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Modern Western Culture — Prolegomena

This is intended as only a survey course. Another advanced course may be added later. The purpose of this course is to begin to tease out how Western Civilization and culture has been hijacked by a alien people with a alien interest, and a alien belief system. By the end of this course the student should begin to recognize the influence of this Alienism as it redirects many aspects of modern Western culture.

Main Texts

1.) “Judaism’s Strange Gods” — Michael Hoffman
2.) “Waters Flowing Eastward: The War Against the Kingship of Christ” — L. Fry & Mme. Paquita de Shishmareff

Assignment — Read the main texts.

a.) Based on Hoffman’s works write a 15 page paper giving your Impression of the Talmud while identifying the principle of Hermeneutic for Judaism.

b.) Based on Mme. Paquita de Shishmareff write a 15 page paper identifying the Worldview of Judaism as well as its disposition towards Western Civilization.

Supplemental Texts

1.) “Liberalists and Jews” (Reprinted from ‘De Standaard,’ 1878) — Abraham Kuyper
2.) “The Jews” — Hilaire Belloc
3.) “The Zionist Factor” — Ivor Benson
4.) “For Fear Of the Jews” — Stan Rittenhouse
5.) “Behind Communism” — Frank L. Britton
6.) “Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution” — Anthony Sutton
7.) “Son of Liberty; No Apologies” –Marvin H. Clark Jr.

8.) “The Great Holocaust Trial: The Landmark Battle for the Right to Doubt the West’s Most Sacred Relic” — Michael Hoffman

9.) “Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel” — Alison Weir
10.) The International Jew — Henry Ford

Supplementary Texts assignment

1.) Read Abraham Kuypers Essay.

Write a paper answering these kinds of questions

a.) What is Kuyper’s main thesis
b.) How does Kuyper support his thesis
c.) What Warnings does Kuyper raise
d.) What solutions does Kuyper offer
e.) What does Kupyer offer as the heart of the problem

2.) Read Belloc’s short work. Do the same with Belloc as you were assigned with Kuyper above

3.) Read books 3-6 and 8-10. Provide 1 page of summary notes for each chapter of each book. Make sure to glean the authors main points.

4.) Write a critical book review covering Clark’s work.

Mike Horton and Zacharias Ursinus Contradicting One Another On Natural Law

Mike Horton of Escondido wrote,

“Positive law is grounded in natural law—the law of God known to the conscience of everyone as God’s image-bearer, even if the truth is suppressed in unrighteousness…. (N)one of us comes to general revelation neutrally. But remember that we are all made in God’s image, including rebels, and that the Spirit restrains wickedness and promotes justice by his common grace. When you offer good “general revelation” arguments, you’re not disengaging from the teachings of special revelation (Scripture).

But Ursinus in his Commentary on Heidelberg (p. 506) writes,

“Furthermore, although natural demonstrations teach nothing concerning God that is false, yet men, without the knowledge of God’s word, obtain nothing from them except false notions and conceptions of God; both because these demonstrations do not contain as much as is delivered in his word, and also because even those things which may be understood naturally, men, nevertheless, on account of innate corruption and blindness, receive and interpret falsely, and so corrupt it in various ways.”

Will the real Reformer please stand up.

And so as to ward off the inevitable naysayers who offer that Ursinus and Horton are not speaking of the same objects of knowledge allow me to offer that it is simply the case that if, as Ursinus offers, Natural Man cannot know God, then, as all meaning for all facts are found in their relation to God (Basic Van Til Presuppositionalism) then what Horton offers, by definition, cannot be true.

As Bahnsen was fond of saying, men may “know” things but they cannot account for their knowing. So… while Ursinus and Horton are not talking about the exact same thing (Knowing God {Ursinus}) vs. (Knowing reality {Horton}) the implications that I note are valid.

Of course fallen men always sneak stolen capital into their God hating worldview to get it off the ground but it is never done so in admission to knowing God. As such … they hold what they”know” of reality as a thief. It is theirs but it isn’t theirs. They know but they don’t know.

