Repenting Of Christianity And Converting Again

“The institutional Christianity that flourishes today is no longer the same religion as that practiced by Charlemagne and his successors, and it can no longer support the civilization they formed. Indeed, organized Christianity today is the enemy of the West and the race that created it.”

Sam Francis
Deceased American Man Of Letters

Not only would it be the case that the institutional Christianity that flourishes today be unrecognizable to Charlemagne but it also would be unrecognizable to Gregory the Great, Augustine of Hippo, Charles “The Hammer” Martel, The Christian King Louis IX, Godfrey of Bouillon, Baldwin I, and any number of Christian leaders you might care to name.

Our leaders today are frightened of Christianity. The Prince Of Wales desires to change his eventual title from “Defender of the Faith” to “Defender of the Faiths.” American leaders with a marginal leaning towards Christianity are cowed by the worldview materialism of reporters and competitors, and well they should be since most of them who lean Christian are some strain of Pentecostal and so no have no idea of what they believe and why they believe it and what they don’t believe and why they don’t believe it. American political leaders who lean Christian do so with the most pious, sentimental and shallow Christianity imaginable. The Christianity they embrace is a extraordinarily weak variant of that Christianity which those men named above embraced, and as such it can only wither in the face of the onslaught of materialism.

Cultural Marxism, to date, has triumphed in the West. The hour is late, though not to late, for Christianity to keep the sun from setting on the West. But in order for that to happen we have a need to embrace the Christianity that made the West and be forever done with the thin gruel Christianity that is our sickness. Cultural Marxism laughs in the opposition that emasculated Christianity offers, and when these two combatants meet the result is that Christianity is captured to serve as yet one more vehicle for the means of triumph by the Cultural Marxists.

We have need to repent of our Christianity and pray God that he will convert us to the 100 proof variety.

A Conversation On The Law

Judy

What do you mean by ‘God’s Law-Word’? I suspect you mean Moses’ Covenant, or at least that’s how you’ve used it in the past.

Bret

There is only one covenant of Grace, of which the Mosaic covenant is an extenuation and development of consistent with, yet not identical to, the covenant of Grace’s initial inauguration.

That the Mosaic Law was gracious, take for example, the preamble to the Mosaic covenant law,

“I am the Lord Thy God who brought thee out of the Land of Egypt, out of the House of bondage.”

Notice here that before the stipulations of the covenant are incarnated onto the tablets that God pronounces how His grace had been already extended to His people by covenantal deliverance. It was not the case, for the Israel of God, in the Mosaic covenant, that they had to keep the law and so earn saving grace but rather it was the case, as the preamble to the covenant Law shows, that God remembered His gracious covenant with Abraham (Ex. 2:24-25) and so led His people out of Sin (Egypt) with the expectation that they would obey out of grateful hearts (Ex. 19:4-5). It was only those who were not of the Israel of God who tried to use the Law as a means to put God into their obligation by an attempted obedience that refused to take into consideration God’s prior graciousness.

Your ongoing error, Judy, is to think that God ever offered, in His covenant of Grace, a period of time where His people could be saved by their own obedience. In the Mosaic covenant those Christians who were saved were saved by a grace alone that was consequentially marked by ever increasing, though never perfect, obedience.

Judy comments,

The Westminster Confession of Faith defines the Mosaic Covenant as the original covenant of works — see the relationship between WCF 19.I and II: “This law, after [Adam’s] fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables…”

Bret responds,

And that is entirely true and I don’t disagree with a word of it. The Law was (and is — even for the Christian) a perfect rule of righteousness. The Law was never given in the Mosaic covenant so that God’s covenant people could think they could keep it. The Law was given to show people their sin and a need to look outside of themselves for deliverance (hence the OT sacrifices which proleptically gave them Christ). However, for the Israel of God who was looking away from themselves to Christ, the Law was God’s gracious instruction (think third use of the Law here) in all righteousness.

So, those who were not of the Israel of God looked to the Law as an end in itself for Salvation in a covenant of works type of fashion and so were condemned by the Law whereas those who were the true Israel of God looked to the Law as an end for glorifying the God who had freely and graciously saved them and as a means for incarnating that free salvation into every area of their living.

This twofold working of the law in both condemnation and salvation is consistent with how that theme plays itself out through Scripture. The waters of the flood were both God’s condemnation upon the wicked and God’s salvation upon the righteous. The extreme picture of God’s wrath and blessing found in the prophets are presented together because the one and same action of God leads to different consequences for people depending upon the relationship they stand to God.

This is why the Apostle can say in the Holy Scriptures that the Law is Holy, Just, and good and that His Gospel establishes the Law.

Judy offers,

Then WCF 19.III says that to the timeless moral law God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws, all of which are now abrogated under the New Testament.

