Category: Culture

In a recent book by Bill Bishop entitled “The Big Sort,” a new sociological phenomenon has been recorded that has former President Bill Clinton all agog. That newly observed sociological phenomenon recorded by Bishop to the tune of a large profit margin for his book is that (are you ready for this?) people gravitate towards communities in order to live where other like minded people already live.

This is a earth-shattering insight that ranks close to another recent finding of social scientists that hold that men and women really are different.

Recently, in a speech Bill Clinton cited statistics compiled by Bishop that found that in the 1976 presidential election, only 20 percent of the nation’s counties voted for Jimmy Carter or President Ford by more than a 20 percent margin. This stands in contrast to the 48 percent of the nation’s counties in 2004 which voted for John Kerry or President Bush by more than 20 points.

Clinton summarized Bishop’s work in his (no doubt well paid for speech) to a group of Democratic Governors that, “We are sorting ourselves out by choosing to live with people that we agree with.”

It amazes me that this kind of stuff can be take for profound. People like to live in a community of people who share their values. Hmmm … go figure. “Honey, you’ll never believe this. Smart people are saying now that like attracts like. What will they discover next dear?”

There have been those who have been saying and writing for years (I count myself as one of them) that America is not a nation that exists on the basis of a naked creed but rather like all nations, is a nation where a shared creed (faith) walks hand in hand with shared blood ties and shared culture. No successful nation state can survive as a people who are divided creedally, and ethno-culturally and when such division is introduced into a people by means of large scale immigration or government assault on a people’s creedal belief system and cultural expressions there you can expect to find balkanization, where enclaves are developed in order to keep people with a strange creed, a strange tongue and a strange culture out.

Liberal policies over the last 40 years have injected this balkanization and Kulturkampf into this country and now we are supposed to wring our hands that America has these differences that need to be healed? That’s just stupid.

I for one don’t think this balkanization that Clinton laments is accidental. Throughout history whenever Tyrants wanted to increase their grip on their Empires one thing they would do is force repatriation of particular peoples in their Empire to other geographic areas. This would eliminate any social cohesion that might work towards challenging the Tyrants grasp on power. In America the repatriation hasn’t been forced but the effect of untold millions of illegal immigrants combined with the American Government’s 50 year plus assault on Christianity has largely accomplished what tyrants used to seek to accomplish by the forced movements of large people groups. American government, being tyrannical, has sought to break down the social cohesion of this country and having successfully done so now it asks what can be done to heal the breach.

The answer to how the breach will be healed will be for the Government to come in and break up these creedal, ethno-cultural enclaves. Some boneheaded politician somewhere along the line will come up with legislation that forces a certain ideological, religious and ethnic quota for every community. Much like busing in the 70’s, communities will be told they have to have a set percentage of this that or the other. And you can be sure that the end goal of this will be to force Americans who believe in the biblical faith, freedom, family and guns (traditional creedal Americans) to become more like those who believe in paganism, government provided security, the state, and disarmament.

In the end it is not about people wanting to live with people they agree with. In the end it is about not tolerating people who don’t want to be herded by the State to embrace its values.

There has settled upon our Culture ecclesiological and sociological, that which can only be designated as a Strange Madness. This is bizarre in itself since madness is frequently associated with rage or frenzied behavior but in the times that we have been given our madness is perfectly ‘rational,’ and so attended with calmness and certain aplomb extraordinaire. We are not just affected with madness but we are mad and proud of it. Like the Emperor who has no clothes we are impressed with how beautiful our madness wears.

The evidence for madness is ubiquitous. The fact that we can’t or don’t recognize it only testifies that we ourselves have gotten used to the Looney bin of our times and so likewise are infected with madness. Remember, on the island of the insane only the sane are considered insane.Ours is rapidly becoming the island of the insane. In no particular order I enter in the following evidence for the sheer strange madness in which we find ourselves partakers. Madness displays itself in the million plus children our mad culture offers up to our Moloch gods of convenience and affordablity. We have read of our children put through the abortion fires in order to retain a desired comfort level and now smitten by the prevalent strange madness whom of us have wept for both their lost life and our lost innocence and ours?

