Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
I.) Library
http://www.hornes.org/theologia/rich-lusk/what-is-biblical-theology
http://chalcedon.edu/research/articles/the-family-3/
http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=167
http://www.realnews247.com/who_rules_america_updated_2004.htm
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/021843.html
II.) Video
III.) Audio
The Belhar would find us confessing,
We believe
• that God has entrusted the church with the message of reconciliation in and through Jesus Christ; that the church is called to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, that the church is called blessed because it is a peacemaker, that the church is witness both by word and by deed to the new heaven and the new earth in which righteousness dwells
Now remember the problem that we have recognized with the Belhar is its ambiguity. The reason for that ambiguity is lodged in the reality that we do not know what meaning the drafters of the Belhar are filling their words with. We need to keep in mind in this discussion that while words have true meaning in themselves, one tactic that is used by a alien worldveiw to overthrow an existing worldview is to retain the form of the word while emptying it of its true meaning and then filling that word with a novel meaning unique to the worldview that the word is now dwelling. Purposeful ambiguity thus becomes a chief weapon for those seeking to introduce non-Biblical thinking. The Church has had to fight this tactic of subterfuge by purposeful ambiguity for millennium. If one reads carefully through books like Jude or I John one sees that a similar tactic was being used there as the Gnostics / Docetists were retaining the language and jargon of the Christian faith but were filling it with a meaning that was unique to their alien world and life view. In the 20th century, in the Modernist vs. Liberal controversy that roiled the Church the battle was fought over the tactic of the Liberals / neo-orthodox to empty Christian words and jargon of its orthodox meaning only to fill those words and that jargon with a meaning that was alien to Biblical Christianity. In all such contests the form of Christianity is maintained but the thing itself is mutated into something unrecognizable to those who previously identified with it.
This is the kind of ambiguity we find throughout the Belhar. Over and over again we find words, concepts, and jargon used that sounds familiar to the Christian ear but upon closer examination one is left wondering if the words used, left undefined as they are, really mean what they have historically meant or if those words are being used ambiguously in pursuit of subterfuge.
The emboldened words in the paragraph above is just such an example.
What few people in the American setting recognize is that the words “witness by word and by deed to the new heaven and the new earth in which righteousness dwells,” have a decidedly political meaning in the light of statements that have been made by liberation theologians. In other words what we have in the phrase “witness by word and by deed to the new heaven and the new earth in which righteousness dwells,” is a phrase that has been co-opted by some of the Liberation Theologians. Dr Allan Boesak, a key drafter of the Belhar and one influenced by Liberation theology and theologians, explained the above emboldened phrase like this:
“The New Jerusalem is no future world somewhere else. No, the new Jerusalem comes from Heaven into this reality… The New Jerusalem is no mirage from the beyond… It does not need to wait for eternity. This new Jerusalem will arise from the ashes of all that which today is called Pretoria. For the old things have passed away.”
Now, when you read the quote immediately above and then juxtapose it with this liberation theology inspired quote below from Dr. Boesak suddenly the implications of the Belhar take on foreboding meaning,
“[Black Power] is action to achieve justice and liberation for black people. It does not purport to be the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, or the true Christian church. Black Theology is how black theologians understand Jesus Christ, the Spirit, the church, etc., in relation to justice and liberation
Farewell To Innocence: A Socio Ethical Study On Black Theology And Black Power
Dr. Allen Boesak — pg. 71
Now, in light of these words one wonders if the New Jerusalem in which righteousness dwells is in fact a community ruled by Black Liberation Marxist theologians and inhabited by disciples of James Cone. At the very least we see that the phrase “the church is witness both by word and by deed to the new heaven and the new earth in which righteousness dwells,” is one that is filled with ambiguity. If the Belhar is adopted that phrase could be read in terms of its historic Christian meaning or it could easily be read in terms of Liberation theology. Do we want to affirm a Confession that we are not sure what it means?
Any theology that teaches you that growth in sanctification is accomplished by meditation alone on Gospel realities such as one finds in “Sonship Theology,” New Covenant Theology, and in New-Calvinism circles is reductionist foolishness.
First, such a theology completely eliminates the historic Calvinist teaching regarding the third use of the law. The third use of the law teaches that God gives us His law as a guide to life to inform us how we might live in such a way that we might meet our aspiration of pleasing Him. The teaching of the third use of the law is not accomplished by telling people just to contemplate on the Gospel, but rather by teaching people what the path of godliness looks, though it is gladly admitted that gratitude for all Christ accomplished for us is the motivation for people to take seriously God’s law as it comes to us in its third use.
Second, such a theology eviscerates the idea that sanctification requires the work of putting to death the old man and bringing to life the new man. Putting off the sin that doth so easily beset us may be aided by contemplation but it still requires man’s concursive work of sanctification where man works out his salvation in fear and trembling.
