not approve of dancing. Therefore, the PE teacher was notified that for religious reasons I would not be participating in the dancing classes. This is one example of a parent doing what he thought was necessary to protect his children.

I do not know the specifics of what my father did or said to excuse me from this activity, but I do not recommend simply using a "religious reasons" excuse (I am not saying this is what my father did). Spell it out for them. If possible, find original documentation of the issue at hand. Print out the two articles I referenced and put together an informational document explaining why you have made this important decision for your family.

Fathers showing their children HOW to take a stand AND teaching them WHY you are taking a stand is one way to build a future generation of strong, principled Christians!

Two Great Articles on the Socialist Pledge of Allegiance

2004-12-17T13:47:00.000-08:00

To argue whether or not the addition of "Under God" should left in the Pledge of Allegiance is somewhat of a moot point. Why? We should not be pledging allegiance to a flag anyway. The flag doesn't stand for anything except the philosophy of the current culture - this is why the pledge was written in the first place.

Here are two great articles on the history of the Pledge of Allegiance:

In What are You Rooted?

2004-12-16T23:52:00.000-08:00

As mainstream American Christianity abandons the preaching of the pure Word of God for pithy, humanistic, topical, twaddle, the American Church becomes less and less effective in battling the prevailing humanistic worldview. In short, American Christians no longer think like Christians; they no longer think Christian thoughts. While the average American Christian will claim to have a Christian worldview, they actually think and act like humanists. They have been so saturated by the current culture, that they do not even realize that the words coming out of their mouths better reflect the philosophies of Dr. Phil, Oprah, or the latest "reality" program instead of the Word of God. In fact many modern churches take pride in the fact that they have "cultural appeal." The only problem with churches becoming more like the culture is that THEY ARE BECOMING MORE LIKE THE CULTURE! Biblical Christianity is supposed to reform and mold the culture to God's standard, not the other way around.

So What Is the Solution?

The solution is the same as it has always been; Christians are to immerse themselves in God's perfect Word. Husbands are to immerse their wives in it (Eph. 5:25-26). Fathers are to immerse their children in it (Deut. 6:6-9). Pastors are to immerse their congregations in it (2 Tim. 4:2). And since Jesus is the Word made flesh (John 1:14), every Christian is to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ" thus immersing himself in it (Rom. 13:11-14).

Dr. Greg Bahnsen aptly states this in his book, Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith.

"The believer is directed to avoid philosophy which is rooted in worldly, humanistic, and non-Christian presuppositions (Col. 2:8). Instead he is called to be rooted in Christ and established in the faith (v. 7); his presuppositions must be the precepts and doctrines of Christ, not the futile traditions of men (cf. vv. 3, 4, 22; 3:1-2). This precludes the claim to neutrality and prohibits seeking after it. Neutrality is in actuality veiled agnosticism or unbelief--a failure to walk in Christ, an obscuring of Christian commitment and distinctives, a suppression of the truth (cf. Rom. 1:21, 25).

Thus Paul commands us to be rooted in Christ and to shun the presuppositions of secularism. In verse 6 of Colossians 2 he explains very simply how we should go about having our lives (including our scholarly endeavors) grounded in Christ and thereby insuring that our reasoning is guided by Christian presuppositions."

So ... in what are you rooted?

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge

2004-12-15T23:46:00.000-08:00

Proverbs 1:7 (NASB)
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 9:10,11
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

For by me your days will be multiplied,
And years of life will be added to you.

Pro 10:27
The fear of the LORD prolongs life,
But the years of the wicked will be shortened.

Pro 14:26, 27
In the fear of the LORD there is strong confidence,
And his children will have refuge.

The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life,
That one may avoid the snares of death.

FaithAndDominion.com RSS Feed

2004-12-15T00:08:00.000-08:00

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The Basis of all Our Civil Constitutions and Laws

2004-12-14T23:46:00.000-08:00

“The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scripture ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. All the miseries and evil men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.”
- Noah Webster

Not a Creature was Stirring, Not Even a Mouse

2004-12-14T13:50:00.000-08:00

Last night I was watching Gods and Generals with my children when my 9 year old asked me (again) who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. Instead of answering the questions directly, I talked to her and my other children about the fact that the United States was originally formed as a voluntary unity of Sovereign States, i.e. each state was free to govern itself and the Federal Government had VERY limited control. What happened as a result of the Civil War was that the idea of a "voluntary" union was abolished and the Federal Government stripped most of the States sovereignty away from them. The war started when the Federal Government invaded the Sovereign State of Virginia.

