Category: Apologetics

In Defense Of Nationalism … In Defense of Basic Christianity

“When evangelicals embrace an America-first nationalism, the gospel is co-opted and betrayed.”

“… Nationalism gives pride of place to ourselves, to regional or national assertions of primacy and the quest for power and success, control and dominance, legitimizing violence and pressing for victory.  Nationalism reveals that we have mis-ordered worship. Religiously motivated nationalism simply turns God into our “godling,” a deity subject to our bidding.”

Mark Labberton
President of Fuller Seminary

Naturally enough, there can be no “Nationalism” without the idea of “Nation.” So, just to make sure we are all working with the same definitions I offer some textbook definitions of “Nation” to begin.

Strong’s Concordance
ethnos: a race, a nation, pl. the nations (as distinct from Isr.)

Original Word: ἔθνος, ους, τό
Part of Speech: Noun, Neuter
Transliteration: ethnos
Phonetic Spelling: (eth’-nos)
Short Definition: a race, people, the Gentiles
Definition: a race, people, nation; the nations, heathen world, Gentiles.

KJV Dictionary Definition: nation 

NATION, n. to be born

1. A body of people inhabiting the same country, or united under the same sovereign or government; as the English nation; the French nation. It often happens that many nations are subject to one government; in which case, the word nation usually denotes a body of people speaking the same language or a body that has formerly been under a distinct government but has been conquered, or incorporated with a larger nation. Thus the empire of Russia comprehends many nations, as did formerly the Roman and Persian empires. Nation, as its etymology imports, originally denoted a family or race of men descended from a common progenitor, like tribe…

Having established what “nation” means, I offer here a definition of “Nationalism.” Nationalism is a proper love for one’s own people and for one’s own place.

 In this article, I intend to take issue with President Labberton’s conclusions regarding Nationalism. I am convinced this needs to be done so because the love of people and place (i.e. — Nationalism) has taken it on the chin lately as seen in the recent MLK-50 conference as well as sermons and postings by various putative leading light evangelicals.  “Nationalism,” like “racism” is become a pejorative to sling at people in order to shame them, fill them with guilt, and ultimately shut them up.

To my knowledge, no Evangelical has ever used the word “Nationalism” to describe their beliefs as President Labbereton has used the word “Nationalism” here to describe the beliefs of Evangelicals who self-identify as “Nationalists,” and who thus embrace “Nationalism.” As such, Labberton’s description above of “Nationalism” to define Evangelical Nationalists has no objective meaning apart from its intended work as a polemical sobriquet. If no Evangelical Nationalists embraces for himself the definition of Nationalism given by President Labberton and if further President Labberton’s definition is only attached to a construct (Nationalism) that is inherently wicked per Labberton, then the word and definition is only intended to be a kind of verbal biological weapon that is intended to poison the well before a conversation on Nationalism can begin.

Having noted the above it can be conceded that there have been many rancid and un-Christian examples of Nationalism, particularly in the 20th century. One only needs to consider the Nationalisms which combined with Marxist social theory to give us Mussolini’s Italy,  Hitler’s Germany, and Allende’s Chile. However, all, because Nationalism has been abused in practice, doesn’t mean that a proper Nationalism is inherently wicked everywhere and at all times. There are numerous examples of bad marriages but that does not prove that we need to denounce marriage as an institution. Similarly, all because Nationalism has been perverted that doesn’t mean we need to rid ourselves of a proper Nationalism where there is a proper love of our people and a love of our place.

 

Vis-a-vis President Labberton and his assault on Nationalism we agree with an older Christianity as expressed by Rev. Hugh M’Neile, in his 1839 sermon “Nationalism in Religion,’

“We cannot agree in that cosmopolitan view of Christianity which undermines the particularities of our National Establishment, any more than we could agree in such a cosmopolitan view of philanthropy as would extinguish domestic affections, in all their vivid and constraining peculiarity of influence.”

Christianity without Nationalism cannot be Christianity if only because the only other option left is Christianity as Internationalism or Cosmopolitanism. Such a creature is nowhere envisioned in the Scriptures, though to listen to many prominent clerical voices of “Christian” modernity the only option possible for Christianity in terms of social ordering is an Internationalism that finds all nations, and all colors, in the words of that famous theologian, Bono, “bleeding into one.”

