Apologetics – Page 75

Dr. Piper and His Insistence That Christians Lie Down and Die — Part IV

http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/should-christians-be-encouraged-to-arm-themselves.

Dr. Piper offers,

4. Jesus set the stage for a life of sojourning in this world where we bear witness that this world is not our home, and not our kingdom, by renouncing the establishment or the advancement of our Christian cause with the sword.

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” (John 18:36)

Jesus said to [Peter], “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52)

Bret

a.) Jesus also came to die for the sins of His people. Does that mean that we likewise are called to die for the sins of people? Jesus also went about doing miracles. Does that mean that we likewise are called to go about doing miracles?

Of course the point here is that we are not called to do everything that Jesus was called to do. We are not called to born of a Virgin. We are not called to resurrect on the third day.

b.) Dr. Piper fails to explain how self-defense of the lives of the judicially innocent from the threat of the wicked is an example of trying to “establish or advance our Christian cause with the sword.” Dr. Piper fails to demonstrate that those who follow the 6th commandment in self defense means that we are trying to communicate that this world is our Christian home and is our Christian Kingdom.

c.) We could just as easily argue, in contradiction to Dr. Piper, that as Jesus came to establish His Kingdom in and over this world we should likewise seek to establish the Kingdom of God in and over this world.

d.) Dr. Piper then offers Scripture, completely taken out of context and misinterpreted.

For Dr. Piper’s mishandling of John 18:36 see,

My Kingdom Is Not Of This World

The Matthew 26 passage has a very established context. The most we can prove from it is that we should not use self defense to protect people who are on their way to the Cross to die for the sins of the world. This is especially so, where elsewhere in the Synoptic Gospels (Luke 22:36f) the Lord Christ expressly instruct His disciples to carry a sword.

Dr. Piper offers,

To be sure, there are many ambiguities about being exiles on this earth with our citizenship in heaven (Philippians 3:20), while at the same time being called to serve in the structures of society (1 Peter 2:13). But no book of the Bible wrestles with this more directly than 1 Peter, and the overwhelming thrust of that book is this: As you suffer patiently and even joyfully for your faith, do so much good that people will ask a reason for the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15).

I think I can say with complete confidence that the identification of Christian security with concealed weapons will cause no one to ask a reason for the hope that is in us. They will know perfectly well where our hope is. It’s in our pocket.

Bret responds,

a.) The fact that Dr. Piper admits there are ambiguities might mean that he should be a little less dogmatic on his pacifistic declamations.

b.) The fact that Christians will suffer — and should do so patiently and joyfully — is not itself proof against the fact that Christians are commanded to defend themselves when able. The way Piper is reasoning here, one would think that Christians should be required to seek to put themselves under suffering. Peter’s book is speaking in the context of when suffering comes upon us. Peter is not teaching that all Christians must themselves seek out situations where they can suffer.

c.) Dr. Piper again makes the mistake of supposing that all because someone takes the 6th commandment seriously therefore that means that they are identifying with the tools used to esteem the 6th commandment.

d.) Given Dr. Piper’s reasoning one could as easily say, “I think I can say with complete confidence that the identification of Christian security with wearing safety belts will cause no one to ask a reason for the hope that is in us. They will know perfectly well where our hope is. It’s across our chest while driving.”

Does Dr. Piper wear a seat belt while driving? Well, clearly no one will now ask him for the reason of the hope that is within him.

Dr. Piper presses on,

5. Jesus strikes the note that the dominant (not the only) way Christians will show the supreme value of our treasure in heaven is by being so freed from the love of this world and so satisfied with the hope of glory that we are able to love our enemies and not return evil for evil, even as we expect to be wronged in this world.

Bret responds,

a.) Why would Dr. Piper suppose that self defense means that those defending themselves no longer have as their supreme value our treasure in heaven? All because we take the 6th commandment seriously it means that we are not freed from the love of this world?

b.) Why would Dr. Piper think, that firing a weapon in defense of the judicially innocent against the wicked, who would unjustly and without biblical warrant take the life of children and women, be an example of returning evil for evil?

c.) Why would Dr. Piper think that because we expect to be wronged in this world therefore we should do everything we can to facilitate being wronged in this world? When Dr. Piper is wrongly accused of some heinous crime he committed while doing counseling does he not defend himself against such accusations because he expects to be wronged in this world?

d.) I would insist, in keeping with the 6th commandment, that when we return fire upon evil men seeking to take the lives of the judicially innocent we are at that point most certainly not returning evil for evil but are returning good for evil.

