Review of _The Post-American World_ by Fareed Zakaria, Norton, 2009.

Fareed is an Indian who decided to stay in America after getting his post-secondary education here. His current job is with Newsweek magazine. He captures much about America's position within the world with regard to economics, foreign policy, politics, etc. His story paints a picture of progressive thinking, i.e., strong central governments which have firm control of the nation in those subjects mentioned above. He has an optimistic view of humanistic planning and downplays religion.When religious differences among nations surface he views that as being either minor or unnecessarily ugly.

His topic is huge. As a result, in one book of just under 300 pages he can include only the details which corroborate his views. Fareed does this well. Obviously, he overlooks many details which don't fit his own world-view.

Why did I take time to read a book written by a non-Christian? The short answer is because my son asked me to. However, after reading, and being inside the context of Fareed's worldview, I decided it was worth it.

What did I learn? Although Fareed never defines his own worldview, it appears to be secular humanism. Based on his writing he appears to be agnostic in his own belief about God. From Fareed I learned that it's hopeless to attempt to talk about morality as being a derivative of one's religion to someone of this worldview. In his thinking man interprets something (what that is remains subjective and undefined often involving compromise) as a definition of good an devil. In civil matters collective man (humanist) must come to some moral decision but it is a democratic process and thus subjective. What is good (or evil) today may not be tomorrow. What's good (or evil) in the Chinese culture may coexist with a different good (or evil) definition in America. A Christian may claim to have their morality based on the Bible but to someone like Fareed this is nonsense. Reading between the lines, perhaps Fareed believes the only role of religion would be that some religious (church) creed is the dictator of one's moral beliefs, i.e., an ecclesiastic humanist morality. Thus, in his belief someone who considers a religious moral belief to equal civil morality is delusional or certainly misguided.

Do Christians really expect civil morality to come from the Bible? Is there such a thing as a moral standard which God expects man to put in place within those (self as well as various civil) governments over him? These are not new questions. In fact, the strong 'yes' to the former question but the differing answers to the latter are what distinguished the 13 original colonies from one another in early America. But something happened over the years. Today most Christians in America don't take seriously Hebrews 5:14, which commands the mature believer to distinguish good from evil. Most Christians view civil morality as being secular "humanist" to some degree.There is no counting how many Christians I have heard repeat that phrase "separation of church and state" to justify having a secular civil government. Some may claim to want a biblical moral civil law, but (probably) not really. The immature Christian's action doesn't square with their stated belief. So, how should a mature Christian confront a humanist thinker such as Fareed, or even an immature Christian? An acceptance of Christ as (civil) King cannot begin with Matthew 28:18 or Romans chapter 13. Instead, the approach the Apostle Paul took (Acts chapter 17) to explain Christianity to the thinkers in his day is the right one. His discussion started with creation (vs 24) then went to the fall (vs 30), where good and evil fits in, then to redemption (vs 31).

I also understand a bit more of the squishy religion called Hinduism. Perhaps the best way to explain it is that Hinduism allows any and all religious views so long as they are not fanatical. In other words it allows, even encourages,inoculation(s) but don't ever get a particular full blown"disease". This explains why my conversations with Hindus often lead to how much my Savior, Jesus Christ, means to me but with a response of "yes, I believe that too" in reply.

Fareed reminded me of the ideal government, mentioning a benevolent King or dictator as the best form of civil government.

What did I learn from what Fareed *didn't* say? As a self-confessing non-Christian he denies the possibility of anyone having a personal relationship with the Divine. He doesn't come right out and say a belief in God is bad or dangerous but his discourse always suggests the avoidance of the Divine is the better choice. He suggests that neither Japan nor China is "immoral" but rather that only certain human rights maybe different from the West's. I suppose China's one-child policy or willingness to trade with governments known to murder their own people, e.g. Zimbabwe, which Fareed mentioned, is "moral". He mentions that Enlightenment philosophers had adopted Confucianism as a good thing but never discusses the bloodbath of the French Revolution that resulted from this line of thinking. Fareed quotes the Rig Veda, the Hindu Creation Hymn. In spite of God "creating" the human with a mind to understand "Creation", the Hindu tosses this ability and desire aside in an agnostic way. In contrasting this view with the Book of Genesis he claims "Hindus are deeply practical" when doing trade or commerce internationally. Thus, by extension, are those who take the Book of Genesis seriously then impractical in international trade?

