When Men Forget God

April 7, 2013 in Cultural Marxism, Culture with 19 Comments

“More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.

Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Templeton Address

Do you want to know why this nation is considering legalizing Sodomy? Why we have fallen prey to the chimera that is Statist Death care? Why are we even discussing the seizing of our guns?

The answer is simple. Men have forgotten God. When men forget God then a vacuum is created that is filled by godless man. Godless man, by definition, is a demon and he will seek to destroy all social order that is related to the social order of the true God.

Men have forgotten God and in doing so have become beasts. Man can not forget God without losing his own humanity, and yet fallen man would rather embrace living in the ugly environs of the beasts, where nature is red in tooth and claw, then remember God and His Christ.

Men have forgotten God and so they enter into the war of all against all as each individual man seeks to exercise his godhood as over against the godhood of his neighbor. When men forget God it becomes me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world and all of us against the infidel. When men forget God, all men seek to be god and so all men seek to destroy one another. Gods cannot abide competition.

Men have forgotten God and so they shred all God ordained design and distinction in favor of a world where all colors bleed into one. In forgetting God, man seeks to integrate himself downward into the void since integrating upwards into God’s design is no longer an option since men have forgotten God.

Men have forgotten God and so they lose even the idea of the author in literature. The idea of an author who must be considered in understanding a given piece of literature must be rejected since such an understanding hints to much at the idea that there is an Author whose intent must be considered when it comes to life. When men forget God, there is not only no God and no God intent, there are no authors and no authorial intent. The disappearance of God requires the disappearance of the Author.

When men forget God all is chaos and we return to old chaos and dark night. When men forget God they turn to chaos to find order. Order can no more be birthed from chaos then beauty can be birthed out of Cultural Marxism.

When men forget God, life has no value, sex has no intimacy, death has no solution, thought has no meaning, joy has no reference point, and meaning is illusory.

When men forget God, sexually transmitted diseases become as common as abortion, integrity becomes as rare as a virgin on her wedding night, and the bodies start piling up.

When men forget God.

Random Thoughts On Rebuilding Christian Culture

April 4, 2013 in Cultural Marxism, Culture with 0 Comments

What can be done, then, to form a new generation, immune to the multiculturalism produced by the anti-Christ faith of Cultural Marxism? What can be done to form a new generation that is immersed in the fresh springs of a culture which reflects our undoubted catholic Christian faith? (Which, by the way, is the authentic form of “Western” culture.)

The first thing to remember in this regard is the most fundamental. True “culture” is, in its origins, that which surrounds and reflects the “cult.” The true “cult,” of course, has at its core the work of God in Christ redeeming the world unto Himself. An organic culture then — one not artificially engendered — is one which develops out of man’s response to the reality of this act of sacrifice. The most primordial forms of culture, then, are those actions, behaviors, attitudes, and art forms which surround and constitute our union with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection and ascension.

Take the cult of Christ out of culture and all you have left is fiat culture and humanist illusion culture of one form or another.

The second thing is consistent with the first thing to remember and it is that since genuine culture is Objective in orientation (it depends upon and reflects truths that are outside of it) the whole notion of culture as a “social construct” can only be embraced at the price of giving up belief in the Objective nature of cult and culture. Culture that is seen as subjective in nature is culture that is not worth either living for or fighting to maintain, for if culture is merely subjective then why should anyone, beyond the vagaries of personal preference, wish to maintain culture? In keeping with this we need to realize that if we are going to embrace the whole idea of culture as “social construct” we also have to embrace the idea of truth as relative. Obviously, no one can consistently embrace either culture as “social construct” or truth as relative.

The third thing that we must remember in order to build up our immune system against the anti-culture that is the culture of the Cultural Marxists is the necessity to train our children well. In Deuteronomy 6 God calls upon His people to keep His truth before them at all times.

