Culture – Page 26

Liberalism — An Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

End Part 1

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

Why is it so hard to talk about why it is so hard to talk about homosexuality — II

Continuing, in this second entry, to examine this article

seeking to respectfully point out the errant thinking, inconsistencies, contradictions, and misinformation contained therein.

When we left off last time we began to deal with the accusations of “homophobia” which Rev. Nydam said was “so present in our gay-unfriendly culture.” Rev. Nydam in the same context raises an implicit objection to patriarchy. It seems that Rev. Nydam is convinced that as a culture we value the masculine above the feminine. Rev. Nydam offers no facts to support this bald assertion. The good pastor goes on to lament how our culture condemns men with feminine traits. And yet we must keep in mind that the Scripture teaches,

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,

Now, perhaps the Pastor is correct in saying that we shouldn’t condemn those with feminine traits but surely given the teaching of God’s word we should meet Christian men who are overwhelmed with feminine traits with some disapproval.

We already mentioned, but it bears mentioning again, that Rev. Nydam is not up to date concerning the false narrative of the Matthew Shepherd case. In the last entry we pointed out an investigation which has been done in this case which demonstrates that Shepherd was not murdered because of his homosexuality but rather Shepherd was murdered in the context of a meth drug deal gone bad. In point of fact the man convicted for Shepherd’s murder had previously had sodomite relations with Shepherd. Like the Roe. vs. Wade false narrative from 1973, the Matthew Shepherd narrative was completely contrived in order to gain legislative sympathy for the sodomite agenda. Rev. Nydam completely missed this in his article. With this article by Rev. Nydam I have to conclude that Rev. Nydam may have a severe case of Hetero-phobia as seen by his symptomatically high egalitarian fever.

I agree with Rev. Nydam and that is the necessity to come alongside and support those Christians who are struggling with the temptation of homosexuality. I agree that we have need to confess our sin so that we do not come across as self righteous prigs to those who are genuinely struggling to put off the old man of homosexuality and put on the new man of heterosexuality or who are seeking to be celibate in the context of what they recognize as sinful appetites. At the same time we need to enter careful self-examination to make sure we are not watering down the word of the Lord Christ in order to be able to fit into the zeitgeist. We have need to name the sin of compromise with this present wicked age in order to help those who are struggling. This is a very difficult spiritual challenge.

I also agree with Rev. Nydam that we must be friendly with those who are struggling against the sin of sodomy and lesbianism. We must come alongside them and encourage them to honor our Lord Christ by remaining chaste. We must advocate for before God’s throne in prayer asking that increasingly they will be able to quit finding their identity in their sexuality and instead find their identity in Christ. We must never push away repentant people who were once LGBT but now are in Christ. We must remind them though they were once Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender they have been washed, and sanctified, and justified, in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. By coming alongside them and encouraging them in their new identity in Christ we can together rejoice over the Grace that has delivered each one of us from our sin and misery. In just such a manner the love of God gets to them just as God intended.

So as the CRC continues in the conversation concerning pastoral ministry among those redeemed out of the LGBT lifestyle, those struggling with the sin of LGBT-ism and the sin of continuing to identify as a LGBT person even after they’ve embraced Christ how can we best prepare ourselves for this conversation? Several recommendations come to mind.

1.) As Rev. Nydam said, “we must continue our commitment, once again together, to a careful, thoughtful hearing of the biblical text. Scripture must speak to us.” This means guarding ourselves against novel readings of the Scripture that conclude what nobody in 2000 years of Church history have concluded. It’s possible that for 2000 years the Church has gotten something this significant wrong but extraordinarily unlikely. So, as Rev. Nydam offers, “we must not give in to the temptation, the exegetical error, of reading our wishes or beliefs into the text.”
2,) We must affirm a biblical definition for human sexuality. This means, in terms of marriage, that one boy goes with one girl. It also means understanding that given the way our sexuality is tied up with how we are God’s image bearers that it only makes sense that Lucifer is going to seek to overthrow God’s design at just this point. This also means that we have need to be sensitive to the fact that this kind of sinful behavior could well be a sign of God turning people over to their reprobate desires (Romans 1:18-32). Becoming more comfortable with the way God speaks about sexuality will give biblical wisdom to our responses.