Not giving a reason why, he does mention that in 1890, America had become #1 in the world economically. But, in all other categories he considered America a "weak" state as if this was a bad thing saying "the American state--Washington--grew, centralized, and gained unquestioned precedence over the states... and presidents ... began defining America as a world power." I tend to think the "weak" central state was a good thing where most civil power resided in the states or counties. But it was the self-discipline or self government which most Americans displayed which pointed to their true King over our nation. The role of our Heavenly Benevolent King as given in America the Beautiful:
America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.
is nowhere to be seen within this book's pages.

What caused Britain's decline as a world power? He asks and attempts to give possible answers but neglects the obvious: as said by Ben Franklin, “The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?” If there is one theme of the Old Testament which cannot be overlooked, it's that God corporately blesses nations which obey Him and punishes those nations which disobey. Again absent within this book.

Western Civilization started with the Christianizing of the Old Roman Empire. Christians rose to power because they could be"trusted". They were known to be "honest" and "fair". General Sada who served under Sadaam Hussain knows where these virtues come from. Fareed has yet to learn.

Captivate blog

This is a test. Had it been a real emergency I would have used a familiar method.

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Wisdom or wind

Intellect speaks out
as wind drys earth, ears still thirst.
There is no wisdom.

Three Seasons

Adam brings winter.
Unless Jesus brings rebirth
Summer never comes.

Today

Today is the day
Which the Lord has made. Rejoice
And be glad in it.

blog from iPhone

Technology has come a long way. I am constructing this using my iPhone. Alas, the keyboard is so tiny it will need to be short.
Love without limit
And obeying Jesus Christ
Is always lawful.

SQ 755 -- Is civil law religious or secular?
U.S. District Court Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange said she
was persuaded that a constitutional amendment known as
State Question (SQ) 755 seemed to have a legally improper
religious purpose and posed a threat to violate the rights
of Muslims. It doesn’t matter that the ballot measure
passed last week by a vote of 70 percent to 30 percent.
So why did this federal judge rule against the
overwhelming majority of Oklahoma voters? She said "While
the public has an interest in the will of the voters being
carried out, the Court finds that the public has a more
profound and long-term interest in upholding an
individual's constitutional rights." The Constitution
Vicki is referring to is our U.S. Constitution (USC). Ok,
so let’s see if a judge can define the difference between
secular and religious? “[P]laintiff has made a
preliminary showing that State Question 755’s amendment
does not have a secular purpose”. She says it has a
religious purpose. In court argument it was noted that SQ
755 was proposed to make sure that Oklahoma courts were
not used to undermine the "Judeo-Christian" founding
principles of the country. But, wait a minute. If this
purpose is true then civil law *really* has a religious
foundation? Is civil law facially religious? Vicki
affirms a ‘yes’ herself when she affirms that the state is
involved in all kinds of contracts of a religious nature.
In fact, she accepted the plantiff's argument that an
Islamic will would not be fully probated by a state court
in Oklahoma. But what do we do about all those nasty
things like corporal punishment of wife, etc. where Sharia
law conflicts with "Judeo-Christian" law. So, I’m
confused. Is civil law secular? Is it even religiously
neutral? How can Vicki *judge* that SQ 755 "is not
facially neutral”. I suppose this means a judge is at
liberty to “religiously” define “neutral” as well as
uphold whatever law they want.

Will Vicki be impeached? Probably not. I do believe our
beloved USC is broken.

Quotes are from www.constitutioncampaign.org/blog.

Letter to Peter Marshall --
Peter, I would like to share my thoughts about leading a
_Restoring America_ class in our church, Arrow Heights
Baptist. You had been here in person at least twice that I
remember and I did get to meet with you personally. Your
research on early American History is top notch. I was happy
to teach your class and look forward to teaching another. I
was educated in New York public schools during the late 50's
and 60's and remember when all of a sudden prayer was no
longer a part of my school day. For the most part Christians
compromised in their world view with the secularists and
progressives of that day.