4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

The Cultural Marxists get Deuteronomy 6. They have created a culture where their truth is before all the people all the time in a myriad of ways. They have impressed their truths on the hearts of the children of the West through the media outlets, through the secondary Schools and the Universities, through the “Churches,” and through the career world. And If you step outside the cultural marxist anti-culture you will be slapped down. They talk about their commandments all the time in novels, top 40, and Broadway plays.

Christians, on the other hand, going all pietistic, have given up on the culture or have adopted the Cultural Marxist culture and have sought to call it “Christian.” We do not obey God’s command in Deuteronomy 6 to keep His word before us at all times. Because of that we are all cultural Marxists now.

The only way to undo this is to be willing to un-train ourselves and then train our children. A new culture to fight the culture of death offered by Cultural Marxists will not be built until we become extraordinarily intentional in the raising of our children. We must train them, that at least until God gives Reformation, that living in this anti-culture culture requires them to have a “us against them” mentality.

The fourth thing we must try and do is build community. It is difficult to do that because there are so few of us who understand how besieged we really are. However, try we must. As much as possible we need to find kindred spirits, who we can ally with. As a three stranded cord is not easily broken, so a worldview and culture embraced in community by several families is not easily broken.

A Prayer For Restoration

April 4, 2013 in Prayer with 0 Comments

Benevolent and Sovereign God

Would you not see the needs of thy people for thy name’s sake? See the exposure of your remnant and rise up, O Lord, to defend thy people. By thy mighty Spirit cleanse thy Church that we might once again be a set apart vessel that thou is pleased to dwell in. Deliver us from false Shepherds and wolves in our midst. Raise up again stalwart men to defend thy honor and name and to care for the tender lambs of thy Holy flock.

Set loose the tongues of those that serve you to speak in earnestness and authority. Grant, to them not only the minds to think your thoughts after you but then also the oratory to be convincing or condemning before men as you please.

Sovereign God, we confess that we are worthy of your Chastening. We have played the part of the harlot and our affections have been spent on those things that can not satisfy. But, O Sovereign God, in thy just chastening, remember mercy. For thy name’s sake keep thy people that they might once again sing the glories of thy covenant faithfulness.

Arise, O Lord Christ, and renew thy Church. For the good of thy own name let not thy people go into eclipse or to become a reputation against you. Cleanse us O Lord, and equip us again to be your agents and ambassadors in a World that desperately needs the Witness of Christ in its midst.

Give us confidence again to believe that Scripture is knowable and is a sure and certain Word against man’s word of flux.

We are shut up unto you Protector Sovereign. We have no place left to turn. The hour is late. If you will not turn us we will not be turned.

Come quickly to renew us Lord Christ

Amen

Now Is The Appointed Time Of Salvation

April 3, 2013 in Cultural Marxism, Poetry with 1 Comment

The Serpent’s words flowing over lips
That are painted with Cultural Marxist drips
speak the common lie
that to live is to die

To keep the lies, tight and clean
The Marxist employs the old routine
of blowing smoke and ready bribes
to destroy the Christian tribes

To keep them dumb, they suck out the brains
via school and Hollywood stains
they come with news to “save”
by making us all slaves

The media whispers in our ears
“pleasure and sex will replace Jesus fears
if you’ll only listen to me
We’ll set your libido free”

The ministers warble a carefree song
“Be at peace there’s nothing wrong”
Smoothing out the bumps
for the rank and file chumps

Then raises the voice of R2K
“This isn’t our fight anyway”
And the faith lies there inert
While the male girls lift their skirts

At a distance stands a baphomet
Who chuckles with no regret
eyes sparkling with joy
at a culture now his toy

he thinks, “circus and bread is all it took
the lust of flesh, and lust of look
And now I hold all sway
And their passion is now my play”

But there’s a voice on the air
In Marxist Vanity Fair
“The King is ending the Frankfort play
Kiss the Son or perish in the way
There’s time yet to escape”

No clever talk, nor a gift to bring
requires our lowly, lovely king
Surrender is the only thing
He looks for you to sing

