Windows Into Worldviews – Page 5

Symbol Change

^{Judges 6:5}That night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it ²⁶and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here, with stones laid in due order.

Studying the book of Judges right now and in Judges we see how unfaithful Israel had built altars to Baal as opposed to previous generations who had erected altars to “I AM” thus communicating who the people and the land were being given over to. I was struck with the importance of those altars as symbols and declarations of ownership.

When we tear down old symbols and replace them with new symbols we are, like the Israelites of old, giving ourselves, our children and our land over to different gods. The tearing down of a flag or a monument and the raising of a new flag or new monument is a significant happening. What you are witnessing is the gods being changed out.

In the last 100 years, we have seen quite a bit of this. When you do any reading on the fall of Czarist Russia and the rise of Communism you note that the Communist went whole hog on this very point. They not only tore down Churches. The Communists changed those Churches usage from houses of worship to places where pigs were housed. The Communists changed the Churches from places where the soul could find relief to latrines where a different kind of relief was found. The Communists after the revolution went on a rampage tearing down old symbols and erecting new ones. Out with the old God. In with the new gods.

When the Soviet Union fell the process was reversed. I clearly remember many scenes of statues of Stalin and Lenin being pulled down by cranes. When “Desert Storm” was finished one of the clearest images of victory was the pulling down of a statue of Saddam Hussein. Out with the old god. In with the new gods.

Now in our country, we have been experiencing the very same thing. First, it was the Confederate flag desecrated and hidden away. Recently, I read a longish piece on how it is the Gadsen flag that has been determined as “racist” and no longer can be tolerated in the public square. Statuary of our ancestors is being removed in favor of the ancestors of an alien and strange people. Out with Christianity. In with the new gods.

Whenever you find this happening you are witnessing a religious attack on the people. Where this religious attack is successful you are witnessing a people being conquered. In the book of Judges, the people had been conquered by Baal as witnessed by all those new altars built to Baal. In Czarist Russia the Christian Russians had been conquered by the Jewish Bolsheviks as witnessed by removal of their Christian Churches. Today White Western Christians are being conquered by the enemies of Christ and the evidence of that is the removal of our symbols in favor of the symbols of our enemies.

The old West — The West of Christendom — is under siege and most Christians aren’t even aware that they and their undoubted catholic Christian faith is under attack.

A Few Words On Hillary, E-Mail Servers, & The God State

Today, the FBI Director, James Comey, made it clear that his department would not indict, because they could not indict, Hillary Clinton for her Email server crimes whereby she compromised State security. After Attorney General Lorretta Lynch last week made known that she would follow the FBI’s advice this means that once again, a Clinton walks away from something that if a non-Clinton had perpetrated they’d be held culpable. Witness Gen. David Petraeus’ conviction for essentially the same crimes for which Hillary will not be indicted.

I am not interested in spending any time in the entrails of Comey’s decision. Suffice it to understand that he doubtless knows that Clinton enemies have a habit of disappearing when about to slap the Clinton mafiosi family. What I am interested in doing is bringing out a theological point in connection to this event that I doubt you’ll read anywhere else.

This event where Hillary skates above the law once again proves that one way to locate the God in any given social order is to locate the person or institution which can not be held responsible. One characteristic of being god or a god figure is the fact that there is no one to whom you can be held responsible to for anything that you do.

This is true of the God of the Bible, the only true God. God is not answerable to anyone. This is where Arminians make their error by constantly trying to make God answerable to themselves. God is not answerable to anyone save Himself and He is under no compulsion to actually provide answers for His actions. One of the perks of being God is that you are not answerable to the non-gods. This was demonstrated in the account in the book of Job. When you read the book of Job you see that Job has all kinds of questions about God’s actions. You also see that Job never gets an answer to any of those questions demanding that God be accountable to Job. What Job gets from God, in terms of answers, is basically, I’m God and I owe you no answers.

This is how it should be between the Creator and the creature. God is not responsible to the creature and owes no answer to the creature about anything He does.

And this is exactly how the Federal Leviathan is acting in this Hillary affair. The State is God and Hillary, as the likely soon incarnation of the State, is not answerable to anyone. She could commit cold-blooded murder on FOX News as broadcast across the world and she would not be held responsible, because the God or god concept of any social order by definition can not be held responsible. So, when we see Hillary not being indicted for what she is clearly guilty of it is merely another case proving whereby the State takes itself as being the God of the social order and so not responsible to any law to which mere mortals are responsible.