Christian Nationalism is everywhere seen in the NT. Indeed, there is no evidence anywhere of any such thing as Christian Cosmopolitanism or Christian Internationalism. Christ teaches Nationalism when He teaches, “other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring.” Christ teaches Nationalism when He said that he originally was going only to the lost tribes of Israel. Christ teaches Nationalism when He calls a foreigner a “dog” and says that “it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” Jesus teaches Nationalism when He says “before Him shall be gathered all nations.” In a less than flattering fashion, the New Testament teaches Nationalism when the inspired Apostle says, “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons,” and then more positively when he laments, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel.” Paul supports Nationalism in the Galatians controversy when he resists Peter’s Christian Internationalism which required the Gentiles to become cultural Jews before they could be considered Christian. Nationalism is given Christ’s imprimatur when, in the great commission, He commands His men to go forth and disciple the nations. And the success of that work of the Church is testified to in the book of Revelation when we read that the nations in the new Jerusalem will walk by the light of the glory of God and when John the Revelator writes, “and the leaves of the trees will be for the healing of the nations.” So central are Nations to the Biblical mindset that the inspired St. Paul could write, “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth.” The importance of Nationalism is testified to by the genealogical lines in Matthew 1 and Luke 3. Jesus had to be a blood son of David from the tribe of Judah.

At Pentecost, those who were in Jerusalem heard the Apostles speaking in their own National tongue, not in a Gnostic Esperanto. The Church always took shape in particular cities (Colosse, Ephesus, Phillip) particular nations and among particular peoples. So nation minded is the New Testament that Paul in Acts 16 receives a call not from an Internationalist man but from a Macedonian man. From this plea of the Macedonian man, the most momentous event in the history of the nations of Europe and the West came to pass, to wit, the coming of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the sons of Japheth and the eventual creation of Christendom. Nationalism is God’s gift to mankind and apart from a Biblical Nationalism, there can be no Christianity.

Indeed, historically, the enemies of Christ have understood this very point even if modern putative Evangelicals do not. The enemies of Christ have written that their intent is to destroy the whole concept of nations. I offer just a few, mindful that the careless attacks by President Labberton and many other putative Evangelicals are really doing the devil’s work,

1.) ”What will be the attitude of communism to existing nationalities?

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 hereby to dissolve themselves, just as the various estate and class distinctions must disappear through the abolition of their basis, private property.”

~ Frederick Engels in “The Principles of Communism”, 1847

2.) “The equality of races and nations is one of the most important elements of the moral strength and might of the Soviet state. Soviet anthropology develops the one correct concept, that all the races of mankind are biologically equal. The genuinely materialist conception of the origin of man and of races serves the struggle against racism, against all idealist, mystic conceptions of man, his past, present and future.”

—Mikhail Nesturkh, Soviet anthropologist, 1959
“The Origin of Man” (Moscow)Mikhail Nesturkh, Soviet anthropologist, 1959:

3.) “The aim of socialism is not only to abolish the present division of mankind into small states and end all national isolation; not only to bring the nations closer together but to merge them….”

Vladimir Lenin
The Rights of Nations to Self Determination — pg. 76

4.) “… Just as mankind can achieve the abolition of classes only by passing through the dictatorship of the proletariat, so mankind can achieve the inevitable merging of nations only by passing through the transition period of complete liberation of all oppressed nations, i.e., their right to secede. “

Vladimir Lenin 
The Rights of Nations to Self Determination 

5.) “Even the natural differences within species, like racial differences…, can and must be done away with historically.” 

K. Marx’s Collected Works V:103,
As cited in S.F. Bloom’s The World of Nations: A
Study of the National Implications in the Work of Karl Marx, Columbia University Press, New York, 1941, pp. 11 & 15-19:

6.) “Full-scale Communist construction constitutes a new stage in the development of national relations in the U.S.S.R., in which the nations will draw still closer together until complete unity is achieved…. However, the obliteration of national distinctions and especially of language distinctions is a considerably longer process than the obliteration of class distinctions.”

Nikita Khrushchev

It has gotten to the point in the Evangelical and Reformed world that when one listens to lectures and sermons on social ordering one finds themselves wondering if they are listening to the mouthpieces of God or the mouthpieces of Gramsci.