It could have been your ministries, but it was Dr. Gary North,
with his Institute for Christian Economics, and later Gary
DeMar at AmericanVision.org where I learned, for the first
time, our Christian historical heritage. I felt I had been
let down by my parents, clergy, and those Christian
historians, educators, lawyers, (there were no self-confessing
Christian politicians at that time) etc. professionals. As
Nancy Pearcey put it in _Total Truth_, Christians had
swallowed the lie: that there is a division of the secular vs
the sacred.

Growing up I had felt it quite odd that politics or even
Christian history was so rarely mentioned from pastors or
Christians in general. I was raised a Republican and was
taught that government should have as little power, authority,
as possible but this was *not* tied at all to Scripture. It
was only my parents opinion. In 1967, I went off to college
at Oral Roberts University, a fine Christian school, or was
it? Oral was a life-long democrat. He invited chapel
speakers like the Rev. Jesse Jackson several times to speak to
students. My thought was how can Christians be so divided
and/or confused about a biblical approach to politics?

Almost 20 years ago, when homosexual "marriage" became a legal
issue in the state of Hawaii I became interested in the
application of the Christian (or better yet biblical) world
view as it pertains to legal (moral) issues. Obviously this
lands right at the foot of 'politics' too. I finally read
Dr. Greg Bahnsen's _Theonomy in Christian Ethics_ and saw a
thorough biblical exegesis applied to this area. Bahnsen
concluded that Christ condoned the so-called Old Testament
"Judicial" law for nations to obey. This was a totally new
teaching to me. It seemed so unusual and rare (Only the
Christian Reconstructionists teach this.) that I felt
compelled to dismiss it. I couldn't.

OK I thought, All I need to do is get an exegesis from my
pastor, who's a Southern Baptist, or discuss this with a
Christian Constitutional law professor at a, more decidedly
politically aware college. I contacted literally dozens of
Christian politically active organizations asking for this.
Most have ignored my plea. All I asked for was an exegesis
which would straighten those Reconstructionists out. After 15
years I have to conclude: there isn't any!

In the _Restoring America Leader's Guide_ your tiny
recognition of this group of biblical scholars is hardly
complimentary. "There is a small group of people that
advocate this mistaken idea of restricting public office to
Christians. They are called Reconstructionists, and advocate
the taking over of the reins of government by Christians."
Yet, everything you taught about the founding Fathers cried
out this same sentiment. John Quincy Adams said we ought to
elect only Christians to political office. The major law book
of Hooker's Connecticut was the Bible, specifically
Deuteronomy. Who else is more equipped to judge the
difference between good and evil [Hebrews 5:15] than a
Christian? We all understand this "taking over" is to be from
a bottom up, Constitutionally legal voting mechanism. No one
is talking about anything contrary to legal means. At least
your tone is better than Dr. Richard Land's tone in his book
_The Divided States of America_ where he says:

"Christian reconstructionism, ... fringe movement,
explicitly opposed to democratic means of government, has
been largely responsible for the fantasy that if the
Religious Right prevails, then the USA is headed into
theocratic Fundamentalism. That idea is "nuts" -- a
bogeyman scenario cooked up by secularists who paint the
opposition with one big brushstroke."

The Southern Baptists, you, in fact, most fundamentalists are
well-known for the phrase "Sola Scriptura". The secularists,
as well as I, know what that means. There is another motive
of the secularists, but we both want an exegesis that sets the
large camp of fundamentalists apart from the
Reconstructionists. Since there is none the secularists must
assume the "Sola Scriptura" of you, Peter Marshall, as well as
Dr. Richard Land, the national voice of the Southern Baptist
Ethics and Religious Liberty, have the same exegesis as these
Reconstructionists. What else are we to conclude? So, right
at the front of the secularism's web sites, for example,
theocracywatch.org, we see these Reconstructionists mentioned
and then the site mentions all those other 'religious' groups
trying to influence politics.

