Culture – Page 41

Bavinck And McAtee on Grace Restoring Nature

“Because the gospel is concerned exclusively w/ liberation from sin, it leaves all natural institutions intact. It is in principle opposed to all socialism, communism and anarchism, since these never oppose only sin, but identify (through the denial of the Fall) sin w/ nature, unrighteousness w/ the very institution of family, state and society, and thus creation w/ the Fall. For the same reason the Gospel is averse to revolution of any kind, which arises out of the principle of unbelief, since such revolution, in its overthrowing of the existing order, makes no distinction between nature and sin, and eradicates the good together w/ the bad. The gospel, by contrast, always proceeds reformationally. The gospel itself brings about the greatest reformation, because it brings liberation from guilt, renews the heart, and thus in principle restores the right relation of man to God.”

Herman Bavinck — 1854 – 1921
Dutch Reformed Theologian

The Kingdom of God as it expresses itself in creation does not work to the end of changing the creation realm into a grace realm. What Grace does do is that it restores nature. The Kingdom of God has the effect on the creation realm much like the effect a poultice has on drawing the poison from a snake bite.

The creation, with the fall, has been snake bitten so that it is a present wicked age. What the Kingdom of God does upon the creational realm is that it sucks the poison of sin out of the Creation realm so that the creation realm is restored to what its original intent was so that this present wicked age is healed by the poultice power that is “the age to come” as expressed by the Kingdom of God at it works as leaven in restoring nature.

This is the difference between the work of the Kingdom of God upon the creational realm and the work of the Kingdom of man as it seeks to create Utopia in creation. The Kingdom of man identifies creation with the fall and so in order to restore creation it seeks to destroy creation thinking that creation can be regenerated out of destruction and chaos. As such kingdom of man type movements like Communism, Anarchism, and Socialism in its variant forms, seek to destroy family, destroy the Church and destroy the State so that out of the ashes a new order may arise Phoenix like. Again, they do this because they identify nature with the fall. To the contrary the Kingdom of God does not identify creation with the fall and the effect of the Kingdom of God upon creation, as we noted above, is to suck the poison of the fall out of creation so that creation reflects the beauty it was intended to reflect.

Top Down Structural Control

This post is premised on the idea that much of what happens in our pop culture and in our civil life is handled and controlled by a shadow elite. There are many who find such an idea spurious. If you’re one of those who find such an idea to be spurious you may just laugh in your sleeve and pass on by. Support for such ideas are found in books like Carroll Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope,” Anthony Sutton’s various titles, Em Griffin’s “Creature From Jekyll Island,” and others.

“We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years……It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.”

― David Rockefeller

Four Levels of Controllers.

1.) Useful Idiots

These people cooperate with the control system enforcing their agenda without even realizing that such a organized system exists. They have been saturated with the control system culture and honestly believe that said culture is the best for optimum living. They seldom think outside the ruts provided by the pop culture. These would include many secondary school teachers, many ministers, Shrinks of various stripes and types, local, county and state elected officials, journalists, etc.

2.) Utopian Idealists

These people realize that there is a control system yet they are willing to work within that system because they think that though even though there may be unfortunate excesses in the system from time to time, still overall the control system is benevolent. These would include many College Professors, entry level bureaucrats, elected officials who have been around long enough to know the score.

3.) Compromised Careerists

These folks know their is a control system and have been corrupted by it so that they can not turn against it or leave it without they and their lives being compromised. These folks are the majority of folks who do the dirty work for the higher up controllers. These folks are the hired guns. They are reliable and predictable. These would include folks who have been in the bureaucracies for a very long time. Someone like the recently fired IRS Lois Learner would fall into this category. (If anyone thinks Lois Learner acted on her own initiative without higher officials directing her actions you deserve to remain in the Matrix.)

4.) Planners and Implementers

These are the heavy hitters in the public eye. They are the top policy makers in Hollywood, Washington DC, New York Media conglomerates, Publishing houses, Fashion Industry, etc. These folks would be the ones who take the orders from the shadow elite. This group includes Presidents and Cabinet level positions, Captains of Industry, and Media Moguls. You get the idea.

