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The Common Bond of Theonomic Alienism and International Marxism

Lately a debate has arisen in some quarters from Bulgaria, wherein it is denied that Marxism, in its quest for a NWO for all of mankind, requires the elimination of all familial, ethnic and racial distinctions. Here are a few quotes from Dr. Francis Nigel Lee on the subject. This is followed by a couple short quotes from prominent Reformed Theologians in History who insist that the distinctions that men are created with are normative and God honoring. Many more quotes like these are peppered throughout Iron Ink.

“Already in his First Draft of the ‘Civil War in France’-The Character of the Commune, Marx approvingly recorded that “loudly announcing its international tendencies … Paris announced the admission of foreigners to the commune as basic policy, immediately elected a foreign worker [Leo Frankel] (a member of the international) in its executive committee. [and] decreed [the destruction of the] symbol of French chauvinism-the Vendôme Column!””

– Dr. F.N. Lee

“In the final rendition of his Civil War in France, Marx wrote that “if the Commune was thus truly representative of all the healthy elements of French society, and therefore the truly national Government, it was, at the same time, a working men’s Government, [and,] as the bold champion of the emancipation of labor, emphatically international …. The Commune annexed to France the working people all over the world … The Commune admitted all foreigners to the honor of dying for the immortal cause … The bourgeoisie had found time to display their patriotism by organizing police hunts upon the Germans in France.

The Commune made a German working man its Minister of Labor … The Commune honored the heroic sons of Poland by
placing them at the head of the defenders of Paris.””

– Dr. F.N. Lee

“And as Lenin pointed out in his Paris Commune, the Commune “was able to eradicate ‘common national’ and ‘patriotic’ aberrations in the ranks of the young proletariat.””

– Dr. F.N. Lee

“Lenin’s 1918 Constitution of R.S.F.S.R. (art. 22) proclaimed that: “The Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, recognizing that all citizens enjoy equal rights without distinction of race or nationality, declares that it is contrary to the fundamental laws of the Republic to grant or tolerate any privileges or advantages based on race or nationality, and to oppress national minorities or impose any limitations whatsoever on their rights.””

– Dr. F.N. Lee

“Well known are the words of the Manifesto of the Communist Party: “The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality. The working men have no country. National differences and antagonisms between peoples are daily more and more vanishing … The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another is put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.” Thus too Lenin.”

– Dr. F.N. Lee

“Clearly it is the case that you can’t have Socialism/Communism without Alienism’s desire to break down natural familial affections and ties. This is so because the goal of all International Marxism is a muscular egalitarianism whereby even man’s heritage and lineage is so equal that the heritage and lineage is irrelevant. International Marxism, with its Anti-Christ desire to eliminate all distinctions as ordained by God, even eventually pushes to the point where distinctions between men and women, and children and adults begins to fade away.

Of course Reformed Theologians have always held that God delights in inherited and God given distinctions.

“Paul had two classes of brethren; those who were with him the children of God in Christ; these he calls brethren in the Lord, Philip, i. 14, holy brethren, &c. The others were those who belonged to the family of Abraham. These he calls brethren after the flesh, that is, in virtue of natural descent from the same parent. Philemon he addresses as his brother, both in the flesh and in the Lord. The Bible recognizes the validity and rightness of all the constitutional principles and impulses of our nature. It therefore approves of parental and filial affection, and, as is plain from this and other passages, of peculiar love for the people of our own race and country.

Charles Hodge
Commentary Romans 9

“It is admitted that nations as well as tribes and families, have their distinctive characteristics, and that these characteristics are not only physical and mental, but also social and moral. Some tribes are treacherous and cruel. Some are mild and confiding. Some are addicted to gain, others to war. Some are sensual, some intellectual. We instinctively judge of each according to its character; … admitting that these dispositions are innate and hereditary, and that they are not self-acquired by the individual whose character they constitute, we nevertheless, and none the less, approve or condemn them according to their nature. This is the instinctive and necessary, and therefore the correct, judgment of the mind.”

—Charles Hodge
Systematic Theology, Vol. 2.5.6

Origin of Man: the “differences between the Caucasian, Mongolian, and negro races, which is known to have been as distinctly marked two or three thousand years before Christ as it is now…. these varieties of race are not the effect of the blind operation of physical causes, but by those cause as intelligently guided by God for the accomplishment of some wise purpose… God fashions the different races of men in their peculiarities to suit them to the regions which they inhabit.”

Charles Hodge
Systematic Theology Pt II Chapter 1

“Nationalism, within proper limits, has the divine sanction; an imperialism that would, in the interest of one people, obliterate all lines of distinction is everywhere condemned as contrary to the divine will. Later prophecy raises its voice against the attempt at world-power, and that not only, as is sometimes assumed, because it threatens Israel, but for the far more principal reason, that the whole idea is pagan and immoral.

