Category: Culture

I am the Lord thy God who delivers you from all your inconveniences, from trusting in all the lesser gods

Thou shalt not have any other gods who compete with my sway or say in your public life

Interpretation — I, the State, am the God of the gods and by my priests and by my cult I determine what shall happen in the public square in terms of Health, Education and Welfare of my people. Any of my people who insist that their private God or gods can challenge me or my fiat word in the public square will be cut off from the my provision. Biblical Christianity is thus criminalized.

“Thou shalt make for thyself only the graven images that speak of me.”

Interpretation — In the public square the God State will declare the graven images. Only images like Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and other visionaries who advanced the State agenda will be honored in the Public square. No Image of any other God that demands a obedience that is higher than the obedience required by the State will be found in the public square. Biblical Christianity is thus criminalized.

“Thou shalt not take the name of whatever I declare Holy in vain for the Lord thy God will charge thee with hate crimes if you take the name of that thing in vain that I have set aside as holy.”

Interpretation — I am the State, and whatever I, as the state sets apart as holy, shall not be glibly invoked or cursed. Biblical Christianity is thus criminalized because Biblical Christianity routinely takes in vain all that the State sets apart as holy.

“Remember the Wealth and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh day is another Wealth day. In it you shall do your regular work so that I may excise from you all I need to keep you enslaved to working without rest and to keep you from thinking upon a God who does offer rest.”

Interpretation — Man was made to work for the State and this includes every waking moment.

“Honor thy Mother and Father by forgetting them so that it may go well in the land that I, the State am giving you.”

Interpretation — As the State is the only familial and communal reality, the worshipers who belong to the state will identify themselves against the State and not against lesser communal organization such as, what used to be called, “the family.” Parents have only the right to raise their children to be cogs in the machinery of society that the State builds. Home is to be nothing more but a bed and breakfast routine. Children are to be divided from family by school and by television when they are at home. Biblical Christianity is thus criminalized.

“Thou Shalt Not Murder …. except all those I say are useless eaters or who are living lives not worthy of life.”

Interpretation — The unborn, the aged, and the enemies who stand in the way of my “spreading of Democracy” all must be put to death. Biblical Christianity is thus criminalized.

“Thou shalt hump like dogs, breed like rats, and mate like Bees.”

Interpretation — Since all sense of individual and personal ownership and responsibility must be broken down in order that the State may be all in all in everything, all sexual mores that bespeak a standard above and outside of the State must be broken down and trammeled under foot. As such, all sexuality that promotes anarchic chaos must be pursued so that the State can be seen as the God who creates “order” on this personal chaos. Biblical Christianity is thus criminalized.

“Thou shalt not call anything the state does ‘Stealing.'”

Interpretation — As the citizen “lives, and moves, and has his being in the State,” the citizen may not have any individual claim to something as uniquely theirs. The notion of individual private property is destroyed. The destruction of individual private property shall be pursued by redistribution schemes. Biblical Christianity is thus criminalized.

“Thou shalt not bear false witness”

Interpretation — Bearing false witness is defined as speaking in such a way that would communicate that one believes in absolute truth. Only the notion of absolute truth is “false witness.” False witness can be avoided by affirming humanist and positivist understandings of truth. Truth is relative to whatever advances the social engineering goals of the state. Biblical Christianity is thus criminalized.

“Thou shalt use the state to get what you covet”

Interpretation — The State is Jehovah Jireh — the god who provides. As such you shall use the state to achieve your covetous desires. If you covet sloth you shall use the State to provide that sloth by taking 99 weeks of unemployment. If you covet money you shall use the State to get more money by having babies out of wedlock. If you covet global expansion of your company you shall use the State to take money from the citizenry to pay for your corporate welfare. If you covet not having any competition as a businessman you shall use the state to provide for you the ruination of your competition as you give kickbacks so that the State can legislate your competition out of existence. If you covet health you shall use the state to rob Doctors and Hospitals their just wage so that you can have “free” health care. Biblical Christianity is thus criminalized.

There are those among us who insist that currently we are suffering under “soft tyranny.” I take those who speak this way to mean that the tyranny that we are currently experiencing is not of the overt kind that one reads about when one reads of the Soviet Show trials, or when one reads about the German Einsatzgruppen, or when one reads about the Killing fields of Cambodia. Instead, what the phrase “soft tyranny” is supposed to communicate is the incremental tyranny that can be likened to being suffocated by a pillow as opposed to being suffocated by the butt end of a M-16.

I understand the metaphor of “soft tyranny” but I think it is time that we give it up for something harsher to describe what we are currently being subjected to in this country. We are long past the gentle coastal regions of “soft tyranny” that was in place when Woodrow Wilson and FDR were the Tyrants in Chief. Today we are well into the rugged highlands of tyranny and we really must altar our language to reflect that. Fortunately, for us, our history provides us with nomenclature that can be dusted off and used again to describe what we are currently living under and to which we are now subjected.

