Windows Into Worldviews – Page 10

Dr. Piper Fires Blanks

“And therefore, as a man is his brother’s murderer, who, with froward Cain, will not be his brother’s keeper, and may preserve his brother’s life, without loss of his own life… so, when he may preserve his own life, and doth not that which nature’s law alloweth him to to do, (rather to kill ere he be killed,) he is guilty of self-murder, because he is deficient in the duty of lawful self-defence.”

-Samuel Rutherford, p. 157 (Lex, Rex)

John Piper citing a question that was sent into him,

“You recently said, ‘you wish people wouldn’t buy a gun with their economic stimulus checks.’ This sounded to some like you’re a strict pacifist who’d rather avoid confrontation with an intruder than protect his family. Would you respond to this.”

Dr. Piper answers,

The context of my comment was that the missionaries in 1956 who were martyred in Ecuador—Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Roger Youdarian, and Peter Fleming—were all speared to death, but they had guns. (This came out through research, and I saw it in a documentary.) And they shot their guns in the air as the spears were going through their chests. They could’ve saved their lives by just shooting horizontally, but they didn’t. They shot in the air because they decided earlier that they were ready to go to heaven but these natives were not. So why would they kill them rather than being killed themselves?

In relation to that, our Supreme Court just declared that the Second Amendment right to bear arms includes not just the right of a militia to bear arms, but the right of a person to have a firearm in his house.

And as I contemplated those two events—the missionaries’ decision and new decision of the Supreme Court—I thought, “If somebody enters my house as a thief, he probably is not ready to go to heaven either.” So then I just ended the blog with, “I hope you don’t use your economic stimulus check to buy a gun.”

I’ve never had one. I’ve never owned a firearm. I had a pellet rifle when I was little and I killed squirrels. But I’m sort of ashamed of the way I killed squirrels, because I didn’t eat them or do anything with them. I just felt it was cool, and I don’t think that’s a very wholesome thing.

No, I am not a pacifist. I am not a pacifist principally, and I’m not a pacifist actively.

Somebody wrote and asked me, “Would you protect your daughter if you had a gun?” I wrote back a one-word answer, “Probably,” and what I meant by it was that the circumstances are so unpredictable. What would you do? Shoot the guy in the head? Or shoot him in the chest? How about the leg? Or just throw the gun at him, or hit him over the head with it? Of course I’m going to protect my daughter! But I’m not aiming to kill anybody, especially an intruder who doesn’t know Christ and would go straight to hell, probably. Why would I want to do that if I could avoid it?

So no, I’m not a pacifist. I believe there should be a militia, and I believe in policemen with billy clubs and guns who should take out guys who are killing people. And I believe in a military to protect a land from aggression. And I believe that fathers should protect their children, even using force. But if they can avoid killing somebody, of course they should avoid killing somebody. And having a gun is a good way not to avoid killing somebody.

We don’t need guns in our houses.

And I’m not against hunters. Don’t get on my case about that, saying that Piper doesn’t believe that you can have bows and arrows and rifles, etc.

And I’m not going to get in your face if you have a gun lying in your drawer. I just think it’s not very wise.

Those who live by the gun will die by the gun.

Bret responds,

Really this is a bit of confusing mish mash. But what I think Dr. Piper is saying is,

1.) “I wouldn’t shoot to kill someone in defense of self and family because said assailant might not be ready to go to heaven and I would thus be responsible for sending someone to hell.”

If that is what he is saying one wonders how a Reformed minister of his stature could ever believe he could send someone to hell before God was able to get them ready to go to heaven?

I know there are many times when God sees a person die and says to Himself, “To late again … and here I was going to get that person saved for heaven next week.”

2.) Here is Dr. Piper’s question as put in the mouths of the Martyred Missionaries, and then as seemingly leveraged for a sort of pacifistic disposition when it comes to self defense, “So why would they kill them rather than being killed themselves?

Here is my answer to that question

a.) Because the Scripture gives me license for self-defense,

Exodus 22:2-3 teaches “If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed. If the sun has risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed. He should make full restitution; if he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.”

One conclusion which can be drawn from this is that a threat to our life is to be met with lethal force. During the day, presumably because we can recognize and later apprehend the thief if he escapes, we are not to kill him in non life-threatening circumstances.

