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by Abigail Rine Favale

I teach in a great books program at an Evangelical university. Almost all students in the program are born-and-bred Christians of the nondenominational variety. A number of them have been both thoroughly churched and educated through Christian schools or homeschooling curricula. Yet an overwhelming majority of these students do not believe in a bodily resurrection. While they trust in an afterlife of eternal bliss with God, most of them assume this will be disembodied bliss, in which the soul is finally free of its “meat suit” (a term they fondly use).

I first caught wind of this striking divergence from Christian orthodoxy in class last year, when we encountered Stoic visions of the afterlife. Cicero, for one, describes the body as a prison from which the immortal soul is mercifully freed upon death, whereas Seneca views the body as “nothing more or less than a fetter on my freedom,” one eventually “dissolved” when the soul is set loose. These conceptions were quite attractive to the students.

Resistance to the idea of a physical resurrection struck them as perfectly logical. “It doesn’t feel right to say there’s a human body in heaven, when the body is tied so closely to sin,” said one student. In all, fewer than ten of my forty students affirmed the orthodox teaching that we will ultimately have a body in our glorified, heavenly form. None of them realizes that these beliefs are unorthodox; this is not willful doctrinal error. This is an absence of knowledge about the foundational tenets of historical, creedal Christianity.

At some point in my Evangelical upbringing, I came across a timeline of world history. The timeline started with Adam and Eve, then moved through significant events recounted in the Old Testament, with a few extra-biblical highlights from elsewhere in the world spliced in here and there. The fulcrum of the timeline was the birth of Christ, followed by details from his life and ministry, then post-Resurrection events from the Book of Acts. All these episodes were demarcated by bright colors, with neat lines stretching upward into the margins, connecting each sliver of color to a corresponding label. After Paul’s ministry, however, this busy rainbow of history dissolved into a dull purple rectangle spanning fourteen centuries, labeled simply “the Dark Ages.”

This is an apt illustration of all too many young Christians’ sense of Christian history. The world after the New Testament is blank and uneventful. Even the Reformation is an obscure blip. They are not self-consciously Protestant, but merely “nondenominational.” Their Christian identity is unmoored from any tradition or notion of Christianity through time.

My students are a microcosm of what I see as a growing trend in contemporary Evangelicalism. Without a guiding connection to orthodoxy, young Evangelicals are developing heterodox sensibilities that are at odds with a Christian understanding of personhood. The body is associated with sin, the soul with holiness. Moreover, this sense of the body, especially under the alias flesh, tends to be hypersexualized.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the Evangelical emphasis on purity, a word that has become synonymous with bodily virginity. Despite the biblical usage of purity as holiness in a broader, holistic sense, including but not limited to sexual matters, the word “purity” has become narrowly sexualized. It is not a virtue to be continually cultivated, but a default physical state that can be permanently lost.

In Evangelical vernacular, “sins of the flesh” denote specifically sexual sins, and these are the evils that dominate the theological imaginations of young, unmarried Evangelicals, far more than idolatry, say, or greed. I can remember one particularly vivid illustration from my Evangelical youth, when I was asked to imagine myself on my wedding day, in a pristine white dress—and then asked to picture a bright red handprint anywhere that a man has touched me. This image of a bloodied bride, of flesh corrupted by flesh, seared into my imagination a picture of the body, rather than the soul, as the source and site of sin.

This is not a new misunderstanding. The view of embodiment as the epitome of evil was a central tenet of Gnosticism, which St. Irenaeus refuted in the late second century. But the notion that our fall is metaphysical, not moral, persisted. In the early fifth century, St. Augustine faced an interpretation of St. Paul that placed the Apostle’s warning about the weakness of our flesh and our bondage to carnal works within a Platonic framework. For the Platonist, the material world and the spiritual world are distinct and hierarchically ordered; the material is illusory, temporary, imperfect. The body is the seat of harmful desires and passions, from which the soul must be released. The body weighs down and corrupts the soul.

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by Sharyl Attkisson

I’ve done quite a bit of reporting about how Wikipedia is definitely not “the encyclopedia anyone can edit.” It’s become a vehicle for special interests to control information. Agenda editors are able to prevent or revert edits and sourcing on selected issues and people in order to control the narrative.

Watch Sharyl Attkisson’s TedX talk on Wikipedia and other Astroturf tools

My own battle with Wikipedia included being unable to correct provably false facts such as incorrect job history, incorrect birth place and incorrect birth date.

What’s worse is that agenda editors related to pharmaceutical interests and the partisan blog Media Matters control my Wikipedia biographical page, making sure that slanted or false information stays on it. For example, they falsely refer to my reporting as “anti-vaccine,” and imply my reporting on the topic has been discredited. In fact, my vaccine and medical reporting has been recognized by top national journalism awards organizations, and has even been cited as a source in a peer-reviewed scientific publication. However, anyone who tries to edit this factual context and footnotes onto my page finds it is quickly removed.

What persists on my page, however, are sources that are supposedly disallowed by Wikipedia’s policies. They include citations by Media Matters, with no disclosure that it’s a partisan blog.

Another entity quoted on my Wikipedia biographical page to disparage my work is the vaccine industry’s Dr. Paul Offit. But there’s no mention of the lawsuits filed against Offit for libel (one prompted him to apologize and correct his book), or the fact that he provided false information about his work and my reporting to the Orange County Register, which later corrected its article. Obviously, these facts would normally make Offit an unreliable source, but for Wikipedia, he’s presented as if an unconflicted expert. In fact, Wikipedia doesn’t even mention that’s Offit is a vaccine industry insider who’s made millions of dollars off of vaccines.