With this as my introduction you may not want to hear about
how my teaching of this class went. But, please, if you do
have a friend who is a U.S. Constitutional lawyer, or
professor at a seminary, or a book title where a political
exegesis of politics is presented and Bahnsen's _Theonomy_ is
taken head-on I would like to see it. Perhaps a book that
presents an exegesis of Old Testament judicial law as no
longer being applicable (such as ceremonial law) in the New
Testament would be another way of looking at these major
differences in the biblical political world view.

Integrity. What is it? What does it mean to say someone is a person of integrity? One definition from wikipedia is consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations and outcome. If a criminal talked the walk, was entirely predictable in his actions based on stated belief, i.e., was fully consistent, would that mean the criminal had integrity? A simple 2-word definition is "moral soundness", but whose morals are we talking about? Maybe, as C.S. Lewis has said "integrity" has been stolen much like being called a "gentleman" had been stolen.

Websters 1928 dictionary expands on "moral soundness": "The entire, unimpaired state of any thing, particularly of the mind; moral soundness or purity; incorruptness; uprightness; honesty. Integrity comprehends the whole moral character, but has a special reference to uprightness in mutual dealings, transfers of property,and agencies for others."

If I were to define a person of integrity I would say it is a property of someone who always behaves or acts good, being true and consistent to their stated [good] confession. In other words, their true belief, or worldview is in agreement with their actions. For example, a couple that takes a pledge to remain faithful to each other "till death do us part". The couples that remain married in spite of difficulty display integrity. Those who split up, well at least for non-life threatening reasons, display a lack of integrity.

I am not a man of integrity when it comes to political corporate welfare. Years ago a major company desired and won huge amounts of taxpayer monies to locate in Tulsa. At the time I spoke out against this taxpayer theft. Today I am silent about another company playing the same hand in my own town. This is because I work for that company and if I spoke up I could lose my job.

The Bible begins "In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth." Do you remember the Why? Because .... Why?
Because .... Why? ... games you played as a child? The
final answer to Why? which has no "because" is this verse.
Usually this text from Genesis refers to the physical universe
but it also applies to culture in general and politics in
particular. After conquering death (demonstrating his
Lordship over the physical universe) Jesus said in Matthew
28:18-20 "all authority in heaven and on earth has been given
to me." He continued saying "Go into all the world immersing
the cultures of all people groups in my teachings". Kenneth
Gentry explains _The Greatness of the Great Commission_ in his
book by the same name. The Bible is supposed to be the
politician's instruction manual.

The Greatest need in the United States is to once again allow
the Bible to have legal political authority. Judge Roy Moore,
or more specifically Alabama, lost the right to place the 10
Commandments near the State Supreme Court because the
Federal courts said it was illegal. This Federal decision was evil
and wrong. The fact that so few Christian constitutional
lawyers spoke up for state' rights in this case tells me there
is a problem with our Federal Constitution. Article VI,
paragraph 3 needs to be changed to support one and only one
religious oath affirming the authority of the Bible in our
laws. The Christian Triune God and Jesus Christ as earth's
lawful King deserves no less.

A civil government official "is the servant of God, an avenger
who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer" [Romans 13:4].
Paul ties those things that are "wrongdoings" right back to
the 10 Commandments in verse 9. In Peter's research he
mentioned that the Puritan civil law code came closest to
consciously using the Word of God as the civil law standard.
I believe him. The statement in the Declaration of
Independence that all men (people) are created equal comes
directly from New Testament teachings. Except in cases of
crimes worthy of capital punishment the right to life is part
of the God-given rights of all people. Abortion is evil and I
am thankful to God that you fight for the right to life of
humans in the womb as hard as you do. Don't ever give up that
fight. I would encourage you to make the same claims to the
majority in congress as I have made here. Encourage your
liberal peers who desire legalized abortion and who also claim
the authority of the Bible to exegete their position in this
area.