Dr. Piper offers,

You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. (Matthew 5:38–39)

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5:44–45)

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11–12)

Bret responds,

a.) The “turn the other cheek” passage (Matthew 5:38-42), often cited to support an extreme pacifism, clearly addresses our reaction to personal insults and inconveniences, and not serious threats to one’s life, family, livelihood, or home.

b.) When justice, in the context of self defense, is visited upon the wicked who are seeking to harm the judicially innocent, we are loving our enemies.

c.) Matthew 5:11-12 has nothing to do with this conversation. We can still defend ourselves and remember that we are blessed with others revile us and persecute us and utter all kinds of evil against us falsely on the account of Christ.

Dr. Piper offers,

The point of Matthew 5:11–12 is that Christians are freed to rejoice in persecution because our hearts have been so changed that we are more satisfied in the hope of heaven than in the hope of self-defense. This is the root of turning the other cheek and loving the enemy. The steadfast love of the Lord is better than life (Psalm 63:3). Or as Paul put it, “Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:7–8).

Jesus struck the note that the way his disciples demonstrate most forcefully the supreme value of knowing him is by “letting goods and kindred go, this mortal life also,” and calling it “gain” (Philippians 1:21).

Bret responds,

a.) Matthew 5:11-12 says nothing about the abjuring of self defense. This is complete eisegesis on the part of Dr. Piper. I can be free to rejoice in persecution and reload at the same time.

b.) The steadfast love of the Lord lies upon those who esteem the 6th commandment.

c.) All because I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord doesn’t mean I stand by and allow women to be raped, children to be killed, and the judicially innocent to be attacked because I’ve concluded, by way of the grossest eisegesis, that the Scriptures teach Anabaptist pacifism.

Dr. Piper continues,

6. The early church, as we see her in Acts, expected and endured persecution without armed resistance, but rather with joyful suffering, prayer, and the word of God.

“Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. (Acts 4:29–31)

Bret responds,

a.) Dr. Piper continues to compare apples with hot pocket’s pizza. Of course it is the case when we have been stripped of all ability to defend ourselves we must entrust ourselves to the God of hosts who fights for us. However, all because we entrust ourselves, when completely stripped of the ability to use tools to esteem the 6th commandment, to the God of hosts who fights for us, doesn’t mean that when God has providentially provided weapons of self defense we should not use them. The Hebrew children could not fight against Egypt because they had no way to resist Egypt and they witnessed the God of Host be Warrior on their behalf. Later the God of Hosts fought through them and their weapons of which they now commanded.

b.) The Acts 4 passage and Dr. Piper’s usage of it is another example of gross exegesis. What could that passages possibly have to do with the propriety of self defense. Dr. Piper takes a unique historical situation and absolutizes it to prove that Christians shouldn’t defend the judicially innocent against the intention of evil men firing weapons.

c.) Doubtless there will again be times when Christians have to endure persecution as unarmed. One thinks of the Armenian Christians in Turkey at the turn of the 20th century. One thinks of the Ukrainian Christians during the Holdomar. But the reality of these persecutions doesn’t prove that therefore we should do all we can to make sure that we too come under the hand of the Satanists. Should God decide to place us in the kiln of oppression we should rejoice for great is our award in heaven. However, that is not the same as crawling in the kiln of oppression by our own idiotic reasoning.

Dr. Piper offers,

In all the dangers Paul faced in the book of Acts, there is not a hint that he ever planned to carry or use a weapon for his defense against his adversaries. He was willing to appeal to the authorities in Philippi (Acts 16:37) and Jerusalem (Acts 22:25). But he never used a weapon to defend himself against persecution.

Bret responds,

This is called arguing from silence and is universally recognized as weak argumentation.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends … Amiee Chauvin Dissects Piper

The following is a comment left by one of the young ladies who attends the same Church I do. If I could I would stand and applause this response by Aimee because it reminds me that a little leaven can leaven the whole loaf.

