A Quick Critique Of Movement Libertarianism

“Why is an alliance between conservatives and libertarians inconceivable? Why, indeed, would such articles of confederation undo whatever gains conservatives have made in this United States? Because genuine libertarians are mad — metaphysically mad. Lunacy repels, and political lunacy especially. I do not mean that they are dangerous; they are repellent merely, like certain unfortunate inmates of ‘mental homes.’

– Russell Kirk,
Author of The Conservative Mind

Often there is confusion in the Christian community that Christianity is Libertarian. Now, certainly it is understandable why people might think this since for the past 150 years in this country the Church has had to contend against a State that is increasingly intent on becoming god walking on the earth. As such, the Church has had to make arguments insisting that the 1st commandment should be taken seriously by God’s people and in doing so it has made some of the same kind of negative arguments against the all encompassing desired omnipotence of the State that Movement Libertarians make. However, Biblical Christianity has no more in common with movement Libertarianism then it has with Movement Marxism.

Like the Movement Libertarians the Church articulates a message that no institution is absolutized in it sovereignty. Unlike the Movement Libertarians the Church insists that absolute sovereignty belongs to God and not to the individual man. Like the Movement Libertarians the Church inveighs against a State that has forgotten its place. Unlike the Movement Libertarians the Church believes that the State has a place in God’s order. That place in God’s order is to bring God’s justice upon those who, because of their sin nature, can not restrain themselves. Like the Movement Libertarians the Church articulates a message that insists that the individual as individual must be respected and that the individual is not merely some kind of cog to fit in a machine crafted by the State. Unlike the Movement Libertarians the Church articulates a message that insists that men find their identity not in their abstracted individuality, but rather men find their identity it terms of distinct covenantal corporate relationships — relationships defined by God — that include family, Church, Community, Guilds, and yes, even the Magistrate. Like the Movement Libertarian the Church articulates a message of Liberty for the individual. Unlike the Movement Libertarians the Church insists that Liberty is not absolutized and only finds it meaning in the context of a God ordained Transcendent Moral order. Like the Movement Libertarians the Church articulates a message of love of self. Unlike the Movement Libertarians the Church also articulates a message of self denial for a greater good ordained by God.

Likewise Christianity teaches, unlike Movement Libertarianism, that man is fallen. Most versions of Movement Libertarianism, like most versions of Marxism, believes in the inherent goodness of man. Christianity teaches that what God’s people on earth are to seek to live out has some connectivity, and ought to be something of a reflection of the Transcendent Moral Order that exists independently of man’s existence. Movement Libertarianism, with its atomized and absolutized self is concerned very little with the idea of a Transcendent Moral Order that has men praying, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Christianity teaches that social order analysis must begin, where all other analysis must begin and that is from above — with God and His scriptural revelation. Libertarianism does its social order analysis from below — from the needs of the sovereign individual, from the concern of the immanent. Christianity teaches the inescapable reality that all social orders are organized Theocratically. Even Democratic social order is a social order where “vox populi vox dei rules from on high. Movement Libertarianism seems to believe that it is possible to have a social order that is religiously neutral and is not shaped by the God(s). Christianity teaches that in every social order one God is preeminent. Libertarianism seems to teach that social orders can be had where all the gods are preeminent or, alternately, where no gods are preeminent, and they hold this quite without realizing that this view requires a preeminent god to insure that no gods are preeminent.

As an aside, it is interesting to note, that as looked at through Christian lenses, it sometimes seems that some Movement Libertarians are as desirous of putting off Christian morality as Marxists are. How many Libertarians can be counted among the the dopers? How many Libertarians embrace the “non-aggression principle” right up to the point of legalizing Prostitution, Sodomy, and any number of other perversions? For many Libertarians, morality, not being absolute or transcendent, is person variable and as such social orders should be pursued that allow for morality to be person variable.

