Luke 3:1-6 — John the Baptist Quotes Isaiah

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
    make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
    every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
    the rough ways smooth.
And all people will see God’s salvation.’”

As we come to this account in Luke’s Gospel we note that Dr. Luke is framing for us John the Baptist’s ministry by the usage of the historical political context (Luke 3:1-2a) along with the context of fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy (Luke 3:4-5). Of the Gospel writers only the historian Luke gives to us the leaders in power at the time. This allows us to have a pretty good idea of the dating of Christ’s birth.

Luke giving us the political leadership landscape is not his only unique mark as a chronicler of the account of Christ.  Luke also, alone, uniquely emphasizes the the impact which John’s arrival on the scene has upon a renewed realization of the promise found in Isaiah 40:3-5.
In Isaiah, which is the beginning fulfillment of seeing Israel’s promised deliverance by God was seen in their deliverance from their exile under Cyrus the great. That former deliverance is now being hearkened back to as a shadow deliverance type of a greater deliverance anti-type that is being announced to them now.  As Isaiah was then a “a voice calling in the desert,” so the anti-type deliverance has another prophetic voice calling out in the desert.

Luke, through John the Baptist, informs us that God comes near, and as such all creation is to prepare for His arrival. It is as if creation is being told to turn itself into a red carpet for the arrival of God.

And it not just the creation that must ready itself for the coming of God. John the Baptist also demands a readying on the part of his audience that includes repentance (Luke 3:7f) This cry for a contrite heart also has echoes in Isaiah … this time from chapter 57

For this is what the high and exalted One says—
    he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
“I live in a high and holy place,
    but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
    and to revive the heart of the contrite.

So Luke has John on the scene as the great herald of God’s coming near. This coming requires creation to be turned into a royal road for His arrival, as well as demanding that men are humbled in the presence of God, turning again to the doing of justice towards one another. God comes and all creation must be readied.

Of course this reminds us again that the New Testament grows out of the soil of the Old Testament. What is happening here in Luke 3 is conditioned and informed by what happened centuries earlier with a shadow and lesser deliverance. We need to keep this relationship between Old Testament and New Testament in mind when we read prophetic Scripture.

I.) The Importance of the Wilderness Motif in Christianity

This great and coming arrival of God is announced, in all places, a desert.

Now, a desert is hardly the place to make this kind of announcement. This kind of announcement belongs in the context of these high and mighty political personages that are mentioned here by John. Instead what we get is a desert God making the announcement of His arrival out of the mouth of His desert prophet.

Don’t miss the intended stark contrast here. Luke is contrasting here the Potentates of this world with the desert God and His spokesman. The coming of God is announced in a wilderness setting as set against all the splendor of worldly pomp and power represented by the emperor Tiberius, the governor Pilate, and the “ruler” Herod. Luke likewise gives us the names of the ruling religious establishment, (Annas and Caiphas).  What Luke has done here is to situate the announcement of the coming of God in the context of the rule of man.

Great are the houses of Tiberius, Pilate, and Herod. Great is the pomp of Annas and Caiphas. The aspirations of each of these men are well known. Luke situates the coming of God’s Messiah in such a way that what is communicated to the alert reader is that God once again intends to use the seemingly trivial, obscure, and unanticipated to answer the problems of a world that the regal political and religious establishment structures of the day can not answer.

God comes near but when He comes near He announces it in and through a lonely desert prophet.
God comes near but when He comes near He does so through a unknown and virgin maiden descendant of David
God comes near but when He comes near He does so through a people who were considered “the least of all peoples.”
God comes near but when He comes near He makes lowly Shepherds His announces
God comes near but when He comes near He is ignored by those who should know better
God comes near but when He comes near He comes near pinned to a Cross

In History God often worked His redemptive plan in the places we might consider the most unlikely of places among the most unlikely of men and women. Scripture seems to indicate that this is done so, so that God might not be shorted on the Glory that is His to be had. Any deliverance that is to be had, any salvation that is to be known, any Exodus that is to be granted are to be clearly seen as being done by the finger of God quite distinct from any human agency. God does all the delivering. God does all the saving. God gets all the glory.