Meantime, turn to Dr. Offit’s own Wikipedia biography and– at last look– it also omitted all mention of his countless controversies. Instead, it’s written like a promotional resume– in violation of Wikipedia’s supposed politics on neutrality.

Watch Sharyl Attkisson’s TedX talk on Fake News

These biographies are just two examples of ones that blatantly violate Wikipedia’s strict rules, yet they are set in stone. The powerful interests that “watch” and control the pages make sure Offit’s background is whitewashed and that mine is subtly tarnished. They will revert or change any edits that attempt to correct the record.

This, in a nutshell, exemplifies Wikipedia’s problems across the platform as described by its co-founder Larry Sanger.

Watch “Wikipedia: The Dark Side,” a Full Measure investigation

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by Paul Tautges

People often ask me how biblical counseling differs from other approaches to soul care. Here’s a summary I’ve been teaching for almost two decades, which I hope will help you grow in understanding sanctification. This week, look up the Scriptures listed and meditate on God’s abundant provision through the Spirit and the Word. See how each piece fits together. This study will be a healthy meal for your soul.

Biblical counseling believes:

1. The Bible is the all-sufficient source of Truth.

  • Scripture is pure truth (Ps. 119:140, 160).
  • Scripture is sufficient to identify the deepest needs of our soul, and meet them (Ps. 19:7-11; 2 Tim. 3:16-17).
  • Scripture is the instrumental means the Spirit uses to transform us from the inside out, even sanctifying our motivations (John 17:17; 2 Cor. 3:18; Heb. 4:12).
  • Scripture is the judge of all man-made philosophy and theory, as to whether or not it is accurate, corrupts the gospel, or diminishes Christ (1 Cor. 2:11-16; Col. 2:8-10; 2 Cor. 10-4-6).

2. Man is totally depraved, accountable to God, and responsible for his thoughts and actions.

  • Man’s heart is wicked and deceitful (Jer. 17:9).
  • Man’s heart is motivated by love for self, and is addicted to sin (Gen. 6:5; Rom. 6:13).
  • Man will give an account of himself to God (Rom. 14:12; 1 Pet. 4:4-5).
  • Man is responsible for his own temptation and sin (James 1:13-16).
  • But man can be rescued and redeemed by Jesus Christ—becoming a new creature in Him (2 Cor. 5:17).

3. God’s goal for every believer is to be like Jesus Christ.

  • The Christian life begins with regeneration, being born-again by the Spirit through the Word of truth, the gospel (John 3:1-8; 1 Pet. 1:3).
  • God has predestined believers to become conformed to the image of His Son, thus this is God’s goal (Rom. 8:29).
  • God is renewing the believer’s self into the image of Christ, as we put off the old and put on the new (Col. 3:9-10; Eph. 4:17-32).

4. The Holy Spirit is the agent of heart change, which produces change of behavior.

  • The Holy Spirit transforms us into the image of Jesus Christ as we behold Him in the Word (2 Cor. 3:18).
  • The Holy Spirit progressively trains us in godliness and develops new attitudes and lifestyle as we walk in the Word (Gal. 5:22-25).

Counseling One Another

5. Every Christian is fully equipped in Christ for godliness, but submission to God’s training is required.

  • God’s power is sufficient to live a life that is pleasing to Him, having already been accepted in Christ (2 Pet. 1:2-7; Eph. 1:6).
  • God will finish the sanctifying work which He began at conversion, but not without the personal discipline of the believer (Phil. 1:6; 2:12-13).
  • Suffering is one of the chief means the heavenly Father employs to train us in godliness and discipline (Heb. 12:4-11).

6. Sanctification is a process requiring ongoing repentance and personal discipline toward godliness.

  • Discipline the thoughts of the mind (Rom. 12:1-2).
  • Discipline the desires of the heart (James 4:1-3).
  • Discipline the habits of life (Eph. 4:22-32).

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by Dr. Ronn Johnson

I have been away from this blog for some time, though it has been constantly on my mind. Since my last post, I have written and presented a course at our church on the big story of the Bible. It was rewarding, yet undoubtedly the toughest challenge I had ever faced as a Bible teacher. As I told the class several times, sometimes out of desperation, it’s one thing to teach a passage of the Bible, or even a survey of books within the Bible—most of us have tried that—but something entirely different to approach the text with the sole intent of tracking its largest narrative. Sometimes I felt like I knew where I was going, while at other times I felt very unsure of myself, even within an hour of walking into the class. Now that it’s over I look forward to stepping back and reviewing what I said, thinking through where my work needs improvement.

I would like to return to this blog for such a purpose, in fact: to review what I said in the class and hear myself talk. I invite your response if you have the time. In previous blogs my thinking has been largely negative, pointing out perceived problems with evangelicalism’s traditional understanding of the big story of the Bible. It will feel good to turn the ship around at this point and head in a positive direction. As you could guess, my understanding of the story will be categorically different from the Sin Paid For model that I have been talking about—where the punishment required for sin by God was voluntarily paid by a behaviorally perfect individual, with this payment then being applied to those who accept this gracious provision of Christ on their behalf. I realize that many people like this story because it offers God a way to relieve the tension between his justice and love through Jesus while remaining true to his own demands of grace and impartiality. But as I’ve recommended, this does not seem to be the tension played out in the biblical story. And once we change the tension or crisis of a story we are in effect writing a different story altogether.