Throughout (Piper’s) whole piece, John Piper establishes a false dichotomy between defending yourself with a gun and trusting Jesus. It’s not either/or. Especially in his 9th point, Piper allows that God does expect us to fend for ourselves in a way, (“Even though the Lord ordains for us to use ordinary means of providing for life [work to earn; plant and harvest; take food, drink, sleep, and medicine; save for future needs; provide governments with police and military forces for society”]) and yet Piper drastically draws a line at self defense (“nevertheless, the unique calling of the church is to live in such reliance on heavenly protection and heavenly reward that the world will ask about our hope [1 Peter 3:15], not about the ingenuity of our armed defenses.”) without much of an explanation as why the line should be drawn there. Why is working to provide money for food, clothes, and housing not considered a contradiction to the call to live in “reliance on heavenly protection?” ~ I think it’s much more trusting to stop working and depend on God for my meal. That way people will have no doubt as to where my hope is.~ In the Lord’s prayer we are instructed to ask God for our daily bread, but most of the time God provides that bread through providing a job that will pay for the bread. The job is the means to God’s provision that God established. Likewise, carrying a gun is also a means of God’s provision for my protection.

I’m also reminded of the false dichotomy between corporeal and spiritual. The verse itself in every version I’ve seen does not use the words “physical” or “material.” Instead it uses “carnal,” or “of this world.” It makes sense that the not “of this world” would be similar to the way Jesus used it in His response to Pilate in John 18:36 in that it does not receive its power from this world. Our weapons are spiritual in that they are helping to establish a spiritual battle. Any object in a Christian’s hand can be a spiritual weapon. The laptops that were used to type out Biblical responses to Piper’s heretical views are spiritual laptops. A gun used to protect God’s people and the judicially innocent are spiritual weapons.

A Nation Legislated Out Of Existence

The fact that we are no longer a “nation” can be accounted by the invasion, since 1965, of alien peoples from alien cultures. What Americans and the West can’t seem to understand is that this non-European immigration invasion, assured by the 1965 Immigration Act with its opening of the borders to the non-European world, is a colonization and a conquering of this territory once called “these united States.” It is the replacement of the previous people and culture in favor of a differing people and culture. The passage of said legislation was a masterful piece of lying from beginning to end. Sen. Teddy Kennedy, one of the chief sponsors of the Bill promised,

“First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same…

Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset… Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia…

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 upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.”

Sen. Teddy Kennedy was a lot of things but stupid was not one of them. Kennedy, along with Sen. Philip Hart, Sen. Jacob Javits, Emanuel Cellar and others could not be so blind as to not know that the Hart-Cellar act would fundamentally transform America from a WASP nation to a Propositional Universal nation.

In this 1965 Act America was certain to cease being a nation, if only because the heart and soul of a nation is its people. The 1965 Immigration Act guaranteed the replacement of the nation’s people and so in principle, killed the American Nation that existed in 1965 in favor of a Universal Propositional Nation that exists now. In the words of Bertolt Brecht, what the Government did in 1965 was to dissolve the people and elect another.

That Universal Propositional Nation is a failure. The Liberal magic dirt theory that posited that non-Christian Europeans would instantly become Christian Americans simply by setting their foot on American soil has demonstrated instead that Somalian cliterectomies, and Arab “Allahu Akbahr barking,” and the third world sex trafficking doesn’t cease just because new arrivals from non Christian European countries have US soil under their feet.

Mr. Bojidar Marinov & His Insistence That Open Borders Is Not Marxist Policy

‘Anyone who claims that open borders is a Marxist and Communist policy is an idiot who understand neither Marxism nor history.’

Bojidar Marinov

My only grievance with the former Communist and now Libertarian Bojidar Marinov is that he is so often wrong and yet still taken so seriously by formerly Theonomic organizations like American Vision and Chalcedon. In this quote we find yet another example of how egregious Mr. Marinov’s error usually is.

First, we should note that Karl Marx promoted a stateless border-less world. The abolition of the state was the central point of Marxism. This fact is echoed by Marx’s co-laborer Engels. When asked, “What will be the attitude of communism to existing nationalities, Engels responded by saying,

“The nationalities of the peoples associating themselves in accordance with the principle of community will be compelled to mingle with each other as a result of this association and thereby to dissolve themselves, just as the various estate and class distinctions must disappear through the abolition of their basis, private property.”

