Wednesday, June 25, 2008

A great topic for sunday morning sermons

Another helpful observation from Wilson concerning the Christians involvement in public policy. Some of this we were just talking about last Sunday in church. Yes, that should be a primary place where we talk about this type of thing.

What We Need Around Here Is a Good Steak Knife
Topic: Politics
...The problem is that Obama is singing a song that many conservative evangelicals also sing, all while trying to bring their faith into the public square...My faith can motivate me to get involved, but once I am in the middle of debate, no fair quoting Moses or Jesus directly (as though they had any authority here in America)....

Of course, this rigs the system in favor of every form of unbelief. The atheist has veto power over everything because he "just can't see it." Moreover, taking a cue from Christopher Hitchens, he won't see it.

Part of the difficulty is that we are so confused anymore that we don't understand the differences between sectarian groups (Presbyterian and Baptist) and religions (Islam and Hinduism). In the founding of America, no sect was permitted to become the establishment, but the truth of the Christian faith was everywhere presupposed.

But unlike the founders, we no longer understand that a unified culture and society are impossible apart from a shared religious consensus. In America, that consensus was once Christian and it is now Cash -- and no, not Johnny. Our new secular consensus insists that all the other religions be treated as mere sects in the great city governed by the sky god Mammon and his many-breasted consort, Compound Interest.

Every time Christians get a little too close to the center of the public square for comfort, as Dobson frequently does (and good for him), this argument is going to be trotted out. We need to deal with it. We need to answer it...

..So here it is. All attempts by Christians to influence public policy must be conducted in the name of Jesus, in the power of the Holy Ghost, and to the greater glory of God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. When we take our light into the dark public square in order to shine it there, what sense does it make to take our bushel basket along with us?...entire article

Emphasis was mine, David

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Why do you do, what you do?

From Kevin Swanson's Blog

June 11, 2008
Are there two movements within home education in America?

I think that there are those who are more interested in getting their children into Harvard, and then there are those who want to get their children into heaven.

As my good friend, Mike Smith from HSLDA has put it in some of his talks, our ultimate goal is to get our children into heaven, not Harvard.

I fear sometimes there may be those who are more interested in Harvard than heaven. Fundamentally, the kingdom of God should drive our priorities, our goals, and our agenda in education. That is, seek first the kingdom of God and his interests, and academics will be added unto you.

If you focus on faith and character in your children's paideia, God will add to you the blessings of academic success and maybe even food and clothing.

But those who focus on the academics, the right brain - left brain workshops in the conferences, and the trivium, more than they focus on the fear of God and the preeminence of faith and character in the education of their children seem to have it out of balance.

When you talk about the education of children with others, where does the conversation go? Are we more concerned that our children "get a good job," than we are in our children "walking with God?"

Psa 33:8 Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.

This is a post from the Chalcedon Blog It is done by Chris Ortiz, I cannot link to individual posts from them so the whole article is here. I think it is very worth the read. As I keep getting exposed to thinking like this from men like Doug Phillips,Botkin, Swanson and Rushdoony, etc, I find that Christianity is really so much, much, bigger . That it is just industrial strength in nature, because if Gods word is believed, then Gods truth is allowed to just sweep other worldviews away like so much dust. Everything else really is a joke.

The Meaning of Life

The meaning of most things elude us. We do not understand the meaning of mosquitos, for example, or the hairs that fall from our head, nor of the often unhappy events in our lives, because we tend to look for their meaning in terms of ourselves. The meaning of all things is theocentric -- God-centered, not man-centered -- which means that of necessity things are meaningless if we try to read them in terms of man, in terms of ourselves.[1]

What is the meaning of life? We only ask this question, as Rushdoony suggests, because life is filled with millions of supposedly meaningless events. The sheer diversity of creaturely existence is enough to rattle the assurance of anyone. Why need we the cockroach? What of microscopic organisms, strange fish in the deepest portions of the sea, or the insane life cycle of the Penguin? What do they have to do with my choice of a career, spouse, or political party?

For ease of thought, we ignore these diverse realities; keeping things simple for the sake of getting through life. But the Bible highlights these random, obscure realities as revealing of the omniscience of God Almighty and His benevolence toward man:

Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. Mt. 10:29-31

The many sparrows and strands of hair are meant to reveal God's detailed control and concern for all things in the universe; nothing being more important than the dominion man He placed to rule over it. This is the message to us about creation's mysterious diversity. However, our tendency is to see events in terms of ourselves. We wonder if we did something to cause the death of the sparrow or the strand of hair to fall from our head.