This demonstrates that we live in a social order where Rex Lex applies to the State and its key minions. Rex Lex means that the King is above the law, or that the King is not responsible to the Law. The same is true for a God, of course. Hillary, as a minion of the God State, and likely soon to be the incarnation of the State as President, is above the law.

This, in turn, clearly demonstrates that we do not live in a nation ruled by law but rather we live in a nation ruled by men. Which, of course, means that law is applicable only depending upon how well you are or are not connected to people who can make the ramifications of the law go away for those who know them.

The next implication of this is, that since we do not live by the rule of law but by the rule of men, we are no longer responsible to the law. Now, we may still obey what is called the law because we can be hurt by the rule of men who decide to apply the law haphazardly but if the law is not uniformly applied to all men then no men are responsible to a law that has lost all its legitimacy because it is not really law as seen in the fact that it is indiscriminately applied.

Let us be clear here. This kind of action whereby the God-State escapes being held responsible by the law, communicates again that the Government we live under no longer is legitimate. We are living under a illegal Government. As such we owe this illegitimate State no obedience. We still might render obedience up for several reasons, but we do not owe a illegitimate State obedience.

Another couple of points before summing up. Those who are servants of the one true God go out of their way to expose the false gods walking upon the earth. There was a time when Christian clergy would not be silent in the face to an action by the God State where, as in this case, it would seek up to take up the prerogatives of God walking on the earth. For example, when Herod had his brother’s wife that was an act that implied his thinking of being above the law and John the Baptist as God’s man let him have. How many clergy across America will inveigh against the State as false god this Sunday?

Finally, this once again points to the fact that Theocracy is an inescapable category. All States reflect and descend from some God or god concept. Sometimes, as in this case, the State is its own God concept.

So, today,

1) We learn once again that the State see’s itself as God walking on the earth. As God it cannot be held responsible for its actions. Gods, by definition, are not responsible to anyone.

2.) We learn that the modern State, like Kings of old, are above the law.

3.) We learn that the current State is a illegitimate as well as immoral god. As such the citizenry owes it no obedience.

Christians who cannot see this are involved in State-olatry regardless whatever intentions they may have.

Meandering Thoughts On The One and The Many

Diversity absolutized would end in the uniformity of absolute diversity. In point of fact absolute diversity is impossible since sameness must exist in order to identify diversity. In a world of absolute diversity one could not recognize diversity because in order to measure diversity there has to be a corresponding idea of sameness in order to measure diversity. Hence absolute diversity leads to uniformity. If everything is different than nothing can be different because no continuity would exist between the differentiated things in order to know recognize and identify differentiation. If diversity is absolutized so that uniformity is allegedly eclipsed than the consequence is a absolute uniformity of differentiation where everything is the same because nothing is the same.

In the same way Uniformity absolutized is the end of uniformity. If there is no determinative way or manner in which uniformity can be distinguished from differentiation then how could we possibly know if there is uniformity? Uniformity requires the reality of differentiation in order to be able to identify uniformity. If everything is the same nothing is the same. If everything is Macaroni and Cheese than how can we know what Macaroni and Cheese is if there nothing to differentiate it from anything else?

Uniformity and diversity need each other because without each other neither can exist or find meaning as Uniformity nor as diversity.

Of course the denial of Uniformity and diversity is a denial of the God of the Bible and without the God of the Bible no meaning can be located anywhere. God is the Transcendent One and Many which gives meaning to all the Immanent One and Many’s.

Calvinist Minister & Unitarian Universalist Minister Discuss “Pleasantville” Film

Over at the online “Midland Daily News,” we find a Unitarian-Universalist “Pastor” championing the Hollywood film “Pleasantville”

http://www.ourmidland.com/blogs/truth-and-meaning-top-s/article_06ee8e6e-3f5b-11e5-a1fc-273dc9d9af0b.html

In this piece Unitarian Universal Pastor Jeff (UUPJ) says,

“There are many layers to the movie and it certainly has relevance to many social issues facing us today. But perhaps most relevant is the way the people of Pleasantville speak. They speak, as one would expect, pleasantly. They never speak of unpleasant things and they always speak with the authority that their way of living is the one and only way to live. When new ideas get introduced into the community, they are first ignored, then shunned, until they are finally met with agitation and violence.