Now it is through maintaining the national diversities, as these express themselves in the difference of language, and are in turn upheld by this difference, that God prevents realization of the attempted scheme… [In this] was a positive intent that concerned the natural life of humanity. Under the providence of God each race or nation has a positive purpose to serve, fulfillment of which depends on relative seclusion from others.”

~ Geerhardus Vos
Biblical Theology

Body Mutilation Considered

Leviticus 19:28 Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am Jehovah.

Body mutilation — and here I’m not talking about a pierced ear or a tiny tiny pierced nose or a tiny flower on one’s hip — is one of the sure signs that we are returning to anti-Christ paganism. In cultures influenced by and seeped in Biblical Christianity the problem of guilt is understood, by the “in Christ individuals” in that culture, as having been dealt with in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Further, any real moral guilt that comes into a believer’s life subsequent to their union with Christ is confessed, repented of, and taken to the Cross of Christ and left there in light of the pronounced absolution of sins that happens week by week in Church, by the voice of Christ as heard over the vocal chords of the minister, or that is everywhere pronounced in Scripture. Christians don’t carry their guilt around because they have a Great High Priest and Savior who has relieved them of their guilt. For a Christian to carry their guilt around is to announce that Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension is not sufficient.

However in cultures where sin and guilt have no answer, the individuals in that culture must provide themselves ways to deal with their guilt. The only options that are available are either for one to pay for that guilt one’s self — thus leading to masochism — or for one to try to fob off their guilt on someone else, thus leading to some form of sadism. Guilty people will always try to find ways to relieve themselves of their guilt burden. If they refuse Christ’s sacrifice for guilt they will offer up themselves or someone else as a guilt sacrifice.

Body mutilation is one of the forms of masochism whereby our culture is reflecting that it is seeking to shed its real moral guilt via self mutilation (masochism). Where there is no understanding of guilt being taken by Christ in the Atonement there one should not be surprised to find a tattoo, piercing and body mutilation culture where atonement is being sought in punishment of self for one’s real moral guilt. They have no Christ to suffer for their guilt and so they do things to themselves to make themselves suffer for their real moral guilt.

Secondly, at the same time, one can see the body mutilation culture as an attack on the image of God in man. Man, is — both body and soul — created in the image of God. The self defacing of God’s handiwork, via body mutilation, is an attempt to cast off the image of God in favor of an image as created by the autonomous self. The rebel against God will not have God rule over him and one way to cast off and deny God’s rule is to mar one’s self so that the mirror doesn’t reflect back the image of God that is so violently hated. What better way to get rid of true moral guilt then by attacking the one whom one refuses to go to for the only relief from guilt possible? (By the way, this idea of attacking the image of God in one’s self, I believe accounts a great deal also for the rise of sodomy and lesbianism as well. As sexuality is tied up very closely with the image of God in men and women, overturning God’s intended order for sex in an effective short term attack on the image of God in men and women.)

Thirdly, I think a lot of the mutilation we see is a manifestation of the fixation our culture has with rejecting boring “whiteness” in favor of spiffy tribalism with its tatoos, piercings, weird hairstyles, goofy clothes, etc. Everywhere it is being shouted how evil white people are. (This is, by the way, another form of displaced guilt. Guilt is not taken to Christ therefore guilt will be passed on to white people in a sadistic fashion in order to relieve others of their guilt.) Body mutilation allows white people to seriously alter their whiteness thus relieving themselves of white guilt.

Finally, in body mutilation there is always the sinful “look at me” dynamic going on. Those outside of Christ are especially self centered, desiring to have all of reality and all attention orbit around them. Body mutilation allows the mutilator to be the center of constant attraction.

William Graham Tullian’s Washington Post Article

In the below link,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/10/17/the-missing-message-in-todays-churches/

William Graham Tullian (WGT) offers some good points and some points I’m not sure of. Because it is all confused and jumbled together the article could be confusing. I won’t be interacting with the whole article, so I encourage the reader to access the whole article to make sure and get the whole context.

WGT opens

America’s churches came back into the media limelight a few weeks ago after a well-publicized Pew study showed a meteoric rise of Americans claiming no religious affiliation, shooting up from seven percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 2010. The percentage more than doubled for those under the age of 30, reaching almost 35 percent. The group is now being referred to as “the religious nones.”

Bret offers,

It might have been helpful here had someone noted that it is impossible to be a “religious nones.” Now, certainly people may not self identify with a religion but that doesn’t make them any less religious then the person thought to be the most religious person on the planet. Part of what it means to come to intellectual maturity is to realize that religion is an inescapable category and that the lives of all people is conditioned by their religion. The flight from religion never happens apart from a flight to religion.