Usually, at this point, the great Galatians 3:26 objection arises in order to authoritatively end any talk of the glories of a Christ-centered Nationalism,

28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

Briefly, let it be said that there is no fluid nationality suggested in this text any more than there is fluid gender; no more is a trans-nationality or uni-nationality implied by “neither Jew nor Greek” than feminism or sodomy, or transgenderism is implied by “neither male nor female”, nor is a universal declaration of human rights implied by “neither slave nor free.”

Nationalism is the biblical a-priori — the great presupposition of all the New Testament. This is so true that any and every attack on Christian Nationalism is an attack on the very foundations of Biblical Christianity. On this point, we agree with the 2oth century Reformed Christian Theologian, Dr. Francis Nigel Lee,

“One of the very reasons that Paul desired that the Gentiles become Christians was not only so that the Gentiles themselves may be blessed but also so that the Gentiles, then as Christians, may proceed to provoke his own Israelitic nation to jealousy and thereafter to faith in Christ. Accordingly, I think we must judge that every Christian who does not love his own nation is either an ungrateful cosmopolitan rascal and a rebuilder of the tower of Babel or otherwise is woefully ignorant of Scripture. And, I am sorry to say that the world is full of these kinds of people today.”

Eliminate the nations and you will eliminate Christianity because

1.) Nationalism is but the next concentric circle of familialism. One can not destroy nations without also destroying the family. Does anyone really want to argue that God intends families to integrate into oblivion?

2.) Christianity cannot take root in a petri-dish of Internationalism and Cosmopolitanism due to its covenantal nature. Even the promise of the Gospel is predicated upon nationalism as Peter says on the Day of Pentecost, “The promise is for you and for your children, and for as many who are afar off as the Lord our God may call.” But even those afar off who were called were called in their families as seen by the household Baptisms.

3.) You make void one of the earliest Gospel promises,

Genesis 22:18 “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed My voice.”

How can it be the case that all the nations of the earth will be blessed if one insists that we “imagine there are no countries?”

All of this is why Dr. Pierre Courthial can say in his book, “A New Day of Small Beginnings,”

“In giving the Church a mission to the nations, Jesus does not diminish the importance of the individual… At stake is the salvation, well-being, and peace of the nations, that is, societies as God would have them. The Son of God must ‘rule all nations’ (Rev. 12:5). The nations must bow down before the Lord and come to walk in His light (Rev. 15:4; 21:24). These nations, with their cultures, traditions, and religions turned away from the God of Holy Scripture, are called to be converted to a sure salvation. This conversion of a nation does not happen apart from the individual lives of faithful Christians, but precisely through the influence of such lives. Moreover, each nation’s conversion is to reflect the uniqueness of that nation.”

Nations, and by extension, Nationalisms are foundational to Christianity. God’s well-known intent to save the whole cosmos (world) happens via the saving of the Nations, which per Courthial, are converted consistent with their uniqueness as nations.

This warfare against nationalism in favor of cosmopolitanism/ Internationalism that we are currently living as witnesses through, such as is being waged by those bearing the ironic names of “The Gospel Coalition” and “American Vision” is giving us nothing but pure Cultural Marxist paganism claptrap wrapped up in Jesus talk. All of it goes quite against what the Dutch-American Reformed Theologian Dr. Geerhardus Vos wrote,

“Nationalism, within proper limits, has the divine sanction; an imperialism that would, in the interest of one people, obliterate all lines of distinction is everywhere condemned as contrary to the divine will. Later prophecy raises its voice against the attempt at world-power, and that not only, as is sometimes assumed, because it threatens Israel, but for the far more principal reason, that the whole idea is pagan and immoral.

Now it is through maintaining the national diversities, as these express themselves in the difference of language, and are in turn upheld by this difference, that God prevents realization of the attempted scheme… [In this] was a positive intent that concerned the natural life of humanity. Under the providence of God, each race or nation has a positive purpose to serve, fulfillment of which depends on relative seclusion from others.”

God still deals with people as being members of nations, peoples, and races. This is a very unsavory truth for the modern Evangelical with their love affair for the erasure of all the creation distinctions God created us with. God has not given up on Nations anymore than He has given up on Families from where nations arise. When St. Paul wrote, “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel,” the Spirit of the living God was teaching Nationalism. When Jesus, from the Cross, cared for His own Mother entrusting her to His kinsmen, John, Christ was teaching Nationalism. In Romans 9 where we hear St. Paul weep over his special love for his kinsmen the Holy Spirit is teaching Nationalism.

