Category: Culture

“Natural law theory in both forms (the realism of Natural law organicism and the nominalism of Natural law social contract — BLM) prevented the development of a uniquely biblical social theory. The doctrine of the biblical covenant was missing, since one or more of its five points were denied: (1)the absolute personal sovereignty of God over both nature and human history; (2)the hierarchical authority of all human institutions under God’s limited, delegated sovereignty; (3)Biblical law as authoritative in all civilizations; (4) God’s historical sanctions (blessing and cursing), imposed in terms of his Bible revealed law; and (5) the development of history in response to the imposition of God’s sanctions, though mitigated temporarily by His mercy. Point 1 is called Calvinism; Point two is called representative government; points 3 and 4 are called theonomy; and point 5 is called postmillennialism. They are a package deal. Without all five, it is impossible to construct an exclusively and covenantally faithful biblical social theory.”

Dr. Gary North
Millennialism And Social Theory — pg. 39

Social theory that strives to be Biblical has to be covenantally structured. A Biblical social theory looks to create a social bond among men not in some chain of being reasoning that connects all reality into an organic whole that can then be read by a Natural law mechanism that is reflection of the union of all reality, nor in a social contract theory where the nature of reality is very mechanistically laid out and where natural law becomes the mechanistic equivalent for social order that the other laws of nature are for the operation of the cosmos.

The organic view of Natural law seems to partake in the errors of pantheism where man and God are united by shared being with the result that man can know the mind of God apart from God if only there is some sort of organic union that exists between the two. The social contract view of Natural law seem to partake in the errors of deism where God and His creation are divorced with God leaving behind a Natural law mechanism that functions in much the same way that the independent laws of nature operate. Man does not need special revelation to read this Natural law aright, he merely needs the use of his own right reason.

Each of these view of Natural law theory then incarnate themselves into differing understandings of social theory. Natural law realism produces a social theory organicism that is characterized by chain of being thinking. The metaphor that is often used to describe such societies is that it is a living entity. In this kind of Natural law everything in a social order is living tissue that is inter-connected. Society is viewed as an organism, just as the Cosmos as a whole is.

Natural law nominalism on the other hand produces a social theory that is contractual and is characterized by some kind of pre-historic contract that the ancients entered into that is binding on successive generations because the contract is a reflection of the way things are. According to Gary North,

“In the social contract theory men in the distant past voluntarily transferred their individually held political sovereignty to the State, which now maintains social order. Each social institution is governed by the terms of an original contract, whether mythical or historical.”

Unlike organicism which teaches that there is a unity between the seen and a real unseen realm social contract social theory denies any transcendent metaphysical reality or social unity where the contract on earth is corresponding to a contract in the heavenlies apart from the will of mortals. (Hence the nominalism)

A Biblical social order theory eschews both of these alternatives and opts for a view of social order has one that is kept together by complex system of legal bonds with God as the ultimate enforcer of that complex system.

In this social order arrangement there are four primary covenants, personal, familial, ecclesiastical, and civil.

More anon,

Warren’s prayer was confusion on steroids. Take for example the reference to God as being “Compassionate and Merciful.” Now, certainly the God of the Bible is “Compassionate and Merciful,” but which God of which religion is typically addressed as “the Compassionate and Merciful one?”

You got it …

Allah.

Now combine that insight with the one I mentioned earlier where Warren opens the prayer dwelling on the Unity of God but conveniently stepping aside the issue of the Trinity — the name of God which all Christians are Baptized into — and it begins to look like Warren was fishing for least common denominator God.

Look, Rick Warren is not dumb. None of us are setting here thinking of angles that Rick Warren didn’t think of. There is a purposeful blending going on in this prayer. As I said earlier it is an an attempt to be Christian and pluralist at the same time.

Think of the prayer as a compromise document — the purpose of which is to satisfy everybody who hears it because they are going to interpret it through their grid. In my estimation this is what Warren was reaching for. Evangelicals could hear it through their grid and be satisfied. Pluralists could hear it through their grid and be satisfied.

Look, Rick’s problem, like the problem of legions of Evangelicals today is that he has, consciously or unconsciously come up with a twist on the first and greatest commandment.

‘Please men with every word and deed. Rather, please humanity.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it: ‘To the fullest extent compatible with the first commandment, love the Lord your God with all your soul and with all your mind.’ All the principles of popularity, comfort and satisfaction hang on these two commandments. (Hat Tip — Keith LaMothe)

When you think about it, there really is a kind of twisted brilliance to it all.