We would do well to remember this on this Advent Sunday. Men still believe that all the action is where all the pomp and splendor is but God still speaks … God still comes to us … in and by the comparatively simple proclamation of the Word and dispensing of the Sacrament.

Continuing with this idea of the Desert Motif in Scripture let us consider the Redemptive-Historical way in which the Scripture develops and unwinds Wilderness – Desert symbolism.

In Genesis Adam is cast out of the Garden Temple Sanctuary and in being driven east of Eden Adam is driven into the wilderness of this fallen world. Adam has to contend with a ground that produces “thorns and thistles,” the very vegetation of the Desert that Adam would now occupy. As you move from Genesis to Revelation one way of reading the Scripture as a whole is seeing that God’s intent was, through the redeeming work of the Lord Christ, to recreate the fallen world again into a Garden Temple sanctuary.

Man lost Eden … Man is cast into the Desert … Man will reoccupy Eden by the coming of He who is God’s Recreation.

Moses as God’s man is planted in the Wilderness of Midian for 40 years before he is raised up to confront Pharaoh. Joseph spend time in the wilderness rot of a prison before God lifts him up. Elijah spends time in Desert conditions before he confronts Ahab. Paul spends time in the Arabia before the flowering of his ministry.

We again see the Desert –  Wilderness motif in the Hebrew’s wanderings in Exodus. Here we have a literal desert complete with lack of water, poisonous serpents, and short food supply. God brings His people through the desert preparing them for the land flowing with milk and honey that He will lead them into.

Now remember we are looking at this because John the Baptist is a “voice crying in the Wilderness.” We are looking at how the Wilderness motif is used in Scripture. God raises up His people and trains them in the Wilderness before they are led into the promised land.

The idea of Wilderness – Desert is often employed in the OT books of the prophets. What we see there is that God intends to make the Desert bloom with the coming of the Messiah

[When] the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, And the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, And the fruitful field is counted as a forest (Isaiah 32:15).

For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, And streams in the desert (Isaiah 35:6).

I will open rivers in desolate heights, And fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, And the dry land springs of water (Isaiah 41:18).

The Lord will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places; He will make her wilderness like Eden, And her desert like the garden of the Lord; Joy and gladness will be found in it, Thanksgiving and the voice of melody (Isaiah 51:3).

All of this in Isaiah is connected to the passage from Isaiah quoted by Dr. Luke. John the Baptist is the voice crying in the Wilderness and in demanding that the wilderness of creation be made readied for God coming near we find the intent of God to make the desert flower.

It makes sense that John the Baptist would be the voice crying in the wilderness presaging the Lord Christ who would make all things new. The movement is from desert to garden. John the Baptist played the dirge, the Son of man came eating and drinking. John the Baptist pointed out the Barrenness of God’s people. The Lord Christ came to give life and life abundantly.

Our Lord Christ is driven into the Wilderness just prior to the official beginning of His ministry … one day for every year Israel spent in the Wilderness. There is a kind of recapitulation going on here. The Lord Christ is the faithful Son who triumphs in the Wilderness by the Word of God succeeding where Israel, as God’s son failed in the Wilderness by giving into sin. The Lord Christ succeeds and overcomes in the Wilderness and begins a ministry that casts out barrenness and brings the life of the garden to all He heals and delivers.

This relationship between desert and garden is punctuated on the Cross where Christ suffers in the most extremes of deserts. As the writer of Hebrews puts it “Christ suffers outside the camp,” providing for us an allusion to the sin bearing scapegoat who was taken into the desert and released.

During His wilderness on the Cross, Christ has upon Him a crown of thorns … those very same thorns that Adam was cursed with, in being cast out of Eden. It is as if, with the crowing of Christ with a crown of thorns, He is crowned with Adam’s sin.

So, when you combine the wilderness of the Temptation where Christ was obedient through the Word of God (where God’s people had previously failed) with the Wilderness of the Cross where Christ is crowned with man’s sin, you have a picture of Christ’s obedience in our place and for us along with a picture of Christ’s suffering the penalty for our disobedience. Christ has done for us in the Wilderness what we could never do. By His wilderness obedience and penalty we are healed.

