The Victory of Christ and His people is inevitable. We win. Get over it. There is no barrier that can forestall us. There is no Maginot line that can impede us. We will overcome all resistance. You, and your people will be assimilated to the Kingdom of God or you will die outside of it.
And this in space and time history.
Every battle we may lose serves the purpose of the sure certainty of victory in the War. Every one of us you may kill guarantees the rise of 10 more of us to come after you with the Praise of God on our lips and a double edged sword in our hands. The blood of the martyrs remains the seed of the Church.
You cannot stop us. No weapon formed against us shall prosper. You cannot forestall your final defeat, you cannot reverse Christ’s certain triumph. Even your very thoughts will be made captive to Christ.
Your Commander in Chief has already been defeated and all we are engaged in now is the mopping up of childish resistance as found in pockets of insanity.
Plead for mercy now. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in the way. Sue for peace and receive generous terms of surrender.
Why will you die in your sin when you cannot win?
Category: Uncategorized
Examining the Trump-gasm Phenomena
After all these decades it seems that much of the voting Christians still don’t get it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=055wFyO6gag
When Woodrow Wilson campaigned in 1916 his campaign theme was “He kept us out of war.” A few months later we were in a war that was completely unnecessary for US involvement.
When FDR campaigned in 1932 one of his major campaign promises was to balance the federal budget. Roosevelt campaigned on the Democratic platform advocating,
“immediate and drastic reductions of all public expenditures,” “abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaus, and eliminating extravagances” and for a “sound currency to be maintained at all hazards.”
Very quickly Roosevelt not only did not balance the federal budget but he began a theretofore unknown Federal spending spree which began a new era of vast deficit spending. Campaigning as a fiscal conservative FDR broke all those promises to eventually begin the modern welfare state.
When FDR campaigned in 1940 he campaigned on the promise that he would not send American boys to war,
“I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again; your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”
This promise was made all the while that FDR was pursuing a course that was guaranteed to land us in the second unnecessary war of the 20th century.
In 1964 when “Landslide” Lyndon B. Johnson campaigned that his administration would not send ground troops into Vietnam. LBJ promised this all the while his administration was making plans to escalate war in Vietnam.
When George H. W. Bush campaigned in “1988” he promised,
And I’m the one who will not raise taxes. My opponent now says he’ll raise them as a last resort, or a third resort. But when a politician talks like that, you know that’s one resort he’ll be checking into. My opponent won’t rule out raising taxes. But I will. And the Congress will push me to raise taxes and I’ll say no. And they’ll push, and I’ll say no, and they’ll push again, and I’ll say, to them, ‘Read my lips: no new taxes.’
When Bill Clinton campaigned in 1992 he made a middle class tax cut a central plank in his campaign. Clinton said h would raise taxes on people making more than $200,000, and use those revenues to fund tax relief for the “forgotten middle class.” Clinton never did provide the promised tax relief.
When George W. Bush campaigned in 2000 he promised a more humble foreign policy with no nation building,
“If we don’t stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we’re going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I’m going to prevent that.”
How’d that turn out?
When Obama campaigned in “08” he said,
“If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”
These are just the ones off the top of my head. I’m sure others could be recalled.
How many times does Lucy have to promise “I will hold the ball this time” before y’all realize that she is going to pull the ball away at the last second again so that Charlie Brown fails yet again?
I like Trump’s Immigration promises but that is all they are is promises. What reason on earth do I or any of you have to believe the man? The system is rigged people. No white knight, as politician is going to show up to save your sorry derriere. Trump couldn’t be where he is unless the fix was in. What…. you don’t think there isn’t dirt on Trump out there that is known about that would destroy him?
Trump has a great immigration plan. However, even if elected he will never implement it. In point of fact, if the history above is instructive in the least Trump will do just the exact opposite.
Wake up and face reality. If history teaches us anything, it teaches us not to be fooled again.
Before we end, let’s say a few things about hope. People will suggest that my observations here are a “giving up of hope.” Nothing could be further from the truth. It is just that my hope is not pinned on politicians who have a track a long and established track record of lying. My hope ultimately lies in God. After all, Some trust in chariots and others in horses, but we depend on the LORD our God
Second, there are different kinds of hope. The hope that I hear most people talking about when they invest hope in Trump is the hope of someone who walks off the ledge of a 10th story building, all the while saying, “I hope I don’t fall.” That is not “hope.” That is fantasy. Legitimate hope is a hope that is based on previous evidence and given that standard, when I look at “the Donald’s” past I don’t see reason for a great deal of hope.
