Christ, Christians, Obama, Marxism & Health Care — Part I

“From the days of the Caesars to the heads of the democratic states and Marxist empires, the ungodly have seen what Christians too often fail to see, namely, that Biblical faith requires and creates a rival government to the humanistic State.”

~ R.J. Rushdoony

With the whole Death Care legislation that has been recently crammed down our throats I have had opportunity to make a great pest of myself to several “Christians” who have insisted that there is nothing inconsistent about someone being a Christian and supporting a Marxist agenda of which the recent Death care is a part.

Some of these people, like CH are very young. Others like the writer of this article,

http://pressonuntilglory.blogspot.com/2010/03/president.html

have drank deeply from the R2Kt heretical “Christian” religion. Yet others grew up in government schools and have never yet been able to deprogram themselves. That millions of “Christians” are supporting Obama’s Marxist agenda shouldn’t surprise us given recent studies conducted that revealed that well less then 10 percent of those who profess Christ have a Christian worldview.

So, this is a good opportunity to distill some thoughts on this subject with the hope that Christians will begin to see the disconnect between claiming Christ and supporting a Marxist agenda. I should say that I have no doubt that there are genuine Christians who support Obama’s Marxist agenda. Jesus can save people who don’t think straight but normatively sanctification is the means by which immature Christians become mature in their thinking. This article is for all those Christians who have not yet had the opportunity to escape the indoctrination that this present wicked age constantly pummels us all with.

First of all we should note that Marxism is a belief system. Indeed, it would be accurate to say that Marxism is a religion. The religion of Marx avows atheism. This is not true. The God of Marxism is putatively the collective expression of the people as given life in the State. For Marxists it is in god (The State) they live and move and have their being. So theologically speaking they are humanists in the collective sense.

Were we to continue to press on with the issue of theology for Marxism we would also note that for classical Marxist theorists (theologians) economics is their theology. This is to say that because all Marxists are materialists they confess that everything must be understood in light of economics. As such, just as Christians understand that all truth is what it is because of who God is, so Marxists understand that all truth is what it is because of economic structures. As such economics is the Marxist equivalent of Christian theology. However, it is not just any economics but economics that presupposes that man’s resources must be collectively pooled together in the god state in order to achieve Marxist heaven on earth (utopia). Because this is the cornerstone creed of Marxism, all economic (theology) theory is bent towards achieving that end. Everything serves the end of achieving the state god’s drive toward Utopia.

Now here we must pause a second to connect some dots. Because Marxism makes the state god and because Marxism believes that economics is theology and because Marxism believes that the state is charged with shepherding men into Utopia, and because in Marxism man only has meaning as he belongs to and is found in the the collective, Marxist regimes have always worked in such a way where the god state seizes more and more control from the individual for their own good and the good of the hive.

This is what is happening currently in the former united States of America. In this country, as seen in the collectivizing of health care, the Marxist agenda is seen in full bloom. We see the state as the collective expression of god taking up the prerogatives of the providing God of the Bible, in order to provide a collectivistic death care system with the purpose of creating a Utopian health social order. This is achieved by insisting that the 8th commandment does not apply to the god state. The state as god cannot steal since the earth is the states and everything therein. It is not possible for any god to steal for any sovereign god, by definition owns everything. Therefore it is not theft for the state to steal from individuals because the state owns the individual as well as all the resources of the individual. This is why in Marxist regimes there is warfare on private property. The individual owns nothing. The state owns everything.

Christians thus who support Obama-care are thus, in their support, denying the God of the Bible and are in full treason against biblical Christianity. They are denying the very God who bought them and have left their first love for another.

Because there is no extra-mundane God, and because god is located in the State, Marxist ethics are what we might call Statist relativism. What is meant by this is that right and wrong is dictated by the god state and right and wrong can change as the state changes in its agenda. What this means practically is that the god state can not be charged w/ evil doing since the god state is the god which defines right and wrong. The god state in Marxism turns to those who would question it and imperiously says, “Who are thou to question God O Man.”