5.) The Shadow Elite

These are the names that are only whispered. These are those who are barely known by the oi polloi. They control the movement of International finance, of nations, and often of Armies. Names like Rothschild, and Rockefeller come to mind. These are they who are seeking to herd everything into a New World Order.

It is helpful to keep in mind that very little that is accomplished by this system is accomplished by brute force. As the controllers own the media and educational outlets their accomplishments are most often achieved by their constant messaging from the tenderest of years until one has adopted that messaging for their worldview. The controllers achieve their ends by creating consensus and they create consensus by blanketing the information outlets.

“For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure–one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”

― David Rockefeller

Why Rape Is A Capital Offense Per Scripture

“Third, the reason the rapist in Deuteronomy 22:25 is put to death is not because the woman he raped was betrothed, but because rape is a crime equivalent to murder. Verses 26b and 27 read: “For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor, because he met her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her.”

Francis Nigel Lee writes

‘Why precisely death to this rapist? God says: “For it is as when a man rises against his neighbour and slays him, even so is this matter” (Deuteronomy 22:26b). Rape is thus like a case of premeditated murder, where God says also the murderer is to get the death penalty’ (Genesis 9:6). [4. Lee, Rape!!!, 10.]

The reason rape is equivalent to murder is because the woman is forced against her will: “because he met her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her.” This can and does happen to betrothed and non-betrothed women alike. Since forcing a woman to have sex against her will is the basis for executing the rapist, then rape always warrants capital punishment—regardless of whether the victim is betrothed or not. Just as murder is always a capital offense, regardless of who is murdered, so rape is always a capital offense, regardless of who is raped.

Fourth, one might still ask, “Why then does Deuteronomy 22:25-27 deal only explicitly with a betrothed woman?” Michael H. Warren, Jr., believes it
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speaks of a betrothed virgin because it is continuing the theme of Deuteronomy 22:23-24 in which a betrothed virgin consents to sex with a man not her husband, not because the latter was meant to limit the death penalty for rape to betrothed virgins. The distinction that is the focus of the section is between betrothed virgins who consent (Deut. 22:23-24) and unbetrothed virgins who consent (Deut. 22:28-29). [5. Michael H. Warren, Jr., e-mail message to author, January 3, 2010.]
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Moreover, while Deuteronomy 22:25-27 deals explicitly with betrothed women, it does deal implicitly with unbetrothed women. As noted in the previous point, rape in and of itself is equivalent to the capital crime of murder.

Fifth, the interpretation that Deuteronomy 22:28-29 deals with a man committing rape is counterintuitive, since the man is required to pay the woman’s father fifty shekels of silver and to marry the woman. But how many fathers would even want to see a man who raped his daughter, let alone permit him to marry her? How can he even look at the rapist without wanting to kill him? Moreover, “And what if the man rapes five virgins seriatim? Should he then marry all five?!” [6.Lee, Rape!!!, 11.] Or, what if five men gang rape one virgin? Should they all marry her? Finally, the requirement for the woman who is raped to marry “would lay a burden and penalty on the woman who had no part or consent in the act, which is as unfair and senseless as punishing the victim of attempted murder.” [7. Bahnsen, Pre-Marital Sexual Relations.] The Bible requires punishing the criminal, not the victim. Eye-for-an-eye means “you take an eye, you lose an eye”—not “you lose an eye, you lose another eye.”

“God is Just”

From the Mailbag — Question On Obama-care

Pastor Bret,

My mother-in-law went to Sam’s Club yesterday to get some prescriptions. Her co-pay has gone up $30 for some prescriptions. She was flustered and asked the pharmacist what was going on. They had a long chat about the matter. From the pharmacist’s perspective, the co-pay difference was due to Obamacare. From his perspective, also, the govt, via Obamacare, is trying to “wipe out old people,” by increasing costs of prescriptions, by making some medications rare and unavailable, etc. He said that the effect this is having (as he sees it) on the elderly and the middle class is going to be huge.