Every year millions of parents turn their precious 5 year olds over to strangers driving long yellow cylindrical means of transportation crammed full with other disease carrying miscreants of varying ages and dysfunctional backgrounds who are going to introduce their 5 year olds to the most flowery language and the most vile habits. The parents who are involved in this strange madness calmly wave goodbye to their children convinced that they are doing the only sane thing. Only a mad person would think that turning their 5 year old over to perfect strangers would be a sane thing to do. From there their 5 year olds are shipped off to our culturally sophisticated and refined concentration camps euphemistically referred to as schools. There Johnny and Susie will begin the long process of being catechized into a belief system that more often then not is just the opposite of what Johnny and Susie’s folks confess to be true. But the oddness of this doesn’t matter since the strange madness has a firm grip.

Another evidence of the strange madness that has descended on us like a shroud is how we drug our children. Since 1990 the production of Ritalin is up 700% and some studies suggest that as many as 20% of America’s school children are popping Ritalin like an earlier generation of children popped sugar candy from the Pez dispenser. Studies likewise suggest that 3 to 4 times as many little boys are popping pills as their little girl counterparts. Do the math and figure out where that puts the percentage for little boys. Nobody knows for sure what popping Ritalin long-term does to a child and yet here we are pushing pills like they were condoms. Madness I tell you …. only madness accounts for this. Now consider on top of this that none of this snuck up on anybody. We are mad in the face of the warnings of guys like Aldous Huxley who told us all about Ritalin (Soma) over 50 years ago and yet we plunge calmly head first into our madness.

Another piece of evidence is how we have allowed ourselves to be dumbed down. We live among a people who find Dr. Phil to be insightful and who listen to John Tesh who promises to give us “intelligence for our lives.” We have become strangers to all things literary choosing instead to saturate ourselves in “reality TV.” We are captivated and mesmerized by the shallow and vapid speeches of Barack Obama while we feverishly pass e-mails to one another that he wants the old coke song to be our National Anthem. We don’t read books. We don’t listen to lectures. We don’t listen to a piece of music that lasts more then 4 minutes. We are so stupid that we can’t even convince ourselves that killing an alive person in the womb is murder.

More evidence? The one institution that is supposed to be the warning beacon against madness is itself mad beyond healing. The visible Church is mad. While the Church should be raising the prophetic voice against the omnipresent madness she is busy figuring out how to best provide the circuses necessary to keep the madness amused. There was a time when the Church was more interested in exposing the madness instead of making people comfortable in and with it. No more. The Church is more interested in learning the techniques of appealing to madness. The Church surveys groups of mad people to find out what the mad people want and then it gives it to them in spades. What else can this be but madness? The Church has forgotten her Desert God and in her strange madness has introduced a seeker sensitive, user friendly Baal. It is madness I tell you … madness.

More evidence of madness in the Church is the ministerial corps. Ministers are always supposed to be one part desert prophet. They are to be more comfortable in Camel hair shirts then Brooks Brothers suits and their hard diet of locust and honey bespeaks the hard truth they are called to speak. There has always been in them the angularity of the God they serve. Unfortunately though the strange madness that we live in has shattered all that. Ministers are largely one part Madonna, one part Bill Gates, one part “stand up comic”, and one part Joel Osteen. They, of all people, are the best adjusted to the mad times we live in. Where is the weeping prophet pastor? Where is the prophet pastor brokenheartedly pronouncing woe on this madness? Where is the prophet pastor who wears himself out beseeching God in His wrath to remember mercy? I fear that kind of pastor has been amalgamated and castrated by the strange madness. Is he no more?

Madness reigns. Where shall we stop? Is it sane to work six months of the year for the Federal Government to support it in taxation as it actively seeks to destroy the foundations upon which this country was based? Foundations some of us still believe. Is it sane to gather 15 and 16 year old boys and girls into one small classroom and begin to give them the details of sex? Is it sane for Fortune 500 companies to gather their employees together to indoctrinate them with politically correct sensitivity training? Is it sane for the Universities to orient their incoming freshman with radical Feminism and Buggery? Is it sane for Churches to conduct inter-religious faith services so everyone can pray to the same “god”? Is it sane for Christians to support exporting a secular humanism Empire while that same Empire wants to destroy their faith? Is it sane to support political parties and their candidates who by their actions and policies have shown themselves desirous of wanting to destroy Christianity?