The reason I don’t see much hope in Trump, besides the lies of politicians past at this level and besides the track of Trump’s past with his financial support of Democrat candidates is due to the fact that Trump is an Economic Nationalist. One could even call Trump a supporter for “American Mercantilism.” Trump sounds so different because he is running against a slew of Republicans who are New World Order Economic Internationalists. There is an appeal in Trump’s Economic Nationalism but it is the appeal of the girl, who having been always jilted, is now being courted. However, that log floating in Trump’s Economic Nationalism punch bowl is the reality of a Mercantilism economy. Economic Nationalism, does not deliver us from Centralized big government. Trump is merely saying, “let’s have a Mercantilism for our sake,” instead of the Republican field saying, “let’s have a planned economy for the New World Order’s sake.” Trump’s campaign slogan could well be,
“Trump 2016 — Because An Empire Ought to be Paid Tribute.”
But what of those who don’t want an Empire? What of those old line Conservatives who want to return to being a Republic and not an Empire?
Trump has said some great things. I am delighting in the Trump-coaster as much as anyone. I love it when he breaks the PC rules. I chortle when Feminism comes dashing on the rock of Trump. His promises on immigration are wonderful to hear.
But for those who are opposed to Empire and who are for limited Government he is not a man for whom one can cast a vote.
Critiquing Rev. Dr. Leithart’s “The Nation, The Church, and the Immigrants” (Part I)
Critiquing this piece,
http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/07/the-nation-the-church-and-the-immigrants
Dr Peter Leithart,
No one denies that US immigration policy is a mess. One poll found that 63 percent of Republicans want to deport the estimated 11 million illegals in the United States. Sniffing a popular cause, Congress has jumped aboard with legislation focused on identifying, arresting, and punishing violent criminals among illegal aliens.
Bret replies,
First, lets contend over Dr. Leithart’s 11 million illegals figure. That number is hotly contested with a respected Bear Sterns report offering the number of illegal immigrants at closer to 20 million.
Click to access BearStearnsStudy.pdf
Ann Coulter’s recent book, “Adios Amigo,” puts the number at 30 million.
Second. one reason that the US immigration policy is a mess is because we have combined the promise of the welfare state with a defacto open borders policy. In providing Government money and benefits what our hostile Government is doing is providing both incentive and subsidies to become illegal aliens. Dr. Leithart’s, essentially alienist reasoning, does nothing to address either aspect of this equation. It is safe to say that as long as our hostile Government continues to combine a defacto open borders policy with a Welfare state the consequence will be increased illegal immigration.
Third, Dr. Leithart points out proposed legislation that would identify, arrest, and punish violent criminal as if such legislation is a bad idea. Does Dr. Leithart really think it is a bad idea to enter into a process that removes the most violent illegal aliens?
Dr. Peter Leithart offers,
Considered strictly as a policy issue, there is much to commend open borders. Like Prohibition, recent efforts to control immigration haven’t done much to control immigration, but instead have pushed immigrants into back alleys and speakeasies that do a brisk business in forgery, illegal and dangerous transport, and other skullduggeries. Opening the border would undercut these criminal networks, as legalizing booze put the bootleggers out of business.
Bret responds,
One wonders what there is to commend open borders as a policy issue?
Is it black teen unemployment rate that Dr. Leithart finds so commendable in a open borders policy?
According to African-American spokesman, Kenneth Blackwell, as given in a critique of the Obama administration’s illegal immigration policy,
“Teen unemployment in the black community is especially shocking. In the past two years, the number has hovered around 40 percent. In Mr. Obama’s adopted hometown of Chicago, the Urban League just reported that black teen unemployment is a breathtaking 91 percent.”
Is the problematic crime rate of illegal immigrants something that Dr. Leithart find commendable in open borders?
*Judicial Watch reported last year:
Of the 61,529 criminal cases initiated by federal prosecutors last fiscal year, more than 40%—or 24,746—were filed in court districts neighboring the Mexican border….Nearly 22% (13,383) were drug related, 19.7% (12,123) were violent crimes and 10.2% (6,300) involved white-collar offenses that include a full range of frauds committed by business and government professionals.