In Proverbs 25:26 we read that “A righteous man who falters before the wicked is like a murky spring and a polluted well.”

Dr. Piper seemingly would have us faltering before the wicked by not being armed.

b.) Because God has called me to be a good steward of all that He has given me and the most precious gifts that God has given us is our family and our lives. To throw our lives away because the wicked are not ready for Heaven is to violate the call to be good stewards.

c.) Love for others requires me to protect the judicially innocent from those wicked who would do harm. It is not love for the judicially innocent for me to be so pious that I allow harm to the judicially innocent because I was too pious to squeeze off a round in order to demonstrate my love to them.

3.) Dr. Piper claims he is not a pacifist but much of his counsel comes across as pacifistic. True, the answer is full of contradictions that can be read both ways but he ends his answer by warning against owning a weapon. (“And having a gun is a good way not to avoid killing somebody.”)

4.) Dr. Piper’s statement, “We don’t need guns in our houses,” belies a serious misunderstanding of necessity of self defense, a serious misunderstanding of the average response time of the Police to a distress call, and a serious misunderstanding of the purpose of the 2nd amendment.

5.) We applaud Dr. Piper for his thoughtful counsel regarding avoidance of taking life it at all possible. However, we should keep in mind that a home invasion crisis, that includes a potential threat to life, often does not allow for easily determining the intent of the aggressor. As such, often it may not be possible to avoid taking life, and in point of fact, to much concern for the life of the aggressor might translate into not enough concern for the lives of those of the family being protected.

6.) One wonders if Dr. Piper is operating from a kind of Big Brother mindset. Note that in his list of people who should have guns he lists all the organs of the State (Militia, Police, and Military). Again, one wonders why those people are more qualified to have tools of protection where individuals are warned off against tools of protection. What makes Big Brother a better candidate for tools of protection as opposed to John Q. Public?

7.) Are we to understand that the warning in Scripture that “those who live by the sword, shall die by the sword” was meant to include those who use weapons according to a Biblical standard? When Dr. Piper says, “those who live by the gun shall die by the gun,” are we to understand that Dr. Piper is including those who use a gun to rescue their wife and children as under that curse?

8.) In the final analysis Dr. Piper’s advice on this matter is unreasonable, uninformed, and what’s worse … unbiblical.

Wherein The Pro-Death Crowd Takes The Mask Off

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/23/so_what_if_abortion_ends_life/

Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.

1.) Don’t you just love Cultural Marxists? You bang and bang on them to try to get them to see that all life is not equal, in the sense that all life is the same, (boys are different than girls, ballerinas are different then Weight-lifters, Japanese are different then Nigerians) and then when they bring themselves to admit that all life is not equal they say “all life is not equal” in the sense that all life isn’t worthy of life, and then they apply the idea of life that is not worthy of life to those who are judicially innocent.

2.) In point of fact, the person who admits that “All life is not equal,” in the sense of “All judicially innocent life is not worthy of life,” is indeed someone who can legitimately submit, with high hopes for acceptance, their resume to the “death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm trooper” society.

3.) Yes … Yes, I acknowledge that Storm Troopers can be inconsistent. One day they are being consistent with their maxim that “All judicially innocent life is not worthy of life,” and the next day they are playing “cootchie cootchie coo” with their neighbors newborn they are babysitting. Thank God many Storm Troopers are characterized by felicitous inconsistency.

4.) Notice how the “entity” mentioned (the entity that is a judicially innocent life that is not worthy of life) is referred to with the abstract term “entity” and not the concrete term “life.”

5.) According to our Storm Trooper journalist, the rights of the more powerful (“The Boss”) trump the rights of the less powerful. Friedrich Nietzsche you have a phone message from Ms. Ubermensch.

6.) By the way … I’m sure Stalin viewed the Christian Ukrainians as “non autonomous entities,” and I’d bet that Hitler viewed the Gypsies and the Jews as “non autonomous entities.” When you’re “the boss” autonomy becomes a very convenient matter to define.

Social Justice vs. Acts Of Mercy

The buzz phrase in many quarters in the Church today is “Social Justice.” It’s origins are Marxist and when one reflects just a bit one begins to realize that it is an odd phrase, if only because what those who labor for “Social Justice” advocate for, would have, in another time been called “acts of mercy.”

