Category: Culture

The will, the values, even the faith that has sustained and ordered what we have known of civilization in the era of the Protestant ethic has come to an end. The polymorphous dispensation has arrived, and we know it when men dress as children, and women dress as men. We know it when we reach for a familiar object with a familiar brand but find upon inspection of the small print that is ‘made in China.'”

James O. Tate
Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be — Arriving at Indistinction
Chronicles April Issue pg. — 18

The one guiding star of the Revolutionary West (starting with the fall of the Bastille and continuing on through the countless revolutions that it has inspired) is the pursuit of equality and hence the elimination of distinctions. Most cheered when the distinction between slave and master was erased, chattering on how uncivil such an arrangement was, but now having given egalitarianism its head it demands further erasures. Women can be as ‘Butch’ as any man and men can be as caring and sensitive as any woman. Why recently the news cycle is all agog over the fact that a ‘man’ is pregnant, (though, I can’t seem to understand all the excitement over a being who has female sex organs being pregnant), while Hollywood continues to give us a stream of Movies that have women in roles playing the tough cop or Military commander. Viewing children as belonging to their parents is hardly treating them as equals with their parents and so movements are launched for ‘child rights.’ Cultures may be distinct (for now) but they all must be considered equal in value. My money has it that even cultures are going to eventually be thrown into the great egalitarian blender so that even in culture we will all arrive at a lack of distinction.

Perhaps the place where Tate’s lack of distinction is seen most clearly is in American Pulpits throughout the country. The French have a bit of a maxim about gender, claiming that there are three genders — Men, Women, and

Clergy.

It’s funny because it is so close to the truth. Clergy more then any other career perhaps has reached the apex in the age of polymorphism. The reality of that is seen in how difficult it is to imagine a testosterone heavy, gun loving, Patrick Henry anti-government proclaiming, pro-spanking, former Navy SEAL Commando in a pulpit week in and week out. Our mental picture of Clergy is more typically someone who is soft spoken, vulnerable, effeminate, polite and generally nice. Polymorphism has prevailed in the pulpit, and the ministry has become the poster child for the age of indistinction.

So pull out a indistinct weak beer, invite your local clergy and engage in some colorless conversation and have a drink to blandness, indistinction and polymorphism — the new Three horses of the Apocalypse.

I’ve been pretty sick the past few days, and it may be that I am still suffering from fever induced delirium, but I woke up this Lord’s Day morning with ‘transformation’ on my mind. The Church’s drive for cultural transformation is quickly becoming the generational hobby horse du jour. It seems that large swaths of the Church wants to be part of bringing transformation to our culture. Many want to follow ministerial Hollywood types like Rick Warren who could say,

“I am praying for a second reformation of the church that will focus more on deeds than words. The first Reformation was about beliefs. This one needs to be about behavior. … We’ve had a Reformation; what we need now is a transformation.”

Obviously, Rick Warren is no theologian since change in behavior never comes without a prior change in belief. Also, Rick is no church historian if he believes that the Reformation only brought about a change in belief and not a change in behavior.

Still, despite Rick’s vacuous utterances, I am a believer in the Church’s role in cultural transformation. I believe that the church and the culture will be transformed as the Church teaches what its beliefs are. I believe that ‘as goes the Church so goes the culture,’ or ‘the Church is the leading cultural indicator.’ The problem the Church has though is that it must realize that not all cultural transformations are equally valid. The agenda for cultural transformation is one that is shared by almost all ideologies and psuedo-Churches. The Marxists, cultural marxists, feminists, homosexuals, globalists, the religious right, the religious left, libertarians, communitarians, all desire cultural transformation, and all work towards that end. Now as most expressions of the Church have become captive to the reigning ideologies of the moment what ends up happening is that many Churches put a candy coating of spiritual Jesus talk over their approaches to cultural transformation and call that Biblical transformation, and then pursue their pagan transformation agenda claiming that they have the authority from Jesus in their pursuits.

This is why Churches must know what they believe and why they believe it and what they don’t believe and why they don’t believe it. Pastor’s and Elders, being grounded in Scripture, must have the ability to critically examine the theological foundation upon which all cultural movements are based. If they fail to have the capacity to distinguish correctly they will inevitably seek to transform in a anti-Christ direction, all in the name of a foreign Jesus.

So, the first hazard in the Church’s role in cultural transformation is that the Church may start transforming, in a well intended but naive manner, on the basis of the doctrine of demons and not on the basis of the doctrines of Christ.

