The Strangest Things Come In The Mail

Today I received a unrequested and unsolicited complimentary “Victory Church Products” junk mail catalog in the mail today. On page 62 there was a European American products section. In that section I could purchase Church Bulletin covers honoring European American themes. There was a choice of ten I could choose from.

I could order a bulletin with the name and picture of the Andrews Sisters on the front cover. I could order a bulletin with the name and picture of Thomas Edison on the front cover. I could order a bulletin with the name and picture of Henrietta Cornelia Mears on the front cover. I could order a bulletin with the name and picture of Christy Matthewson on the front cover. I could order a bulletin with a picture of Dr. Rev. Benjamin Morgan Palmer on the front cover. I could order a bulletin with a picture of a older white woman kneeling at a church pew praying on the front cover. I could order a picture of a young white man holding a open bible in his left hand while picking up a communion cup with his right hand on the front cover. There were several others that were a little more generic.

I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like that before.

Isn’t Church supposed to be about Christ and not ethnic exaltation?

Can One Be Both Collectivist and Christian?

In the previous post we looked at different variations of Collectivism as it incarnates itself in political and economic arrangements. In this post we want to make the case that it is no more possible to be a Satanist and a Christian than it is to be a epistemologically self conscious collectivist and a Christian at the same time. This is absolutely key to emphasize at this time since there are those in the Reformed world who seem to suggest that it is of no moment or matter whether or not one is a socialist or whether or not a country is socialistic. I wish some Reformed Theologians would stick to theology proper and give up broader political analysis.

Collectivism exists. It exists everywhere. It is not an imaginary bogeyman that right wing nut case Christians have invented so they could have windmills to tilt at. Indeed, the notion that collectivism is the figment of hyper active imaginations could only be advanced in a cultural setting that is drenched in collectivism. We are so saturated with collectivism we don’t even see collectivism anymore as collectivism. Instead of seeing collectivism as collectivism we tend to see it as just the way things are. Collectivism has become the constant hum in the background of our thinking that help us keep time in all of our endeavors. Because this is true our vision of what it means to be “Christian” as been cast in collectivist terms. Christians are so collectivistic / socialistic in their thinking that they don’t realize that the current danger that is greatest to the Christian faith right now is one form of collectivism or another.

For proof of this I ask the reader how many sermons he has ever listened to that deal with the idolatry of collectivism in one form or another? Has the reader ever heard a sermon attacking the idol of collectivism in education? In government? In economics? Has the reader ever heard a sermon exposing the consequences to a people who fall in worship of the idol of collectivism? Has the reader ever heard a sermon that clearly posits the anti-thesis between the authority of the idol of collectivism and the authority of King Jesus? Has the reader ever heard a sermon revealing how the idol of collectivism tries to provide a salvation that only Jesus can bring? The greatest danger to the Church and to Christianity today is the idolatry of collectivism and yet we have some of our best and brightest in the Reformed world pooh poohing the necessity to speak to this subject in our pulpits.

It is not possible to be a epistemologically self-conscious simultaneous supporter of collectivism and Christianity because these two faiths are set in antithesis to one another. In the former, autonomous man in his corporate expression through the mechanism of central planning (a euphemism for sovereignty if there ever was one) seeks to take up the sovereignty of God, while in Christianity man recognizes that only God is sovereign. In collectivist arrangements the state is seeking to be the institution that provides redemption from the sin of want and austerity for its worshipers — and in doing so the collectivist state, as god, redefines both what sin and salvation is. In Christianity, on the other hand, only Jesus can provide redemption from sin — and as such both sin and redemption as defined biblically. In collectivist arrangements man is considered as mass and the individual is lost. In Christianity each man is created with the image of God imprinted upon them and thus has value.

Edmund Opitz has seen this clearly:

“As History’s vice-regent, the Planner is forced to view men as mass; which is to deny their full stature as persons with rights endowed by the Creator, gifted with free will, possessing the capacity to order their own lives in terms of their convictions. The man who has the authority and the power to put the masses through their paces, and to punish nonconformists, must be ruthless enough to sacrifice a person to a principle…a commissar who believes that each person is a child of God will eventually yield to a commissar whose ideology is consonant with the demands of his job.

And so, Opitz concludes, “Socialism needs a secular religion to sanction its authoritarian politics, and it replaces the traditional moral order by a code which subordinates the individual to the collective.”