So, why have we changed the language from “acts of mercy” to Social justice?

Well, an “act of Mercy” implies the giving of something that is not owed. An “act of Mercy” is a generosity extended. However, when we call those same acts “Social Justice” what we have done to our conceptual framework is to have twisted it so that what formerly was a generosity extended now, because of the notion of “Justice,” becomes a action towards someone that is required and demanded.

On the part of the one receiving the act of mercy they have now gone from one whom would naturally show gratitude to one who now believes that they are only getting what is rightfully theirs to be had. An act of Mercy is benevolence received. Social Justice is getting what one is owed and deserved.

Secondly, when we metamorphize “an act of Mercy” into Social Justice we have moved from the chair of the individual philanthropist to the seat of a Judge who will render verdict on what everyone owes to society. When we invoke Social Justice we are the ones who are deciding who must “give” what, instead of one individual acting upon our own conscience as God has commanded us individually. A judge who renders a verdict is outraged when his decisions are not complied with. A philanthropist, is at worst, disappointed when his “acts of mercy” don’t have the impact that he might like.

Tolkien & McAtee On Middle Earth Worldview

Anyone with a vague familiarity with Tolkien understands that he did not like Allegory. Tolkien preferred the genre of myth. He believed that allegory was much too explicit and believed that myth, as implicit, was much better at conveying truth. As such he was a bit prickly whenever someone sought to allegorize his work. Still, Tolkien’s work, saturated in a Christian World-view as it is, there are aspects of his mythopoetic work which clearly reveals allegorical imagery.

The theme of the Triology, in its macro sense, is the contest between good and evil. In this contest sin is seen in the ring. It is interesting that the effect of sin upon people is to claim and seize unwarranted authority and control over other peoples. In Tolkien’s thinking the effect of sin is tyranny and enslavement. There is a extraordinarily anti-statist, and anti-centralization theme that saturates Tolkien’s work and Tolkien makes the ring do the work of communicating the worst effect of sin when someone claims to possess the ring is to create Despotic social orders. That this observation is accurate is seen in the effect of the ring upon those who are tempted to claim it,

Upon Boromir’s tempting

“The Ring would give me power of Command. How I would drive the hosts of Mordor, and all men would flock to my banner! How I would drive the hosts of Mordor, and all men would flock to my banner!’

Boromir strode up and down, speaking ever more loudly: Almost he seemed to have forgotten Frodo, while his talk dwelt on walls and weapons, and the mustering of men; and he drew plans for great alliances and glorious victories to be; and he cast down Mordor, and became himself a mighty king, benevolent and wise. Suddenly he stopped and waved his arms.”

Upon Galadriel’s tempting,

And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of a Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark but beautiful and terrible as the morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth. All shall love me and despair!’

She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.

‘I pass the test,’ she said. ‘I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.’ ”

Upon Gandalf’s tempting,

“With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly….Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me.”

Upon Sam’s tempting,

“His thought turned to the Ring, but there was no comfort there, only dread and danger. No sooner had he come in sight of Mount Doom, burning far away, than he was aware of a change in his burden. As it drew near the great furnaces where, in the deeps of time, it had been shaped and forged, the Ring’s power grew, and it became more fell, untameable except by some mighty will. As Sam stood there, even though the Ring was not on him but hanging by its chain about his neck, he felt himself enlarged, as if he were robed in a huge distorted shadow of himself, a vast and ominous threat halted upon the walls of Mordor. He felt that he had from now on only two choices: to forbear the Ring, though it would torment him; or to claim it, and challenge the Power that sat in its dark hold beyond the valley of shadows. Already the Ring tempted him, gnawing at his will and reason. Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-dur. And then all the clouds rolled away, and the white sun shone, and at his command the vale of Gorgoroth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own, and all this could be.

In that hour of trial it was his love of his master that helped most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.
‘And anyway all these notions are only a trick, he said to himself.”

In each of the temptings the power of the ring (the embodiment of sin in Tolkien’s work) is unto becoming a Tyrant in a Statist reality where all are slaves who serve the possessor of the ring. So, for Tolkien, sin is corporate and while effecting the possessor of the ring, its broader effect is to create centralized statist social orders. For Tolkien, sin is Statism.