As we pause to connect dots again we see all of this is in the current Marxist death care agenda. The current usurper Obama regime, despite howls of protest against it, knowing that it is the determiner of what is right and wrong and what is best for the American people — knowing it is god — has basically flipped off the American people and have taken the attitude against the American people of “Who are thou to question the state god O Man?” Christians who support the Obama death apathy legislation have sided with a worldview that holds that the state is god. They have abandoned King Christ for another King.

As we move on in this examination seeking to tie Marxism to Obama-care to its anti-Christ agenda we note the means that Marxism has historically used in order to displace any competitor is to promote class warfare. This is used in such a way as to make the have nots resent the haves so as to use them to tear down the haves. We have seen this in spades in the death care debate. The haves have been villainized and demonized and we have heard countless stories about poor wretches who are impoverished and infirm. Christians have heard this and in fits of ill reasoned compassion have supported Marxist death care. What these Christians have not paused to consider is whether or not Scripture gives any authority to the state to steal from the citizenry in order to “help” the least of these. What these Christians have not paused to consider is that subsidies from the state for health care will not only not “help” the least of these but it will make their plight worse since reason, history, and experience have revealed that whenever the state, through subsidies, increases the demand of a product (in this case death care) the result is a deterioration in both the quality and the availability of whatever product is being subsidized. So while it is true that more people will have access to health care it is also true that the death care that they will have more access to will be a health care that will be positively dark age. To support such a program then is a violation of the Sixth commandment which requires not only that we not murder people but also that we do all we can to look after the interest of our neighbor. When Christians support Marxist death care they are at the same time, doubtless w/ the best of intentions, supporting doing harm to both their loved ones and their neighbors. What started out as a pursuit of compassion ends in the reality of doing grave and serious harm and damage to people created in the image of God.

R2Kt & The Death of God Movement and It’s Cultural Impact

I’ve stumbled across something that I’m sure that many many other people have seen before. I’ve always been kind of slow on the uptake. That something that I’ve stumbled across is a commonality that exists between and among disciplines that have been thought to have been quite varied. What I’ve discovered is that disciplines like Keynesianism (economics), Deconstructionism (literary theory), Marxism (political theory), Legal Positivism (legal theory), Nihilism and existentialism (philosophy), historicism (historiography theory) neo-orthodoxy (theological theory) and Code Pink (sexual theory) all derive from a common theological assumption and that assumption is that “God, or the objective, is Dead.” Of course this makes perfect sense because it serves, once again, to reveal that theology (in this case the theology of anti-theology) is the fount out of which springs an integrated fount of academic disciplines.

Humanism is the positive side of the negative I am getting at. In other words, all the disciplines I’ve mentioned are, positiviely speaking the embrace of Humanism. However, when view negatively they all share the common thread of insisting that any notion of an objective, including an objective God is dead. Let us consider this to see if we can see the clear “death of the objective” strand that links all of these disciplines together.

In economics, Keynesianism desires the death of any objective standard for money and desires only that a subjective governmental standard be used in order to set the value of money. This is done so that money by fiat can be pursued. This explains why Keynesians hate the idea of a gold or silver standard. Keynesians despise the notion of the objective and so in order to set the government or the money interest up as god they seek to forever get rid of the objectively objective. In economics you have the death of the objectively objective.

In literary theory, Deconstructionism posits the death of the objective author. With the death of the objective the Deconstructionists end up positing the subjective reader as the sovereign. In Deconstructionism it is the subjective reader who determines the meaning of the text. When Deconstructionism is given its head all of life becomes a author-less text and the sovereign subjective interpreter shapes and creates their own meaning out of whatever text they encounter. In literary theory you have the death of the objectively objective.

In political theory, Marxism is materialistic and so posits the death of an objective God finding its objective instead in the subjective movement of the Hegelian Absolute spirit. For the Marxist economics is the foundation and talk about religion, mind, and values are merely the superstructure that is built upon the foundation in order to justify the foundation in a ex post facto manner. For the Marxist there is no external objective reality to which subjective reality must answer to. For the Marxist the subjective is all there is and the best that can happen is that the subjective can be enlarged (blown up like a balloon) to become the objective. This is done by making the State the subjective objective by which all the rest of the subjective is measured. In political theory you have the death of the objectively objective.