In my class, I developed the biblical story by working through the chronological flow of the text. This is easier said than done, I came to realize, and I’ll talk more of this below. But in general, I tried to not give away what happened until it actually happened. I did this for those in the class who were unfamiliar with the Bible, as well as to experiment how this would work within my own presentation. For purposes of this blog, I will lay out the whole story right up front, from beginning to end, then return back to go through the details in upcoming posts. I presume that readers of this website are familiar enough with the Bible to not be annoyed at being given the end of the story too soon.

I have used the analogy of a brick wall before so I will continue the analogy here. What follows are the one hundred bricks which make up, in my opinion, the big story wall of the Bible. Ending up with this round number is not accidental, as you could guess, but mostly because I didn’t like the idea of ending on an odd number, like 89 or 105. I constantly reworked my pile to keep it at the century mark, which is unimportant in the long run. The number can certainly change. Here are my bricks listed in the order in which they appear (or occur) in the story, starting with Genesis 1:1:

  1. God creates the universe
  2. God creates elohim above humans
  3. God creates humans below elohim
  4. Humans fail a loyalty test
  5. Humanity dies and awakens
  6. Creation is sentenced to frustration
  7. Adam’s family shows divided loyalties
  8. Elohim interfere in human affairs
  9. God destroys the earth
  10. Elohim receive territorial rule

 

  1. Elohim abuse their authority
  2. God judges ruling elohim
  3. Abraham switches spiritual loyalties
  4. Abraham is promised blessing
  5. Elohim come to earth as messengers
  6. God designates loyalty as right
  7. God designates disloyalty as wrong
  8. Abraham’s family shows divided loyalties
  9. God’s family is named Israel
  10. Jacob bears twelve tribes

 

  1. Joseph saves the family in Egypt
  2. Pharaoh enslaves the family
  3. God reveals his name
  4. Passover redeems Israel
  5. Israel accepts Torah
  6. Israel worships Baal
  7. God clarifies his jealousy
  8. Loyalty is demanded
  9. Disloyalty is predicted
  10. Sacred space is institutionalized

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by Matthew Ehret

“Two systems are before the world; the one looks to increasing the proportion of persons and of capital engaged in trade and transportation, and therefore to diminishing the proportion engaged in producing commodities with which to trade, with necessarily diminished return to the labor of all; while the other looks to increasing the proportion engaged in the work of production, and diminishing that engaged in trade and transportation, with increased return to all, giving to the laborer good wages, and to the owner of capital good profits… One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace. One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world.”

-Henry C. Carey (Lincoln’s advisor), Harmony of Interests, 1856

The British Hand Behind the Deep State Today

With the election of Donald Trump in November 2016, it has become apparent for that America isn’t what many thought it was.

Suddenly, for the first time since the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, there was no longer one America but rather two opposing forces within America itself, and the question was raised “which is the real America and what is it that Trump was re-activating?”

Here was a political leader who wasn’t from the technocratic establishment, and who campaigned to work with Russia and China, end regime change wars, reverse the nation-killing effects of NAFTA, reviving the JFK-era space mission and even discussed restoring Glass Steagall.

A clue to what he chose to represent can be witnessed in his defense of the “American System” when he said “this is the system our Founders wanted. Our greatest American leaders — including George Washington, Hamilton, Jackson, Lincoln — they all agreed that for America to be a strong nation it must also be a great manufacturing nation.”

Soon, it became apparent that this Deep State structure mobilized to stop the re-emergence of the American System was not even American as many had supposed, but rather of a purely British Imperial pedigree and was even caught working against British nationalists such as Jeremy Corbyn. It finally came to light that the British Empire had never gone away after WWII, but had evoked a powerful sleight of hand after FDR’s untimely death in 1945.

How did this happen? By what means and motives did this Deep State arise? Was it always there or were there key moments in history that give us clarity into its origins and how it took over both America and other nations alike?

By approaching history shaped by a battle between British and American systems of social order (which represents much more than merely British or American nations per se), a “master key” to unlock the secrets of Britain’s takeover of America (and Europe) can be found by exploring the strange case of Canada.

What is this “strange partly British/partly American monarchy of the Americas”? At the best of times, it was uplifted by the best constitutional traditions of America cited by Donald Trump above, and at the worst of times, it was a platform to spread British intrigues upon the world exemplified by the Montreal-based assassinations of American System leaders Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and John F. Kennedy in 1963. Today those intrigues are led by such Rhodes Scholars as Chrystia Freeland and the modern Round Table movement of Ben Rowswell who have together played leading roles in the overthrow of Venezuela, the protection of fascists in Ukraine and advance of NATO against Russia and China.

The time has come to drag some skeletons out of the closet.

Lincoln’s American System Goes Global

Canada’s struggle for existence as a sovereign nation has been caught between two opposing views of mankind represented by the British and American System of social organization. As the great economist Henry C. Carey laid out while he was advancing the policy of Abraham Lincoln, the American System was designed to become a global system operating amongst sovereign nations for the progress and mutual benefit of each and all. By the end of the 19th century, American System thinking was resonating with statesmen and patriots in all corners of the globe who were fed up with the ancient imperial system of British Free Trade that had always strived to maintain a world divided and monopolized. This view for a post-colonial world was exemplified by Lincoln-ally and first Governor of Colorado William Gilpin who described a world united by railways across all continents centered around the Bering Strait rail connection. This was outlined in his widely read 1890 “The Cosmopolitan Railway”.

