Emergent Churches, homosexual marriage, Seeker Friendly philosophy, abortion, Liberation theology, Keynesianism, intellectually vapid Pentecostalism, existentialism, Arminianism, collectivism, Radical Two Kingdom theology, the decline of public morality …

All of these seeming disparate movements and many more like them have one thing in common and that is they are arid and life destroying winds that blow in from hell which are given to the complete destruction of the Western Church and so Western civilization.

It is not as if these movements and the ideas that motivate them are not inner connected. Only the fool would think that we are bent over at the force of hurricane winds and not realize that all of these winds serve blow in from the same pit and serve the same end. It may seem like Emergent churches have little to do with Keynesianism or that Pentecostalism and existentialism are isolated and unrelated breezes but we have need to realize that all of the breezes that blow from hell are resulting in a similar end. The work of the winds of government schools is one with the work of the winds of Radical Two Kingdom theology. The work of the winds of Arminianism is one with the work of collectivism. All these winds blow from West to East and all of these winds blow from Hell.

Ideas have consequences and the consequences of these ideational trade winds from Hell is to rob God of His glory while impoverishing and killing those made in His image. It is not as if these winds are random and isolated. They blow in at the beckoning of their master to take the life out of all that they swirl about. Taken together they have the ability to turn a verdant land into an arid desert and to reduce a land filled with a vibrant people to a wasteland populated by emaciated skull and bones.

We cannot allow ourselves to think that we can shelter ourselves from some breezes while allowing some to blow across us. They all are dedicated to destroying us. We will not save our churches by sheltering our churches from the winds of hell, for winds that destroy our families will destroy our Churches. We will not save our families by sheltering our families from the winds, for the winds, should they destroy our culture, will wreak havoc on our families. This is not a windstorm we can resist piecemeal. No, we must build wind shelters simultaneously for all our institutions — from family to church, from civil to educational, from the the arts to economics, from our structures of jurisprudence to all our cultural infrastructure.

With the intensity of these winds from hell we have come to the point where no one person or institution can find a safe way out for themselves alone. As such all must join together, out of interest for God’s glory, and stand together in the work of building shelter in the storm. At this moment in history there are none who are of like mind who can isolate themselves from those who share their interest. What is at stake is no less than God’s glory and our freedom.

Gary DeMar has a great article,

http://www.americanvision.org/article/shilling-for-dollars-at-the-splc/

calling the Southern Poverty League Center (SPLC) and National Public Radio out on some hate speech and muck raking yellow journalism.

The only advice I would give to Gary on this article would be on the following phraseology,

The euphemism “gay” has been used by the homosexual movement to hide the fact that homosexuality is really same-sex sex. This renaming tactic has been used by abortion advocates for years.

Gary gets the euphemism “gay” spot on but then he turns and uses “sex” as a euphemism for buggery. Christians have to come up with a different label as to what two homosexual men do to each other to find physical release. In brief, it is not possible for two men to have “sex” with each other any more than it is possible for two men to be “married.” Homosexual acts of buggery and Homosexual coupling cannot be called “sex” and “marriage” without destroying the meaning of the words “sex” and “marriage.”

It is a fine article by Gary and one that Christians should read in order to be aware of the attempt to push them into the closet.

This is the way it always works right? If one group comes out of the closet then the group that was responsible for keeping them in the closet previously has to the group that goes into the closet. Whereas once upon a time homosexuality was the love that “dare not speak its name” increasingly it is Christianity that is the religion “dare not speak it’s name.”

The (Obama) administration acknowledges that its energy proposal would increase costs for consumers but argues that the vast majority of people will get tax breaks elsewhere in Obama’s budget package.

“Now, if people don’t change how they use energy, then they will face higher costs for energy,” Geithner acknowledged.

Being interpreted means …

You children had better change your energy consumption habits or we will tax the hell out of you.

Geithner said the budget reflects what Obama views as “a deep moral imperative to make our society more just.” But it’s very good economic policy, too. It will mean there is again a fairer, more equitably shared tax burden on the vast majority of Americans.”

Being interpreted means …

Through the economy we are going to social engineer a more just society and if you don’t like it you can frack off.

Could we please have a public discussion on the standard that this administration is using to adjudicate what constitutes “a more just society.” Did Obama learn his standard about what constitutes a “more just society” from Jeremiah Wright? Did Obama learn his standard about what constitutes a “more just society” from his communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis? Since we are the ones being socially engineered is it to much to ask what standard is being used to create this “more this just society.”

