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Post by Admin on Jan 3, 2024 15:38:26 GMT -5
By Larry E. Ball
A Polytheistic Empire – A New Experiment About to Fail?
The United States has shifted from a Christian Nation rooted in the truth of the Bible to a Polytheistic Empire rooted in Marxist ideology
Written by Larry Ball | Thursday, November 30, 2023
Christianity compromised God’s biblical antithesis in the name of national unity. If we were a Christian nation, we might have a hope for survival, even with variations in language and race. However, like those who sought a humanistic unity at the Tower of Babel, we are doing the same thing as they did, and we are seeing the judgment of God in our own day. With the passage of laws legalizing abortion and homosexual marriage, the American people have declared war against the God of the Bible. Judgment follows the rejection of blessing. We no longer live in a post-Christian age but rather in an Anti-Christian age.
There is a great divide in the United States over the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East. Most Americans are surprised at the size of the pro-Palestinian sentiment as seen in large public demonstrations, and now resulting in actual physical violence. The Middle East has been literally imported to the United States, and madness is raising its ugly head. The reason for this division in the United States is that we no longer have a Christian consensus. We have shifted from a Christian Nation rooted in the truth of the Bible to a Polytheistic Empire rooted in Marxist ideology.
The United States was once a Christian Nation. Regardless of your view on Christian Nationalism, it cannot be denied that even though we bear little resemblance to a Christian Nation today, we have been living off that capital for many years. The Bible provided a reference point for both personal and civil law. Christianity was the seedbed for national unity.
Christianity has dominated the landscape of this country since its beginnings. Contrary to the United States Constitution, nine of the original thirteen colonies required a religious test for officeholders which reflected a recognition of the Christian Faith. The States created the Union. The Union did not create the States. With the loss of State sovereignty in the Civil War, with the rise of the power of the federal government, and with a federal Constitution not demanding a religious test, the shift to a Polytheistic Empire began. Today, we now have Muslims occupying legislative positions in our national government. This would have been unthinkable to most Americans just a half-century ago. I know because I was there over a half-century ago.
A Polytheistic Empire is a country where a multiplicity of nations adhering to a variety of religions seek to live in peace, all under the same roof—in the name of Democracy. It is believed that Muslims, Jews, and Christians can live together in peace within the same borders. We have been told that this is possible because Democracy will keep us united. In Democracy the ballot box is the common sacrament among the various religions. It is the glue that holds us together. The problem is that all this verbiage is a big lie! Democracy might be possible in a Christian Nation, but in a Marxist regime it becomes a weapon to impose Marxist equality on everyone.
The Bible is clear that nations are defined by a common religion (Ps. 33:12), a common border (Acts 17:26), a common language (Acts 2:6), and a common patriarch (or ancestry) (Rms. 9:3). The Japanese understand this. The Chinese understand this. The Russians, the Germans, the French, and the English once understood this. In recent years western Europe thought they could mix Christianity and Islam within their own borders, but they are beginning to reverse that movement. It has proved to be catastrophic.
The Biden Administration is an agent of this new political thought. Open borders are now somehow supposed to be a means of ushering in this new utopia. As White Christians are marginalized, color becomes the mark of God’s election. Victimhood is now the evidence of holiness, and laws must be reenacted to punish the oppressors to reflect this new Marxist social order.
The problem is that no nation has ever existed since Adam and Eve as a Polytheistic Empire with a multiplicity of nations existing peaceably within the same borders. Empires have existed by exercising raw power over various other nations—each living within their own national boundaries, even with their own religions. However, a Polytheistic Empire with a multiplicity of nations living within the same geographical boundaries is not possible. It is as insane as creating a zoo where all the animals are put together in the same cage. As a result, the melting pot we were promised in the typical yellow schoolhouse has become a boiling pot.
Do not forget that America is a new experiment in the history of nations. We have only been around for a few hundred years—a very short time as compared to the thousands of years since Adam and Eve. For at least a hundred years or so, we have ignored the biblical definition of a nation and sought by our own hubris to create a utopia based on the inherent goodness of man and the compatibility of all religions. We are like the young teenager who thinks he is wiser than those who came before him—you know the pitch—that the hope of the future is in the hands of our young people. But with time, like most of us, they find out they were just fools.