Nationalism is really a very simple idea. We have been redeemed by Christ with the intent that we should take on the image of Christ just as Adam was made in the image and likeness of God. And, like Adam in the garden, we are now restored to being Priests, and as Adam was a Priest of God tasked with the responsibility to guard and cultivate his family and land, so we now, as restored Priests under sovereign God take up the task of guarding and cultivating our God-given people and our God-given land. This is Nationalism.

If we will not have Nationalism, neither will we have Christianity.

Challenging Thabiti Anyabwile’s Marxist Narrative

 

“What we’re getting here is a “both sides” view of history that suggests all parties are equally guilty of racism. Now, I agree that something like racism, ethnic bigotry, and other species of alienation and animus and idolatry of self exists among all people. But I was talking about 1950-’60s America. I was making a comment about a particular setting in which it cannot be said that both sides were equally guilty in the animus. African Americans have never carried out lynchings. African Americans have never passed “Jim Brown laws” to retaliate for Jim Crow laws. We have never systematically ostracized and oppressed white people as a group. The sin of the period was unilaterally and systematically directed from whites toward blacks.

One of the amazing things about African Americans is that we have survived for so long without giving fully into the racial animosity that could exist given how we’ve been treated. It’s a wonderful providence and humanly speaking we have millions of mothers and fathers and the likes of the Dr. Kings of the world to thank for teaching us not to give in to hate.

Until we get these basic points of history correct we’re not having the same conversation. And when we appear to equivocate about where the guilt and responsibility actually lie, we make it far too easy for strains of that former behavior, attitude, and complicity to continue unchecked.”

 Thabiti Anyabwile

We are dealing with a different fact set in this discussion and so the good Rev. is quite correct about not having the same conversation. The good Rev. is embracing a particular Marxist history because of the influence of Marxism on his worldview. In Marxist history, the leverage point is the conflict between in groups and out groups. In classical Marxists history, the bourgeoisie is oppressing the proletariat. In classical Marxist feminist history, males are oppressing females. In recent Marxist history of gender, heteronormativity oppresses LGBTQ normativity. In classical Marxist racial history, whites are oppressing minorities. Elsewhere Rev. TA has said,

“For a long time, I’ve just let the phrase (Marxist) and its variants go. But it seems like it’s not dying, and no one seems to be producing any actual writing or research to substantiate the term. “

However, the term is substantiated if only by the history that TA is appealing to. The Worldview that is pushing TA’s history is Marxism. Secondly, observations that TA is practicing a kind of Marxism narrative is seen in his recent support for the candidate Bernie Sanders who is an avowed Socialist (Marxist).  Third, that TA is pushing a racial Marxist narrative is seen in the fact that his facts are disputed. Consider the following,

Myth #1 –African Americans never carried out any lynchings

In this link below, there are all kinds of examples of African-Americans carrying out lynching along with photos. Most of the information below is cut and pasted from this link.

https://theinjusticefile.blogspot.com/2012/01/blacks-who-lynched-blacks-truth-behind.html

There was without question a determined effort in the South among White people to have the Black race live separately. However, there was, prior to 1964, nothing illegal or even immoral in this desire. Nor was it an act of racism. One distinct people living separate from another distinct people was not just the norm in American history (up until 1964) but human history as well. Regarding lynching… When a White person was attacked (rape or murder) and the perpetrator was Black, this was seen as an attack on “the group” and White people responded more often than not with uncharacteristic ferocity. Blacks were rarely ever assaulted (rape or murder) by a White person in the South. 99.9% of the cases I have found where violence crossed racial lines, it was Black- on-White … and the result was a raging and maddened mob out for revenge. These were the times in which they lived. The vast number of attacks by Blacks on innocent southern White people, including rape, in this type of atmosphere, boggles my mind.

Myth #2 — Blacks didn’t give into hate in a systemic fashion

Again, this is just not true as seen in just the Whitman’s sampler below. See link provided above for active links.

. Atlanta, GA. – 1900: Black male bully sat on a white male’s lap while riding a on street car, deliberately trying to humiliate and antagonize him. A fight ensued and the black male pulled a concealed gun and gunned down the young white male. Oh, and in the state of Georgia in 1900, the color-line mandate was not being enforced, so blacks could sit where they pleased.