In legal theory, Legal positivism denies transcendent meaning insisting that meaning can only be that which can be proven subjectively. (All statements must be verifiable except for the statement that all statements must be verifiable.) Legal positivism assumes the death of the objective and then insists that anybody who disagrees with their ontology must prove the objectively objective by means of their subjective standard as it exist in their subjectively objective worldview. An impossibility from the word go. The result of legal positivism is that God and the objectively objective are ruled out of bounds clearing the field for their legal theory. In legal theory you have the death of the objectively objective.

In philosophy, the existence of both Nihilism and Existentialism (the informing streams of post-modern consciousnesses) is posited upon the truth that there is no objectively objective truth. Nihilism denies their is any meaning except for the meaning that there is no meaning. Existentialism declares that existence precedes essence so that existence has no concern about objectively objective essence or meaning since subjective existence determines meaning. In both of these philosophies all that exists is the sovereign subjective individual using his will to power to turn his subjective will into the objective standard by which all things will be measured. In philosophy you have the death of the objectively objective.

In educational theory, the standard for meaning comes from within each child. Whether one is talking Freud, Dewey, or Rogers, educational theory has lost the objectively objective and the results are programs such as value neutral education where the sovereign subjective student is encouraged to discover his own values. Now, clearly value neutral education is not neutral but since the sovereign subjective student is putatively discovering and navigating his own value system what we we see once again is the clear demonstration of the death of the objective objective. God is dead. The objective is dead. All that is left is the subjective enlarging his or her subjectivity in order to turn the subjective into the a subjective objective. In educational theory you have the death of the objectively objective.

In historiography theory, historicism insists that there is no God or objective by which the meaning of History can be determined or known. As such the only thing that is left is for subjective History itself to become the objective by which it is itself measured. In Historicism God is dead and man becomes the infallible interpreter of all reality. Naturally the problem here is that historiography is only as good as the objective standard of the historian who is, by his subjective will, forcing history to do his bidding. If the historian who is doing the history is Humanist or Muslim, or Hindu, then his produced historiography will be respectively Humanist, Muslim or Hindu. The idea of the objectively objective is lost and historiography becomes awash in a sea of subjectivism. In historiography you have the death of the objectively objective.

In sexual theory such as militant homosexuality and Feminism, and all other sexual perversions what you have once again is the positing of the death of God and the death of the objectively objective clearing the field for the pervert interest to insist that perversions aren’t really perversions since w/o a God there can be no such thing as perversion. Without God or the objectively objective and with the introduction of polytheistic pagan gods who are but “man said loudly” what happens is that perversion is subjectively re-defined and sexual polymorphy becomes the norm. In sexual theory you have the death of the objectively objective and the death of God.

In theological theory, Neo-orthodoxy posits the Transcendence of God (His objectiveness if you please) but in neo-orthodoxy God becomes so objective that He has no contact with the subjective. As such, God dies of incurable hyper-transcendencism, and the subjective once again becomes objective. Since God is beyond the creature the subjective creature is left to take his subjective intuitions and enlarge them so that the subjective once again becomes objective. I once had a conversation with a Dean of a theological Seminary (this conversation is on Iron Ink somewhere) who was neo-orthodox (though he refused to admit it for fear of his job I think) and who freely admitted that it was impossible to access the objective. If one can not access the objective then God is dead. In theological theory you have the death of the objectively objective.