Life's meaning is not found in us but in God's eternal decree. This was the message of the Book of Job--at least the message masterfully interpreted for us in Rushdoony's insightful, yet brief, commentary on Job's plight:

God's creative purpose transcends the life of Job and the purposes of Job, that Job cannot expect that God's providence move in terms of himself when not only the creation but the Creator has priority over Job.[2]

Both Job and his three friends were seeking to interpret his personal tribulation in terms of himself. His friends declared that God never condemned a righteous man, and Job persistently claimed that he had been righteous throughout his life. Why was God harming Job, if Job was righteous? The answer came down to an understanding of sovereignty:

Thus what God required of Job was that he recognize His sovereignty in every respect, recognize that the only standard for judging his own personal life and his own problems was not in terms of himself but in terms of the sovereignty of God, in terms of the Triune God in Himself. Job could not declare of any event in the course of his life that this thing was wrong because it impressed and affected him adversely, since all events in the life of Job could only be judged in terms of one standard, the purpose of the sovereign God. When Job acknowledged these things to be true, the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the former.[3]

The apparent meaninglessness to our diverse universe of strange creatures and inexplicable events is a convenient confirmation to man's theory of an evolutionary, impersonal, universe of process.
For those who are less existential, they see things developing in relation to their own lives. Both would be incorrect. In the ultimate sense, all things move in terms of God's eternal decree. He has good reason for cockroaches, falling hair, underwater earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. He may never share that meaning with us, but the intent is to humble us. For all Job's righteousness and love of God, there was still a measure of pride because he saw his plight as God's reaction to himself. Adding even more insult, the Book of Job begins by showing Job's plight originating over a wager between God and the devil. In other words, if God wants to wage a bet with the devil over our lives, who are we to stop it? The will of God be done.

Does that mean we should expect an equal experience? The Book of Job is hyperbolic, so I would anticipate better treatment in a general sense. The point should be obvious: life's meaning is found in God's sovereignty, and that thought is intended to comfort us. We should also embrace the lesson that blessing follows our living in this theological awareness.

Voting

This voting topic is a tough one for us because we do not know the Word or fear the Lord like we should. Gods word is clear and plain. will we fear him enough to do it? Or do we fear the Democrats
more?

Psa 33:18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy;

Will our hope be in the Lords mercy, and vote for the candidate that meets Gods guidelines concerning magistrates? Or will we grab the ark and place our hope in John McCain. Another good perspective from Douglas Wilson.


Disaster A or Disaster B
Topic: Politics

As the campaign unfolds, I will be writing more about all of this, but let this serve as a basic orientation.

This November, we are facing a choice between disaster A or disaster B. We are piloting a plane that is going to crash, and we have the choice of crashing in the sea or on the land. As I have mentioned before, I understand fully why many of my fellow conservatives would opt for crashing in the sea. Fine. We are going to do one or the other, and if you want to help decide, I certainly don't blame you. And maybe chances of survival are increased with one of the choices. But what I don't get is how my fellow conservatives can confuse "crashing in the sea" with "flying home safely."...more

For my entire adult life I have been voting for Republicans. Afterwards I am always left stunned by different things they do. No more.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

RC Sproul Jr on Pluralism

I have never thought of it this way.

Seek Ye First

by R.C. Sproul Jr.

...What is it the pluralists want more of? On the surface it might seem that what they want more of is religions. One religion isn't enough. We need to construct, according to these people, a world with plenty of room for Hindus and Hottentots, for Muslims and Mormons, for Buddhists and Baptists. When we look deeper, however, we run headlong into an inescapable spiritual reality, that every religion in the end is all about authority. What they want is multiple authorities. If there is, in the end, only one authority, and I am not that authority, then I am under authority. But, if there are lots of authorities, which is another way of saying there is no authority, then I am free to rule my own world...

..I fear our motives are scarcely more honorable than our unbelieving friends' motives. It is a different twist on the question of authority. They will not affirm the lordship of Christ over them because they fear that Christ will reign over them. We are fearful of affirming the lordship of Christ over all things, including our neighbors, because we are afraid of our neighbors ruling over us. Pluralism is a half-hearted attempt at a compromise of convenience -- we won't condemn you if you won't condemn us. We won't say you are wrong, if you won't say that we are wrong. We won't find your views backwards and repugnant, if you won't find our views backwards and repugnant. What a deal? And all it costs us is the central and first affirmation of our own faith: Jesus is Lord. All we have to give up to win peace with our neighbors is the proclamation of the Gospel...whole article

That is too true.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

We need Long Vision Going Forward and Backwards

Rob noted…

Interesting… another example of Americana (from Ken Myers): 2 church services; contemporary and traditional. Contemporary seeks to identify with the present.

Traditional seeks to identify with the past. Hmm… think about that in the context of July 4th…


Yes that’s what we need. To identify with what God has done in the past . Creation, his law, the early church councils, Augustine, the reformation, Knox, Calvin, etc. My old Baptist church would’ve been called as having a “traditional” service. But unfortunately the identity with the past that it sought to keep was probably the prior 20, maybe 50 yrs(?) . It had been soaked with just an older version of Americana. We need to find the flow of what God has been doing for the entire 6000 yrs of this planet.

We have been conditioned to think in terms of whats new, the latest greatest, new and improved , we want version 2.1 with all the patch’s. But we serve a God who say’s “I changeth not”.

For sure I will use the fourth of July to emphasize some memorial stones from the founding of our nation.

If Your Vision Isnt Full Orbed

I last quoted Swanson as he noted that we tend to see life in a piece meal fashion which will tend to lead one see a tree but miss the forest.

Sometimes Christians will take a determined stand on one isolated issue, but their worldview lacks a coherence because it lacks a comprehensive and full orbed view of history, politics, anthropology, epistemology, sociology , economics, ecclesiology, and medicine. Thus this half baked, piecemeal approach will produce very little if any, long term positive results.”

“For lack of vision, Christian activism is saddled with both lack of unity and direction. ...As long as the agenda is more framed by pragmatism and utilitarianism than by the heart commitment to Gods law we will continue to fight losing battles...”