One more thing on this score before I close. Recently, I got in on the tail end of a conversation with Dr. John Armstrong on this subject. Armstrong was defending Warren’s attempt as being “Missional” which he assured us was different from “emergent,” or “post-modern.” (Just as Johnny Cake is different from Corn-bread.) Armstrong insisted that Warren’s route is the way we have to go since the hegemony of Christian culture is dead. The idea Armstrong presented was that since Christians are no longer in the drivers seat culturally they must shape their gospel message to that reality.

Now once upon a time that meant that Christians shaped their gospel message to that reality by suffering persecution and martyrdom for the Gospel. But Armstrong’s idea seems to be that the way we shape the gospel message to this new post-Christian reality is by emptying the Gospel of its content. In short we must learn to be comfortable with the back of the cultural bus. John Armstrong said that unless we are willing to do that many of our young people are going to leave our Churches.

Rick Warren and John Armstrong being Evangelical leaders reveals that we are living in some dark times.

“Many Americans fail to recognize the largest abortion provider in America is also the largest recipient of federal taxpayer dollars through Title X.”

US Congressman Mike Pence

Often when I will speak or write on the scourge of abortion comparing our holocaust to the work of Mao, Stalin, or Hitler, someone will inevitably respond that, “the representatives of America government, unlike those other countries, doesn’t directly involve themselves in the killing.” The idea is that we are somehow more righteous than Stalin’s Russia, or Mao’s China, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia because these United States merely allows murder to happen unabated without bloodying their hands in the role as executioner.

It is true that we are much more subtle than murderous regimes that have gone before. We are better at the propaganda, marketing, and indirect sales end of things. The State here doesn’t directly enter into genocide, it merely creates the climate where genocide can be profitably pursued. It gives millions and millions of tax dollars to Planned Parenthood through the title X program. It then pushes sex — lock, stock, and barrel (condemn, pill, and diaphragm) — in the government school curriculum which results in generations of animals posing as human beings which spikes the pregnancy rate which spikes the abortion rate. Our publicly funded Universities then force those who are training to become Doctors to learn to preform abortions.

The way I see it the only difference between Americans in our genocide and the genocides of Russians, Germans, Chinese, and Cambodians who preceded us in genocide is that we are much more smooth and crafty in the way that we practice holocaust.

From StandTrue.com:

20 days: Foundations of brain, spinal cord and nervous system are laid.

24 days: Heart begins to beat.

30 days: Child has grown 10,000 times to 6-7 mm (1/4″) long. Brain has human proportions. Blood flows in veins (but stays separate from mother’s blood).

35 days: Pituitary gland in brain is forming. Mouth, ears and nose are taking shape.

42 days: Skeleton is formed. Brain coordinates movement of muscles and organs. Reflex responses have begun. Penis is forming in boys. (Mother misses second period.)

43 days: Brain waves can be recorded.

8 1/2 weeks: Fingerprints are being engraved. Eyelids and palms of hands are sensitive to touch.

9 weeks: Child will bend fingers around an object placed in the palm. Thumb sucking occurs. Fingernails are now forming.

10 weeks: Body is sensitive to touch. Child squints, swallows, puckers up brow and frowns.

11 weeks: Baby urinates, makes complex facial expressions – even smiles.

12 weeks: Vigorous activity shows distinct individuality. Child can kick, turn feet, curl and fan toes, make a fist, move thumbs, bend wrists, turn head, open mouth and press lips tightly together. Breathing is practiced.

13 weeks: Face is prettier, facial expressions resembling parents’. Movements are graceful, reflexes vigorous. Vocal chords are formed (but without air baby cannot cry). Sex organs are apparent.

4 months: Child can grasp with hands, swim and turn somersaults.

5 months: Sleeping habits appear, but a slammed door will provoke activity. Child responds to sounds in frequencies too high or low for adults to hear.

6 months: Fine hair grows on eye brows & head. Eye-lash fringe appears. Weight is about 640g (22 oz.), height 23 cm (9″). Babies born at this age have survived.

7 months: Eye teeth are present. Eyelids open and close, eyes look around. Hands grip strongly. Mother’s voice is heard and recognized.

——

Hat Tip — Pieter Friedrich

http://www.wjno.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=244038&article=4878923

Combine this with Lowery’s Racist Benediction and it wasn’t a good first day for post-racial America.