Bret responds,

Yes, I fully agree that the ceremonial law is abrogated. What Reformed person doesn’t believe that? Still, we must keep in mind that the ceremonial law is only abrogated because all that it was employed to communicate was fulfilled in the Messiah, Jesus. So, its not as if the ceremonial law was capriciously cast aside, rather the ceremonial law is deleted because all that it anticipated and promised was fulfilled.

And I believe that the timeless moral law remains timeless and that the Moral law was given both in its pure documentary form (The Decalogue) and then God was pleased to give us another aspect of His Moral law, sometimes known as case law. This was based upon the Moral law in order that we might know what the propositional law looked liked when it was incarnated into specific situations. Another way of saying this is that the case law illustrates the application or qualification of the principal laid down in the general commandment. The general equity of the commandment remains timeless, and this is why the Psalmist could say, “In thy law I meditate both day and night,” and it is why Jesus could say that, ‘heaven and earth would pass away but his word would never pass away’, and it is why Jesus said he came ‘not to abrogate the law but to fulfill it.’

The proper analogy is our own Constitution. There is the Constitution proper and then there is the case law that exemplifies what the Constitution means in concrete situations.

Judy offers,

Then 19.III says that to Israel also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.

Bret responds,

And what I, and all Theonomists are arguing for is the general equity thereof. Allow me to give the classic example….

Because one of the sundry judicial laws that have expired is building a fence around ones rooftop, I no longer argue for rooftop fences. However, the general equity of that law remains and so I might argue for fences around swimming pools.

So, I am, and all theonomists are arguing for the general equity and are in perfect alignment with the WCF.

Judy offers,

The Larger Catechism limits the moral law to the Ten Commandments (LC, Q.98).

Bret responds,

Go back and re-read it Judy.

What it says is that the moral law is summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments.

The answer does not say that the moral law is limited to the 10 commandments. It says that it is summarily comprehended in the 10 commandments. In other words, when one look to the Ten Commandments one finds the Moral law comprehended therein in summary form.

Besides, even should you should choose to use the word ‘limit’ it wouldn’t negate anything I am saying. All of the case law is not different law then the 10 commandments but rather only the Decalogue concretely applied to different situations. I hope that all that I contend for is nothing but that which is summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments.

Judy offers,

So the WCF says that all the ceremonial laws were abrogated (I thought only the terrible dispensationalists used that term), and that the judicial laws of Israel oblige no one, except in the sense that they might illustrate how a general principle of equity worked in a given case. But this exception presumes that a general principle of equity has been derived from someplace else.

Bret responds,

The judicial laws oblige no one except where the principle that they are articulating (general equity) is applicable. When that is the case then the judicial law, because it is an instantiation of the Moral law remains binding because God’s never revoked His moral law. It seems Judy that you desire the Moral law in the abstract but don’t desire it when its thrust is instantiated in space and time. With all due respect, it seems you want a Moral law that gives you the ability to interpret it, as you will. All, I’m asking for is that God be allowed both the Moral Law itself and whatever interpretations with which He saw fit to incarnate it.

Now as to your comment regarding ‘the general principle of equity’ allow me to offer that God Himself often gave the general principle of equity in the case law as the case law provides concrete examples of how the principle of the Moral Law was to be applied to different settings.

Judy offers,

The Westminster Divines sure weren’t Theonomists.

Bret responds,

The Westminster Divines were proto-Theonomists Judy. They certainly were. You’re problem is that you are reading the WCF through your lenses. I have read Samuel Bolton (one of the Westminster Divines) on this very subject. Believe me Judy, you would be shocked by Bolton and would be accusing him of hyper Theonomy. I must take the interpretation of Bolton (A Westminster Divine) over your interesting interpretation of the Westminster.

Judy offers,

Bret, you said that the old-time dispensationalists were only Christians after a fashion? How can you be an ‘after-a-fashion Christian?’ You mean they only had the objective markers of covenant membership? You’re saying they weren’t real Christians.

Bret responds,

Only God and the individual concerned with this question regarding their own position relative to Christ knows who ‘real’ Christians are Judy. I am content with saying that Dispensationalists stood in some type of proper relation to Christ and His Church and as such should be spoken of with Charity as Christians. I hope that people will speak with such Charity of me some day.

Judy asks,

Bret are you saying that if we’re not a Theonomist like you, then we don’t believe in Scriptural morality at all?

Bret answers,

Now, come, come, Judy. How many times have you heard this type of line from unbelievers in your witnessing efforts?

For example,

“Judy, are you saying that if we don’t believe just like you then we are going to hell.”?

And your response no doubt is…

“No, I am not saying, ‘if you don’t believe just like me you are going to Hell, I am saying that if you don’t believe as Scripture requires you are going to Hell.’”