Christianity compromised God’s biblical antithesis in the name of national unity. If we were a Christian nation, we might have a hope for survival, even with variations in language and race. However, like those who sought a humanistic unity at the Tower of Babel, we are doing the same thing as they did, and we are seeing the judgment of God in our own day. With the passage of laws legalizing abortion and homosexual marriage, the American people have declared war against the God of the Bible. Judgment follows the rejection of blessing. We no longer live in a post-Christian age but rather in an Anti-Christian age.
Most of you who read this article will not be affected by this shift to a Polytheistic Empire. However, you are watching it happen. Decay happens gradually over time. You probably are alarmed, but not too much. You have accumulated wealth and life is good. It is your children and grandchildren who will have to pay the price for the error of our way. They will have to live with the fruit of our mistakes.
As a postmillennialist I believe before Christ returns that all the nations shall be converted through the preaching of the gospel. For now, it is obvious that we have made a grave mistake in this country. We failed to understand the basic definition of a nation. However, future generations will learn from our failures, and the day will come when God’s people shall see the glory of the Lord cover the earth as the water covers the sea.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.
Related Posts:
The Re-Imagined World of John Lennon
The New Tower of Babel
The Powerful and Permanent Tool of Language
A Reformed Dream
How to Live for God with Fear of Rejection
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Post by Admin on Jan 3, 2024 15:39:32 GMT -5
Why Are Wilson’s Children Warriors?
There is something missing in the modern Reformed world, and a multiplicity of young men are flocking to Wilson and others to fill that vacuum. It is more than just a mood.
Written by Larry Ball | Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Modern America is now Gomorrah in the hands of Cultural Marxists. We tend to forget and ignore the fact that Marxism itself has a history, and its history always results in the shedding of the blood of millions of people. We must be pro-life, not pro-death, even beyond the womb. For non-cultural theologians, their hope may be in believing that persecution is the best way to heaven. For cultural theologians, persecution may be their calling, too, but in time to come, the Kingdom of God will come to earth in its fullness, and the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, all before the second coming of Christ.
I have never met Doug Wilson personally. I have been present twice when he spoke, once at the Auburn Avenue Conference in 2002 in Monroe, Louisiana, and then twenty years later at the Fight, Laugh, Feast (FLF) Conference in 2022 in Knoxville, Tennessee. In his book on the Book of Revelation he cites two times from my book on the Book of Revelation, so I know he has read at least one of my books. When I was a local church pastor, I used his book on marriage (Reforming Marriage) often in marital counseling. It was, and maybe still is in my opinion, the best available. I listen to his YouTube presentations on occasion, but I find that he can be difficult to follow because his vocabulary and phraseology seem to be channeling either the genre of G. K. Chesterton or C. S. Lewis, two of his heroes. I find this frustrating. Yet, his impact on the modern evangelical and reformed church cannot be denied.
I am older than Doug Wilson, and I was probably reading Rev. Rousas Rushdoony and Dr. Gary North long before he was. I personally knew both Rushdoony and North. Thus, I am not one of Wilson’s warrior children as Mr. Gordon classifies in his article (See Wilson’s Warrior Children by Chris Gordon, December 11, 2023). I call myself one of Rushdoony’s warrior children. The main point of contention with Wilson from Rushdoony’s children is over the legitimacy of natural law in Stephen Wolfe’s book, The Case for Christian Nationalism published by Wilson’s Canon Press.
Mr. Gordon in the title of his article plays off Professor John Frame’s article Machen’s Warrior Children. However, I think he misses the mark because Frame deals in his presentation with all the controversies (21 of them) that divided those who followed Machen. Wilson’s children are not battling each other, at least not currently. The Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), which originates in Moscow, Idaho, portrays an ecumenical spirit of unity which includes those from Reformed Baptist backgrounds. The Church as a denomination has its own identity and communion now apart from Wilson.
