Thanksgiving, Amen

From Wilson's blog:

Thanksgiving 2007 and the New Atheism
Topic: Church Year

If it were not so clunky, Thanksgiving should actually be subtitled National Apologetics Day. The apostle Paul tells us that there are two things that the unbeliever wants to suppress, and those two things are the Godness of God, and our consequent responsibility to render thanks to Him. Thanksgiving is really the central epistemological duty of man. Without it, we stagger right into every form of zeitgeistian idolatry.

A corollary of this is that the Church must recover a robust sense of these two realities, experiencing them in her own life, both in our worship services and out in the parish. If the unbelievers are laboring mightily to repress their sense of the Godness of God, and their responsibility to offer up to Him a life of gratitude, then the central thing we must do is live in such a way that keeps bringing the issue back up. They, in their unbelief, are trying to hold an over-inflated beach ball under water. And when we live rejoicing in the presence of the triune God who is God, and we live in a way that overflows with thanksgiving for all things, we are gently poking their quivering arms....
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Slow Blogging

I continue to spend a lot of time listing things on Ebay, contacting people and shipping things. I barely can squeeze in an email around it all.

As the economy slowly digests and developes heartburn from Greenspans years of flooding the world with US dollars we see the end result as the value of our money drops from years of being debased.

They're still spending money at Ebay, so the new posts will be less for awhile. God bless all!

An Uppity Jesus

While we are poking at Gods sovereignty and the million dollar "Says Who?" question. Lets establish that most Christians don’t want an uppity Jesus, we like him in our hearts, softly telling us he loves us and everything is gonna be ok. Just pick me up and carry me across the beach Jesus, I don’t think I can make it. Footprints you know.

We can just freak out at the thought that he actually might want his will known and acted upon by us all the time. This last part can really cramp our "liberty" in the Lord. We can be so taken in by our Americana and "no one can tell me what to do" and "I did it my way." American individualism has way more to do with how modern churchs and the vast majority of believers function than anything from Gods word. We cannot imagine that God is very much concerned about anything besides.......us. Getting people saved.

But God doesnt see his creation as a dixie cup to be thrown away, as of no real interest to him, nor does he view the governments on this planet as so many "free range" chickens that can just run willy nilly and claim authority over whatever they want...."time for flu shots everyone"....

So to help pick out the lay of the land I want to pass on some salient points I read

last Sunday. I read this article From Douglas Wilson, from his Credenda Agenda magazine. It is available to view online for free. "Cruciform Politics" by Douglas Wilson from volume19 issue 1: Thema Wilsons statements will be in blue, its four pages long so im gonna leave out a lot except for what might help us see that God has no intention of staying behind the pulpit.

So does Gods word show he wants to be Lord over all......

....When St. Paul came to the Corinthians,...He resolved to know nothing among them except Christ and Him crucified (v. 1). But this does not mean what individualistic moderns assume it to mean. We assume it means that he limited his message to a few bare doctrinal fundamentals, and for the remainder he left the kingdoms of men to govern themselves according to their own customs. In short, this confusion places "Christ and Him crucified" over here, and all the other subjects are over there. But this is almost directly opposite of the point the apostle Paul is making here....

..So what does the phrase "nothing but Christ and Him crucified" actually mean?..." Does this mean that all we are supposed to talk about is the fourth page of a six-page tract, the page that has a picture of a cross going across a chasm between God and man?

Most modern believers are still trapped by the Sacred / Secular disitinction idea from Greek thinking. It is ingrained in western thought.

...But note how St. Paul approaches this. This message is a message that topples the princes of this world and every thing that previously had been under their jurisdiction—meaning arts, politics, economics, exploration, scientific investigation, cooking, playing hacky-sack, and anything else that men might do. Rightly understood, preaching Christ and Him crucified is as broad as the world. Our desire is to bring every thought captive, bringing it into submission to Christ (2 Cor. 10:1-4).

Peter Leithart identifies a common problem we have with this kind of totalism: "Unfortunately, many Christians mentally adjust the astonishing claims of the New Testament and in so doing weaken it beyond recognition. Paul's words, it is thought, must apply to `spiritual' realities or to `salvation history,' but not to the actual history of humanity" (Deep Comedy, p. 26). In short, we slip away from what the New Testament actually says by spiritualizing or internalizing it....

Been there done that...