3.) We need to allow the Scriptures to shape our understanding of gender roles. Scripture teaches that men are to love their wives, and wives are to submit to their husbands. Scriptures teaches that men are to lead and women are to be silent in the Church. Scripture teaches that we all have the fruit of the Spirit as that fruit demonstrates itself in the roles God has assigned to men and women.

4.) We must learn more about homosexuality in general. For example, repeated studies demonstrate that in a overwhelming percentage of cases where boys become homosexual it is due to some kind of molestation or Father-Son dysfunction in early development. If this is true then it is likely also true that people do not choose aberrant sexuality the way they might choose what flavor of ice cream to have. This is a fallen world and people can be fallen quite apart from self consciously deciding how their fallen-ness is going to manifest itself. Studies have given us very little evidence that LGBT-ism is a genetic predisposition.

5.) We must be sympathetic and empathetic. This sympathy and empathy must be for both God and His authoritative word and for those struggling with LGBT-ism. We must be tender where there is a spirit of repentance or anguish on their part. We must sincerely care about those who want to give this lifestyle up to follow Christ. Let it never be said of Christians that we added burdens of hatred upon and for those who are already bearing the terrible burden of a self-loathing because of the sin they struggle so mightily against. Let it never be said that we failed to encourage those who have been redeemed from this lifestyle to remember their identity in Christ.

6.) For those of us who have friends who have come out of the homosexual lifestyle we must continue to show ourselves kind and generous. This means having them over for a meal and making them welcome. This means taking their phone calls at midnight in order to help them past temptation.

Lift up your glass and raise up your pitcher to good Judge Roy Moore

At Iron Ink we talk a good deal about the lesser magistrate doctrine as developed by the Reformers and their descendants. This doctrine simply teaches that if Magistrates (Elected officials) at the top of the ladder go off the rails in wickedness then the Christian faith allows people to follow elected officials at a lower lever in overturning the design of wicked higher officials.

Some would contend that Alabama’s State Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore is just such a lesser Magistrate who is throwing off the wickedness of a lower Federal judge who has ruled that Alabama must allow sodomite and lesbian marriages. I disagree. It is my conviction that Judge Moore in this case is the higher magistrate overturning the ruling of the lesser lower Federal court judge. However, even if Judge Moore is a lesser magistrate he is still doing what is right both Constitutionally (Where does the US Constitution explicitly command that States must embrace sodomite marriage?) and according to Natural Law and according to Biblical Law.

My friends, somewhere a line has to be drawn or else we are going to discover that marriage can be defined as any combination imaginable. In this completely arbitrary definition of “marriage” that we are on the threshold off we will doubtless soon find a man, a woman who used to be a man, a man who used to be a woman, a homosexual transgender and their toaster all joined in holy wedlock.

May the Lord Christ bless Judge Roy Moore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWK4PNmtTBg

And Now a Word From Rachel McAtee Contra The Doug Wilson Vaccine Nonsense

If Doug Wilson would like to have a civil discussion on vaccines, he would be wise not to start off by portraying anti-vaxxers as cute but ignorant hippies (Seriously? Multi-colored wind chimes?)

Wilson’s whole article presupposes that vaccines work and are effective. He says that we are able to debate about vaccines because they have been “so successful”. He pooh pooh’s the claim that vaccines have a correlation with autism. Instead of discussing the vaccine itself (because that’s where he knows he could get in trouble), he wants to speak abstractly about whether people should have personal choice when it comes to vaccines. But let us suppose for a moment that the anti-vaxxers are right and that vaccines are ineffective and harmful. Suppose they are right that vaccines are the main cause of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). If so, why are we talking about whether the government should be able to force death down our throats? Shouldn’t we be discussing whether anyone should be getting a vaccine in the first place? Shouldn’t we be doing tests to see what the long term effects are of numerous shots full of mercury, formaldehyde, genetically modified human protein, and aborted fetal cells? If vaccines really do cause death, would Doug Wilson still be arguing that the government has the “right” to force their “convictions” on us? I hope not. If he can first prove that vaccines do indeed work, are effective, and do not cause death, then we can talk about whether the government has the right to forcefully vaccinate all members of society.