What is your take on this?

Dear Kirsten,

I’d say your Mother-in-law’s Pharmacist is correct.

What is going on is that the FEDS have these HUGE entitlement obligations to Senior Citizens (Social Security) and to sick (Medicare / Medicaid). There is one of two ways you can get out of those obligations. You can either increase the money supply to fund the programs or you can decrease the recipients to make funding un-necessary.

Now the FEDS could bankrupt the country by raising taxes on younger generations. But that will inevitably lead to generational warfare as younger generations eventually refuse to impoverish themselves in order to enrich the generation or two ahead of them. At some point people realize that there is little use in working if the majority of your income is being taken. The FEDS could also just print more money but in the end that debases the currency and the purchasing power declines precipitously, with the same sure result of social unrest.

Or alternately, you can kill off the people who are the beneficiaries of the entitlement programs. I believe this is the route that the FEDS are taking.

Promises were made that could never be kept. The whole entitlement leveraging by the FEDS was a giant Ponzi scheme. The grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the voters who originally created Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid etc. are going to pay for “the greatest generations” sins in creating this monster. The Greatest Generation created the Monster and now their descendants are about to be eaten by the monster they created.

Obamacare has always been about killing people. The very title tells you that if you are familiar with how Government Euphemisms always work. Obamacare is not about health. Obamacare is about death management. It will very soon, once implemented, be deciding if the contribution of the ill to society is equal to the value of the procedure that the ill person needs to regain their health.

Plus of course Obamacare may be the final piece in totalitarian collectivist government. Now the State can control the cattle (people) it owns every step of the way. From Birth, to school (school to work programs), to the food we eat (The FEDS are in bed with the GMO Creators), to the medicines we take, to the media we imbibe. What Obama-care is, is the final piece in a “Brave New World” social order that the NWO has been working on for decades.

Some of us tried to warn people. But they were to busy with their bread and circuses.

Perhaps the worst part of all this is that the Church is largely asleep on these issues, or where it is not asleep, it is actively fighting for the NWO agenda. Really, we have come to the point where the visible Church is largely the problem.

The Cultural Marxism Captivity of the Church

” … a significant clerical group under Professor Nieburh’s influence is able to rationalize and to some extent at least justify the perpetration of almost any crime because it serves, as Lenin said, ‘the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat.’

… Until we come to understand the effect on a wide section of Protestant clergyman in this country, we are not going to get very far in understanding the way in which the Church is integrated, in part, into this whole communist movement.”

Dr. J. B. Matthews
The Actor — Alan Stang — pg.80

Dr. Matthews was a investigator who worked with the House committee on un-American activities. As such, the quote is dated.

Still, I would say the thrust of the quote remains true. Much, if not most, of the American clergy has been either saturated in the Marxist paradigm (Cultural Marxism today) or has been coated with a patina of Marxism so that even orthodoxy as it comes from their lips is tainted with Das Capital. From Tim Keller’s retooling of “social justice”

http://www.amazon.com/Generous-Justice-Gods-Grace-Makes/dp/1594486077/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375472793&sr=8-1&keywords=Tim+Keller+social

to Carl Trueman’s British Socialism, to much of the Church’s embrace of illegal immigration and everywhere in between the Church is a hotbed of Cultural Marxism and the clergy are those at the point of the spear of this agenda. Even Churches that insist that the Church must not speak on public square issues create a open door for the success of cultural Marxism in our culture and social order by suggesting, through its silence, that God is not opposed to Cultural Marxism.

Unless one is epistemologically self conscious holding a Biblical Worldview the Church and its clergy are dangerous realities. I think it is fair to say that he who dines with the contemporary Church had best dine with a long spoon.

A good book length treatment of the compromise of the contemporary church is C. Gregg Singer’s “An Unholy Alliance.”

Click to access gsua.pdf

The work is dated, leaving off sometime in the 1970’s but if one reads carefully and one is at all aware of what is going on today in Denominations one can get a feel for where we are at.