Category: FREEDOM’S CRY

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends … Mickey Henry; A Christian Apologetic For Open Carry During Church Worship Services

Mickey Henry is a non de plume of a personal friend of mine who was recently rebuffed by his Church “leadership” for daring to open carry in Church in a state where to do so is legal. This is a letter he wrote to his leadership after being told he may not open carry in his “conservative” Church. Try to keep in mind that there was a time in the history of our country when it was not uncommon for men to carry their weapons to Church. I think that Mickey’s letter is convincing.

——————

Dear Elder Donnie

Since concealed carry is encouraged, we share a lot of common ground concerning self-defense and the errors of pacifism. Suffice to say, armed defense of innocents is simply the application of the positive requirements of the Sixth Commandment. The crux of disagreement, then, is open vs. concealed. Here, in brief, are my arguments for open carry:

1. I am of the strong opinion that open carry acts as a deterrent to violence. Open carry is essentially a clear statement that acts of aggression will be met with strong resistance.

2. To Christ is given all authority; all earthly authority is thus derivative. Because we Christians confess Christ as Lord, submitting to His Law-Word, Christians have a unique responsibility to rule under Christ as His earthly vicegerents. We are, in fact, commanded to do so by the Dominion Mandate. Weapons and related imagery, such as swords, spears, maces, the fasces, halberds, etc., are the customary tokens by which power and authority are symbolized and commonly recognized (the instruments of the death penalty are identified with the authority to execute the death penalty). I open carry as a visible symbol of my submission to Christ’s Law-Word, and my willingness to use the authority He has given me to defend my family and other innocent life.

3. Just as the Gospel is made clear in the symbols and liturgy of the Church, there is a certain visible representation of the Law-Grace dynamic in the open carry of weapons by confessing Christians: grace and mercy to the innocent, justice for those who would transgress His Law.

4. The degenerate culture around us tolerates Christians only if we are weak and impotent. But we are to be standard bearers, a city on a hill, no matter the spirit of the age. I am glad that a number of the men at Redeemer do carry weapons, but open carry makes manifest that ours is a vital faith, and we will not cower or lower ourselves to the popular image of the ineffectual Christian man engendered by the enemies of God.

5. As to scaring away visitors, I humbly submit that this is an expression of the “attractive Gospel” theories of the Kellerite/New Calvinist movement, and is at odds with the historical understanding of Calvinism. A work of God’s grace on His elect is to overcome their sinful aversion to the practical outworking of His Law. Large families, homeschooling, modest dress, infant baptism, all male leadership, advocacy for traditional marriage – these things and others in open view at Redeemer are offensive to the broader culture and even to some of our brethren in other denominations, but we practice them as the people of our Lord and Savior, and depend on the sufficiency of His grace to reach those who visit us. Additionally, this being Texas, I have little doubt that at least some visitors would be attracted by a sign of such vitality.

A Nation Legislated Out Of Existence

The fact that we are no longer a “nation” can be accounted by the invasion, since 1965, of alien peoples from alien cultures. What Americans and the West can’t seem to understand is that this non-European immigration invasion, assured by the 1965 Immigration Act with its opening of the borders to the non-European world, is a colonization and a conquering of this territory once called “these united States.” It is the replacement of the previous people and culture in favor of a differing people and culture. The passage of said legislation was a masterful piece of lying from beginning to end. Sen. Teddy Kennedy, one of the chief sponsors of the Bill promised,

“First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same…

Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset… Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia…

In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think… The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.”

Sen. Teddy Kennedy was a lot of things but stupid was not one of them. Kennedy, along with Sen. Philip Hart, Sen. Jacob Javits, Emanuel Cellar and others could not be so blind as to not know that the Hart-Cellar act would fundamentally transform America from a WASP nation to a Propositional Universal nation.

In this 1965 Act America was certain to cease being a nation, if only because the heart and soul of a nation is its people. The 1965 Immigration Act guaranteed the replacement of the nation’s people and so in principle, killed the American Nation that existed in 1965 in favor of a Universal Propositional Nation that exists now. In the words of Bertolt Brecht, what the Government did in 1965 was to dissolve the people and elect another. 

That Universal Propositional Nation is a failure. The Liberal magic dirt theory that posited that non-Christian Europeans would instantly become Christian Americans simply by setting their foot on American soil has demonstrated instead that Somalian cliterectomies, and Arab “Allahu Akbahr barking,” and the third world sex trafficking doesn’t cease just because new arrivals from non Christian European countries have US soil under their feet.

 

Luther & Knox Concerning Disobedient Magistrates

“The Sword of Justice, Madam, is God’s, and is given to princes and rulers for one end. If they fail in their duty and spare the wicked, then those who intervene and deal out the requisite punishment will not offend God. Nor are those who restrain kings from striking innocent men committing any sin, as numerous Biblical example demonstrate. In Scotland, judges are empowered by Act of Parliament to seek out and punish those who celebrate Mass, and it is your duty, Madam, to support them. Ye should therefore consider what it is that your subjects expect from you, and what it is that ye ought to do unto them by mutual contract. They are bound to obey you and that not but in God. Ye are bound to keep laws unto them. Ye crave of them service: they crave of you protection and defence against wicked doers. Now, Madam, if ye shall deny your duty unto them…think ye to receive full obedience of them? I fear, Madam, ye shall not.”

John Knox
Interview w/ Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots
Teaching us on the proper disposition to Magistrates

_______________

Here is Luther. In fairness, I’m told that Luther had a change of heart after 1530. Still, this provides an interesting contrast.