Now, where R2Kt comes in is that it insists that the Spirit of God is constricted to the Church and that the Church can not and should not and must not insist that a living God, as the objectively objective reality that gives meaning to everything is not dead and as such He comes in conflict against the Spirit of Chaos that manifests itself in Keynesianism, Deconstructionism, Marxism, Legal Positivism, Historicism, Nihilism, Existentialism, Perverted Sexual Theory, Freudianism, and all other pseudo realities that exist upon the premise that God is dead. R2Kt insists that the Church must not speak of the implications of a living God to a culture that is animated by philosophies, theologies, and theories that incarnate the death of God and the objectively objective. R2Kt insists that implications of the living God are to be felt only in the Church and that the Church as the Church can not speak with the voice of the living God against those who would create a culture where because God is dead, God is mute.

Keynesianism, Deconstructionism, Marxism, Legal Positivism, Historicism, Nihilism, Existentialism, Perverted Sexual Theory, Freudianism, all love R2Kt to pieces, first, because a Church infected w/ the R2Kt virus has no place from which to stand to resist the God is dead movement as it makes cultural inroads. Second, the God is dead movement loves the R2Kt virus because it teaches nothing to God’s people that will serve as a prophylactic against the impact of the God is dead movement upon the culture. Because of this the R2Kt churches will churn out people who will be saints on one hand in the church but who very likely will imbibe deeply from the God is dead movement culture they are immersed in. They will have no ability to ward of the God is dead cultural movement because they will have never been taught to see the implications of the death of the objectively objective.

Social Gospel … Marxist or Christian

http://www.crosswalk.com/news/commentary/11627652/

“Should churches and individual Christians seek to help people with material problems and social needs, remedy social ills, and improve social institutions? Throughout history many congregations, Christian organizations, and individual believers have labored to do these things. Today, however, some political conservatives denounce the “social gospel” as misguided and unbiblical and counsel Christians to avoid or leave congregations that stress social justice.”

First, let us understand that the whole idea of the Social Gospel in its historical instantiation, as exemplified by men like Walter Rauschenbush and Washington Gladden, was an attempt to reinvent the Christian Gospel. The Social Gospel was often derivative of the school of higher criticism which denied the supernatural. Further it often pursued the oxymoronic course of “Christian Socialism.” This should clue us in immediately that the historical movement of the Social Gospel was thoroughly anti-Christ as seen in its attempt to syncretize Biblical Christianity w/ anti-Christian Marxian socialism.

However, having noted that it needs to be immediately be said that it is impossible for any belief system to not have a social aspect. As such the Christian gospel will always have a social side. The problem, historically speaking, is that the Social Gospel yielded the social impact of the Gospel of Marxism and not of the Gospel of Christianity.

There are those today who are reacting violently against any idea that the Gospel has a social side since they believe that the failures of earlier versions of the Social Gospel are proof positive that the Church should just delete the whole idea of its Gospel having a social side. These types would insist that the Gospel is all personal impact and no social effect.

So, if the point of the crosswalk article is that Christians need to embrace once again the “social gospel” in it’s progressive expression of the early 20th century then we would say that the crosswalk article is anathema. However, if the point of the crosswalk article is that the Gospel must have a social impact that is measured by biblical categories we could not help but agree. Unfortunately, as I read the crosswalk article, I am inclined to think that they are appealing to the former.

Crosswalk,

Television talk show host Glenn Beck urges Christians to run away as fast as they can from all churches that use “‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice'” on their websites. Rather than expressing the mission of these churches to reduce poverty and promote human rights, Beck asserts, these terms are simply “code words” for communism and Nazism. Social justice, he claims, is “a perversion of the gospel.”

Again, if we are talking about the historical “Social Gospel” movement we would have to say that Beck is correct. Keep in mind that the “Social Gospel” movement was devoted to pushing the Government to pursue its version of social justice by means of the theft and redistribution of wealth.

Second, there should be no problem in any Church as a Church seeking to raise funds, voluntarily given, to provide relief. The problem with the Social Gospel is when the Church seeks to move the Government to provide relief with monies taken involuntarily.

Crosstalk,

“Kim Moreland, a research associate for Charles Colson’s BreakPoint, argues that adherents of the social gospel believe they can “completely eradicate poverty and other types of social ills” largely by using the political process. Instead of preaching “the good news of the Gospel,” they allegedly argue that laws and government programs can create the good society.