Here is a an example, recently the Southern Baptist Conference , as noted by Chalcedon, wrestled with the issue of govt schools and Marriage…

..At the SBC’s annual meeting last week, the church’s Resolutions Committee stifled a resolution calling on the SBC to urge the removal of Christian children from California public schools. The resolution was not allowed out of committee for a vote on the convention floor…

…The amendment was defeated, said church leaders, because the Resolutions Committee was “trying to stay focused” on the marriage issue and did not want to be distracted by “the corollary issues of the education system at this time.”

It is hard to imagine anything more pusillanimous.
What Will the Children Think?

By leaving the children in the public schools, where they will be taught—starting in kindergarten—that Christian morality is wrong, the SBC has pulled its own teeth.

What are children to think, when their church and their parents say “gay marriage” is wrong, yet leave them in schools where they are taught “gay marriage” is right? If Christian teachings are supposed to be authoritative, are not the schools in the wrong for teaching the opposite? But if the schools are wrong, will not the children eventually have to ask, “Then what are we doing here?”

If the schools were forcefully teaching Islam or Hinduism, would the SBC insist that Christian children remain there? Is one form of anti-Christian teaching to be preferred to another?...


Entire article

We Need a More Encompassing Vision

This hits the nail squarely on the head I think. This is from “The Second Mayflower.” We never arrive, we must keep pressing in, in every area of life. Yes it will get tiring, its war.

From around pg 170 Swanson said,

“But even where a vision is present, the movement it represents will die unless the vision progressively sharpens in its clarity and purpose. Many movements die because the vision was poorly communicated to succeeding generations through teaching and example. Therefore the vision must either sharpen or it will die- there is no middle ground....”

Kevin describes so much of the church correctly in these following statements. How with our narrow Americana view of life we might squish an ant but leave the whole colony right next to us alone. “The ant couldn’t have come from there….”

“Sometimes Christians will take a determined stand on one isolated issue, but their worldview lacks a coherence because it lacks a comprehensive and full orbed view of history, politics, anthropology, epistemology, sociology , economics, ecclesiology, and medicine. Thus this half baked, piecemeal approach will produce very little if any, long term positive results.”

“For lack of vision, Christian activism is saddled with both lack of unity and direction. ...As long as the agenda is more framed by pragmatism and utilitarianism than by the heart commitment to Gods law we will continue to fight losing battles...”


Rob is getting to see this first hand as he sits in on lunch’s with the CAP organization. Open our eyes Lord.

This line here is just so huge our….” worldview lacks a coherence because it lacks a comprehensive and full orbed view of history, politics, anthropology, epistemology, sociology , economics, ecclesiology, and medicine.” As Chrisitans when we are mature, lacking nothing, we should see how everyone of these areas spring forth from Gods truth, from his word. They all fit together because they all reflect different aspects of Gods created order.

How did we get this lousy narrow view of life when our heritage is that our spiritual forefathers, 250-400 yrs ago were working hard, very hard at work on all of these areas. It birthed modern science and all of these category’s, and for a time theology was the queen of science’s , at the universities we had made, because all were under its umbrella. Our nations frame work for government was birthed as a piece of fruit from this work.

So why, as I grew up in a God fearing Baptist church, and then spent 29 yrs or so in the charismatic movement , did it seem that there was almost nothing until we came along. There was no historical context for our faith. It was like evolution, first there was all this nothingness except for the ancient history of the nation of Israel and then there was a big bang and we just all appeared together at a “Second Chapter of Acts” concert.

Im gonna put together some thoughts from Otto Scott, that sheds some light on what happened 100 yrs ago. Now this happened in spite of the fact that God could not have emphasized harder the importance of the generational connections! You must tell your children’s, children’s and listen to your fathers, fathers, respect and listen to those older than you! Nothing appears out of nothing, everything is a fruit of something else. Except the triune Godhead, it has always been.

From Otto Scott

...by the dawn of this century the Marxist realized that direct attacks on Christianity did not persuade so much as provoke.

They had more success with the argument that religion is a purely private matter-of no concern to the Government or to society...

…By the turn of the century the new alternatives to Christianity had convinced universities and the intellectuals. The clergy vanished from the administration of colleges their church’s had founded, and were replaced by professional educators of carefully neutral agnosticism....

…though Christians had built the west and comprised the majority of its western citizens. Around 1900, American scholars and writers began to expurgate Christianity from our literature. This was a remarkable step....

The Christian scholars of the United States, however, decided that the heirs of Christendom in this land did not need to know the history of Christianity. Nineteen hundred years of (Christian) effort were culled from our history books, and only that which tended to place Christianity in a ridiculous or intolerant light was retained...."

Otto Scott , Journal of Christian Reconstruction 1985

We need to reclaim our history and impress it upon the next gerneration, we must tell our children about the acts of God....

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Henty:Beric the Briton

We are almost done with another Henty book, Beric the Briton. Just a great story by Henty. Taking place in 6oAD it gives a nice peek at the early christian spread inside Rome itself. Also gave nice context for what life was like amongst the romans then. The upper class’s, how the gladiators lived, the fire of rome, Neros welfare system that helped to bankrupt Rome, all of which takes place just before Jerusalem was wiped out, about 10yrs after this books setting.