Sadly, it seems that much of America lives in Pleasantville. Many people assume that there is only one acceptable way to be in our country. And those who choose to be different are labeled communists, their lifestyle called unnatural, their ideas considered immoral. Take, for instance, the never-ending stream of letters to the Daily News from a handful of local residents who unceasingly tell us that their religion is the one and only true faith. To believe any other way is sinful and the punishment is an eternity in flames.

These are the black and white voices of Pleasantville. No compromises, no exceptions, no desire to examine facts or evidence or context. The scary thing is that while Pleasantville looks pleasant on the outside, on the inside it is a rotting, cancerous tumor of racism, homophobia, misogyny, violence and fear-mongering. And the only thing that can cure Pleasantville is the introduction of color.

Whether color means art, or books, behaviors, or vistas beyond the town borders, we must diversify or die. We must appreciate and embrace difference or risk dying of irrelevance and rigid creedalism. We must accept that everyone is not like us, and that that is OK.

What follows is my response,

Jeff,

So, you’re saying that those who have one pleasant way are not acceptable to your own one pleasent way? You, as Mr. Tolerance, can not tolerate those you deem intolerant? Contradiction much Jeff?

You complain about “black and white voices” UUPJ, yet it looks to be pretty black and white when UUPJ tells me that either I am an arcane Pleasentville voice or he is a reasonable Unitarian Universalist voice.

Unitrian Jeff complains of creedalism yet he screams here a rigid creedal cry for the change that demands homophilia, feminism, cultural marxism and other cancerous tumors — the very change advocated for in this film that UUPJ is pushing.

Is it acceptable that I’m not like you UUPJ or must I fit into your creedal vision of a monocultural world that only allows for the perverted, the outlaw, and the sociopath such is touted in this film you advocate?

Are you saying that those who have a different “pleasant way” are not acceptable to your own one pleasant way? You, as Mr. Tolerance, can not tolerate those you deem intolerant? Contradiction much Jeff?

UUPJ complains of black and white voices, yet it looks to be pretty black and white when Unitarian Jeff tells me that either I am an arcane Pleasentville voice or he is a reasonable Unitarian Universalist voice.

Unitrian Jeff complains of creedalism yet he screams here a rigid creedal cry for the change that demands homophilia, feminism, cultural marxism and other cancerous tumors.

Is it acceptable that I’m not like you Jeff or must I fit into your creedal vision of a monocultural world that only allows for the perverted, the outlaw, and the sociopath — the world of Pleasantville “colorized”?

UUPJ recommends a homework assignment for his readers. He recommends them to go view “Pleasantville.” Allow mt to offer my own homework assignment.

I recocmmend you read E. Michael Jones “Libido Dominandi,” or Jones’ “Monsters from the Id” and see just what kind of culture for which Unitarian Jeff is thumping. Take a look at the Weimar Republic and examine the exquisite diversity that Unitarian Jeff desires to come to pass. These books take a look at the true nature of the colorized Plesantville UUPJ desires that we embrace.

UUPJ deserves to be listened to the way a spoon deserves to be used as a razor.

UUPJ then writes back offering,

Bret,

I don’t waste my time rebutting ridiculous arguments. Your post (or should I say rant) had nothing to do with my blog posting and everything to do with your paranoia and obvious lack of knowledge about Unitarian Universalism. If you offer an actual argument worth rebutting, then I will be happy to engage in an adult conversation.

I close off with going into more detail about the film itself,

Jeff Liebmann,

I said exactly nothing about your U.U.-ism except to note you are Unitarian Jeff. So, why you keep harping that I don’t understand U. U.-ism is quite beside any point I originally sought to make. Classic technique, on your part here of pointing and spluttering about something completely irrelevant. This is done in order to detract from my original points.

The point I made implicitly, is a point I’ll make explicitly now. You are a cultural Marxist promoting a movie that pushes the cultural Marxist agenda. I’ve seen “Pleasantville.” I even viewed it twice because I was astonished at how the film-makers were going out of their way to caricature culture that is influenced by Christianity.

