Lucid Brevity Touching Egalitarianism

“The desire for equality is rooted in the hatred of God and in the resentment of our subordinate status as creatures. Unregenerate man desires to be god, and the superiority of others only serves to remind him of the impossibility of his own apotheosis. Every excellence at which he is inferior must be devalued to protect his ego. Misery and mediocrity are the practical results of belief in equality.”

Mickey Henry

“And the self-deification inherent in the idea of equality also winds up a hostile witness against equality itself. This by way of the fact that all pretenses of equality among men merely erect alternative hierarchies under capos, commissars, administrators, and media moguls. And inside the egalitarian ethos, everyone either covets or holds in contempt all others relative to themselves. In fact, no Christian aristocrat ever held his servants in greater contempt than does the equality-monger embarrassed by his constituents.”

Dan Brannan

Keep in mind that the egalitarian impulse once given its head always leads to the least common denominator social order. In egalitarian cultures whoever is the lowest, most base, least intelligent, most morally bankrupt, and the greatest cultural troglodyte will be the norm by which all norms are normed. Egalitarianism, being the attack on God that Mr. Henry and Mr. Brannan note above, always leads to the men embracing the absence of God and the absence of God is both the guarantee that of social order disintegrating downward into the void and the very definition of Hell. Egalitarian man, always creates social-order Hell.

A Dutchie Testifies To The Ongoing Validity of God’s Law in its General Equity

Another more recent Reformed stalwart explaining that nations are regulated by God’s revealed will:

“In addition, the Old Testament retains its validity to regulate our life in all honorableness to the glory of God, according to his will. Usually, in speaking of the Old Testament we distinguish the moral, the civil, and the ceremonial laws. The law of the ten commandments, though containing certain ceremonial and civil aspects, retains its force in the church of all ages. This law is proper to man’s being. By grace, we are enabled to follow its precepts again in cultivating a life of good works which shall be to the praise of God. The ceremonial laws which regulated Israel’s worship pointed forward to the atoning work of the Savior and were fulfilled by him. The civil laws were grounded in God’s announcement of himself as king of his covenant people. In these laws, we find many matters which pertained peculiarly to the Jews. Yet the underlying principles are valid for all nations.  On this basis, they deserve respectful and repeated attention.

For the Christian, all of life is religiously conditioned.

We refuse to compartmentalize our lives by limiting our worship of and obedience to God to some small part. In his word, given in both Old and New Testaments, God demands that we recognize the sweeping scope of his claims upon our lives. OUR RELATIONSHIP TO GOD AND SELF, TO FELLOW MAN AND THE CREATED ORDER, IS REGULATED BY HIS REVEALED WILL. To ascertain him we must listen to his voice which speaks so eloquently of him as the God of the covenant. This conviction alone will provide a powerful antidote to prevalent secularization of life.”

~ P.Y. DeJong, 1980
Minister CRC /  URC

Loving Your Neighbor … From the Crusades to Immigration

Luke 10:27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Here we find the primary reason why the Europeans went on Crusade against the Muslims. The Crusaders believed that Christ was being Crucified again in the persecution of His faithful and in the defilement of His sanctuaries by the Muslim hordes. It was a matter of love for the persecuted pilgrims and a love for God that sent them on Crusade to defend Christendom from the attack of the Muslims. The Crusades, thus, were not offensive wars but wars to defend Islam’s assault upon Christendom.

In the same way, the advocacy of closing America’s borders to the alien and the stranger is advocacy rooted and grounded in love for one’s neighbor. Many of those streaming over the borders are doing so as an invading army as Ann Corcoran has demonstrated on her Refugee Resettlement Watch website. Of course, the flooding of the American labor market with cheap labor by way of illegal immigrants and so-called refugees is a funny way to “love your next-door neighbor” who can’t find a job.  The question has to be asked; “How can you love your neighbor as yourself if you have to destroy yourself and your neighbor in the process?”

The number of ministers who get it wrong on immigration, civil rights, theology, eschatology, history, etc. reminds me of the old joke about bad lawyers – its the 98% that give the good ones a bad name.

R2K as Monolatry with a Spatial Twist?