Lying and stealing are evil. If our Constitution says
something, the Federal branch of Government must do what it
says. Article 1 section 8 says to "establish uniform rules
for naturalization". We need to uphold existing legal
immigration law and quit the nonsense talk of naturalizing
those here illegally. The next statement says to establish
uniform bankruptcy laws. The Federal government has no
authority to take over control of "some" private businesses or
to hand out "bailout" money to some private persons or
businesses. This is favoritism and directly against the
Constitution. God says he detests unequal weights and
measures. Our Constitution says the Federal government is
responsible "to coin money, regulate the value thereof,
... and fix the standard of wights and measures". We as a
nation are headed to either hyper inflation or Federal
bankruptcy if current spending patterns continue. The Bible,
in agreement with our founding fathers and the original intent
of the Federal Constitution, don't authorize compulsory
welfare. This is theft and legalized redistribution of money.
This is evil. Instead of considering another huge commitment,
universal health care, the federal government should be
considering how to extricate itself from the $70 trillion
social security, Medicaid, medicare commitments it has
promised! The Federal Reserve has been protected far too
long and needs to be audited.

The nation's voting has gotten to the point of a besieged city
where the food has run out. The 3 last starving survivors
agreed to be democratic about what to eat for their next meal.
The two adults and child voted. The child lost. It is
immoral to saddle our children and those yet unborn with our
debt.

Respectfully submitted,





Harry A. Rockefeller

Peter Marshall (http://petermarshallministries.com/), the
son of the more famous Peter and Katherine Marshall
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Marshall), is a
speaker and author who addresses the Christian history of the
United States. I heard him speak last night about how
important it is for Christians to be engaged in our culture.
After his talk a question was asked about how to be faithful
to Christ about evangelism but also be engaged in politics and
other aspects of culture. I suggested, as an example, that
maybe training in a biblical political worldview could be
accomplished by crafting letters to congressmen which wed the
Lordship of Christ, biblical authority, and political opinion.
Peter didn't bite. Since I brought up the idea I thought of
writing these letters to my congressmen and to share them with
others.

So, here we go.

A while back I read Nancy Pearcey's book Total Truth. My
main concern is to address what she has to say about two
things. One, the idea of no (religious/spiritual) neutrality
and two, what are her views on the religious/spiritual nature
of civil government.



In general I would say she does a very good job with the first
point. As a Francis Shaffer disciple she shows that religious
thought, attitudes, presuppositions, i.e., belief, form our
every actions. She spends many words exposing the myth that
Christianity affects only one of the two spheres of life. She
uses many word couples to define what she means by these two
spheres: mind vs heart, private vs public, personal preference
vs scientific knowledge, values vs facts, sacred vs secular,
revelation vs reason, etc. She acknowledges many belief
systems and identifies what is their tightest held (core)
presupposition and even says "In this sense, we could say that
every alternative to Christianity is a religion." She ties
this into the first point of the; creation, fall, redemption
model; given to us as Christians. In other words, who (or
what) is held as "creator"? What is one's belief in the
"fall"? Who or what is wrong and needs fixing? She reminds
the Christian of our cultural mandate given both to Adam and
again to Noah and finally realized in the Great Commission
(simply because this cultural mandate was never revoked). In
other words, how can I apply "redemption" or attempt to make
culture better?

Taking up a good chunk of the book is a treatment of
Intelligent Design vs (macro) evolution. If you are
interested in this subject at all Nancy's comments alone in
this area are worth your reading of this book. One of the
ramifications of our culture's acceptance of evolution instead
of Divine creation is found in civil law. Nancy says "Holmes
took the idea that the source of law is nothing but evolving
custom. Whereas traditional Western legal philosophy had
based law on an unchanging source (on natural law, derived
ultimately from divine law)." This pragmatic view of law and
customs "inevitably leads to a pluralism of beliefs, all of
them transient and none of them eternally or universally
true." In a sense, this is the Southern Baptist view of
politics. Dr. Richard Land preaches political pluralism as a
good thing for our culture. But that's another book review.
Nancy quotes Denzel in a way that even she approves of a
political pluralistic society. "It became clear to Denzel
that in a pluralistic society, Christians need to master
apologetics ..."