And so I say to you,

” No, I am not saying that if you’re not a Biblical Christian like me, then you don’t believe in Scriptural morality at all, I am saying that if you don’t believe as Scripture requires then you need to know the way more perfectly”[/quote]

As do we all,

Bret

He Was A Young American

John had just finished viewing his memory video of his time in London when he attended the Princess Diane funeral. The pictures brought back the sense of camaraderie with strangers united in common grief that he had experienced during his time in London. He would have liked to reminisce more but he was afraid that he would be late for his Scientology meeting.

On the way to the subway John stopped at the news-stand to buy the recent edition of “Aliens and Abductions,” and then it was a quick stop at the Amulet store to buy some healing crystals to help the Zicam ward off what he was afraid was a coming cold.

The Scientology meeting went well. John had just passed his masters level and each week found him more and more informed on how to rid himself of the threatening thetans. For more then ten years now John gave praise to God for the work of L. Ron Hubbard.

With the Scientology meeting finished John decided to walk over to his marriage partner’s business. Habib and John had been together five years now and John told everyone he met that they were the best five years of his life. It had taken some time for John to get used to Habib’s Moonie Religion but after just a brief time of co-cohabiting together Habib and John discovered that Scientology and the Moonie belief actually molded together quite well.

After a power lunch with Habib, John was out the door again on his way to the Obama campaign headquarters. He knew that the candidate would be in town any day for a major foreign policy speech and John was already swooning with excitement to see such a towering figure. So excited was John that he had invited all of his friends from the Amulet store, his online “Aliens and Abductions group”, his Scientology group, Habib’s Moonie group, and his old Princess Diane contacts that lived in the surrounding area. John promised them that this Obama speech would be bigger then both Nelson Mandela’s tour in 1990 or a John Lennon concert back in the 70’s. Indeed John was billing this speech as even bigger than Woodstock though he personally was a bit to young to have attended that.

Once back home, John channeled surfed watching the news shows from CNN, MSNBC, FOX News and other worthy sources of information. His apartment was littered with editions of the NY Times, Washington Post, TIME and Newsweek magazines, Shirley McClain personal enrichment books as well as Richard Simmons work out videos. Life was full for John and he didn’t have as much time for being neat and tidy as some of his other less stable friends had.

Rought Draft Of Finished Product — Christians & Government Schools

Thou shalt have no other gods before me
– God

“Every child entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It’s up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well–by creating the international child of the future.”

Psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce,
Addressing 1973 Childhood International Education Seminar

Similar quotes coming from sundry other people influential in the realm of government education, as that which is cited by Pierce, could be reproduced many times over, and yet despite this clearly stated intent to reprogram children, Christians continue to send their children to government schools. Some Christians tend to think that their local schools are different because the teachers there are “nice” and maybe even “smart.” What they fail to realize is that “nice” and “smart” is always used in service of the reprogramming of children – often times without the nice and smart teacher being themselves self-conscious of the malevolent design of government schooling. The most effective reprogramming is that reprogramming that is done with a smile on the teachers face. The Christian community has to realize that the Christian teachers in the school system where they are sending their children have yoked themselves to a system that is at war with Biblical Christianity, and that the Christianity of those teachers is either a Christianity that is in abeyance or is a Christianity that has been reinterpreted to fit the mold of the humanistic agenda of the government schools in which they are employed. A Biblical Christian teacher who taught their subject matter from a Biblical Christian worldview in a humanistic school system would be fired in weeks if not days. My friends the government schools are not populated by the kind of Christians that can help your children think God’s thoughts after him.

Government schools are committed to the religion of humanism where man considered either in the individual or the collective is the god of the system. This is so true that government schools really ought to be considered churches. Just as Christian churches are charged with teaching children to think as Christians through catechesis so the government schools are charged with teaching children to think as humanists through their lessons. In the Church of humanism the teachers are the ministers. In the church of humanism the curriculum in the schools is the equivalent to the catechism in the church of Christianity. In the church of humanism there are high holy days that the adherents celebrate just as Christian churches have their own high holy days that they celebrate. In the churches of humanism people can be expelled for sinning against humanistic rules of political correctness just as in Christian churches people can be excommunicated for sins against the Christian faith. All the dynamics that one finds in Christian churches and in the Christian faith are all present in government schools. Government schools are the temples of humanism where the initiates are indoctrinated in the ways of a false religion. Don’t let anyone tell you that Americans don’t have an established religion.

Let’s briefly take a look at some of these claims and see if we can find evidence from those who are associated with government education to see if the claims hold.