I do think, however, that Gordon gets to the important point about Wilson and his followers. Gordon deals more with substance than form, and I think he is right on target here. There is something missing in the modern Reformed world, and a multiplicity of young men are flocking to Wilson and others to fill that vacuum. It is more than just a mood.
As a balance, before I say anything else, I should mention several church leaders and conferences that add much to the discussion of reformed theology and piety today. They are godly men. These godly men are included in Gospel Reformation Network (GRN), Presbycast, Together for the Gospel (T4G), The Founder’s Ministry of the Sword and the Trowel (TS&TT), and the G3 Ministries (Gospel, Grace, and Glory), to name a few. These represent prominent pastors, many of large churches, and their numerous conferences, webpages, and podcasts. I call these non-cultural theologians. They indeed have much to offer, but the problem is that they are not dealing with the issues that are drawing young men like a magnet to Wilson and Moscow.
Actually, the theological engine that propels Wilson and Moscow includes a much broader family than Wilson and Moscow. Others include The Center for Cultural Leadership (CCL) headed by Dr. P. Andrew Sandlin, the Ezra Institute (Dr. Joe Boot), Apologia Ministries (Pastor Jeff Durbin), and Right Response Ministries (Pastor Joel Webbon). I would also include (without his permission) Apologist and Reformed Baptist Dr. James White, a postmillennialist who interviewed Doug Wilson on the topic of Federal Vision. I call these cultural theologians.
Many young men are not hearing from non-cultural theologians what they need in order to be good fathers and to be faithful in their callings in life outside of the church. The application of God’s law which challenges the modern culture is missing. Thus, they often go home after church and get their needed supplements (as in vitamins) from cultural theologians via various social media outlets. This might be a surprise to many non-cultural theologians, but it is happening. Cultural ministries like Canon Press and the Crosspolitic programs are quickly growing in popularity.
Most Reformed pastors avoid crucial and popular issues that are raging outside the church sanctuary. They are probably not going to be dragged off to jail. Their linear expository preaching somehow enables them to avoid certain important topics. They are comfortable still fighting the heretics from the Reformation period and the old liberalism of J. Gresham Machen’s time (which need to be fought). However, they are stuck in the past. They are so saturated in the New Testament period; they forget that Christendom has enjoyed centuries of blessings after the close of the New Testament Canon.
We are watching the end of American Christendom in our own day. There is a new enemy. It is called Cultural Marxism, and this demon is at the doorway of our churches. However, I fear that this new enemy is not even on the radar of most non-cultural theologians. I am not even sure they have the skills to fight this enemy. Their seminary training did not equip them to deal with this. The only way to gain the needed skills is to read outside the box. Dealing with Cultural Marxism publicly certainly might divide the church. As a former pastor, I know how important church unity is. However, I was never afraid to preach on topics like the Bible and inflation (Theology in a Reece’s Cup) or on Wokism (Are You Woke?).
What then are the substantive issues? Let me mention a few.
Eschatology is one issue. Optimistic eschatology brings hope on earth, even in the most desperate times. As Isaac Watts wrote in “Joy to the World,” the blessings of the gospel will spread as far as the curse is found. This is no place to present the case for postmillennialism. All I need to do is mention that most professors at Old Princeton were postmillennialists. According to Professor John Frame in his article on “Machen’s Warrior Children,” J. Gresham Machen was a postmillennialist.
Covenantalism is another issue. This is why these men put so much emphasis on the family. Yes, it is better to be with Christ than live on in a world filled with so much pain, but many of us believe that the world is not coming to an end anytime soon. Abraham was a stranger in a foreign land, not because he was in the flesh, but because he was in a land full of idols. Any perspective without the hope of the blessings of the covenant to a thousand generations tends to slip into Neoplatonism and Escapism.