No, none of it is sane and yet it is accepted … accepted calmly, and rationally as if it is all the most normal thing in the world and if anybody rises to scream ruddy murder about the strange madness of it all it is that person who is fitted and sized for a straight jacket.

What are we to do? If those of us who see the madness don’t find a way to cope we will ourselves eventually go mad. Even with coping mechanisms though there is no doubt that we will not be able to avoid at least a touch of legitimate madness. Why should anyone expect to retain his or her sanity when constantly exposed to this strange madness? Given the times it would be most unhealthy to stay completely sane. So … What are we to do?

Well we could follow the great satirist of recent times. Men like Mencken, Muggeridge and Chesterton made a living out of skewering the madness they were gifted to see. We could insulate ourselves somewhat from the times by mocking the madness. Secondly, we could view ourselves as moviegoers who are laughing at the incredible irony and unintended satire that permeate our times. By doing so we make it all the madness somewhat objective to us and are able to convince ourselves that like a movie it isn’t really true. I think some of this is necessary in order to cope. If one can’t laugh at the tragedy of it all one will die brokenhearted. Thirdly, we must give God no rest. We must pray and when we are done we must pray more. We must be confident in light of this madness that our God reigns. All of this madness is in one way or another serving His purposes. If I were not confident of that and if I were not confident of His ability to bring Reformation and Awakening I could not avoid genuine honest to goodness madness since it is but a short step from broken heartedness to madness.

Carl Trueman over at Reformation 21 has written an interesting article on the what appears to be an ever increasing matriculation towards the Reformed faith. I recommend reading the article.

However there are some things I don’t get about Dr. Trueman.

First, in the past he has written unkindly about home schoolers and homeschooling. Dr. Trueman refers to this movement mentioned in his article as revival and it might well be that it is revival but I will guarantee that it will be shallow, short lived and ineffectual if it is not accompanied by parents who understand what Christian education is and who thus pursue with all vigor.

Second, Dr. Trueman has, in the past, had some unflattering (actually “mean” would be a better word) words about Dr. R. J. Rushdoony and those who have an appreciation for the man and his work. In the article mentioned above Trueman waxes eloquent on how Dr. Albert Mohler has rescued Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville and yet Trueman has condemned Rushdoony who has done more to rescue Christian education at the secondary level than anybody in the last 100 years. Now I don’t believe in paper saints and the point is not that Rushdoony is beyond criticism but I should think if one is going to do criticism it should be well rounded. Trueman’s criticism of Rushdoony has been anything but well rounded.

Third, in the article above Trueman has this to say about the bubbling revival,

“It is also exciting to realize that this new zeal for solid theology does not always have to be combined with an uptight social and political conservatism that longs for the enlightened days of Genghis Khan’s domestic and foreign policies (hey, he was kind to his grandchildren…..) and the kind of women’s fashions made popular by Little House on the Prairie.

Given the false things that Trueman has said in the past on some issues I would dearly love to know what the man meant by the above blockquoted statement. What does Dr. Trueman consider to be “uptight social and political conservatism?” Where is Dr. Trueman finding the Reformed church being flooded by “women’s fashions made popular by Little House on the Prairie?” (Personally I always thought that Caroline looked kind of hot in those top of the neck to the bottom of the toe dresses.) Now if the “Genghis Khan domestic and foreign policies” that Trueman refers to are things like the Patriot Act or the new Cabinet post of Deutschland Security or the invasion of a country that didn’t have weapons of mass destruction I am right there with him. But I don’t know if he means that so it would be interesting for him to tease out exactly what he means. Dr. Trueman can you elaborate on your statement above and please speak clearly into the microphone so we all can hear you.

Another thing I don’t get is the infatuation I often see with all things Baptist by many Credo Reformed people. One can see it in this article by Trueman. Are Baptists — even Reformed Baptists — wrong? Sure, Reformed Baptist might be better then thorough-going Arminians but have our Credo-Reformed people given up on critiquing them? Does one get to a point in the Reformed Universe where pointed criticisms of Reformed Baptist are considered gauche and in bad taste?

