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Acts of God or Acts of Man?

Posted by :webmaster On : August 8, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Humanism, Worldview

The phrase “an act of God” is typically associated with destruction, loss, pain, and suffering beyond the control of man. Many property and casualty insurance policies contain exclusions of coverage on losses attributed to “acts of God” because certain massive acts of nature can’t be controlled such as earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes. However, other less pervasive natural and therefore insurable occurrences such as tornadoes, hail, storms, high winds, and ice may be covered. War, although man-made, is often included in these exclusions. Then there are other uninsurable catastrophes such as famine, pandemic disease, and pestilence that kill millions each year. For many, the biblical God of love has a lot to answer for if these actions are truly His responsibility.

It seems that God gets blamed for most if not all of the evil in the world. If He is not blamed for causing it, then He is blamed for not preventing it. For several well-known individuals, a good God cannot exist if He allows such pain and suffering. The last vestiges of Charles Darwin’s Christian faith evaporated upon his daughter’s painful death. Likewise, billionaire Ted Turner became an outspoken unbeliever upon his sister’s death from a painful disease. “I was taught that God was love and God was powerful, and I couldn’t understand how someone so innocent should be made or allowed to suffer so.” Former well-known evangelist Charles Templeton wrote Farewell to God in 1996. The reason for his rejection of belief in God is revealed by his question, “How could a loving and omnipotent God create such horrors as we have been contemplating?”[1]

So how could a good God allow a world full of pain and suffering to exist? It is a legitimate question, especially for those who deny the existence of God or who reject the biblical answer for mankind’s pain and suffering.

Before we require God to explain the reasons for the existence of pain and suffering in the world, we ought to be in agreement as to the definition and meaning of two words necessary to understand God’s answer: love and freedom. When we speak of love, we refer here to interpersonal relationships (as opposed to the impersonal “I love pizza!”). Our friend Webster describes love as “affection,” “devotion,” “warm attachment,” and “adoration.”[2] But love can one directional and rejected by the intended recipient. Love cannot be commanded, only accepted and returned or rejected. Here we see that love is a matter of choice. One is free to accept or reject love. The popular mantra that “love is all that is necessary” is wrong. We may love the terrorist, but that won’t stop him from maiming and killing innocent people. Even if the terrorist is won over by our love and renounces his terrorist activities, the pain and suffering caused by mindless natural forces can’t be stopped. So, we must agree that love requires freedom for both the giver and recipient.

With this understanding of love and freedom, we are able to comprehend God’s answer for the existence of pain and suffering in the world. To do so we must step back and take in the entire breadth and height of the biblical meta-story of creation including man who was God’s special creation.

God existed before the universe was created, and then God created the universe and all that is within it including the laws that govern that creation. Unlike all of the other elements of his creation, man was created with a free will. This part of the Christian worldview is called Creation. Mankind’s free will allowed man to think and act in ways that were contrary to God’s plan and will for His creation. When man acted in ways contrary to God’s laws (truths), such disobedience to God’s laws was called sin, and as a result decay and death entered into God’s creation. This is called the Fall, and it affected not only man but all of God’s creation. But as God is a loving God, he created a way through His son, Jesus Christ, which allows man to bring order to the chaos he created. This is called the Restoration. There you have the basic elements of the Christian worldview: the Creation, the Fall, and the Restoration. No other worldview recognizes the true nature of the human condition and provides a means whereby man can return to a proper orientation to God’s laws and plan. It answers the questions of where we came from and who we are, what went wrong, and how we get out of the chaos and restore order to our souls.[3]

God’s creation of man with a free will meant the possibility of rejection of God and His love. In other words free will and the potential for rejection of God was the penalty for the possibility of love. So it is on the earthly plane, to risk love is to risk rejection.[4] Pain and suffering entered the world through man’s rejection of God. But man was not the only victim of his rebellion.

Even natural evil—involving earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, and the like—is rooted in our wrong use of free choice. We must not forget that we are living in a fallen world, and because of this, we are subject to disasters in the world of nature that would not have occurred had man not rebelled against God in the beginning. (see Romans 8:20-22)[5]

Humanism is the great competing meta-story and stands in stark contrast on every major point to that of Christianity with regard to man’s creation, purpose, and destiny. The humanistic philosophy denies the existence of all forms of the supernatural, proposes that nature is the totality of being and exists independently of any mind or consciousness. Man is the evolutionary product of Nature, and man has no conscious survival after death due to the unity of body and personality. Humans are masters of their own destiny, and human values are grounded in this-earthly experiences and relationships.[6]

Humanism presents the problem of suffering as the greatest objection to the existence of God. But humanism stands convicted by its own arguments in its denial of the existence of a supernatural God. If there is no supernatural God, and if humans are masters of their own destinies, what is the source of evil that has led to universal pain and suffering in the world? Its worldview has no logical, realistic, or compelling answers. Christian apologist William Craig Lane expresses the humanist’s dilemma.

Paradoxically, then, even though the problem of suffering is the greatest objection to the existence of God, at the end of the day God is the only solution to the problem of suffering. If God does not exist, then we are locked without hope in a world filled with pointless and unredeemed suffering. God is the final answer to the problem of suffering, for He redeems us from evil and takes us into the everlasting joy of an incommensurable good: fellowship with Himself.[7]

As the world is increasingly awash in unfathomable sorrow, pain, and suffering, those who are redeemed by God through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ can take comfort in the words of Christ to His disciples just before His betrayal and death on the cross. “These things I have said to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” [John 16:33. RSV]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Ken Ham and Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, “Why is there death and suffering?” Creation Ministries International,
http://creation.com/why-is-there-death-and-suffering#_ret4 (accessed August 8, 2014).
[2] “love,” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company,
Publishers, 1963), p. 501.
[3] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as Gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American
Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 86
[4] Ibid., p. 158.
[5] Ronald Rhodes, “Tough Questions About Evil,” Who Made God? Eds. Ravi Zacharias and Norman Geisler,
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2003), p. 37.
[6] Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, Eighth Edition, Revised, (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press,
1997), pp. 13-14.
[7] William Lane Craig, On Guard, (Colorado Springs, Colorado: David C. Cook, 2010), p. 173.

Did father really know best?

Posted by :webmaster On : July 25, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Humanism, Marriage

Father Knows Best was a late 1950s television program that depicted an idealized typical middle class family composed of a wise and loving father Jim Anderson, housewife and mother Margaret who was a voice of reason and patience, and three good kids (two teenagers and one pre-teen) whose comedic trials and troubles while growing up provided the basis for most of the weekly plotlines. In the end, Jim with Margaret’s help, would provide the needed sage advice and words of encouragement to whichever of his three children needed it.

Over a half century later, the iconic Anderson family portrayed a different time in America and is considered quaint if not laughable by a modern culture overwhelmed by a humanistic interpretation of the world as it should be. Now, the entertainment media consistently portrays the father figure as an inept buffoon of marginal importance if not irrelevant to the family. In spite of the modern belief in the fiction of the typical 1950s Anderson-type family, it is the humanistic view that is an anomaly, abnormality, or even a perversion that is a stain on the pages of the history of marriage and family.

Stephanie Coontz wrote in her book Marriage, a History, that the male breadwinner/full-time housewife marriages that were the standard in America and Western Europe of the 1950s and 1960s were not a brief historical oddity. Coontz argues that such male-female role characterization was the culmination of a trend that had been growing since the late eighteenth century. For over 150 years there had been continuous movement toward and development of the once radical concept that love should be the basis for marriage and that the marital decision process should be controlled by the couple considering marriage.[1] These dramatic changes began in the eighteenth century and were embraced by both the humanistic and Christian worldviews. However, the meaning and implementation of these changes would become a battleground in the war between the humanistic and Christian worldviews.[2]

The roles of men and women throughout history remainded relatively unchanged. Generally, men in all cultures and times have been the defenders of and providers for the family whereas women have been the nurturers and care givers for husband and children. Whether civilizations are modern or ancient, advanced or primitive, the complementary roles of husbands and wives along the lines just described will be present. Although those roles may or may not have finite and sharp distinctions (depending on the culture and time in history), the basic defender-provider/nurturer-care giver dichotomy remains a constant.[3]

The disappearance of the roles of men and women

The roles of men and women were defined and enhanced by the marriage relationship and made possible the enduring nuclear family unit. During the age of the Enlightenment and in particular the eighteenth century, advances toward the modern nuclear family would also bring dangers that would threaten its survival. These dangers included a more secular view of marriage and sexual relationships propagated by the tide of humanist thought and influence that swept through the nineteenth century.[4] By the 1960s and for the first time in history, the ideal of marriage came under direct attack by social engineers who “…believe a lifelong vow of fidelity is unrealistic or oppressive, especially to women…[and] marriage and family ties were…potential threats to individual fulfillment as a man or woman. The highest forms of human needs, contended proponents of the new psychologies, were autonomy, independence, growth, and creativity,” and marriage was considered a hindrance to fulfilling these human needs.[5]

In 1963 Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique whose theme centered on the supposed alienation and meaninglessness experienced by the typical housewife.[6] Friedan’s shot across the bow of traditional marriage and family eventually led to the establishment of the National Organization of Women three years later. NOW’s 1966 Statement of Purpose was clear in its efforts to redesign the role of women in American society (and by implication the roles of men and children).