2.Shreveport, La. – 1901: Black Supremacist organization advocated violence against white people. One white male was murdered. Link

3. Columbus, Ga. – 1900: Negro crawled into the bedroom of young white girl thru an open window and attempted to rape her. Link

4. Columbus, Mo. 1901 – Negro raped his employer’s wife…then shot her in the head
Brother-in-law of murder victim:  “I want to speak to him, how many times we cared for him and how kind Mary was to him, and ask him why he killed her. Then, when he has answered that, I want to see him burned.”  Link

5. Tuscumbia, Ala. – 1901:  It’s a MASSACRE – Negro petty criminal ambushed sheriff and deputy and murdered both – he then gunned down seven more white males – four dead.  Link (note: the death count was later revised)

6. Dublin, Ga. -1908: Two Negro employees invaded the home of their [white] employer, beat him senseless with an ax, gang raped his wife … then slashed her to pieces demanding to know the whereabouts of household money  Link

7. Satton, W.Va. – 1908: Home Invasion By Negroes – White male homeowner was tied to a tree then whipped — negroes then gang raped his wife (no, I’m not kidding) Link

8. Hot Springs Ark. – 1908: Negro cook decides he gonna have a little fun with hungry young white male – taunts him with food offer – makes him work in the blazing heat until he can’t work any longer… Negro then guns him down. Link 

9.Eufala, Ala. 1911: Prominent American woman was stalked by a negro sexual predator as she walked from a neighbor’s home to her home. The negro finally grabbed her and wrestled her to the ground. As the negro started to tear her clothes off … to rape her… her desperate screams for help saved her.  White males quickly came to her rescue. Link

10. Stephensport, Ky. – 1904: Negroes “Lynch” Young White Male – If Emmit Till murder was a “lynching” than this one should also be judged a lynching as well. Two negro brothers went after a young white male who , their sister claimed, “insulted her”. When they found the young white male … they slit his throat from ear to ear. source  

Let us consider the 86 years of American segregation (1882 – 1968). During that time period, there were 4,743 lynchings in America according to the black founded and run Tuskegee Institute. Of those, 1,297 (27%) lynchings were of white people. Why was this? Contra Hollywood and modern history textbooks, the purpose of lynchings was not “racism”, but the public and guaranteed punishment of crime. That is why 695 (14%) of lynchings took place in one of the 33 non-segregated states. Lynching was a method of criminal justice when a particularly grievous crime had been committed and/or the citizens were unsure if they would get justice through the courts.

We are not speaking about if we *agree* with the practice, we are speaking about the historical realities of it. Lynching was about punishing criminals, not “uppity blacks who were getting out of hand” as [ as many put it]. This is seen in the reasons the Tuskegee Institute lists for the lynchings: homicide 41%, felony assault 4%, rape 19%, attempted rape 6%, robbery/theft 5%. Only 85 lynchings (less than 2% of total) over the entire course of those 86 years in the entire country are listed as “insult to white person” as the reason.

The average law-abiding Southern black had nothing to worry about, the noose was for rapists and murderers. The fact that only 3,446 blacks were lynched out of the millions of blacks living in the South during that time period puts to rest the stereotype of a noose on every tree. To put this in perspective, there are currently 7,000 blacks murdered by other blacks every year in America. So every year blacks kill twice as many blacks as were lynched in total over a 86 year time period.

Rev. Anyabwile is correct when he says that “until we get these basic points of history correct we’re not having the same conversation.” If the facts were what TA says they were then, of course, his point would stand but those “facts” that he is citing are disputable and the worldview he is using as his interpretation of facts is likewise more than disputable.  TA is playing an old and dangerous game right now and the success of his endeavors is likely to continue since most of the people he is speaking to, ignorant of other historical narratives, just accept his version and worldview of the facts.

Let it be clearly noted that I’m not denying that there were white people who did shameful things to black people. However, I am denying that it was uniformly happening in the way TA places it in his Marxist narrative.

That blacks were not the innocents that TA suggests is dismissed by any reading of the Reconstruction period from 1865-1877, as well as by considering what was provided above.

 

Wherein Classical Marxism and 21st Century Christianity Become Indistinguishable

1.) “Princes and nations will disappear without violence from the earth, the human race will become one family and the world the abode of reasonable men.”

