Culture – Page 21

Examining Dr. McDurmon and American Vision on Immigration

There simply is no biblical reason to refuse legitimate refugees. The Bible is clear that national borders should be open to all peaceful and law abiding individuals. Further, when we properly understand the meaning of the Bible’s teachings on immigrants, we will understand that to loathe refugees is to loathe ourselves and our own nation.

Dr. Joel McDurmon
American Vision

1.) First we would note that Dr. McDurmon confuses the issue somewhat by conflating the categories of “refugee” and “immigrants.” A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her home country, while an immigrant is someone who chooses to resettle to another country. There is a third category of “asylee” that is part of the conversation. These distinctions are important in this kind of conversation for without them it makes it even more difficult to make progress in the conversation.

2.) Dr. McDurmon makes this assertion in the face of what many have styled as “civilizational Jihad.” The recent deceased Muammar Gaddafi, noted,

“We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe—without swords, without guns, without conquest—will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades.”

Consistent with Gaddafi’s observation, authors Sam Solomon and E. Al Maqdisi in their book, “Modern Day Trojan Horse; The Islamic Doctrine of Immigration,” call Muslim immigration to the West a “modern day Trojan Horse.” They go on to note that,“Mohammed himself proclaimed that migration is jihad,” and provides a flourish with. “from the Islamic jurisprudence view the immigration of the Muslims to the West is to be regarded as the most important step on the ladder for achieving the establishment of an Islamic state in the West. This is the primary objective of Islamic Mission in the West.”

Dutch political leader, Geert Wilders again echoes the above sentiments by noting that, “gradual and incremental transformation of our societies and legal systems, or what is termed ‘Isalmisation’ of our democratic societies by the vast growing numbers of Muslim immigrants who are importing Islam into our Western way of life.”

Ann Corcoran in her book, “Refugee Resettlement and the Hijra to America,” writes Hijara means migration and, according to Islam’s doctrine and its quietly acknowledged organizational strategies, the goal of migration, today is not peaceful assimilation to the political system and mores of the host country. Instead, the goal is jihad by non-violent means known as civilizational jihad or Islamization.

Would Dr. McDurmon have us believe that God would be pleased with embracing a immigration pattern, the soul intent of which is squashing what little remains of Biblical Christianity, by a Muslim immigration horde intended to be used as a hammer of submission to obliterate the Christian remnant in the West and all this to the end of the Humanist attempt to establish a New World Order?

3.) Next we would note that Dr. McDurmon is just wrong in this assertion above, as OT Scholar Dr. James Hoffmeier points out ,

“The very positive statements about the treatment of strangers in the Bible, some of which were already quoted, show compassion for the alien in ancient Israel. The defenders of illegal aliens point to these passages as the rationale for rewriting current laws. The problem is that they make a simplistic correlation between the ancient Israelite social law and the modern situation as if the Bible was addressing the same problem. Three important questions must be raised before one attempts to apply Israelite law to the modern situation: 1) Was there such a thing as territorial sovereignty in the second millennium B.C. when these laws originated; 2) Within that socio-legal setting, what was a “stranger” or “sojourner;” and 3) How does one obtain this status?”

The fact of the matter is that McDurmon has likewise rushed passed these distinctions just as he rushed by the distinctions between “refugee” and “immigrant.” McDurmon completely disregards the distinction between the differing words in the OT translated as differing times as “stranger,” “foreigner,” “alien,” and “sojourner.” This is a significant error and reveals a certain sloppiness on Dr. McDurmon’s part.

In point of fact, as Ehud Would has written, putting the strongest contradiction possible to Dr. McDurmon’s opening quote,

“In biblical law foreign races were permitted to enter the border only under patronage and direct legal oversight of a native. Whether ambassadors, contracted laborers, or slaves, they were forbade from owning land, ascending to any positions of political power, forbidden to marry members of the nation, and weren’t allowed to lend to natives at interest (though natives could do so toward them). Nor could aliens conscript natives to perpetual slavery, but natives could buy chattel slaves so long as they were of other peoples. And any of foreign breed who would not consent to these terms for entry of Israel’s border was regarded a hostile invader and subject to forcible expulsion as in the cases of the mass deportations under Ezra and Nehemiah.”