In collectivist arrangements the state owns the children and so all children must be “educated” in the matrix of the state. Further, in collectivist arrangements it is by education that individuals and society experience regeneration. In Christianity however God owns our children and the parents are stewards of God to raise their children in the way of God’s new and better covenant of grace. Further, regeneration in Christianity is a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit quite apart from the state’s educational matrix. In collectivist arrangements the ultimate value is the glory of the state for in the state we live and move and have our being. In Christianity the ultimate value is the glory of God for in God we live and move and have our being. In collectivist arrangements the state is the ultimate authority and any god must submit to the state, while in Christianity God is the ultimate authority and the state must submit to God. In collectivist cultures the state uses guilt as a means of manipulating the people and atonement is achieved sado-masochistically, while in Christianity Christ takes away our guilt so that we do not have to involve ourselves in purges of self-atonement. In collectivist arrangements the state is the creator, giver, and arbiter of human rights, while in Christianity God is the creator, giver, and arbiter of all that is inherently human and all that comes from being human. In collectivist arrangements coercion is the foundation of exchange and commerce while in Christian arrangements the golden rule is the foundation of exchange and commerce.

Collectivism is to the church today what Gnosticism was to the church in the second century, which is to say it is a subtle heresy that gains so much traction in the Church because it is such a quality counterfeit. In point of fact much of what collectivism is, is Christianity sat on its head. It is Christianity through and through with its own doctrine of sin, regeneration, redemption, and glorification. It has its own church, its own sacraments, its own savior and priests and confessionals and catechism and hymns. The place it differs from Christianity is that it puts man on God’s throne and seeks to throw God out of his universe.

Because all of this is true one cannot be both a committed collectivist and a Christian at the same time and anybody who suggests that collectivism is of no moment or matter that it should be addressed by Christian pastors in Christian Churches is at best a fool and at worst an enemy of the Cross.

The Way To Spin Your Readership

Obama calls cloning ‘dangerous, profoundly wrong’

This was the headline for Obama’s decision to have the government become officially involved again in the destruction of human life through the sanctioning of fetal stem cell researching.

So, Obama approves of something grossly immoral and wicked and the headline gives us Obama standing in the gap against moral perfidy. What a joke.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to discuss with the President why he thinks cloning is wrong?

Dissent Is Patriotic … Wish They Had Thought Of That Eight Years Ago

Periodically I read redstate.com which is a big forum for a form of conservatism as well as a big supporter of most things Reagan Republican. Today I got a kick out of billboards they are financing and putting up around the country in support of Rush Limbaugh.

The billboards read,

“Dissent Is The Highest Form Of Patriotism.”

Now, this made me chuckle because for 8 years I have been dissenting against the absolute bone-headedness of all things Republican during the Bush administration. I dissented against the extension of Empire in the Iraq war. I dissented against the Bush policy on immigration. I dissented on the Bush “no child left behind” legislation crafted with Teddy Kennedy’s approval. I dissented in the Bush “prescription drug entitlement for senior citizens.” I dissented when Bush campaigned against Pat Toomey in the Republican Pennsylvania primary in favor of that foul liberal Arlen Spectre. I spent 8 years dissenting from the Bush administration and I can’t tell you how many times people from my own tribe (Christians) accused me of being unpatriotic.

Now, that a Democrat is in the White House dissent is fashionable again.

Part of the reason that Republicans are in the mess that they are in is that instead of being patriots and dissenting during the Bush years they wilted under pressure. As such it’s hard to take them seriously now in their dissent of all things Obama.

Still, we patriotic dissenters are glad for the company and after having dwelt in the waters of dissent for a very long time now we can say … “Come on in boys, the water is fine.”

Oh, and while we are on the whole Rush Limbaugh vs. the White House matter let me make just a few points.

1.) There is a proverb that says, “one shouldn’t get in an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel.” As such, I’m not sure how wise the White House war room was in trying to intimidate a guy who has 13,000,000 listeners for three hours every day.

2.) Limbaugh is good at what he does. If he were not such a war-hawk, Lincoln lover, and knee jerk Republican I might be able to actually appreciate him even more. Still, for all his mistaken convictions I think people need to realize that in this Limbaugh vs. White House war Limbaugh needs to win. Remember the end game in all this for the White House is the destruction of talk radio. Now, “Talk Radio” has its problems but without “Talk Radio” there will not be even a mildly alternative opinion out there accessible to the average American in competition with what the major media lies about.

Now, again, I realize that “Talk Radio” is hardly ideologically ideal but again if the White House succeeds in shutting town “Talk Radio” they and their major media market lap dogs will own the American mind. Yes, it is a crying shame that we have gotten to the point in this country where we must depend upon the simple bromides that are tossed to the citizenry by those on “Talk Radio” in order to build resistance but the situation is what it is and right now “Talk Radio” is the only game in town when it comes to large scale popular dissent and resistance.

3.) I am old enough to remember when Nixon went after the journalist Jack Anderson. The media was outraged by the idea that the Nixon White House had a journalist “enemies list.” Now Obama is doing the same thing and the lying dog major media doesn’t care? The White House is going after the first amendment and (through back door methodologies that will bring about the results of “fairness doctrine” legislation) very few people care?