In your “Pleasantville” movie one of the main means (though not the only means) by which color vivifies black and white existence is by perversion and what used to be known as “sin.” Sin, therefore brings color and color is better. The film goes so far as to champion cultural Marxism that in one scene you find the Garden of Eden scene played out in the film as a young woman shows a brightly colored apple to a young (and yet uncolored) David, encouraging him to take and eat it. As the film progresss the black and white citizens of Pleasantville become full of color when they engage in such things as masturbation, adultery, premarital sex, or physical assault. For the cultural Marxist creators of Pleasantville “the fall” in Pleasantville that they create in their film reality is “very good.”

In this film one finds the usual Liberal-Marxist brain dead tropes on racism and the abuse of women that Christian culture supposedly always brings. One also finds the typical Cultural Marxist sneer that Christians are brain dead idiots who wouldn’t know a book if it bit them in the ass. Pleasantville is one tired Marxist cliche after another trotted out by ignoramuses in order to smear Christians, Christian culture, and the Christian faith

And here, in the “Midland Daily News,” we find Unitarian Jeff thumping for it as a great film.

Men like you Unitarian Jeff are going to have a great deal to answer for someday.

Leddihn & McAtee on the Impact of Religion

“Of all the ‘external’ elements shaping the character of individuals as well as of groups religion is, perhaps, the strongest. This should not surprise us, because every higher religion offers us an almost complete picture of a meaningful universe; it points out a destination and a way. It is, therefore, self-evident that different religions involve different ways of life: they will influence our temperaments.We should never underestimate the effect of such other factors as geography, meteorology, biology, nourishment, history, sociology; yet the great changes resulting from the conversion of large groups cannot leave us unimpressed. Even after a short time, entirely new behavior patterns emerge. One has only to compare the inhabitants of Catholic and of Protestant islands in the Hebrides in order to appreciate the importance of the religious factor; or to compare villages belonging to these two different religious communities in central Germany, in Hungary, in the Netherlands, Latvia or Switzerland. An invisible line divides the cultural patterns of these communities, even thought they speak the same language and obey the same laws.”

Liberty or Equality — pg. 179
Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

1.) Don’t miss that we are talking here of “external” elements. Religion is external inasmuch as it is that which is from outside of us (from above) that forms the man and/or people. It is an outside element that adjusts our most inward dispositions. It is an outside element that shapes both the individual and the the institutions and social order that ends up contributing in shaping us.

There are internal elements as well that have need to be considered. For example, who God has made us to be in our generations — our very DNA — is a great factor to be considered in this matter of the factors that shape character. Religion, as an external element, never works to shape the character of individuals or people groups apart from whom God has made them to be in their very corporeality.

To insist that religion is that alone which forms a man or people group would be fall into the error of Gnosticism. To insist that heredity alone forms a man or people group would be to fall into the errors of materialism. To insist that man can be only understood in terms of his environment would be the error of Skinnerian Behaviorism.

2.) For those with eyes to see, all of life is a carefully choreographed religious dance. From our habits, to our social order, to our Institutions, to our inventions, to our calendars, to our shopping malls, to our entertainments, to our art, to our science, to our fashions, everything is screaming our religion and so our Theology. Our everyday life is ablaze with theological meaning and significance. This is so true that we can paraphrase Lenin by saying, “culture is but a mere continuation of religion.” For those with eyes to see looking at a culture and a social order is to look upon religion in action.

3.) The great lie of Modernity and Anabaptist and R2K theology is that religion can be cordoned off and isolated to some private realm. One can insist on this aberration all they like but the passion of the insistence does not make it so. The great error of all Enlightenment project thinking is that reality can be compartmentalized into air-tight compartments that have little or no relation to one another. This lack of systemic thinking has been the genesis for the elimination of Biblical Christianity and the rise of Humanism.

4.) Note that not even a shared language and shared laws can strip the impact of different religions upon the same people. We see this in spades today. Cultural Marxist Americans from the same families are radically different from Biblical Christians from the same families. Even family members who differ in their Christianities, let’s say Pentecostal vs. Roman Catholic vs. Reformed, are going to be very different in the way that people who hold to those different faiths lean into life, in the their disposition and attitudes, in the way they lean into life. The more exacting each is, in regard to their faith, the more sharp the contrasts.