Secondly, we need to remember that the Communists promoted immigration. It was emigration that the Communists so strigently controlled. Americans were free to leave America and move to the Soviet Union or East Germany back in the 1950’s. So, they championed porous borders to enter but closed borders to leave. The Communists were vicious about closed borders but that was because they didn’t want anybody to get out of their Utopian paradise. The Marxist talk today about “open borders,” is the talk of “open borders” in a Communist New World Order where it would not be possible for anyone to escape. “You can go to any Communist Country you want to go to Comrade.”

Thirdly, Mr. Marinov’s call for “open borders” is misleading, and deliberately so. This nomenclature is intended to foster the illusion that one can be both open and closed. It is akin to advocating for pregnant virgins. Such language borders on lunacy. Retaining the word for “borders” in an “open borders” policy does not mean you have actually retained the borders. By opening them, you destroy them. If your policy is openness, openness is what you have. You are no longer closed off and so you no longer have borders. Pull the door off of your house and you soon cease to have a house. Why? Because one of the things making it a house was its door. The walls will soon follow as invaders tear them down using the hole that was formerly a door.

There is no way to have a national area that is both open and closed. It is difficult to imagine that Mr. Marinov does not understand this. You can have integrity in your borders, or you can have dissipation and lack of national definition. You cannot have both. What illness could possibly explain the fantasy of having both openness AND borders?

Thirdly, Mr. Marinov is just in error with his statement as this quote from Marxist theorist Karl Kautsky, demonstrates,

“Very differently from the apprentice or the merchant is the modern proletarian torn loose from the soil. He becomes a citizen of the world; the whole world is his home.

No doubt this world-citizenship is a great hardship for the workers in countries where the standard of living is high and the conditions of labor are comparatively good. In such countries, naturally, immigration will exceed emigration. As a result the laborers with the higher standard of living will be hindered in their class-struggle by the influx of those with a lower standard and less power of resistance.

Under certain circumstances this sort of competition, (that we Marxists are calling for) like that of the capitalists, may lead to a new emphasis on national lines, a new hatred of foreign workers on the part of the native born. But the conflict of nationalities, which is perpetual among the capitalists, can be only temporary among the proletarians. For sooner or later the workers will discover that the immigration of cheap labor-power from the more backward to the more advanced countries, is as inevitable a result of the capitalist system as the introduction of machinery or the forcing of women into industry.

In still another way does the labor movement of an advanced country suffer under the influence of the backward conditions of other lands. The high degree of exploitation endured by the proletariat of the economically undeveloped nations becomes an excuse for the capitalists of the more highly developed ones for opposing any movement in the direction of higher wages or better conditions.

In more than one way, then, it is borne in upon the workers of each nation that their success in the class-struggle is dependent on the progress of the working-class of other nations. For a time this may turn
them against foreign workers, but finally they come to see that there is only one effective means of removing the hindering influence of backward nations: to do away with the backwardness itself. German workers have every reason to co-operate with the Slavs and Italians in order that these may secure higher wages and a shorter working-day; the English workers have the same interest in relation to the Germans, and the Americans in relation to Europeans in general.

The dependence of the proletariat of one land on that of another leads inevitably to a joining of forces by the militant proletarians of various lands.

The survivals of national seclusion and national hatred which the proletariat took over from the bourgeoisie, disappear steadily. The working-class is freeing itself from national prejudices. Working-men learn more and more to see in the foreign laborer a fellow-fighter, a comrade.

The strongest bonds of international solidarity, naturally, are those which bind groups of proletarians, which, though of different nationalities, have the same purposes and use the same methods to
accomplish them.’

Here is an explicit statement by a known Marxist on the positive good that immigration and open borders are to Marxist.

Mr. Marinov, once again, despite his cocksure confidence, is in major error on this matter. Given all that has been adduced here we must ask Mr. Marinov, “Who is the idiot” and “Who is the one who does not understand either Marxism nor History.”

How many times does someone have to be wrong before American Vision and Chalcedon quit listening to him?

