Category: Culture

“It is our duty, as far as lies in our power, immediately to organize human society and all its institutions and organs upon a distinctively Christian basis. Indifference or impartiality here between the law of the kingdom and the law of the world, or of its prince, the devil, is utter treason to the King of Righteousness. The Bible, the great statute-book of the Kingdom, explicitly lays down principles which, when candidly applied, will regulate the action of every human being in all relations. There can be no compromise. The King said, with regard to all descriptions of moral agents in all spheres of activity, “He that is not with me is against me.” If the national life in general is organized upon non-Christian principles, the churches which are embraced within the universal assimilating power of that nation will not long be able to preserve their integrity.

~ A. A. Hodge,
Evangelical Theology, 283-84.

If R2K “theology” is successful one result will be a sense of relief among those who advocate missionary Humanism. The advocates of hegemonic Liberalism are content with a religion that is privatized to the Church realm. Missionary Humanism does not care if the American Church elects itself to privatize the Church’s Christian voice to a realm of Redemption. Shoot, Missionary Humanism is content even if American law does not directly outlaw all private religious speech and exercise for the same reason. In both cases Missionary Humanism understands that the exclusion of Christian theological reference in the broader culture, whether brought about by the self-censorship of the Church or brought about by Legislation forbidding the Christian faith from probing into the public square, works to insulate the public square and civic discourse from a Christian theological frame of reference that, if free to walk in the public square and affect civic discourse, would train the broader community to forswear agnostic mental habits.

Conversely, when the Church self censors itself so that it does not allow itself to speak to the public square, or if the Church would be legislated out of the public square the effect would be to safely train the wider community into a pagan worldview. A second effect of sealing off the voice of the Christian Church from the public square is to create a de-Christianized social eco-system which would lead to the Christian faithful themselves to gradually doubt the objective truth or public relevance of their marginalized Christian beliefs — due to the persistent, subliminal effect of the given a-priori’s of the social eco-system in which they are embedded. If the dominant, persistent social practice of the wider community is anti-Christian the impact inevitably will be to peel away confidence in the Christian faith in private and redemptive realms.

Such a tamed religious community is no longer a threat to the liberal secular order or to the plans of hegemony of Missionary Humanism.

I have a 16 year old American cousin who lives in England I visited with today who is attending one of those English Prep schools that are all the rage among the arts and “ugly culture” crowd. These schools charge exorbitant fees to parents for tuition on the basis of what famous alumni attended in misty days past. As I recall, St. David’s is famous for the fact that former PM Gordon Brown was expelled from St. David’s when he was a tender lad.

As I was conversing with Paul (my cousin), Paul revealed that they did not teach History at St. David ’s choosing instead to go with a more integrative approach where one gets their history in their literature classes as they study certain period pieces of literature. Paul tells me that this method is now all the rage in English Prep schools as history is swallowed by what is being styled as the humanities.

When Paul mentioned the emphasis on literature this caused me to inquire whether or not they were teaching “literary theory,” in these literature classes. He affirmed that they indeed were. Figuring that liberal English prep schools were likely deconstructionist in their literary theory I asked Paul if he had come across names like Ricoeur, Rorty, de Man or Derrida in his class. He did not recognize those names. As such I asked him if he had come across the label of postmodernism for his literary theory. Again that drew a blank from Paul.

So, I tried and third route and just asked him to explain what they were being taught in literary theory. Paul responded by saying that they were being taught that while there may be meaning in the text there is no way that the reader could get back to the meaning of the text. Therefore, the student is taught to discover meaning in the text for themselves. Paul told me stories about how he and some of his peers would mock other students as they went “symbol hunting” in a text in order to come up with the most outlandish possible interpretations of texts.

Currently Paul’s class reading Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” and he noted that it was incredible all the different meanings that “Frankenstein” had as students went on their “symbol hunt.” Because Paul had seen this abuse of the text he had concluded that “Frankenstein” was just a good story. Though Paul conceded that doubtless there were some worldview truths that Shelley was trying to get at in the novel (depravity of man, danger of technology, danger of unbounded knowledge, etc.) he was insistent that it was just a good story.