Now is the appointed time to plea
Now the bound can be set free
Of the sneaking snake coiled about their feet
Plying with deceit

The lies of Marx, lie like mist
they warp, spoil, and finally twist
But the Sovereign God is a Hurricane
Who blows away Marxist chains

The Lord Christ

April 3, 2013 in Cross-Talk, Poetry with 0 Comments

The Lord Christ

The Word spoken at Creation
The Captain of His people’s Salvation
The Promised blessings unto the Nations
Our Elder Brother

The Body and Blood as Bread and Wine
Very Man and very Divine
Of Mary’s Seed and David’s line
The Lamb of God

He who would crush the Serpent’s Head
He who would bring life from the Dead
The Warrior who would go on Ahead
The Great High Priest

Giver of Meaning and Quencher of Thirst
New Wine means old wine-skins Burst
The first shall be last and the last shall be first
Our Propitiation and Mercy Seat

A Warrior who demands surrender of all
Adam’s successor, reverse of the fall
Those who come, are those who He calls
The Great High King

We walk now in terms of His Victory
No surrender for those with eyes now to see
His Knowledge shall cover from sea unto sea
His Present Kingdom shall come

Brief Meditations … The Cross of Christ … Maundy Thursday

March 29, 2013 in Cross-Talk with 0 Comments

The Cross is made, simply enough, with a Vertical beam and a horizontal beam. The simplicity of this points us to the reality that the Cross work of Christ was both vertically and horizontally directed. Vertically, Christ died for God that God’s name might be cleared of injustice because He had not, until the Cross of Christ, visited Sin with the full punishment of His wrath that it was promised. Horizontally, Christ died for man that man might find a reconciliation with God that man could have never found without a propitiation that was both very God of very God and very man of very man.

In the Cross God is both Just and Justifier for those who have faith in Jesus.

As most clearly seen in the requirement that the ark of the Covenant would be made from wood, as combined with the reality that it is there on the Mercy Seat of that wooden ark that God would be propitiated it has been a reality that God has ruled from the Wood and that Salvation comes via the Tree. Like the lid of the Ark of the Covenant the Cross is the throne where the glory of God is revealed unto judgment and salvation.

Life and death — Judgment and Salvation — ever comes from the Wood.

Whether in the times of Noah where preservation of life came from a wooden ark, and judgment fell upon those who refused the wood of the ark life comes from the Wood. In the ministry of Moses, it was His wooden staff through which God Redeemed His people. Those who aligned themselves with the wooden staff were saved. Those who sought to gainsay the wooden staff perished. Life ever comes from the Wood.

Life and death — Judgment and Salvation — ever comes from the one who reigns from the Wood.

“Once you think that you behold the wood on which our salvation, the Lord of Majesty, was hanged with nails whilst the world trembled, you, too, must tremble, but you must also rejoice.”

Letters of St. Paulinus of Nola II,
Letter 31, 36:126

The Fall began with eating of the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Good and Evil. Good Friday announces that the Fall has ended for those who partake of the Fruit of the Tree of Redemption — The Cross of Jesus Christ.

O you Sons of Adam, fallen from heavenly status, through the bitter pleasure of the Olden Tree: Come!! See here the true and most revered Tree; hasten to kiss it and to cry out with faith: You are our Help, most revered Cross.

From the Byzantine “Veneration of the Cross” Liturgy

Mocked with a Cross of Thorns, our Lord Christ — whipped so that the bone was exposed, and bruised shoulders the Cross to the place of the skull (Golgotha). With each step upon the via dolorosa, He knew that the pain and agony He was undergoing was only at it’s beginning. He knows the full birth of pain, and agony lies ahead.

The scenario of the Crucifixion, from beginning to end, is a classic example of the Spiritual realities being incarnated into physical demonstration. The real pain and agony that was being incarnated in the pain and agony of the Trial and Crucifixion was the Spiritual pain and agony of being the sin bearer. That sin bearing was a spiritual reality that could not be seen except by those who were taking it all in,not only with, but through their eyes. For those who had eyes to see — and it is questionable whether there were any present — the very real physical pain and agony that the Lord Christ underwent was but the incarnation of the Spiritual pain and agony that found the Son of God being a sin bearer and so abandoned by God.