Defining Deviance Down

The occurrence of Defining deviancy down as it manifests itself in a social order, happens when the social order standard is violated with such regularity that the inhabitants of the social order are forced to make a decision to either enforce the standard or to change the standard. As enforcing a standard that is routinely violated is almost impossible apart from draconian measures what typically happens is that the standard is changed. Once the standard is changed then a new definition of deviance is embraced, a standard that allows what was previously defined as deviance to be now normalized.

One reason that defining deviancy down works is because eventually there becomes a money interest that supports the new deviancy. The legalization of drugs finds a host of cottage industries that profit by the legalization and soat are willing to contribute money to politicians who will support the new deviancy. In such ways deviancy becomes the new standard.

The consequence of this is that those who refuse to embrace the new definition of deviancy will now be the ones who will be seen as “puritanical,” “mean,” “uncharitable,” and “bigoted.” Once deviancy is defined downward far enough those who refuse to accept the new definitions of deviance will become social outcasts and will suffer economic displacement. Defining deviancy downwards happens because the social order does not have an anchor that will not allow them to drift with the tide. The only place that anchor can be found is in God’s Law word. Disallow God’s Law word as the norm that norms all norms and the consequence will always be a “defining of deviancy down.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who popularized the phrase “Defining Deviancy Down” gives an example

“Consider the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. In 1929 in Chicago during Prohibition, four gangsters killed seven gangsters on February. The nation was shocked. The event became legend. It merits not one but two entries in the World Book Encyclopedia.”

Moynihan goes on to explain that in our current social order we experience a “St Valentine’s Day Massacre,” nearly daily and no one blinks. As a social order we have come to accept a higher level of deviancy.

Examining “Rev.” Dr. Pastor Lee’s non Latin Theology … R2K Unleashed (VI)

Continuing to examine

“RealLive,LegitPh.DReverendDoctorwhohasreadbooksandallthat(mostoftheminLatin)andwhohashadhisDissertationpublishedwithVandenhoek&Ruprecht,(alegitGermanacademichouse)” BrianLee. (And who doesn’t give a hill of beans for titles.) mid-term Election piece located here,

http://www.patheos.com/Topics/Politics-in-the-Pulpit/The-Church-Should-Not-Weigh-In-On-Ballot-Issues-Brian-Lee-110314.html

“RealLive,LegitPh.DReverend Doctorwhohasreadbooksandall that(mostoftheminLatin)andwhohashadhisDissertationpublishedwithVandenhoek&Ruprecht,(alegitGermanacademichouse)” BrianLee. (And who doesn’t give a hill of beans for titles.) wrote,

“Let me be perfectly clear. I am not advocating an utterly private spirituality, such that our faith has no impact on our public behavior and speech. There is a key distinction to be made between the duties of the church in its official capacity—i.e., the provisional governing authority of the heavenly kingdom—and the duties of individual dual-citizen Christians.

Churches absolutely have the obligation to mandate adherence to God’s law. Christ commanded the church to “make disciples… teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matthew 28:19). This is why “discipline”—teaching and enforcing God’s moral law—is a distinguishing mark of Reformed churches. How then can religious congregations guide their members in moral and social issues, especially in this politicized age where every such decision seems to have political and economic ramifications?

Here the Christian tradition must acknowledge that the New Testament is virtually silent about how the world should be governed by the civil authorities. (Note: while Old Testament Israel’s theocracy is relevant, the New Testament does not teach that it is a model for the church.)

For obvious reasons, because New Testament believers lived under Roman rule they were not commanded to engage in political activity. Nowhere in the New Testament are individual believers commanded to tell people outside the church how to behave. In contrast, we are told to lead quiet lives, and not disturb the extant order. Paul commands the church to “submit” (Romans 13.1).

1.)