“Thus one has to suffer the power of a prince. If he misuses his power one should not turn one’s back on him, nor take revenge, nor punish him actively. One has to be obedient to him solely for the sake of God, because he is in God’s place.”

Evangelium am 23
Sonntag nach Trinitas

“Even if the magistrate is wicked and unjust there should be no excuse for rioting or rebellion. For not everybody has the right to punish wickedness; only the secular authorities in the possession of the sword.”

Ermahung zum Frieden auf die 12 Artikel der Bauernschaft in Schwaben

“It is better that the tyrants be a hundred times unjust to the people than that the people inflict one injustice on the tyrants. If there must be injustice it is to be preferred that we suffer from the authorities than that the magistrate suffer from the subjects.”

Ob Kriegsleute auch im seligen Stande sein konnen

“One ought not to resit outrage but rather suffer it; yet one should not approve of it….

“The princes of the world are gods, the common people are Satan, through whom God sometimes accomplishes what He would otherwise accomplish through Satan, namely rebellions, as punishment for wicked men.”

Von weltlicher Obeerkeit wie weit man ihr Gehorsam schuldig sei

“The donkey wants to be beaten and the mob wants to be ruled by force; God knew this well. This is the reason He gave the sword into the hands of the magistrate and not a foxtail.”

_________

500 years later Christians continue to debate whether the Luther approach or the Knox approach is more God honoring. For reasons already set out on Iron Ink I clearly think the early Luther was in error and Knox is right.

No Magistrate, no Husband, no Father, no Employer, no Minister, is owed unconditional obedience. Only God is owed unconditional obedience. Magistrates, as Covenant heads who viciously and continually violate the charters and covenant documents of a Nation, are no longer to be considered Magistrates, but instead are to be considered the Devil’s spawn and so are to be resisted when opportunity arises and the possibility of success is good.

It may be the case that we submit to wicked magistrates because the time is not right to resist because they have the biggest guns but strategically submitting is not the same thing as submitting because of the righteous claim of a magistrate.

The old Cameronian Covenanter motto holds true,

“Rebellion against Tyrants is Obedience to God.”

Reading List in Preparation for Memorial Day 2016

A reading list to get you ready to celebrate Memorial Day, 2016.

Read these 11 books by Memorial Day 2016 and you’ll never celebrate Memorial day again in quite the same way.

In a loosely chronological order.

11.) Lincoln’s Little War: How His Carefully Crafted Plans Went Astray — Webb Garrison

10.) Lincoln the Man — Edgar Masters

9.) Wilson’s War — Jim Powell

8.) War is a Racket — Smedley Butler

7.) The Unnecessary War — Pat Buchanan

6.) Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution — Anthony C. Sutton

5.) Naked Capitalist — W. Cleon Skousen

4.) Freedom Betrayed — Herbert Hoover

3.)  FDR goes to War — Burton Folsom

2.) Stalin’s Secret Agents: The Subversion of Roosevelt’s Government — M. Stanton Evans

1.) Blacklisted by History — M. Stanton Evans

 

Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of VE Day

Today is the 70th anniversary of VE day.

So … hip hip hooray … Congratulations to us for helping the Communist to conquer the world.

In honor of this 70th anniversary I cite a speech by former President Herbert Hoover warning Americans against going to war in Europe. This snippet warmed my heart because I hadn’t realized that high profile people were using this specific reasoning as a leverage to convince Americans that entry into Europe’s war, on the side of Stalin and th Soviet Union, would only guarantee the hegemony of Communist rule in much of Europe.

Former President Hoover, speaking 29 June, 1941, seeking to counterbalance FDR’s war making decision to support the Soviet Union by unfreezing Communist assets in America as well as paving the way to provide goods to Communist Russia two days following Hitler’s invasion of Russia warned,

“If we go further and join the war and we win, then we have won for Stalin the grip of Communism on Russia, the enslavement of nations, and more opportunity for it to extend in the world. We should at least cease to tell our sons that they would be giving their lives to restore democracy and freedom to the world.

Practical statesmanship leads in the same path as moral statesmanship. These two dictators — Stalin and Hitler — are in deadly combat. One of these two hideous ideologies will disappear in this fratricidal war. In any event both will be weakened. 

Statesmanship demands that the United States stand aside in watchful waiting, armed to the teeth, while these men exhaust themselves.

Then the most powerful and potent nation in the world can talk to mankind with a voice that will be heard. If we get involved in this struggle we, too, will be exhausted and feeble.

To align American ideals alongside Stalin will be as great a violation of everything American as to align ourselves with Hitler.

Can the American people debauch their sense of moral values and the very essence of their freedom by even a tacit alliance with Soviet Russia? Such an alliance will bring sad retributions to our people.

If we go into this war we will aid Stalin to hold his aggression against the four little democracies. We should stop the chant about leading the world to liberalism and freedom. 

Again I say,  if we join this war and Stalin wins, we have aided him to impose more Communism on Europe and the world.  At least we could not with such a bedfellow say to our sons that by making the supreme sacrifice, they are restoring freedom to the world. War alongside Stalin to impose freedom is more than a travesty. It is a tragedy …”

On this 70th VE day can we stop pretending that WW II was a admirable crusade? We crushed Nazism at the cost of copulating with Communism.  Because of agreements reached in WW II we are responsible for the death of millions and millions of people behind a Iron Curtain that our agreements insured would fall. Because of agreements reached in WW II we had operation Keelhaul, Eisenhower’s German death camps where a million disarmed German soldiers were slowly starved to death.

Was it a good thing that Hitler was stopped?

Absolutely!!

But we should not think we defeated Hitler without selling our souls.