Perhaps, because of the prevalence of this first hazard a second hazard has arisen in the bowels of the Church. This second hazard seeks to eliminate the problem of the Church grabbing on to the wrong transformation agendas by insisting that the Church isn’t called to the work of transformation at all. M. Scott Horton, for example, can write,

“There is no call to cultural transformation in the New Testament. Yet if Christian churches are fulfilling their specific mandate and believers are being built up in the faith and practice through the Word, we can expect to see distinctive effects in the culture.”

One wonders what the difference is between cultural transformation and seeing ‘distinctive effects in the culture?’ Does Mike believe that it is acceptable for the Church to bring ‘distinctive effects in the culture’ as long as those distinctive effects don’t transform culture? The problem though is that any ‘distinctive effect’ that alters something in the culture that wouldn’t have been altered without that Church inspired ‘distinctive effect’ is transformation.

It seems at some level Mike understands that it is impossible for the Church not to be a transforming agent. Paradoxically enough, even if the Church were to succeed at not being a transforming agent it would at that very moment be transforming the culture if only because its refusal to bring its theology to bear on the culture would allow other theologies to gain positions of transformational ascendancy. A church that retreats from seeking to transform the culture is actively involved in transforming the culture in a non-Christian direction, if only because a theology that teaches transformational neglect allows room for pagan theologies that inspire pagan transformation.

So, what we have established so far is that church inspired cultural transformation is an inescapable category and that many Churches are transforming in a non-Christian direction, all the while claiming Jesus are their inspiration.

“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and then bid the geldings to be fruitful.”

C.S. Lewis

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=69323

Why should anybody be surprised by this? I would be surprised if it didn’t happen.

We make girls without scruples and expect of them virtue and modesty. We laugh at sexual propriety and are shocked to find teenage whores in our midsts. We morally lobotomize and then bid little girls to be morally thoughtful.

Secondly, you have got to know if it is going on in Dallas it is going on all over the place.

Look, we communicate in our government churches (schools)

1.)That sex is no big deal

2.)That if education has a primary purpose its primary purpose is to make money.

These girls were just being consistent with the presuppositions that they were taught in school as reinforced by our culture.

What I don’t understand is why the sheriff is so mystified.

It seems that the machine continues to try and justify the words of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Most recently what is being attempted is trying to equate the words of Wright with the words of well known orthodox ministers, such as Francis Schaeffer. What is hope to be accomplished is not only that Wright’s words will be seen as justified but also that orthodox ministers will be seen as extremist as Wright.

Unfortunately, it is Franky Schaeffer that is leading the charge against his own dead father’s memory. In a column written yesterday Franky wrote that,

When my late father — Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer — denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.

Franky seems to forget that not all denouncements are equal. Francis Schaeffer’s denouncements were against those matters which Scripture denounces, and Franky’s Dad didn’t suggest that the sins of this country belonged uniquely to any one people group. Wright on the other hand denounced a country and a people that in the last 50 years has bent over backwards to accommodate black sensibilities — to the great harm of black and white people alike. The accommodation of which we speak has come in the form of Welfare, Quotas, Family, and Education policy and legislation and has only made muckier the mire that many black people are stuck in while at the same time impoverishing a nation while creating a new plantation massa class in governmental politicians and bureaucrats to which blacks and whites are both enslaved. Franky apparently remains too bitter towards his father and towards what his father built in order to see that not all denunciations are created equal.

Franky goes on with his immoral moral equivalence argument,

Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers (following in my father’s footsteps) rail against America’s sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the “murder of the unborn,” has become “Sodom” by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say, as my dad often did, that we are, “under the judgment of God.” They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. By comparison Obama’s minister’s shouted “controversial” comments were mild. All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton.

America should be condemned for what Franky notes above. Wright fault wasn’t in saying God D*&% America. Wright’s fault is that his purported evidence couldn’t carry the weight of his indictment. Wright also made blanket bigoted statements against white people as a whole — something that his father never did regarding any people group. Wright’s comments weren’t mild because Wright’s comments, unlike Franky’s fathers, missed the mark. 1.3 million aborted children annually confirm America’s indictment. Nobody can confirm that the American government infected black people with AIDS per Wright’s indictment. If any minister is going to say that ‘we are under the judgment of God’ he better have his facts straight. Wright didn’t.

Finally, on this score, Wright made it clear on the video clip that he wasn’t going to sing God Bless America because “uh uh uh, God D*&^ America,” suggesting that his congregants would be better served singing that refrain. There are few people that are harder on the sins of this nation then myself but I sing ‘God Bless America’ with passion because it is my desire that God would bless America. I don’t want God to D*&% America though I know a just God eventually will unless we repent.