What Paul was saying is that “Frankenstein” had no deeper meaning then the story itself. My son, who was also there, blurted out, “then you have concluded that the deeper meaning of “Frankenstein” is that it has no deeper meaning. “ Paul, reluctantly conceded that point.

What I found most interesting in the conversation is that when teachers communicate that a text only has the meaning in it that the autonomous reader can find by going on un–anchored symbol hunts the consequence is both that some students conclude that it really can have any meaning while the smart students (like my cousin) realize that if a text can have any meaning then it has no meaning. Perhaps we should call this the Seinfeldian educational method. After all the “Seinfeld Show” sold itself as being a “show about nothing.”

However the Biblical Christian realizes that even if one concludes that a text has no meaning that itself is the meaning that is being attributed to the text. The meaning of a meaningless text is that there is no meaning.

Sadly, Paul had not been trained to think as a Biblical Christian and His older cousin is seen as some kind of extremist Christian quack.

I weep for my cousin as his thinking is being ruined by the spirit of the age. He is effectively being educated into anti-Christ thinking. My tears are kept hot at my rage against those who are chaining a generation in the nether realms of utterly depraved thinking.

http://www.reformedliterature.com/machen-christianity-and-culture.php

I wept for joy over the power and beauty of Machen’s sentiments.

“The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of all connection with Christianity. Christianity must pervade not merely all nations, but also all of human thought. The Christian, therefore, cannot be indifferent to any branch of earnest human endeavor. It must all be brought into some relation to the gospel. It must be studied either in order to be demonstrated as false, or else in order to be made useful in advancing the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom must be advanced not merely extensively, but also intensively. The Church must seek to conquer not merely every man for Christ, but also the whole of man. We are accustomed to encourage ourselves in our discouragements by the thought of the time when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. No less inspiring is the other aspect of that same great consummation. That will also be a time when doubts have disappeared, when every contradiction has been removed, when all of science converges to one great conviction, when all of art is devoted to one great end, when all of human thinking is permeated by the refining, ennobling influence of Jesus, when every thought has been brought into subjection to the obedience of Christ.”

“But by whom is this task of transforming the unwieldy, resisting mass of human thought until it becomes subservient to the gospel–by whom is this task to be accomplished? To some extent, no doubt, by professors in theological seminaries and universities.”

And yet many of our best and brightest theological professors at our seminaries are telling us that in the common realm there should be no expectation that human thought should be subservient to the Gospel because it is not possible for human thought to be subservient to the Gospel in the common realm.

God Help us if the one place that Machen looked to for guidance has now become the place that is telling us that there is no such thing as uniquely and distinctly Christian answers for the resisting mass of human thought in the common realm.

Two of the central fundamental beliefs of all humanistic worldviews (i.e. — socialism, progressivism, marxism, fascism, corportism, etc.) are the inherent goodness of man and the inevitability of progress. When humanists control the levers of power they trust in their own goodness to help along, through social engineering, the inevitable progress to which they are so thoroughly committed. Humanists pursue their belief that given clever social engineering, society and people can be perfected. This pursuit, through legislation is supposedly the path to progress.

All of this also explain why there is an immediate reflex, among the practitioners of humanism, to instantly blame those who resist the humanist vision of the perfectibility of man when the lack of perfection appears in a cataclysmic fashion in society. Humanists reason that the reason or cause for the lack of perfection, as seen in whatever cataclysmic event is being analyzed, must be because non-humanists get in the way of humanism (progressive) vision.

Humanism, believing that their presuppositions could never be in error, always see the explanation for social failure in their opponents, even when the social failure is clearly the consequence of pursuing their humanist social engineering dreams. And quite in keeping with this mental disease, the answer that humanists always answer for the failures of their humanism is more humanism. So, for example, when after decades of humanist social engineering in government schools we have seen disastrous results after disastrous results, the progressive concludes the failure in government schools is due to some remnant of Christianity that has not yet been cleansed from the template being used in the government schools. The new social engineering plan developed to address government school failures includes another large dose of the humanism that has created the problem to begin with.