Ironically, what Movement Libertarianism creates is the Totalitarian State just as what the Totalitarian State creates is the press towards Anarchism. Only Biblical Christianity with its doctrine of the Eternal One and the Many, as that reverberates through the Created One and the Many, provides answers that eclipse the “push me, pull you,” found in the dysfunctional but real relationship between Marxism and Libertarianism. Christians can learn from Libertarians and especially so when most Christians seemingly are completely blithe to the 1st commandment. As such, reading men like Henry Lewis Mencken, Albert J. Nock, Lysander Spooner, Friedrich Hayek, and Ludwig Von Mises can be profitable but those who dine with the devil are always well advised to dine with a long spoon. So, we can dine in order to plunder the Egyptians but let us dine in such a way that we don’t become ensnared by the Egyptians.

At the end of the conversation, Libertarianism as a social order motif can only work as any given people share the propensity of self-government consistent with a common worldview. It is hard to envision how Movement Libertarianism could exist in a genuinely multi-cultural, multi-faith, multi-ethnic setting where notions of ethics are as diverse as the balkanized worldviews represented by the varied and sundry multi-meanings that occur as a result of all the multi-dynamics.

Fifth Commandment

Introduction — Background On God’s Law For Social Order Organization

God’s law is the connecting link between the earliest and latest legal systems and has proved itself one of the most influential forces in the evolution of the world’s law.” Law Review Article (1931)

The Scriptures embody fundamental principles that have attained legal effectiveness among nearly all peoples and in remote parts of the earth — principles w/o which human societies can scarcely continue to exist — and it is not unreasonable to suppose that in many instances these principles were borrowed from the Scriptures or were obtained through contact w/ those who observed Biblical law.

For example, much of the common law of England was founded upon Mosaic law. The primitive Saxon codes re-enacted certain precepts taken from the Holy Scriptures, and King Alfred in his Doom (Judgment) Book. Theologian Francis Nigel Lee details how Alfred incorporated the principles of the Mosaic law into his Law Code. Lee then examines how this Code of Alfred became the foundation for the English Common Law, which of course was in turn the foundation of our own legal order.

In his extensive Prologue, Alfred summarized the Mosaic and Christian codes. Another scholar, Michael Treschow, states that the last section of the Alfred’s Prologue not only describes “a tradition of Christian law from which the law code draws but also it grounds secular law upon Scripture, especially upon the principle of mercy”.

The Scriptures have thus been a potent influence upon American law. In the early colonial period, the Bible seems to have been commonly regarded among the people as law. Several of the early colonies even went so far as to formally adopt provisions of the Mosaic law. For example Plymouth Colony in 1636 adopted what was called then, “A Small Body of Laws,” largely based upon the laws of Israel. Likewise, the New Haven colony in 1639 resolved that “the word of God shall be the only rule to be attended to in ordering the affairs of the Government in this plantation,” and then in 1655 adopted a code in which 47 out of 79 topical statues were based on Biblical law.

Appx. 150 years later, in what had recently become These united States of America one could hear a Judge say to a Grand Jury,

“The laws of the Christian system, as embraced in the Bible, must be respected as of high authority in all our courts. And it cannot be though improper for the officers of our government to acknowledge their obligation to be governed by its rules.”

~ Judge Nathaniel Freeman’s Charge to the Grand Jury at the Court of General Sessions of the Peace
Held at Barnstable Mass., March Term, 1802

As late as 1931 one can find in the case United States vs. Macintosh

“It has been recognized in the courts that generally we acknowledge with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God.”

With all that said as prolegomena (a preliminary discussion) let us turn to the matter at hand.

** Recap of the Previous

We have repeatedly pointed out that the 10 words can be understood as having both vertical and horizontal dimensions. Though we can not absolutize that distinction it is helpful in ordering our thinking about God’s Law. We have noted that the first four commandments are especially though off as Vertical, having a direct relationship to how we are to esteem God.

