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.
From Obama Inauguration Speech
“Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time – but it does require us to act in our time.”
That sounds a great deal like this quote from Karl Marx I am familiar with,
“The point is not to understand the world, but to transform it.”
The above Marx quote is from Karl Marx’s 11th Thesis on Feuerbach.
I’m sure the similarities between the two are sheer coincidence and nothing more.
Dear Pastor,
How can you talk about various social order Institutions being Christian? Don’t you see that the Institutions in any given culture cannot be Christian Institutions in and of themselves if only because those Institutions are common to all men, Christian and non-Christian alike?
Delaney
Dear Delaney
It is not that Institutions are common to all men so much as it is that men are common to all Institutions. As such, Institutions will be Christian, Muslim, Humanist, Hindu, Satanist, Judaistic, dependent upon the men who are animating those Institutions and the Faith that is animating those men.
It is most difficult to speak of a Institution as common to all men without taking into consideration the men who comprise the Institutions.
Remember, Delaney, it is not possible for Institutions to be neutral as if they do not serve the interests of some God or god concept. Cultural Institutions are nothing but a reflection of the theology and the people who staff them.
Also, it will do no good to try to create a distinction that admits that, there are Christian businesses and Christian marriages, and Christian families although commerce, marriage, and family are not Christian institutions in and of themselves.” This will not do, if only because commerce, marriage, and families do not exist without people. To say that there are Christian businesses, marriages, and families, while insisting that commerce, marriage and family are common and therefore neutral is an abstraction of the most intriguing sort.
On one hand R2K’ers want to say,
“Natural law is contiguous with Special revelation so that what is true from Natural law is consistent with Scripture.”
They will agree that for the Reformed Scholastics the natural law is synonymous with the moral law. The natural law is rooted in the being of God consistent with by His intellect and His will. It is not just naked authority but eternal moral truth. This natural moral law was written upon the heart of Adam at the creation. It is a part of the image of God.
They will agree that nature and grace are not in conflict. The moral law given in nature and the moral law given Scripture are the same law (as to general equity,i.e. the Ten Commandments).
On the other hand they want to say that the pagan, who is ruled by this Natural law, is not ruled by the imperatives of Scripture.
Those very same imperatives of Scripture that they earlier insisted were consistently articulated in Natural law.
“Biblical morality is characterized by an indicative-imperative structure. That is, all of its imperatives (moral commands) are proceeded (sic) by and grounded in indicatives (statements of fact), either explicitly or implicitly. The most important indicative that grounds the imperatives in Scripture is that the recipients of Scripture are the covenant people, that is, members of the community of the covenant of grace. (39)
Since membership in the civil kingdom is not limited to believers, the imperatives of Scripture do not bind members of that kingdom. These imperatives are not ‘directly applicable to non-Christians'” (40).
David Van Drunen
For R2K, the imperatives of Scripture are not directly applicable to non-Christians and yet, Natural law, which is perfectly consistent with God’s Moral law, would seem to force us to conclude that the imperatives of Scripture, as communicated via Natural Law, would be directly applicable to non Christians.
Am I missing something here?
You can identify a move towards a collectivist order by seeing the surge towards
1.) Uniformity
Everything must be the same. Remember the Collectivist State is like a Machine and in order for Machines to work they have to be standardized. Standardization in the social order is just another word for Uniformity. The cogs may differ slightly in what the cog’s role is in the machine but all cogs have the same value and worth. (Except of course the Elite running the machine.)
2.) Amalgamation
Everything for the State … nothing outside of the State.
Amalgamation, also serves the end of uniformity. Amalgamation is the process by which uniformity is arrived at. Like a mulligan stew all distinctions among the leftovers must be eliminated by being thrown into the same stew. Amalgamation is arrived at by everything moving down to the least common denominator. This amalgamation process is what Van Til referred to as “integration downward into the void.” Amalgamation explains our current preoccupation with denying gender roles and now even gender distinctions. Amalgamation is typically pursued in the name of “fairness.” Another example of amalgamation in our culture is the “no student left behind program,” in our Government Schools. The program amalgamated the superior students downward to the level of the inferior students as the superior students were not allowed to press ahead at their speed so that they may be yoked to help those slower students. The results has been that no student has been left behind because all students were amalgamated into the left behind status.
3.) Bureaucratization
Since the Collective runs everything there must be a bureaucracy to do the running and then a bureaucracy to make sure the bureaucracy, that is responsible for the machinery, is indeed running the machinery. Then of course there is the bureaucracy to keep an eye on all the cogs to make sure they are not being un-cog like. The collectivist state because of uniformity and amalgamation must have Bureaucrats whose role it is to ensure that everyone is remaining Uniform and that everyone is being amalgamated.
4.) Militarization
It is a police state and so someone has to make sure that everyone stays in line. Keep an eye out for how the local police and County Sheriff become increasingly militarized in their approach to the citizenry. Means of resistance of the citizenry are eliminated.