Another tendency of Humanism is to attribute all behavior that is deemed as wicked or unacceptable to environmental causes. Since Humanism believes that all that is, is matter in motion, there can be no explanation for ill behavior except for environment. Because Humanism (i.e. — Liberals, progressives, socialists, etc.) believe this their every answer to every problem is to improve the environment that was responsible for the unacceptable behavior. We are seeing all of this coming to light in the Tuscon shootings. As one watches the news and reads the analysis one is brought face to face with the constant insistence that this shooting was caused by the negative environment. I’ve read very little analysis that is concerned with holding the shooter responsible and no analysis that attributes the cause, not to environment, but to sin. Instead what I am reading almost everywhere are explanations anchored in non Christian humanist reasoning where the view of the shooter is one where he is totally conditioned by his environment. A Christian looks at this and says, “Loughner is responsible for his sin.” A pagan looks at this and says, “Loughner’s actions have to be explained by his environment. The reasoning goes on to insist that if we change the environment, we no longer will have this kind of behavior. It is Humanism all the way down.

Aren’t you tired of being dragged around by the cultural elites like a Raggedy Ann doll between the teeth of a bit bull? The cultural elites, to change the metaphor already, are playing “Simon” says to the American electorate. Simon says, “wring your hands,” and in good Lemming like fashion the nation wrings its hands. The cultural elite says, “Simon says don’t weep for the unborn,” and like the clones we are we dehumanize the unborn and do not weep for their political assassination.

I’m tired of being told what I must care about and what I must not care about. People are grieving for this killed 9 year old that is anonymous to most of them the way a pervert is horny for an anonymous woman he doesn’t even know who is gracing the pages of his magazine centerfold. This pornography of compassion and suffering, like the pornography of lust, is not about the object upon which their feeling is being poured out upon but is rather all about people making themselves feel good because they have the good housekeeping seal of approved societal feelings.

Of course any normal person is saddened for the families involved. The loss is catastrophic to those families, but having conceded that it is still a more than legitimate observation that the cultural elites have manufactured grief, in order to advance their agenda, for unknown persons. This grief can’t be anything more than superficial because the intimacy connection between the deceased and the 99% of the population is far to distant and removed to be anything more than a superficial. And yet the cultural elites will try to use this manufactured grief in order to force their vision upon the citizenry.

The Cultural elites, creating this pornography of compassion and suffering will use this to continue to limit the liberty of the American citizenry. In selling this cheap grief they will sell with it the approved antidote to make our cheap grief go away. They will guilt the electorate into assuaging their grief at the price of accepting more tyranny, more usurpation and more control. Already, the wheels are spinning in Washington DC for more attacks on the 2nd amendment. Already preparations are being made to push legislation that will make elected official “holy personages” who, will not be allowed to be touched in an unwarranted fashion. If the cultural elites didn’t false flag the incident they certainly are making it serve the advance of their liberty killing agenda.

I can confidently speak this way, concerning the artificiality of it all, because we are currently living in a daily National tragedy of epic proportions. Every day 3000 people are brutally tortured and murdered inside their mother’s wombs. For this daily National tragedy there is no pornography of compassion because the cultural elites are not telling Americans to grieve. And yet with over 50 million dead and buried between 1973 and today the odds that we might know some of the family members of the deceased personally are astronomically higher than the odds that any of us know any of the deceased family members in Arizona.

A Congress-woman was shot in Arizona. She and many other Congressmen who are living have, by their votes, been the trigger for this National Tragedy that occurs daily. Every day the unborn are targeted. Every day there is a bulls eye on the pregnant womb. Everyday the vitriolic language of depersonalization is used upon the unborn.

You want something to go all sackcloth and ashes over? Then weep and wail for the unborn.