NOW is dedicated to the proposition that women…must have the chance to develop their fullest human potential…it is no longer either necessary or possible for women to devote the greater part of their lives to child-rearing…True equality of opportunity and freedom of choice for women requires such practical, and possible innovations as a nationwide network of child care centers, which will make it unnecessary for women to retire completely from society until their children are grown…We reject the assumptions that a man must carry the sole burden of supporting himself, his wife, and family, and that a woman is automatically entitled to lifelong support by a man upon her marriage, or that marriage, home and family are primarily woman’s world and responsibility—hers, to dominate—his to support…We will seek to open a reexamination of laws and mores governing marriage and divorce…We are similarly opposed to all policies and practices—in church, state, college, factory, or office—which, in the guise of protectiveness, not only deny opportunities but also foster in women self-denigration, dependence, and evasion of responsibility, undermine their confidence in their own abilities and foster contempt for women.[7] (emphasis added)

At its core, the feminist view of the roles of men and women in marriage and family is essentially humanistic which differs markedly from the Christian worldview.

Humanistic worldview

The humanistic worldview and its values focus on the individual person and his/her independence, freedom, self- actualization, autonomy, growth, and creativity. Hence, marriage becomes secondary to the individual and is at best a contractual arrangement devoid of the requirements of covenantal “self-giving” as it interferes with humanistic values…Further, marriage is only one of several relational choices open to the individual. Marriage is not central or necessary for nurturing and the transmission of moral and cultural values to children. The pair-bonding elements of monogamy and permanency are individual decisions and not cultural universals.

Christian worldview

The supreme reflection of God’s image in humankind is in the marriage relationship followed by family. The roles of husband and wife and father and mother (monogamous married couple living with their children) are not societal constructs. The surface patterns and functioning of family may vary markedly in various cultures and societies down through the ages. However, the divinely ordered family structure is intrinsically a part of the fundamental identity of the family in every society and for all time. It is one of those universals or permanent things that are imbedded in the foundation of creation.[8] (emphasis in original)

Essentially, feminists view marriage as a zero-sum game in which gain by one person or side results in a loss by another person or side. In life there are only winners and losers—takers or givers. This is the humanistic worldview in which self is exalted at the expense of relationship. But life is not a zero-sum game. The ordered marital and family structure as reflected in the Christian worldview is a universal which focuses on giving, other-directedness, and relationship.

Not only is life not a humanist zero-sum game, playing the game leads to loss for the whole of society. When humanists and their feminist followers attempt to change the roles of men and women through a change of rules and mores regarding marriage, they discover the inflexibility of the marriage universal. Such changes have led to illegitimacy, cohabitation, divorce, fatherlessness, single-family households, and poverty in which the children face a rootless quest for meaning in life.

Did Jim Anderson always know best? No. But together Jim and Margaret Anderson usually got it right when it came to marriage, family, and life in general. In the Christian worldview, the complementariness of the roles of men and women in the marriage relationship is based on differences. Just as the differences make sexual union possible, the emotional and psychological differences of the marriage partners complement and complete each other, and the union becomes stronger than its parts. It is when the humanists attempt to erase the complementary and unique roles of men and women that marriage, family, and society suffer.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Coontz, Stephanie, Marriage, a History, (New York: Penguin Group, 2005), pp. 4-5.
[2] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods-Humanism and Christianity-The Battle for the Central Cultural Vision in America, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 323.
[3] Ibid., p. 323.
[4] Ibid., p. 325.
[5] Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage, (New York: Doubleday, 2000), p. 1.
[6] “The Founding of NOW,” National Organization of Women website,
http://www.now.org/history/the_founding.html (accessed July 16, 2014).
[7] “The National Organization for Women’s 1966 Statement of Purpose,” National Organization of Women, http://now.org/about/history/statement-of-purpose/ (accessed July 16, 2014).
[8] Johnson, p. 391.

Mainstream Environmentalism – The Dark Side – Part II

Posted by :webmaster On : July 18, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Humanism, Worldview

The unifying element between mainstream and radical environmentalism is the status or position of human beings in nature’s hierarchy. In Part I we noted that this unifying belief is sometimes called “deep ecology” by which is meant “a movement or a body of concepts that considers humans no more important than other species and that advocates a corresponding radical readjustment of the relationships between humans and nature.”[1] This false concept of the value of human beings has its roots in humanism, one of two worldviews contending for dominance in Western civilization and particularly America, the other worldview being Christianity.

Modern environmentalism and its humanistic worldview

This humanistic worldview offers two pillars upon which environmentalists rest their efforts. First, life is the product of a long evolutionary process of nature. Corliss Lamont was one of the twentieth century’s leading humanists and author of The Philosophy of Humanism. Lamont brings together all of the variations and branches of humanist thought under the title of naturalism.

Naturalism considers that human beings, the earth, and the unending universe of space and time are all parts of one great Nature. The whole of existence is equivalent to Nature and outside of Nature nothing exists. This metaphysics has no place for the supernatural, no room for superphysical beings or a supermaterial God, whether Christian or non-Christian in character, from whom we can obtain favors through prayer or guidance through revelation. But the adherents of Naturalism recognize and indeed rejoice in our affinity with the mighty Nature that brought us forth…[2]

It is from naturalism that springs forth the environmental movement’s current adulation of “…mighty Nature that brought us forth…” and in which we “…are all parts of one great nature.” But such beliefs require that we jettison belief in the supernatural and the specialness of man’s creation. In other words, humans are no more important than other species which requires a new view of the relationship between humans and nature which is articulated in the numerous environmental laws, regulations, and restrictions to enforce the ordinariness of humans.

The second pillar of environmentalism is that man has the ability to solve his problems through science and reason and without help from God. Modern concepts of humanism emerged from eighteenth century Enlightenment which “…promoted the belief that critical and autonomous human reason held the power to discover the truth about life and the world, and to progressively liberate humanity from the ignorance and injustices of the past.”[3] But Charles Colson has identified the singular riff in the humanist reverence for both progressivism and naturalism and has labeled them the optimistic and pessimistic sides of the same coin. With the rise of science and technology during the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, humanist philosophy optimistically exalted the ability of humans to solve their problems without God. Human reason allowed man to control his own destiny.[4] However, any student of world history over the last two hundred years will agree that man’s ability to solve his problems without God has failed miserably.

So what is the humanist to do? As humanist optimism fades to pessimism that man can fix his own problems through evolutionary progressivism, the humanist overlords intercede to save man and nature from man himself. Environmentalism is once again man’s attempt to control all the variables without God or even knowing what the variables are or the impact of the unintended consequences resulting from their efforts. Man’s solutions for the environment almost invariably come at great cost of time, money, and freedom to humankind and often at great cost to the ecosystem they propose to protect. “In today’s clash between two forms of humanism, Christianity can offer a balanced alternative.[5]

Tactics of environmentalism’s activists

The early history of the Sierra Club illustrates the tension between the worldviews of biblical Christianity and humanism with regard to nature and the environment. In 1864, Abraham Lincoln had originally set aside a portion of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in northern California in a public trust under the jurisdiction of that state. Efforts by naturalist John Muir to restrain local interests and curb development of areas in and around the Yosemite Valley led to a shift of control of the area to the federal government and the establishment of Yosemite National Park. Muir’s successful efforts to bring the area under federal jurisdiction led directly to the founding of the Sierra Club in May 1892 with the expressed purpose to protect the new park. From the very beginning of the club there was a tension between utilitarian conservation as directed by Gilford Pinchot, the first director of the U.S. Forest Service, and the aesthetic preservation of Muir and the Sierra Club. This tension between the two dissimilar environmental philosophies and tactics would continue for decades.[6]

As Muir and the Sierra Club began promoting its philosophies and exerting its influence, the club’s leaders learned two important lessons for successful environmental activism: first, the need to build a broad base of membership through the establishment of chapters far from local and even state boundaries, and second, “the need to elevate local or regional preservation issues to the national agenda to overcome the entrenched political power of local interests.”[7] Over one hundred years later, we see the success of these tactics as the environmental movement has indoctrinated the federal government, academia, and science with its humanistic approach to the environment and has influenced the enactment of environmental policies and practices that fit its humanistic worldview.

