Apologetics – Page 121

Liberalism — An Introduction

Liberalism seldom comes to us in a systematic theology text book. That is likely one of the reasons that Liberalism has advanced so successfully. If Liberalism came to us as Liberalism from a theology textbook one would then be able to point to a Liberal Systematic theology textbook and say, “this is what Liberalism believes.” Instead liberalism advances by being amorphous. It seldom sets out its tenets explicitly, in a Systematic type style, knowing that doing so would mean a wider rejection of it as a belief system. In point of fact, as we shall see, Liberalism, as a belief system, is merely the Sports Illustrated Swim Suit edition of Porn as compared to the Communism of porn magazine, “Hustler.” Liberalism is Marlene Dietrich singing “Black Market” in a cabaret in 1920’s Berlin as compared to the Communism of Miley Cyrus singing “We Can’t Stop” on a M-TV video. Liberalism is the same thing as Communism only in smaller doses. Liberalism suffocates with a pillow while Communism suffocates with a garrote.

One point of contact between Liberalism and Communism is the insistence that man’s nature is either good or at least malleable. Unlike Christianity, which teaches that man’s nature is fallen and so man is depraved through and through, Liberalism teaches that men are born tabulae rasae, blank slates to be written upon as any narrative that a ruling elite might desire. Per J. Salwyn Shapiro in his book, “Liberalism; Its Meaning and History” Man, according to Liberalism is born ignorant, not wicked.” Liberalism, thus eschews the Christian doctrine of original sin holding instead that only the Christian doctrine of original sin could be construed as original sin. It was this view of man that the French Philosophes championed as the guillotine was employed to help men embrace their perfectibility and discover their unlimited potentiality.

From this doctrine of the inherent goodness and perfectibility of man comes the Liberal doctrine of Social Engineering, Utopia, and the inevitability of progress. If men do not suffer from the tragic consequences of original sin, so that they can only be redeemed by the work of a Transcendent God, then these plastic men with inherently good natures can be shaped and fashioned, via social engineering programs, to create a better, if indeed not perfect world. String together enough good men and eventually one will arrive at Utopia. In point of fact, the denial of Original Sin requires Liberals to believe that men can be made better and better via the work of social engineering. This faith commitment was recently demonstrated by an Obama State Department Spokesman Marie Harf in answering questions on how Muslim Terrorists need to be stopped,
“… We cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it’s a lack of opportunity for jobs.”

We can work with countries around the world to help improve their governance. We can help them build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people.”

Note here that the even Terrorists can be socially engineered out of their depraved ways. Terrorists are malleable and only need to have their environments changed in order for them to realize their inherent goodness. Terrorists are perfectible. And if terrorists are perfectible and capable of being redeemed by social engineering how much more so non terrorist Americans? Why, with Social Security, Welfare programs, and Obama-care Americans will be social engineered into a progress that will one day lead to Utopia.

The Liberal conviction of a Social Engineering that can bring us to Utopia leads us to another tenet of Liberalism and that is the conviction that man is what he is because of his environment. Liberalism, refusing to find depravity or original sin in man, instead locates depravity and original sin in man’s conditioning environment. Man, considered singularly is perfectible, inherently good, or at worse ignorant. However, the cultures and institutions that men build are rife with that depravity which explains why men don’t automatically rise to their best selves. Because sin is found in environments that so keeps individual men down, what must happen is the employing of social engineering in order to change men’s environment. The conviction of Liberals is that if the environments of men are changed so that those environments ooze out the juice of Utopia the result will be the sanctified New Liberal Man. It is environment that makes man less then what he might be and it is only a changed environment that will make men all that Liberals are convinced that man inherently is. The Liberal seldom pauses to ask how it is that inherently good men ever built such awful environments.

The Liberal conviction of the absolute necessity to Socially engineer environments that are in their view “wicked” so that the basically good men can discover and embrace their perfectibility unto the building of Utopia explains why Liberalism, when consistently pursued, ends up in the French Revolution Guillotine, The American Civil War Revolution war on civilians, The Russian Revolution Gulag Archipelago, and the American Abortuary. If cultural and institutional environments are the only thing that stands between basically good men and their socially engineered Utopias then breaking a few human eggs to arrive at a Utopian omelette is a small price to pay. So, the Jacobins tortured and killed their Catholic enemies to arrive at Utopia, Northern Transcendentalist Jacobin abolitionists tortured and killed Southerners in order to arrive at Utopia, Jewish Bolsheviks tortured and killed Christian Kulaks and Christian members of the White Army in order to arrive at Utopia and today our Jacobin Government makes provision for Jacobin Mommies to torture and kill their children to the tune of 4000 per day. From the Liberal worldview and belief system all of this is the small price that one pays in order to arrive at Utopia. None of this would have happened or would happen apart from the tenets of Liberalism, (sin in environment as fixed by Social Engineering, allowing man’s basically good nature to shine forth unto the building up of Utopia) being pursued. All of this explains why Liberalism should be thoroughly hated in any man or woman who call themselves “Christian.”