Although British propagandists had made every attempt to keep the illusion of the sacredness of the British System alive in the minds of its subjects, the undeniable increase of quality of life, and creative thought expressed by the American System everywhere it was applied become too strong to ignore… especially within colonies such as Canada that had long suffered a fragmented, and underdeveloped identity as the price paid for loyalty to the British Empire.

In Germany, the American System-inspired Zollverein (customs union) had not only unified a divided nation but elevated it to a level of productive power and sovereignty which had outpaced the monopoly power of the British East India Company. In Japan, American engineers helped assemble trains funded by a national banking system, and protective tariff during the Meiji Restoration.

Deep State 1Deep State 2

In Russia, American System follower Sergei Witte, Transport Minister and close advisor to Czar Alexander II, revolutionized the Russian economy with the American made trains that rolled across the Trans-Siberian Railway. Under the influence of Witte and other American System allies Czar Nicholas II endorsed the Bering Strait rail connection in 1905, though a tragic turn of fate sabotaged it from unfolding.

Not even the Ottoman Empire remained untouched by the inspiration for progress, as the Berlin to Baghdad Railway was begun with the intention of unleashing a bold program of modernization of southwest Asia.

The American System Touches the Canadian Mind

In Canada, admirers of Lincoln and Henry C. Carey found their spokesman in the great American System statesman Isaac Buchanan (1). Buchanan rose to his highest position of political office in the Dominion of Canada when in April 1864, the new MacDonald-Taché Ministry appointed him the President of the Executive Council. This put him in firm opposition to the Imperial agenda of George Brown, and the later Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, of whom he and all patriotic co-thinkers counted as bitter enemies to Canada’s independence and progress. The policy which Buchanan advocated as he rose to higher prominence was outlined in his December 1863 speech:

“The adoption by England for herself of this transcendental principle [Free Trade] has all but lost the Colonies, and her madly attempting to make it the principle of the British Empire would entirely alienate the Colonies. Though pretending to unusual intelligence, the Manchester Schools are, as a class, as void of knowledge of the world as of patriotic principle… As a necessary consequence of the legislation of England, Canada will require England to assent to the establishment of two things: 1st, an American Zollverein [aka: Customs Union]. 2nd: Canada to be made neutral territory in time of any war between England and the United States”. (2)

While the customs union modeled on the Zollverein program of American System economist Friedrich List in Germany laid out by Buchanan, was temporarily defeated during the operation known as the Articles of Confederation in 1867, the potential for its re-emergence returned in 1896 with the election of Wilfrid Laurier, Canada’s next Prime Minister. By 1911, the customs union policy advanced by Laurier, who was a devout admirer of Abraham Lincoln, finally came to fruition. Laurier long recognized that Canada’s interests did not reside in the anti-American program of MacDonald which simply tied Canada into greater dependence towards the mother country, but rather with the interests of its southern neighbour. His Reciprocity program proposed to lower protective tariffs with the USA primarily on agriculture, but with the intention to electrify and industrialize Canada, a nation which Laurier saw as supporting 60 million people within two decades. With the collaboration of his close advisors, Adam Shortt, Oscar Skelton and later William Lyon Mackenzie King, Laurier navigated the minefield of his British enemies active throughout the Canadian landscape in the form of the Masonic “Orange Order” of Ontario, and later, the insidious Round Table movement.

While Laurier’s attempts to actualize a true Reciprocity Treaty of 1911 that involved free trade among North American economies united under a protective tariff against British dumping of cheap goods, it would not last, as every resource available to the British run Orange Order and Round Table were activated to ensure the Reciprocity’s final defeat and the downfall of Laurier’s Liberal government and its replacement by the Conservative government of Sir Robert Borden in its stead.(3) Laurier described the situation in Canada after this event:

“Canada is now governed by a junta sitting at London, known as “The Round Table”, with ramifications in Toronto, in Winnipeg, in Victoria, with Tories and Grits receiving their ideas from London and insidiously forcing them on their respective parties.” (4)

Two years before Laurier uttered this warning, the founder of the Round Table movement, Lord Milner wrote to one of his co-conspirators laying out the strategic danger faced by Buchanan and Laurier’s program with America:

“As between the three possibilities of the future: 1. Closer Imperial Union, 2. Union with the U.S. and 3. Independence, I believe definitely that No. 2 is the real danger. I do not think the Canadians themselves are aware of it… they are wonderfully immature in political reflection on the big issues, and hardly realize how powerful the influences are…” (5)

Without understanding either the existential struggle between the two opposing systems related above, or the creation of the Round Table movement by a new breed of British Imperialist as a response to Lincoln’s international victory in the face of the total bankruptcy of the British Empire at the turn of the last century, then no Canadian could honestly ever make sense of what has shaped his or her cultural and political landscape. It is the purpose of this present report to shed a clear light upon some of the principal actors on this stage of universal history with the hope that the reader’s powers of insight may be strengthened such that those necessary powers of judgment required to lead both Canada and the world out of our current plunge into a new dark age may yet occur.

