The Usury Dilemma Revisited (II)

To me the issue is not about specifically paying usury or even enabling those who sin by taking it from me. I don't expect otherwise from the world - though I do admit I struggle with loving these people who right and left beat me down and steal the money right out of my pocket - money I literally earned by my own sweat. And unlike them I labour assiduously to be honest and fair in my dealings - to my own hurt if need be. I would rather have a clear conscience then shrug my shoulders and be like them.

My real issue is with those Christians who have jumped the fence and stand on the Babylonian side - exploiting not just society at large but fellow Christians. I expect the lost to engage in dog-eat-dog ethics - Darwin's survival of the fittest. This is as old as Cain and Lamech. But I do have a problem with the Christians who have entrenched themselves in the system and are right at home in these various industries and sectors of society - making money hand over fist on the basis of what is essentially legal extortion and Babylonian alchemy. I have a problem with Christians who have baptised this law of the jungle, this atheistic ethic that is completely opposed to New Testament religion.

A Parody of Socialism and Whitewash of Capitalism

https://juicyecumenism.com/2024/11/07/answering-socialism/

One need not be an advocate for Socialism to realize that Bernard Mauser is attacking a straw man. If Evangelicals want to offer a critique of socialism, that's fine but if their goal is simply to promote capitalism and to caricature the rival system - then we have a problem not only in the realms of fact and truth, but also with integrity.

Malachi Martin and Rich Church, Poor Church

Back in the 1990's I used to pick up some Malachi Martin works on occasion. He provides insider information about the Jesuits and the Vatican and while I've never agreed with him, I've always found him to be interesting.

I stumbled on his 1984 work 'Rich Church, Poor Church' in a pile of discount books and since it was only $1.50, I decided to pick it up. It was a work I had never encountered before.

A Wesleyan Triad of Errors - A Formula for Evangelical Disaster

 Wesleyan Methodists (and the related body known as God's Missionary Church) teach:

"That second, definite, instantaneous work of grace, subsequent to regeneration, wrought in the heart of the justified person through faith, by the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire, whereby the heart of the believer is cleansed from the original sin, and purified by the filling of the Holy Ghost."

Realms of Enchantment and Mystery

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/living-wonder/

I rather enjoyed reading this review though I have not decided whether I will pick up Dreher's book. The work in question is Rod Dreher's 'Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age'. I found myself disagreeing with both Dreher and Darville the reviewer, but there's a great deal of food for thought.

Conspiracies versus Conspiracy as a Worldview: The Epistemological and Ethical Rot of Libertarianism (I)

For some time I've occasionally listened to a podcast called Catholics Against Militarism. It's flawed – it is Roman Catholic after all, but interesting at times. Protestant Constantinians and Dominionists are quick to dismiss all such anti-war sentiments as 'Anabaptist' even while they ignore the long and fairly impressive 'peace' testimony found within the spectrum that is Rome.

The Collapse of Yellow and its Context

The collapse of the Yellow Corporation in August 2023 made a brief splash in the news cycle – probably a little too brief. Many individuals and analysts have reason to be concerned when considering the volatility of the US economy as demonstrated by not only this collapse but the numerous banks that have faced difficulty and near collapse over the past year or so.

Gothardism Under the Microscope and a Christian Parent's Response (I)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/2023/christian-home-schoolers-revolt/

The new Amazon Prime documentary on The Duggars (Shiny Happy People) is apparently one of the most popular shows of the year, even breaking all kinds of viewing records. What a sad thing. This is what they've brought on themselves – an on the larger Church.

Desiring to be Teachers of the Law (II)

The Great Commission of Matthew 28 is repeatedly invoked but with a Dominionist overlay that re-casts the passage in terms of a Christianisation that does not exist, that has no premise in the New Testament, is refuted by the New Testament, and in no way reflects Christ's imperative in the passage. He was exhorting His followers to make disciples of the nations – in other words the gospel message is not restricted to the Jewish nation but now goes out into the world and is open and available to all people – a point reiterated and reinforced by Pentecost and the Book of Acts. That offer did not include the Mosaic Law as Acts 15 makes clear.

Desiring to be Teachers of the Law (I)

https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=10922121435868

This podcast typifies the kind of confusion that seems to reign at the moment in Reformed and Dominionist circles. There is a Theonomic overlay to the conversation and yet the roundtable discussion is in the end rendered as something of the absurd – all but pointless. The assumptions of Theonomy are effectively invoked and yet the overriding ethos of the participants is that of Libertarianism. The fact that these two approaches are not only incompatible but antithetical seems to escape them. The topic in question is whether or not the government has the right or should be able to impose a regime of licenses and permits. In every case their impulses are effectively libertarian in their rejection of all such mechanisms – a point we will return to below. But there are other preliminary issues that must be considered first.