Doug Wilson cites Leviticus 13:1-4 to make his point that because a person’s personal choice on vaccination affects all of society, the “society” (by which he really means the federal government) should be able to not only have a different conviction, but be able to dictate their conviction to the individual person. Now first of all, there are plenty of individual decisions a person makes every day which affect all of society. Let us look at homeschooling for example. The homeschooling movement has doubled between 1999 and 2012, from 1.7% to 3.4%. (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013028/tables/table_07.asp) Homeschooling is definitely a decision that affects society, especially as it continues to grow at its current rate of 8% per year. (http://www.nche.com/stats) If the government decides for whatever reason that homeschooling is harmful to a society, should they be allowed to force children into the government schools? Doug Wilson wants to subscribe to the Hillary Clinton’s theory that “it takes a village to raise a child”, as though individuals and parents are hippie loonies who don’t know or care what is best for “society”. We see more and more attempts to take away personal and parental rights out of concern for the “society”. However, individual and parental rights are fundamental to the freedom of a society. As individual and parental rights continue to get taken away, our society becomes more and more enslaved to our own government. As Ronald Reagan said in 1961, “Drugs and devices are prescribed without getting parental consent or giving notification after they’ve done so. Girls termed “sexually active”—and that has replaced the word “promiscuous”—are given this help in order to prevent illegitimate birth or abortion…Is the Judeo-Christian tradition wrong? … Isn’t it the parents’ right to give counsel and advice to keep their children from making mistakes that may affect their entire lives? But the fight against parental notification is really only one example of many attempts to water down traditional values and even abrogate the original terms of American democracy. There’s a great spiritual awakening in America, a renewal of the traditional values that have been the bedrock of America’s goodness and greatness.”

Let us allow Doug Wilson, for now, that a government should be able to override individual and parental rights for the good of a society. Wilson is then stuck in no-man’s land as even the choice TO vaccinate affects all of society. Wilson is obviously ignorant of the fact that many vaccines can shed the live virus they contain for weeks or even months. The measles vaccine, TB vaccine, yellow fever vaccine, oral polio vaccine, smallpox vaccine, and nasal flu vaccine are just some of the vaccines that contain live viruses and have been proven to spread the virus to anyone who is unvaccinated, which can be serious trouble for those who cannot receive vaccines such as the elderly, infants, or the immune compromised. (http://www.vaccineriskawareness.com/Vaccine-Shedding) One study done by scientists working for the Bureau of Immunization, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which looked at the 2011 measles outbreak in New York City concluded “This is the first report of measles transmission from a twice vaccinated individual. The clinical presentation and laboratory data of the index were typical of measles in a naïve individual. Secondary cases had robust anamnestic antibody responses. No tertiary cases occurred despite numerous contacts. This outbreak underscores the need for thorough epidemiologic and laboratory investigation of suspected measles cases regardless of vaccination status.” (http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/58/9/1205.long) In other words, someone who has been vaccinated twice could transmit measles to four other individuals, even individuals who themselves had been vaccinated against measles. Who wants to get vaccinated against measles with those kind of statistics? Certainly the choice to get vaccinated against measles is one that will affect all of society. If Doug Wilson really wants the good of the society, perhaps he should be arguing against vaccines.

Touching Vaccines, Prudence and Multi-colored Windchimes

The Master of Moscow writes,

Someone with a loathing of guns can certainly refuse to have one in his home. And if he lives in a part of town that is otherwise heavily armed, his home can enjoy the same kind of safety from burglars as do the armed ones. Such is the nature of the world.

One of the reasons why we are even able to have a debate about vaccines is that vaccines have been so successful. The gunless fellow is certainly free to claim that his house is left alone because of the good vibes put out by his multi-colored wind chimes. We all think that’s cute, and are glad we live in a free country where there are guys like that.

But the analogy breaks down with something like whooping cough. That’s not so cute.

Bret Responds,

All of what Doug says here and says throughout this piece is premised on the idea of “herd immunity.” This is a concept that is not scientifically indisputable.

http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/media/Obamsawin_Vaccination_Tables.pdf

Now what is statistically indisputable is if one lives in a neighborhood where people point guns at bad-guys while pulling triggers you will be safer in that neighborhood even if you dislike discharging weapons. But as we see in the above link (lots of good science there for those who practice scientism) it is the case that when comparing guns in neighborhoods with vaccines and herd immunity one of these things is not like the other.