WGT

There has been no lack of theorizing to account for the numbers. Some chalk it up to a more visibly secularized society, others to doctrinal confusion, and others to the social media-fueled culture of distraction among today’s youth. Some dismiss the charge as alarmist, claiming that young people have always had a distaste for organized religion. The list goes on.

Bret

If my above paragraph is true (and it is) then it follows that societies never become more secularized as it is as impossible for societies to be a-religious as it is for individuals to be irreligious. If more secularized societies means that the society as a whole is operating apart from a religion foundation then the notion that societies become more secularized is ridiculous. Man, rather considered as a individual or in his societal role, is a hopelessly religious being.

WGT

In a recent column for CNN, Rachel Held Evans opined that, “what millennials really want from the church is not a change in style but a change in substance.” Speaking as someone who has spent the past forty plus years in the bosom of American Evangelicalism, she is certainly onto something. The “what” is the issue, not the “how.”
You don’t have to be a sociologist to know that we live in a culture of asphyxiating “performancism.” Performancism is the mindset that equates our identity and value directly with our performance. It casts achievements not as something we do or don’t do but as something we are (or aren’t). The money we earn, the car we drive, the schools we attend, aren’t merely reflective of our occupation or ability; they are reflective of us. They are constitutive rather than descriptive. In this schema, success equals life, and failure is tantamount to death.

Bret

If WGT is correct about “performancism” then what the culture needs above all is the law preached to them to remind them of their performance failure. The last thing these performance hounds need to hear is that God accepts their failures apart from a confessed recognition that all their performances (even the best of them) are as filthy rags before God. They should be told that their schema is correct. Success does equal life and failure is tantamount to death and the fact is that the most successful of them in the congregation are failures.

You see my problem with WGT is I sense that WGT wants to rush to the Gospel solution before setting the law hook. WGT’s message leads people to conclude, “It’s ok if my performance isn’t good enough because God isn’t exacting.” But God is exacting and God does demand performance.

My next problem is that the performance hounds are only self disappointed regarding their performance. An awareness needs to be opened to them that they need be more concerned about the fact that God is disappointed with them. The good news of the Gospel is not they have no need to be hard on themselves but rather that because of the Lord Christ God is no longer hard on them. This is not an unimportant distinction because, with notable exceptions, the emphasis on WGT’s article is how self is hard on self. The problem that those who refuse to attend church have instead is that God is more hard on them then they will ever be on themselves.

The fact that WGT’s article is anthropocentric regarding people’s performance issue makes me wonder about the article as a whole.

WGT,

Performancism leads us to spend our lives frantically propping up our image or reputation, trying to have it all, do it all, and do it all well, often at a cost to ourselves and those we love. Life becomes a hamster wheel of endless earning and proving and maintenance and management, where all we can see is our own feet. Before long we are living in a constant state of anxiety, fear, and resentment. A few years ago, Dr. Richard Leahy, an anxiety specialist, was quoted as saying, “The average high school kid today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950s.”

Bret

Naturally self is always concerned about self. This is a succinct definition of sin. The last thing we need to tell the performance hounds is that God gives them permission to not be concerned about performance. In point of fact what they need to be told is that God is more demanding of them than they will ever be of themselves. Of course when they become convinced of their inability to live up to God’s standards then we give them the good news of Christ performance for them and that God is satisfied with Christ’s performance for them.

WGT

Sadly, the church has not proven immune to performancism. An institution theoretically devoted to providing comfort to those in need is in trouble because it has embraced the same pressure-cooker we find everywhere else.In recent years, a handful of popular books have been published urging a more robust and radical expression of the Christian faith. I heartily amen the desire to take one’s faith seriously and demonstrate before the watching world a willingness to be more than just Sunday churchgoers. The unintended consequence of this push, however, is that we can give people the impression that Christianity is first and foremost about the sacrifices we make rather than the sacrifice Jesus made for us – our performance rather than his performance for us. The hub of Christianity is not “do something for Jesus.” The hub of Christianity is “Jesus has done everything for you.” And my fear is that too many people, both inside and outside the church, have heard our “do more, try harder” sermons and pleas for intensified devotion and concluded that the focus of the Christian faith is the work that we do instead of the work God has done for us in the person of Jesus.

Bret

I’m going to need a list of all these pressure cooker Churches because I don’t know where they are at.

Still, there is much to like in this paragraph. I only wish we didn’t need to create false dichotomies as if emphasizing Christ’s performance for us means that our performance doesn’t matter. Even St. Paul could say,

“by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not found vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

Obviously Christ performance is what is central — and the centrality of that needs to remain central — but the effect of Christ’s performance for us is dimly reflected in our performance for Christ and if we care not about our performance for Christ then we must ask ourselves if we care about Christ’s performance for us.