These Henty books just give a nice contextual look at these different periods of history. Always a nice sharp contrast is presented that some things are good and some things are evil. Evil is always to be opposed.

A real suprise for us was to see how even Roman families or barbarian families from britian had a closer operation and function to a biblical, Godly model,at that time, than modern Christianity has. Even "barbarians" and Romans had a closer understanding to each other of marrage than either would have with the modern broadly accepted evangelical view of family.

Us modernists are in this Americana grip of the individual, autonomy and the fragmented family... Why its been normal for about 15 respective minutes of the worlds history,plus we have the internet today so we know we are right.

Bummer

A Christian Response to a Sign of the Times

From Blog and Mablog. A great article by Doug Wilson, everyone should read it. Who has authority for all of life? What saith the christians? How will they respond to being challenged?


...a Pastor Boissoin, who wrote a letter to the editor opposing the homo-agenda. That hurt someone's feelings, and so a complaint was filed with the Alberta Human Rights Commission. Orwell, call your office -- outrages on human rights are being perpetrated by human rights commissions, and right on schedule too. Boissoin was fined 5,000 dollars, given a gag order on all topics related to homosexuality for the rest of his life, and ordered to apologize in writing. In Canada...

...I will venture one bit of advice. It would be wonderful if every believing pastor in Canada made a special point of reading Boissoin's letter aloud from the pulpit next Sunday, following it up by mailing a copy of the printed order of worship (with the phrase "Boissoin letter" printed on it, and marked) to the appropriate human rights commission...

...The great cultural battleground in our generation is sex, sexual identity, sexual roles, sexual perversion, and sexual orthodoxy. All our great cultural diseases come back to this, and are intimately related to this. James tells us that the law of God is a like a plate glass window -- to break it in any place is to break the whole thing. It is not like a collection of French pane windows, where you might bust this one here and not that one there. And a Christian worldview is all of a piece, just like the law of God. You cannot allow it to be broken at one place, pretending that the rest of the window is somehow unaffected...

...that root is this -- will Christians submit to the authority of God in defining our sexual identity, roles, and lives? Or not? And will they grant that this sexual authority of God can only be honored in public ways? Private agreement will not cut it. Those Christians who respond affirmatively need to be preparing themselves for a full-scale collision with homo pervens. For those who prefer to waffle, the time will come when they are either swept away completely, or find themselvs sitting like Lot on the edge of the fountain in the city square of Sodom, saying, "Oh, dear," but being very careful to say "Oh, dear" under their breath. They will either capitulate completely, unable with any consistency to draw a line somewhere, or they will draw an arbitrary (private) line that will give them something to wring their hands over...

read it all

Every Atom,Every Square Inch, A Fathers Day Charge

Not to pile on, ok why not pile on, Otto Scott the man who coined the term the Silent Majority in 1985 wrote ..."By the dawn of this century the Marxists realized that direct assaults on Christianity did not persuade so much as provoke. They had more success with their argument that religion is a purely private matter- of no concern to government or to a society as such"...

John Dewey and the other leading humanists of the day learned this lesson well and began to slowly undermine Christianity by making God irrelevant to most of life.

Now today Gary North had some observations that fit in with our current topic. The relevance of God to society and the different ways the culture gets Christians to cooperate in keeping God out of sight and out of mind. Here Gary explains the easy way in which higher education performs this hat trick. Look nothing up the sleeve...

..."There are hundreds of Ph.D.-holding economists who are Christians. Many belong to the Association of Christian Economists, which publishes a journal and has for 25 years. Yet this journal is unknown to the economics profession. It is also unknown to the Christian public. It does not have "Christian" in its title. Professors are rarely marketers...

So, I still have a virtual monopoly over the term, "Christian economics." But how can I keep it when there are hundreds of Christian economists? Because of the nature of academia. I had spotted this weakness by 1963. I figured I would take advantage of it.

America's tax-funded, state-accredited educational system forces all religious groups to submit to this principle: "God is irrelevant to real-world truth. America's schools are committed to the pursuit of real- world truth. So, you must leave God outside the classroom. If this is K-12, leave him off campus." The education system is operationally atheistic. It screens everyone, from kindergarten through tenure, by means of this filter: "God has no Ph.D. God is not accredited. Ignore God."
The tenure track at any tax-funded university legally denies the existence of religion's authority over any academic discipline. Those who object are screened out early. This in turn shapes the curriculum in every accredited religious college, which must staff their faculties with Ph.D.-holding graduates who have gone through the system.

I have written on how the academic guilds filter mavericks. If you send a child to college, be prepared for this process. I call it the academic meat grinder

The academic system screens out my potential competitors. They are allowed to be Christians, but in the classroom of most universities and all tax-funded universities, they must be silent Christians. They must not promote something called Christian economics.

So, in order to pursue careers in the world of academia, my potential competitors have removed themselves from the off-campus market in which I operate."...


The emphasis was mine. I am also providing a link to a recent generations Broadcast, along these same lines, where Swanson shows how Romans chpt 13 doesn’t mean what most of us evangelicals think it means. Disagreement with the Government.

We must become familiar , confident, and articulate in asserting the Lordship of Jesus Christ over every area of Life. We will be patient, faithful to our Lord, diligent in applying his word. We are having to unlearn a lot. We will thump ourselves many a time with the biblical nunchucks. But the fruit will be the tearing down of strongholds and everything that exalts itself against the glory of God. An even bigger payoff will be with future generations, if we will make Gods word as frontlets for our childrens eyes, that they see and interpret all creation through his word.

