Category: Culture

Luke 17:20-21

“And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”

‘The Kingdom of God is within you,’ some one once quoted to Fredrick Maurice. ‘Yes,’ he replied,’ and so is the Kingdom of England.'”

Christianity and the American Commonwealth
Charles B. Galloway

Typically when Luke 17:20-21 is taught what is emphasized is that the Kingdom of God is not a real corporeal Kingdom that exists but rather the Kingdom of God is Spiritual — and so invisible. This teaching comes from the idea that if the Kingdom of God is within one then it must be the case that Jesus is speaking of a non-corporeal Spiritual reality.

But what if the point of Luke 17 is not that the Kingdom is Spiritual, invisible and so doesn’t manifest itself corporeally, but rather what if the point is that the Kingdom of God doesn’t come from the outside in — i.e. “Lo here or, Lo there”? (Which is after all what the Pharisees were looking for.) What if the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation precisely because nobody observes the Kingdom of God coming from the outside in (like some attacking army) when the Kingdom is coming from the inside out as people live out the Kingdom that is within them?

The Kingdom of every potentate is always within the individual and the people who pledge allegiance to that Kingdom. Kingdoms couldn’t exist if that were not true. So when Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God is w/i you,” that doesn’t mean that God’s Spiritual Kingdom is non-corporeal or invisible. What Jesus seems to be getting at in Luke 17 is that the Kingdom of God doesn’t descend upon a people top down and outside in like the Mongol Kingdom descending upon poor hapless Asiatics.

It is precisely because the Kingdom of God is w/i God’s people that God’s Kingdom manifests itself corporeally. Just as it is true that it is precisely because the Kingdom of Satan is w/i the Devil’s people that the Devil’s Kingdom manifests itself corporeally. Those who belong either to God or to the Devil carry within them their respective anti-thesis Kingdoms and because that is so the respective peoples will incarnate those Kingdoms into the cultures they build.

Yes, the Kingdom of God is Spiritual. Yes the Kingdom of God is within. But precisely because it is within God’s people we should expect that Kingdom to manifest itself corporeally among God’s people in the cultures and institutions that they build.

Just as Western Missionaries took the Gospel to Africa in the 19th century, having their respective homeland Kingdoms within them, would often set up little “English” or “American” compounds in the heart of Africa — thus expressing that they had taken their English or American Kingdoms with them (and often confusing those City of Man Kingdoms w/ the Gospel Kingdom itself) — so Christians bearing within themselves the Kingdom of God will always set up Kingdom of God compounds wherever they live out their lives. The Kingdom of God, within God’s people, will always express itself corporeally in the lives they live. If that Kingdom of God does not express itself in the lives of God’s people, in everything they build and touch then the Kingdom of God does not reside within them.

By their fruits you shall know them. If the Kingdom of God is within us, then the fruit of that Kingdom presence within us will be the corporeal manifestation of that Kingdom in the every day lives of God’s people.

Just as political multiculturalism cannot accept absolute religious liberty or absolute religious pluralism (it always excludes those religions that have a standard that measures and excludes political multiculturalism) so political Theonomy cannot accept a absolute religious liberty or absolute religious pluralism. In any culture it is always only a question of which religious expression will be excluded. Every culture excludes faiths and cultures derived from those faiths which cannot abide with their version of cultures pluralism.

When the call for religious, cultural, and behavioral tolerance arises in a culture it is often a smoke screen attempting to mask the rise of different religions, cultures and behaviors that the current predominant culture does not tolerate for a reason. If those calling for what they style as increased tolerance are successful in gaining more tolerance they will eventually, once these promoters of tolerance have gained power, themselves refuse to tolerate the religion, culture and behavior of those that they demanded the right of tolerance to begin with.

Any culture that extends tolerance, as defined by their enemies, to those who are ideologically and theologically opposed to their religion, culture, and commonly accepted patterns of behavior, is a culture that no longer understands its meaning or who it is, and so is a culture destined for defeat by those who are forever whining about tolerance.

This is what has happened in the West. The West lost its cultural self understanding and as such did not teach why it was good, healthy, and vibrant to be Western to its children. No longer having a grip on why Western civilization was superior, the children who were not taught the superiority of Western religion, culture and behavior, were swallowed alive by those who were epistemologically self-conscious regarding their hatred of the West and its civilization. As such the demand for several generations now has been for more tolerance as those who are seeking to destroy the West are using the West’s historic sense of equity to seek and overthrow Western civilization.

Major media outlets and news shows are going hari kari about Arizona’s new immigration law. Once again, as we heard with the Tea-party rallies so we are hearing again now how racist Americans are.

Now understand that Arizona passed this legislation because they have serious problems. The Crime along the border and up to 100 miles inland has skyrocketed. Drug trafficking has leaped exponentially. The pressure on the social safety net (hospitals and schools) is ripping the social safety net in half. If Arizona wanted to continue as a cohesively functioning state with a modicum amount of social stability something had to be done.