WGT

Furthermore, too many churches perpetuate the impression that Christianity is primarily concerned with morality. As my colleague David Zahl has written, “Christianity is not about good people getting better. It is about real people coping with their failure to be good.” The heart of the Christian faith is Good News not good behavior.When Sunday mornings become one more venue for performance evaluation, can you blame a person for wanting to stay at home?
As someone who loves the church, I am saddened by the perception of Christianity as a vehicle of moral control and good behavior, rather than a haven for the discouraged and dying. It is high time for the church to remind our broken and burned out world that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a one-way declaration that because Jesus was strong for you, you’re free to be weak; because Jesus won for you, you’re free to lose; because Jesus succeeded for you, you’re free to fail.

Bret

Again, we must beware false dichotomies. It is true that Christianity is not primarily concerned with morality but that doesn’t mean that Christianity isn’t proximately concerned about morality. Certainly St. James was concerned with morality. If one reads St. John’s epistles you can see that he is concerned about morality. St. Paul is concerned about morality when he asks, “What shall we say? Shall we go on sinning that grace might increase? God forbid! It is just not helpful when Christian ministers write as if morality is not a concern of the Christian God.

And the Zahl quote just isn’t accurate. Christianity is about good people getting better. It is true that none of our “good” in an absolute sense but by God’s grace alone we are transformed from glory unto glory (II Cor. 3:18). Christianity teaches that we are not what we will be, but it also teaches that we are not what we once were.

The fact that Christians do begin, with serious purpose, to conform not only to some, but to all the commandments of God indicates that by God’s grace alone we are being changed.

The fact that Christianity is seen about Christians being moral is seen in Paul’s words to the Ephesians,

But ye did not so learn Christ;

21 if so be that ye heard him, and were taught in him, even as truth is in Jesus:

22 that ye put away, as concerning your former manner of life, the old man, that waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit;

23 and that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind,

24 and put on the new man, that after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.

25 Wherefore, putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbor: for we are members one of another.

26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:

27 neither give place to the devil.

28 Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have whereof to give to him that hath need.

But of course it is not only about good people being constantly renewed by Grace alone. It is also about comforting the afflicted who see that they are not yet what they are called to be. Christianity is also about helping real people cope with their failure of not being good. The Christian faith encourages people to press on

13 Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before,

14 I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

15 Let us therefore, as many as are mature, be thus minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, this also shall God reveal unto you:

So the Church has a word of hope and comfort to the floundering and it has a word to those who are not floundering. To those who are floundering the word is, “It is true you are a great sinner, but Christ is a greater Savior.” To those who are not floundering the word is, “further in and farther up.”

WGT

Grace and rest and absolution–with no new strings or anxieties attached–now that would be a change in substance.

Was The Lord Christ attaching strings when he spoke of the necessity to deny one’s self, take up his Cross and follow?

Creation Account To Be Taken Literarily or Literally?

From a sermon I found online …

Third, some clarification. Genesis 1 is not a scientific report. Genesis 2 and 3 is not an eyewitness account. And Revelation 21 and 22 is neither. What we have in these biblical texts is literature. Literature intended to evoke awe and wonder. Literature intended to sustain faith and hope. Literature intended to give understanding. To read these biblical texts not literarily but literally is misguided. It’s misguided to read them literally and then to dismiss them as hopelessly out of touch with reality.

1.) It is true that Genesis 1 is not a scientific report. Indeed, it is much more than that. Genesis 1 is a theological report. If it was only a scientific report we could not dare trust it’s accuracy. However, as it is a theological report we can trust its accuracy explicitly.

2.) Genesis 2 and 3 is not an eyewitness account, unless of course you count God as a reliable eyewitness.

3.) Was Jesus misguided when he read the creation accounts literally? The New Testament treats Genesis 1–11 as historical narrative that is literal. At least 25 New Testament passages refer directly to the early chapters of Genesis, and they are always treated as literal history.

a.) Jesus cited Genesis 1,2, and 5 in response to a question about divorce (Matthew 19:4–6; Mark 10:6–9). Are we to fault Jesus for being misguided in reading Genesis literally?

b.) Paul referenced Genesis 2–3 in Romans 5:12–19; 1 Corinthians 15:20–22, 45–47; 2 Corinthians 11:3; and 1 Timothy 2:13–14. Are we to fault Paul for being misguided in reading Genesis literally?

4.) There is nothing in Genesis 2 and 3 which suggests that it is not to be taken literally.

5.) Apparently literature is to evoke awe, and wonder and to give understanding but it is not to evoke confidence because it is true truth or give understanding because it is based on God’s reliable eyewitness.

6.) If we can believe in a literal resurrection, per the Gospel accounts, why is it so impossible to believe in a literal creation that is consistent with the text in Genesis? Or, are we to understand the Gospel accounts literarily as well so that we view the Resurrection as geschicte or heilgeschichte — historical events that are to be taken as true without necessarily being true historical events?