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
Sunday, September 20, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
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?
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?
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