Wheaton College Continues To Go Off The Rails

Wheaton college is a place that produces enemies of the Cross and of Biblical Christianity (Witness Michael Gerson). But then why should they be an exception to Evangelical Colleges that are anti-Christ?

Recently, Wheaton came out with a study exploring the, “Intersection of Government, Foreign Assistance, and God’s Mission in the World.” In a preliminary statement that still has to go through the revision stage they affirmed,

The extraordinary power of the United States and the daily impact of the United States on the world’s poor requires special vigilance on the part of American Christian citizens as to the effects of the US role and policies and assistance programs. Our goal should be to bend the power of the United States toward a maximally effective impact on the world’s poor”

And in a press release they offered a series of Affirmations,

1.) We affirm that active concern for the poor is a non-negotiable aspect of Christian discipleship.

2.) We affirm that Christians need to become more competent in addressing the full range of government policy as it relates to the poor in the United States and globally.

3.) We affirm that Christians should advocate for just, generous, and fair government foreign assistance and related policies.

Now the fact that these statements are just so much “social justice” window dressing to disguise a Marxist agenda is seen by the reality that one of their speakers was one Ron Sider whose position was totally decimated by David Chilton’s, “Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt-Manipulation: A Biblical Response to Ronald J. Sider,” in 1990.\

Now, on the surface there isn’t much to disagree with in these statements. However, if one scratches the surface of these statements one begins to smell the sulfur of Marxism. There is no absolute affirmation that wealth should be redistributed from the US to the world in order to pursue equity but the idea seems to lie just below the surface. For example, in that #3 above we find ourselves asking what standard they are using to define “just,” “generous,” and “fair.” I would be willing to bet the farm that the standard is a Marxist standard.

If we really wanted to “bend the power of the United States toward a maximally effective impact on the world’s poor” we would first realize that poverty often (not always) is a result of the death that always follows pagan religions. What impoverished countries need more than anything else (what this country needs more than anything else) is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Worldview that that Gospel creates. Countries that are institutionally and politically impoverished will never escape their impoverishment no matter how many resources we send their way, as long as they, as a culture, are haters of Christ. Concern for the poor demands that we cure their poverty with the totalistic impact of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Secondly, if we really wanted to “bend the power of the United States toward a maximally effective impact on the world’s poor” we would advocate destroying the IMF and Centralized Banking as it exists throughout the world. These Central Banks exist in order to impoverish nations by placing them in huge debt that can never be overcome. If Christians really desired to put a dent in global poverty they would end our own Federal Reserve and then demand that these united States pull out of every international banking cartel. Concern for the poor requires us to oppose the depredations of Global banking which always works to keep the poor, poor for the sake of the wealthy.

Thirdly, if we really wanted to “bend the power of the United States toward a maximally effective impact on the world’s poor” we would criminalize Marxism and social justice theories that are spun from Marxism. Marxism, insures poverty whenever it is pursued. People like Ron Sider and those who support Marxist inspired social justice theories should be deported or put in hospitals for the criminally insane. Concern for the poor requires us to marginalize those people who advocate policy that will create poverty.

Politicians as a Breed are Lying Weasels

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/05/19/fred_thompson_blumenthal_is_a_lying_weasel.html

So the Attorney General of Connecticut who is running for the US Senate seat being vacated by Chris Dodd (another lying Weasel) was caught red handed lying like a trooper about having served in Vietnam. Blumenthal was caught on tape on more than one occasion saying or intimating that he served in Vietnam when in point of fact he received deferments and wouldn’t know the difference between the Viet Cong and a Donkey Kong.

My response?

Why is anybody surprised?

Politicians are a lying breed. Rare or unemployed is the politician who will not lie. Indeed, Blumenthal is a piker compared to some who have gone before.