This is Gods charge to us as Fathers as seen all over Deuteronomy and the old testament. This is Gods purpose for us as fathers. It is the most important ministry we will ever engage in. Like most of us I feel inadequate, having seen manhood ridiculed for most of my life, and can think that im too far behind the 8ball. But If we will be faithfull to what God has declared, then we can be persuaded that he who has begun a good work in us will complete it.

Its all about what God has said, not what we think. I need to practice, what did I do with my nunchucks?

Helpful Christians

Yup It would just be like us evangelicals to see pagan systems that reject Jesus, reaping what they have sown , but then we try to help them keep their boat afloat as it sinks. All in the name of loving our neighbor. "Maybe you will have more luck ignoring God if you do it this way...." We are so helpful. WWJD :)

What should Christians be Doing?

This was a responce ignited by my last e mail. The author is a elder from my church.

Dr. Dobson, O, Dr. Dobson… Our captain [you] are on the deck and dying. Yes, for many in the evangelical community, Dr. Dobson carries more weight than Jesus! No, they would never say it that way. I love my brother, James Dobson. I disagree with him on those articles where he has sprouted forth fruit from a humanistic perspective. One of his dramatic disembarking errors is the self-esteem teachings, but thusly I save that for another time. The current topic at hand is a recent article concerning this question: What immediate changes would you make in junior and senior high schools to improve the learning environment there?

Had I not read it from a Focus on the Family magazine, I would have thought some pagan principal had written it. His answer to the question at hand is, “Most important, we must make schools safer for students and teachers.” This is his response as a representative of the Jesus Christ. The reasoning goes: Government schools are dangerous schools. Dangerous schools should be made safe. Therefore, government schools should be made safe.

Before we jump on the Jimmy bandwagon, let’s ask a few pertinent questions. Where does the Bible tell Christians that they should prop up pagan institutions? Who are Christians to rush in and fight for the building up of a school of humanism? Does the Bible tell us to establish schools which deny the authority of Christ? When the pagans kill each other because they will not submit to God’s authoritative Word, does God want the Christians to rush to their aid? Humanism will always ultimately eat its own (John 10.10). I will offer a different solution: Proclaim the authority of Jesus Christ in every area of life.

Without the authority of the absolute rule of Jesus Christ in every area of life, protection becomes a matter of degree, and chronology. It is only a matter of time until the bully in 1st grade, who is taught that he evolved from a monkey, will grow up into an angry nihilist with a gun planning his tirade. Government schools, by nature, cannot teach something that undermines their agenda (submission to the government… and you thought it was education?). To teach alternative possibilities would be self-defeating.

Most importantly, we are called to proclaim the Kingdom of God, and extend God’s authority in every area of life through evangelism and discipleship. What should we do to save government schools? Evangelize! We should call them to repent and believe in Jesus Christ, who claims authority over their lives (not just Christians) (Matthew 28.18-20). We are not called to make schools in rebellion to God safer.

Let me address the pink elephant in the paper. Christian parents are saying, “But my child is in that school!” I ask you, where does the bible put the responsibility for teaching and training of children (Deuteronomy 6.6-9)? If a government school is humanistic in its worldview, it can only teach all of its subjects from a humanistic perspective. How can we biblically send our children to the Babylonians for their education? Please reconsider your parental duties, and values. Your children will grow up thinking from a humanistic worldview. Christians respond to life from the humanistic worldview… Dr. Dobson is.

Even if we agreed that the schools should be made safer, where would we draw up our plans to implement? How will we go about making them safer? Dr. Dobson offers, “Armed guards? Maybe. Metal detectors? If necessary. More expulsions? Probably. No-nonsense administrators? Definitely.” And what will we consider offensive enough for expulsion? Nakedness? Armed robbery? Homosexual activity? What will be our standard for what is good and bad behavior. The homosexual moms certainly cannot handle your little Johnny telling their child that homosexuality is “sin.” So will we expel Johnny? The point is, there is no reference point for truth in a school which teaches that there is no reference point for truth! Duh! (word depicting a self evident truth).

In Summary, God commissioned us to evangelize the lost, and call them to surrender to the authority of Jesus Christ in the way they do schools (in this case). God did NOT commission Christians to prop up pagan institutions, rather, He told us to take dominion for His glory. When people refuse to acknowledge and honor God, they are an abomination to God. By default they will destroy each other. Christians should be salt and light, ready to offer hope in Christ, and a biblical worldview, which does not include humanistic government schools.

They Have a Different Religous Faith or Lipstick on a Pig

We have made it to about pg 170 in “The Second Mayflower”. Around pg 120-130 will be a tough go for most evangelicals as he calls the church back to the Lawgiver.

He is doing a very good job encapsulating the main heart and thrust of why I think God blew life into the homeschool movement. Its not just so our Kids can clean the clocks of the Govt school kids in scholastic competitions. Its been to prepare a people to serve the Lord, in every area of life.

It has been line upon line, precept upon precept, just as the Word says. One thing was revealed which led to another.