Dr. James Hoffmeier, unlike Dr. McDurmon in the opening quote, pays close attention to the different OT Hebrew words that are so significant in this discussion, and confirms much of Ehud Would’s observation immediately above,

“The delineation between the “alien” or “stranger” (ger) and the foreigner (nekhar or zar) in biblical law is stark indeed. The ger in Israelite society, for instance, could receive social benefits such as the right to glean in the fields (Leviticus 19:9-10; Deuteronomy 24:19-22) and they could receive resources from the tithes (Deuteronomy 26:12-13). In legal matters, “there shall be one statute for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you, a statute forever throughout your generations. You and the sojourner shall be alike before the LORD. One law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you” (Numbers 15:15-16). In the area of employment, the ger and citizen were to be paid alike (Deuteronomy 24:14-15). In all these cases, no such provision is extended to the nekhar or zar. In a sense, the gerwere not just aliens to whom social and legal protections were offered, but were also considered converts, and thus could participate in the religious life of the community, e.g. celebrate Passover (Exodus 12:13) and observe Yom Kippur, the day of atonement (Leviticus 16:29-30). They were, moreover, expected to keep dietary and holiness laws (Leviticus 17:8-9 & 10-12). It is well known that within Israelite society, money was not to be lent with interest, but one could loan at interest to a foreigner (nekhar). These passages from the Law make plain that aliens or strangers received all the benefits and protection of a citizen, whereas the foreigner (nekhar) did not. It is wrong, therefore, to confuse these two categories of foreigners and then to use passages regarding the ger as if they were relevant to illegal immigrants of today.”

4,) Another problem with Dr. McDurmon’s quote above is that Dr. McDurmon is calling for the State to have charity but as Dr. R. J. Rushdoony notes, “the state has no part in charity; the scripture never says that the state is to administer it. ” Rushdoony, in the same lecture, “Justice and World Law,” offers about this issue of immigration, “first of all they [illegal immigrants] have broken the law. And justice to everyone requires that the law be upheld. So if they are illegal aliens they should be deported. Now that’s justice because it’s comparable to breaking and entering into a man’s house.” From this quote we see that Dr. Rushdoony also disagrees with Dr. McDurmon’s opening quote.

In conclusion it is interesting that seemingly all of Institutional Christendom is insisting that civilizational Jihad must be embraced, and that the West must embrace its death by commandment of God. Whether it is the long acknowledged Left like the “Sojourners” organization or whether it is the Cultural Marxist Churches, or whether it is organizations like Lutheran World Relief or Catholic Relief Services or any number of other Denominational organizations what Christian laity are almost universally being told is that that if they don’t support the dissolution of themselves in their undoubted catholic Christian faith and as a people and they don’t love Jesus and are guilty of Racism. This call to accept civilizational jihad now even comes from those organizations that heretofore were considered “conservative” such as American Vision.

Christians need to be assured that they can oppose immigration and still be considered Christ honoring. Opposition to the kind of immigration that is being foisted upon the West today can happen in the context of obeying the 1st commandment, the 5th commandment, and the 8th commandment. Opposition to the kind of immigration that is being foisted upon us today can be embraced on the basis of the admonition of the necessity to provide for one’s own household. Opposition to the kind of immigration that is being foisted upon us today can be embraced on the basis of the same kind of love for our people that we find St. Paul expressing in Romans 9:3. In point of fact, I would insist that opposing the kind of immigration that is being foisted on the West today is the duty of every Christ loving Christian.

“

The Hypotheticals of Littlejohn and McAtee

Over here

http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2015/09/thinking-thrice-before-support.php

Dr. Brad Littlejohn gives a series of hypothetical examples that might prove that Christians should re-think supporting Kim Davis’ resistance to issuing sodomite marriage licenses. His examples are as follows,

In the year 2006, Captain Joseph Rodriguez of Aurora, CO, a Christian, was dishonorably discharged from the Army after refusing to follow orders to deploy his company to Iraq, on the grounds that it was a Biblically unjust war.