Bret responds,

And such argumentation is the historic expression of the Social Gospel. That two professors from Grove City college would disagree w/ this assessment is indicative that Christians should quit sending their children to Grove City College.

Crosstalk writes,

In “The Shameful Social Gospel” T. A. McMahon, president of The Berean Call ministry, accuses proponents of the social gospel of assuming that Christians can best win people to their faith by alleviating the human suffering produced by poverty, disease, social injustice, and civil rights abuses. The social gospel is “a deadly disease” that reinforces “belief that salvation can be attained by doing good works” and acting morally and sacrificially. Every time Christians have undertaken practical actions to benefit humanity, McMahon contends, they have “compromised biblical faith and dishonored God” because the Bible does not command the “church to fix the problems of the world.”

Bret responds,

The Grove City professors who wrote this article need to answer the reality that the Social Gospel has always had a tendency to make “rice Christians.”

Second, I would have to agree that the Church is not commanded to fix the problems of the world. The Church is not primarily a relief agency, a government, a educational unit, a repository of the arts, a law center, or any number of other things. The Church is primarily the herald of Christ crucified, resurrected and ascended. Certainly what the Church teaches, touches on social subjects but it is the responsibility of individual Christians, having learned Christ in the Church, to extend the crown rights of King Jesus in each of these spheres and so bring the solution of Christ to the world.

That which fixes the problems of the world is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the discipling which comes in sanctification. Those who are to fix the problems of the world are individual Christians who are applying to all of life what the Church teaches from Scripture. The Church’s only role, beyond teaching, is one of correction when individual Christians posit heinous social theories (Marxism, Keynesianism, Deconstructionism, etc.) under the banner of Christ.

Crosswalk article,

“These commentators and others who censure the church’s social mission misread both history and the Bible. Certainly, some social gospel advocates have ignored evangelism and individual piety, and others have rejected Christian orthodoxy. However, many other Christians have endeavored both to save souls and help the poor and oppressed. They have often argued that these two missions are integrally related. William Wilberforce and other members of the Clapham Sect worked zealously in England in the early 1800s to abolish slavery, make work safer and better compensated, and assist the indigent. At the same time, leaders of the Second Great Awakening created numerous reform societies in America to achieve these same ends and to help other troubled groups. Many of the evangelicals who espoused social Christianity in the years between 1880 and 1920 labored to improve working conditions, management-labor relationships, and patterns of social interaction, renovate slums, reduce crime, abolish child labor, and increase racial justice. While working to win converts and plant churches around the world, thousands of Christian missionaries have also built hospitals and schools and tried to abolish slavery, end social abuses, and create more just societies.”

Bret responds,

Again, the Grove city professors seem confused in this article and part of that confusion stems from the fact that they don’t start w/ an ironclad definition of the Social Gospel. If they are applauding the work of individual Christians to relieve the poor and bring aid to the least of these who could or would ever disagree? However, historically, that has not been the definition of the “Social Gospel.” Historically the Social Gospel has meant Marxism wrapped up as Christianity. Historically the Social Gospel has meant the attempt, by the means of the policing arm of the State, to force redistribution of wealth. If this is what the Grove City college professors are advocating then they advocating Anti-Christ social policy. One must keep in mind that the Social Gospel never works because you simply can not make poor people rich by making rich people poor. All the Social Gospel can do over the long haul is make people equally miserable.

The thing we need to keep in mind here is that the Social Gospel of Biblical Christianity is in antithesis to the Social Gospel of Marxist “Christianity.” The Social Gospel of Biblical Christianity insists on the diminution of the State so that individuals are set free to themselves help the poor. In expressions of Marxist Social Gospel the pursuit of help to the poor, through forced levies of the state upon individuals, ends up hurting the poor since state sanctioned subsidies to the poor end up creating a larger pool of poor people all competing for a restricted number of dollars.