The Round Table Movement: New Racist Breed, Same Racist Species

The Round Table movement served as the intellectual center of the international operations to regain control of the British Empire and took on several incarnations over the 20th century. It worked in tandem with the Coefficients Club, the Fabian Society, and the Rhodes Trust, all of whom witnessed members moving in and out of each other’s ranks. The historian Carrol Quigley, of Georgetown University wrote of this cabal in his posthumously published Anglo-American Establishment” (6):

“This organization has been able to conceal its existence quite successfully, and many of its most influential members, satisfied to possess the reality rather than the appearance of power, are unknown even to close students of British history. This is the more surprising when we learn that one of the chief methods by which this Group works has been through propaganda.

It plotted the Jameson Raid of 1895; it caused the Boer War of 1899-1902; it set up and controls the Rhodes Trust; it created the Union of South Africa in 1906-1910; it established the South African periodical The State in 1908; it founded the British Empire periodical The Round Table in 1910, and this remains the mouthpiece of the Group; it has been the most powerful single influence in All Souls, Balliol, and New Colleges at Oxford for more than a generation; it has controlled The Times for more than fifty years, with the exception of the three years 1919-1922, it publicized the idea of and the name “British Commonwealth of Nations” in the period 1908-1918, it was the chief influence in Lloyd George’s war administration in 1917-1919 and dominated the British delegation to the Peace Conference of 1919; it had a great deal to do with the formation and management of the League of Nations and of the system of mandates; it founded the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1919 and still controls it; it was one of the chief influences on British policy toward Ireland, Palestine, and India in the period 1917-1945; it was a very important influence on the policy of appeasement of Germany during the years 1920-1940; and it controlled and still controls, to a very considerable extent, the sources and the writing of the history of British Imperial and foreign policy since the Boer War.”  (7)

To understand the pedigree of the Round Table movement as it was “officially” unveiled in 1910 as the ideological shaper of the policies and paradigm of the new “managerial class” of international imperialists dedicated to the salvation of the British Empire under an “Imperial Federation”, it would be necessary to go back a few decades prior, to 1873-74. It was in this year that a young Canadian named George Parkin lectured at Oxford on the subject imperial union as the sacred duty of all Anglo Saxons to advance. Parkin is popularly heralded by Oxford historians as “the man who shifted the mind of England”.

1873-1902 Empire on the Verge of Collapse: Re-organize or Perish

During this same period, a grouping of Imperial intellectuals known as the “X Club” (f. 1865) centering on Thomas Huxley, Matthew Arnold, Herbert Spencer, and Joseph Hooker were assigned the responsibility to overhaul the British Empire’s controlling ideological structures that had proven themselves worn out. Each would specialize in various branches of the sciences and would all promote gradualist interpretations of change to counteract explanations which required creative leaps. This program was applied with the intention of 1) saving the collapsing empire and 2) establishing the foundation of a new scientific religion based upon Charles Darwin’s highly materialistic model of Natural Selection as the explanation for the evolution and differentiation of new species.

Huxleys X-clubAs X Club co-founder Herbert Spencer went on to elaborate the system of “social Darwinism” as the logical outgrowth of Darwin’s system into human affairs, the intention behind the propagation of the Darwinian program was never “the enlightenment liberalism in battle against the ignorant dogmas of religion”, as it is so often recounted by popular historians of science. Rather, the “revolution in science” initiated by the X Club was merely the re-packaging of an idea as old as Babylon: The control of the masses by a system of oligarchical rule, simply under a new type of “scientific dictatorship”. But how, when the demonstration of creative reason’s power to elevate humanity’s conditions of life by encouraging new discoveries and applied technologies, as promoted by the American System of Political Economy, would the world now accept the conditions of mental and political enslavement demanded by the imperialist in a fixed system struggle for diminishing returns?

This was the challenge upon which young Oxford men would set their creative energies using the “scientific” reasoning established by Thomas Huxley’s X Club and for the service of the ruling oligarchical families of Europe. George Parkin like all young Oxford men at this time was highly influenced by this network’s ideas and used them to justify the “natural scientific inevitability” of the hegemony of the strong over the weak. In this case, the Anglo Saxon master race dominating the inferior peoples of the earth. This message could be seen in his 1892 work Imperial Federation: “Nations take long to grow, but there are periods when, as in the long-delayed flowering of certain plants, or in the crystallization of chemical solutions, new forms are taken with extreme rapidity. There are the strongest reasons for believing that the British nation has such a period immediately before it. The necessity for the creation of a body of sound public opinion upon the relations to each other of the various parts of the Empire is therefore urgent.” (8)

In elaborating upon the danger of the British System’s collapse in light of nationalist movements following the American System model, Parkin went on to ask: “Has our capacity for political organization reached its utmost limit? For the British people, this is the question of questions. In the whole range of possible political variations in the future, there is no issue of such far-reaching significance, not merely for our own people but for the world at large, as the question whether the British Empire shall remain a political unit… or yielding to disintegrating forces shall allow the stream of the national life to be parted into many separate channels.” (9)

One of Parkin’s Oxford contemporaries was Alfred Milner, a character who plays a vicious role in our drama as the catalyzer behind the formation of the Round Table Movement. Milner credited Parkin with giving his life direction from that point on (10). It was during 1876 that another contemporary of Milner and Parkin, named Cecil Rhodes left Oxford in order to make a fortune on a cotton plantation in South Africa. All three characters were also highly influenced by John Ruskin, the leader of the “artistic” branch of British Intelligence led by the “Pre-Raphaelite Society”.