-Adam Weishaupt, quoted in Paul Johnson, Intellectuals (London: Orion Books Limited, 1993), p. 32.

2.) Capitalism developed the ever more inhuman polarization of the sexes. The cult of making distinctions, which serves only for oppression, is now being swept away by awareness of resemblance and identity.

M. Walser
Uber die neusten Stimmungen im Westen
In: Kursbuch, Bd. 20, 1970, S. 19-41.

3.) ”What will be the attitude of communism to existing nationalities?

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 hereby to dissolve themselves, just as the various estate and class distinctions must disappear through the abolition of their basis, private property.”

~ Frederick Engels in “The Principles of Communism”, 1847

4.) “The equality of races and nations is one of the most important elements of the moral strength and might of the Soviet state. Soviet anthropology develops the one correct concept, that all the races of mankind are biologically equal. The genuinely materialist conception of the origin of man and of races serves the struggle against racism, against all idealist, mystic conceptions of man, his past, present and future.”

—Mikhail Nesturkh, Soviet anthropologist, 1959
“The Origin of Man” (Moscow)Mikhail Nesturkh, Soviet anthropologist, 1959:

5.) “The aim of socialism is not only to abolish the present division of mankind into small states and end all national isolation; not only to bring the nations closer together but to merge them….”

Vladimir Lenin
The Rights of Nations to Self Determination — pg. 76

6.) “… Just as mankind can achieve the abolition of classes only by passing through the dictatorship of the proletariat, so mankind can achieve the inevitable merging of nations only by passing through the transition period of complete liberation of all oppressed nations, i.e., their right to secede. “

Vladimir Lenin 
The Rights of Nations to Self Determination

7.) “Hess had taught Marx that socialism was inseparable from internationalism. Marx writes in his Communist Manifesto that the proletariat has no fatherland. In his Red Catechism, Hess mocks the fatherland notion of the Germans, and he would have done the same with the fatherland notion of any other European nation. Hess criticized the Erfurt program of the German Social-Democrat Party for its unconditional recognition of the national principle. But Hess is an internationalist with a difference: Jewish patriotism must remain. He writes,

‘Whoever denies Jewish nationalism is not only an apostate, a renegade in the religious sense but a traitor to his people and to his family. Should it prove true that the emancipation of the Jews is incompatible with Jewish nationalism, then the Jew must sacrifice emancipation… The Jew must be, above all, a Jewish patriot.’

I agree with Hess’ patriotic ideas to the extent that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I am for every kind of patriotism – that of the Jews, the Arabs, the Germans, the Russians, the Americans. Patriotism is a virtue if it means the endeavor to promote economically, politically, spiritually, and religiously the welfare of one’s own nation, provided that it is done in friendship and cooperation with other nations.”

~Richard Wurmbrand, Marx & Satan, pp.54-55

8.) This from Igor Shafareivich’s “Socialist Phenomenon,” Shafareivich is commenting on that which is characteristic of all International Socialist expressions, 

a.) The national question: ‘National differences and antagonistic interests among various peoples are already vanishing more and more and more thanks to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the corresponding conditions of life. The supremacy of the proletariat will accelerate the disappearances of differences.’

9.) “Even the natural differences within species, like racial differences…, can and must be done away with historically.”
K. Marx’s Collected Works V:103,
As cited in S.F. Bloom’s The World of Nations: A
Study of the National Implications in the Work of Karl Marx, Columbia University Press, New York, 1941, pp. 11 & 15-19:

10.) Nikita Krushchev

“Full-scale Communist construction constitutes a new stage in the development of national relations in the U.S.S.R., in which the nations will draw still closer together until complete unity is achieved…. However, the obliteration of national distinctions and especially of language distinctions is a considerably longer process than the obliteration of class distinctions.”

11.) “The more Christianity spreads, the more these racial, ethnic, and national distinctions will be erased because no culture will be left untouched by the Gospel. When all (cultures) are affected, they will be one culture — Christendom.”

21st Century  “Christian Reconstructionist Theologian”

12.)  “We hear much about “identity politics” today. Christianity beat the movement to that concept by many centuries. Our identity is not ours to choose, however. Our identity is not determined by our genetics or our economic status. No, the Christian message about identity is an easy one: Christ is all and in all. He is our identity. His sacrifice redeems us, His intercession assures us, and as we live in recognition of His centrality in all things, the human-derived divisions that plague all of mankind are put aside. We come to one table, as one people, and the only lens we need for that is the one that shows us the Lord of glory, Jesus.”