We have a responsibility to our grandchildren and great-grandchildren (you can tell my age here), and we pray that they will become leaders in their own callings, including even those who serve from county commissioner to the highest posts in civil government. Politics is not the way to blessing. Covenant faithfulness over generations to our children and our children’s children is the way to bring the fullness of the Kingdom of God to earth before Christ returns in all his glory to reign on a purified and earthly earth. When training up your children, be sure to teach them Christian systematics and apologetics. Make certain they understand the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
Kingdom incarnation is another issue. Jesus came announcing the presence of the Kingdom and not the gospel. The gospel was the instrument to a realized (not over-realized) Kingdom, but not the Kingdom itself. Too, the Kingdom is greater than the church. Wherever the law of the King reigns, there is the Kingdom. This is why Jesus told us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Again, Machen was an example of this when he testified as a clergyman before a United States Senate and House Committee on the proposed Department of Education. He was being salt in the world.
Worship is another issue. Worship is a calling to focus on Christ and his work. It is the worship of the Triune God, especially on the Lord’s Day. However, it is also a call to battle as men exit the doors of the church—not just to fight sin in their own hearts but to tame sin in a world we see with our own eyes. Men want to fight for their families. They do not want to see them swallowed up with the wicked. The wicked will commit suicide and we do not want our children to go to the grave with them. Worship prepares them for this battle.
The biggest opposition to Cultural Theologians is the Westminster West Seminary R2K proponents. They promote the idea that the Bible is for the Church only, and has nothing to say to the Civil Magistrate. The Civil Magistrate is bound to follow Natural Law only, and whatever the Civil Magistrate does is right because God has given him this authority apart from consulting the Holy Scriptures. One of them has even pushed the idea that if the Civil Magistrate decides to kill Christians, he is doing the right thing because, after all, he is the Civil Magistrate. Cultural Theologians find this appalling.
Non-cultural theologians are mission-minded. However, what some of us find puzzling is that as we put more and more missionaries on the field to disciple other nations, we are more and more in this country dying as a Christian nation. It is difficult to teach others to fly a plane when you have failed to fly one yourself. The Church has lost its ability to be salt and light in America. How then can we take the good news to the whole world when it seems that at home the Christian Faith is failing, and it is irrelevant outside the church sanctuary and personal devotions?
I have watched similar so-called movements as Wilson and Moscow in the past destroy themselves, whether it be the Tyler, Texas fiasco or the ministries of Mark Driscoll. However, things may now be different. Neither of these two failures resulted in a new denomination nor were accompanied by numerous other separate ministries headed in the same direction. Even if Moscow were to implode, the message will continue. So, non-cultural theologians need to realize that cultural theologians are not going away. The best way to deal with them is to recognize that they are legitimate and pursue a right relationship with them.
Cultural theologians are not in a panic mode. No, they do not believe the sky is falling tomorrow. We are not out to reclaim through politics the structure of America. Donald Trump is not the answer. God is sovereign. That is our hope. However, we do not swallow the dialectic of the cross verses glory. We believe in both, that because of the cross, Christ will be glorified not only in heaven but also upon earth as his people seek to bring every thought captive to his authority. Meekness in the heart granted by the Spirit of God is the way to the realization of this glorious kingdom, not for the glory of mere mortals like us, but for glory of our majestic God! The Kingdom is not from this world, but it is indeed in this world.
Modern America is now Gomorrah in the hands of Cultural Marxists. We tend to forget and ignore the fact that Marxism itself has a history, and its history always results in the shedding of the blood of millions of people. We must be pro-life, not pro-death, even beyond the womb. For non-cultural theologians, their hope may be in believing that persecution is the best way to heaven. For cultural theologians, persecution may be their calling, too, but in time to come, the Kingdom of God will come to earth in its fullness, and the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, all before the second coming of Christ. Whether they see it in fruition or not, it gives them a purpose on earth, both in their families and in their callings. It is wonderful to think that you had a part, be it ever so small, in the long-term victory. We are in it for the long-haul. That is why Wilson’s children and others are fighting as warriors.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.
Related Posts:
The Inquisitors of Marxism—Part 9
The Sin of Marxism—Part 6
Woke or Awakened
Christian Options Living Under a Marxist Regime
The King is Calling
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Post by Admin on Jan 3, 2024 15:42:01 GMT -5
What Is Christian Nationalism?