1.) No other Gods before me 2.) No craven images 3.) Take not His name in vain 4.) Sabbath

** Fifth Commandment

Question 104 — Heidelberg Catechism

Q. What is God’s will for you
in the fifth commandment?

A. That I honor, love, and be loyal

to my father and mother and all those in authority over me; that I submit myself with proper obedience to all their good teaching and discipline;1 and also that I be patient with their failings—2 for through them God chooses to rule us.3

1 Ex. 21:17; Prov. 1:8; 4:1; Rom. 13:1-2; Eph. 5:21-22; 6:1-9; Col. 3:18-4:1
2 Prov. 20:20; 23:22; 1 Pet. 2:18
3 Matt. 22:21; Rom. 13:1-8; Eph. 6:1-9; Col. 3:18

When we come to the 5th commandment we come to a hinge commandment that has a foot both in the vertical orientation of the God’s 10 words and a foot in the horizontal orientation of God’s 10 words

The foot it has in the vertical orientation is found in the reality that those whom we are dealing with in this commandment, who are to be honored, are those who are God’s representatives … they stand in God’s stead. As representatives of God they one can see the vertical dimension of the commandment. The horizontal orientation of this commandment is found in the reality that we are dealing with human relationships … man’s relation to man. As such there is a horizontal dimension.

If you will allow me just a bit of allegory, it is altogether fitting that with the 5th commandment we have this intersection. Of course you know that when two perpendicular lines intersect the consequence is the formation of the Cross.

It could be easily argued that Jesus, by His work on the Cross, healed the breach that Adam had created by His disobedience to Father by dishonoring Him in his disobedience in the Garden. Jesus, quite in contrast to Adam, was obedient to His Father at every turn. In Hebrews 10 we find Jesus saying,

‘Behold, I have come—
In the volume of the book it is written of Me—
To do Your will, O God.’ ”

Elsewhere we read of the Son,

31 But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do.

This is important to keep before us before we examine the import of this text as applied to ourselves. Our Lord Christ, offered up the law’s 5th commandment keeping requirement so that the children of Adam who had failed in “Honoring their Father and Mother,” might have the 5th commandment keeping requirement put to their account, and so be acceptable to God. For those who trust Christ, Jesus and His obedience to His Father is what is received as our obedience to our Father and Mother.

This is important to keep in mind because it could be the case that as the years unwind you may look back and cringe with embarrassment or shame at the way you may have dishonored your parents at points along the way of your minority. If and when those times come we must preach the Gospel to ourselves and remind ourselves that we are forgiven in Christ for our sin against our parents are those in authority over us. The fifth commandment preaches the Gospel.

It also would be pleasing to God, for you to ask forgiveness of your folks if God were to lay anything on your heart. Most parents are more ready to forgive then children are ready to ask for forgiveness.

** Fifth Commandment & Honor

As we come to the commandment we see that it calls for “Honor.” Let us consider first what “Honor” means in a Biblical setting.

Honor = heavy.

Honor is accorded thus to people who have significance, or gravitas. The opposite of honor, of course, is dishonor, and where something or someone weighty or having gravitas is treated as if they were inconsequential.

Honoring parents involves several things:

1. Taking to heart their instruction.

2. Show deference toward them, by language and forms of address.

Even the idea of addressing them as “Dad, & Mom” is showing them deference.

3. Loving them.

4. Being faithful, also providing for them (financially, spiritually) in their old age.

But if we were to get even more precise we might say that the idea of “Honor” includes,

1.) To acknowledge that our Parents are God’s appointment to us as His representatives to us and as our first officers as appointed by God. Accompanied then by the understanding that as we obey them in their lawful word to us so we are at that moment obeying God. This is to give “Honor.”

2.) More than one source I consulted included in the idea of “Honor” the necessity for children to look after parents in their dotage if needs be. The source that is cited for this is Matthew 15:5-6

3.) It includes the idea of speaking with respect to them, and with respect of them. Parents are not perfect people and aggravations can arise in family life between children and parents, but at no point should words be used outside the family that would rip and tear apart God’s ordained representatives to the children.

** Application

You can tell a great deal about a person in both the way they treat their parents and the way they speak of their parents. If a man will disrespect and dishonor his parents in deed or word he will disrespect and dishonor any one.

Young people, let me admonish you now, do not become entangled with those who dishonor their parents and above all do not enter into marriage with someone who dishonors their parents. A man or woman who will dishonor their parents is sure to be a man or woman who will readily dishonor their wife or husband.

** Fifth Commandment & Hierarchy

Obviously the requirement found in the 5th commandment speaks to us of God’s implementation of Hierarchy of relationships. Parents govern children, which implies then that there are other unequal relationships (HC = All in authority over me.)