When considering whether Government schools are committed to the religion of Humanism we read from Charles Potter, a former honorary President of the National Education Association,

“Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American school is a school of humanism. What can a theistic Sunday school’s meeting for an hour once a week and teaching only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of the five-day program of humanistic teaching?” (Charles F. Potter, “Humanism: A New Religion” 1930)

When considering whether teachers are the ministers of humanism we learn from Humanist John Dunphy,

“I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being… The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and new. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing the classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level – preschool day care or large state universities.”

Now when we combine Dunphy’s quote with a quote from the father of Outcome Based Education, Benjamin Bloom, we begin to see that Dunphy’s vision fits well within the vision of those who are “shaping” public eduation,

“By educational objectives, we mean explicit formulations of the ways in which students are expected to be changed by the educative process. That is, the ways in which they will change in their thinking, their feelings, and their actions.”

When considering the nature of the curriculum as serving the ends of religious humanism we have only to read from Dr. John I. Goodlad, former director of research and development at the Institute for Development of Educational Activities when many years ago he wrote that future curriculum “will be what one might call the humanistic curriculum.” Looking forward to the future Goodlad could say that his humanistic curriculum would “become significantly evident by 1990 or 2000.”

Now in light of this very small sampling of what has been chronicled in many other sources, and in light of the reality that the first commandment forbids us to serve other gods why do Christians send their children to government schools where their children are immersed in learning the covenant ways of a false religion? And having sent their children to government schools why do they become surprised when their children remain consistent with what they’ve learned of the faith of humanism and leave the Christian faith? Part of the reason that we are losing our children in the Church is that by placing them in government schools we are training them to be pagans.

It should be immediately added here that most people who work in and for government schools are not self-conscious about their contribution to building an anti-Christ culture in the way that they are teaching children. Many who work in government schools are Christians in the sense of religious brand identity. The problem is that they have never had the opportunity to probe and examine the presuppositions that inform the material they are teaching and have accepted as their own. In brief, they have coated their anti-Christian belief system with a thin brand coating of Christianity sugar sprinkled with niceness.

Some would object to all of this by positing that education does not need to be specifically Christian since education is not spiritual but rather is only intellectual. The reasoning of these people is that education is not religious but rather is one discipline that falls within a Creational common realm where both Christians and non-Christians can labor together despite significant differences in presuppositions. The reasoning of these folks insists that education is to be done not by the standards of God’s word but rather by the standard of natural law. They insist that God’s word doesn’t teach anything with regards to the disciplines one might expect to find in a liberal arts education. The truths of these disciplines are taught by natural law and are self-evident.

The first problem we would note to this objection is that it seems to be an objection only raised by some Christians. Other adherents of other faith systems understand perfectly well the importance of an education in keeping with their faith. This is why we can find people of other non-Christian faiths insisting on the importance of an education that is in keeping with their faith.

“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”

Adolf Hitler

“Give me your 4 years olds, and in a generation I will build a socialist state.”

Vladimir Lenin

The second problem we would note to this objection is that even if we concede that education doesn’t belong to the spiritual realm of grace the issue still remains what interpretation of the creational realm will be presupposed and taught in the educational process? Education always presupposes some creational order as norm and standard. So even agreeing that education belongs to the Creational common realm, the issue must still be answered, in the midst of many disputes in a pluralistic culture, is which God or gods creational common realm will be assumed as the context in which the various educational disciplines find their meaning. The real issue is what regime’s creation order will be taught. Obviously, if Christians agree that education is a “creational project,” then all Christians should probably also agree that that project will explicitly and implicitly center on the Christian Creator.

A second objection is to insist that public schools do not teach Humanist beliefs any more than they teach any other belief. The schools, so the thinking goes, are simply secular, neither promoting nor demeaning religion. Therefore any calls that insist that Christians should pull their children from government schools are unwarranted. The answer to this objection is simply to observe that as teachers can’t teach from nowhere they must educate according to some perspective, worldview, or philosophical paradigm, all of which are beholden to some kind of religion, descending and originating from some kind of Theology. The labor of this article has been to argue that the worldview of government schools, regardless of any insistence to the contrary, is humanism.

Christians are commanded to set no other God before them. When US Christians, having full knowledge of what government schools are, send their children to US government schools in spite of what they know, they are worshiping at the altar of humanism. There is just no other way to put it. Certainly, as always, there certainly may be those strange times when there are exceptions but as a whole government schools are committed to sanitizing the Christian faith from those who enter their doors.

Many people have given themselves to praying for Reformation and Awakening. Allow me to close by suggesting that if we believe that Christianity results in a regeneration in our thinking it is extraordinarily difficult (though not impossible) to understand how prayers for Reformation and Awakening will be answered in the affirmative as long as Christians continue to poison their children’s minds against Christ by sending their children to US government schools. Certainly, we can say that one sign of Reformation and awakening in the Church will be the movement of Christian parents to remove their covenant seed from government schools, thus taking the first commandment seriously again.