Of course as the ring is sin, then Frodo becomes the sin bearer and his quest is a Via Dolorosa. However, Frodo is not the only Christ image in the Trilogy. Tolkien has three characters that answer to the imagery of Christ. Gandalf is Christ in his office as Prophet. It is Gandalf’s wisdom that guide the Fellowship. Gandalf is known as a truth speaker and without the counsel of Gandalf the Fellowship would not have made it through Moria. Gandalf, also gives his life for the Fellowship and is reborn (Resurrected ?) to lead his people against evil. Aragorn is Christ in his office as King. Aragorn, as Strider, goes through his humiliation, but as he keeps faith, he is finally exalted to his rightful place on the throne and takes a name (Elessar) to which all must bow. Frodo, fulfills the Christ imagery serving as Christ as Priest. The free people’s of Middle Earth are saved by Frodo’s representative and substitutionary sacrifice for them. Frodo, as the Priest, bears the sin of Middle Earth and expiates the effect of the Ring by bearing it to the crack of doom.

Tolkien’s work finds Frodo, the sin bearer, being supported by the Church. In Tolkien’s creation of the “Fellowship of the Ring,” we have a picture of the Church. For Tolkien the Church is comprised of men from “every tribe tongue and nation,” and yet all members of the Church still retain their people group identity. The Church comes together in order to do the work that it is called to do, but it does so on the distinct and separate strengths of each people group who still retain their particular ethnic identity (Dwarves, Elves, Men, and Hobbits). So, while the Church is Universal for Tolkien, it is also particular at the same time. Tolkien, thus honors the idea of the “One and the Many” in his vision of the Church. It is also interesting that Tolkien gives us a Church with tares. In the fall of Boromir we see a Church that is not perfect. And yet even for Boromir there was repentance. Another thing we must not miss in Tolkien’s view of the Church is that it is the Church militant. For Tolkien, the Church is at war against wickedness in high places.

Another Tolkien view of the Church might be found in the character of Samwise. Samwise is a picture of the Catholic laity. He serves the needs of the sin bearer and is the servant of Fellowship. Samwise, as the Church, fills up the sufferings of Christ and so identifies with the sin bearer that he himself will bear the ring for a period of time thus imitating his master. Samwise identity in the novel is wrapped up in Frodo’s identity. In the Trilogy we see the Samwise Character grow (he is sanctified) as he serves the needs of his master Frodo.

The Fellowship of the Ring, as the Church, is given grace for the contest of the quest in a sacrament of the Lembas. The Lembas strengthen the Church as they are relied for sustenance. The more the Church has to rely upon the Lembas the more the Lembas tie spirit and will to physical exertion. The sacredness of the Lembas is seen in how the wicked blanch and sputter when they come into contact with the Lembas. The Lembas are for the Church and those outside the Church find as much death in the Lembas as the Church finds life in them.

And though as a Protestant I have no use for Mary-olatry it is clear that Galadriel is Tolkien’s virgin Mary in the Trilogy. Galadriel gives gifts to the Fellowship and the ring-bearer in order for them to complete their quest. She is seen as having a privileged position among those who are considered the great. She is responsible for organizing the White Council and creates beauty in all she touches. She so thoroughly woos Gimli (the Tolkien Protestant?) that in a act of repentance for his previous unbelief he asks for a lock of her hair as a gift upon their parting.

In closing, I would like to return to the idea of the ring representing sin — a sin that always creates a Tyrant in those who claim it. That Tolkien hated Statism and made possession of the Ring equivalent to establishing Statist and Centralized social order is seen again in a different way at the very end of the book. In the chapter “The Scourging of the Shire,” Tolkien gives us a Shire where the effects of the Ring (Tyrannical social order) has turned the community of the Hobbits ugly. Frodo, takes sin to the crack of doom and upon his return home he finds the work of sin he cast away having done its work in his home. In this chapter, we see again, what we see throughout the Trilogy — a tyrannical social order created by the lust of power can only be overcome by stiff resistance at great cost.