In 2007, Amy White of Evansville, IN, a Christian, was fired from her job as a grocery sales clerk for refusing to process any purchases of pornographic magazines.

In 2008, Judge William Clark of Macon, GA, a Christian, was forced into early retirement for refusing to hear the majority of divorce cases in his court, on the grounds that none of them met biblical grounds for divorce.

In 2009, Molly Thompson of Billings, MT, a Christian, was fired from her job as a hotel clerk for refusing to allow gay couples, or obviously unwed couples, to check into the same hotel room.

In 2010, John Barlow of Rochester, MN, a Christian, lost his job as a loan officer at a payday loan company for actively advising his customers not to take out loans from the company, and to go elsewhere where they would not be usuriously exploited,

In 2011, Michael Jones, a policeman of St. Petersburg, FL, and a Christian, was jailed and suspended from the force after conspiring to shelter an undocumented immigrant mother and her son, rather than arresting them to get them deported, as he was ordered.

From these examples Dr. Littlejohn asks rhetorically,

Here is my question: if Christians are going to hold up Kim Davis as a paragon of Christ-like refusal to compromise with injustice, then how soon are we going to hold up the hypothetical John Barlow or Joseph Rodriguez or William Black as well? Are we all prepared to examine our own vocations with the same rigor, and leave all to follow Christ? And if not, then is our admiration of Kim Davis simply proof of what progressives accuse us of–namely, a highly selective Pharisaism that takes sexual sins with profound seriousness, and everything else as relatively negotiable?

But this is a case where sauce for the good is sauce for the gander.

** In 2006 Mary Lewiston worked as a organ procurement agent for Planned Parenthood. Everything that Mary does is in keeping with the law. Mary is asked to cut a baby’s head open to secure it’s brains for delivery to the buyer. Mary does so because she follows Dr. Littlejohn’s advice and decides this is “prudent.”

** In 2007 John Sanchez worked as a Pharmaceutical salesman. He knows that his task is really to get people hooked on prescription drugs. His job is perfectly consistent with the laws. John decides to continue being a drug pusher because to raise a Christian objection would ruin his testimony with his coworkers who desperately need Christ.

** In 2008 Alex Cho worked for Pepsi. His wife Donna Cho worked of Lays. Both of them realize that fetal cells are used to enhance the taste of the products of the companies they work for. Everything they do is consistent with the laws of the land. The do not raise a protest as Christians because they learned from Dr. Littlejohn that, Christians, like their Savior, are never supposed to be quarrelsome.

** In 2010 Dr. John Little worked as the head of research at Monsanto. He is responsible for genetically engineering food that he knows increases the likelihood of tumors in people as well as demonstrating a pattern of reproductive problems in those who consume the food. He knows his food is modifying human DNA. However, Dr. John Little reasons that the vastly increased yields of his crops can feed the world. Dr. John Little operates perfectly within the bounds of the law. Dr. John Little keeps poisoning the food source for the glory of Jesus.

** In 2011 Dr. Thabiti Smith worked as the head of vaccine development for Merck Industries. Dr. Thabiti Smith knows that deadly agents are put into the vaccines but reasons that the good outweighs the bad. Dr. Thabiti Smith decides that this passes Dr. Littlejohn’s “Prudence test.”

Here is my question: Where would Dr. Littlejohn have us draw the line for Christian resistance? If we don’t draw it at the point where the enemy is seeking to protect the institution of Marriage and family won’t it make it easier to not draw the line in other places? If we will not draw the line at the point where Marriage is being redefined how are we not complicit in social order libertinism? If we will not draw the line here will it not prove what the progressives accuse us of — namely that at the end of the day we are not really any different from them.

A Christian take on non-Christian views masquerading as Christian views on Kim Davis

The following is a response to this,

That Public Square Thing

1.) I don’t buy the “pluralism” argument as enjoined against Kim Davis. This idea insists that, since we are not a Christian nation, therefore Christians must tolerate and live with pagan practices, such as sodomite marriage, of heathen practitioners. Those who argue for this tolerance for pluralism seem always fail to realize that toleration is a device used to introduce a new law-system as a prelude to a new intolerance. Secondly, as it pertains to pluralism what most people don’t seem to recognize is that pluralism always hides a monotheistic non-pluralistic order where the God is the State policing how far the other gods in the pluralistic order can walk in the public square. Since, it is impossible for the God-State to exist without being animated by some belief system that belief system, which always animates every Government in existence, mocks the whole nonsense of “separation of Church and State,” as that phrase is currently used and understood. More on “separation of church and state later.”