But … the wilderness of the Cross is relieved by the resurrection that happens in … you guessed it,  a Garden.

In the text this morning Luke shows how the desert pattern begins yet again with John the Baptist in the wilderness. John is like Elijah, as Mark 1:2-3 and Luke 1:16-17 note (Mal 3:1). When God comes near this time God makes salvation manifest for all to see. There is nowhere else to look for God’s saving work except to the Lord Christ for it is in the Lord Christ that God is coming near.

Here, in Luke’s Gospel, John the Baptist is announcing, as the voice of the Desert Prophet that God is coming. In the other Gospel’s we get this more explicitly as they have John announcing that “the Kingdom of God is at hand.” This idea of God coming indicates that God is coming in a unique way in which He has not come before.

For the promised kingdom to be “at hand” means that it was not yet present when John speaks. So John is not speaking of the kingdom of God in its broadest sense of God’s rule from the beginning of the creation. Rather, he is discussing the promised, long-awaited rule of God in which the promised Messiah and God’s Spirit become evident in a fresh and startling way. John is saying that finally God is fulfilling the long-awaited hope of Old Testament promise wherein all the barren places are turned into a garden.

This is what happened with Christ’s first advent. Christ, who was and is, God’s recreation has come and should one desire to have abundant life one must flee to He who is God’s recreation.

It is true, as we have mentioned often, there is a “not yetness,” to the nowness of the life which Christ brings. The fullness of the fullness that is yet to come is not yet here. But if men are to find any joy in a world made sad by their attempt to de-god God … any relief from the weight of sin and guilt … any hope of the end of alienation from God, others, and self, then man must find that joy, relief, hope and life by looking to and trusting in the Lord Christ who is to fallen man his pardon from God’s wrath.

II.) The Importance of Historicity to Christianity

We have been over this ground before so we won’t spend a great deal of time here.

The point is, is that Christianity is a faith that can not be true unless the historicity of it is true. It is a faith that depends upon the validity of space and time History. Here we see just such an example. Luke the Historian, places John the Baptist in a very concrete historical context. There you have have the pronouncement of God coming near in the time of Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, Caiphas, and Annas. The legitimacy of this proclamation of John the Baptist is dependent upon the Historicity of all that is swirling around it. God came near at this time and point in History.

The Scripture repeatedly turns us to the Historical for verification.  The Creeds follow that lead when we recite that Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate. There it is … real life history.

We can not affirm Christianity if we discount its record of the Historical. Luke was a careful Historian. If you read his Luke-Acts book you see that he carefully examined all that he wrote. He was writing a history and he wanted it to be taken as History. Paul likewise speaks of Historical evidence when he mentions in I Cor. 15 that there were over 500 witnesses to the historical event we call the resurrection.

Now I mention all this because if this space in time Historical narrative did not really happen. If God did not really come near during the reigns of Tiberius, Pilate, and Herod, then how can I trust anything the rest of Scripture tells me? If God was not really born of a virgin, if the Lord Christ did not cast out Demons, raise the dead, heal the palsied and lame, if He Himself was not raised and ascended  … and all this as real life historical events then Christianity collapses completely.  Christianity requires the Historical and reciprocally History is defined by Christianity.

If you deny the historical of Christianity and replace it with the “spiritual meaning of the historical event” then you have nothing but your own imagination and no matter how much it might be denied such a person has themselves for their God. If the historicity of Christianity wherein the supernatural happens in space and time history is not real history then it is the cruelest of all hoaxes.

Walsh on the Deconstruction of the Family

The attack on normative heterosexuality — led by male homosexuals and lesbians, and invariably disguised as a movement for ‘rights,’ piggybacking on the civil rights movement of the 1960’s — is fundamental to the success of Critical Theory, which went straight at the hardest target (and yet, in  many ways, the softest) first. The reason was simple: If a wedge could be a driven between men and women, if the nuclear family could be cracked, if women could be convinced to fear and hate men, to see them as unnecessary for their happiness or survival — if men could be made biologically redundant — then that political party that had adopted  Critical Theory could make single women one of their strongest voting blocs.