The Program Of Religious Humanists

www.amazon.com/The-City-Man-Declaration-Democracy/dp/B000EO93EQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350069999&sr=8-1&keywords=The+City+of+man+A+declaration+on+World+Democracy

The book linked above was written in 1940. It is but one book of many document of humanism that reveals the world-view and agenda of the religious humanists. (Sometimes mistakenly referred to as secular humanists.) One could easily compare the Humanist manifesto I and II with the The City of Man; A Declaration on World Democracy,” and find a common motif. The religious humanists today still have much the same agenda and goals as those in this book who openly expressed the desire for a World Government animated by a type of Democracy that has been apotheosized into a unitary world religion. According to those who affixed their signatures to this manifesto,

“Democracy is nothing more and nothing less than humanism in theocracy and rational theocracy in universal humanism.”

That in this religious humanism envisioned a one world order that would create a kind of multi-faithism can be seen by their acknowledgement that democracy, as the highest all embracing religion is a,

“universal religion of the Spirit acknowledging with reverence the incorruptible substance of truth which lies under the surface and errors of the separate confessions risen from the common ground of ancient and medieval civilization — democracy, in the catholicity of its language, interprets and justifies the separate creeds as its own universal vernacular.”

Of course what we get here is a Democracy that champions not only the brotherhood of all men but also the brotherhood of the faiths of all men, as long as those faiths are reinterpreted through the prism of humanist theo-democracy. Reformed, Lutheran, Catholic, Islam, Judaism all speak the same truths as those truths are filtered through our undoubted holy Democratic faith and because there is only one faith, there will only be one amalgamated people and one World order.

The day comes when the heresy of nationalism is conquered …. Then above the teeming manifold life of free communities … there will be a Universal Parliament representing peoples, not states, — a fundamental body of law prevailing throughout the planet in all those matters that involve interregional interests … an elected President, the President of Mankind — no crowned emperor, no hereditary king … embodying for a limited term the common authority and the common law; and a federal force ready to strike at a anarchy and felony.”

Of course anarchy and felony will be defined as whatever runs contrary to the theo-democracy of world-view religious humanism that is supported by a multi-faithism that has a universal meaning given to it by religious humanism.

In the book “City of Man,” we are given a thirteen point program for achieving the new world order.

1.) The Promise of Utopianism — One of the integral components of any world-view is a teleology. The humanist teleology (end goal) is some kind of promised Kingdom of Man — Utopia.

In the religious humanist world-view some sort of salvation for all lies in the future and every piece of legislation is a building block to craft the coming salvific age of man. The latest building block being put into place is universal health care.

Of course this teleology is taken as a article of faith as religious humanism has no evidence whatsoever for the flowering of a Utopian New World Order.

2.) Planning — According to the book, “Planning is implicit in the spirit of Democracy.” Of course this planning is Statist planning and not individual planning. In point of fact the Statist Democracy planning obviates the need for individual planning. Freedom for individual planning is eliminated in favor of planning by the democratic elite.

Planning starts with economic planning (5 year plans) and moves to social engineering done in order to create “New World Order” man. Eventually the theo-democracy ends with planned elections.

3.) Centralization — No planning is possible without centralization, and there is no Utopia without planning. This is the centralization of the hive and the anthill. There is a non-resolvable contradiction here. The religious humanists believe in the inevitability of Utopia, yet in order for the inevitable to come to pass there has to be a humanist plan for it that requires centralization. Centralization as found in the State is God and so rejects any free will except the free will of the elite Centralizers. Man is only free to live and move and have his being in the New World order State.

4.) Identity, Sameness — Individuals are cogs in the machine of the social order. They are interchangeable undifferentiated grains of sand. This is why the term “masses” arose in our lexicon. Individuals do not exist in religious humanism but merely belong to the masses. Religious humanism requires the cult of sameness (sometimes called egalitarianism) where if differences exist they must be dismissed as meaningless. Where differences actually exist they must be explained away. Where difference cause problems to the Utopian plan those differences square pegs must be pounded into round holes. This demand for Identity and Sameness explains our current move towards claiming all sexuality and gender to be equally valuable.

5.) Majoritism — Here we will simply quote Eric von Kuehnelt-Leddihn’s analysis written in 1974,

“There are minorities (‘never majorities’) who are obnoxious and are declared to be the real cause of all or at least most iniquities. These conspiratorial and domineering minorities are not content to ‘be like everyone else.’; they crave privileges, thus depriving the ‘underprivileged’ of their rights; they destroy equality, identity, and ‘social harmony.’ The main criminals are the ‘ruling classes,’ composed in the United States of the ‘white Anglo Saxon Protestant minority….’ Leftist ideologies rest on the existence of ‘badmen’ who can be made objects of general hatred.”