Ever since the "South" was defeated the Federal Government has gained greater control and the idea of Sovereign States has all but been lost. Now while we were all sleeping (hence the title), the Intelligence Reform Bill (you'll have to register with the Washington Post to read it) has passed through both houses and is going to the Presidents desk. What this bill (soon to be a law I am sure) does is remove more sovereignty from the states and sets Big Brother in motion. So much for having "conservative" Republicans win the election!

To read more about this visit Carmon Friedrich's blog.

On the Virtues of a Godly Woman

2004-12-13T05:22:00.000-08:00

Part II of Misogyny

Further proof that Biblical Christianity does not result in misogyny:

It is true that there are many passages in the Bible which speak of the degradation of women. What most people who use these passages to debase the Bible and its followers forget (or choose to ignore) is the fact that the "offending" passages are addressed to wicked women, not women in general. These women are the temptress of youth and adulterers; they are the road which leads to death. God also addresses the wickedness of women who are contentious, jealous, and extravagant wives. This is not misogyny! Throughout the entire Bible, God speaks of sin and its punishment, death. The point of the entire Bible is to show men (that's "human-kind" for all you PCers out there) that they are wholly unable to save themselves and require a savior to remove their sin from them and reconcile them back to their creator. This Savior , or Messiah, or Christ is God's Son, Jesus. Salvation will never be found in "liberation," but only in surrender to the Lord Jesus, the Christ!

The Bible has much to say about virtuous, godly women and they are thoroughly praised! To quote the Pulpit Commentary's Introduction to the Proverbs:

"[T]he author delineates a woman of the highest attainments, strong-minded yet feminine, active, practical, prudent, economical. Her husband trusts her wholly; she manages the household, keeps her servants to their work, and herself sets an example of diligence; she always has funds in hand to make purchases at the right moment, and to provide for the needs of her household. She is as wise as she is beautiful, as generous and charitable as she is just; her virtue redounds to the credit of husband and children, and all connected with her."

"Her children rise up and bless her;
Her husband also, and he praises her, saying:
'Many daughters have done nobly,
But you excel them all.'
Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain,
But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.
Give her the product of her hands,
And let her works praise her in the gates."
(NASB, Proverbs 31:28-31)

Furthermore ...

"Let the mother of the family realize her high position, and be the crown of her husband (Prov. ch. 12:4), and build up her house (Prov. ch. 14:1).... Be it far from her to imitate the contentious wife, whose peevish ill temper is like the continuous dropping of a leaky roof, and renders the family life insupportable (Prov. ch. 19:13; 25:24). "

Men and women are treated the same by God. Godly men and women are praised while wicked men and women are cursed. Do men and women have different roles? Yes, but that is not an assignment of value, only of function (is the eye more valuable than the tongue?).

Misogyny

2004-12-10T09:55:00.000-08:00

My wife and I homeschool our 5 children. Okay, only two or maybe three are really of “school” age, but you would be surprised at how much younger children pickup while they play at the feet of their parents and siblings. The oldest two are active readers and my third is just starting to learn phonics and has gleefully mastered a few simple words. Often when my children are reading, they will ask their mother and I what certain words mean. Our response is usually “Look it up.” My favorite tool for such times is Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary. It was both the first American dictionary and the first Christian dictionary.

Today while reading an email newsletter from one of my favorite authors of the day (Gary DeMar of American Vision), I came across the word "misogyny." In an effort to practice what I preach to my children, I looked up the word in the dictionary. Being at work however, I did not have Noah Webster’s dictionary at hand so I searched for the definition of the word at http://www.dictionary.com/. Below is the first entry taken from their search results:

mi·sog·y·ny: Hatred of women: “Every organized patriarchal religion works overtime to contribute its own brand of misogyny” (Robin Morgan).

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth EditionCopyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

I am not sure why I was surprised at the quote chosen by the editors of The American Heritage Dictionary, but I was. Both modern day historians and linguists have been on a systematic and methodical course to change the way people (especially our children) think about God, mankind, history and really life itself. After a little research I discovered that Robin Morgan (quoted in the definition above) was a feminist activist who worked in the civil rights, antiwar and feminist movements in the 1950s through 1970s and came out as a lesbian in the 60s.