_______________
Assists for this post goes to Habakkuk Mucklewrath, Martin Svetislav, Colby Malsbury

“The Other Worldview; Exposing Christianity’s Greatest Threat” … A Book Review

Dr. Peter Jones has been a great benefactor to the Christian Church in the West with his work on Gnosticism, Egalitarian Pantheism, and Oneism. Via his various works his has been a prophetic voice warning the Church of a worldview switch that is already upon us. The greatest threat to the Church and the West is what he calls “Oneism,” but could just as easily be called “systematic Cultural Marxism.” He mentions Cultural Marxism but his focus is more on Karl Jung and Jung’s disciples. He locates animistic type religion in Jung’s psychoanalysis and insists that the goal of this religious Cultural Marxism is “thus all men Shamans.”

Dr. Peter Jones relates that the problem of the Jung(ians) is that they live in a Cosmos that is defined by Outsidelessness. This is another way of saying that there is no Transcendent Reference point by which meaning can be determined. Without a Transcendent outsidedness (that is also Trinitarian and so personal) what results is man sinking into himself to find meaning and to discover the divinity within.

This new Monistic Cultural Marxist religion is committed to the New Age goal of combining the opposites. This gives us a “beyond good and evil” morality where each man does what is right in his own eyes. Of course this is just another way of embracing the Hegelian dialectic of Marxism.

What has happened in our lifetimes is that we have moved from a Monistic Humanistic materialism where spiritual realities were folded into material reality to a Monistic Humanistic spiritualsim where material realities are now folded into spiritual reality. Both humanisms are Monistic with the only difference being that during the Enlightenment age that which was genuinely spiritual was reduced to the material whereas now that which is genuinely material is reduced to being categorized as spiritual. When one looks at the modern sciences of Quantum indeterminacy, quantum holism, and quantam non-locality (sub sets of Quantum physics) along with Quantum mechanics one begins to see a “science” that is more friendly to the New Ageist Spirituality of Eastern Mysticism and Western Romanticism.

In this new gnostic Monism the goal is the elimination of not only Modernity but also of Biblical Christianity. All of the distinctions that one finds in Biblical Christianity are eliminated in favor of the merging of the opposites. As a result we can speak of now of a Homocosmology, Homostoricism, Homorality, as well as Homosexuality. Indeed so great is the push for the elimination of distinctions that Jones’ opines that a day is coming when Biblical Christianity will be criminalized. The sodomites are NOT interested in equality folks. They are interested in turning normalcy into the aberrant.

Jones’ goes out of his way to agree with what I’ve been saying since I was 30 and that is psychiatry and psychology are the cutting edge expressions of this new religion that intends to crush Biblical Christianity. My angst at this confirmation is that much of the Church and Church Mission agencies have already redefined themselves in terms of the Monistic psychiatry and psychology that Jones’ warns against. It has been the case for years that in many denominations one cannot enter into the ministry or missionary field without first submitting to a battery of Monistic humanistic psychological exams, as well as- required time spent with the Denominational Shrink – Shaman. What has happened is that instead of these fields being reinterpreted through a biblical grid (if indeed that is even possible) the disciplines of humanistic shamanistic psychology have reinterpreted Christianity through their Monistic – gnostic grids. You can be sure that Christ’s Church has suffered as a result of this.

As a criticism of the book, I’m not convinced that Jones’ himself has extirpated all the Monism from himself that he so clearly sees elsewhere. In point of fact, given some of Jones’ complaint about “Institutional racism,” and “Institutional Sexism” one wonders if Jones’ despite his excellent work here hasn’t himself swallowed a poison pill of Monistic making.

I’ve read most of Jones’ published work now and viewed many many of his lectures. That should tell you that I value his work. In point of fact I think it is indispensable given our time and historical situation. When combined with more thorough works on Cultural Marxism and Postmodernism by other authors I think one has the opportunity to see Christianity’s greatest worldview opponent at this time.

In ending I think it should be said again that Radical Two Kingdom theology works perfectly in tandem with what Dr. Jones calls “Oneism.” R2K, in its most virulent and consistent forms, insists that the public square is, by definition, a-religious. As such Christians have no business in trying to appeal to Christianity in order to set aright the inroads of “Oneism.” R2K aids “Oneism” by not only not resisting to Oneism but by suggesting that it is sin to resist to “Oneism.”