6.) Hostility against organized religion — The standard religious humanist reaction to religion that does not bow to the humanist elite establishment in lapdog subservience by reinterpreting its belief system through the prism of humanism is the effort to marginalize and eliminate that religion from the marketplace of ideas and from the public square. We see this today in our culture by the never ending attempt to “otherize,” and “demonize,” the Biblical Christian who dares question the hostility of the humanist world and life view.

7.) Socialist hatred of free enterprise — Free enterprise runs contrary to centralized planning. If individuals are free to be entrepreneurs who plan for their own future and their own goals they get in the way of the humanist elite central planners. Free enterprise also runs contrary to the goals of Identitarianism, Egalitarianism, and sameness since a free economy gives man the opportunity to build up something that might make him unique from the hoi poloi.

8.)Anti-familism — The family as a closed and emotionally marked-off unit is an obstacle to total sameness and worse yet, from the religious humanist point of view, the traditional family contains its own hierarchic structure that is distinct from the hierarchic structure of the World Paternal-State. Progressive taxation, as well as our current Death Inheritance tax, is an attack by the State on the family as the State works to make sure that it is strengthened by its work to weaken the family. This anti-familialism also explains the States propensity to support every type of deviant perversity that demands recognition. When perversity is given sanction the effect is not to raise the perversity up in status but the effect is to drag down the traditional family in esteem.

9.) Intolerance

“Inflexible principles must be stated in a renovated law, beyond which freedom is felony.”

Religious humanism forever moans about tolerance but it is itself one of the most intolerant belief system in existence. Religious humanism (and remember religious humanism comes in various flavors and stripes including the Christian flavor) wants freedom only for the various “isms” that make up its constituency (i.e. — Feminism, Sodomitism, Liberationism, etc.). Because this is so, religious humanism is prone to carrying out all kinds of different inquisitions in the name of “tolerance.” Universities shut down academic freedom when ideas challenge the religious humanist world and life view. Hollywood will shut down people who don’t share their view of tolerance. Politicians will be intolerant towards those ideas that don’t fit their view of toleration. (Witness Obama’s latest speech that those who recently said in a UN speech, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” Here we see that Tolerance will not be extended to those who know and say true things about the prophet.

10.) Statism — This has already been implied with our categories of “planning,” and “centralization.” Religious humanism believes that everything within the State, nothing against the State, nothing outside the State. In the State we live and move and have our being. Statism is Hegel’s vision come to pass.

11.) Messianism — Messianism is linked to Utopianism. Every Utopia must have a Messiah that leads men into the great new promised future age. The Messiah is not only a King but a savior. In religious humanism the Messianism can come in the way of the “great leader,” (think of Obama and the Greek Colonnades when he accepted the 2008 Democratic nomination and his language about slowing the rising tides of the oceans, etc.) or it can come in the way of a racial character (think of the Nazi’s and their Aryan vision or James Cone and his vision of Black nationalism) or it can come in the way of some kind of Nationalism that has run off the rails. In whatever way it expresses itself you will always find a element of Messianism is religious humanism.

12.) Colonialism — This Messianism has the task of eventually saving all mankind. As such there will be a push towards Colonialism of one form or another. We have seen this recently with the US led colonizing of Ethiopia. People think that the Arab Spring is about “freedom,” but this isn’t “freedom” we are seeing but religious humanism Colonialism.

13.) Interventionism — Due to its Utopianism, Messianism, and Colonialism, a highly aggressive interventionist and bellicose element in Religious humanism. The “City of Man” Declaration tells us that,

“Peace at any price is peace at the price of submission.”

and so we learn that war is a price that will be paid in order to cause those who disagree with the tenets of religious humanism to submit. Indeed, religious humanists usually love armed conflicts because during war a crisis is created whereby the State can use as excuse to expand its powers of centralization, and Messianism.

That the book, “City of Man” was written in 1940 is irrelevant because it can be clearly seen that the religious humanist agenda has been the same for hundreds of years. The goal is a New World Order Utopianism.