Be it Smokey the Bear and fire prevention, recycling campaigns, or cleaning up trash at a local park, few elementary school rooms in America are devoid of worthwhile and reasonable instruction with regard to conserving and protecting the environment. These efforts are in agreement with the Christian worldview that we are stewards and conservators of the earth and its environment. However, these early efforts at stewardship and conservation are used by environmental activists to condition children to accept the larger and more radical message and agenda of environmental activists and their humanistic worldview. This normalization or reasonableness of what was once thought radical is a standard practice in the humanistic attack on the larger culture (e.g., acceptance of homosexuality, abortion, gay marriage, and co-habitation). This was a favorite tactic used by David Brower, the reputed father of the modern environmental movement. Brower described the increasingly radical direction of his environmental activism throughout his life.

The Sierra Club made the Nature Conservancy look reasonable. I founded Friends of the Earth to make the Sierra Club look reasonable. Then I founded Earth Island Institute to make Friends of the Earth look reasonable. Earth First! now makes us look reasonable. We’re still waiting for someone else to come along and make Earth First! look reasonable.[8]

However, when one removes the façades of many of these seemingly reasonable environmental organizations, the deep ecology dark side is revealed. And however successful the environmental movement is in promoting the supposed reasonableness of its philosophy, its deep ecology dark side remains immersed in a false and destructive worldview, and its efforts will continue to fail as it has over the last one hundred years.

Charles Colson succinctly captures the dilemma of humanists and their environmental activist cohorts as well as the solution.

The lesson is clear: Humanism in any form is not only arrogant but mistaken. We are not God and we cannot control the variables—or even foresee them. The solution to our environmental problems must be found elsewhere: in the biblical teaching that God made human beings to be stewards over creation. That means that God intended us to develop the potential in creation through industry and technology. But it also means creation is not ours to misuse for our own purposes. We are responsible to someone higher than ourselves for how we treat creation.[9]

From Colson’s observations we see the fundamental difference between the biblical prescription of stewardship and conservation and the hammer of humanistic environmentalism that devalues and controls man through worship of the creation instead of the creator.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1]“deep ecology,” Merriam-Webster. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deep%20ecology (accessed July 7, 2014).
[2] Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, 8th Edition, (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1997), p. 35.
[3]Christian Smith, ed., The Secular Revolution, (Berkley, California: University of California Press, 2003), p. 54.
[4]Charles Colson with Nancy R. Pearcey, A Dance with Deception, (Dallas, Texas: Word Publishing, 1993) pp. 223-224.
[5] Ibid., p. 224.
[6] Christopher J. Bosso, Environment, Inc., (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2005), pp. 23-24.
[7] Ibid., p. 24.

Mainstream Environmentalism – The Dark Side – Part I

Posted by :webmaster On : July 11, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Humanism, Worldview

According to his website, Finland’s Pentti Linkola is “…an ecological activist of the most serious kind: those who believe humans must set aside individual desires in order to preserve nature.”[1] The 82 year old Mr. Linkola’s eco-fascism includes extreme population control measures. His objectives and methods become clear when we read his thoughts on protecting the environment.

What to do, when a ship carrying a hundred passengers suddenly capsizes and there is only one lifeboat? When the lifeboat is full, those who hate life will try to load it with more people and sink the lot. Those who love and respect life will take the ship’s axe and sever the extra hands that cling to the sides. (emphasis added)

If the present amount of Earth’s population is preserved and is reduced only by the means of birth control, then…birth giving must be licensed. To enhance population quality, genetically or socially unfit homes will be denied offspring, so that several birth licenses can be allowed to families of quality.

In this time and this part of the world we are heedlessly hanging on democracy and parliamentary system, even though these are the most mindless and desperate experiments of the mankind…In democratic countries the destruction of nature and sum of ecological disasters has accumulated most…Our only hope lies in strong central government and uncompromising control of the individual citizen.[2]

David Brower (1914-2000) is considered as the father of the modern environmental movement and whose message has helped recruit generations of environmental activists. He was the executive director of the Sierra Club from 1952 to 1969 and whose membership increased from 7,000 to 70,000 during his tenure. Later he founded Friends of the Earth and Earth Island Institute. A three-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, his accomplishments are listed as fighting dams in the Grand Canyon and Dinosaur National Park, campaigns to establish ten new national parks and seashores, and significant work in passing the Wilderness Act of 1964 which restricted usage of millions of acres of public lands.[3]

Many may object to linking Brower’s environmentalism with Linkola’s brand of eco-fascism; however, most American’s would be shocked that Brower’s beliefs are remarkably similar to Linkola’s in the callous disregard for the human element in environmentalists’ efforts to advance their ecological agenda.

While the death of young men in war is unfortunate, it is no more serious than the touching of mountains and wilderness areas by humankind.

Childbearing [should be] a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license…All potential parents [should be] required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.

Loggers losing their jobs because of Spotted Owl legislation is, in my eyes, no different than people being out of work after the furnaces of Dachau shut down.[4]

In Mr. Brower’s world, war casualties, freedom to bear children, and loggers are the equivalent of touching mountains and wilderness areas, unlicensed childbirth, and death camp executioners. It is these statements we see the similar worldviews of Brower’s mainstream and Linkola’s radical environmentalism.

Based on Linkola and Bower’s similarity of views as to the value of human beings in relation to nature, it becomes very difficult if impossible to distinguish between mainstream environmentalism depicted by Smokey the Bear and lovable dolphins as opposed to radical environmentalism. The foundation of both rests on a philosophy often called “deep ecology” which is “a movement or a body of concepts that considers humans no more important than other species and that advocates a corresponding radical readjustment of the relationships between humans and nature.”[5] In reality, the kid-friendly icons and school programs offered by the environmental movement are mere cover for the real agenda of indoctrination of children into a worldview that leads to the enslavement of humanity to the god of nature and its humanistic enforcers.

One example of environmental activists’ deep ecology that elevates nature over man is their efforts to have the federal government declare the greater sage grouse as an endangered species. The obscure chicken-sized bird is known for its mating dance. The government’s proposal will have the effect of limiting hunting, energy exploration, and ranching on 165 million acres of the bird’s habitat spread over eleven western states. This acreage is in addition to 400,000 acres that the federal government has already declared off-limits for development to protect the bird. Opponents state that the federal limits will cost between 5,000 and 31,000 jobs, but local and state efforts to protect the bird’s habitat will avoid most of the job losses. Hinting at a much wider agenda, several environmental groups say the bird is a merely a stand-in as a means of preserving a vanishing Western ecosystem.[6]

The environmental movement’s legal and regulatory demagoguery not only costs thousands of jobs but is so uncompromising in its eco-theology that it willingly sacrifices millions of taxpayer dollars to enforce its will even when their actions damage the very environment they profess to protect. One recent example is the Department of Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency agreement to end the Federal Excess Personal Property and Firefighter Property program which provides excess DOD vehicles to rural fire districts. Under the twenty-five year old program, 8,812 vehicles and pieces of equipment valued in excess of $150 million have been remanufactured and transferred to rural fire departments for use in wilderness areas. The U.S. Army stopped providing the vehicles in order to comply with a previously unenforced twenty-five year old agreement with the DOD and EPA originally aimed at the reduction of emissions for vehicles not meeting EPA standards. Rather than giving these to rural fire departments, these vehicles, ten years old or newer with fewer than 20,000 miles, will be destroyed. A spokesman for the Oklahoma Forestry services said the decision will expose those communities to increased risk of loss of life and property, and “The greenhouse gas emissions associated with the vehicles are marginal at best compared to emissions of an uncontrolled wildfire.” [7]

These are just two recent examples of a vast array of laws, regulations, and restrictions generated over decades by activist environmental movements in which American citizens are being subjugated to the whims and beliefs of radical environmentalists and their humanistic worldview. They have captured much of the nation’s political and regulatory machinery and insulated it from the will and wishes of the people.