Compare The American Heritage Dictionary’s entry for misogyny to that of Noah Webster’s (which I gladly found online at http://www.cbtministries.org/resources/webster1828.htm):

MISOG'YNY, n. [supra.] Hatred of the female sex.

Obviously the definition has not changed, but what has changed is the world view that is being communicated. Where Noah Webster’s dictionary was written from a Christian worldview, The American Heritage Dictionary is written from a secular humanistic one. Feminists, lesbians and the like hate Christianity because they hate the God of the Bible. They have made themselves gods and therefore live by their own moral standard. This type of thinking is the direct result of buying into the unsustainable lie of evolution which separates the life of man from his creator (the God of the Bible).

The facts are that biblical Christianity is both patriarchal and holds a very high view of women. The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians wrote,

“25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. 28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body.” (NASB, Ephesians 5:25-30)

You see, Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, loved the church so much that he died for her. But the death he died was not just any death, he took our sin upon himself and paid the price that was demanded for it:

“He [God] made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him [Jesus].” (NASB, 2 Corinthians 5:21)

Jesus did what we were unable to do for ourselves, he paid the price for our sin and reconciled us back to His Father by giving us His righteousness! Now connect this truth to Ephesians 5:25-30 quoted above: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her….” Does this sound like biblical Christianity results in misogyny to you?

For more insight to the meaning of Ephesians 5:25-30, read Romans 5:6-10:

“6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”

“[W]hile we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” That is, while we were unlovable, while we hated God, while we where without any merit of our own, Christ died for us! NOW THAT IS LOVE! Biblical Christianity does what no other religion (including Feminism) can do; it elevates women to their highest level. Are women to be submissive to their own husbands? Yes, read Ephesians 5:22-24:

“22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. 24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.”

Once you understand what a woman is supposed to be submissive to (the same love that Christ showed the Church) you can understand that her submissiveness is not repulsive; instead, it is glorious! I have to submit myself to Jesus, and I do it with gratitude and joy, and if I am doing what God has commanded me to do, my wife can submit herself to my leadership with the same joy. My wife’s submission to me is not subservience. She is not my slave. We are equal in the sight of God. We were both lost before we submitted ourselves to Christ, and we are now both called His children after our submission to Him.

Voting for Public Officers

2004-10-26T04:12:00.000-07:00

"When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers, just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty; If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for the public good so much as for the selfish or local purposes; Corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the Laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded. If a government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the Laws."

Noah Webster

The President and Vice President's Public Defense of Homosexual Rights

2004-10-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

I often receive pro Bush email from family, friends, and co-workers about the election in general or about Bush specifically and I rarely, if ever, send anything back, but … unless you like living in denial, please read the excerpt from a recent article on Bush and Cheney:

---- Start of Excerpt ----

The President and Vice President's Public Defense of Homosexual Rights by Doug Phillips of Vision Forum

SCHIEFFER: ..Both of you are opposed to gay marriage. But to understand how you have come to that conclusion, I want to ask you a more basic question. Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?

BUSH: You know, Bob, I don't know. I just don't know. I do know that we have a choice to make in America and that is to treat people with tolerance and respect and dignity. It's important that we do that. And I also know in a free society people, consenting adults, can live the way they want to live.

Across America this week the spin-doctors are spinning. The damage control experts are looking for some creative tactic to get Christians to stop thinking about the fact that their born-again Christian president told fifty million Americans, including untold millions of young people, that sodomy should be tolerated, that it is worthy of moral respect, and that homosexuals have every right to practice their perversion.

Yes, President George Bush endorsed and blessed the idea that "consenting adults [sodomites] can live the way they want to live." Though he professes to be a Bible believing Christian, the president told the American people that "I don't know. I just don't know" whether or not homosexuality is a choice.