Third, meditation or contemplation in New Calvinism becomes the new law that must be obeyed. All other Biblical law, the Neo-Calvinists tell us, is hypocritically embraced when it is pursued in obedience but the law of the New Calvinists of contemplation is a law that can be pursued in obedience that is not hypocritically embraced. How is it that if one believer pursues obedience to God’s revealed law that is hypocrisy according the Sonship theology but if another believer pursues the obedience of Gospel contemplation that is automatically noble?
Fourth, by the New Calvinists own standard, if contemplation is something that is pursued then it becomes a fruit that is stapled on instead of organically developed. This is true because it is still the subjective self who must do the contemplating and so their complaint about pursuing obedience not being valid because it is subjective boomerangs back on them since the subjective self is required to do the contemplating.
Fifth, as said earlier, certainly our pursuit of obedience to God’s concrete revealed law is animated by being filled with the Spirit of Christ, and by being mindful that Christ was put to death for our sins and raised to life because of our justification, but, as said earlier, it is reductionist to insist that sanctification is only a matter of Gospel contemplation.
Sixth, Gospel contemplation reminds us that we are forgiven for the sake of our beloved Christ when we see our failure of meeting God’s righteous requirements but that reminder is not the same as telling ourselves that we need not be concerned about the work required on our part to walk in newness of life. Contemporary expressions of Calvinism as found among some prominent Calvinists have seemingly brought us to the antinomian point where we need not preach on what righteousness looks like, thus answering the question, “How Shall We Then Live,” simply because we have been declared righteous. Such preaching completely forgets the Apostle Paul’s constant technique of telling people to “become what you have been freely declared to be.” Such preaching is long on “what you have been freely declared to be,” and is short on, “increasingly becoming what what has been freely declared to be.”
The Worldview embraced by New Calvinism, R2K, Sonship Theology, New Covenant Theology, is perfect theology for the triumph of Talmudism since such “Christian Theologies,” leaves a vacuum created by their implicit antinomianism that Talmudic law is more than happy to fill. The result is a Talmudic law defined social order that ends up defining Christianity.
“In fact official American belief regards the Declaration of Independence as the beginning of an endless process of active movement toward an ever more egalitarian and universalist society. This is because of the intervention between us and the Founding Fathers of that sea-change in the thinking of men that is summed up in the term ‘the French Revolution.”
Dr. Clyde N. Wilson
From Union To Empire
Wilson’s thesis is that American Nationalism has undergone a series of transmutations, the degree of which, has left the successive American Nationalism incomprehensible to the previous American Nationalism. Wilson suggests that the taking of the Declaration of Independence as a document that insures a endless process of active movement toward an ever more egalitarian and universalist society, is the consequence of the second American Nationalism, as crafted by the French Revolution and birthed in America through the war of Northern Aggression. Wilson seems to suggest that the American commitment to the idea that all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights was a far different stripe from the French Revolution egalitarianism that came to be eventually accepted in the American Nationalism that was successive to the form of Nationalism of the Founding Fathers. It would seem that the difference between these two competing notions of equality is the difference between the older belief that men are equal in respect to the application of law and the newer belief that men should be equal in opportunity and outcome.
Wilson goes on to note that there was another American Nationalism that was propelled during the Progressive era and consolidated during the after WW II.
“During and after WWII American society for the third time made a perilous leap into the cauldron of history, boiling down its existing consensus in the optimistic prospect of molding itself into a newer and more daring form. The Civil Rights revolution and a revolutionary alteration of the immigration laws were simultaneously undertaken in the 1960′s. It was as if the Melting pot, having proven itself able to boil down all of Europe, was now to test its capacity to do the same for the whole world.”
The question that Wilson raises is whether or not such a stripped down American Nationalism that is posited only upon unitarian notions of egalitarianism provides enough ingredients in order to make a cultural glue by which a culture may find cohesion.
In a culture where there exist no communitarian mystic chords of memory that includes either a shared ethnicity, a shared literature, a shared music, a shared religion, a shared history, or a shared language there exists nothing that can bind a people together except a shared prosperity. The question that begs being asked is whether or not a nation can stay together when national prosperity turns to national adversity except by brute force as used by the State.
One can easily conclude given Wilson’ taxonomy that America as America no longer exists. Following Wilson we might say America died a slow death in 1861-1865 with the War against the Constitution. In 1913 the American coffin was nailed shut with Banksters achievement of the Centralized Bank. Finally, America’s burial was in 1964 with the work of the minions of the Banksters passing the Javits inspired Immigration act. What we see happening in America now with the disharmony of interests is merely the legitimate children and the cultural Marxist bastards fighting over the estate.