The beliefs of environmental activists and the agendas of the organizations that support them have their roots in the humanism. In Part II, the foundational beliefs and tactics of the environmental movement will be examined in some detail.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Pentti Linkola,” penttilinkola.com, http://www.penttilinkola.com (accessed July 5, 2014).
[2] Ibid.
[3] “Who was David Brower?” David Brower Center. http://www.browercenter.org/about/who-was-david-brower (accessed July 5, 2014).
[4] “David Brower,” Activist Facts, https://www.activistfacts.com/person/3507-david-brower/ (accessed July 7, 2014).
[5] “deep ecology,” Merriam-Webster.com http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deep%20ecology (accessed July 7, 2014).
[6] Nicholas Riccardi, “Bird known for mating dance may decide Senate fate,” Associated Press, July 5, 2014. http://news.yahoo.com/bird-known-mating-dance-may-decide-senate-fate-124650685–election.html (accessed July 7, 2014).
[7] Rhett Morgan, “Federal deal may hit rural fire departments hard,” Tulsa World, July 5, 2014, A11.

Freedom

Posted by :webmaster On : July 4, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity, Humanism

Fifty-six traitors to the crown signed their own death sentences and then fought to escape the hangman’s noose. So began the first steps in forming a new nation. It was a typically hot summer in Philadelphia in 1776. Day after day a group of men met to argue, pray, sweat, and wonder what would be the outcome of their deliberations. Eventually, the product of their labors was the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. The wording of the revered document was approved on July 2nd by the Continental Congress, and on July 4th the delegates voted to accept it. What was so valuable that these men would risk their lives for it? It was freedom.

The word “freedom” is misused much as is the word “love.” Freedom’s meaning is misunderstood and has been stretched, changed, distorted, overused, cheapened, made merchandise, used to defend or promote conflicting purposes, and co-opted for support of principles and philosophies that are inherently in opposition to its real meaning.

Why is it that human beings value freedom so much? Before we can answer, we must realize that one’s worldview will ultimately define his or her understanding of the concept of freedom. If a worldview is fundamentally flawed in that it is in conflict with truth, that worldview’s concept of freedom will also be flawed and result in bondage of some type and degree. In Western civilization there are two worldviews contending for dominance—humanism and Christianity.

A Freedom that coerces

In the humanist worldview, man is encouraged to realize his own creative talents and desires and exercise maximum individual autonomy that is free from the mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past. This freedom gives unbridled expression to self and senses. However, one must read the fine print in the humanists’ promises of freedom which requires individual autonomy to be consonant with social responsibility. Therefore, humanists harness an individual’s dignity, worth, and freedom to the principle of the greatest-happiness-for-the greatest-number which is hitched to the humanist belief that the highest moral obligation is to humanity as a whole. Freedom of the individual is subservient to his obligations to the larger society, and those obligations are determined and defined by the humanist intellectual elite. In other words, man replaces God as the defining authority for truth, and man’s highest moral obligation is to humanity as a whole and not to God.[1]

The source of true and lasting freedom

To understand the Christian worldview as it relates to freedom, we must examine God’s creation of man. Man was created with God’s divine image stamped upon him. Man has an insatiable thirst for freedom because God made man with freewill. It was necessary for man to have freewill in order for love to exist. God did not create man out of need. Rather, it was a will to love, an expression of the very character of God, to share the inner life of the Trinity. By creating man with a free will meant the possibility of rejection of God and His love. Being God, He knew the course and cost of His creation would be the death of His Son on the cross. In other words freewill and the potential for rejection of God was the penalty for the possibility of love. So it is on the earthly plane, to risk love is to risk rejection.[2] Love is a choice because man has freewill, and true love reflects the divine in that it focuses on relationships and not self.

Now we begin to see the fundamental differences between humanism and Christianity that shape the disparities of how those worldviews define freedom. In the Christian worldview, freedom simply means a lack of coercion but also implies self-restraint and deference to relational patterns revealed in the mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past. True freedom is found only when an individual chooses a right relationship with God through the acceptance of Christ as one’s savior. In such relationship, man chooses to subordinate his own freewill to Christ, to accept Him, and to follow the road of freedom found in the revelation to the ancient Hebrews and first century Christians. From this foundation of a right relationship with God, man can find right relationships with his fellowman in family, community, and state.

In a contrary view of freedom that exalts self, humanists attempt to release the individual from the relational patterns flowing from those same mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past. However, the subjugation of divinely ordered relational patterns to the god of self results in loneliness, pain, suffering, and loss in this life and eternity thereafter. In other words, true freedom is found in freely subduing one’s will to that of God’s will as opposed to the exaltation of self and the senses. Christ’s words in Luke’s gospel capture the essence of this seeming enigma.

…If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it. [Luke 9: 23-24. RSV]

Freedom lost

In twenty-first century America, the god of self rules the day. America’s humanist masters have taken control of the nation and its institutions. Many Americans recognize there is something amiss with the country, but they take little time to look, listen, understand, and challenge the despoiling of America’s central cultural vision upon which the nation was founded. Americans are much like Esau who sold his valuable birthright for a bowl of stew, that is, he traded what was important, godly, and honorable for temporary pleasures. America’s hard-won two-hundred-plus year birthright of freedom is being willingly and rapidly surrendered to a growing legion of humanistic overlords in exchange for a bowl of entitlements, fleeting and licentious pleasures, self-centeredness, egotism, radical egalitarianism, imaginary rights, sloth, and an obsession for life-consuming leisure activities.

Fifty-six traitors to the crown signed their own death sentences and then fought to escape the hangman’s noose. They were overwhelmingly Christian in worldview, and like God in His creation of man, the Founders knew the cost of freedom as revealed in the final words of the Declaration of Independence, “And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”[3] (emphasis added)

The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence paid a tremendous price for our freedom: 5 were arrested by the British as traitors, 12 had their homes looted and burned by the enemy, 17 lost their fortunes, 2 lost sons in the Continental Army, and 9 fought and died during the Revolutionary War.[4]

Edmund Burke’s famous observation of the eighteenth century still rings true today. “All that is necessary for the evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”[5] To defend America’s birthright of freedom, good and Godly men and women must once again depend on the providence of God and pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to subdue the humanistic apostles of self that are enslaving the nation.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American
Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 389.
[2] Ibid, p. 158.
[3] Henry Steele Commager, Documents of American History, (New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., 1934), p. 102.
[4] William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1996), p. 144.
[5] Ibid., p. 82.

Who are you going to believe: Nancy Pelosi or the Apostle Paul?

Posted by :webmaster On : June 27, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Equality, Homosexuality, Marriage

There is an old adage which says that a person is known by the friends he or she keeps, but a better gauge of how one is known may be to identify his or her foes. Assuming the truth of these axioms, Catholic Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of the Archdiocese of San Francisco can easily identify his foes. The identities were revealed as signors of an open letter to the Archbishop in the June 10th edition of the San Francisco Chronicle and included California’s Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom and over eighty other state and local officials and community and religious leaders. The letter scolded the Archbishop for associating himself with the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and urged him to change his plans to participate in NOM’s June 19th Washington D.C. march in support of traditional marriage.[1] In a separate letter to the Chronicle, U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also urged the Archbishop to skip the March for Marriage.[2]

The standard operating procedure of supporters of same-sex marriage is to attack the character of those it opposes with distortions, half-truths, and outright falsehoods which are applied liberally to people, organizations, and the veracity of the Bible. The open letter is a typical example of the liberal smear of all things not consistent with or supportive of their humanistic worldview regarding same-sex marriage. The Archbishop’s response[3] was well stated, but he has left room for additional answers to the charges and accusations raised by Pelosi and the advocates of same-sex marriage.

Do NOM’s rhetoric and actions contradict Christian beliefs?

While claiming to respect freedom of religion, the letter charged that “…the actions and rhetoric NOM, and those of the event’s speakers and sponsors, fundamentally contradict Christian belief in the fundamental dignity of all people.”[4] One must ask how the essence of the words and actions of NOM and other supporters of traditional marriage differ from the biblical admonitions of the Apostle Paul.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth…Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own person the due penalty for their error. (emphasis added) [Romans 1: 18, 24-27. RSV]

The Apostle Paul’s words skip the smaller issue of the legitimacy of civil marriage for same-sex couples and cut to the heart of the matter by unequivocally denying the legitimacy of homosexuality altogether. If Paul was alive today and made those same statements, one wonders if Pelosi and the signers of the letter would brand the words and actions of the writer of almost half of the New Testament as fundamentally contradicting “… Christian belief in the fundamental dignity of all people”?