For those with eyes to see, the very tangible and seen corporeal suffering of the Lord Christ was a window into the very real but unseen incorporeal sufferings of being sin bearer and alienated from the Father.

“Thou, O Sacred Wood are alone in your glory among all other trees; no forest ever yielded its equal in leaf, flower and fruit for the fruit of the Cross is the Salvation of the World.”

A snippet from a Hymn of the Roman Liturgy

“Behold the wood of the Cross on which hung the Salvation of the World.”

Part of Early Church Liturgy.

Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday Reflections

On Maundy Thursday Christ’s utter abandonment begins. First he is abandoned by His disciples as seen in their refusal to pray with Him. Later all 11 disciples will abandon the Lord Christ upon His arrest. Later still, Peter will abandon the Lord Christ in His denial of even knowing Jesus. All of this abandonment will lead to the place where the Son is abandoned by the Father on the Cross.

Our Lord Christ hence cries out … “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” The Lord Christ, as part of His redemptive work suffers alienation and abandonment by all that our alienation from the Father might be ended.

Maundy Thursday begins the Lord Christ’s descent into the Sheol of abandonment that His people might know the favor of the Father.

What Thou, my Lord, has suffered
Was all for sinners’ gain
Mine was the transgression
But Thine the deadly pain

Our Lord Christ prays that this cup would pass.

The cup that he was praying would pass was the cup of woe that He would eventually drain to the bitter dregs. He drinks this cup O Christian that you might drink the cup of weal … a cup of blessing and the peace of God. His was the bitterness tasted for His Church. Ours is the blessing tasted because of His drinking of gall and wormwood.

Should He devote His Head
For such a worm as I?

Our Lord Christ enters into Gethsemane (Olive Press) to be pressed Himself as He prays that the cup might pass. He can find none of his Disciples to persevere with Him in prayer. He is on the cusp of being arrested. Even those who come to arrest Him will fall down and worship Him when He self identifies with the name of Deity, “I am He.”

The Lord Christ was pressed by the Father and in the pressing he was broken and bruised that those who trust in Christ Alone might be delivered from God’s just wrath and certain condemnation against them.

The Lord Christ was pressed by the Father and in the pressing he was broken and bruised that those who trust in Christ Alone might become the righteousness of God in Christ and so should walk in a newness of life that is increasingly consistent with the King’s Law Word.

Our Lord Christ prays while the Disciples sleep. Even after asking them to pray with Him the Disciples slept. The agony of the Lord Christ was so great he sweat as great drops of blood. Physicians say that sweating blood is possible but that the person who does so is nigh unto death. Some scholars have suggested, that when Christ prays, “Let this cup pass,” what he is praying is that He would not die their in Gethsemane before He could accomplish His Cross work where He would die for the Sins of the Elect.

Praise God for so great a Captain of Salvation as our Lord Christ.

Seven Words From The Cross … A Brief Meditation

March 29, 2013 in Cross-Talk with 0 Comments

1st Word – Luke 23:33-34 – Father Forgive Them

On the Cross the Lord Christ prays, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

We should not be surprised at these words for it was compassion and mercy, from the very beginning, that found our Lord Christ mounting the Cross. In this utterance our Lord Christ crowns his compassion that had Him mounting the Cross, with a compassion that pleads with the Father for even more mercy.

And compassion and mercy were what was needed for sinners such as us. The mercy and compassion of the Father sent Christ so that His just wrath did not fall on His people. The mercy and compassion of the Son found the Son willing to come and be our mercy and compassion that He might gain us as His inheritance. The mercy and compassion of The Spirit found the Spirit taking from the mercy and compassion of the Father and Son to apply that same mercy and compassion on sinners such as us that we might have peace with God.