And so Eve was offered the apple: In exchange for rejecting a ‘traditional’ sex role of supposed subservience and dependency (slavery, really), she would become more like a man in her sexual appetites and practices (this was so called ‘freedom’), and she would be liberated from the burdens of motherhood via widespread contraception, abortion on demand, and the erasure of the ‘stigma’ of single motherhood (should it come to that) or spinsterhood. Backed by the force of government’s fist, she would compete with men for jobs, high salaries, and social status, all the while retaining all her rights of womanhood. the only thing she had to do was help destroy the social order.

The results has been entirely predictable: masculinized women, feminized men, falling rates of childbirth in the Western world, and the creation of a technocratic political class that can type but do little real work in the traditional sense. Co-educational college campuses have quickly mutated from sexually segregated living quarters to co-ed dorms to the ‘hook up culture’ depicted by novelist Tom Wolfe in I am Charlotte Simmons to a newly puritanical and explicitly anti-male ‘rape culture’ hysteria, in which sexual commissars promulgate step-by-step rules for sexual encounters and often dispense completely with due process when adjudicating complaints from female students.

Crucially, at every step of the way, ‘change,’ from the old norms was being offered as ‘improvement’ or ‘liberation’ — more fulfillment, more pleasure, more experience. And yet, with each step, things got worse — for women. Eve’s bite of the apple sent humanity forth from the Garden, sadder but wiser. Today’s transgressive Western woman is merely sadder and often ends her life completely alone, a truly satanic outcome. G. K. Chesterton’s parable of the fence comes to mind, in the ‘The Drift from Domesticity,’ in The Thing (1929):

In the manner of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which probably will be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law, let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this, let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer, “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

A splendid example of Chesterton’s Fence was the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, championed by Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. “Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will non inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area,” said the Massachusetts Senator. “In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think … The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.” Half a century on, those predictions have proved dramatically wrong: the question is whether Kennedy and his fellow leftists knew quite well at the time that there forecasts were bogus — although (as someone or other famously said) what difference, at this point, does it make?

In the same way, much of contemporary, ‘reform’ is marked by impatience, ridicule, and haste, cloaked in ‘compassion,’ or bureaucratic ‘comprehensivity,’ disguised as ‘rights’ prised out of the Constitution with a crowbar and an ice pick, and delivered with a cocksure snort of derision against any who would demur.

Michael Walsh
The Devil’s Pleasure Palace; The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West — pg. 88 – 89

The Case Against Trump

The Lord Christ instructs us to “make righteous judgments” (John 7:24). Scripture reminds us, “Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life”

In light of those Scriptures I am compelled to assess all things as belonging to God’s people.

Should I apply making a righteous judgment regarding Donald Trump and his candidacy for President this is what I know,

1.) He has twice broken sacred wedding vows. If a man can break these sacred wedding vows as before God and man what reason do I have to believe that man on anything? If he lied to lied to God and to his wives why should I ever believe he is telling me the truth? Ronald Reagan’s divorce was an issue in 1980. Reagan was the only man ever elected President with a divorce in his background. Have Christians fallen so far in their estimations of a candidates character that Trump’s two divorces are no longer a legitimate consideration in voting for him?

2.) Until very recently Trump was pro-abortion. Does a 65 year old man really suddenly change his view on something like this? It is possible but I don’t think it likely. Trump has his stories that he tells regarding his shift but I, as a discerning voter, am not obliged to believe him.

3.) Up until recently Trump was funding Hilary Clinton and far leftist Sen Chuck Schumer. He has been chummy with the Clintons. He says that is just the price of doing business in New Y0rk. That strikes me as indicative of a lack of backbone and principle that a man would compromise his own principles just so his business could prosper. This is an important consideration.

4.) As late as September Trump was praising the Socialist health care of Canada saying that it “works for them.” That is not true. It does not work. Now since then he has walked back his support for socialized medicine but what am I to believe … his first instinct or the later appended statement?

5.) The two things that Trump has done I can salute is that he has given good speeches denouncing Political correctness and Immigration. But talk is easy and given the above I don’t think any Christian has a solid basis to believe or support Donald Trump.