In the 1920 Presidential Campaign FRD was on the Democratic ticket as Vice-President nominee. During his campaigning in Deer Lodge Montana Roosevelt speaking in support of the “League of Nations” issue, and seeking to do the same self-aggrandizement shtick as Blumenthal was caught doing said,

“Does anyone suppose that the votes of Cuba, Haiti, Santo Domingo, Panama, Nicaragua, and the other Central American states would be cast differently from the vote of the United States? We are in a very real sense the big brother of these little republics…. You know, I have had something to do w/ running a couple of these little Republics. The facts are that I wrote Haiti’s Constitution myself and, if I do say so, I think it is a pretty good Constitution.”

Roosevelt received such applause from the Deer Lodge, Montana folk on this stump speech that he also included his Constitution writing skills in his stump speech in both Butte and Helena Montana.

Of course Roosevelt was a shiftless worthless ne’er do well Mama’s rich boy. Roosevelt couldn’t successfully manage his own money or run his own life and he never ran a Central American Republic and he never came close to writing Haiti’s Constitution.

When confronted with his lie Roosevelt simply denied it and kept denying it throughout his life and this in spite of the fact that the Associated Press reported his lying gaffe and that 31 citizens of Butter signed a document swearing that they heard Roosevelt boast the he had written Haiti’s Constitution.

Politicians as a Breed are Lying Weasels

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends III

I met David Ehnis in Lansing approximately Eight years ago. He and his family attended the Church I pastor for several years and David served with me as an Elder on the Consistory. I have always considered David one of a handful that actually understands the large worldview picture of what the Christian faith is intended to be.

It is with great satisfaction that I recommend to you this post from my friend David Ehnis. (See link at bottom of post for David’s blogsite.)

Evangelism in the Old Testament

The great themes of the Scriptures start in Genesis and end in Revelation; where we get in trouble, as a Church, is to start imposing separations and systems that just aren’t there. One way that we do this is by placing a great divide between the Old and New Testaments. To not see great continuity between the Testaments one has to contort the scriptures to absurdity – thankfully most in Christendom aren’t consistent enough to accomplish that, even though their stated positions do. One such contortion is to read The Great Commission and Evangelism as a completely NEW, and thus unique, call to the Church. However, Evangelism is not new, it has been a part of the plan since the beginning.

Here are some examples:

* Israel being called to faith and repentance: Deut. 30:8; Josh. 24:15; Lev. 5:5; 16:29-31; Deut 10:16; Ezek. 18:30-31;
* Israel being called witness to their children: Deut. 6:7, 20-25;
* Israel being called to witness to their neighbors: Jer. 31:34;
* David’s call to witness to the nations: Ps. 18:49;
* David’s prayer that salvation would be known among all the nations: Ps. 67;
* David’s confidence that all nations would be converted: Ps. 22:27;
* The missionary work of the prophets: Isa. 2:2-4; 19:25; 40:5, 9; 42:6; 45:22; 49:6; 56:7; 66:19; Zech. 8:23; cf. Ps. 68:31; 85:92;

So, clearly, it is established that Evangelism was prescribed and practiced in the Old Testament; but what does that buy us? It gets us several things:

1. The consistent Character of God. Same God, same work, same destiny. This means, then that there has always been one plan of redemption, no changes, and no accidents.

2. More proof that God’s Word (and Law) applies to all people, in every time, everywhere. There is a modern error afoot that teaches that all has been abrogated until reinstated in the New Testament. This is a more “palatable” form of Dispensationalism and one that is counter-Scriptural.

3. It further lends proof to the idea that the New Testament is NOT a starting point, at least not in the same way it is held in the modern church. Now, granted most people would never admit this but practically speaking, especially when they ask the question “where do you see that in the New Testament”, they are implicitly relying on this fallacy.

4. Understanding the above would also lend one to the understanding that God is at work and His work is large and grand – what He started in Israel is now EXPANDING to all the nations, and that’s exciting.

5. In tends to inoculate us against the error that makes “saving lost souls” the primary concern and over-individualizing all things Evangelical.