Is the Family Research Council a hate group?

The letter labels one of NOM’s sponsors (Family Research Council) as a hate group because of its designation as such by the Southern Poverty Law Center.[5] A review of just a few of the other organizations that the SPLC considers to be hate groups include several Catholic, Baptist, and Pentecostal organizations, the American Family Association, and the Jewish Defense League among others. The SPLC attempts to advance its credibility by also listing legitimate hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations.[6] The toxicity of SPLC’s vitriol is such that one its ardent followers was prompted to invade the Family Research Council’s headquarters and wound an unarmed security guard. For Pelosi and her group to cite the SPLC as a credible source to gauge the hatefulness of the Family research Council or similar organizations is absurd. The facts suggest that many (but not all) of the persons and organizations that have received the SPLC’s seal of disapproval should wear it as a badge of honor.

Does NOM attempt to punish anyone who disagrees with their position?

The letter to the Chronicle claimed that NOM’s promotional material “…uses incendiary language about those who support the freedom to marry for same-sex couples.” The letter quotes an excerpt from a NOM promotional piece.

[Their] goal is silence and punishing anyone who disagrees…This is not tolerance, it’s tyranny. You have a choice. You can remain silent in the face of oppression or you can stand up and fight for the truth…These same-sex advocates wish to silence anyone who disagrees with them.[7]

One wonders how Pelosi and the other letter signers classify the forced resignation of Mozilla CEO Brenden Eich under pressure from gay rights activists for merely contributing $1000 to Proposition 8, the California initiative that amended the state’s constitution to limit the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman.[8] Another example is the strident opposition of the mayors of Boston and Chicago to the proposed expansion of Chic-Fil-A to their cities due to the Christian owner’s support of traditional marriage.[9] These are just two high-profile cases which suggest that there are perhaps thousands of other ordinary people who support traditional marriage across the nation who are less able to combat efforts of same-sex activists to silence and/or punish them. Contrary to the assertions of Pelosi and the signers of the letter to Archbishop Cordileone, NOM has accurately assessed the truth about the intolerance and tyranny of the supporters of same-sex marriage and their wish to silence and punish anyone who disagrees with them.

Does God’s love excuse the practicing homosexual?

Incredibly, Pelosi and the letter’s signers appear to question the Archbishop’s understanding of the Bible and pastoral teachings of the Catholic Church. They contend there is a conflict between the Archbishop’s apparent endorsement of those organizations and individuals associated with NOM and the pastoral teaching of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops which states, “God does not love someone any less simply because he or she is homosexual. God’s love is always and everywhere offered to those who are open to receiving it.”[10] Thus, for Pelosi and the signers, God’s love is all that is necessary, and the admonitions of Paul to the Romans regarding homosexuality are no longer applicable in the twenty-first century.

However, to follow the prescription that love is all that is necessary is to dismiss the centrality of the cross in the great meta-narrative of the Bible with regard to creation, the fall, and man’s need for redemption. Christ died for the sins of the world, and every man has a choice as to whether or not he will accept that forgiveness and follow Christ. To follow Christ is to follow his commandments. If love is all that is necessary, then the cross becomes irrelevant, sin is a misnomer, Satan is a myth, and God does care about how we live our lives.

The Catholic bishops are correct in their pastoral teaching. God’s love never waivers for the homosexual. But homosexuals cannot stay in their sin. God is willing to accept and save people as they are, but God was not willing to leave them that way. God does not approve of homosexuality, and He will not contradict or overlook His own commandments regarding the sin of homosexuality. For a person to continue homosexual practices is to separate himself or herself from a relationship with God on this earth and for eternity.

Homosexuality is a choice. Many people may have a predilection to alcohol, criminality, or some other activity including homosexuality. But all are choices and with God’s help those tendencies can be conquered. Neither Nancy Pelosi nor any other assemblage of government, civic, and religious leaders can change those choices into a “civil right” and call it acceptable to God.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Gavin Newsom, et.al., Letter to Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, June 10, 2014.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.sfgate.com/file/829/829-ArchbishopLetter.pdf (accessed June 23, 2014).
[2] Mark A. Kellner, “Pelosi to San Francisco archbishop: Don’t march for marriage,” Deseret News National, June 18, 2014. http://national.deseretnews.com/article/1714/Pelosi-to-San-Francisco-archbishop-Dont-march-for-marriage.html (accessed, June 23, 2014).
[3] Salvatore Cordileone, “Archbishop Cordileone March for Marriage Letter,” Archdiocese of San Francisco, June 6, 2014. http://www.sfarchdiocese.org/about-us/archbishop-cordileone/homilies-writings-and-statements/2014/Archbishop-Cordileone-March-for-Marriage-Letter-4035/ (accessed June 25, 2014).
[4] Gavin Newsom.
[5] Ibid.
[6] “Southern Poverty Law Center,” Conservapedia, http://www.conservapedia.com/Southern_Poverty_Law_Center (accessed June 23, 2014).
[7] Gavin Newsom.
[8] Joel Gehrke, “Mozilla CEO Brenden Eich forced to resign for supporting traditional marriage laws,” Washington Examiner, April 3, 2014. http://washingtonexaminer.com/mozilla-ceo-brendan-eich-forced-to-resign-for-supporting-traditional-marriage-laws/article/2546770 (accessed June 23, 2014).
[9] Michael Scherer, “Chic-Fil-A meets a First Amendment buzz saw in Chicago,” Time, July 26, 2012. http://swampland.time.com/2012/07/26/chick-fil-a-meets-a-first-amendment-buzzsaw-in-chicago/ (accessed May 21, 2014).
[10] Gavin Newsom.

This was done by ordinary people – Part IV

Posted by :webmaster On : June 20, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity, God's Law v. Man's Law, Government

The role government and the role of the church as it relates to government

Dietrich Bonhoeffer went to his death on a Nazi gallows in 1945 with a very definite understanding of the role of the church in society, and his death was the eventual outcome of his living that understanding. God ordained the establishment of government for the preservation of order and the establishment of laws that define that order. The church has no right to interfere with the actions of the state in purely political matters. That said, Bonhoeffer also firmly believed the church plays a vital role in helping the state be the state by continually asking if the state’s actions can be justified as a legitimate fulfillment of its role. In other words, do the actions of the state lead to law and order and not to lawlessness and disorder? Where the state fails, it is the role of the church to draw the state’s attention to its failures. Likewise, if the state creates an atmosphere of “excessive law and order,” the church must also remind the state of its proper role. Excessive law and order becomes evident when the state’s power develops “…to such an extent that it deprives Christian preaching and Christian faith…of their rights.”[1]

Bonhoeffer demonstrated his belief of limits on state authority in his arguments to the German Lutheran church (effectively the state church) against its acceptance of the Nazi Aryan paragraph in the synchronization of all German life in accordance with Nazi dictates. The Aryan paragraph served as the basis for many laws that denied Jews their rights as German citizens.

But Bonhoeffer’s arguments regarding the German government’s treatment of the Jews really framed the larger question of “what is the church?” In other words, from where does the church receive its authority? Is it an instrument of the state and therefore subject to the state or is it apart from the state? If it is apart from the state, then what does the church do when the state oversteps the boundaries of its legitimate authority?[2]

Actions of the church with regard to government

Bonhoeffer listed three actions the church should take regarding the state. The first has been described—the church must question the state with regard to its actions and whether its actions can be justified as a legitimate concern of the state. Second, the church must “…aid victims of state action in its ordering of society…even if they (the victims) do not belong to the Christian community.” Bonhoeffer did not stop there but said a third step may be necessary. The church must “…not just bandage the victims under the wheel…but a stick must be jammed into the spokes of the wheel to stop the vehicle. It is sometimes not enough to help those crushed by the evil actions of a state; at some point the church must directly take action against the state to stop it from perpetrating evil.” But Bonhoeffer’s stick in the spokes of the wheel of state is justified only if the church’s very existence is threatened by the state and the state is no longer a state as designed by God.[3]

In Part III we identified three groups of churches in Nazi Germany of the 1930s: the apostate German Christian church, the Confessing church which became the silent church of appeasement, and a faithful remnant that became the suffering church. The great majority of German churches during the Nazi era subordinated themselves to the Nazi state, did not speak out against Nazi tyranny, and did not aid the victims crushed by the wheel of state.