6.) He is obviously trying to manipulate the Christian vote by his saying that he “loves the Bible,” and dropping that he is a Presbyterian. However, when asked for specifics he dodges the question thus revealing that he couldn’t cite a favorite scripture if his life depended on it. What does this say about his integrity, to cite how he loves the Bible but to refuse to offer one specific verse when asked?

7.) Much of Trumps millions has been made on Casinos. In my own lifetime non conservative Christians would have ever supported a candidate as conservative if they were pushing gambling.

8.) Trump has articulated his support for sodomite marriage saying that “the Supreme Court has ruled” and it is “the law of the land.” Trump could have said that he disagreed with the Obergefell vs. Hodges decision. Trump could have said that he agreed with the Minority opinions but instead he is willing to support this outrage against the whole concept of marriage and the law.

9.) When the revolutionary Marxist Nelson Mandela died, Trump tweeted out,  “Nelson Mandela and myself had a wonderful relationship—he was a special man and will be missed.” Is any right thinking Christian who, understands the battle against Communism, going to vote for a chap who sentimentalizes a villain like Mandela?

10.) Mr. Trump called Eric Snowden, who faces Espionage Act charges for his role in leaking information about the NSA’s phone-snooping program, a “total traitor” and said he “would deal with him harshly.” Here we have Trump calling a whistle-blower on mega Statist activities of spying against the citizenry, a “total traitor,” who he “would deal with harshly.” Snowden should be given a medal for fighting Statist tyranny but not according to Trump. Doesn’t that tell us that Trump is a Statist?

Now, if I have reason to reassess Trump I will do so, but to date all of this is all I need to know to know that Donald Trump is out of bounds when it comes to the vote I have … a vote that belongs to the Lord Christ and not me.

And I haven’t even mentioned his pompous arrogant mannerism nor the superficial answers he gives to nearly every policy question put to him.

Trump has no core. He is whatever people want him to be. He is doing the same thing Obama did in 08 only with a twist. Whereas Obama was a blank canvas that people could project their image upon, Trump is a canvas that has every painting on it one can imagine and so you can just choose the Trump you want him to be that fits with your projections. Trump will take care of any number of things simply because he is Trump. He has a “fabulous plan” that we will love. He has a “great idea” that will take care of all of that. However, when asked concrete detailed specifics there is very little that Trump offers.

Trump is a populist and populists by definition are long on charisma and short on policy. Populists get people excited and mesmerize voters into thinking that they are a messianic type deliverer.  Please do not misunderstand. I love that Trump is making chaos of the Republican field. I love that Trump is tweaking the nose of the Republican establishment. I love what Trump is saying on issues like Immigration and Political Correctness. However, I can love all that and still be opposed to Christians casting their vote for Donald Trump.

 

Marinov’s Malapropism

Considering the mass shooting by a Muslim gun owner:  The liberals say that we can’t blame all Muslims, but we surely can blame all gun-owners – & ban guns. The conservatives say that we can’t blame all gun-owners but we surely can blame all Muslims – & ban all refugees.
Each side says the other side is schizophrenic & hypocritical. And each side wants to give more power to the Federal government to deal collectively with a group for the crimes of one person.

While I mourn the loss of life, I can’t but notice God’s irony to both camps.

~Bojidar Marinov

1.) All because liberals say things doesn’t mean that liberals are making sense. To not note that is more than unfortunate.

2.) How does it follow that gun owners are to blame when terrorists use guns to murder people?

3.) The shootings happened in a “gun free zone,” where guns were banned. How did that ban work?

4.) Actually the liberal says we can’t blame any Muslims since to blame any Muslim would be “racist.”

5.) I see a great deal of torpid in this camp but I see no irony in the least.

6.) Where are the Conservatives that say we can blame all Muslims? What the Conservative actually says is that we have a Muslim problem that warrants us to conclude that Islam is not a faith system that can co-exist within Western civilization. How many shootings have to occur before Mr. Marinov gives up on his open borders fantasy?

7.)  Of course we can’t blame all gun owners. How can a gun owner in Longtown, SC be blamed for a Muslim nutcase killing 14 people who were occupying a gun free zone?

