A Strange Encounter Part 5

A Quote From Hedges

Let me be clear once again. I'm not really concerned for the United States. I pray for the peace of Babylon. I live here. Some of my ancestors have been here since 1620. It's far preferable to live in a civil and orderly society than to live in crime ridden chaos. It's nice to be able to walk safely down a street and not be robbed or shot at.

As a Christian I desire a venue in which I can live my Christian life and an environment in which the gospel can work....one in which we can freely speak to others. A concept like the 1^st Amendment is something we should desire and treasure. With it come many dangers and opportunities for others to do things that aren't desirable. Though it allows them to continue their lost behaviour it also allows us to bring them the gospel without persecution.

Theonomists have been pretty vocal in the past about the 1^st Amendment. If you're committed to state enforced Sacralism...the 1^st Amendment is an abomination. It grants civil protections to false religions and allows anyone to challenge what they hope would be the establishment.

A Strange Encounter Part 4

American Amnesia and the Greatest Threat

My disagreement with him really struck a chord. I think he wanted to hand me the booklet, tell me what a hero his son was and have me just gush with thanks and awe.

Of course suggesting the Iraq War was built on lies was a direct assault on his narrative and largely his means of sustaining his well-being, of dealing with the tragic death of his son. His understanding was holding him together. It is no easy thing for a parent to admit their child died for nothing...or even worse engaged in something that was wrong.

A Strange Encounter Part 3

The Iraq War

"Were you in the military?" he asked.

"Unfortunately," I replied.

"What branch?"

"Air Force."

"Well I believe," he continued, "my son died defending our freedoms against Islamic Terrorism. The war in Iraq," he went on...

"Was based on lies," I said.

"You don't think after they attacked us on September 11 that we had to go in there? To liberate those people?"

"Iraq didn't attack us on September 11. And the reason given was to deal with the supposed pressing issue of Weapons of Mass Destruction which all turned out to be lies."

It got kind of tense. He insisted the weapons were there and they were smuggled out through Syria. I couldn't believe that almost ten years later I was still hearing these same old tired arguments which were proven false long ago.

A Strange Encounter Part 2

Gospel Gimmicks

So here I am with this poor man who lost his son and is now trying to share his story but has jumbled it all together into some kind of evangelism tool. It's an odd blend of American patriotism mixed with gospel...Bible verses and all the rest with flags and what not.

How odd I thought? For the past 18 months I've written a couple of thousand pages of material directed largely at...people just like him. And here I am minding my own business and suddenly he's sitting next to me handing me a mish-mash of theological heresy and nationalist propaganda. The muscles around my eyes grew tight.

A Strange Encounter Part 1

A bereaved father, and a gospel tract loaded with perversions of the Truth

I'm not fond of fabric stores. What can I say? As a male I'm just not enthralled about walking around racks filled with bolts of cloth. I'm thrilled my wife likes to sew and make things and has some ability at doing so. However it's not a store I can stand for more than a few minutes. Whenever we visit the fabric store at the nearest shopping mall (about 30 miles from our home) I usually end up on the bench out on the concourse.

So there I was sitting and minding my own business, half engaged in people watching and half falling asleep when this clean cut man in his sixties walks up and asks me my name. I could see he was carrying some literature and my guard went up. What was this...a salesman perhaps?

Focus on Sacralist Jurisprudence 7

(final segment)

Revolutionary thought can justify not only violence but crime...because crime (like murder or not paying your taxes) is not crime...but revolution...the refusal to accept the authority of the existing state and seeking to replace it by appealing to a higher law. This is why revolutionaries can argue moral purity while they rob banks. The bank is part of the system they're rejecting and revolting against. Robbing the bank is an act of war...and of course helps them fund their revolution. I'm not saying there are Christians suggesting we start robbing banks, but I am suggesting that in the years to come we are going to hear some pretty extreme rhetoric coming out of Christian mouths. The people at Church who glory in carrying guns and seem to almost consider it a mark of piety....well, is it great leap to suggest they will want to use them when they feel pressed? Will they not put forward Sacralist grounded arguments suggesting we can and perhaps ought to do so?

Suing to protect and advance the Church, places the Church in the power-struggle. It takes the Church and transforms it into a political device and institution, marring and distorting it. The Church abandons the Gospel for the Beast Project and by entangling itself in the affairs of this life abandons purity and virginity and becomes a whore.

Focus on Sacralist Jurisprudence 6

Consistent Application of Sacralist Law and Morality can only lead to one thing...

If something is morally right, and we believe it to be based on eternal spiritual principles, an ethic derived from Divine Revelation, we don't need to look to the state to validate or sanction what we're doing. This is true for both a non-Sacralist theory of resistance/antithesis and the Sacralist idea of social paradigm replacement and transformation.

For the non-Sacralist, the pilgrim ethic guides our daily life and interaction with the fallen society and its state. We're not trying to transform, we're not trying to get the institution on our side (though we are indeed after individuals within the system), and we don't want the state to aid us, because frankly it cannot. We simply want the state to provide security and order with as much freedom as possible so we can do what we're here to do.