This simple idea of parents having a hierarchical relationship over their children has been under attack,

A current UN “Children’s Rights” proposal, signed by all member UN Nations except Somalia and US would find,

Parents no longer being able to administer reasonable spankings to their children. (contra Proverbs 13:24)

Children would have the ability to choose their own religion while parents would only have the authority to give their children advice about religion. (Contra Dt. 32:46, Proverbs 22:6)

The best interest of the child principle would give the government the ability to override every decision made by every parent if a government worker disagreed with the parent’s decision.(Contra Dt. 6)

A child’s “right to be heard” would allow him (or her) to seek governmental review of every parental decision with which the child disagreed.

Children would acquire a legally enforceable right to leisure.

Of course all of this is out of accord with the Premise that Children are to honor, love, and obey uniquely their parents, and it is out of accord with God’s principle of hierarchy that we find in the fifth commandment.

** Children & Parents without the Fifth Commandment

It is interesting here that what this UN declaration is seeking for the State is what was in place in primitive pagan law where the Father was regarded not as the steward of the children but as the owner of the children.

In primitive law the Father had absolute control over the children even to the point of dictating life or death. In primitive law the Father could sell children as though they were cattle, or they might be seized and sold by his creditor to satisfy a debt.

So, we see what an improvement God’s law is upon any primitive law that would view Children as property to be owned as opposed to a trust over which we have stewardship for a season.

We have dealt with the idea of what Honor means and have begun to touch on the issue of how the Commandment introduces hierarchy. Of course the idea in the Heidelberg Catechism of “all authority over me,” is within the context of Biblical law. It is various authorities that God has ordained. Not any thing or anybody who merely claims “authority.”

** Examples of Proper Authority Structures That Emanate Out of the Fifth Commandment

These might include the authority of Employers over employees, Magistrates over Citizens, Husbands over wives, Elders over laymen, teachers over students, etc. In all these relationship there is the requirement to render up proper honor, love and fidelty.

However, once again we must note that this honoring is in the context of Biblical law. When those in proper authority over us, clearly, repeatedly, and unambiguously w/ malicious intent violate God’s Word we show proper honor to those authorities by yielding to God rather than man.

I say, “clearly, repeatedly, and unambiguously w/ malicious intent” in order to communicate the requirement that God’s word puts upon us to bear patiently with their weaknesses and shortcomings.

The Heidelberg & God’s Fifth Word

Q. What is God’s will for you
in the fifth commandment?

A. That I honor, love, and be loyal

to my father and mother and all those in authority over me; that I submit myself with proper obedience to all their good teaching and discipline;1 and also that I be patient with their failings—2 for through them God chooses to rule us.3

1 Ex. 21:17; Prov. 1:8; 4:1; Rom. 13:1-2; Eph. 5:21-22; 6:1-9; Col. 3:18-4:1
2 Prov. 20:20; 23:22; 1 Pet. 2:18
3 Matt. 22:21; Rom. 13:1-8; Eph. 6:1-9; Col. 3:18-21

In God’s fifth word He has set aside
Honor for our family line
Love for our own is His desire
Fidelity to kin, what He requires
God has ordained that we would find
His eternal order where we first abide

In God’s family structure I should learn
The introduction to a godly order
By my parents I’m taught to obey
And instructed to walk in God’s way
This teaching begins in my family borders
So, as years unfold, from God I will not turn

Parental weakness with love is covered
In Parental shortcomings I understand
That through their faults, God sanctifies
So teaching me, that I must mortify
The sin that requires that they meet my demands
And the selfishness in me yet uncovered

———————————

In His fifth Word God has set aside
Honor for our family line
Love for our own is His desire
Fidelity to kin, what He requires
God has ordained that we would find
His eternal order where we first abide

In God’s family structure I learn
The introduction to a godly order
By my parents I’m taught to obey
And instructed to walk in God’s way
My teaching is within my family border
So that from God I will never turn

Parental weakness with love is covered
In Parental shortcomings I understand
That through their faults, God sanctifies
So teaching me, that I must mortify
Sin that requires they meet my demands
And the selfishness in me yet uncovered

Caleb’s Baptism (2b)

Question 2. How many things are necessary for thee to know, that thou, enjoying this comfort, mayest live and die happily?