5.) Centralization
Orders come from on high. Jurisdictional spheres are eliminated. Planning is done by the State and not by the individual. Prices and wages are set. A Borg like existence begins to predominate as the society is identified with and as the State. Formerly mediating institutions are subsumed into the state.
6.) Proliferation of Law
The collectivist state proliferates law so that its citizenry can’t possible know what is legal and illegal. This allows the collectivist state to instantly negate any citizen who isn’t uniform and doesn’t amalgamate. The collectivist State simply arrests said citizen and charges them with any number of laws that are on the books. This allows the State to become the complete arbiter of law. Every citizen is guilty of something whenever the State desires for them to be guilty.
After documenting how Europeans (particularly the French) can be pro on legalizing sodomite and lesbian approximation of marriage while at the same time opposing sodomite and lesbian couples raising children one young R2K’er offers this gem,
“Do the French point the way to a potential compromise? Increasingly most Americans are loath to restrict gays and lesbians from exercising the same rights associated with their relationships that married couples have. Yet the most persuasive public arguments against gay marriage continue to revolve around the interests of children. The evidence is solid (though minimized, due to the politicization of the debate) that children do best when raised by two biological parents – both the father and the mother. Of course, as far as adoption is concerned such an ideal is unattainable. Nevertheless, as much as possible it can be approximated.”
1.) Apart from presupposing the God of the Bible and His special revelation by what standard do we adjudicate “best” as in, “that children do best when raised by two biological parents.”
2.) Apart from presupposing the God of the Bible and His special revelation why should anyone care about children at all? Apart from the God of the Bible and His special revelation why even think that a family consists of a Dad, Mom and children? Why not three Moms, two Dads and children? Why not five Moms and one Dad and children?
3.) Here is a article that contends that studies reveal that children who grow up with sodomite and lesbian parents do not suffer, in the least, when compared to children who grow up with heterosexually normal parents. I choose to believe this study over the R2K’er studies. How is his appeal to Natural law going to defeat my appeal to Natural law?
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20051012/study-same-sex-parents-raise-well-adjusted-kids
4.) Is this R2K’er suggesting that people have rights to sin? Is this R2K’ers saying that God’s Natural Law teaches that sodomites and lesbians have the same rights to the civil rights of marriage as a heterosexual man and woman? Where do these rights for sodomite and lesbian civil rights marriage come from for this R2K’er? If God’s Natural law and His revealed law both teach the same thing, where does this R2K’er get off suggesting that sodomites and lesbians have a right to civil rights marriage as long as they don’t corrupt (in his opinion) children?
R2K’er
“The issue here is not a matter of religious morality. Christian teaching, like that of other major religions, is as condemning of heterosexual immorality (i.e., sex outside of marriage, unnecessary divorce) as it is of homosexuality. But the French remind us that this is not really what the political debate should be about. It should be about children and the vital social role of the family.”
1.) So, children and the vital social role of the family is not about religious morality? If this isn’t about religious morality then who cares about children and vital social role of the family? Is our R2K’er saying that the matter of children and the vital social role of the family is not a religiously moral issue? I presume that our R2K’er is saying that protecting children and the vital social role of the family is a good thing. How can we know what a good thing is apart from religious morality. Or maybe he is saying that it is a good thing that protecting children and the vital social role of the family isn’t determined by religious morality? But how would we know that that it is a good thing that protecting children and the vital social role of the family isn’t determined by religious morality without some religious morality?
2.) This R2K’er commits the common R2K fallacy that somehow political debates are not at their core religious or theological debates. Notice how he assumes that we don’t have to deal with religious morality when we are in a political realm that is cordoned and sequestered from the theological or religious realm.
R2K’er
“The fact is, if America is ever to become serious about rebuilding the social fabric of marriage and the family, government and the various institutions of civil society will have to be much more proactive in reestablishing the link between marriage and the procreation and raising of children. Yet there is no reason why this has to require the restriction of the legal or civil rights of gays and lesbians, let alone a focus on matters pertaining to homosexuality. In reality, rebuilding a culture of marriage and fidelity would step on the toes of far more heterosexuals than of gays and lesbians. The question is, are we willing to place the interests of children back at the center of our public discussions of sexuality, marriage, and the family?
Perhaps the heirs of the French Revolution have something to teach us after all.”
1.) Again … where does Natural Law teach that sodomites and lesbian have a right to normalize and legalize their sin?
2.) Some studies are being released that suggest that children being intimate with adults is a healthy thing. Why not promote the interests of the children is this way?
A Dutch study published in 1987 found that a sample of boys in paedophilic relationships felt positively about them. And a major if still controversial 1998-2000 meta-study suggests – as J Michael Bailey of Northwestern University, Chicago, says – that such relationships, entered into voluntarily, are “nearly uncorrelated with undesirable outcomes”.
Most people find that idea impossible. But writing last year in the peer-reviewed Archives of Sexual Behaviour, Bailey said that while he also found the notion “disturbing”, he was forced to recognise that “persuasive evidence for the harmfulness of paedophilic relationships does not yet exist”.
Obviously our R2K’er is allowing his religious bias to color his interpretation of Natural law.