The proceeds of Rhodes’ cotton fortune were multiplied many times by ventures into the diamond industry of South Africa, allowing him to rise to gargantuan heights of political power and wealth, peaking with his appointment as Prime Minister of Cape Town and Founder of Rhodesia. The current London-centered mineral cartels Rio Tinto, De Beers, and Lonrho now pillaging Africa, as well as the legacy of Apartheid which has stained so much of South Africa’s history are among two aspects of the scarring legacy Rhodes has passed down to present times.

Deep State Round Table Eugenics Group

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by John Staddon

It is now a rather old story: secular humanism is a religion. A court case in 1995 examined the issue and concluded, rightly, that science, in the form of the theory of evolution, is not a religion. In 2006, the BBC aired a program called The Trouble with Atheism which argued that atheists are religious and made the point via a series of interviews with prominent atheists who claimed their beliefs were “proved” by science. The presenter, Rod Liddle, concluded that Darwinism is a religion. That is wrong, as 18th century philosopher David Hume showed many years ago. Science consists of facts, but facts alone do not motivate. Without motive, a fact points to no action. Liddle was half-right: both religion and secular humanism provide _motives, explicit in one case, but covert in the other.

What is religion? All religions have three elements, although the relative emphasis differs from one religion to another—Buddhists are light on the supernatural, for example.

The first is the belief in invisible or hidden beings, worlds and processes—like God, heaven, miracles, reincarnation, and the soul. All these are unverifiable, or unseen and unseeable, except by mystics under special and generally unrepeatable conditions. Since absence of evidence is not, logically, evidence of absence, these features of religion are neither true nor false, but simply unprovable. They have no implications for action, hence no bearing on legal matters.

The second element are claims about the real world: every religion, especially in its primordial version, makes claims that are essentially scientific—assertions of fact that are potentially verifiable. These claims are of two kinds. The first we might call timeless: e.g., claims about physical properties—the four elementary humors, for example, the Hindu turtle that supports the world, properties of foods, the doctrine of literal transubstantiation. The second are claims about history: Noah’s flood, the age of the earth, the resurrection—all “myths of origin.” Some of these claims are unverifiable; as for the rest, there is now a consensus that science usually wins—in law and elsewhere. In any case, few of these claims have any bearing on action.

The third property of a religion are its rules for action—prohibitions and requirements—its morality. All religions have a code, a set of moral and behavioral prescriptions, matters of belief —usually, but not necessarily—said to flow from God, that provide guides to action in a wide range of situations. The 10 Commandments, the principles of Sharia, the Five Precepts of Buddhism, etc.

Secular humanism lacks any reference to the supernatural and defers matters of fact to science. But it is as rich in moral rules, in dogma, as any religion. Its rules come not from God but from texts like Mill’s On Liberty, and the works of philosophers like Peter Singer, Dan Dennett and Bertrand Russell, psychologists B. F. Skinner and Sigmund Freud, public intellectuals like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, and “humanist chaplains” everywhere.

In terms of moral rules, secular humanism is indistinguishable from a religion.

It has escaped the kind of attacks directed at Christianity and other up-front religions for two reasons: its name implies that it is not religious, and its principles cannot be tracked down to a canonical text. They exist but are not formally defined by any “holy book.”

But it is only the morality of a religion, not its supernatural or historical beliefs, that has any implications for action, for politics and law. Secular humanism makes moral claims as strong as any other faith. It is therefore as much a religion as any other. But because it is not seen as religious, the beliefs of secular humanists increasingly influence U.S. law.

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By Alfred Kentigern Siewers

Two weeks ago, an elderly abbot of a Russian Orthodox Monastery in the U.S. Pacific Northwest was punched in the head while pumping gas.

The assailant, unknown to him, reportedly zeroed in on the cross he was wearing and then said, “How’s Trump?”

“I don’t know,” replied the gentle but traditional monk, not known for being political.

Then came the debilitating sucker punch.

With political extremism on the rise in the U.S., and leftist-anarchist groups denouncing the First Amendment as a legacy of white supremacy, expect anti-religious violence to continue to be normalized as public discourse keeps dehumanizing traditional Christians.

Normalization of leftist violence is seen in how CBS touts online a TV show that, as TAC senior editor Rod Dreher notes, “affirms and justifies the violent physical assault of a living American who was peacefully stating his opinion… to promote its own programming by rallying potential viewers to the episode.”

Dreher also cites how Villanova University Professor Billie Murray’s work theorizes a political tolerance for violence on the Left by “’challenging the violence/nonviolence binary’ and arguing that we ‘should imagine activism as combative’—this, as a counterpoint to ‘traditional nonviolent activism.’”

Middlebury College recently cancelled a speech by former Polish Solidarity activist and philosopher Ryszard Legutko because they reportedly could not guarantee his safety. Ironically, Legutko studies how liberal democracies are becoming “soft totalitarian” regimes. He too, has espoused conservative Catholic views of marriage and sex. This in part has led, we can only guess, to the Facebook rants against him ahead of his planned appearance, and a statement by protesting students who called him a homophobe, misogynist,  racist, sexist, “and practically everything an ideological sinner can be today,” according to Legutko’s own detailing of the events.

Meanwhile, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen suggested that Vice President Mike Pence should resign because his wife is teaching at a conservative Christian school that opposes secular sexual anthropology, and this puts him beyond the pale of acceptable social morals. In recent years, Christian restaurant chains, bakers, and high-tech executives have fallen prey to campaigns to chase them from the economy, a kind of professional execution in a capitalist society.