End Part 1

Part II — The Liberal tenets of Rationalism (Self-evident truths), Historical Optimism (Liberal postmillennialism) and Educationalism (Education as malleable man’s Savior).

Locate the Presuppositions and you know the Answer before the Question is Finished

Presuppositions

1.) Man (ISIS) is basically good
2.) If Man (ISIS) is not good then the problem is his environment
3.) Make his (ISIS) bad environment good with jobs and man (Isis) will become good
4.) Hence the project is nation building and more social engineering

Why is it so hard to talk about why it is so hard to talk about Homosexuality — I

In the February edition of the Banner Rev. Ron Nydam wrote an article probing as to why it is so hard to talk about homosexuality. I wanted to spend some time probing Rev. Ron’s probing. It is my conviction that Rev. Nydam’s article is written in order to grease the rails into accepting the idea of the normalcy of relationships that the Scripture characterizes as sinful.We should note at the outset that it is always the goal of those who want to make something formerly taboo to be acceptable to get people talking about the taboo. Conversations about the taboo make the taboo more acceptable and less frightening. As such Nydam and the Banner are advancing the agenda of the LBGT crowd by continuing to insist that this is something that must be spoken about. In a sense, even my writing of this essay serves their agenda because continues the conversation they so desperately desire in order to mainstream aberrant behavior.

Rev. Nydam leads off by mentioning the CRC study committee due to report in 2016 on providing pastoral guidance to churches, pastors, church leaders, and members on appropriate ministry and expectations in a culture where same-sex marriage is increasingly legal and common. Rev. Nydam throws in the bisexual and transgender people into this pool of ministry consideration since their pastoral needs may be quite similar. My question for Rev. Nydam and others is why stop with LGBT folk? Shouldn’t we include in the report the pastoral needs of necrophiliacs and bestiality oriented folks as well? After all, why should we be so narrow as not to include their very real pastoral needs? The answer to the bigotry of the CRC against these folks is that LGBT has become societally acceptable while those who perhaps suffer the most from unmet pastoral needs are left not considered. This is a black mark upon us as a Denomination.

Rev. Nydam speaks of the necessity of shalom that we are to seek in our congregations and is concerned that this issue will divide congregations. He’s afraid that this issue will bring strife and divisions to families, friends congregations, and Denominations. In writing this Nydam has suggested that the acceptance of the LGBT agenda, sure to be at the very least hinted at in the coming report, is not something so serious as to actually divide over. We must be see that our false unity as based on false theology is more important then any unity that can only exist in the context of dividing from people with whom we have no unity.

Rev. Nydam subtly suggests that people who disagree with LGBT-ism struggle do so wisely and biblically. Rev. Nydam insists that what he is writing about is not the ethical issues around sexual behavior but only to examine the high anxiety in the hetero-sexual community. But Rev. Nydam seems not to realize that the very reason there exists high anxiety in the hetero-sexual community is because of the ethical issues around sexual behavior. It really is impossible to tamp down high anxiety on this issue without also engaging in the ethical issues around sexual behavior. For Rev. Nydam to suggest that he is only going to address high anxiety but not ethical issues is like someone saying they are going to address conductivity without mentioning electricity. In point of fact, by inviting the “gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender members to listen in” he has at that moment touched upon the ethics of all this. Is it ethical for Christians (even celibate ones) to self identify as sinners?

Rev. Nydam then suggests that the real problem here is that Scripture appears to be being interpreted “in new and different ways.” Once again, we are back in the realm of ethics. We have to ask, “Is it ethical to appear to be interpreting Scripture in new and different ways when it comes to the issue of sexual ethics. (?)

Rev. Nydam next suggests that since we are all sexual sinners in one form or another then none of us have the place to speak to the sin of the LGBT community. After all we all have beams in our own eyes therefore we have no business worrying about the beams in other people’s eyes. This is the classic moral equivalency apologetic. If you have one sin in your life you are no longer qualified to hold up God’s standard. In point of fact no one is qualified to hold up God’s standard since no one is without sin. Somehow Rev. Nydam knows that “all of us struggle to some degree with our sexuality.” Really? All of us? Each and every one of us?

Rev. Nydam implicitly complains about the double standard that Christians have regarding sexual sins. He says that on these sins we are “especially punitive.” Maybe though the reason we are especially punitive on these sins is that the Scripture teaches that these sins are especially grievous?

“Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” (I Corinthians 6:18)

In the Ten Commandments God gave us two commandments that protect the family. Maybe we are especially punitive on sexual sins because we know that not only do they destroy the individual but they destroy the family and eventually, if left unchecked, they destroy the community.

(And Rev. Nydam … can you give me the names of folks who say that each and every sin is as bad as any other sin that can be imagined? Is the sin of a 5 year old stealing a cookie as bad as the sins of Stalin?)

Rev. Nydam then notes that we heterosexuals might be committing the sin of “self-righteousness” for being pleased that we are heterosexual. But might not Rev. Nydam be committing the sin of self-righteousness for being pleased that he is not being guilty of the heterosexual pride which leads to self-righteousness? What Rev. Nydam seems to be attempting here is getting everyone in the same sin boat. Once we are all in the same sin boat then none of us can complain about the sin of anybody else since, in Rev. Nydam’s words, “one sin is as bad as another,” and “we are all pretty crooked.” But if Rev. Nydam is pretty crooked also why is he here faulting the crooked heterosexual people who are opposed to mainstreaming the crookedness of LGBT-ism? Who is the crooked Rev. Nydam to correct anybody?

Next Rev. Nydam launches into a soliloquy on homophobia, and patriarchy. In doing so he trots out the Matthew Shepard canard. It seems that Rev. Nydam has not learned yet that Shepard was not killed because of homophobia but rather the murder was due to a Meth deal gone bad.

The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard

Obama And His Idiotic Prayer Breakfast Remarks

At the annual prayer breakfast Wednesday the guy who poses as our President channeled his College Sophomore speech writer saying,

“Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. Michelle and I returned from India — an incredible, beautiful country, full of magnificent diversity — but a place where, in past years, religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targeted by other peoples of faith, simply due to their heritage and their beliefs — acts of intolerance that would have shocked Gandhiji, the person who helped to liberate that nation….

1.) Obama here employs the classic “postmodern maneuver” by intimating that all religions are the same. It’s as if he says, “Sure, Muslims kill people but Christians have killed people also. This is just the nature of all religions.” Clearly Obama sees all Religions as morally equivalent. It’s just the nature of all religions to be violent at times. One wonders what religion it is that tells Obama that violence is wrong?

2.) The whole “high horse” reinforces #1. Obama’s clear intent there is to remind his audience that Christianity has no reason to think itself morally superior to any other religion. Fascinating that as Obama warns against “High Horse(ism)” he, at that very moment, mounts his high horse.

3.) Obama intones the Crusades as a comparison to Islamic barbarity. But the Crusades were consistent with Christian “Just War” teaching. The Crusades were a Christian counter maneuver to Islamic offensive Jihad that had been going on for centuries. To suggest that wars fought in self defense is morally comparable to putting someone in a cage and dousing them with lighter fluid and making someone a human torch is, at best, rhetorically reckless, and at worst morally reprehensible on Obama’s part.

4.) Obama intones the Inquisition as a comparison to ISIS bringing to us televised live be-headings of Christians. Frankly, I’m amazed Obama didn’t throw in the Salem Witch trials for good measure. Needless to say that if one had a resume that included being responsible for all the deaths of the Inquisition as well ass the Salem Witch trial deaths for bonus bodies one probably couldn’t get a job ISIS or Boko Haram due to inexperience.

5.) It’s interesting that Obama even goes so far as to invoke the name of Christ, and yet does not mention once the name of Muhammad in who’s name all these deaths are being pursued.

6.) Obama ties up slavery and Jim Crow with Christianity but fails to mention the huge slave trade that was pursued by Muslims for centuries in Africa long before the Christian white man came along. Neither does he bother to mention the Muslim blood tax in Christian Europe that found the followers of Muhammad sizing Christian children in order to turn them into special forces troops for Islam — often against their own people in Europe. Neither does Obama mention that it was Western Christian Civilization that ended Slavery. Something that neither Jewish nor Muslim culture has yet done.

Obama’s moral equivalence between Christianity and Islam is just brain dead and it’s a obvious demonstration of how much Obama and his administration hate both Christianity and white people.

7.) Is there any Cultural Marxist History that Obama doesn’t embrace? Gandhi was a monumental hypocrite and here is Obama invoking him. When in South Africa Gandhi had been totally unconcerned with the situation of South African blacks. In point of fact he hardly noticed they were there until they rebelled. Gandhi was as intolerant as Obama is ignorant.

Obama continues,

And, first, we should start with some basic humility. I believe that the starting point of faith is some doubt — not being so full of yourself and so confident that you are right and that God speaks only to us, and doesn’t speak to others, that God only cares about us and doesn’t care about others, that somehow we alone are in possession of the truth.