Conservatives know this, but refuse to admit it; the Cultural Marxists know it, and every evening on the Cultural Marxist media outlets are proclaiming it loud and clear. Unfortunately, the name “America” will not go away, and neither will the Constitution, because liberals and Marxists will always appeal to these for legitimacy. They covet the prestige by association, but have not a particle of the pedigree. The Frankfurt School is the perfect example. Very good people labored to establish America’s most honorable institutions, traditions, and customs. They built the buildings, endowed the trusts, and nurtured the culture. Once that very hard work was done, the Marxist Frankfurt cowbirds flew in and laid their eggs, always claiming to be the faithful philosophical heirs of the founders and the progressive realization of their ideals. Now, to take up the mantle of a “Original American” and remind the Christ hating Cultural Marxists and everyone else that they are impostors, frauds, and hoaxers is to bring down upon oneself an onslaught of venom, vengeance, hatred – the very intolerance the imposters attribute to and vilify in anyone who dares tell the truth.
Just one more testimony proving that the last vestiges of Christian Western civilization–which has been dying for decade upon decade–are gone from America. The leaves have all fallen, autumn is over and winter is here. Not only have we left the house of the Christian God who alone is our source of strength and where alone we have protection, but we have forgotten the way home.
http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/state-supreme-court-says-roe-should-be-overruled/
http://dailyreformation.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/the-mediatorial-dominion-is-of-the-same-extent-with-the-absolute-dominion-that-belongs-to-god-as-creator-this-was-given-to-christ-as-his-mediatorial-dominion-without-reserve-or-limitation-in-virt/
http://date-dabitur.com/2005/05/primitive-money-theory/
“It [the gospel] is the only system which undertakes to provide a perfect pardon and to readjust man’s relations to the violated law. In every government, human or divine, the first thing to be considered is our relation to the law. Immediately upon transgression, the law seizes the offender’s person, brings him before the tribunal of justice, convicts him under the evidence, fixes upon him the sentence of condemnation, holds him in prison, awaiting the execution of the penalty. Of necessity, therefore, in seeking relief, his first concern will be to settle with the law and to cancel its indictment. It does not make a particle of difference, at the first, how the man feels as to his transgression; whether he glories in it, or is sorry for it; whether, if released from punishment, he will lead a life of obedience or repeat his trespass to the end. The first and absorbing question is how to escape the infliction of the penalty which he has incurred. How shall he come forth from the shadow of his prison and walk in the free air of heaven with an erect form, and look without a blush in the faces of other men. Now, this is just what the gospel undertakes to do for the sinner. It provides a perfect pardon, and secures it upon principles of strict justice and law. The imperfection of human government is in nothing more manifest than in the fact that it never can exercise mercy except at the expense of justice. The criminal can never escape the penalty without inflicting a certain amount of injury upon the country and the law. If he escape by any defect in the evidence he is turned loose again to prey upon society as before. If executive clemency sets aside the deliberate judgment of the court, a shock is given to the stability of government by the collision between its two departments, which ought to be mutually supporting. But in the gospel, the justice and integrity of God are as completely vindicated as in the punishment of the transgressor. Whilst the sinner escapes the penalty, the law of God is more firmly established than before. Such a pardon, in which every claim of law is satisfied, goes to the root of the sinner’s case, so far as his guilt is concerned, for the reason that it is a pardon which can be sealed upon the conscience and give it perfect peace.”
BY REV. B. M. PALMER, D. D., 1818 – 1902
Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, New Orleans, La.
Sermon — THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF THE GOSPEL
Note,
1.) Dr. Palmer’s burden is to communicate how the Gospel resolves the legal indictment of heaven against us as sinner. Palmer’s concern here is not experiential, or emotional, but rather forensic / judicial. God has a case against us. God, in Christ answers God’s case against His people. In our contemporary Gospel preaching the objective reality of judicial guilty is seldom touched upon and instead we go for felt needs as if what the sinner outside of Christ is emotionally feeling is the primary need to be addressed as opposed to God’s just wrath against sinners. If our Gospel begins with the felt needs our Gospel will forever be jerked about by the vagaries of “felt needs” that both redeemed and un-redeemed experience. Palmer’s Gospel is “from above” and so can reach below. Contemporary “Gospels” are from below and seldom, if ever, provide answer to God’s objective wrath.
2.) Dr. Palmer’s recognition that if mercy is exercised upon a criminal then a punishment is visited upon someone else. In the case of the Gospel we are extended mercy at the cost of punishment to the Son of God. This principle though needs to be understood by our social order structures today. If we turn a blind eye to justice to the guilty and extend “love” we are at the very moment turning a seeing eye of injustice upon someone else and are extending cruelty upon another. There was no cruelty visited upon the Lord Christ because he willingly laid down His life having entered into covenant w/ the Father from eternity but when our modern systems of “justice” ignore the law of God by extending “mercy” to the criminal, then at the same time cruelty is being extended at the same time somewhere else.
3.) Guilt is seen as objective and subjective in this quote. The criminal has objective guilt that must be dealt with and is dealt with in the cross of Christ. However, guilt is also subjective. The guilty must have his conscience quieted. The subjective feeling of guilt is only quieted in the sinner when the objective reality of guilty is answered. How Christian are men unless they know and answer that what they were saved from was a objective guilt that incurred God’s just wrath against them?