Trueman makes some great points about the problem with Reformed people attending non Reformed Churches. One thing that Dr. Trueman doesn’t note though is how difficult it is for people to find a Reformed Church that is Reformed. The reason that Reformed people might be attending these non Reformed Churches, viewing them as Mission fields, is that there is nothing Reformed within a reasonable distance. It is possible that Dr. Trueman, holed up in his ivory tower, may not realize how bad it is outside of Philadelphia, Escondido, Grand Rapids or other Mecca points of the Reformed Faith. Still, his advice should be carefully heeded by people if there is a Reformed Church for them to attend in the area in which they live that is genuinely Reformed. Labels on the sign don’t get an automatic pass.

Trueman’s criticism of the personality cult is spot on. It is true for mega ministries, even of the orthodox Reformed variety, that people should “follow the money,” and ask if their favorite minister has gone from grinding out the grain to being a Rock Star.

The way that Truman reasons about “sociological phenomena” is curious. I think I know what he is getting at but it almost sounds like he is suggesting that sociology is a independent realm apart from theological influence that can give us insight into people’s social habits. If you read the article and don’t understand what I mean don’t worry about it. My radar might be wired to tightly.

Finally I have to know…

Is Dr. Trueman any relation to Harry? Did Margaret have a love child? Inquiring minds want to know.

In a speech in Zanesville Ohio, Barack Hussein Obama continued to court the evangelical vote by promising increased cooperation from the federal government for faith based initiatives.

Obama noted how he came to realize that he could sit in Church and pray all he wanted he “wouldn’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I went out and did the Lord’s work.” Obama didn’t speak to the question of how it was possible to do “The Lord’s work” with money stolen from the taxpayer in confiscatory taxation and neither did he mention what the Lord would say about a policy that hooks people on the narcotic of government aid thus making them government addicts wedded to supporting big statist government in hopes of continuing to receive their “fix” from the State.

In his speech Obama mentioned several organizations that provide faith based assistance. Obama lauded them for their work but he didn’t mention the danger in these groups taking money from the state. He neglected to mention that “he who take the Kings coin is the kings man.” He didn’t mention the danger of these faith based organizations getting hooked on government aid and what that addiction might mean in way of compromise when the State comes along with directives to the organization if it wants to retain its cash flow from the State.

Obama mentioned that he believed that “change comes not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up” but he didn’t explain how that belief is consistent with his non wavering support of Big government which is a classic “change comes from the top down” kind of belief.

In perhaps the most telling quote of the speech Obama said,

That’s why Washington needs to draw on them. The fact is, the challenges we face today – from saving our planet to ending poverty – are simply too big for government to solve alone. We need all hands on deck.

The reason that this quote is so important is that it begs the question of who is the captain directing “all hands on deck.” This quote seems to imply that faith based organizations are going to be drafted by the Federal Government to aid its attempt to solve what it perceives to be the world’s problem. Government won’t be solving these things alone, but rather Government will enlist the aid of faith based organizations to help it solve these problems together, much as the Government enlists the aid of the private citizen to “help” fund their nanny state projects.

Obama went on to cite how the previous two administration have paved the way to absorbing faith based organizations into the maw of the Leviathan State. He also promised that he would streamline the process to get government aid to faith based organizations so that smaller organizations could more easily get at and suckle from the teat of the State. Obama insisted in his plan that faith based organizations who take advantage of the money that the state has stolen in confiscatory taxation will not be allowed to proselytize (evangelize) people nor will they be allowed not to discriminate against people for religious reasons. Clearly, this means that Christian faith based organizations will not be able to fire people whose beliefs are completely contradictory to their beliefs.

Obama’s plans clearly allow the possibility for gaming the system. Crafty “religionists” could put up front organizations in order to satisfy the requirement for Federal Aid and then funnel that money in different directions allowing a pittance of that money to keep the front organization running.

Obama also proposed using the faith based monies for education mentioning the liberal and socialist “Children’s defense fund” by name. The problem with these schools is the same problem that exists in public schools and that is they are religious committed to Religious Humanism.

Obama mentioned other programs with which his support for “Faith based organizations” could assist. What the reader needs to realize is that all of this is geared for churches or organizations that have bought into the lie of humanist based socialism. What aid to faith based organizations is, is merely a parallel movement to do for “religious organizations” what has been done for “public schools.” A faith based organization that is epistemologically self consciously Christian would never want one dime of this money because they would realize that to take the money is to support the whole socialist apparatus that supports it.

http://www.youtube.com/user/CreativeMinority

It’s not even two minutes long.