Is it the low wages that the US Chamber of Commerce loves that Dr. Leithart finds so commendable in open borders?
We must come to terms with the fact that immigration, both legal and illegal, is a program for redistribution of wealth from the working class to the elite financial and political classes and it has little or nothing to do with concern for the well-being of the poor in other countries. It’s not an honest call to the “tired, poor, huddled masses.” It’s a call for the elimination of the middle class and a turn to a have vs. have not social order.
Is it the fact that American workers are being displaced that Dr. Leithart finds so commendable in open borders?
http://www.vdare.com/articles/national-data-july-employment-data-again-suggests-illegal-immigration-surging-when-will-msm-notice
Is it the fact that America is being transformed from a WASP country to a third world country that Dr. Leithart finds so commendable in open borders?
“For more than 20 years, the consensus—the consensus—among labor economists has been that the immense inflow into the United States since immigration was reignited, after a 40-year lull, by Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1965 Immigration Act is of virtually no benefit, in aggregate, to native-born Americans. Immigration does increase output (GDP) in varying degrees. (In the case of unskilled immigrants, the increase is often minuscule.) But essentially all of that is captured by the immigrants themselves, through wages. In other words, America is being transformed for nothing.”
Next, Dr. Leithart compares our failure in our immigration policy with our failure in enforcing prohibition restrictions.
On this score, first observe, that it is always easiest to eliminate crime rates by decriminalizing crime.
Second, note that if we really wanted to enforce policy against illegal immigrants the fact that we have done so before, during the Eisenhower administration, (Operation Wetback) suggests that we have not been serious concerning enforcing the laws regarding illegal immigration. The problem here is not the impossibility of enforcing the law. The problem is that there has been little will to enforce the law. Clearly, Washington, like Dr. Leithart, wants defacto open borders.
Third, to compare legalizing the elimination of borders to the elimination of restrictions on alcohol consumption is a category mistake of profound consequence. The impact of an open borders policy has profound and far ranging consequences that extend far beyond the consequences eliminating restrictions on alcohol. Some of those consequences are teased out in this article,
I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends — Darrell Dow Refutes Dr. Leithart on Immigration
Rev. Dr. Leithart goes on,
Even Pat Buchanan admits that most migrants work hard for their share of America’s prosperity. If border controls were relaxed, Kevin Johnson has argued, honest refugees and migrants could come in safely through legal checkpoints, allowing the INS, Homeland Security, and other agencies to use scarce resources to target known or suspected terrorists, drug-runners, and other criminals.
Bret responds,
1.) Here is Pat Buchanan’s admission that Rev. Dr. Leithart cites,
” … the sense America’s borders are undefended, that untold millions of lawbreakers are in our country, and more are coming. While most (illegal immigrants) come to work, they are taking American jobs and consuming tax dollars, and too many come to rob, rape, murder and make a living selling drugs.“
Somehow in Rev. Dr. Leithart’s world becomes,
“Even Pat Buchanan admits that most migrants work hard for their share of America’s prosperity.”
This is, at best, disingenuous on Rev. Dr. Leithart’s part and, at worse, and example of lying by a member of the clergy to advance a weak point. This was something that only liberal clergy used to do.
2.) Rev. Dr. Leithart’s desire for open borders reminds me of the old Roman Catholic technique of bringing in the pagans en mass, adding some of their tribal rituals so they will feel comfortable with being present (Cinco de mayo anyone?) and in this case, voila … American citizens. In brief, Rev. Dr. Leithart would have us outwardly sprinkle them and pronounce them American and ex opere operato they are Americans.
Rev. Dr. Leithart continues,
With open borders, Johnson says, “rules and regulations governing the entry of noncitizens into the country would approximate those that exist for goods, services, and capital that enter.” We’d benefit from freer, more mobile labor, as we benefit from cheap imports. Many doubt whether the new immigrants can be assimilated, but for all our groping disarray, America is still damned good at turning people from every corner of the globe into devoted Americans: In the image of ourselves make we them. It’s not hard. Most of them are here because they’ve long dreamed of becoming Americans.
That’s hardly a slam-dunk policy argument, but it’s a serious position, worthy of better than the wacky-nut treatment it’s usually given.
But it is a policy argument, and there’s the rub, because immigration cuts deeper than policy can reach.