Sinners never know what they do to insult God and yet with God there is mercy and compassion so that now is the appointed day of salvation.

Second Word – Luke 23:39-43 / Two Thieves

Two malefactors were Crucified with our Lord Christ. One on each side. One railed against Christ while the other defended His honor.

Here we find the antithesis between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. The seed of the serpent always, like the insolent malefactor, rails against the Son, either overtly or by the even greater railing of not even giving him any consideration. While the seed of the woman, even when hanging on a Cross, takes up for His Lord and Master and defends Him to the hilt against the accusations of the seed of the serpent. The seed of the woman owns their Sin and looks outside themselves to THE seed of the woman for the blessings of paradise and like that thief crucified next to THE seed of the woman sinners always find the Lord Christ promising paradise to those who are repentant and own their sin.

Which malefactor are you? Are you the malefactor who rails against Christ in mocking tones, or are you the malefactor who recognizes Jesus even when you are hanging on a Cross?

Third Word – John 19:25-27 / Mother & Son

While undergoing the rejection of the Father on the Cross the Lord Christ remembers His Mother at the foot of the Cross and provides for her future. Our Lord Christ thus displays that our Christian faith can never be so pious as to forget our responsibilities to our own family, our own kin, and our own people. The love of Christ, dying for the sins of the world, is not a love that is so universal that it forgets and fails to prioritize the particulars of immediate family, kin, and people. Yes, our Lord Christ dies for the sins of the World but at the same time He reveals His peculiar responsibility to His own Mother for whom He also died.

Our Lord Christ in the very service of being the Atonement, remembers to give His Mother a Son to care and provide for her.

Jesus, thus in dying for the sins of the world shows Himself to be a Kinist.

Fourth Word – Mark 15:33-34 // My God, My God, Why Has’t Thou Forsaken Me

On the Cross the Lord Christ cries out, “Eloi, Eloi,lama sabach-thani” (My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.) and in that cry we see the nadir of the torture of the Cross; The felt abandonment of the Son by the Father.

Compared to this sense of divine abandonment the lacerations from the scourging whip, the wounds from the crown of thorns, the raked nerve endings and the exposed bone were nothing. Compared to this alienation from the Father, the dehydration with its accompanying convulsions were insignificant. Not even the pain wracked requirement to lift thyself by the crucified feet in order for the lungs to get just enough breath to remain miserable could compare to the agony of this sense of forsaken-ness. Here …. HERE is the real brutality of the Cross.

And here is presented the reality of Hell. Hell is the sense of being utterly forsaken by the Father in whom is all life, meaning, and joy. To be forsaken by God is to be in Hell.

And this sense of being forsaken … this entering into Hell … insures that those who look to the Elder Brother of Salvation will never taste that sense of forsaken-ness.

Fifth Word – John 19:28 // “I Thirst”

When the Lord Christ utters, “I thirst,” the divine irony is so thick that only the fallen could miss it. Here is the one who said of Himself that those who came to him would never thirst and that He was the one who to whom people must come to drink so that they themselves would, out of their hearts, have flowing rivers of living water. But now on the Cross the one in whom is the water of eternal life, is now paying the ransom price of sinners whose whole life is characterized by drought parched lifeless barrenness.

And so as the one dying in place of Sinners, Christ, “the living water” cries out with the voice of sinners, “I thirst,” and we are reminded that He thirsted that we might have our thirst for life quenched in Him.

Sixth Word – John 19:29-30 // It Is Finished

On the Cross when Our Blessed Lord Christ, cried out, “It is Finished,” He was not announcing surrender or defeat or even death. The Cry, was the cry of the Champion announcing that the back of sin had been broken and that the strong man had been bound. When our Lord Christ announced, “It is Finished,” the deepest chambers of Hell shook and quaked with fear because Hell’s power had been crushed, and its authority seized. With the cry of “It is finished,” the sting of death had been pulled and the portal of eternal life opened to such who would align themselves with the Finished work of the Champion Lord Christ.