2.) Some have argued that because Kim Davis issues marriage licenses to those who, in a manner inconsistent with the Scripture, are marrying again, after being un-biblically divorced, therefore Kim Davis is being inconsistent by refusing to issue marriage licenses to sodomites and lesbians who, like their heterosexual counter-parts, are also marrying un-biblically. This argument seems to posit that since some of God’s standards for marriage have been abandoned therefore all of God’s standards for marriage must be abandoned. This is like arguing that since we let a filthy and unclean dog in the house therefore we are inconsistent if we don’t let that filthy and unclean dog eat from the table or sleep in our bed. What will follow from this type of reasoning? Will we now argue that since County Clerks issue marriage licenses to sodomites they therefore must give marriage licenses to necrophiliacs and to Farmer Clyde and his prize milk cow Bessie?

Do you see why the wise are telling you that Obergefell vs. Hodges is the end of marriage having any stable meaning?

3.) Many ministers and others who are championing ignorant opinions on the Kim Davis case have no understanding regarding our law and the way it works. First, on this score, no law condoning sodomite marriage currently exists. Constitutionally speaking only Congress can make law. Article 1 Section 1 of the Constitution states, “All legislative power herein granted is vested in a Congress….” Please understand that ‘All’ means all. Congress has passed no law allowing for sodomite marriage. No law like that exists. SCOTUS, constitutionally speaking, can not legally make law. SCOTUS only interprets law. Can anyone take me to the law or point to the law that says that sodomites can marry? They can’t because no such law exists.

Second, on this score, even if the US Congress had passed a law saying that “sodomites can marry” such a law would be null and void before the ink was put to the page and county clerks would be under no obligation to follow such an illegal legality. The Federal Government is restricted, by the US Constitution (our covenant document) to only the enumerated and delegated powers outlined by the US Constitution. Guess what folks? Granting sodomites the legal right to marry is not one of the Federal Governments “delegated or enumerated powers.” I’ve read the US Constitution. Such a enumerated and delegated power is just not there.

Third, the 9th and 10th amendment make the above paragraph abundantly clear. Law on matters not enumerated or delegated to the Feds are reserved to the States or the people.

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Now, the Feds can certainly interpret this language any way they damn please but all because the Feds say the US Constitution gives them the authority to judicially or legislatively force sodomite marriage down our collective throats doesn’t mean that the US Constitution agrees with the Feds. Repeat after me slowly … “The Feds have zero Constitutional authority that allows them to force upon the States sodomite marriage.”

So, that being said we pause to ask, ‘How can the federal courts enforce a law that Congress, Constitutionally speaking, cannot even make”?

Fourth, on this score,since the Feds can point to no law passed by any legitimate Congress, wherein it is required that the States embrace sodomite marriage, Kim Davis is exactly correct in following the only law that speaks to the matter — Kentucky law. Kentucky law is the only law that currently exists on this subject and Kentucky law does not allow for sodomite marriage. It is everyone else besides Davis who are not following the Law. Let them sit and rot in jail.

4.) Some have argued that Kim Davis should do the “honorable thing and resign.” These folks fail to realize that Kim Davis is acting as a Public person. She does not have the luxury of resigning if she is take her public vows seriously. She, in her public capacity, is protecting her constituents from violating the current law of the land of Kentucky. In point of fact, a resignation would be the dishonorable thing for her to do.