8.) The fact that Liberals insist that conservatives are  shizophrenic & hypocritical doesn’t mean they are schizophrenic & hypocritical.

9.) Conservatives do not desire to give more power to the Federal Government. Mr. Marinov seems to forget that one of the responsibilities of the Federal Government is “to provide for the common defense.” Protecting the citizenry for enemies, foreign and domestic is part of the oath that many Federal officials take. Mr. Marinov is just in error on this matter and his error is in service of his errant desire for open borders.

10.) The only irony in any of this is Mr. Marinov’s ability to find irony where it does not exist.

Critical Theory

 

Having co-opted, if not actually invented, the “social sciences”, cultural Marxism and Critical theory seek to legitimize their attempted murder of beautiful facts with a gang of brutal theorems, each one more beguiling than the last, iron fists in velvet gloves, grimacing skulls beneath seductive skins.

Michael Walsh
The Devil’s Pleasure Palace — pg. 49

Cultural Marxist, “Critical theory,” was first practiced by Satan in Genesis 3 when Satan, later to be echoed by Herbert Marcuse, diabolically asked Eve, “hath God really said,” thus implying that God’s legislative Word was not authoritative. As such Critical theory, in its origin, is the methodology of regions sulfuric. The Frankfurt school’s “Critical Theory,” exists to challenge existing Western civilization traditional standards by means of questioning what it styles as the “power structures” which hold sway just by means of longstanding dictatorial and tyrannical authority. “Critical theory,” seldom offers anything constructive, preferring instead just to point out the “unfairness,” of existing cultural arrangements. Critical theory, thus, holds that there is no received civilizational tenet that should not be questioned and attacked. All the former totems, shibboleths, and taboos having descended from the Christian West are challenged as completely arbitrary, or are the result of a conspiracy of power to keep the perverted, the feminist, and the anti-Christ down.

The lie in “Critical theory” is found the fact that it refuses to hold itself to the same standard that it holds all that it beats down. Critical theory complains about the unfair power structures that provide hegemonic control over culture but it fails to note that Critical theory itself has become the supportive tool of a power structure that desire to establish a new hegemony. Critical theory props up a sodomite agenda, a feminist dominance, and a satanic culture in the name of an egalitarianism that favors the hegemony of nihilism.

It’s methodology is just to criticize the hell out of whatever it desires to pull down. If it desires to pull down classical literature it will complain about the prevalence of White Christian males in the corpus of great Western Literature and will offer, in place of a standard cultural literacy, unheard of Lesbian amputees who wrote as members of some pygmy tribe in Africa. If it desires to pull down historic legal-theory it will complain that law order has presupposed an oppressive transcendent Christian god and that other law orders reflective of Totem Pole Aztecs who were wrongly shunted ought to be considered as just as legitimate as that law order that has been in the ascendancy in the Christian West for centuries.  If it desires to pull down the Christian model of the biblical and traditional family it will first mis-characterize patriarchy by faulting it in Adorno’s “Authoritarian Personality,” as being unhealthy, insane, and dysfunctional by definition. Once the Christian family was deconstructed all other family forms could be introduced as legitimate. The consequence is family is no longer defined with the consequence that every imaginable perverted combination is introduced as “family.” Whatever the target the secret in Critical theory is just to rip and tear down.

Cultural Marxism and Critical theory has been so successful due to the fact that they never go on the defensive. The mode of the this school of thought is to attack, attack, attack.  It excels in putting its opponents on the defensive by screaming injustice, while often mocking its opponents view. The reason it has been so successful as a tactic is because the West has forgotten the whys and wherefores of its belief system. Having for so long assumed its position, it no longer has the means and arguments to defend its position let alone go on the attack against Cultural Marxism and Critical theory pointing out and mocking its own contradictions and sheer utter silliness.  Critical theory is a foundational-less and toothless paper tiger and if handled rightly it can be exposed as absurd almost instantaneously.

Until Christianity can produce apologists and worldview thinkers again the consequence will be that Cultural Marxism with its Critical theory will sweep everything in its path.