21st Century Baptist High Profile “Apologist”

 

 

 

A Few Thoughts On Blasphemy

[Otto Scott] Well, there are still social sanctions against blasphemy, but the idols have changed.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] You can’t blaspheme against certain minorities and that includes even discussing their behavior.

[Rushdoony] Yes, very good.

[Scott] Um, Judge Bork is being attacked because in the 1971 article. (In) 1971, he questioned the right to privacy as far as the Constitution is concerned. So he was committing blasphemy against Liberalism.

[Rushdoony] Very good. Excellent point… this is what blasphemy is about. And today, of course, as you have said Otto, we have reversed the moral order. We have made it blasphemy to speak ill of certain minority groups. And this is the problem.

RJR Lecture 
Blasphemy

1.) Blasphemy is an inescapable category. All social orders and cultures have either defacto or dejure blasphemy laws.

2.) Once one identifies what subject matter is outside the bounds of sustained and harsh criticism for a social order there one has identified the sacred. Once the sacred is identified then you know what is and is not considered blasphemy in that social order.

3.) Blasphemy laws can be of a dejure nature and often when crafted so the violation of blasphemy means a severe legal penalty. However, more often blasphemy laws are defacto and are not visited with a severe legal penalty but rather are visited with social and economic ostracism. We are seeing this increasingly in the West as a violation of non-legislated speech codes can cost someone their reputation, career and so livelihood.

4.) When the God of the Bible is eliminated from that which cannot be blasphemed the consequence is most usually it is the State which cannot be blasphemed or whatever the State by law or by precedent says may not be blasphemed.  That the State sets the parameter for what can and cannot be blasphemed one only needs to look at the Statist youth centers where the children are taught whom the god and gods are in the social order who must not be blasphemed. For example, the whole work going on against “bullying of the LGBQT community,” is largely just a program to set up the LGBQT community and their behavior as sacred and so not to be blasphemed.

5.) Blasphemy laws are about thought control. If one cannot say something one generally does not think that something. There is a tight connection between what one is allowed to say and what someone will end up thinking. If one cannot verbally denigrate God one will not likely give much thought to denigrating God. This is the way political correctness is working today. When we are not allowed to say something because the saying of it is considered blasphemy then the thinking of those thoughts will eventually dry up. For example, people very seldom use the word “sodomite” anymore to describe same-gender relation. The reason is that is the word “sodomite” has successfully been turned into a blasphemous word. To use that word is to raise a hand against that behavior which has become considered sacred.

6.) It is interesting that in Scripture there is little distinction between the sinner who deliberately abuses the name of the Lord ( Lev. 24:10-16), and the one who deliberately flouts his commandments ( Numbers 15:30-31). So tightly is God’s character/name and God’s law bound together that the flouting of either is the flouting of both. For both blasphemy and for the one who deliberately flouts God’s law, the death penalty is prescribed.

7.) Clearly, the God of the Bible is not considered sacred in our social order. In point of fact, a good case could be made that in order to advance in this social order one must not hold God as sacred for to hold God as sacred so as to not blaspheme His name would mean to blaspheme what this current social order takes as sacred.

8.) Summarizing, when one discovers in a social order what can or cannot be harshly criticized (blasphemed) there one has discovered the sacred in that social order. Once one has discovered the sacred in the social order one begins to unravel what the religion of that social order is. Blasphemy is an inescapable concept for all social orders because God and religion are inescapable concepts in all social orders.

The Shape of Water — A Review

“The Shape of Water,” just won the Academy Award for best film of the year. Having viewed the film last night I found just one more Cultural Marxist attack on the norms and values of the Christendom norms that normed Western civilization in favor of the putative superiority of the alien, the stranger, and the other.

The storyline introduces us to a “wild creature that can’t be anything else.” The film informs us that the wild creature comes from the third world Amazon and was abducted from his previous god-like existence by the evil white man and was brought by force and ill-treatment in order to possibly advance science and to beat the Russians to the moon. Of course, the wild creature while wild is cast as morally superior to his captors, even if he does eat a housecat along the way.