Re-establishing a Christian nation in any meaningful sense seems a gargantuan task.
Written by Mike Sabo | Wednesday, November 1, 2023
One major reason for optimism in the Christian nationalist fold is that they have evidently learned from the failures of the conservative movement and are working on developing a positive program, not merely a defensive strategy. And they have a convincing, historically-based case that highlights the deep imprint of America’s Protestant character that remains even today, however trampled upon and bruised.
The subject of Christian nationalism generates little light but much heat.
Since at least the publication of Michelle Goldberg’s Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in 2006, the ruling class has used the term as a club to bludgeon evangelicals—especially in the wake of their prodigious support for Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections.
Christian nationalists, the mainstream press tells us, are racist, QAnon-addled election deniers. They want to Make America Puritan Again (in the modern, badly misunderstood meaning of that word). And they believe that the Constitution should be set aside for a Christian divine-right king who will oversee forced religious conversions and impose draconian moral codes upon an unwilling populous.
The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin has called Christian nationalism “an authoritarian, racist, dogmatic message donning the cloak of Christianity,” asserting that the GOP is “dedicated to imposing White Christian nationalism” on the country. A coterie of chin-stroking panels hosted by D.C. think tanks, “democracy” experts and sociologists, and (former) Republican members of Congress have condemned it in the strongest possible terms.
Evangelicals who aspire to be accepted by the ruling elite make a point of agreeing in full with the received view. Christianity Today editor-in-chief Russell Moore described Christian nationalism as “liberation theology for white people.” David French, who never misses the chance to steamroll his fellow evangelicals in the New York Times, called it “a blueprint for corruption, brutality, and oppression.”
The riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 has been packaged as the perfect showcase of Christian nationalism’s devastating consequences for America. All Americans are required to say that Christian Trump supporters tried to overturn “our sacred democracy” and made an idol of Trumpism at the expense of their eternal souls. (Ethics Professor Daniel Strand has conclusively shown that critics flew to this ready-made narrative before any evidence was presented.)
Mainstream conservatives, for their part, generally argue that liberals indiscriminately and unfairly employ the label against all conservatives, who are for the most part not Christian nationalists but patriotic Americans. However, as that contrast implies, this defense of conservatism takes for granted that the ruling class portrait is an accurate one: Christian nationalism stamps out religious freedom and coerces people into false belief. As Hillsdale College’s D.G. Hart wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that was published close to Independence Day, Christian nationalists long to return the nation to “pre-1776 patterns of government, such as John Calvin’s Geneva or John Winthrop’s Boston,” where “the civil magistrate supported churches and cajoled citizens to practice faith.” Conservatives like Hart worry that Christian nationalists will drag us back, Handmaid’s Tale-style, to a benighted age that we worked very hard to leave behind.
Both the Left and a good portion of the Right then agree that Christian nationalism ought to be rejected by all good and decent Americans. But does it truly represent the ultimate threat to the American republic? Is it the dying gasp of a hidebound folk religion that signifies the closing stage of a less-refined epoch? Is this how Christian nationalists understand themselves?
While the Claremont Institute takes no institutional position on the question, we must take Christian nationalism seriously. The debate over it represents a new stage in the ongoing realignment of our politics and culture, touching directly on how Americans should regard and relate to ultimate questions of the human soul and the highest good. The rise of Christian nationalism, along with post-liberalism, Catholic integralism, and other overlapping yet distinct attempts to answer the deepest theological-political questions facing our nation, speaks to mounting levels of dissatisfaction with our current failing paradigm. Wishing away this obvious reality and holding fast to the dead consensus will only fuel greater levels of discontent with the status quo and heighten the chances of our nation’s disintegration.
Just as President Trump’s first presidential run offered the opportunity for a searching reconsideration of the post-Cold War political consensus, the rise of Christian nationalism likewise offers us the same opportunity in the realm of church and state.
Who Are You?