On a small scale, as a Russian Orthodox Christian like the aforementioned Abbot, I’ve experienced a kind of attempted social erasure in our small college town. For example, I was headed into a small restaurant when a progressive colleague inside called out that the establishment should be cleared because I was coming to “kill all gays and heretics.” That was a reference to my religious identity and not a reflection of my personal respect for LGBTQIA-identifying colleagues.

The larger social and professional ostracism that my family and I have experienced in a small university community was amplified by anti-Russian sentiments in the anti-Trump “resistance,” related to hatred of resurgent traditional Christianity in Russia. Ironically, this occurs in a region that once saw activity by the Ku Klux Klan, which targeted Orthodox Christians among other minorities.

Such dehumanization has deep roots. In the classical revolutionary philosophy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, religion is an ideology by which “the ruling class has sought to maintain and legitimate the status quo and so sought to keep other classes in subjection to itself,” notes the intellectual historian James Thrower. But Leninism, he notes, made “the active struggle against religious ideology” crucial to “a successful struggle against political and economic oppression.”

Since World War II, “cultural Marxism” in the West sought to reverse-engineer Marxist revolution through cultural change, following the lead of the Italian theoretician Antonio Gramsci, who argued in his influential prison notebooks that “proletarian hegemony” needed to imitate religion by repeating cultural messages incessantly and establishing its own intellectual elite in influential institutions. This “war of position” to establish conditions for revolution is better known from post-1960s intellectuals as the “long march through the institutions,” analogous to Mao’s guerilla-style “long march.”

Such ideological efforts have spawned not only attempted social ostracism but a culture ripe for anti-Christian violence by the mentally unhinged. At Umpquaa Community College in Oregon in 2015, 10 people were killed in a tragedy where the shooter reportedly asked people if they were Christian and shot them if they were.

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by Madeline Twooney

I have been a Christian for almost 10 years; however, my friends don’t know Jesus. This hasn’t affected our friendship negatively, though it is on my heart that my friends know the joy of being in a loving relationship with our Savior.

The Great Commission instructs us to spread the gospel and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:16-20). Thus, in the past, l have given testimonies to my friends of God’s goodness or even just straight up talked to them about the Bible. However, this has only deterred them from wanting to know God. So, instead, l started to pray for my friends.

Do you too, have friends who don’t want to know God?

Here are 9 issues of faith your friends might struggle with and prayers you can pray over them:

1. “Does God even exist?”

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” (Psalm 19:1)

One afternoon, one of my oldest friends asked me this question completely out of the blue.

Convincing a friend of God’s existence is not an easy task considering that science, society, and even their own intellect try to convince them otherwise.

Prayer

Sovereign Lord,

We thank You that at the beginning You spoke into the darkness and created heaven and earth.  If all creation responds to Your voice, if the winds move and the mountains shake at Your command, how can we doubt that You are the Creator, the ruler of all?

Thank you for the life of my friend. Please open his eyes, Lord, that he may see Your presence, just like You opened the eyes of Elisha’s servant and he saw the hills covered by horses and chariots of heavenly fire.

Help my friend to see what l see when l look upon Your face, precious Lord, for You are worthy to be honored.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

2. “I don’t want to be accountable to God.”

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

I have a good friend who claims to be an atheist. In reality, she acknowledges that God exists—she just doesn’t like Him.

My friend believes that God wants to judge her lifestyle and take away the freedoms she enjoys, so she shuts down at any mention of Him.

Prayer

Precious Father,

l commit my friend into Your hands. I stand in the gap for her and ask for forgiveness on her behalf as she denies You and all that You have done for her in her life.

Lord, please help my friend to see that true freedom comes from the bond price that Your precious son Jesus Christ paid for our sins. Help her to see this truth, for the truth will set her free.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

3. “When l see proof that God exists, then l’ll believe in Him.”

“For we live by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7)

A former colleague of mine has traveled to many countries. He believes in the beauty of experiencing new cultures and learning new traditions because he has seen the existence and value of these things on his travels.

However, he will only believe in God once he has seen proof that He exists.

Prayer

Almighty God,

Thank you that You are faithful and that we see Your faithfulness when we step out, believing in You, Your mercy, and wonders.

Lord, l bring my friend before you. Please give him the sight to see Your goodness in the land of the living—not with physical eyes, but with eyes of faith.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

4. “I was a Christian, but l’m not anymore.”

”So, he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)

When l first came to Christ 10 years ago, a colleague of mine guided me in my initial days as a Christian. However, a few years later, my friend stopped going to church. Additionally, any attempts l made to talk with her about God were met with disinterest. To this day, I still don’t know why.

Prayer

Merciful Lord and Savior,

We thank You that You never loosen Your hold on us, no matter what we are going through, for You are always faithful, even when we are not.

As You know Lord, my friend has decided that she doesn’t want to walk with You anymore. I pray that this change of heart is temporary and that like the prodigal son, she will make her way back home to You, where You will welcome her back with open arms.

We thank You that with You we will always find grace. And, that we will always belong to You, and You to us.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

5. “A Christian hurt me and now l don’t trust God.”

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)

A few years ago, my friend received the information that a colleague of his, who is a Christian, had said negative things about his struggle with alcohol.

Understandably, my friend was very hurt by this news. He associated his colleague’s judgment with God’s view of him and it affected his ability to trust God.