RealLive,LegitPh.DReverendDoctorwhohasreadbooksandallthat(mostoftheminLatin)andwhohashadhisDissertationpublishedwithVandenhoek&Ruprecht,(alegitGermanacademichouse)” BrianLee insist that he is not advocating an utter private spirituality and yet later in his article he insists that “neither the Church nor her preachers can say unambiguously that such laws (against abortion) must be enacted.

One wonder if

RealLive,LegitPh.DReverendDoctorwhohasreadbooksandallthat(mostoftheminLatin)andwhohashadhisDissertationpublishedwithVandenhoek&Ruprecht,(alegitGermanacademichouse)” BrianLee see the contradiction he is involved in? On one hand we are told that as Ministers we can privately be against abortion but we must not publicly say in a pulpit that “since God’s law prohibits abortion we should prohibit abortion in our laws.” Privately we can be opposed to abortion. Publicly in the pulpit we must not say that abortion should be prohibited.

And yet Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published wants us to believe that he is not advocating utterly private spirituality? Ok … maybe the trick there is the word “utterly?”

2.) Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published but doesn’t give a hill of beans about titles, makes a big deal about how the New Testament is virtually silent. Once again, this demonstrates that Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published is operating according to a kind of Reformed Dispensationalism. His Baptist hermeneutic is telling him that unless the New Testament repeats a truth from the Old Testament we must assume that God’s word is silent about a matter. For Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published the Old Testament is not authoritative. That this is true for Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published can be seen in the fact that he baldly says that since the New Testament doesn’t repeat the Old Testament when it comes to theocracy therefore we must believe that the Old Testament is not authoritative.

3.) The New Testament though is not virtually silent on how the world should be governed by civil authorities. Romans 13 says volumes. Here we turn to Christopher Goodman’s sermon on this text and subject.

http://www.constitution.org/cmt/goodman/obeyed.htm

Read Christopher Goodman’s short book and watch him draw out from Romans 13 principles for how the world should be governed contra Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published but doesn’t give a hill of beans about titles.

As one example we see that Goodman overturns Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published but doesn’t give a hill of beans about titles thesis that Christians must be silent before all ordained leaders thus revealing how Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published but doesn’t give a hill of beans about titles is mishandling the text. Goodman (who also read Latin) writes on Romans 13:1,

Then as the Apostle writes, we confess, and so much as he speaks we grant, that is, that all men are bound to obey such Magistrates, whom God has ordained over us lawfully according to His word, which rule in His fear according to their office, as God has appointed. For though the Apostle says: There is no power but of God: yet does he here mean any other powers, but such as are orderly and lawfully instituted by God. Either else should He approve all tyranny and oppression, which comes to any commonwealth by means of wicked and ungodly rulers, which are to be called rightly disorders, and subversions in commonwealths, and not God’s ordinance. For He never ordained any laws to approve, but to reprove and punish tyrants, idolaters, papists, and oppressors. Then when they are such, they are not God’s ordinance. And in disobeying and resisting such, we do not resist God’s ordinance, but Satan’s …

So, one principle that Goodman finds here from the New Testament, for how the world should be governed is that it should not be governed by Christ Haters. I for one am shocked that Goodman would disagree on the interpretation of Romans 13:1 with Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published but doesn’t give a hill of beans about titles.

4.) We are told that “Churches absolutely have the obligation to mandate adherence to God’s law” but we are also told, in so many words, that Churches absolutely have the obligation to mandate adherence to God’s law until one is in the voting booth where the mandate is lifted. The Church must mandate that members not steal but the Church must not mandate regarding the legality of them if the membership are stealing via the agency of the third party Senator or Congressman for whom they vote.

5.) What if the Extant order passes legislation that all ministers with the last name “Lee” must be executed? Is it ok to trouble the extant order then? Is it acceptable then for Ministers to say from the Pulpit that such a law must be overturned?

Brief Observation on all types of Libertarianism

I’ve come to think of libertarians and R2K advocates as moral free-riders. They want to enjoy the stability, trust and cohesion that is the result of a Christian Worldview that was incarnated as legislated Christian morality and which provides them with the stability, trust, and cohesion in their social order, but without themselves being culpable for its direct upkeep.