“It is Finished” are not the words of a man surrendering to death but the words of a soldier who had conquered in battle. They are the words of a Savior whose mission was accomplished, the words of the Alpha and Omega whose all sufficient work for our salvation is complete. Jesus did not simply die on the cross to make salvation possible; His blood finished the purchasing of His Elect from the guilt and power of sin.

Seventh Word — Luke 23:46 // “Into Thy Hands I Commit My Spirit”

On the Cross when our Lord Christ commits Himself into the Hands of the Father we hear the Faith of our Lord Christ. Remember our Lord Christ felt the abandonment of the Father and yet His final words speak with the voice of Faith. He knew His Father would not abandon Him to the Grave and so with confidence He commits His life into God’s hands.

With His death the blessed Lord Christ vouchsafed His future vindication with the Father having faith that the Father would justify all of His words and work by the powerful working of resurrection.

The Son had faith that the eternal bond between the Father and the Son could never be severed and so with a calmness that speaks the end of the storm the Son commits His Spirit into the Hand of the Father.

Historical Factoid VII

March 27, 2013 in History with 2 Comments

“The problem does not relate to the American Jews, but to the 6,000,000 in Russia. The Russian Government has consented to allow the Jews to leave,”

1904 – Israel Zangwill, New York Times, October 20, 1904

Institutional and Cultural Response To Disintegration

March 26, 2013 in Culture with 2 Comments

My offering here is a modified distillation of this,

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=08-03-017-f

Institutions and cultures crumble when they no longer share a set belief system. Denominations fold, and cultures go into civil unrest when a people’s belief system is no longer widely and uniformly embraced. When shared belief system’s among a people are shattered one can look for significant balkanization.

However, when the balkanization is underway the Institutions or cultures will try to stave of the inevitable coming crumbling by,

1.) Denial.

This usually entails crying for unity and the attempt to change the subject whenever the conversation turns to the friction of belief systems.

2.) Centralization

The thinking by the elites figures the way to make sure the crack up doesn’t happen is by drawing all societal or institutional roles to the center. The edifice is crumbling and only by the control of the elites can the edifice be kept safe.

3.) Homogenization

This means, as it pertains to Institutions, that only company men are advanced in the bureaucratic structure. What this means is that the worst of men are put in leadership positions because the company men are the men who are the most timid and are those who refuse to deal with the problem because their interest is not in solving the belief system dissolution but their interest is in the Institution itself.

Naturally, what this reinforces in the failing Institution and culture is the merit of never saying anything that can be construed as controversial to the Institution. In our culture and for our Institutions what this means is the rise of the timid liberal who wants to avoid the Liberal “extremes” but who avoids even more any notion of Biblical Conservatism because he knows the wind is blowing in the direction of the Liberal extreme.

4.) Frenetic Activity

Failing Institutions and culture suddenly get a case of the “busies.” New programs, new vision statements, new projects are introduced. This is all done in order to distract from the reality that the edifice is coming down. It is the Germans partying while the Soviet Tanks are getting to roll into Berlin. It is sound and fury meaning nothing.

5.) Social Ostracization

The final phase is to throw out the ones who are seen to be the threat to the Institution or culture that is failing. Such Institutions and cultures tell themselves that if they can just get rid of the ones who are stalling “progress” (the new name for the changed belief system) then everything will be alright.

And things may get better for a season but usually this Ostracization ends up hurting the Institution or culture in the long run because those who are the ones Ostracized are often the best and brightest.

Consider these as you consider the death of the West.

Subscript — Also notice how dying Institutions and Cultures end up being incredibly strong mechanisms for conformity to bureaucratically prescribed norms.

Historical Factoid VI

March 26, 2013 in History with 0 Comments

” … the final and definite deliverance of the six millions of Russian, Roumanian and Galician Jews … transporting five or six million people over the sea.”

1904 – The Jewish Criterion (Pittsburgh), October 7th, 1904, page 1

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