We also drew disturbing parallels between the German church of the 1930s and the American church of the twenty-first century. Christianity and its values are under full-scale attack in America. The church must decide what it will or will not do in response to that attack. Some will choose to do nothing and as justification point to Paul’s letter to the Romans with regard to a Christian’s conduct in relation to the state.

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. [Romans 13:1-5. RSV]

But to do nothing is a misinterpretation of Paul’s message. Paul is not saying that we should be obedient to government regardless of what it does. It is nonsensical to claim that all rulers are legitimate authorities who must be mindlessly obeyed because of a misunderstanding of the meaning of Romans 13:1-5.

So how do we resolve the dilemma of whether we are to obey a specific ruler (government) or not? The issue revolves around whether or not a government is one that receives its authority from God. Christians must be subject to governing authorities if the authority is instituted by God, but Christians are not required to submit to those rulers whose authority is not instituted by God and therefore is illegitimate. The distinction becomes apparent from Paul’s words when he says that rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad conduct. But we know that many rulers in this world are a terror to good conduct and therefore do not fall within Paul’s description of a government that receives its authority from God.

The church and bad government

Even where there is a bad government, Christians must be subject to governing authorities to a point. Christians are required to be subject to government laws and regulations even when they disagree with them. However, when those laws and regulations require Christians to compromise or disobey biblical commands with regard to one’s personal life or the lives over which they have been given charge, the Christian must be obedient to God’s word and not government authority. Two current examples come to mind which give meaning to this distinction. The Christian owners of Hobby Lobby have refused to provide health insurance to their employees under the Affordable Care Act because of the requirement for the inclusion of abortion services. A Christian Colorado baker refused to make a cake for a homosexual couple’s wedding. Both are laws which conflict with what it means to be a Christian who is obedient to the word of God. Christians must still be subject to the governing authorities except when their obedience conflicts with the higher laws of God.

The church and illegitimate government

There is a step beyond bad government when a government’s authority becomes illegitimate because it no longer fulfills its role in providing order and has become lawless and disorderly. Therefore, Christians must be careful to distinguish between bad government and illegitimate authorities not ordained by God. We must also realize that bad governments, through a succession of actions upon which evil is piled upon evil, will at some point forfeit their legitimacy as God withdraws His authority. At that point the ignored warnings and admonishments of the church to a state rushing head-long into lawlessness and disorder must be exchanged for sticks to be thrust into the spokes of the wheel of that illegitimate government. However, Bonhoeffer cautioned that casting sticks into the spokes of the wheel of state is justified only if the church’s very existence is threatened and the state is no longer a state upon which God’s authority rests.

The very existence of the American church is being threatened by excessive laws and the heavy hand of the government as it attempts to drive Christianity from the cultural and institutional landscape of America. The church and Christians must continue to admonish the state as to its over-reach and a possible loss of legitimacy. As the American government deprives its citizenry of their rights regarding Christian preaching and Christian faith, society will continue to slide into a cultural swamp devoid of any hint of morality. There may come a point at which God will lift His authority as the government fails to fulfill its proper role. At such a time the church must be ready with sticks to thrust into the spokes of the wheel of a lawless and chaotic government.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), p. 153.
[2] Ibid., pp. 152-153.
[3] Ibid., pp. 153-154.

This was done by ordinary people – Part III

Posted by :webmaster On : June 13, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Culture Wars, Humanism

Adolf Hitler believed that “…Christianity preached ‘meekness and flabbiness,’ and this was simply not useful to the National Socialist ideology…” Hitler hated Christianity, but as a practical man, he was a pretend Christian and found the German Christian church temporarily useful in consolidating Nazi power. In time he subverted much of the church and changed its basic ideology.[1]

At the beginning of 1933, the German church stood at a crossroads. The great majority of German Lutheran churches chose the path of Hitler and the Nazis instead of the teachings of Jesus Christ.[2] All of German life was to be synchronized under Hitler’s leadership, and “…the church would lead the way.” The majority of churches called themselves “German Christians” and advocated a strong unified church seamlessly wedded to the state that would restore Germany to her former glory. The union of the state church with the Nazi regime required churches to conform to Nazi racial laws and ultimately swear allegiance to Hitler as the supreme leader of the church and by doing so “…blithely tossed two millennia of Christian orthodoxy overboard.”[3]

There was a minority of Christians and churches in Germany that opposed Hitler and the German Christians. The resistance centered within the new “Confessing Church” led by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemöller, and a few others. When Hitler heard of a potential church split because of objections to his policies, he summoned several dissenting church leaders including Niemöller to the Reich Chancellery. He lectured the assembled churchmen and said all he wanted was peace between Church and state and blamed them for obstructing his plans. Hitler warned them “…to confine yourself to the Church. I’ll take care of the German people.” Niemöller responded that the Church also had a responsibility toward the German people that was entrusted to them by God and that neither Hitler nor anyone else in the world had power to remove that responsibility. Hitler turned away without comment, but that same evening the Gestapo ransacked Niemöller’s rectory while searching for incriminating material. Within days a homemade bomb exploded in the hall of the rectory.[4]

As Nazi pressure was ratcheted up against the dissenting churchmen, Bonhoeffer and Niemöller were criticized by their fellow churchmen for opposing Hitler and his policies. Eventually over two thousand would choose the route of appeasement and safety and abandoned support of Bonhoeffer and Niemöller’s efforts in resisting the Nazis. “They believed that appeasement was the best strategy; they thought that if they remained silent they could live with Hitler’s intrusion into church affairs and his political policies.”[5]

However, not all Confessing Church pastors and lay leaders bowed to Hitler’s demands, but they would pay a price for their courage. In 1937, a remnant of more than eight hundred were arrested and imprisoned including Niemöller who spent the next eight years in prison, seven of which were in Dachau, one the Nazis’ most infamous concentration camps.[6]

We have identified three groups of churches in Nazi Germany of the 1930s: the apostate German Christian church, the Confessing church which became the silent church of appeasement, and a faithful remnant that became the suffering church.

In the twenty-first century, the enemy of the American church is still the one that Bonhoeffer identified as the “…the most severe enemy” that Christianity ever had—humanism.[7] We are seeing the same patterns and methods used by Hitler to marginalized and make powerless much of the American Christian church through its seduction by the humanistic spirit of the age. The god of Hitler has been replaced by the god of humanism and its lesser god of equality in all of its destructive humanistic definition and interpretation.

In America there is an apostate church that has abandoned any pretense of adherence to the gospel message. Biblical truths are twisted, mocked, or dismissed altogether. Others champion a social gospel or preach a gospel of health, wealth, happiness, harmony, and cheap grace in place of the cross and death to self. Eighty years ago, Bonhoeffer described “cheap grace.”

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church…In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin…Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner…Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.[8]

Apart from the apostate church, there is also a faithful but mostly silent church in America that is content to preach the gospel and ignore the culture. Erwin Lutzer wrote, “Whether in Nazi Germany or America, believers cannot choose to remain silent under the guise of preaching the Gospel…we must live out the implications of the cross in every area of our lives. We must be prepared to submit to the Lordship of Christ in all ‘spheres’.”[9] Yet, as we live out the implications of the cross in every area of our lives, we must understand that the culture wars in which we soldier for Christ are not about maintaining the American dream however one may define it. Rather, the culture wars are about restoring the biblical understanding of truth in all spheres of our national life. To do so one must speak the truth in the face of lies, stand on biblical principles when others compromise, and take right actions in spite of consequences. A hostile culture and an adversarial government and culpable legal system will extract a price from those that dare to oppose them. What is accomplished by such opposition when it seemingly brings only hardship, suffering, and defeat? “Suffering communicates the gospel in a new language; it authenticates the syllables that flow from our lips…It is not how loud we can shout but how well we can suffer that will convince the world of the integrity of our message.”[10]

In recent years the forces of humanism have gained sustained power and critical mass in all spheres of American life and have become openly hostile and threatening to the true church of Jesus Christ. However, there is a bold remnant of the faithful church that is listening to the voices of modern Bonhoeffers and Niemöllers who are speaking out in those spheres of American life against the evils that have spread over America and much of the church. Such boldness follows the path of costly grace, and very soon that remnant may be able to claim the cloak of the suffering church.