In our Declaration of Independence our forefathers complained of “absolute Despotism,” and “Absolute tyranny.” So, in the Spirit of 1776 I submit that we lose the “soft tyranny” language and begin to speak again like our Fathers and speak of absolute Despotism and Absolute tyranny. After all, there really is nothing “soft” about this totalitarian regime with which we are contending.

Can the tyranny we are currently living under, really only be referred to as “soft” when there is obviously a concerted attempt to destroy the dollar with all our bailouts and now with the news of “QE2.” Should the tyrannical attempt to hyper-inflate the dollar, be visited only with the sobriquet “soft?” I assure you, Dear reader, should the Feds be successful in hyper-inflating the Dollar you will not call the results, “soft.” No, only the descriptor of “absolute Despotism” will do.

Can the tyranny we are currently living under, really only be referred to as “soft” when one listens to Economic Nobel Prize winning Democrats who have the President’s ear say we will only be serious about budgetary reform when we create death panels and submit to a Value added tax? Such, policy, if achieved, would take us even beyond absolute Despotism to Stalinesque Tyranny.

Can the tyranny we are currently living under, really only be referred to as “soft” when one reads of legislation that is being moved that will restrict our ability to grow our own garden produce and own our own garden seed? What else but “absolute Despotism” can this be called? There is nothing “soft” in the tyranny that would find the State preventing people from tilling their ground and raising their food.

Can the tyranny we are currently living under, really only be referred to as “soft” when the American version of Dr. Josef Mengele is appointed as the man who will head our brand spanking new Health Control centers? Dr. Donald Berwick is a man who doesn’t think that individuals are competent enough to determine what health care they should have and insists that the State must regulate your health care,

“Today, this isolated relationship (between doctor and patient) is no longer tenable or possible… Traditional medical ethics, based on the doctor- patient dyad must be reformulated to fit the new mold of the delivery of health care…Regulation must evolve. Regulating for improved medical care involves designing appropriate rules with authority… Health care is being rationalized through critical pathways and guidelines. The primary function of regulation in health care, especially as it affects the quality of medical care, is to constrain decentralized decision making.”

Now there is a good deal of mumbo jumbo in that quote, but the gist of it is, “The medical decisions process that used to be made by you and your Doctor is passe and as such a government official is going to be part of the decision making matrix in terms of your health care … for your own good of course. These government officials, who are involved for your own good in the decision making process of your health, will have rules that you and your doctor will be forced to abide by (for everyone’s good of course). These rules will make it so that decentralized decision making (code language for you, the patient) will be constrained (code language for “you will be forced to do what we say is good for you.”) This is absolute Despotism my friends and the word “soft” blushes to be used to describe the tyranny that is described above.

Can the tyranny we are currently living under, really only be referred to as “soft” when one is forced to surrender their fourth amendment safety when they go to an Airport in order to visit Gradpa and Grandma for holiday? Is it really only “soft” tyranny when you’re getting gang banged by the state as the “I’d feel up my Sister for a paycheck” TSA, in their muted gestapo uniforms, twist your breasts and power stroke your genitalia? I’m thinking only “absolute Despotism” fits when we are talking about State sanctioned sexual assault.

Can the tyranny we are currently living under, really only be referred to as “soft” when it is clear that what the man who is called the “President” intends to do is to achieve by bureaucratic slight of hand what he couldn’t attain via legislation in terms of cap and tax? Is it only “soft” when the intent of such tyranny is to drive the coal industry out of business? Is it only “soft” when the intent of such tyranny will drive food prices through the ceiling and impoverish Americans? Is it only “soft” when the intent of such legislation will result in brownouts across America? There is nothing “soft” about such designs. This is nothing but what our founders styled “absolute Despotism … absolute tyranny.”

We could go on and on but already we have demonstrated that “soft” tyranny is just to soft of a title for what we are living under. All of this is an attempt at the undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. This is absolute tyranny and those who will not resist absolute tyranny deserve to eventually fall into Stalinesque tyranny.

Surely, no one would argue that all these expressions of absolute tyranny are anything but the result of prearranged efforts. When we see a lot of framed timbers of usurpation, of different proportions, which we know have been laid at different times and by different tyrants, and when we see these framed timbers of usurpation joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of the house of absolute Despotism, — every previous usurpation fitting exactly with the usurpation that preceded it and not a necessary usurpation missing and not a extra usurpation to be had — then we know we are well past the exit called soft tyranny and are entering into the city called absolute tyranny and absolute Despotism.

My friends, war is being made upon the citizenry of this country. Now, it can be a war where the causalities are only on the side of the citizenry or it can be a war that finds the Despots making war visited with a resistance that they find disconcerting.

What accounts for cultural commonality between pagans and Christians in a given culture existing alongside the fundamental antithesis that the Bible teaches is between Christians and pagans?