Bret responds,
1.) This is basically both a Libertarian argument that reduces men to their economic equation and a propositional nation argument that sees a nation as nothing but a hodge podge of people who agree on shared propositions. Both of these are beyond suspect. Rev. Dr. Leithart’s statement does nothing to consider the human or cultural dynamic except to offer that “America is damned good at turning people into devoted Americans.” Neither is there any consideration on Rev. Dr. Leithart’s part of whether or not it is a Christian desire to see people “turning into devoted Americans.” Some might argue that such a statement, especially in light of matters like the recent Planned Parenthood “baby body parts for sale,” reveals that Rev. Dr. Leithart’s agenda to turn the alien and stranger into a devoted American is contrary to seeing them become devoted Christians.
2.) Honestly, Rev. Dr. Leithart speaks of the wacky-nut treatment his ideas are usually given but I hope we can begin to see why wacky-nut ideas are given wacky nut treatments.
The postmillennialism of Federal Vision Alienists like Rev. Dr. Leithart is a Sarumanic postmillennialism. It is an attempt to immanentize the eschaton and as everyone does that to one degree or another; I get that. The problem here is that Rev. Dr. Leithart‘s Eschaton is the Eschaton of Babel. It is the eschaton of Sauraman who believed the only problem with Sauron’s eschaton was that it wasn’t “Christian,” and could be rescued if it was just given that “I love Jesus” touch that could be provided only by a Jesus loving Saruman type policy.
End Part I
A Few Thoughts on the Means of Grace
Acts 2:37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” 40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Means of Grace — Those instruments of God’s favor that God uses as the means by which God accomplishes His people’s conformity to Christ and growth in the Christian faith.
Means of Grace — Word & Sacrament
Two Sacraments — Baptism & Eucharist
We see all these present in Acts 2:38f
A Sacrament is not merely a symbol as if baptism and the Lord’s Table merely represented something else as a flag might stand as a symbol for a nation. The Sacraments are not mere visible jogs to the memory to remember something larger. In a Biblical understanding of the Sacrament the reality of what is being pointed to is contained in the symbol and for those who participate by faith the sacrament is what it symbolizes and so does what it promises.
Illustration — Sign saying Lansing is 25 miles away.
But what if the Sign was made of that which is Lansing? Maybe of a peculiar type of tree that grew in Lansing. And maybe the dye that formed the letters on the Sign was of a dye that was peculiar to Lansing. There would be a sense then that the sign to Lansing, as a symbol for Lansing, had Lansing in it.
Just so with the Sacraments. God, in His sovereignty, has put the reality of forgiveness, cleansing, and eternal life into the Word and Sacraments themselves and for those who come to the Sacraments full of Faith in Christ alone the Sacraments give what they symbolize. For those who do not come in faith then the Sacraments remain only empty symbols that at best jog the memory.
This explains why throughout much of our Church History God’s people have so desired the means of Grace and why Church attendance was such a given. God’s people understood that in the assembled community of God’s saints there they would be fed with Eternal life and drink the promises of God’s favor. In the assembling of the saints, Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day, the weary and battered people of God would come and be built up and strengthened by God’s favor preached.
Illustration — The means of Grace, Word and Sacrament, then is like Josh’s Pickle juice after fighting in his 90 pounds of armor in the hot sun when he does his Medieval Knight re-enactments. Worn out and weary with the exertion of fighting I am told that Pickle juice revives and vivifies almost instantly.
Just so with the means of Grace. We gather Lord’s day by Lord’s Day, weary and exhausted with contending for the crown rights of the Lord Christ in battle — whether that battle is with foes external or internal or both. Where will we find the refreshment for our souls and the invigoration to continue? The Church has always taught the place that is found is gathered worship … in the means of Grace … in Word and Sacrament…. in God’s pickle juice for spent warriors.
Illustration — Popeye and Spiritual Spinach
II.) Means of Grace (Baptism) Teaches a particular Anthropology
Because of their belief in Covenant Theology Reformed people have always inclined towards being Conservative with its impulse of seeing that human nature is corporate before it is individual. Liberal thought, as expressed most clearly in Anabaptist circles, has always seen the individual as having pride of place over the community. The individual precedes and the community depends upon the collection of individuals. This has meant that the sovereign self is the prime integer in Anabaptist Christianity. This is not so for those who are Biblical Christians…. for the Reformed.