This book is doing a very nice job drawing many comeponants all together in one mosaic picture. Granted for someone just entering this path they would hunger for the tons of tapes and books that have colored in so many of the different facets that these pages illuminate. So much of it seemed almost shocking at one point. For me that was because it started to feel like for 30 plus years in the Church I had been dealing with minutia. So much of the teaching centered around us, man, how God would help us, restore us, save us. Clarity about what he did for us at the cross and how we would be with him later. But dead silence for just too many areas of life.

From back in the mid 80’s... Mr john Otis quoted Gordon Clark ...Neutrality is impossible. Let one ask what neutrality can possible mean when God is involved. How does God judge the school system which says to him, "O God we neither deny nor assert thy existance" and "O God we neither obey nor disobey thy commands, we are strictly neutral" A school system which ignores God, teaches its its pupils to ignore God and this is not neutrality but the worse form of antagonism for it judges God to be uninportant and irrellevant in human affairs. It is atheism...

That is just so dead on. I have been perfectly comfortable with the concept, the idea, the practice, that the government could exempt itself from the Lordship of Christ. That the Government, individuals, societys etc could say that “well we don’t believe the bible so were gonna walk by some neutral principles”. The fact that I didn’t see that what they were really doing was adopting a different faith, and then walking by it. It is their faith, their religion, they are true believers and they cling to it just as dogmatically as any of us believe in Christ. They have gotten away by buffalo-ing us that they walk by science and reason when all it really was, is humanism. Faith, trust and belief in man. They had put lipstick on a pig and I couldnt see the pig anymore.

It matters not that they cannot see it. It matters a whole bunch that we have not seen it, and held their feet to the fire about it. I do think its because we lost “The law” for so long. We put down the standard because they didn’t like it. (For a long time I think we weren’t too crazy about his law either. I repent.) We climbed into their sandbox of human reason and have lost our way.

But the Lord is calling us out of their sandbox and back to his ways. Psalm 19:7,8 The law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple: the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is is pure enlightening the eyes.

Another quote from John M Otis
...One either thinks and acts like a Christian or one thinks and acts as a humanist. There is no neutral stand. (Matt12:30) Our children are being educated all the time. the question is: what religion is being conveyed to them and being used to shape their lives? Is it the godless system of humanism or is it the God glorifying truths of scripture?...

It is only by the light of Gods word and our adherance to it that will keep us from raising another generation of believers that think like humanists. Every topic: "What sayeth the scriptures" and " 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"

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Right Hearts and Good Intentions as the Standard

Rob has dragged some meat across the path, so putting on socks and shoes we give chase. Woof.

Rob asked: My question would be: Does the text of 2 Samuel 6 indicate (giving David the benefit of doubt) that David intended to do the right thing? His intentions did not excuse the fact that God had told them not to put the arc on a cart...

First thoughts after a quick look back at exodus and 2nd Samuel. I see I lead my brother astray by spelling it as arc instead of ark. In Exodus God tells them to use poles to carry it. I don’t know if he ever said “don’t use a cart”, but this leads us to the modern default position for most evangelicals. IE “if God never said we couldn’t do… (you name it)…. it must be okay. Anyone who says otherwise is adding to the word. Legalist!”

We don't carefully (fearfully?) double check to see if we can get every detail from the word. Which would bring us closer to the Christ centric model of " I don't say anything unless the Father says it, and I don't do anything unless I see the Father do it." Another legalist. (1) see foot note.

I don’t see anything to suggest that Davids intentions were less than good. Another coin of the Christian evangelical realm is “if we believe our hearts are right, and intentions good…” what else is there? Who can be against us? Like the doctrine of personal choice. This way of thinking seems to trump everything in most evangelical minds. But where did this way of thinking come from?

Doug Phillips is so right to keep pounding on the phrase “what sayeth the scriptures?” We can know scripture, but if that knowledge is in terms of our society, if that understanding is controlled by the culture rather than Gods word, than the determining factor is no longer Gods word, but rather we have found something higher than Gods word. Which cannot be.

If we are not careful Our hearts and our intentions become the standard, when it must be his word. It reveals our loose, lax(? ) Maybe a too familiar attitude towards….everything in general. Careless seems too harsh. It is probably just more of our Americana skirt showing , you know, its cool, its ok. Were almost buddys with the most high.

With God the method ( how) is as important as the “what” you do.

What did God say to do?

Did God say When to do it?

Did God say Where to do it?

The Why is a tricky one. But think about carrying the Ark the way God said to do it. Nobody died putting it on the cart. But if it had been carried by multiple men and someone slipped the rest of the men would have kept it up and hence no temptation for anyone to reach out to “ save the ark”. This makes Gods directions seem as a safeguard for human life. Life was lost because a method was chosen, that was not condemned, but was also not Gods directed method. This will cut against the Americana grain of being original and creative but it would provide protection from becoming synchrotized into your culture. In them, but not of them.

And the Who? Has God said should do this. ( Govt, Church, Family, Fathers, wives, men or women, individuals?) This one is a church splitter here. This is a buzz saw to egalitarian viewpoints, feminism and Americana.

Robs second question is rhetorical: How many “arcs” have we put on carts? David should have known better. We must pray, fast, study and ask God how many carts we have constructed to carry His concepts (marriage; parenting; church; politics, etc.). Obviously there is only one arc… it is an analogy. How many concepts do we embrace and carry, yet carry them the wrong way?