Answer: Three; (a) the first, how great my sins and miseries are; (b) the second, how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries; (c) the third, how I shall express my gratitude to God for such deliverance. (d)

Caleb,

We now look at the answer to question #2, which as I told you last time, serves as the threefold division of the Catechism.

When it comes to knowing how great our sins and miseries are we must first understand that the ability to know our sins and miseries is premised on understanding the Character of God. God is Holy (set apart). Indeed God is so Holy that we find that attribute (character of God) emphasized repeatedly in Scripture. Here are two examples,

Isaiah 6:3 And one (Heavenly Creature) cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

Revelation 4:8 and the four living creatures, having each one of them six wings, are full of eyes round about and within: and they have no rest day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.

The fact that God’s “Holy” character is repeated three times in each of these passages is a Hebraism (Hebrew language technique) in order to emphasize the magnitude of God’s superlative Holiness.

So, when the Catechism teaches that in order to live and die in comfort we must know our sins and miseries we understand that we can not know our sins and miseries apart from knowing something of the Character of God’s Holiness. Another way of saying this is that our sin is seen as especially sinful only in light of seeing God’s Holiness and understanding that in order to have a relationship with God we must be Holy as He is Holy. It is only when we understand how big God is that we begin to have a correct estimate of how small we are.

The whole premise of Scripture is that men must know they are sinners or they will never turn to Christ for deliverance. Why would we petition for deliverance until we first realize that we need to be delivered? Knowing our sins and miseries is unto turning to Christ as the answer for those realities. They do not have the need of a Savior who do not know they need to be saved from their sin.

Matt.11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matt.11:29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. Matt.11:30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

This idea of knowing our sins and miseries also serves the purpose of keeping us lost in wonder, awe, and praise that God has so graciously redeemed us by the blood of Christ. Once we get a firm grip (understanding) on our sin we will more inclined to have a firm grip on God’s grace towards us in Christ. The Puritans used to have a maxim that should we desire to be amazed by God’s grace we needed to learn again our sin.

Another positive benefit of knowing our sins and miseries is that such knowledge can go a long away from delivering us from being impressed with ourselves or becoming self-righteous. Too often, when we forget our sins and miseries we begin to become pretty impressed with ourselves. There is nothing more repulsive then a Christian who has forgotten their sins and miseries and has become impressed with himself.

Now, having said all that about the necessity to know our sins and miseries there is a qualifier that must be extended. The purpose of knowing our sins and miseries is not so we might always be miserable about our sin. The purpose of knowing our sins and miseries is so that we can be amazed with God who would, despite our sins and miseries, still enthusiastically claim us for His own. I bring this forth because it does happen from time to time that people can wear it as a badge of honor and become proud in how sinful and miserable they are. Once we become familiar with our sins and miseries it is best to carry that self understanding without getting into contests with others about who is a bigger sinner.

We will always remain but sinners saved by grace. St. Paul reminds those to whom he writes from time to time of that very truth,

Cor.6:11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

Tit.3:3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. Tit.3:4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, Tit.3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Tit.3:6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; Tit.3:7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

However, that truth is not intended to make us beat ourselves as if the reminding of the fact of it was intended to make us always grovel. No, the truth of being conversant with our sins and miseries is intended to make us always thankful that God would send Christ to rescue and mold into a great people a sinful lot as ourselves. We are a great people because we have a great deliverer.

With the next installation we will look at how it is that we are delivered from all our sins and miseries.

Martin & McAtee On The Death Of The West

“Beginning and ending with man, there is pessimism. Why? Because man is fallen. He is in rebellion against God, refusing to bow to God and purporting to even be God. Thus, beginning and ending with man, there can only be a compounding of evil, and matters can only wax ever worse…. The bad new, however, gets worse. As a consequence of having abandoned the supernatural and, if only inadvertently, absolutizing this age, what we will witness is death on a whole sale basis as a way of so called, “life.” That is what we have witnessed during the past century. We are so immunized against death that we have come to accept it without comment though millions and millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of people have been put to death in the name of applied social science.