Franky, you’re comparing apples and mosquito bites.

Franky continues quoting from His Father’s book, “A Christian Manifesto” — a book that every thoughtful Christian should read,

If there is a legitimate reason for the use of force [against the US government]… then at a certain point force is justifiable….

In the United States the materialistic, humanistic world view is being taught exclusively in most state schools… There is an obvious parallel between this and the situation in Russia [the USSR]. And we really must not be blind to the fact that indeed in the public schools in the United States all religious influence is as forcibly forbidden as in the Soviet Union….

There does come a time when force, even physical force, is appropriate… A true Christian in Hitler’s Germany and in the occupied countries should have defied the false and counterfeit state. This brings us to a current issue that is crucial for the future of the church in the United States, the issue of abortion… It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is contrary to God’s law it abrogates it’s authority. And our loyalty to the God who gave this law then requires that we make the appropriate response in that situation…

Again, Franky wants us to believe that this language is at least as bad, if not worst then what Rev. Jeremiah Wright said. But consider that Dr. Schaeffer’s diagnosis was accurate, whereas Rev. Wright’s comments were not accurate. The reason that Wright has incensed so many people is not because he is a black man and people are showing their racism by having a different standard for him then what was applied to Francis Schaeffer. The reason that Wright has incensed so many people is that the reasons that he is giving for his indictment is either old news that no longer is the current coin(Tuskegee experiments, Jim Crow) or is just plain loopy (Government infecting black population with AIDS).

Franky complains that a double standard is also seen in the Wright case in the response each has generated. Franky says his dad was wined and dined by the Republican political establishment when he gave his sermons while quite to the contrary Wright is being vilified. Franky complains that while his dad was embraced the outcry is for Wright to be denounced. The answer to that though is easy to see. What Dr. Schaeffer was saying resonated with people. People could see that a tectonic cultural shift had taken place and they sensed that Dr. Schaeffer had his finger on the pulse of the reasons behind that shift. Rev. Jeremiah Wright on the other hand is in lala land with his accusations. They bear no correspondence to reality. It is the difference between embracing a physician who rightly diagnosis gangrene in the right leg of a sick man, calling for it to be cut off, and repudiating a physician for wrongly diagnosing gangrene in the left leg of a sick man, when in point of fact it is the right arm that is gangrenous. There is no moral equivalence between Franky’s Dad and Rev. Wright, nor is there any double standard between those who heaped accolades upon physician Schaeffer while repudiating physician Wright.

Continuing with Franky,

Take Dad’s words and put them in the mouth of Obama’s preacher (or in the mouth of any black American preacher) and people would be accusing that preacher of treason. Yet when we of the white Religious Right denounced America white conservative Americans and top political leaders, called our words “godly” and “prophetic” and a “call to repentance.”

I don’t believe this is true. Speaking only for myself if you took the exact same words of Dr. Francis Schaeffer and put them in the mouth of an inner city Black minister I would be sending checks to his ministry. Franky’s words reveal that not only does he harbor hatred for his immediate family but also that he harbors hatred for his people in general.

I am saddened for Francis that his son has made an argument that suggests that his dad was no better or worse then Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

“The Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy.”

Representative Christopher Shays — Connecticut

Given the way that Bush has invoked God in a recurring fashion during his presidency one can hardly fault people for connecting the Republican Party with Theocracy. In point of fact I couldn’t agree more with Rep. Shays. The difference between myself and Rep. Shays, I would guess, is that Rep. Shays thinks that theocracy in the Republican party as it governs is a bad thing that can be avoided while I think that theocracy in all political party’s which desire to govern is a inevitable and unavoidable thing that is good or bad depending on which God (Theo) the government or power (cracy) is serving.

As I have said ad nauseum all political arrangements are Theocracies. The trick is always being able to identify the god or gods in the arrangement. President Bush has taken neo-con ideology and has coated it with Jesus talk and has given us a neo-con Theocracy. If Barack Hussein Obama were elected we would get a Theocracy shaped and fashioned by black liberation theology and socialist and neo-liberal political theory, coated with the requisite Jesus talk. If Hillary Clinton were elected we would get a Theocracy shaped and influenced by radical feminist theology and socialist and radical liberal political theory. At least with Hillary I don’t think we will get the Jesus coating.