This is so hard to answer ,even just to myself. The first impulse is to get the shoes and socks back off quick because you feel that for sure there’s just oodles of stuff that hasn’t been thought through and you will need extra digits for counting. But its like confessing to dissing God, in multiple areas of life, so you want to on impulse say, “maybe only, one or two”. :) I fear if I really could see what God see’s that I would be past toes and onto using chest hairs to keep count. :(

Yes! Friday night at the fights. Men's meeting. You just know were gonna get the biblical nunchucks out. Its great fun till someone hits themselves in the head with them.

(1) How? did we get to the place where if you try to carefully do what Gods says he wants you to do. You will be called a legalist by other believers! When did this start… If Christ himself said “if you love me, keep my commandments.” This speaks loudly that our thinking is messed up. We have been taken captive.

Being practical

Have been busy. Went out to the west side twice this week, picked up a table and another night getting a dishwasher. Put it in yesterday. Nice job too, centered, level, looks great, dumps water onto the floor like crazy. The warranty people will look at it tomorrow.

The ways of God verses Americana.

Another quote from Bradley Heath and his book Millstones and Stumbling Blocks. Pg67

"…American culture has an insidious and pervasive influence because no matter how ascetic or monastic we may be, we all inhale it like secondhand smoke…"

I know that I have been neither monastic or ascetic when it came to our culture. Now I am. But my loaf has already been leavened by Americana for a long time now. He continues.

"For example , many evangelicals adopt the current cultural mentality of victimhood. We embrace an entitlement mentality and whine about the stealing of America: “Its not fair! We have rights: this is a Christian nation” but nothing has been stolen from us – not our government, not our schools, not our culture, not our families, not our Church’s and not our freedoms. We have simply surrendered these things by retreating from biblical thinking in our failure to love God with all our minds. There has been no theft or seizure: secularism and its minions have merely occupied ground Christians have deserted."

So as we get saved and try to walk out our faith in God we have all these old ways of thinking from our American culture to deal with and here is one of them. If Americans are anything, we are a pragmatic people, a practical people.

We have been inculcated with the idea that being practical is reasonable, normal, why its rational thinking. Pragmatism was soaked into most of our bones from gov’t schools, TV, movies, and pop music and yes even our families. Unfortunately getting saved doesn’t flush it out of us either.

I have this little fold out pamphlet on 21 names of God and their meanings. God has many different names in the bible. But practical, reasonable, and pragmatic are not among them. He is not the practical God . There is nothing about him that is pragmatic. But he does say "come let us reason together". Always on his terms, by his definitions because it is his world.

So at our core as Americans, we think pragmatically , we go with what works, with what makes sense. But if we are saved, we now serve a principled God. Who in Malachi said “I am the Lord thy God who changeth not”. Now this is a train wreck waiting to happen.

Or it has happened. Maybe it has happened lots and lots of times and we just didn’t realize it. Maybe God isn’t impressed by our reasonableness. As in the garden, he expects obedience.

Today Uzzah’s untimely death when he grabbed the Arc came up in our service. Modern Christians today would declare a prayer and fast over something like that. Then we would go on out and grab the Arc again. Because we love the Lord in our hearts, the very last thing we tend to think of is, maybe we are not being obedient.

But America is where it is today because the believers have not been obedient. Its like a flood now, all of the ways over the years where I can now see how the church was being practical. What we did, all made sense. It just wasn’t obedient.

Monday, June 2, 2008

..It was MY responsibility to conform to the community of faith, not them to me.

From the Chalcedon Blog Editor Chris Ortiz takes a poke at our modern quest of churchs to be relevant to our culture in the name of winning souls. He also gives some background on his becoming a christian and how at the time no one in his Church was what we would call "relevant to him" and his lifestyle. He didnt care, he wanted the truth and they had it.

Resistant Sectarian Reformed Folks

....Adapting to culture is by no means commanded by God. As any astute Reformed believer knows, culture is--as Henry Van Til stated--religion externalized. Therefore, adapting to culture equates to adapting to another religion, since most cultural expressions arise from some form of paganism or humanism....

Driscoll wants churches that conform in their praxis to pagan culture. I'm not sure what Scriptural admonition drives him in that pursuit. He claims a church should "adapt its practice (though not doctrine) to best fit its cultural context," but the obvious implication is that doctrine is somehow divorced from praxis. How far do you take that? What aspects of culture are "neutral" enough for a Christian church to practice?

I was radically saved during the early 80s from sheer atheism. I had long hair and played in a heavy metal band. I looked the part of the subculture of those days. Long story short, I gave it all to Christ on a chilly November evening and attended my Christian service in a Baptist church in Dallas, Texas. I looked like a freak. My hair was nearly to my stomach, teased out, and I had nothing but "rock" clothes to wear. Guess what? NOBODY in that Southern Baptist Church looked like me.

I got there early, and the first man that greeted me was an older deacon with a pot belly named Bennie Bell. He came right over to me, gave me a hearty greeting--which surprised me--and then guided me to the front pew of the sanctuary. I had planned to sit in the back, for obvious reasons. I was bombarded with Baptist blessings as nearly every person came to see this strange sight.

Well, after the service, I had a long talk with the pastor and several church members. I was full of questions and wrote down as much as I could on whatever I could. I wanted to know everything that day. If someone mentioned a word I didn't know--like redemption--I asked them what it meant and then wrote it down. I knew already that it was MY responsibility to conform to the community of faith, not them to me.