...This being the case, we should recognize that there are two different ways to get this whole enterprise wrong. The first is to deny what the Bible teaches about the public authority of Jesus Christ over all things. But Jesus said that all authority in heaven and on earth was given to Him. We should therefore go and disciple the nations. The reason given for the preaching of the gospel is this all-encompassing authority of Christ....

...Given how confused everything has gotten, we frequently find private Christians who are public secularists. They do not want the authority of Jesus Christ to be recognized in the public square.....

...a true cruciform politics will be iconoclastic—it will always challenge the idols. The idols of the age are always decked out in respectable clothing, and people who attack them are always dismissed (initially) as crazed nutjobs and disturbers of the peace. In our day, one of the central idols is the the swollen state. In other words, the political aparatus over which Jesus will be Lord needs to be about 100 times smaller than it currently is...

For most Americans they do see the State as a god, when something is wrong who is cried out to? Who is offered up a as having a solution to any problem? We as Chrisitans must first see it and forsake this view or truly our nation is lost. We need to first be open to Him as being truly Lord over all, before we will see it in the Word.

God bless. Proclaiming the whole gospel,

Romans 13, E-mail Neighborhood

Most Christians just throw up there hands and say "oh, well" as they think of Romans 13. God put them in charge (the government), so we have to obey....So long as they don't try to get us to deny Christ...We then give to the State all of Christ's Kingdom so long as we can keep our hearts. "Do what you want to the lady, just let me go." Jesus said..."All authority has been given to me..." All authority, is more than our hearts. We started talking about this a while back, I have a pretty decent simmer going now with it. We don't see that every time the state is mentioned in the Bible, that in context, God's Word is a limiting document to them, like the Constitution was.

Was.

Judges who should have been like traffic cops enforcing the Constitution have been instead behaved like police who hold back the traffic so the speeders can go even faster!
Because the church has done such a wretched job of honoring God by how it ignores His jurisdiction in the name of keeping the arc from falling. It's only natural for us believers to then extend the privilege to Ceasar, after all, there really are a lot of needs out here and if the state doesn't do it... the arc will fall.

If you haven't heard the Pragmatism/Principle talk from the UCFC Conference then you are like someone who keeps passing by the door of the church in Wittenberg a month after Luther nailed up his 95 Thesis. "What's all the fuss?"

God is going to send us a parade of thundering prophets hammering us with this message. Lord, please let us see and understand and return to you. It will be such a drag if we get carried away into captivity with the vast majority of Christians going "Why did God allow this?" Both in Deuteronomy and in Jeremiah God gives the answer to this question when His people ask, "Why is this happening to us?" And God said, "it is because your father's, father rebelled..."

I can still hear Kevin Swanson saying..."because no one really cares about what God wants." Everyone is running around trying to.... keep the arc from falling.

Will God let us see it? I pray He will.

Tight $ Times Are Coming Our Way

Has God used our greed as Americans to put together the "perfect storm" to chastise us as a nation? We deserve it for sure. We will see, and like Job we need to be ready to say, "blessed be your name."

We have inflated our currency to ridiculous levels, and now other nations are reducing their holdings of dollars in favor of what they think will be a more stable money. Cannot blame them. We might see a lot more inflation as the Fed. trys to stave off a stock market stomache virus brought on by the credit markets imploding. A weaker dollar and a slower economy, if God is merciful. Even if it is much worse He still will be merciful. But I don't think it's going to be fun. Get your house in order as well as you can.

Taking Another Look

If you don't stop in often to see what Doug Wilson is posting over at Blog and Mablog than you are missing out. This was posted today. This is the entire posting.

Creation Law and Redemption Law by Douglas Wilson

"We may divide the law of the Old Testament into two basic categories, those of creation law and redemptive law. Creation law is that which looks the same throughout the history of the world. The definition of marriage and adultery did not change in the transition between the old and new covenants. Theft looked the same in 700 B.C. as it looks today. Redemption law is law to which obedience may vary in appearance drastically. Keeping the Passover before Christ involved a sacrificial paschal lamb and the removal of all physical leaven from the house3 (Exodu. 12:15), while today we sit down at the Lord's Supper, removing the leaven of malice and wickedness (1 Cor. 5:7-8). The transition between the covenants has dramatically altered the appearance of obedience" (Mother Kirk, p. 232).