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, monolatry (also called monolatrism) is the worship of only one god without denying the existence of other gods. Henotheism is related in that it recognizes many gods yet chooses to focus exclusively on one—usually considered the god of one’s family or clan. A monolater or a henotheist is committed to one god, but he leaves room for other deities as well. Many cultures in ancient times believed in more than one god, but some of those cultures still paid homage to one god above the others. This would often work itself out in the belief that as one traveled from one geographic area to another one would be leaving the god of the previous geographic area and entering into the domain of a different god over the different geographic area.

The accusation in this entry is that R2K is a twist on monolatry inasmuch as while it worships the one true God in the church realm it advocates the henotheistic idea that when one leaves the church realm for the common realm one leaves the explicit God of the bible and his authority in favor of the implicit god of Natural law and its authority. Now, we are quite aware that R2K would be appalled by this characterization but that does not make the observation and accusation any less true. Usually the lady doth protest too much the closer one gets to the truth about the lady protesting.

If an aspect of henotheism/monolatry is that there are different gods over different geographic areas then how much of a stretch is it to see R2K with its “God rules by His right hand in the grace realm but rules by his left hand in the common realm,” as just a dodgy way of saying, “When we are operating in the realm of grace we deal with God and His word but when we operate in the common realm we are dealing with another god (we could call him ‘Lefty’ since he rules by his left hand) and his unique natural law but in order to cover this up we will argue that the god of this realm (Lefty) is really the same god as God even though he isn’t because if we explicitly said he isn’t then we would be obviously guilty of spatial (as opposed to geographic) henotheism/monolatry.”

Certainly, this observation is not a stretch in the slightest. If God’s character is defined by His law, the changing out of God’s law in the common realm for a Natural law as existing in the common realm that is distinct from God’s law in the realm of grace what other conclusion can we come to that we have a different god and so an example of spatial henotheism/monolatry?

Spatial henotheists/monolatrists would never expressly admit that they affirm the existence of another god but at least it strikes me that in a defacto sense that is precisely what they are doing.  If I am restricted while in the grace realm from speaking as a minister from the pulpit the will of the God of the church/grace realm for the common realm because by doing so I would be violating both the law of God of the church/grace realm as well as the natural law of god of the common realm what else can this be except a type of spatial henotheism/monolatry?

One has to wonder if the spatial (as opposed to geographic) henotheists/monolatrists are in violation of the second commandment?

“You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).

Have the spatial henotheists/monolatrists in the Reformed Church created a pantheon of gods that are to be respected depending upon which spatial realm one finds one’s self in?

Pulling Back the Curtain on FDR’s Pearl Harbor Treachery

“FDR’s Day of Infamy speech on Dec. 8, 1941, asking Congress to declare war omits all reference to his war provoking ultimatum (given to the Japanese), ten days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. It deliberately deceived all members of Congress, Democrats, and Republicans alike, when he said the united States was still in conversation with its government and its emperor, looking forward to the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. No member of Congress knew about FDR’s war ultimatum, or of his receipt of the decoded Japanese answer, the evening of December 6th, when he turned to Harry Hopkins and said that meant war. This is exactly what he wanted and expected, but strangely, although he was commander and chief of our armed forces, he did little or nothing about it. It was his duty to immediately call the Secretary of War and the Secretary of Navy and General Marshall and Admiral Stark. The only thing that that is known is that he did call Admiral Stark who was at the theatre and so did not reach him. There is no record that he ever communicated that night with any of the prominent navy or army officers. The record shows that FDR knew from the decoded answer that it meant war more than fourteen hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and did nothing about it, except in his ‘Day of Infamy’ speech to start the spread of the greatest cover-up in history which continued for many years. Quoting FDR,

‘Indeed one hour after the Japanese air squadron had commenced bombing Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the united States and his colleague delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent message’ (FDR’s war ultimatum). As pointed out the Japanese decoded answer was known to FDR fourteen hours before, and presumably, to Hull, Stimson, Knox, Marshall, and Stark. If they were not notified, FDR is responsible. The big cover-up got a good start wrapped up in a well-publicized and universally acclaimed Day of Infamy speech to Congress because not one member knew of the existence of FDR’s war-making ultimatum.”

Hamilton Fish
US Congressman — November 2, 1920 – January 3, 1945
FDR, The Other Side of the Coin; How We were Tricked into WW II – p. 146f