The Reformed never gave up on the individual but in its Covenant theology it could never tolerate the radical Anabaptists with their hyper and atomistic individualism. Covenant theology teaches us that all of God’s people through time are one organic people. We belong to our forbears before we belong to ourselves and we belong to God along with our forbears. This is a different view than that which is espoused at the heart of the organizing motif of Western culture with its social contract theory. The Christian faith at this point lies in contradiction to the official anthropology of the West which at its heart is indeed liberal.
We see biblical anthropology in our Baptism services when the Generations assemble at the Baptismal font in order that a member of their family may be ratified in their place in the covenant of grace. This covenant into which they are being announced is a covenant in which their forebears were placed through the centuries and it is a place where the Baptized infant’s generations to follow will also be announced. Also, the very nature of Federal Theology with its idea of Federal Headship pushes Reformed people in a conservative direction. The teaching of Scripture where we find man created as incomplete apart from woman suggests that the individual is not the primary building block of society but rather the community is apriori to the individual. Likewise the idea of the fifth commandment pushes Christians towards being conservative in their disposition. Family is to be honored. Even the very idea of the God as Triune having Eternal community pushes the Biblical Christian towards conservative commitments.
Infant Baptism then is radical break with our non-Christian, hyper-individual Anabaptist culture. In our Church culture we have individuals walking the sawdust trail. We have individuals “askingJesusintotheirhearts.” In our Western Church culture we talk about having a “personal relationship with Jesus.” We talk about datable conversions … our “born on date,” as if this was a matter of our choosing and and not God’s. All those, when spoken about apart from a covenantal context mitigate against a Biblical anthropology which normatively finds man coming to Christ as a member of a community that has come to Christ by God’s sovereign election.
Thumbnail Sketch on Devlin’s “Sexual Utopia in Power”
I Finished, F. Roger Devlin’s “Sexual Utopia in Power; The Feminist Revolt Against Civilization,” late last night.
Devlin, not a Christian, gives a book that amounts to an apologetic for men in the ongoing war between the sexes. Devlin takes note of the decline in marriage as well as the decline in the success of marriage in the West and lays the responsibility for that clearly at the foot of Feminism and its destructive ideology.
Devlin insists that the old bromides of generations past of women’s role in marriage, of stereotypes of women as naturally inclined to monogamy, of the sanctity of marriage held by women, of women needing protection, have all been exploded with Feminism and the old answers to cure these problems from conservatives no longer are valid and likewise are part of the problem.
Devlin offers a rousing approach to these problems inasmuch as he insists that women have to have a mirror held before them for their contribution to the current conflict of interests that exists between men and women. Devlin holds feminist women responsible for the shambles in which our marriage culture currently finds itself.
Along the way Devlin takes on the Divorce culture in the West and demonstrates that it exists as a money making enterprise for those cottage industries of the State that have sprang up around divorce and so now support divorce. Devlin rightly notes the absolute carnage that “Family courts” create. He notes the impossible demands that Judges and social workers make upon men who are ground up by these courts.
Along the way Devlin notes the tools used by Feminism to support the Monstrous regime of women in which we currently live. Devlin insists that matters like “date rape,” and “sexual harassment” are largely contrived crimes created in order to support doctrinaire feminism.
Devlin insists that women must be forced to live with the consequences of their choices, explaining that as matters stand now the irresponsibility of women is subsidized and winked at by our current feminist system. Devlin says that men who refuse to marry are merely playing the cards dealt them in terms of the feminist zeitgeist. Why should men marry when the norm in our culture is for men to be abused by women shaped by feminism? Devlin also intimates that no man who is a man will put up with this feminist behavior as coming from a wife or girlfriend.
Devlin freely admits at the beginning of this book that he is not interested in considering men’s problems in the current situation. He contends that there are plenty of others sources out there if people are interested in looking into that. Devlin insists that he is doing something that men refuse to do out of their inbred sense to “protect the woman” and that he is turning a light on how the women we are protecting are feminist hags that wish to destroy men.
One of Devlin’s better insights in my estimation is his noting how the failures of Feminism guarantee the success of feminism as each failure is explained by feminists as resulting because we are not feminist enough. Consequently, oddly enough, the more that Feminism fails, the more it succeeds.
Devlin sees this crisis as the death of the West unless something is done quickly to correct this state of affairs.