Personally, I find it incredibility reassuring that Kingdom growth has always been a part of the plan Israel the Church, and that I get to live in the “last days” on the other side of the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15 to witness His Kingdom expansion. What a great time to be alive!!

http://www.joyinchristendom.org/joy/2010/05/evangelism-in-the-old-testament.html

The Kingdom Of God Is Within You

Luke 17:20-21

“And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”

‘The Kingdom of God is within you,’ some one once quoted to Fredrick Maurice. ‘Yes,’ he replied,’ and so is the Kingdom of England.'”

Christianity and the American Commonwealth
Charles B. Galloway

Typically when Luke 17:20-21 is taught what is emphasized is that the Kingdom of God is not a real corporeal Kingdom that exists but rather the Kingdom of God is Spiritual — and so invisible. This teaching comes from the idea that if the Kingdom of God is within one then it must be the case that Jesus is speaking of a non-corporeal Spiritual reality.

But what if the point of Luke 17 is not that the Kingdom is Spiritual, invisible and so doesn’t manifest itself corporeally, but rather what if the point is that the Kingdom of God doesn’t come from the outside in — i.e. “Lo here or, Lo there”? (Which is after all what the Pharisees were looking for.) What if the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation precisely because nobody observes the Kingdom of God coming from the outside in (like some attacking army) when the Kingdom is coming from the inside out as people live out the Kingdom that is within them?

The Kingdom of every potentate is always within the individual and the people who pledge allegiance to that Kingdom. Kingdoms couldn’t exist if that were not true. So when Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God is w/i you,” that doesn’t mean that God’s Spiritual Kingdom is non-corporeal or invisible. What Jesus seems to be getting at in Luke 17 is that the Kingdom of God doesn’t descend upon a people top down and outside in like the Mongol Kingdom descending upon poor hapless Asiatics.

It is precisely because the Kingdom of God is w/i God’s people that God’s Kingdom manifests itself corporeally. Just as it is true that it is precisely because the Kingdom of Satan is w/i the Devil’s people that the Devil’s Kingdom manifests itself corporeally. Those who belong either to God or to the Devil carry within them their respective anti-thesis Kingdoms and because that is so the respective peoples will incarnate those Kingdoms into the cultures they build.

Yes, the Kingdom of God is Spiritual. Yes the Kingdom of God is within. But precisely because it is within God’s people we should expect that Kingdom to manifest itself corporeally among God’s people in the cultures and institutions that they build.

Just as Western Missionaries took the Gospel to Africa in the 19th century, having their respective homeland Kingdoms within them, would often set up little “English” or “American” compounds in the heart of Africa — thus expressing that they had taken their English or American Kingdoms with them (and often confusing those City of Man Kingdoms w/ the Gospel Kingdom itself) — so Christians bearing within themselves the Kingdom of God will always set up Kingdom of God compounds wherever they live out their lives. The Kingdom of God, within God’s people, will always express itself corporeally in the lives they live. If that Kingdom of God does not express itself in the lives of God’s people, in everything they build and touch then the Kingdom of God does not reside within them.

By their fruits you shall know them. If the Kingdom of God is within us, then the fruit of that Kingdom presence within us will be the corporeal manifestation of that Kingdom in the every day lives of God’s people.

Test Driving College Commencement Invocation II

Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier — Triune God

As we invoke your presence and common blessings upon us this morning during this Commencement ceremony we are mindful that there are none who can contend with thee, nor any who can challenge thy regal majesty and awful splendor. With that in mind we are full of gratitude that thou art mindful of all your creatures and are even now fully considering all our ways.

At this celebratory milestone grant us your undeserved favor that we might learn to number our days so that we might live w/ our appearance before you as our final end. Do this that we might live for your glory, thus discovering true joy and robust mirth through all our days.

In keeping with your common providence bless our time now and extend to all gathered the joy that comes from the satisfaction that arises when hard work meets goals achieved.

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ we pray,

Amen