Critics like to suggest that the leaders of the Christian nationalist movement are universally members of an outlandish coalition: explicit pro-MAGA churches; pastors who hold star-spangled, “patriotic” services; Charismatic snake handlers; prosperity Gospel grifters; and Donald Trump’s less-than-orthodox circle of evangelists. Though these groups publicly promote a certain strain of Christianity, they are not supplying the leading theological and political arguments for Christian nationalism (even though they may reside somewhere in the fold).
Rather, the group leading the Christian nationalist movement is a small pan-Protestant coalition of Christians from multiple denominations (e.g., Presbyterians, Baptists, and Anglicans) who want to restore the political theology of the Magisterial Reformers. Works in this tradition include Martin Bucer’s De Regno Christi, Theodore Beza’s The Right of Magistrates, and Samuel Rutherford’s Lex Rex. And pivotal Protestant confessions that inculcate such views are the original Westminster Confession of Faith, the Belgic Confession, the Irish Articles, and the Thirty-Nine Articles.
The arguments that buttress this project are limited to a few books—with just one systematic treatment among them so far, Stephen Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism—a number of lengthy essays (some of whose authors do not even call themselves Christian nationalists), and assorted private group chats. There are no foundations or nonprofits solely dedicated to advancing Christian nationalism. Very few institutions would dare publish anything sympathetic with its aims.
Christian nationalists see themselves as leading a counterrevolution against the post-World War II order. In a bracing series of aphorisms in his book’s epilogue, Wolfe describes the Left as the managers of New America who have long since discarded the founders’ Constitution. They have captured virtually every major public institution and are working zealously to stamp out any vestige of Old America, with its heroes, traditions, and ways of life. The inheritance our forefathers left us has been rejected in favor of a toxic cocktail of oligarchy, feminism, transgenderism, and wokeism. Even the U.S. military, once thought unassailable, is in service to the Global American Empire—an online moniker given to America’s imperial project of exporting “universal principles” (in truth particularist claims that benefit certain “dispossessed classes”) to foreign lands. All told, Wolfe asserts, “Americans live under an implicit occupation; the American ruling class is the occupying force.”
Christian nationalists see the suppression of traditional Christian teachings and practices in public as a defining element of this occupation. This includes: a series of disastrous Supreme Court rulings on the First Amendment’s religion clauses; hoary clichés such as the “neutral” public square and the supposedly impregnable “wall of separation” between church and state; and “religious liberty” that allows Christian business owners to be sued into oblivion. As Kurt Hofer has noted at The American Mind, Christians “have accepted the terms of battle dictated to us by liberalism—we have, in effect, already conceded defeat.”
The pushback to our current regime has either been completely ineffective or nonexistent. The modern conservative movement’s often facile and uncritical embrace of open markets, open trade, and (in many cases) open borders has helped strip mine America of its once plentiful resources and contributed to our present disorders. Meanwhile, Wolfe argues that a group of Protestant regime theologians have been busy reconciling evangelicals to their dhimmitude status, ensuring that they will never pose a threat to unraveling the 21st-century moral consensus.
Longhouse Nation
According to Christian nationalists, America’s men inhabit the Longhouse. In First Things, the anonymous writer L0m3z described that now ubiquitous online term as the “overcorrection of the last two generations toward social norms centering feminine needs and feminine methods for controlling, directing, and modeling behavior.” Christian nationalists argue that modern feminism’s fatwa against “toxic” masculinity pathologizes healthy masculine virtues and renders men subservient and docile. Innumerable pits of quicksand are ready to engulf any man who makes a wayward step: kangaroo tribunals led by college administrators ready to prosecute the merest suspicion of sexual misconduct, heavily biased family courts, and phalanxes of white knights and doxxers on social media apps who seek to destroy the lives of those who run afoul of regime-approved orthodoxies.
Amidst this carnage, Zoomers and young Millennials are searching for a path by which they can achieve greatness, excellence, self-mastery, and vitality. This is why men in these circles have exhorted being in good shape, lifting weights, and eating right—not due to a base materialism but because preserving the physical body is an implication of the Sixth Commandment. And they champion other aims, including getting (and staying) married and having kids, building productive households, buying land and establishing anti-fragile homesteads, and being engaged in every facet of their local communities.