Our job is not to ask that God respond to our notion of truth — our job is to be true to Him, His word, and His commandments. And we should assume humbly that we’re confused and don’t always know what we’re doing and we’re staggering and stumbling towards Him, and have some humility in that process. And that means we have to speak up against those who would misuse His name to justify oppression, or violence, or hatred with that fierce certainty. No God condones terror. No grievance justifies the taking of innocent lives, or the oppression of those who are weaker or fewer in number.

And so, as people of faith, we are summoned to push back against those who try to distort our religion — any religion — for their own nihilistic ends. And here at home and around the world, we will constantly reaffirm that fundamental freedom — freedom of religion — the right to practice our faith how we choose, to change our faith if we choose, to practice no faith at all if we choose, and to do so free of persecution and fear and discrimination.

1.) Obama calls for basic humility as he proudly begins to lecture a room full of Ministers, Priests, and other “Holy men” on the what they need to learn about religion. The minute he calls for basic humility he demonstrates his own lack of the very thing for which he calls. Perhaps Obama should show his humility by suggesting that he has doubt about what he is about to say and about what he believes is needed?

2.) Obama calls for doubt as he, full of confidence and with no doubt whatsoever, gives a spiel that communicates that he alone has truth when it comes to this demand to realize that none of us have all the truth. Note again, that this section of the speech underscores again that Obama (and his College Sophomore speech writer) believes that all religions are equal. All religions speak truth. All religions hear from God, god, or some god concept. Of that we all must not doubt, of that we all must be certain, and with that we alone are in possession of truth.

3.) Again with the postmodern epistemology. Note, in the second paragraph above, where Obama speaks of “our notion of truth,” as if there is nothing but human “notions of truth.” Old Obama had a farm …. EIEO. And on that farm there were some notions of truth … EIEO. With a Islam notion here, and a Christian notion there, here a notion, there a notion, everywhere a truth notion … EIEIO.

4.) Do you suppose that Obama would confess that he is confused in what he is saying here? Notice that in Obama’s world “fierce certainty” is the sin we must fight against. Obama is fiercely certain that we must fight fierce certainty.

5.) Obama says that “No God condones terror.” But the Quran disagrees with him. The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called‘hypocrites’ and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter. Here are just a couple,

Quran (2:191-193) – “And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than killing…but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah

Quran (4:76) – “Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah…”

6.) In terms of the last paragraph above just keep in mind how Christians businesses in this country are being persecuted and discriminated against for their faith. Obama and his administration has done more to squelch freedom of religion then any Presidential administration in the 20th century.

Considering Rev. Bordow’s Defense of R2K — #4

Todd writes,“So if the Mosaic Law cannot be used as a political blueprint of laws for common grace nations outside a theocracy appointed by God, and the New Testament is silent concerning such civil laws, the conclusion must be that the Lord has not chosen to reveal such things to us in his Word. Thus pastors, as heralds of the Word only, cannot instruct the government on public policy questions without going beyond the Word of God. So the Law of Moses, because of its religious purpose in the history of redemption, cannot be used as a legal guide for all nations, and that most directly addresses the theonomic critique of E2k.”

1.) Notice the word “cannot” in this paragraph.This would suggest that to violate Todd’s “cannot” is to sin. If the Lord has not chosen to reveal public square morality as codified by the State then it must needs be sin to suggest otherwise. Why won’t Todd just be honest and say that “Ministers who speak to the state concerning civil laws are in sin?”

2.) Note that Todd calls the Law, “the Law of Moses.” In all actuality it was the Law of God handed down to Moses. The reason that this is important to point out is that what Todd, and all R2K, is telling us is that the Law of the Old Testament God is not valid in the New Testament God’s world. This R2K theology gives us a Marcion and non-immutable God. Orthodox Reformed theology has always taught that God changes not. R2K theology is giving us a mutable god and this only on the barest and most contrived hermeneutic. It has always been understood that God’s law is His character but Todd tells us that God’s character, while emblazoned upon the pages of the Old Testament, has been strangely muted in the New and better covenant.

I’ve been trying to think of pithy ways to say all of this.

R2K — The theology where Christ dies to save us from God’s law for the public square

R2K — The theology where the New Testament God is more social order friendly then the Old Testament God

R2K — Christ dying to make bestiality safe for the public square

R2K — Where the Old Testament was a better covenant because the Kingdom ethic wasn’t yet taken away as intrusion

R2K — The theology that allows Theologians to envision laws allowing sodomite unions

Maybe my readers can improve on distilling R2K even more succinctly.