Crosswalk article,

“Second, the Bible clearly commands Christians to care for the sick, feed the hungry, protect the environment, and insure political and social justice. Quoting from Isaiah 61, Jesus summarized His earthly mission as preaching “good news to the poor,” setting prisoners free, helping the blind regain their sight, and liberating the oppressed (Lk. 4:18-19). In the parable of the sheep and goats, He declared that those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, take in strangers, and visited the sick and imprisoned—”the least of these”—are assisting Him (Mt. 25:31-46).

How can God’s love truly abide in anyone, the apostle John asked, who has substantial possessions and refuses to help the needy? “Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action,” he adds (I John 3:17-18). Faith without works, James declares, is dead. He exhorts us to show our faith by our acts of compassion and generosity (2:14-18).”

Bret responds,

The Grove City professors keep missing the issue. Yes, individual Christians and even the Church as the Church should look after the “least of these.” But one gets the sense throughout this article that what the Grove City boys are really angling for is the State to take up these responsibilities. If that is what they are angling for we would insist that their Marxist slips are showing. It is not the States job to rob from the “haves” to give to the “have nots” for such a policy only insures a ever burgeoning number of the “have nots,” since subsidies always create more of what is being subsidized (in this case the poor) and since taxes always destroys what is being taxed (in this case the wealthy).

When we pursue a Marxist Social Gospel we are showing our hatred for the needy.

“Crosswalk article,

The Old Testament prophets echoed these themes. Isaiah 58, for example, commands us to “loose the chains of injustice,” “set the oppressed free,” share food with the hungry, and provide shelter and clothing for the poor (vv. 6-7). The Bible mentions justice about 700 times, more than almost any other topic, testifying to God’s passion for justice in the political, social, and economic spheres.”

Bret responds,

Yes, Yes, Yes … everyone agrees with this. The question is though, how is this to be done. Is this to be done through the Marxist Social Gospel or a Evolutionary Capitalism that insures death and destruction for all except the elite party members or is this to be pursued through Biblical Capitalism or some kind of Distributism and Subsidiarity?

Also, one needs to warn here against the incipient idea that the poor are more virtuous than the wealthy just for the reason they are poor. God is not on the side of the wicked poor against the righteous wealthy. Poverty is no sign that God is on your side and wealth is no sign that God is opposed to you.

What many Marxist Social Gospelers need to realize is that many people are poor because their pagan world and life view makes and keeps them poor. What many Marxist Social Gospelers need to realize is that their Social Gospel, where people are taught that they are victims and are encouraged to be envious and where the poor have their resentiment nourished and justified, is perpetuating poverty. The Marxist Social Gospel does nothing to solve the problem of the poor but only exacerbates the problem of poverty

Crosswalk article,

“Identifying the Christian faith with a political platform, program, or party is dangerous. It can distract Christians from their primary calling—to love and serve God in all aspects of our lives and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves—and no one platform, program, or party fully expresses God’s design for earthly life. Churches should refrain from endorsing political candidates or adopting positions on most specific political issues. However, as individuals and members of parachurch groups, Christians can take political stances and lobby for legislation we believe accords with biblical principles. Moreover, we should fight to remedy social ills and end injustices.”

Bret responds,

It is this statement that makes me think that the Grove City professors are advocating a Marxist Social Gospel. A few comments,

1.) I fully agree that no one political party fully expresses God’s design for earthly life. How could that be possible given the fullness of God’s design for earthly life. However, this does not mean that there couldn’t be a political party that Christian could identify with and point to as being “Christian.” All because such a thing doesn’t exist today in these united States doesn’t mean it couldn’t exist. One only has to remember Groen Van Prinister’s and Abraham Kuyper’s “anti-revolutionary” party in the Netherlands.

2.) Churches should always speak to political issues where the Scriptures have explicitly spoken to or have spoken to by necessary deduction. As our culture drifts increasingly away from a Biblical Christian worldview the necessity of the Church to speak on more and more political issues will increase since the political realm will increasingly seek to circumvent the authority of the Church as it pertains to moral issues.