We find in the narrative thus that the white man as the protagonist as embodied in evil white General, the bumbling white scientist, and the evil white project head. The only slightly favorable white straight male character is the Communist Russian scientist spy who works to help save the wild creature. Hence the film reinforces our modern Cultural Marxist narrative of the stupid and evil white man who oppresses everything he lays his hands on.

White women only fare slightly better. Except for the lead, which we will return to later, the three white women who have minuscule roles are cast in traditional female roles and are subtly mocked in the film. The film gives us the white wife of the chief villain who is mocked as the traditional white stay at home Mother of two who is subservient to her husband and whose only ability is the sex she provides for her husband and her ability to be at home with the children. In such a way patriarchy is also mocked in the film. A second bit white female role is of the secretary at work who likewise is portraying a traditional white female role of “our girl Friday.” The third bit white female role lead is that of a bitchy co-worker who is always complaining or casting demeaning insults at the lead mute female. There are the three white women bit-roles we are given in the film. White traditional women like white men take it on the chin in this Cultural Marxist film.

The leading lady of the film is a white female who while not beautiful is comely. She is cast as a white woman who is missing something (her voice) that only the wild creature from an exotic land can finally cure.  The supporting male role is filled by a middle-aged sodomite who aids the female lead in rescuing the wild creature from the grip of the evil white men. The supporting female role is played by a black female who is forever telling us about the deficiencies of her husband. Except for the wild creature, the Communist scientist spy, and the sodomite, males in the film are bumbling, or evil beings. More Cultural Marxist fare; straight non-Communist white men are evil while perverted wild males from other lands or sodomites or Communists are good.

I’m convinced the leading white lady is supposed to represent the every day western white woman who can only find her voice by throwing themselves sexually at the wild thing from an exotic land who heals her of her lost voice while imparting to her immortal life as living in his environment.  White women and poor misunderstood wild males from exotic lands can only save one another as they conspire to overcome the wicked white man by copulating. So, we have the Cultural Marxist film selling the idea that there is something lacking in comely white women that only the wild thing can heal while at the same time wild exotic things from other lands can only be rescued by white women. I would contend that this is an obvious push for White women to copulate with that which is wild and untamed (illegal or legal immigrants from other countries). Only then can white women find that which is lacking and be healed and only then can wild things from exotic lands find salvation.

It is not even subtle. All you European and American women the way to find your voice is by copulating with wild males from exotic countries who are totally other. The inter-species relationship in the film stands as a metaphor for white women who have no voice giving themselves to the wild things from exotic lands and so finding what is lacking in themselves and their whiteness. Only by the White women working in concert with minority women, and homosexual man can evil white men be defeated. In the film, the wild thing from an exotic land is always morally better, restorative and redemptive.  And all this cast as a romantic love story.

A few other ancillary observations regarding the film,

1.) The white male lead, who is cast as a detestable and hateable character makes a sexual advance on the leading white female. Of course, such an advance is crude, and as coming in the context of the white male lead being already married to a wife which the film shows filling her husband’s bedroom needs, what is being communicated is the hypocrisy of the patriarchal family. The film’s clear intent is to communicate to white women that wild things from exotic lands are superior to white men and that white men should be surrendered for wild things from exotic lands.

2.) The film uses the Christian Scriptures accounts of Samson and Ruth. The evil white man in the film casts himself as Samson bringing down the plot of the sodomite, Communist scientist spy, black female co-worker, and the mute white girl to release the wild thing from an exotic land. The film places the apartment of the mute girl over a theatre that is playing the film “Ruth.” Ruth, you will recall is the bible story of the woman who is thought to have left her Moabite people in order to be a foremother of the Messiah.

3.) This film is basically the film version cast as a Romantic love story of Theodore Adorno’s book “The Authoritarian Personality.” The patriarchal family in both the book and the film is cast as twisted and evil and the origin of much of what is wrong with Western civilization. To be trapped in this patriarchal family culture is to be mentally ill and so villainous.

4.) There may be even in the film an attempt to normalize bestiality as a sexual norm though I am convinced that the creature from the black lagoon is a stand-in not for sex with animals but as a stand-in for sex with wild things from exotic lands.

The film is an ideological Cultural Marxist attack on Christianity, White Males, patriarchy, Western Civilization, the whole idea of distinct nations, and normative sexuality cast as a Romance. In other words, typical Hollywood fare.