Most in the American church cannot comprehend the meaning of the suffering church. It is something that happens “over there,” something that is foreign to their thinking. They believe the American church somehow has been exempt from the consequences of costly grace. To suggest otherwise is almost heresy. But the Apostle Paul would disagree.

…it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may be glorified with him. [Romans 8:16-17. RSV] (emphasis added)

In the dark days of World War II, Bonhoeffer wrote, “When God calls a man, he bids him come and die.” On April 9, 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answered Christ’s final call. After two years in prison, he was hanged on the direct order of Adolph Hitler who ended his own life three weeks later in an underground bunker in Berlin.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), pp. 166, 171.
[2] Erwin W. Lutzer, When a Nation Forgets God,” (Chicago, Illinois: Moody Publishers, 2010), p. 44.
[3] Metaxas, pp. 151-152, 176.
[4] Lutzer, pp. 19-20.
[5] Ibid., p. 21.
[6] Metaxas, pp. 293, 295.
[7] Ibid., p. 85.
[8] Lutzer, pp 117-118.
[9] Ibid., p. 33.
[10] Ibid., pp. 120-121.

This was done by ordinary people – Part II

Posted by :webmaster On : June 6, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Government, Humanism

Many years ago I read a book about Adolf Hitler and the rise of Nazism in Germany during the early 1930s. Although I don’t remember the details of what I read, the book contained a photograph that disturbed me to such an extent that I still vividly remember it after all these years. It was a picture of a beautiful, well-dressed young woman perhaps in her thirties. She was attending a rally at which Hitler spoke during the time he was gaining political power over the German people. As she gazed at the Fuhrer, there was a smile on the young woman’s face which glowed with admiration if not absolute idolization. Her rapt attention made her appear as though hypnotized by Hitler and his words. The reason I was so disturbed was because I knew the end of the story. How could this young woman and the crowd around her be so naïve and susceptible to the Nazi message? She and the others were just ordinary people! But these ordinary people, in their gullibility and rejection of their Christian heritage, allowed themselves to be deceived and as a result made possible the greatest conflagration of death and destruction in the history of mankind.

The Germans had lost the First World War in 1918, and the fierce German pride was dealt a succession of body blows. The 50-year-old monarchy ended with Kaiser Wilhelm’s forced abdication. Communists and Social Democrats warred for control as the nation was near anarchy. The Weimer Republic was the victor but a deeply flawed democratic regime. Germany was forced to eviscerate its armed forces, give up much of its European territories, abandon Asian and African colonies, and pay huge reparations to the Allied nations.[1] Germany sank into years of hyperinflation and depression (both economically and psychologically).

Because of the consequences of the First World War, the German people and especially the younger Germans were disillusioned and lost all confidence in the traditional authority of the monarchy and the church. They wanted a fuhrer, and for the German people salvation would come from Adolf Hitler who promised that he would restore order, resurrect the economy, and return the nation to its rightful place on the world’s stage.[2] But their desire for a fuhrer required a loss of rights and freedom which led to totalitarianism and eventual destruction of Germany.

Hitler’s message was not a new one. Eve succumbed to its seductions in the third chapter of Genesis…Ye shall be as gods. In the eleventh century BC, King David wrote, “The fool hath said in his heart: there is no god.” [Psalms 14:1. KJV] Humanism is man’s second oldest faith—the great alternative faith of mankind—man without God. But it was the Greeks of the fourth through sixth centuries BC that gave form and body to the man-made philosophy of humanism that would impact the world second only to Jesus Christ.[3] Seventeenth century Enlightenment thought gave new life to Greek humanism and the doctrines of progress, rationality, secularism, and political reform. Values did not arise from fixed notions of right and wrong prescribed by a non-existent transcendent God but were a product of moral relativism in which man is merely a bundle of instincts and urges.[4]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “…’the Greek spirit or ‘humanism’ as ‘the most severe enemy’ that Christianity ever had.”[5] And in twenty-first century America, Christianity is once again at war with humanism. From this battle we can see alarming parallels between the political and cultural changes that occurred in Germany during the early 1930s and those of the United States since 2009.

• April 1, 1933 – Boycott of Jewish stores across Germany. The reason given was to stop the international press supposedly controlled by the Jews from printing lies about the Nazis.[6]

July 26, 2012 – The Christian owner of Chic-Fil-A was urged to back out of his expansion plans in Boston and Chicago because his company gave money to nonprofits that support limiting marriage to unions between a man and a woman. Because of his biblical beliefs, he had run afoul of Chicago mayor Rohm Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff for President Obama. Emanuel said, “Chick-Fil-A’s values are not Chicago values. They’re not respectful of our residents, our neighbors and our family members. And if you’re gonna be part of the Chicago community, you should reflect Chicago values…” Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno said he will seek to block a permit for Chick-Fil-A to expand into a Chicago neighborhood. “To have those discriminatory policies from the top down is just not something that we’re open to,” Moreno said.[7]

• April 22, 1933 – Jews were not allowed to serve as patent lawyers. Jewish doctors were prohibited from working in hospitals with state-run insurance.[8]

March 2009 – An Eastern Michigan University student was expelled because she would not counsel clients regarding sexual relationships outside of marriage which she viewed as immoral because of her Christian beliefs. Julea Ward was in her last year of her completing work for her master’s degree in counseling at EMU. While in a practicum in which she counseled clients, she asked that a prospective client wanting advice on a homosexual relationship be referred to another counselor. A faculty panel of three professors and one student ruled that Ward had violated the American Counseling Association’s code of ethics. However, the Association’s code of ethics “…broadly allows for referrals anytime a counselor determines an ‘inability to be of professional assistance’.”[9] The university and Ms. Ward settled the matter out of court in December 2012.

• May 6, 1933 – Anti-Jewish laws expanded to include all honorary university professors, lecturers, and notaries.[10]

April 2007 – Dr. Mike Adams, a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina–Wilmington was denied promotions because of his religious beliefs following his conversion from atheism to Christianity in 2000. “Subsequently, the university subjected Adams to a campaign of academic persecution that culminated in his denial of promotion to full professor, despite an award-winning record of teaching, research, and service.” In April 2014, almost seven years after Adams filed suit, a federal court found in his favor and ordered the university to promote Dr. Adams with back pay.[11]

• June 1933 – Jewish dentists and dental technicians were prohibited from working with state-run insurance institutions.[12]

May 15, 2014 – Pasadena City Health Director Dr. Eric Walsh resigned after being suspended for two weeks pending investigation by city officials after their discovery of videos of sermons by Lay Pastor Walsh “…criticizing homosexuality, calling the founder of Islam a Satanist, and calling evolution a ‘religion of Satan’.” There was no evidence of bias or misconduct while serving in his capacity as the city’s health director, but the city’s Human Relations Commission Chairman Nat Nehdar strongly criticized Walsh for his beliefs. “We don’t tolerate this type of behavior, this type of thought.” Following his resignation in Pasadena, the Georgia Department of Public Health announced Walsh would be hired to manage a six-county health district. Strong pressure from the gay-activist community in Georgia resulted in an investigation of Walsh’s background including the video sermons and led the department to withdraw its offer.[13] (emphasis added)

• September 29, 1933 – Jews banned from all entertainment and cultural activities including literature, the arts, theater, and film.[14]

May 7, 2014 – Home and Garden TV canceled a home-flipping program planned for October by former major league baseball brothers David and Jason Bentham because of their Christian beliefs regarding homosexuality and abortion. Background reports from a left-wing organization given to HGTV labeled the brothers as “anti-gay, anti-choice extremists.”[15]

• October 1933 – Jews expelled from journalism when all newspapers were placed under Nazi control.[16]

September 6, 2013 – A college football commentator was fired by Fox Sports Southwest because of his Christian beliefs regarding same-sex marriage. A committed Christian, Craig James said, “…gay civil unions are wrong, homosexuality is ‘a choice,’ and gays will ‘have to answer to the Lord for their actions’.” He made the statements during his 2012 campaign for the Texas GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate. Fox Sports Southwest fired him one week after being hired. A spokesman said, “We just asked ourselves how Craig’s statements would play in our human resources department. He couldn’t say those things here.”[17] (emphasis added)

Change was the banner under which the Nazis marched. It would be accomplished by Gleichschaltung (synchronization) in which the country would be reordered along National Socialist lines “…which meant that everything must fall in line with the Nazi worldview.”[18]