Above all, Christian nationalists reject the status to which Christians have been assigned: naïve patsies who believe that Christ’s teachings mandate the destruction of one’s nation and people. They want nothing to do with year-zero theology, the notion that Christianity best flourishes when Christians have no political power and face routine persecution and martyrdom.
Instead, they are looking to recover the collective will of Christians and confidently assert their interests in public. They would heartily agree with Kevin Slack’s cri de cœur made in this publication that Christianity “must once again become a fighting faith, the inheritance of the battles of Edington, Tours, and Lepanto.”
Defender of the Faith
How, exactly, can a nation be Christian? Crucially, according to Wolfe, the term does not imply that every citizen needs to be a believer. Instead, Christian nations exist when “everyday life is invested and adorned with Christianity (e.g., Christian manners and expectations) and when life orients around distinctly Christian practices such as the worship of God (e.g., sabbath observance).”
Read More
Related Posts:
Why I Am Not A Christian Nationalist
Nationalism Isn’t American
Christian Nationalism In The United States
Don’t Criticize Your In-Group in the Out-Group’s Forums
The Different Shades of Christian Nationalism
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Post by Admin on Jan 3, 2024 15:51:20 GMT -5
Avoiding a Second Civil War
Culture is downstream from religion so in essence what we are witnessing today is a religious war.
Written by Larry Ball | Friday, August 11, 2023
Two competing religions are struggling in a battle against each other for control of our nation’s numerous institutions such as the civil government, the military, education, and even the church. Whatever labels you use for the two sides of the conflict, either wokeism versus traditionalism, or Cultural Marxism versus Christianity, the clash between the two factions is heated and intense. We call them culture wars, but we need to be reminded that culture is downstream from religion.
America is no longer a republic. The President of the United States, whether it be a Biden or a Trump, has now become something akin to a king. Executive orders and regulatory agencies have replaced congressional action. Also, it is now being recommended that Supreme Court decisions should either be ignored or circumvented. As Andrew Jackson allegedly said, “John Marshall made the law, now let him enforce it!”
Government agencies are no longer considered to be neutral, but they have been weaponized to protect the king in power. Some mothers of children in public schools are now classified as domestic terrorists, and some political opponents are already in prison. If Donald Trump goes to jail before the next election, then expect the “Storming of the Bastille 2.0.”
Two competing religions are struggling in a battle against each other for control of our nation’s numerous institutions such as the civil government, the military, education, and even the church. Whatever labels you use for the two sides of the conflict, either wokeism versus traditionalism, or Cultural Marxism versus Christianity, the clash between the two factions is heated and intense. We call them culture wars, but we need to be reminded that culture is downstream from religion. In essence what we are witnessing today is a religious war. Both sides desperately want to win. Any semblance of neutrality is gone. There is no white flag being waved.
Christendom has controlled the west for hundreds of years, but there is a revolution seeking to overthrow it. Hatred between zealots on both sides of the division looms under their skin, and many men that I personally know are about to explode with violence. Most Americans will not want to be involved. Life is just too good. Some will choose slavery over liberty. A small minority will choose to fight. Small minorities often are responsible for revolutions, and the majority will be dragged into the fight whether they like it or not.
The next presidential election may be a threat to our sanity in this country, regardless of who is elected. In just a little more than a year, as a nation, we may face the greatest danger to our very existence since the Civil War. We are in the middle of a cold war, and I am afraid that it may quickly turn into a hot war, where blood could literally flow in the streets. We could see our civilization as we know it collapse. With whom the military will side, I am not sure—usually it does side with those in power at the time. But they will have to make a choice.
I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet. I am not sensational by nature. I avoid conspiracy theories like a plague. One does not have to be a prophet to see into the future. He just needs to be a man immersed in good biblical theology who can see trajectories. Printing money produces inflation. Debauchery in morals produces depression. Religious conflict produces hatred. A divided nation cannot long endure.
I am a post-millennialist and believe that the long-term future on this earth before the second coming of Christ will witness a spread of the gospel that will capture the nations (and not just a few elect from the nations). However, in the near-term, I fear that our country may face a bloody trauma not seen since the Civil War. Ideas have consequences. Cold wars rooted in malicious hatred often become militant conflicts.