…

My case is simple: First, on a defining question of this generation (the legalization and cultural acceptance of homosexuality) through his public statements, funding allocations, policy position on civil unions, executive appointments and much more, President George Bush arguably has the worst track record of any president in American history. For an interesting discussion on this point see both, http://daveblackonline.com/bush2.htm and http://www.daveblackonline.com/george_bush_on_sodomy.htm. Second, the biblical pattern is this: God destroys nations, not because they fail to define marriage, but because the civil magistrate tolerates and condones perversion, or refuses to enforce Gods law (which has been and remains our constitutional, common law tradition---notwithstanding the usurpatious and unconstitutional ruling in Lawrence v. Texas), thus allowing homosexuality to spread unchecked throughout the land. Sodom and Gomorah were not destroyed because they legalized gay marriage. They were destroyed because sodomy pervaded the land and was not punished. The magistrate did not enforce Gods law.

Third, of infinite more significance to the welfare of this nation than who is elected to President, or what amendments to the Constitution are ratified, is the question of the whether or not the elect of God will maintain a pure conscience before the Lord by honestly evaluating the behavior of professing Christian magistrates and holding them accountable to His objective standard. Because I believe that judgment begins in the House of God, it is my conviction that Christian magistrates and spin doctors who compromise on the fundamentals of Gods Word are more dangerous than pagan magistrates and spin doctors who compromise on the fundamentals of Gods Word.

Is the Lesbianism of the Vice Presidents Daughter an Issue?
Yes, for the following reasons. First, Vice President Cheney’s daughter is not merely a practitioner of lesbianism, but a radical lesbian activist well-known throughout the country as a promoter of the worst form of anti-family politics. Second, the Vice presidents lesbian political activist daughter is a key player in the Cheney re-election team, following the Vice President everywhere he goes, and serving as an official representative of the re-election campaign staff.

…

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If you are interested in reading the whole article (which I hope you are) you can do that here: Doug's Blog

Well everyone knows that I am no Democrat, but I am not pro Bush either. Furthermore, I can not understand why professing Christians can continue to support a President which, on a regular basis, defies the Word of God with his policies by supporting that which is an abomination to the LORD. If you watched, listened to, or read about the recent presidential debates, there should be no doubt in your mind as to the unfitness of Bush (or Kerry for that matter) to run as President. The Bible clearly lays out the qualifications for civil office. There are two primary texts that set forth the standards for choosing civil magistrates: Exodus 18:21 and Deuteronomy 1:13. To a read thorough article on this topic please go to this article by William Einwechter

Why You Should Vote for Michael Peroutka

2004-10-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

America has embarked upon a path of socialism and every year she is gaining speed toward that mark. The people of America and her governmental institutions have forgotten “the Christian foundation upon which this nation is reared and the importance of its relation to the form of government established by the Constitution. We as a people, [are] allowing ourselves to become separated from the keystone of our national structure – our Christian heritage.... By omission, America [has] deflected into socialism.”[1] Our omission is that we have failed to acknowledge Jesus as Lord in all things. That includes government.

During the last six months, I had the joy and privileged to preach through a large portion of the Book of Philippians. One of the passages I was blessed with preaching included 2:9-11: “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (NASB). God has exalted Jesus as Lord above every other name – even above nations, presidents and political parties. The exaltation of Jesus by His Father was done at the resurrection. It is not a future event. More explicitly with regard to His Lordship over governments, God declares in Psalm 2:10-12, “Now therefore, O kings, show discernment; Take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the LORD with reverence And rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish {in} the way, For His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!” As you can see, God exacts an extremely serious punishment on those governments who do not exalt His Son – they will perish.

The facts are, even though “America’s Christian history has not been taught in Christian schools and colleges for over one hundred years,”[2] our nation was undeniably founded upon explicitly Christian principles. Please take the time to read the following excerpt from an Election Sermon delivered by Dr. Jedidiah Morse in Charlestown, April 25, 1799 from Psalm 11:3, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

Our dangers are of two kinds, those which affect our religion, and those which affect our government. They are, however, so closely allied that they cannot, with propriety, be separated. The foundations which support the interests of Christianity, are also necessary to support a free and equal government like our own. In all those countries where there is little or no religion, or a very gross and corrupt one, as in Mohometan [Muslim] and Pagan countries, there you will find, with scarcely a single exception, arbitrary and tyrannical governments, gross ignorance and wickedness, and deplorable wretchedness among the people.