Prayer

God of compassion,

Thank you that where we are imperfect, You are perfect. Forgive us when we don’t behave in the shadow of Your image; help us to forgive each other in such situations, as Christ forgave us.

Lord, thank you that You see my friend’s hurt and that You wipe away his tears. Help him to forgive those who have hurt him and learn to trust in You.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

6. ”God doesn’t help me with my problems; why should l follow Him?”

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by J. Warner Wallace

Devastating storms, killer earthquakes, record-setting fires and horrific acts of evil dominate recent news headlines. Why would an all-loving, all-powerful God allow these things to happen? Is God just unable to stop this kind of evil? If so, why call Him all-powerful? Is God unwilling to stop this kind of evil? Then why call Him all-loving? Some non-believers offer the existence of evil as proof that God doesn’t exist. What should we tell our kids when they observe (or even experience) evil?

Our conversations will certainly look (and sound) differently depending on the age and maturity of our kids, but in all the years that I have been discussing the “problem of evil” with students (either at conferences or as a youth pastor), several key issues continue to dominate my discussions. When explaining why an all-loving, all-powerful God would allow natural disasters (or human evil), consider incorporating the following truths:

Remind Your Kids That Eternity Can Helps Us Cope with Evil
All of us hope to live a long life without free from pain or hardship. What if we knew, in advance, we were going to live forever and experience a pain-free existence for all eternity? Would we view pain and suffering in our temporal life differently (even if it lasted for many years) if we knew we would eventually experience bliss forever? Remind your kids that God offers us life beyond the limits of our short, material existence; we are eternal creatures. All experiences of evil must be considered in light of eternity.

Remind Your Kids That God Loves Us Enough to Allow Us Free-Agency
A loving God would create a world in which love is possible, right? Love requires each of us to act freely, because true love cannot be coerced. God didn’t create us as robots; instead, He gave us free will so our expressions of love would be genuine. But, this also means we have the freedom to ignore God’s commandments and behave badly. Remind your kids that much of the evil we experience in the world is the result of humans who freely choose to disobey. God may allow some evil because free agency is required for love to exist in our world.

Remind Your Kids That Some Suffering Can Actually Develop Our Character
As a parent, you’re probably more concerned with your kids’ character than their comfort, and character is far more likely to be developed through adversity than advantage. Hard times can bring out the best in all of us, providing us with opportunities to help those in need, rise to the occasion, and come to the rescue. Remind your kids that God may allow us to suffer discomfort because He knows it will develop our character, especially since we are eternal creatures. God cares more about our eternal character than current comfort.

Remind Your Kids That God Can Use Some Evil to Call Us to Himself
Many of us ignore God until something happens to get our attention. Tragedy has a way of redirecting our thoughts and pointing us to a life beyond our current struggle. If God has designed us to be with Him in eternity, He might use hardship to refocus those of us who haven’t been paying attention. Remind your kids that some forms of evil may simply be part of God’s loving effort to point us in the right direction.

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by Jesse Carey

“Christian” movies don’t exactly have the greatest reputation among film watchers. Christian cinema’s apocalyptic thrillers, morally concerned family films and social-issue stumping dramas have often been criticized for being a little too preachy for non-church goers, lacking the subtlety of their Hollywood counterparts.

Of course, there’s nothing that makes a movie (or any other piece of pop culture) “Christian,” but films with overtly Christian messages have in some ways, become a sub-genre of their own.

Here’s our look at eight movies with Christian messages that will restore your faith in redemptive films.

Believe Me

Believe Me follows the exploits of a group of college guys who attempt to pay off their student loans by crafting a fake, charity:water-type nonprofit and keeping the donations for themselves. Along the way, they discover they’ve got a gift for crafting the sort of highly emotional, faux-substantive Christian “worship” experiences that grease the pockets of the faithful, but they also start to come to terms with their own hypocrisy. Watching the dudes learn to perfect their Christianese is a stinging riot, but Believe Me has a lot more on its mind than just laughs.

Amazing Grace

The 2006 film about William Wilberforce’s campaign to abolish the slave trade in Britain works on several levels: It’s a gripping historical drama; it’s a compelling story about social activism and it’s a moving testimony to the power of faith and reliance on a higher calling.

Blue Like Jazz

The film adaptation of Donald Miller’s best-selling memoir may not have captured the same breakaway success as the book, but the movie remains a pretty charming indie. Unlike many traditional “Christian” movies (or films that are targeted to Christian audiences), Blue Like Jazz isn’t afraid to embrace the complexity of faith, coming of age and thinking about God. Like the book, the movie enjoys asking questions and exploring doubts, but ultimately, finding truth.

Into Great Silence

In 1984, filmmaker Philip Gröning asked Carthusian monks in a remote French monastery if he could make a documentary about their lives. Sixteen years later, the monks agreed. The resulting documentary is a wordless, but gripping, look at the lives of the reclusive monks who have devoted themselves to God and the Bible. What’s captured on camera is like a time-capsule from a group of men dedicated to prayer, and it soon becomes clear why their order’s motto is “The Cross is steady while the world is turning.”

The Mission

Based on actual events, the 1986 drama starring Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons is an emotional story of redemption, forgiveness, persecution and devotion. Set at a Jesuit mission in the South American jungles during the 1700s, the movie is about fighting injustice and how grace can be used to overcome the most powerful forces of might. It’s a hard-hitting movie featuring one of the most iconic scores in history. Don’t miss it.

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