Some posit the answer of Natural law. Natural law, so it is claimed, can be accessed by pagans and so allows pagans to operate with a proper sense of ought-ness to civil realm realities. However, such an answer misses the reality that Natural law, while being something that genuinely exists, can not be read aright except that Special revelation be, at some level, assumed. The pagan may get some things right and some might even credit that getting of some things right to Natural law, but the thing to remember is that those who want to credit that the pagan gets civil things right can’t account for how it is that a pagan who is beginning with autonomous self as their ultimate beginning point can get things right via Natural law.

The answer for the issue of commonality existing alongside the idea of the biblical antithesis is that both that the pagans have not yet worked out the implications of their Christ hating worldview — retaining yet stolen capital from the Christians worldview in their worldview — AND the Christian likewise has not yet worked out the implications of their Christ honoring worldview, retaining yet impurity in their thinking that allows accommodation and commonality with their pagan neighbor on matters that they ought not to be accommodating upon and where no commonality should exist. As time goes by and as people (Christians and pagans alike) work out the implications of their respective worldviews the result will be that the commonality decreases as the antithesis increases.

The fact that commonality exists is accounted for, not by Natural law, but rather by both Christians and pagans living together in the twilight of their inconsistencies.

“…[W]hen the mother shall have found another sphere than her home for her energies; when she shall have exchanged the sweet charities of domestic love and sympathy for the fierce passions of the hustings [politics]; when families shall be disrupted at the caprice of either party, and the children scattered as foundlings from their hearthstone, it requires no wisdom to see that a race of sons will be reared nearer akin to devils than to men. In the hands of such a bastard progeny, without discipline, without homes, without a God, the last remains of social order will speedily perish, and society will be overwhelmed in savage anarchy.…[T]he very traits which fit her to be the angel of a virtuous home unfit her to meet the agitations of political life, even as safely as does the more rugged man. The hot glare of publicity and passion will speedily deflower her delicacy and sweetness. Those temptations, which her Maker did not form her to bear, will debauch her heart, developing a character as much more repulsive than that of the debauched man as the fall has been greater. The politicating woman, unsexed and denaturalized, shorn of the true glory of her femininity, will appear to men as a feeble hybrid manikin dwarf, with all the defects and none of the strength of the male. Instead of being the dear object of his chivalrous affection, she becomes his importunate rival, despised without being feared!”

R. L. Dabney — 19th Century Reformed Theologian
Women’s Rights

From Dabney’s words we see that the Feminist movement, that has so sold itself as the champion of Women and the protector and keeper of all things female, is, in point of fact, a movement that is concerned with destroying women and with putting them in bondage.

There is a great deal that is done today in the name of “respecting women” which is merely a cover for degrading women. Giving just one example women are not esteemed and are only brought low when they people insist that they are equal to men in the sense of being the same as men. Women are not the same as men and any argument that argues of the equality of women that is really arguing for the sameness of women is an argument that degrades women.

Note also the point of the Dabney quote where he suggests that the degradation of women leads inevitably to the degradation of men. Women who are taught that they are the same as men yield men who believe that they are no different from women. At this point sexual identity is completely comprised and the social order perishes.

“Even though Kuyper and Schilder begin w/ Jesus Christ when they speak of culture, they have different views of his significance for culture. Kuyper sees Jesus Christ as savior who pours out his special grace into Greek-Roman culture, that is to say, Jesus Christ is the savior of culture. But Schilder sees Jesus Christ as the Savior of man. He works salvation in many. This work includes making disobedient people into people who serve God again in their cultural work.”

~ N. H. Gootjes
Always Obedient; Essays on the teaching of Dr. Klass Schilder — pg. 39, 40, 41

It is interesting that despite all the Kuyper did for worldview thinking he did not believe that such a thing as Christian culture existed. Kuyper saw the whole idea of culture as anthropocentric and he wanted to think theocentric so he preferred to use the term “common grace” in reference to civilizational development. So, Kuyper refused the concept of Christian culture preferring instead to speak instead of Western culture influenced by Christianity. So it appears that for Kuyper differing cultures are static realities that can be developed by more or less common grace.

Schilder, on the other hand takes a more bottom up approach. Cultures are not entirely static realities that can be influenced by larger or smaller measures of common grace but rather they can be Christian as a tipping point is reached in a given culture by the work of special grace visiting increasing number of individuals. For Schilder Christians can be Christian and when they are not Christian it is the consequence of the work of redemption being left undone among people groups.

In summary, Kuyper sees the Kingship of Christ influencing cultures through common grace as Christianity visits and influences various already developed cultural instantiations. Schilder sees culture as the outgrowth of people who are either Redeemed or un-Redeemed. If Redemption visits individuals in large enough measures then whole cultures are not merely influenced by Christianity but can be legitimately referred to as “Christian culture.”