The American Gleichschaltung of 2009 would also be a reordering of the nation to reflect the humanistic worldview whose default setting for organizing society is socialism. A Barak Obama campaign speech on February 5, 2008 captured both the message of change and the worldview behind it. “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”[19] President Obama’s words resonate with the clarion call of the humanists whose God is self as opposed to He who created the universe.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), pp. 33-34.
[2] Ibid., p. 141.
[3] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods-Humanism and Christianity-The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 139.
[4] Ibid., pp. 92-93, 287.
[5] Metaxas, p. 85.
[6] Ibid., p. 156.
[7] Michael Scherer, “Chic-Fil-A meets a First Amendment buzz saw in Chicago,” Time, July 26, 2012. http://swampland.time.com/2012/07/26/chick-fil-a-meets-a-first-amendment-buzzsaw-in-chicago/ (accessed May 21, 2014).
[8] Metaxas, p. 160.
[9] Jeremy Tedesco, “The Julea Ward Settlement: A Win for Religious Liberty,” Townhall.com, January 4, 2013. http://townhall.com/columnists/jeremytedesco/2013/01/04/the-julea-ward-settlement–a-win-for-religious-liberty-n1478423 (accessed May 22, 2014).
[10] Metaxas, p. 160.
[11] “Court orders UNC–Wilmington to pay, promote professor after retaliating against him” Alliance Defending Freedom, April 9, 2014. http://www.alliancedefendingfreedom.org/News/PRDetail/3901 (accessed May 22, 2014).
[12] Metaxas, p. 160.
[13] Mark A. Kellner, “Pasadena’s medical director on leave after his Protestant sermons surface.” NewsOK, May 9, 2014. http://newsok.com/pasadenas-medical-director-on-leave-after-his-protestant-sermons-surface/article/4747892 (accessed May 24, 2014).
[14] Metaxas, p. 160.
[15] Ann Oldenburg, “Bentham brothers: If faith cost us TV show, so be it,” USA Today, May 8, 2014. http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2014/05/07/hgtv-nixes-benham-brothers-series-anti-gay-extremist-abortion/8810393/ (accessed May 22, 2014).
[16] Metaxas, p. 160.
[17] Barry Horn, “Craig James’ anti-gay stance during political campaign reason for quick exit from FOX Sports SW,” SportsDayDFW, September 6, 2013. http://collegesportsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/09/craig-james-anti-gay-stance-during-political-campaign-reason-for-his-quick-exit-from-fssw-college-football-duties.html/(accessed May 22,
2014).
[18] Metaxas, p. 166.
[19] “Barak Obama Quotes,” Notable Quotes.
http://www.notable-quotes.com/o/obama_barack.html (accessed May 28, 2014).

This was done by ordinary people – Part I

Posted by :webmaster On : May 30, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, God's Law v. Man's Law, Government

The end-product of the Holocaust lay in the gas chambers and ashes of the crematoria within the German death camps spread across Europe in 1945. But the beginning of the Holocaust was much more subtle and seemingly innocuous except to the Jew and others on the wrong side of the German cultural and political wars of the 1930s. In his biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and spy, Eric Metaxas described the events that led to the Holocaust.

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became the democratically elected chancellor of Germany. On February 27, the Nazis set afire the building that housed the democratically elected Reichstag and blamed it on the Communists. That same day Hitler pressured the highly respected Field Marshall Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Edict which suspended certain sections of the German constitution and allowed restrictions on personal liberty, free expressions of opinion, rights of assembly and association; violations of privacy of communications (postal, telegraphic, and telephonic); warrants for searches of homes; and confiscations of and restrictions on private property. [1]

Following the Reichstag Fire Edict, Nazi storm troopers began immediately to arrest, imprison, torture, and kill their opponents. On March 23rd the Reichstag bowed to Nazi pressure and approved the Enabling Act which placed the whole power of the government under Hitler’s control.

With the tools of democracy, democracy was murdered and lawlessness made “legal.” Raw power ruled, and its only real goal was to destroy all other powers besides itself…
In the First months of Nazi rule, the speed and scope of what the Nazis intended and had begun executing throughout German society were staggering. Under what was called the Gleichschaltung (synchronization), the country would be thoroughly reordered along National Socialist lines. (emphasis added) No one dreamed how quickly and dramatically things would change. [2]

Hermann Goring described this reordering of society as mainly an “administrative” change. An understanding of what this “reordering” meant for the Jews would come swiftly.

• April 1 – Boycott of Jewish stores across Germany. The reason given was to stop the international press supposedly controlled by the Jews from printing lies about the Nazis.
• April 7 – Removal and prohibition of anyone of Jewish descent from holding civil service jobs. Government employees must be of Aryan stock. (Enabling Act – Aryan Paragraph.)
• April 22 – Jews were not allowed to serve as patent lawyers. Jewish doctors were prohibited from working in hospitals with state-run insurance.
• April 25 – Strict limits on the number of Jewish children that could attend public schools.
• May 6 – Laws expanded to include all honorary university professors, lecturers, and notaries.
• June – Jewish dentists and dental technicians were prohibited from working with state-run insurance institutions.
• Fall – Laws restricting non-Aryans expanded to include spouses of non-Aryans.
• September 29 – Jews banned from all entertainment and cultural activities including literature, the arts, theater, and film.
• October – Jews expelled from journalism when all newspapers were placed under Nazi control. [3]

It was another spring twelve years later that World War II ended in Europe and the gates of the death camps would swing open to reveal to the world the real meaning of Goring’s “administrative” change. The pogroms of medieval Europe and Tsarist Russia had been reincarnated and perfected in one of the most advanced societies of the early twentieth century. Germany’s organized destruction of helpless people has few equals in the history of mankind. With scientific precision coupled with administrative order, the Nazis murdered eleven million people including between five and six million Jews in the gas-chambers and crematoria of the death camps, through shootings in other parts of Europe, and by overwork and starvation. In 1901, 75% of the world’s Jews lived in Eastern Europe. A century later one-half of all Jews live in English speaking countries and 30% live in Israel. Germany’s “final solution” to the Jewish problem changed forever the map of Jewish life in Europe. [4]

The momentary euphoria, goodwill, and hopes for a more cooperative order at the end of World War II quickly melted away as the realities of the war exposed the heart of mankind and his capacity for evil. J. N. Roberts summarized the post-war search for answers as to the “why” of Nazi Germany.

In many ways, Germany had been one of the most progressive countries in Europe; the embodiment of much that was best in its civilization. That Germany should fall prey to collective derangement on this scale suggested that something had been wrong at the root of that civilization itself. The crimes of the Nazis had been carried out not in a fit of barbaric intoxication with conquest, but in a systematic, scientific controlled, bureaucratic (though often inefficient) way, about which there was little that was irrational except the appalling end which it sought. [5] (emphasis added)

The post-war world remained puzzled at Germany’s “collective derangement” given its veneer of rationality and scientific and cultural progress. But along with Germany, much of the world also worshiped the same gods of rationalism, science, materialism, secularism, and progress. Man was assumed to be basically good, but the realities of the war removed humanism’s mask of goodness to reveal the face of evil. The answer to the “why” of Nazi Germany was evil, that something that had been wrong at the root of civilization itself and which Roberts sought to identify. Evil was the source of the collective derangement, and it also resides in the heart of every man.

With few exceptions, the Nazis and their collaborators were not mere madmen as one would suppose. Rather, the whole story of the Holocaust can be summed up in one sentence. “This was done by ordinary people.” [6] Those words by Ravi Zacharias cut to the heart of the source of evil for it reveals the inescapable conclusion that there is an indelible stain upon the soul of man. In his Gospel account, Mark described the diseased heart of man.

For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man. [Mark 7:21-23. RSV]

Christians call the root of this evil original sin. It is the evil that is found within the soul of every human being that ever lived. But in the great meta-narrative of the Bible, we learn of the way for fallen man to be cleansed of that evil and mend his broken relationship with God. We find the answer in John’s Gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave His only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16. RSV]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), pp. 145, 148-149.
[2] Ibid., pp. 149-150
[3] Ibid., pp. 150-151, 156-157, 160.
[4] J. M. Roberts, The New History of the World, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 954, 1150.
[5] Ibid., p. 964.
[6] Ravi Zacharias, “God, Evil, and Suffering,” Foundations of Apologetics, Vol. 10, DVD Video, (Norcross, Georgia: Ravi Zacharias Ministries International, 2007).