In conclusion of point one let me quote Nancy. "... it is
possible for even a Christian to be controlled by Satan and do
his work. There is no neutral ground in the spiritual battle
between the forces of God and the forces of the devil. If
some area of our lives is not fully submitted in obedience to
God, then in practice we are under the control of Satan in
that area -- giving him the allegiance that belongs to God
alone."



Concerning the second point, what does Christianity or the
Bible have to say about civil government I started out
hopeful. Early in her book on page 34 she writes "I can say
from experience that few hold an explicitly Christian
political philosophy." She went on to quote a political
staffer who also was a committed Christian "I'm politically
conservative, not because I see how they're rooted in the
Bible." She concludes this early paragraph in her book "[The
staffer] knew he should formulate a biblically based
philosophy of government, but he simply didn't know how to
proceed." But where does she go from there?

Nancy says "I suggest that the assumption of autonomous
individualism is a central factor in the breakdown of American
society today." Does she apply this to certain religious or
civil thinking? She says "the priesthood of all believers was
taken to mean religion of the people, by the people, and for
the people." She mentions John LeLand as one of the backers
of individual liberty in both ecclesiastical as well as
political thought. Toward the end of her book Nancy mentions
the common error. Popular evangelicals were sounding the same
note as the early social contract theorists ... who regarded
social structures ... formed by the consent of autonomous
individuals living in a 'state of nature'."

Nancy concludes with "the dilemma is that humans irresistibly
and unavoidably make moral judgments -- and yet nonbibilical
worldviews give no basis for them." So then what about moral
judgments involving civil law and punishment that have no
biblical basis? She danced about this question but never
really attempted to take it on.

In the study guide section of the book she mentions that "back
in the age of state churches, it was Christian dissenters who
framed the case for pluralism and religious liberty. Today,
in the age of state schools, Christians ought to be framing
the case for pluralism and freedom in education as well."

This seemed to contradict what she had written earlier about
individual autonomy being a major plank of the evil two-story
culture theory. This bothered me so much that I asked her
"[you wrote that] 'Christian dissenters who framed the case
for pluralism and religious liberty' Was this 'case' made
using Scriptural exegesis?" She actually replied -- but in a
two-story cultural manner! Is it any wonder that our
Christian politicians who desire to be biblical are continuing
in languish simply not knowing how to proceed?

I always find "Imprimis" published by Hillsdale College
intellectually stimulating. The most recent issue _The
Constitution and American Sovereignty_ by Jeremy Rabkin may
be found here: http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp.

As the title suggests it dwells on political rightful
authority. Jeremy opens with sovereignty defined loosely as
"a political community without a political superior". From
there he mentions the first scholarly study, _Six Books of
the Republic_ written in the late 16th century by Jean
Bodin. The King of France took on political sovereignty
apart from the papal Roman church. It wasn't a true
separation of church and state because Bodin "insisted on
the monarch's general obligation to respect the law of
nature and the law of God". Jeremy goes on to give Bodin's
thoughts. "His main practical point was that the government
must be strong enough to protect the people's rights, yet
restrained enough not to do more than that." It's
interesting that this is the only function of civil
government mentioned by the apostle Paul in Romans chapter
13. The civil servant, as God's servant, is to distinguish
between good and evil and punish those who practice evil
deeds. Paul didn't address what deeds should be punished by
the State and which should not. This was because he knew
the Old Testament had already covered that ground.

This same concept of "separation of church and State" was
reiterated in our own Declaration of Independence. The
point both Bodin and Our Declaration recognized was that the
King, Congress, State, etc. really didn't have full
political sovereignty. There were limits they must not
cross, which were defined by God Himself. In other words,
only God is the True political sovereign. Jeremy doesn't
quite get to this conclusion. I'm not sure if he didn't
like it or what his reason was for not following this simple
logic.