The Unity of the Brethren before The Thirty Years War

Through the efforts of my son I was able to read Peter Brock's The Political and Social Doctrines of the Unity of Czech Brethren in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries (The Hague, Mouton & Co., 1957).

Copies can be found but it's a somewhat rare and expensive book. This is one of Brock's early works and probably not his best known. Recognized as an authority on pacifism, he specialised by focusing on many of the groups in Eastern Europe such as the Unity of the Brethren or Unitas Fratrum.

Kids Leaving Home and Middle Class Assumptions (III)

In light of these struggles and the fact that money is not the goal – but to honour God and hopefully (if possible) find something you enjoy doing, we have wrestled with whether to encourage our children in terms of college and career, or simply to wait and let them live awhile, gain life experience, save some money, and so forth. For the most part I think we've opted for the latter.

Kids Leaving Home and Middle Class Assumptions (II)

This question of daughters seems especially difficult in today's context, all the more when you make something of a stand and yet no one else is doing so in your local congregation. In fact, not only will your daughters grow frustrated by all the 'exciting' things the other young women are doing, the other parents are likely to start raising eyebrows at you when your daughters (and perhaps your sons) aren't attending college and moving out. Once again, these assumptions are more about status and middle class respectability than anything else. For them, it's embarrassing to have kids not going to college – there's almost an unspoken assumption that you've failed and they're too undisciplined, dumb, or otherwise incapable of getting through a university programme.

Kids Leaving Home and Middle Class Assumptions (I)

As my children are all now in early adulthood and yet living at home, we have been forced to wrestle with some of the assumptions in the culture about kids leaving. These questions are coming from both within and without the Church.

The Frankfurt Declaration: Its Disordered Assumptions, Deceit, and Dangers (II)

Providence lobbed the American Church a softball when it came to Covid. Did it rise to the occasion? No, the episode exposed a metastatic spiritual cancer, a real ugliness, and it revealed a reigning ethical system antithetical to the New Testament. The rotten harvest of a generation of Right-wing Dominionism came to bear in the selfishness and avarice we witnessed. The survival of the fittest ethic of capitalism and the sociopathic mercenary ethics of Libertarianism contributed to the deaths of over 1 million people – just in the US. These false social systems and ideologies have been deeply established in the minds and hearts of American Evangelicals due to an aggressive programme of false teaching that has been in place now for more than a generation. Covid exposed the rotten heart of the larger Evangelical movement – of American Christianity in all its mammon-loving repugnant splendour. Many Church leaders (including the supposed and farcical tyranny-resisters of The Frankfurt Declaration) have blood on their hands.

Cheap Grace and Peace with the World

I happened to catch a news story the other day about Amy Grant and how she has completely caved to the Sodomite ethos that now dominates this culture. She is hosting her niece's lesbian wedding at her house. We've certainly come a long way from the early days of CCM. That now seems innocent, wholesome, and even steadfast.

Sundry Thoughts and Reflections on the Queen's Death (I)

The New Testament tells us to honor the king and given the Neronic context of these writings and apostolic exhortations, that imperative remains true even if the regime can be categorised as bestial. As such, rebellion or collaboration with anti-monarchical forces is forbidden to Christians in all cases.

Feeling Better About America

Visiting a church last Sunday I wasn't terribly surprised when there was mention of the Dobbs v. Jackson case and the overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Evangelicals are celebrating this ruling and several others that have come down at the conclusion of the Supreme Court's recent 2021-2022 term.

Inbox: Rights Based Ethics and the Evangelical Movement (II)

Understanding the hopelessly corrupt nature of the world and its vanity we can then (with Paul and the Corinthians) take comfort in being 'the little people', the 'nothings' in the eyes of the world – the types that a reprobate like Trump would call 'losers'. For no one hates Christianity and Christians more than Donald Trump. Obviously the Church doesn't understand this one bit. Led by fools they think he's an ally and an asset to the Church's cause in the world. So misled by the false shepherds and shaped more by the epistemology and values of the Right than by Scripture, they have latched on and in increasing numbers have sold their souls to this charlatan and now his lackeys and imitators.

Dominionism and the Tucker Carlson School of Homiletics

Visiting another church this Sunday once more proved to be a serious disappointment. The congregation was something of a hybrid between Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism and yet Sacralist thinking dominated. The pastor continually confused the identity of the Church and the nation and begged the question regarding the Christian call to engage and dominate culture.