So Doug, right out of the gate, indulges in the false analogy fallacy. (Don’t tell anyone or his Canon press logic course sales might dip.) This, boys and girls, is what I like to call the kumquat – Rutabaga fallacy. I suspect Doug only used this fallacy because

1.) He is ignorant regarding the facts on herd immunity theory
2.) He was just seeing if anyone was paying attention

The Credibility of the CREC continues,

Now I do have views on the efficacy of vaccines, but I want to address another element of this — the idea that even if they were effective, a requirement that everyone get vaccinated is necessarily statist and tyrannical. Why isn’t this a matter of personal choice and conviction? The answer is that it is not a matter of personal choice because everyone else is involved.

“And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, saying, When a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, a scab, or bright spot, and it be in the skin of his flesh like the plague of leprosy; then he shall be brought unto Aaron the priest, or unto one of his sons the priests: And the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh: and when the hair in the plague is turned white, and the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is a plague of leprosy: and the priest shall look on him, and pronounce him unclean. If the bright spot be white in the skin of his flesh, and in sight be not deeper than the skin, and the hair thereof be not turned white; then the priest shall shut up him that hath the plague seven days” (Lev. 13:1–4).

Bret responds,

1.) Doug assumes a great deal here and we are being asked to do a large amount of reading between the lines to gain his meaning.

In a pretend world where it is everywhere known and proven that vaccines are effective does it remain true that the State would have role and responsibility to force vaccines on the population?

What if the vaccines were effective but with dire possible consequences Doug? What if the vaccines were cultured on aborted babies and what if vaccines were full of heavy metal (no, not “Metallica” Doug) like mercury? Would it be wrong for a Christian to object to State mandated vaccines — even if they were effective — if it meant that one was taking a bath in mercury and formaldehyde? Would it be un-Christian — even if vaccines were effective — to resist the State’s requirement for vaccines if it were known that the side-effects could be worse then the disease contracted? Would it be un-Biblical for a Christian to protect his children from vaccines — even if they were effective — if the Christian didn’t want to tacitly support the abortion industry?

Really though, in the end vaccines are just so much junk science and the fact of the matter is, is it is far from conclusively proven that vaccines are effective but even if they were and are effective it would not be a slam dunk that they could be forced on us by the State.

2.) The Scripture verse is nice Doug. When we get God speaking with the kind of authority on vaccines such as He has on leprosy we will be sure to tune in and adjust our beliefs and practices accordingly.

The fomenter of Federal Vision finishes,

So take this as a very limited claim. This is not a claim that vaccines are always perfect, or that the side-effects are not a problem, or that frauds can never interfere with the science (as happened with the Lancet article which claimed a correlation with autism), and so on. This is a fallen world, and no problem of this nature can ever be addressed risk-free. The claim I am making here is very limited. If a person has decided personal convictions about the contagious disease he is carrying, the society in which he lives has an equal right to have decided and contrary convictions about that same contagious disease he has. And if there is an outbreak of such a disease, and the government quarantines everyone who is not vaccinated, requiring them to stay at home, the name for this is prudence, not tyranny.

Bret responds,

Doug is assuming here that those vaccinated are not the carrier of the disease. However,

a.) with live virus vaccines, in the period after people are vaccinated, those vaccinated can still be the ones carrying and transmitting the disease

b.) vaccinations is not equal to immunization. Those who are vaccinated are not immune to the disease. Nobody knows how long these vaccines last. Nobody knows just how often booster shots are needed. Further, the vaccinations have created mutant forms of the diseases that they are now trying to eradicate and so the vaccinated are not necessarily protected from the new form of the disease. Plus, a quarantine of those non-vaccinated is not going to do any good since the vaccinated can carry the disease as well as the non-vaccinated. The only good quarantine is the quarantine of those who actually have the illness or who have been exposed.

Maybe Doug meant all this. Maybe we were supposed to read this into everything he said. I suspect it is more the case that Doug shouldn’t have even written the article because he seems to know more about multi-colored wind chimes then he does about vaccines.

Now to wrap this all up. Let’s keep in mind that the FEDS never do anything they do without citing prudence as the reason. When they were seizing guns in the aftermath of Katrina that was done for prudence’s sake. When the FEDS were entering into private homes after the Boston bomb without search warrants or reasonable cause that was done in the name of prudence. The FEDS never do anything illegal except in the name of prudence. For Doug to suggest that the FEDS could act with prudence in this kind of matter is to just invite the FEDS to create a false flag in order to do just that.