That leads us, ultimately, to pessimism and despair. Ah, but the Biblical Christian is highly and eternally optimistic, in the best sense of that term. Why? Because the Biblical Christian has good news.”

Dr. Glenn R. Martin
Professor of History / Political Science
Prevailing Worldviews

Observations

1.) The failures of the 20th -21st centuries are theological failures. The deaths of the million Christian Armenians at the hand of the Muslim Turks, the death of hundreds of millions of Christians by the Communist Russians, the deaths of millions of Jews, Slavs, and Gypsies by the National Socialist Germans, the deaths of hundreds of millions of Chinese under Communist Mao, the almost complete destruction of the Khmer people by the Communist in Cambodia, the untold slaughter of Cubans by Castro Communism, and the tens of millions of deaths at the hands of American Humanists in abortuaries throughout this country have all been torture, murder and death pursued because of faulty theology.

Bad theology kills people.

2.) Sound theology requires our first and last consideration to be the God of the Bible. Should we ever start with man as our first consideration then man becomes our ultimate principle and eventually man, over the course of time, will become absolutized, and so will begin to put other men to death in the name of applied social science and with the best of intentions. If you want to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs.

3.) Scripture says, speaking of Wisdom (and the Lord Christ is Wisdom incarnate), “All those who hate me love death.” As Dr. Martin notes, the West has embraced death as seen in,

a.) Our dwindling birthrates — to the point we no longer are at replacement levels
b.) Our habits of abortion and euthanasia,
c.) Our immigration rates, which are working to replace us as a definitive people

Now as if this were not bad enough, the West is doing this dance with death, and as Martin notes, is calling it the very essence of life.

Isaiah 5:20 — “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

When we strike out at God (and that is what the West has been doing since the French Philosophes) the result is that we kill ourselves.

4.) The “absolutizing of this age” that Martin speaks of is key. What has happened is that this age is being driven by worldview assumptions that are not Biblical. Yet, what the Church has done, by absolutizing this age, is that it has reintepreted Biblical Christianity through the grid of this present age with the result that the tenets of Cultural Marxism (the Theology informing this age) are now identified as the tenets of Biblical Christianity. That is how “absolutizing this age” happens. The result of this is that now Christian ministers, usually quite unaware of what they are doing, are committed to “helping” their people fit into this present absolutized age when what they should be doing is aiding their people in seeing that this present absolutized age stands in defiance to and rebellion against the God of the Bible and His Biblical Christianity.

5.) Martin’s beef against “applied social science,” refers to how the West has been conquered by various strands of the humanist Social Sciences like “neo-orthodox theology,” “Boasian Cultural Anthropology,” “Marxist Economics,” “Freudian – Rogerian – Skinnerian, etc. Psychology,” “Spencerian – Durkheimian – Webberian, etc.” Sociology, the “Legal Positivism” of men like Christopher Columbus Langdell and Oliver Wendell Holmes, the “Educational Theory” of men like Dewey, Rugg, and others, The theories of Kinsey on human sexuality, and The Logical Positivism of the Vienna circle passing as Philosophy. More of the applied social sciences could be listed but you get the gist.

Martin’s problem with the applied social sciences, as exampled above, was that they all were products of differing humanist theologies that were at war with Biblical Christian theology. Martin understood that the humanist applied social sciences were killing us as a people precisely because the applied social sciences, though passing themselves as being the very definition of enlightenment, were in fact, but the dust of death. Martin understood and taught that these social sciences desperately needed reinterpreted through a Biblical grid and his reward for his brilliance was often the back of the hand from his colleagues.

6.) We should on the optimistic note that Martin ended on. The Biblical Christian can remain optimistic because he knows that God is Sovereign and he has good news for those who desire to be delivered from the humanist applied social science house of death. The Biblical Christian, armed with God’s truth, can stand against the humanist social sciences that are killing us, as a people, and can say “this is the way of the abundant life, walk ye in it.” The Biblical Christian, armed with God’s truth, can say to those weary of the culture of death as built by the practitioners of the applied social sciences, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”