He had another that was an eye brow raiser. I liked it. Putting the Fun Back into Fundamentalism

Letter From A Christian Citizen

I recently finished Doug Wilson's "A Letter From A Chrisitan Citizen". It is an answer back to Sam Harris and his book "Letter to a Christian Nation" (I wish!) where he attacks Christianity and how it is holding back society. Wilson's book is just a treat to read! He just takes Mr Harris's lunch money, pants and shoes and Mr. Harris is left naked. If you are going to try and take the athiest position any body can take your lunch if they understand presuppositional thinking.

Athiests are used to being fawned over by universities and adoring media so when they step out from this protective bubble where real Christians can take a shot at their inconsistant thinking it gets ugly, for them.

This is from Wilson's archives where he describes his role, like a bird picking off bugs from it's host, protecting it...

...But let me up the ante. Since we showing off our respective educations by referring to poets, let me modify Eliot's hippopotamus and make it a rhino. Christendom is an enormous rhino -- socially awkward, unsophisticated, non-academic, embarrassing, and what have you. I am a tick-eating Oxpecker bird, positioned by the ear, or on the rump, depending the strategic necessities, the time of day, and my particular mood. The atheists are very critical ticks, and they take delight in pointing out (often quite accurately) that the rhino is lumpy, clumsy, and short-sighted. They recommend a fitness regimen, urge the rhino to abandon its shape and become something more Euro-friendly. Methane is also an issue...

The book is a great, short, enjoyable read on how to take apart an athiests thinking. This link will take you to about 5 additional postings about his book from his Blog and Mablog site, it will give you an appetite for the book, you can get it new for less than 10 bucks at American Vision.

Socialized Medicine Kills

From the New York Post...

UK'S BAD MEDICINE WHY U.S. HAS BETTER ODDS VS. CANCER DAVID GRATZER

....The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports on both the incidence of prostate cancer in member nations and the number of resultant deaths. According to OECD data published in 2000, 49 Britons per 100,000 were diagnosed with prostate cancer and 28 per 100,000 died of it.

This means that 57 percent of Britons diagnosed with prostate cancer died of it; consequently, just 43 percent survived. Economist John Goodman, in "Lives at Risk," arrives at precisely the same conclusion: "In the United States, slightly less than one in five people diagnosed with prostate cancer dies of the disease. In the United Kingdom, 57 percent die."

None of this is surprising. In the United Kingdom, only about 40 percent of cancer patients see an oncologist and, histori-cally, the government has been reluctant to fund new (and often better) cancer drugs.

So why do the critics think that Britain's survival rates are as high as America's? The main reason is that they are citing overall mortality rates, which are indeed, as Ezra Klein writes, similar across various countries. That is, the percentage of all Americans who die from prostate cancer is similar to the percentage of all Britons who do. But this misses the point, since a much higher percentage of Americans than Britons are diagnosed with prostate cancer in the first place. If you are a patient already diagnosed with prostate cancer, like Rudy Giuliani, your chances of survival - as Giuliani correctly said - are far higher in the United States....
whole thing here

Been Sick,Yuck

Sore throat, had a cold this week. Went to bed early every night. No blogging, no emails. I hate it like this, so much floating in your head, so many trains of thought. It's hard to put into writing when it piles up, you don't know where to start, you want to start at each thing and you just cannot. I tend to just freeze up.

So What Do You Have To Offer Us?

Found at Pearcy Report

What Has Atheism Done for Us?
By Dinesh D'Souza

My new book What’s So Great About Christianity, just out, is already an amazon.com bestseller, a Wall Street Journal bestseller and No. 16 on the New York Times bestseller list. On Saturday C-Span broadcast my debate with God Is Not Great author Christopher Hitchens. Many people have commented that this is the best debate on the topic of Christianity v. Atheism that has yet been held. If you haven’t seen it, you can find the debate on my website dineshdsouza.com...

One of the most interesting questions in the debate was posed to Hitchens by a man from Tonga. Before the Christians came to Tonga, he said, the place was a mess. Even cannibalism was widespread. The Christians stopped this practice and brought to Tonga the notion that each person has a soul and God loves everyone equally. The man from Tonga asked Hitchens, "So what do you have to offer us?" Hitchens was taken aback, and responded with a learned disquisition on cannibalism in various cultures. But he clearly missed the intellectual and moral force of the man's question. The man was asking why the Tongans, who had gained so much from Christianity, should reject it in favor of atheism.