Jeremy then discusses our Federal Constitution. The United
States is a Federal republic where the rule of law
originates in a written document. Our Constitution is no
exception. As Jeremy reminds us "it describes itself
unambiguously as 'the supreme Law of the Land'". Every one
of the 50 state Constitutions mentions God in some way or
another as the political sovereign but our Federal
Constitution does not. In fact, in Article VI paragraph 3
it is strictly forbidden to require a religious oath of any
federal official. I think this weakness in being definitive
about the Sovereign God caused our Federal Constitution to
loose clout as being the "supreme Law of the Land". Our
Declaration of Independence still rings clear and True about
the just cause of the founders of our country. The
Constitution however is becoming a -- yawn.

Jeremy goes on to mention economic treaties, and national
conglomerates as detracting authority (sovereignty) from our
Constitution. He concludes with Constitutional sovereignty
giving way to "the notion of some hazy international
standard of conduct that everyone in the world can somehow
agree upon and then enforce on strangers". I agree with
Jeremy. Unfortunately this is true but he doesn't address
this built-in weakness of our Constitution, nor does he
mention the most blatant attack on the Constitution's
sovereignty -- the lack of a full-form birth certificate of
our president.

Jeremy concludes his article by mentioning that Bodin "the
first theorist to write about sovereignty understood
witchcraft as a fundamental threat to lawful authority and
so finally to liberty and property and all the other rights
of individuals". Jeremy simply reminded the reader once
again, without saying so, it's a question of submission to
God's sovereignty in all areas of life.

What do lawyers mean?

I listened to Herb Titus present two talks today at the
SuperWorldview Conference sponsored by AmericanVision and
other Christian organizations. His talks about how state
governments may successfully circumvent Federal law which is
outside of the Federal constitution's 10th amendment were
presented well. Unfortunately the whole idea of separation of
Church (religion) and State (civil law) is still a confused
mess.

This was evident in the question and answer session tonight.
Two questions were asked about the influence of rival
"religions" on our Christian civil laws in a hope that Herb
would offer how Christians may cope or prevent further erosion
of Christian Constitutional law. Herb Titus attempted to
answer that our government was founded on "The Laws of Nature
and of Nature's God" or was it -- Christianity? He was forced
to define "religion" and simply stated a political (civil)
definition is that it is those "things" that we owed our
Creator which the civil authority had no jurisdiction. But
then what "law" prevents the State from (re)defining religion
any way it wants? What would prevent what some justices are
saying -- that our constitution is a living and changing
document interpreted at the whim of judges? I don't think
either of the two questions were really ever answered.

Is our U.S. Constitution a Christian document, as one of
Herb's booklet titles suggests, or is it not? We only should
use a constitutional amendment process to change what
is in error. Article VI paragraph 3 is in error. A religious
oath must be required of our Federal officials. We must
hold them accountable to the Bible.

Technology changes things, or does it?

I attended http://www.lifechurch.tv on the Internet this
morning with my wife and daughter-in-law. It seemed different
than those Billy-Graham televised sermons of years ago or was
it? The message was the same: the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The thought came to me that maybe, just maybe, the United
States doesn't have to go through a complete meltdown in order
for our culture to once again embrace Spiritual Truth. The
message of Christ, the milk [Hebrews 5:12], is still being
preached whether at lifechurch.tv or by Billy's son Franklin
Graham. However, growth does appear to be missing.
Christians in the United States are babies who "need milk not
solid food".

"Solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers
of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish
good from evil." [Hebrews 5:14] So, is Nationalizing health
care good or evil? What about that macro-economic sticky
question: since the government literally creates currency can
it be guilty of theft? Or other political (State) economic
questions need answers. When is a robin-hood (take from the
rich to give to the poor) policy evil? When is it good? For
what policies?

In just a few days I'll be in the middle of a conference
hearing about "How Christians Will Change the Future". I hope
it won't be just another conference where people attend get
oooohed and aaaaahed during the event but basically remain the
same afterward. I hope it does have a lasting effect. We
sure do need mature Christians to reshape and redirect our
future (culture).

In years past, I would have used a concordance and a paper
Bible to refresh my memory of these quoted Bible verses.
Tonight I just used my Olive Tree Bible and software on my
cell phone. Technology doesn't really change the core values
or issues within a culture it only provides us better tools.