Finally we see social engineering in Obama’s proposal on charitable giving. Obama’s proposed budget seeks to limit the amount of money that can be given to charity in order to finance his billions for nationalized health care reform. This is social engineering because what it is proclaiming is that the government knows better how to spend your extra dollars than the average American does. It socially engineers because dollars that would have gone to churches, universities, and foundations are not going to be there to be given because they have been redirected by Obama’s wisdom to his favorite charities. It is a short step from here to just turning over to the government all the functions that charities fill along with all the money that is freely given to charities.

This stuff just makes me go wild. What makes me even go more wild is that not enough other people are making these observations.

Wake up people … this vile and wicked man isn’t kidding when he says he wants to “re-make” America.

Why is this (Obama’s intended massive government growth) significant for the vitality of religion in America? A recent study of 33 countries around the world by Anthony Gill and Erik Lundsgaarde, political scientists at the University of Washington, indicates that there is an inverse relationship between state welfare spending and religiosity. Specifically, they found that countries with larger welfare states had markedly lower levels of religious attendance, had higher rates of citizens indicating no religious affiliation whatsoever, and their people took less comfort in religion in general. In their words, “Countries with higher levels of per capita welfare have a proclivity for less religious participation and tend to have higher percentages of non-religious individuals.”

W. Bradford Wilcox
More Government, Less God: What the Obama Revolution Means for Religion in America

First, as is our custom we must point out that it is not possible for people to become “non-religious individuals.” We understand what Wilcox and the study he cites is getting at but it is unfortunate that the impression is given that people ever somehow become less religious. What happens when the state grows geometrically is that the religion of the people becomes statist (humanist).

In Scripture we find at the very least three different spheres of authority (some would posit more). Those three spheres are Civil, Familial, and Ecclesiastical. Even within those three spheres sovereignty is distributed and so is not located absolutely in any one place or person. In the Civil realm sovereignty is distributed vertically between Federal and State authorities and then is distributed horizontally between legislative, executive, and judiciary in both Federal and State arrangements. In the ecclesiastical realm when ordered according to Scripture, sovereignty is distributed between consistory, classis and synod. In the familial realm sovereignty is held by the Husband and Father but that sovereignty is necessarily informed by the wisdom of the wife that God has given to the head of the home.

God has ordered reality so that no one sphere should hold unlimited sovereignty over other spheres and he has ordered reality so that no individual sphere has a place or a person who holds absolute sovereignty.

While we should confess that God’s sovereignty is infinite and unlimited, we should try to think of temporal sovereignty as being finite and limited. Temporally speaking, there is only so much sovereignty to go around between the spheres we have mentioned. The upshot of this is that when one sphere enlarges its sovereignty it always does so at the expense of the sovereignty of some other sphere. So when Wilcox informs us that the consequence of sovereignty increasing in the state means sovereignty being diminished in the church we should not be surprised. When the state grows in sovereignty (and dimensional growth of the state is akin to its growing its sovereignty) it does so at the expense of the sovereignty of the church (and dimensional shrinkage of the church is akin to its sovereignty being diminished). Since temporal sovereignty is limited and finite, when the state grows the welfare state it can only do so by shrinking the church and the family.

In the article cited above Wilcox goes on to mention the effect on the family when the state becomes behemoth. This is a subject we’ve covered here before many times but briefly when the state grows it results in taking on responsibilities of the family. In stealing these responsibilities (sovereignty) of the family the consequence is that natural family ties are loosened. Families have no need to have reliance on one another since the state takes upon itself what families are normatively responsible for. The consequence of this is that parents no longer teach children turning them over to the state for the state to fulfill that parental responsibility. The consequence of this is that children no longer feel responsible for elderly parents since the state will take care of them. The consequence of this is that wives no longer sense a need for husbands since the state will take care of them and the children if the husband is absent. The consequence of this is that husbands no longer sense a need to protect and provide for their wives and children since they know that the state will take up those responsibilities in their absence. When the state grows its sovereignty it grows it by sucking the responsibility out of the other spheres.

Eventually what happens in such a scenario is that the state becomes the family and the church to the point that the state not only aspires to all limited and finite sovereignty but also it begins to aspire to all unlimited and infinite sovereignty. In short the state desires to usurp God. This is the story of all collectivist states. In collectivist states the state seeks to create the context that in it, its citizens live and move and have their being.

This is why the growth of the state that the Obama administration is pursuing is such an anathema of Christians. Long before Obama showed up Christians have been convinced that the Federal state was already idolatrous, and with this move by Obama to massively grow the state into a collectivist hive all right thinking Christians are (or should be) apoplectic.

The final explanation for why the church and family shrinks when the state grows is that the state becomes the defacto church and family. When the state grows the way that Obama is trying to grow the state it fills the whole horizon so that the state becomes everything. It is not as if people become less religious or less family oriented. It is only that people’s religion and family are located in the state. Family and religion haven’t diminished, they have merely been relocated into the Unitarian state.