In my response, I noted that when the missionaries came to India, they sometimes converted people by force. Even so, many Indians rushed on their own to embrace the faith of the foreigners. And why? Because they were born into the low caste of the Hindus. As long as they remained Hindus, there was no escape; even their descendants were condemned to the lowest rungs of humanity. By fleeing into the arms of the missionaries, the low-caste Hindus found themselves welcomed as Christian brothers. They discovered the ideal of equal dignity in the eyes of God... Read it All

The Urgent Need to Evacuate the “Enemy’s Schools”

I like how that sounds the "enemy schools"...says it very well. from American Vision...

Three Cheers For Arnold
by Dr. Richard A. Jones

On October 12, shortly before last week’s deadly Southern California wildfires and the emergency evacuation of half a million people, governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed senate bill (SB777) into law. And his shocking decision about this phony “anti-discrimination” law still has the blogosphere buzzing. Many know that the bill is really all about advancing the bisexual and homosexual agenda inside California schools, thus the purpose of today’s article is to remind you that a short-sighted attitude of, “oh well, this is just more routine California weirdness” is dangerous. The lesson is that it’s time for Christians, wherever they live, to start planning emergency evacuations from their public schools.

The Pandora’s Box of SB777 threatens parents and taxpayers with off-the-charts moral and financial harm because of its PC-based potential for all kinds of courtroom litigation stemming from anything smacking of ”discriminatory” behavior. The fact that trendy California fads almost always ooze out to infect the other 49 states means that this same kind of legislative deviancy and potential for court chaos will be coming up soon for a vote at your statehouse. So you need to take preemptive steps now to avoid the “when it happens, not if it happens” indoctrination programs lurking at your public school’s doorstep... Read it All

Anyone Torn Leviticus Out Of Your Bible? I'll Take It.

Leviticus, the books of the Law. As Swanson pointed out "Jesus was a theonomist" He went to the books of the law to quote scipture at and defeat the devil. How awesome is that?

How can you not love Lev 19:18 "Love your neighbor as yourself" ?

As God has said, Isaiah 8:20 "To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word it is because there is no light in them." What happens if you don’t know what is in the law and the testimony? Might be harder to see if "they" are speaking according to "His" Word and to know if "they" have "light" in them. DOOH!

Without the law we turn Jesus into Gumby and mold and shape him to our liking and customize our Christianity into our own image until you have "Jesus is just alright by me" as a top 40 hit.(thank you Ken Myers) We have been twisting Jesus for a hundred and fifty years. His feet are about behind his head.

Sage Advice from Gary North

The cry to "save yourselves" continue. Gary North exorting people to get their kids out!!!!

The Best One-Shot Investment on Earth
by Gary North

...We are, as far as urban public education is concerned, essentially at rock bottom. We are now at a point where we are essentially churning out ignorant teens who are becoming ignorant adults and society as a whole will pay dearly, very soon, and if you think the hordes of easily terrified, mindless fundamentalist evangelical Christian lemmings have been bad for the soul of this country, just wait.

It's gotten so bad that, as my friend nears retirement, he says he is very seriously considering moving out of the country so as to escape what he sees will be the surefire collapse of functioning American society in the next handful of years due to the absolutely irrefutable destruction, the shocking – and nearly hopeless – dumb-ification of the American brain. It is just that bad.

But is his friend exaggerating? Is the situation really that bad? Here is first-hand evidence.

But most of all, he simply observes his students, year to year, noting all the obvious evidence of teens' decreasing abilities when confronted with even the most basic intellectual tasks, from understanding simple history to working through moderately complex ideas to even (in a couple recent examples that particularly distressed him) being able to define the words "agriculture," or even "democracy." Not a single student could do it.

It gets worse. My friend cites the fact that, of the 6,000 high school students he estimates he's taught over the span of his career, only a small fraction now make it to his grade with a functioning understanding of written English. They do not know how to form a sentence. They cannot write an intelligible paragraph. Recently, after giving an assignment that required drawing lines, he realized that not a single student actually knew how to use a ruler....

...Which is preferable?

A. Leave a large financial legacy to your children or grandchildren.

B. Make sure they share your worldview, which will cost you $200, plus keeping the mother at home to supervise.

C. Both of the above...
Read it All