Focus on Sacralist Jurisprudence 5

Part 5- The Inevitable Road to Violence and Revolution

-My apologies. This conclusion comes weeks late. I'm trying to tidy up some loose ends and I have a tendency to have too many things going at once. Time gets away from me and suddenly I realize these last couple of posts for this series should have been put up weeks ago. I could easily write several articles and commentaries a day, but I don't have enough time. I end up with a series of partially finished pieces and works in progress.

This hasn't been a very popular series either. My ability to strike a chord is rather hit and miss...With regard to this topic, people either aren't interested, don't see the importance, or already see it and perhaps are bored with the topic? I'm not sure. Anyway, these last segments address some of the real concerns I have...what I believe to be the telos of this whole trend in Evangelicalism with regard to politics and the law. The previous installments can be found here: http://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2011_11_01_archive.html

Part 5 

One more example and some final thoughts....

While I was finishing up this series I heard Al Mohler talking about some related issues. On his show he was discussing the case of a couple in California running into trouble with a local zoning board because of a Bible study at their house.

Many will have heard something of this before, either this specific case or one like it. Mohler argued that if a wedding reception was happening, no one would question it, but the anti-Christian city won't allow the study of God's Word and prayer. As usual, a bit of an oversimplification.

Civil Rights and Evangelical Revisionism

In addition to Charles Colson's amazing shift regarding Evangelical attitudes toward Rome, there has also been a colossal shift regarding attitudes on race and the narrative of the Civil Rights era.

During the 1960's in many cases it was Protestants and people who would today be described as white Evangelicals who were leading the charge against people like Martin Luther King.

Colson's Victory

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/14/us-usa-campaign-evangelicals-idUSTRE80D0OF20120114

I already alluded to this in another recent post but it is noteworthy. Evangelical leaders recently gathered in Texas in an attempt to reach a consensus regarding which candidate to support in the 2012 US Presidential bid. The result after the final tally...the Roman Catholic Rick Santorum.

The Sacralist Road to Moral Relativism

http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/18531

My wife picked up on this the other day. I really have no deliberate plan to pick on Charles Colson, but he’s on the radio 5 days a week, and even after years of his flawed worldview and erroneous and deceptive commentary…he still amazes!

Answering Questions #14- The Law of Non-Contradiction and its theological results

Some time ago I was in a discussion on another site and made this comment:

Like I said I'm uncomfortable with these laws being employed because through syllogistic formation, deduction and inductive theological construction. We can quickly get far away from the text. I can think of quite a few issues where Reformed theology has done this, and gotten into tangles due to questions that shouldn't have been asked." 

 I received this response just recently from another party:

Will you please give me some examples of this?  As far as the noncontradiction issue goes, I wonder if Jesus is God, and God is all knowing yet Jesus did not know the time or the hour of His return then isn't it true that Jesus was not omnipotent.  I have a really hard time saying Jesus didn't have any characteristic that God would have if He (which I do believe) he was God.  Will you please share your thoughts on this issue with me please?

To which I replied:

Constantine Can't Rescue Britain- 7

In the end, the presence of the middle class brings its own problems. For the Church, at least in the United States it has been disastrous. Christianity becomes respectable and part of the establishment. Bourgeoisie self-interest and preservation is confused with Christian values. That's been our problem here in the United States.

Rather than the cross being something we bear, it's something we wear as jewelry. Instead of love not the world, we become very comfortable here, and Christian-ize the lust of the flesh, eyes, and the pride of life. We don't call these values worldly...we call it...the American Dream.

Constantine Can't Rescue Britain- 6

On another perhaps more practical level, one might engage in a discussion regarding the middle class. A society lacking this contains a large population of disengaged, socially disenfranchised people. This has been the reality throughout most of history. Those on the top look down on the crude barbaric masses of dirty uncultivated people with disgust. They control them with the threat of violence but always live with some fear of them as well. The middle class creates a new and large bracket of society that is engaged in issues and infrastructure, and cares very much about standards, advancement, manners and so forth.

Constantine Can't Rescue Britain- 5

Granted in some ways Georgian or Victorian society would have been nicer to live in than today's pajama wearing in public, body pierced and spitting on the sidewalk culture. But in other ways Victorian culture was stifling. Counterfeit Christianity didn't just abound as it does today...it ruled and tyrannically wielded tremendous power. The gospel was stifled and crushed by a society which confused its social mores and laws with Biblical revelation. Jane Austen movies have assuaged the harshness of this reality. Certainly those on top of the pyramid had pretty nice lives, even with the occasional grief and difficulty. But most of the people didn't live in Jane Austen world...they lived in Bronte land or the realm of Hardy. They didn't think Victorian society to be so grand. For them it was akin to an oppressive terror.

Constantine Can't Rescue Britain- 4

As Christians we've been taught to loathe multi-culturalism. Rather we should be all for such pluralistic understandings of society. Don't confuse theological pluralism which is to deny Christ with social pluralism. Many who are critical of what I'm saying make this error, sometimes deliberately, accusing Christians who argue for social pluralism of denying the exclusivity of Christ.

 Since the Kingdom of Christ is not of this world and we the citizens of the Kingdom must by necessity also dwell in earthly kingdoms the only type of society we would desire is one tolerant of pluralism, one committed to being composite rather than unified. This is the exact opposite position most Christians hold to these days.