Now obviously the charge has arisen that Latinos are going to experience “profiling.” And it is no doubt true that to a certain degree they will. But profiling, whether we like it or not as its place. For example, if a rash of middle-aged white Bald guys start blowing up airplanes, strapping suicide bombs to themselves to blow up market places, and writing “how to” books on how to destroy the West or if suddenly millions of middle-aged bald white guys from Canada become illegal immigrants, it would make perfect sense to start profiling middle aged white bald guys. Further to make it personal, I want everyone one to know that I will not be offended if authorities begin to profile middle aged white Bald guys like me.

Unlike LaRaza, our President and the members of the Pravda media in their little girl shrill reactions concerning racist Americans, if the day ever comes when middle aged white bald guys are drowning the country in illegal immigration with the problems that illegal Latino immigration are bringing I will understand if people’s first reaction to me as a middle aged white bald guy is one of guarded caution. I will understand if responsible parents tell their children to avoid middle aged bald white men. Further, I will not consider you a “BALDIST” if you avoid me.

It simply is the case that profiling is absolutely necessary as a tool to restore social stability. It may be unfortunate but the anger really ought to pointed not at white America who only desires social stability, but it should be pointed at the government that allowed us to get to the place where we have 12-20 million illegal immigrants in our country. If we are in the position where we have to profile it is only because the government failed to do (provide for the general welfare and protect the common defense) what it is supposed to be doing.

Scholars and authors will often speak of our increasingly “secular” culture, but this is a confusing speech habit that does not tell the whole story. Noting the secularization of our culture is only half of the repentance equation that is being played out.

Repentance is a matter of turning from course while turning to another course. When we read of secular culture or how the West is being secularized or of our ongoing secularization what is being noted is only the negative movement of Repentance where something is being turned from. That which is being turned away from, when scholars write of secularization, is the Christianity that has so influenced America since its founding.

There is however a positive movement in this secularization process. The repentance we are experiencing in secularization is not only a turning away from Christianity but also a turning to and a movement towards pagan belief systems (various expressions of humanism). Not only are we becoming more secular we are also becoming more anti-Christ.

To speak of our secularization without also speaking of our secularization thus is significantly misleading if only because it suggests that Christianity is being moved away from to a realm that is not identified by some kind of faith expression. Whenever you read of the “secularization” of the West you should insert the word “paganism” along with it. It is not just that the West is becoming more secular but it is also that the West is becoming more secular because it is becoming more pagan. In turning from its Christian roots it is turning to and planting roots in a pagan faith system.

Religious Secularism Begins To Awaken To Its Peril

Wherein the religious fundamental Secularists realize the only way they can defeat fundamental Religions is to become more self-consciously religious and fundamentalist complete w/ a Missionary sense..

Fascinating article.

http://newhumanist.org.uk/2267/battle-of-the-babies

Teaser —

“I ask him what he thinks we should be doing about the rise of religious fundamentalism that threatens to swamp liberal enlightenment Secularism…

“It may be necessary for secular people to have slightly more children but it would be nicer if we could get fundamentalists to have fewer children.” A strangely authoritarian notion to fall from the lips of a self-confessed liberal. “Yes,” he admits, “imposing restrictions would be condemned as discriminatory. But there are carrots as well as sticks….

Another scenario he imagines in his conclusion is that secularism might start to do a better job of winning over the children of religious fundamentalism. But at the moment he sees no statistical sign of this, and he seems gloomy about the prospect. Why? “Part of my argument is that religion does provide that enchantment, that meaning and emotion, and in our current moment we lack that. This is the challenge for secularism: can it come up with such an ideology?”

To my mind this looks a worrying prospect. Counter religion by producing a new kind of secular enchantment? Doesn’t it also betray a lack of conviction about the values that underpin our current society and the appeal they might hold for anyone who comes into contact with them? In a review of Christopher Caldwell’s book on European migration, which made similar warnings to Kaufmann’s, Kenan Malik undercuts the scaremongering that so often accompanies discussion of demography by suggesting that we already have a powerful weapon against the trends, if only we could see it. “What has eroded,” he argues, “is faith in the idea that it is possible to win peoples of different backgrounds to a common set of secular, humanist, enlightened values. And that is the real problem: not immigration, nor Muslim immigration, but the lack of conviction in a progressive, secular, humanist project.”

What Kaufmann and Malik are certainly in accord on is the need to displace the multicultural “celebration of difference” model of toleration with one that contains a far more robust sense of common values and a far more stringent rejection of reactionary fundamentalism. “We need a stronger sense of liberal values,” Kaufmann told me. “We should answer back to all fundamentalisms.”

Romans 13 And The Subjection Of the State to God

Here is a link where Rushdoony does a bang up job looking at Romans 13. RJR is seeking to correct the current Christian notion that the State is to be given absolute allegiance.

http://www.chalcedon.edu/blog/2007/08/rushdoony-on-romans-13.php

Teaser –

“It should be apparent by now that Paul not only places civil government under God, but he implicitly and surely requires that civil government comply with God’s law. This is clear from Paul’s references to civil government: it is “ordained of God,” as are all things, and, like everything else in the universe, must serve God. This same verse 1 also requires everyone to be “subject unto the higher powers.” Both words, ordained and subject, have reference to a God-established order, and both every man and every ruler are placed under that order with a duty to comply to it. The declaration by “Peter and the other apostles” that “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29) applies equally to the subject and the ruler, to the state and to the citizen. There are no exemptions from God’s law.”