What are we to do? How are we to prepare? I am no prophet. Only God knows the future, but he usually works within the realm of cause and effect. Just remember, if I am wrong, I never claimed infallibility.
First, don’t go and hide under a pillow. Don’t retreat into Netflix movies to escape reality. Read a lot but read the right stuff.
Secondly, find a biblical church where you can be part of a network of believers. No one will come to your side like another Christian with whom you have built a long-lasting and trusting friendship. Pray a lot. God does answer the prayers of his people. This may be our most powerful weapon.
Thirdly, prepare to protect your family. Whether it be learning a new skill (such as plumbing), stocking up on food, or learning how to shoot a gun, formulate a plan.
Lastly, encourage your state and local political leaders to study the issue of states’ rights as delineated in the Constitution. One obvious evidence of the present conflict is the division of our country into Red and Blue States. Multitudes of people are moving to Red States looking for freedom. Churches in my home state of Tennessee are growing like wild-fire because of the transfer of other Christians from places like California and New York.
As I was discussing this issue with a good friend recently, we both agreed that one way to avoid bloodshed is a return unto the states the powers that constitutionally belong to the states. Negotiation between State Governors and a king in Washington, D.C. may be the last option to prevent bloodshed. How that will look exactly is not for me to speculate, but it may be our only hope. We need strong State Governors. Next to prayer, decentralization and negotiation may be the only way we can avoid a Second Civil War.
Remember, God is sovereign and he loves his people.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.
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Post by Admin on Jan 3, 2024 16:33:02 GMT -5
UNCATEGORIZED
A Blunt Christian Statement on Racism
16 AUG 2017
P. ANDREW SANDLIN
1 COMMENT
Biblical Christians, of all people, should not avoid or tiptoe around the issue of race. Shout it from the housetop without fear or favor: racism is anti-Christian. White supremacy is evil. Leftist identitarianism is evil. The idea that whites are superior to blacks is evil. The idea that whites are “structurally” racist is evil. The defense of racial slavery by the South in the Civil War was evil. Using the history of racial slavery to attack whites, Asians, and Hispanics is evil. Nazi ideology is evil. Libertarian Marxist ideology is evil.
For Christianity, this is what really matters: all races are created in the image of God; all races fell in Adam and Eve’s sin and are born into sin; and all races can and should be redeemed by the blood and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The church is a multinational, multiracial, multiethnic unity of the people of God swearing allegiance to their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
The real difference in this world has nothing to do with race. It has to do with religion: Those who belong to Jesus Christ by faith versus those who have not trusted in Jesus Christ.
The only color that fundamentally matters is not black or white or yellow or brown, but red: the shed blood of Jesus Christ and all washed from their sins in that atoning blood.
Anything less than or different from this is contra-Christian.
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Post by martinmarprelate on Jan 8, 2024 18:20:42 GMT -5
The answer to all the stuff on this thread is not to agonize over the political situation - did Paul ever do that? - but to preach the Gospel. There is no such thing as a Christian nation. The idea that there once was is looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses.
'Do not say, "Why were the former days better than these?" For you do not inquire wisely concerning this' (Eccl. 7:10). Rather, 'Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season[i.e. Whether people want to hear it or not] Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.' But it's a lot easier to grumble about the state of the nation, and to dream that Donald Trump is going to make America Christian again. Take it from me, he isn't.
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Post by Admin on Jan 8, 2024 18:49:11 GMT -5
The answer to all the stuff on this thread is not to agonize over the political situation - did Paul ever do that? - but to preach the Gospel. There is no such thing as a Christian nation. The idea that there once was is looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses. 'Do not say, "Why were the former days better than these?" For you do not inquire wisely concerning this' (Eccl. 7:10). Rather, 'Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season[i.e. Whether people want to hear it or not] Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.' But it's a lot easier to grumble about the state of the nation, and to dream that Donald Trump is going to make America Christian again. Take it from me, he isn't. |
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