In many respects this election is being reduced to a battle of the (false)gods vying for supremacy, and the policy pursued will depend which of the representatives of the respected gods is elected. Once one of the gods is elected the consequence will be that his (or her) adherents will get the best government teats to suck on. Another consequence will be that with the rise of a new Theocracy, particularly if a Democrat is elected, the bottom rail will be on top — which is to say that the priests and priestesses of the god who is elected will displace the priests and priestesses of the present god in charge. This will mean that if Obama is elected that Black people, who embrace liberation theology, of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s mindset, will be favored in the Theocratic halls of power and only people who agree that black ‘Louis Farakhan’ type folk should be on top will have influence, while if Hillary is elected, radical feminists will be favored in the Theocratic halls of power, and only people who agree that the God of radical socialist feminists should be on top will have influence. The point to see here is that since these candidates have the views they have because of the Theology they believe — which stems from the God they serve — the consequence of their election will be continued Theocracy.

Now what is interesting is that the media will smell this out in those candidates perceived to be ‘conservative’ while leaving the radical Democratic party theocrats alone on the issue. For example, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee (both really liberals) had this God issue before them all the time. This reveals that the media only sees the danger of Theocracy coming from putatively conservative Christian or putatively conservative psuedo-Christian sources. The media fails to see the Theocracy that either Obama or Hillary would rule over.

Let’s look at Obama for a second. Obama has appealed to the Christian vote, making innuendo that the Christian Right has hijacked the Christian faith and that faith needs to be appealed to again to bring people together. Obama has made appearance in some very large Evangelical Churches in order to speak (Rick Warren’s Church comes to mind.) Further Obama has sprinkled his speeches with Christianese. Obama clearly is influenced by something he is calling Christianity. Now given that this version of Christianity is only a shell that has been infused with the heart of a liberal social gospel, and the lungs of black liberation theology, and the kidneys of socialism, sustained with the convictional flow of blood that white people are evil, one can only wonder why the mainstream media isn’t concerned about the Theocracy that Obama represents.

Now, as I said, Hillary hasn’t coated her campaign with all the Jesus talk that Barack Hussein has but none the less she is still campaigning as a representative of her feminist god. This god, like all gods has a social gospel that it wants to see the government help implement. Hillary and her feminist god for example desire to involve the government ever more deeper into family life as seen in her yet to be denounced earlier efforts to harness the States power to insure that children could divorce their parents. In a 1973 article entitled ‘Children Under The Law,’ Hillary criticized the,

“pretense (that) children’s issues are somehow beyond politics,” and scorned the idea that “families are private, non-political units whose interests subsume those of children

Twenty three years later she could bang that drum again,

“As adults we have to start thinking and believing that there isn’t really any such thing as someone else’s child…for that reason, we cannot permit discussions of children and families to be subverted by political or ideological debate.”

This stance on children serves Hillary’s feminism in the theocratic use of Government to be the universal mother to children that belong to everybody thus freeing women to become the fully realized human beings they can’t become if they don’t make work or career a priority over being a housewife and mother.

Also given other consistent stances it is clear that Hillary’s Theocracy would pursue the non-Christian economics of socialism, yoking mega Corportism with mega Statism.

The over arching point here is that Theocracy is inevitable and unavoidable. Some god or gods will be that which the government is organize around and beholden to. Whether it is B. Hussein Obama or Hillary or McCain, we will continue to have a Theocracy.

Since this is true, isn’t it reasonable for Christians to desire a government that is in some shape, way, and fashion, organized around Christian convictions and beholden to the omni-benevolent God of the Bible? Certainly no Christian government will ever fully manifest all that God’s people will find in the ultimate city of God — a city that God has in store for those that love Him, but just as the fact that our own personal sanctification will never be perfect in this life doesn’t keep us from pursuing that perfection, so the reality that we will never build the perfect Christian city that God has in store for us in the fullness of the eschaton shouldn’t keep us from pursuing that excellence as God gives us strength.

Further, since Theocracy is a inevitable and unavoidable category why should we, as Christians, try to keep thinking that governments can be Theocratically sanitized? Even when Christians promote a putatively benign pluralism we have to see that such a government is headed by a panoply of gods, who in their ruling theocratic consortium, forbid any uniquely singular God to rule. This is the theocracy of polytheism, which, when examined closely, is really a Theocracy where the State rules as God determining how far the competing gods can go in the pluralistic culture that it has created in the name of polytheistic pluralism.

The reason that I close with such thoughts is that the Reformed world continues to have gentlemen like Dr. R. Scott Clark of Westminster West, as seen in a recent Heidleblog entry, who insists that it is possible to have non-theocratic government. To keep insisting such a thing is to keep whistling past the grave yard that such willful ignorance will land us in if we don’t contend for the crown rights of King Jesus in the civil realm. And when this insistence of pluralism continues in the face of exhaustive explanation it is hard to see how such advocacy doesn’t end in treason to King Jesus.