5.) A brief word again on the “separation of Church and State.”

a.) The ability to completely divorce Church and State is a impossibility. All States reflect and are animated by some God or god concept as taught by some church somewhere. As the State has to do with creating and enforcing a societal law order. all states are expressly religious as all law is nothing but religion externalized into the social order.

b.) there is indeed a jurisdictional distinction between Church and State that absolutely must be abided by. The State, jurisdictionally speaking, is the realm of justice. The Church, jurisdictionally speaking, for the Christian, is the realm of grace offered and / or conferred in Word and Sacrament. The distinction exists. However, a jurisdictional distinction is far different than the idea of a “separation” as that is currently invoked.

c.) The phrase “separation of Church and State” is not part of our founding documents. The usage of it arose in a private letter of President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist convention in 1802. Jefferson’s phrase, “separation of Church and State” was not invoked as part of our political landscape until invoked in a SCOTUS “Everson vs. Board of Education” in 1947. The invocation of this unfortunate and misunderstood phrase has been lamented by legal scholars. In 1962, Supreme Court Justice, Potter Stewart, complained that jurisprudence was not “aided by the uncritical invocation of metaphors like the ‘wall of separation,’ a phrase nowhere to be found in the Constitution.” Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, likewise found the phrase “separation of church and state” lamentable, In addressing the issue in 1985, Rhenquist noted “unfortunately the Establishment Clause has been expressly freighted with Jefferson’s misleading metaphor for nearly 40 years.”

d.) Until Everson the Establishment clause, which was originally intended to be applied only fully to the Federal Government (i.e. — The Federal Government could not create a religious establishment for all the states) was now fully applied to all the states so that the Federal government would insure that the States also had a wall of separation between church and state. (The famous doctrine of incorporation.)

Separation of church and state is a myth, created by a progressive court for the purpose of setting the influence of Christianity aside in favor of more enlightened views. The Founders never envisioned a State that was separated from religious influence. Their intent was to insure that the Feds didn’t influence the States in the states having established religions.

6.) And even if 1-5 were inaccurate (and they’re not) “Let God be true and every man a liar.”

The point here is that those who tell you that Kim Davis is in violation of the law just don’t know what they are talking about. A second point here is that Christian ministers, who speak of the need for pluralism, are in point of fact saying that Christian ministers must champion polytheism for the public square. Pluralism is just not possible without polytheism. Don’t you think it passing strange that a Christian minister would tell you that God is pleased with Christians insisting that God is pleased by requiring room for false gods in the public square?

Sexuality and Man & Woman as Image Bearers of God

In the embrace of homosexuality there is the attempt to strip off the imago dei by the Lesbian or sodomite in question. Sexuality is so closely tied up with the Image of God in men and women that when one defiles and reverses their sexuality they at the same time are seeking to rip the image of God out of themselves.

The reason this can be advanced is that male and female together comprise the image of God.

Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

When a man or a woman seek to strip themselves of their God ordained sexuality they are therefore seeking to undress themselves of the Image of God appointed to them in their composite role as image bearers.

There is also the reality that in man and woman together reflecting the character of God, in all their glorious God appointed sexuality, the fact that, together as image bearers, they reflect the one and the many found in the Unity and plurality of the Godhead. In seeking to strip off their God ordained masculine or feminine sexuality there is the attempt to turn God into a monad absent of His plurality.

The embrace then of Lesbianism and / or Sodomy then is, at its foundational level, an attack on God via the means of the attempt to erase God’s Image by erasing God’s ordained sexuality placed upon the man and the woman as God’s creaturely image bearers.

This explains why this particular sin is so dangerous and why St. Paul can write,

I Corinthians 6:17 — Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.

The lesbian and / or the sodomite is sinning against their own body because by illicit coupling they seek to disembody themselves of the image of God contained in their physical bodies as given in their sexuality.

Sexual sin is particularly primal. It goes to the core of our identity as image bearers of God. While one can never successfully sanitize themselves of the fact that they are the Imago Dei, one can so twist their self understanding of the reality that they are image bearers that the twisting begins to approach a searing of the conscience so severe that few recover.

The Way Madmen Speak

“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

Barack Obama

Only a madman, one might think, would dare to speak of changing the entire milieu — “building a new society” — or even to speak as if such a thing were possible. And yet this is the current political idiom. It is seriously out of touch with a set of traditions whose good effects it takes too much for granted; it fails to appreciate them, as it fails to appreciate the human situation.

Joe Sobran
Pensees