I was there until after 3 pm, and one precious family stayed with me as long as they could. They even walked out the front door to try and make their way to their car while I stood holding open the door of the church with one foot still in the vestibule. I told them my car was parked in the back and they suggested I cut through the sanctuary instead of walking around the campus. They said, "Chris, just close the door and pull the handle from the inside to make sure it's locked. God bless you, and we'll see you later." I was standing alone in the church. I had worn everyone out. I was the last one to leave. I've never looked back since then...

Sunday, June 1, 2008

I put here 4 small posts from Doug Wilsons Blog and Mablog in hopes that some may be enticed to check him out. Always from a biblical perspective, which is different for us Christians. Its good to be jostled once and awhile.

Shouldn't Be Surprised Anymore
Topic: Devil in a Blue Dress
"From the time that Aaron, the first high priest, acceded to the people’s wish by casting a golden calf (Ex. 32), the religious leadership has always prepared the way for apostasy" (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 232).

Why Dead Fish Always Swim Downstream
Topic: Devil in a Blue Dress
"The historicist mentality finds it difficult to consider the possibility that a dominant trend may be evil, and thus stands ready to embrace anything that will confer contemporaneity on itself" (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 237).
Because the Fearful Have a Choke-Chain On

Topic: Devil in a Blue Dress
"The entire ‘exhaustion-of-resources’ syndrome is one huge apology for totalitarian control over the citizens" (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 224).
No Kidding

Topic: Devil in a Blue Dress
"There is no arena in society in which the elite are able to acknowledge themselves unfit to govern" (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 202).
Posted by Douglas Wilson

Gods Word and Economic Policy

This is from the members only side of Gary Norths web site. It shows the clear connection between Govt policy and how God through his Word claims authority over what governments do. We do not get to hear much on how Gods word comes to bear on economic policy. If you dont think you will find something when you look,you probably wont see it.


...WHY GOVERNMENTS HATE GOLD

When a society's monetary system is based exclusively on private contracts and voluntary exchange, civil governments find it difficult to make money by counterfeiting. They cannot directly control the monetary system. They can influence it through legislation and the courts by altering what constitutes a legally enforceable contract. The main interference here is a government's decision to allow banks and private storage facilities to issue receipts -- IOUs -- for gold or silver that are not covered 100% by the quantity and fineness of the metal promised on the receipt. This violates private contract law. It authorizes fraud. It legalizes counterfeiting. But the government is not helped much by this interpretation of contracts. Banks and warehouse storage facilities are the main beneficiaries.

The history of civil government has been a history of the governments' assertion of sovereignty over money. They do not prove the case for such sovereignty as an inherent attribute of civil government. They do not even mention this theoretical problem. There merely enforce the principle by law.

There is a reason for this. All civil governments, with the lone exception of Byzantium from 325 to 1453, have deliberately tampered with the metal content of the monetary unit. They have practiced counterfeiting. They have added less expensive metal to the silver or gold and have then spent the new money into circulation at the older, higher value.

This is theft. Governments steal from naive, trusting individuals who sell at yesterday's prices on the assumption that the nation's official counterfeiter has not, coin by coin, stolen silver or gold and replaced it with tin or some other base metal. The skeptics see what has happened and raise prices, or they borrow with the intention of repaying the loan with money of reduced purchasing power.

Counterfeiting, when practiced by a private agency not licensed by the government, is denounced as theft and is prosecuted by the government. On the other hand, whenever counterfeiting is practiced by a national government or a government-licensed central bank and fractionally reserved commercial banks, this is referred to as scientific monetary policy. It is heralded by free market economists as being in the public interest.

Central banks are charged with the responsibility of carrying out monetary policy. The major purpose of the Federal Reserve System (and other central banks) is to regulate the money supply and provide a monetary climate that is in the interest of the entire economy. (Gwartney & Stroup, "Economics," 4th edition, p. 281).

A MORAL ISSUE

Sometime around 750 B.C., the prophet Isaiah identified the practice of monetary debasement as one of a series of government acts against the public interest.

Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water (Isa. 1:22).
The process of debasement, he argued, was initially moral debasement. It affected the entire nation. "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil" (Isaiah 1:16). Then it became judicial debasement. "Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them" (Isaiah 1:23). But its most visible mark was monetary debasement.

This led to the debasement of wine, i.e., product quality debasement. He warned of God's wrath to come.
Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies: And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin (Isaiah 1:24-25).

Academic economists refuse to identify monetary debasement as a moral issue. Economics textbooks at every level discuss fractional reserve banking in terms of technical issues, never moral issues. The only exception is Murray Rothbard's little-known textbook in money and banking, "The Mystery of Banking." He identified fractional reserve banking as immoral. It involves theft. The book was never adopted by any economics department. It soon went out of print. You can download it for free here.


There is moral cause and effect in society. Because counterfeiting by any agency is immoral, because it deliberately forces the redistribution of wealth from those who spend the money late in the process, after prices have risen, society suffers. An assault on the integrity of contracts undermines cooperative ventures.

Whenever the government or its licensed monopoly, the national central bank, spearheads this assault, the public is unable to defend itself. It does not even suspect there is a problem until the rate of price inflation is widespread. Even then, the government and its spokesmen blame speculators for rising prices.

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