3.) Social ills will best be remedied by the Church preaching Christ and by then discipling those who turn and trust Christ. Social ills are not best remedied by a thought process that holds that if the institutions will be changed then the individuals in the institutions will be changed. Individual conversion must precede institutional change but where individual conversions multiply institutional change will be increasingly pressed. The Marxist Social Gospelers tend to have this backwards, since like all Marxist, they tend to blame societal ills on evil cultural institutions versus a Biblical Social Gospel that blames the evil cultural institutions on individual sin natures that have not been visited w/ conversion.

Crosswalk article,

“In a world filled with social ills—where 27 million people are still enslaved, one-sixth of the population is malnourished, billions suffer from disease, unemployment, illiteracy, and oppression, where war, racism, and sexism are rampant—and where billions do not know Christ, we must stop debating whether the Bible enjoins us to help meet people’s material and physical needs or to focus exclusively on their spiritual needs. Instead, as Jesus did, we must address both types of needs.”

Bret responds,

Notice in the list of the first sentence that “billions who do not know Jesus Christ” comes last. I hold that to be fairly significant. I would have listed it first.

Second, Fifty years of the great society and the war on poverty in these united States has shown us that it does little good to throw money at the relief of people’s physical needs. Money does not solve what is aberrant in the souls of men and women.

Third, we need to prioritize our giving. We need to first take care of the poor who are part of the Household of faith before we take care of the poor who are Christ haters. Concretely, this means looking after the poor in Nigeria who are fighting Muslims and the Christian poor in the Sudan who are also fighting Muslims.

Fourth, I would have dearly loved the Grove City professors to have pointed out where they find the rampant racism and sexism. I don’t see it. However, what I do see is those two categories being favorite Marxist whipping boys used to advance their egalitarian agenda.

A Plug For “College Plus”

Every year Christian parents pack off their children to College. It is a rite of passage that has become a great American tradition. One must ask though if Christian parents would send their children away to College if they realized that nearly 70% of of all formerly church-going teens will not go to church after they leave home.

Part of the reason that 70% of all formerly church-going teens will not go to church after they leave home is due to the fact that they were not trained in the way they should go when they were living at home. Another part of the reason is that those who were trained were not ready for the assault upon their faith that the college experience represents.

“By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week….

The professors and instructors surveyed are, strongly or somewhat, in favor of abortion rights (84 percent); believe homosexuality is acceptable (67 percent); and want more environmental protection “even if it raises prices or costs jobs” (88 percent). What’s more, the study found, 65 percent want the government to ensure full employment, a stance to the left of the Democratic Party.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8427-2005Mar28.html

Seemingly the college experience includes the experience of the Christian faith being viciously attacked. Sending young Christian adults — even young Christian adults who have been decently trained — to a college environment against these kinds of odds is akin to taking green military recruits and putting them up against elite seasoned veteran soldiers in hand to hand combat.

Now combine this with the reality that the average college graduate finishes their undergraduate work $21,000.00 in debt and suddenly the incentives begin to pile up to find alternatives to the “great American tradition” of sending our covenant seed to college.

Some will object by saying that they only send their children to “Christian colleges.” First, even if Christians send their children to Christian colleges, the $21,000.00 indebtedness they will have upon graduation isn’t any less onerous all because it is “Christian debt.” Second, to be candid, I have great reason to suspect that many (not all) Christian colleges may be worse then “secular” colleges if only because the liberal indoctrination that happens in many Christian college classrooms is far more insidious because it flies under the banner of “Christian.” For example, do you really want your child taking Sociology courses under Dr. Anthony Campolo (Marxist professor of Sociology at Eastern)? For example, do you really want your child taking religion class from Dr. Kenneth Schenk (neo-orthodox Professor at Indiana Wesleyan University)? Do you really want your child taking Economic courses from someone like Ron Sider? The examples could be multiplied endlessly.

The college scene — Christian or “Secular” — is a mess right now. The reason it is a mess is because the pedagogic paradigm in the colleges, like the paradigm in our overall culture, is thoroughly imbued with humanism.