To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoy. In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief, of the corruption of its doctrines, or the neglect of its institutions; in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom, and approximate the miseries of complete despotism. I hold this to be truth confirmed by experience. If so, it follows, that all efforts made to destroy the foundations of our holy religion, ultimately tend to the subversion also of our political freedom and happiness. Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them.[3]

Dr. Jedidiah Morse’s conclusions have been shown to be true. Everyday our freedoms are being deliberately and systematically removed from the shores of our once great nation by anti-God, anti-Christian Humanists who declare that each man is his own god, and by Statists who declare that government itself is god and has the right to determine Morality and the definitions of Liberty, Justice, and Freedom.

In the first century, the Roman Empire exercised a Statist Religion. The Empire did not care what form of personal worship its citizens exercised as long as their final allegiance was to the State. Christians were tolerated for a time until it was determined that they would only bow to King Jesus. I am afraid we are about to find ourselves, and currently are, in the same situation. It is time to demand that the name of Jesus be acknowledged as Lord of all, as God the Father has already done!

The first American Revolution had to be fought with guns and lives because they had no recourse before a tyrannical king. Our war is different. We have recourse, that is, our vote. We can affect the course of our future and regain our freedoms by participating in the system our forefathers secured with their blood.

So why vote for a new man, Michael Peroutka, running under a new party, the Constitution Party? Doesn’t a vote for George W. Bush accomplish the same thing?

That facts reveal that George W. Bush is NOT the Christian President that he is esteemed to be:

In a recent New York Times interview with the President, President Bush admitted that even though he does read the Bible everyday, he does not necessarily believe every word he reads -- He has forsaken the very foundations!

President Bush has done more to publicly promote Islam than any other President in our history.

President Bush continues to promote homosexuality and abortion by continuing to appoint both pro-homosexual and pro-abortionists to positions of authority. He has even made a statement recently that suggests he might support gay marriage.

He has done more than any other President to support and encourage placing women on the front lines.

The list goes on – please read Michael Harrison’s article entitled “No More Excuses! Why a vote for Michael Peroutka over George Bush Is Not a Wasted Vote” for an in-depth view into Bush’s record.

If there is any doubt that our nation and government has abandoned our Christian heritage, there should not be. I will not pretend that every one of our founding fathers was a Christian. However, Christianity was so ingrained in the culture that even the unbelievers thought like Christians. Unfortunately, the tables have now turned and Humanism is so ingrained in our culture that most Christians think like Humanists.

I will close by quoting an excerpt of a Massachusetts Proclamation for a Day of Prayer, Humiliation and Fasting issued by the Provincial Congress on April 15, 1775, four days before the battles of Lexington and Concord.

Whereas it has pleased the righteous Sovereign of the Universe, in just Indignation against the Sins of a People long blessed with inestimable Privileges, civil and religious, to suffer the Plots of wicked Men on both Sides of the Atlantick, who for many Years have incessantly laboured to sap the Foundation of our public Liberties, so far to succeed; that we see the New-England Colonies reduced to the ungreatful Alternative of a tame Submission to a State of absolute Vassalage to the Will of a despotic Minister—or of preparing themselves and Posterity, against the avowed Hostilities of the Parent State, who openly threatens to wrest them from their Hands by Fire and Sword.

In Circumstances dark as these, it becomes us, as Men and Christians, to reflect that, whilst every prudent Measure should be taken to ward off the impending Judgments, or prepare to act a proper Part under them when they come; at the same Time, all Confidence must be with-held from the Means we use; and reposed only on the GOD who rules in the Armies of Heaven, and without whose Blessing the best human Counsels are but Foolishness—and all created Power Vanity. [4]

The above was not a sermon, mind you, but an official proclamation by the Massachusetts State government. This Proclamation was signed “By Order of the Provincial Congress, John Hancock, President.” Can you see how far we have fallen?

I love God, my family, and our Christian Republic (as our country was originally founded), and this is why I cannot sit back and passively watch another election go by without anything being said (as I have done up until now). My plea is that you will use this information to make an informed decision, a decision based on biblical principle and truth, not on misinformation and propaganda. Vote with me on Nov. 2nd for Michael Peroutka for President.

[1]Verna M. Hall, Preface to Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America (hereby referred to as CHOC), p. II.
[2]Ibid., Preface to the American Revolution Bicentennial Edition CHOC, p. Ia.
[3]Ibid., Preface to CHOC, p. IV-V.
[4]Ibid., Preface to the American Revolution Bicentennial Edition CHOC, p. Id