There is a way for Christians now to do a end run around the traditional college scene and that way is called “College Plus.” College Plus is a program that allows college age students via long distance learning, and at home studies, to earn an accredited college degree in far less time than the traditional 4 years and with the promise of not being burdened w/ $21,000.00 in debt. It also holds out the advantage of not putting your children in what amounts to the indoctrination and brainwashing camps that many college campuses have become.

My son Anthony is currently working as a intern w/ College Plus in Moses Lake, Washington and thus far we have been quite pleased w/ his progress. Anthony is 19 and credit wise is just short of being a Senior in college right now. We are hopeful that before the summer of 2010 is completed that Anthony will be finished with his undergraduate degree.

Now, College plus isn’t going to be as good of an education for Anthony as he might have received if he had Dr. Glen Martin, Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, or Dr. Greg Bahnsen as his personal tutor. Still, Anthony, and all College Plus students will not have their Christian faith attacked in the College Plus program and they will have the opportunity to continue to develop their Christian worldview while they are working on their College degree.

College Plus is an idea whose time has come. Christians really do need to consider no longer supporting pagan colleges with their funds and God’s covenant seed. The way to begin dismantling our humanist culture is by reintroducing the idea of quality higher education to our children again.

College Plus is a beginning step towards that goal.

Learn more about College Plus at,

http://www.collegeplus.org/

Hebrews 7-8 & Covenant Fulfillment

Hebrews 8:10 makes it abundantly clear that the Old Testament case law applies in the New and Better covenant.

7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. 8 Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the LORD. 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. 12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds[b] I will remember no more.”13 In that He says, “A new covenant, ” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

While it is true that 7:12 teaches the explicit change in the law,

11 Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron? 12 For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law. 13 For He of whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no man has officiated at the altar.

one must ask what exactly the explicit change is given that 8:10 clearly teaches that the OT law remains valid since it is that law which is to be written on the hearts and etched in the minds of the New Covenant people.

10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

I would contend that given the explicit statement that the new and better covenant includes the OT law put in minds and written in hearts the explicit change that 7:12 is referring to is the explicit change that comes with the fulfillment of the ceremonial law. Such an interpretation does justice to Hebrews since the danger that the author of Hebrews is dealing with is the danger of the Jews, to whom he is writing, going back to the Old Covenant ceremonial system. The danger in Hebrews is not the danger of the recipients of the letter applying the OT moral and case law. That is not what the book of Hebrews is about. In Hebrews the danger is that people are inching towards going back to the ceremonial shadows. And so the writer to the Hebrews tells them that the Levitical Priesthood which officiates those ceremonies and the ceremonial law is past. That is the explicit change in the law that is being spoken of. Indeed the context demands that reading in vs. 10-11.

The context of 7:10-11 is the ceremonial law and the Levitical Priesthood — not the moral or civil law as those aspects of the law will be now written on their hearts and put in their minds of those of us in the New Covenant.

Indeed, to appeal to 7:10-11 as proof that the Old Testament law is done away with actually proves to much for such a sweeping change would have to apply to the Moral law as well so that, if we were to be consistent, would have to say that the Moral law (the Ten Commandments) no longer apply. I know of no Reformed theologians who have ever suggested such a thing.

So the new and better covenant that is promised in Hebrews chapter 8 is a new and better covenant because it is the fulfillment of all that the old and worst covenant anticipated. The old covenant is set aside in the sense that when the reality comes the shadows are no longer present but in as much it is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant it brings to the fore all that the Old Covenant promised. The thing to keep in mind is that they are not two antithetical covenants but a covenant of promise and covenant of fulfillment. Try to think of the relationship between the two covenants like the relationship between a engagement promise and a wedding promise. When the wedding promise comes the engagement promise is fulfilled and set aside and only inasmuch as it is taken up into the new and better wedding promise. The two promises though distinct are clearly related and even though the former engagement promise is put off it is putt off by being incorporated into the wedding promise which it anticipated.