Category Archives: Christianity

Bill Lockwood: New Ways of Hearing the Holy Spirit? 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

Fox News ran an article recently by Christen Limbaugh Bloom about being “open to hearing from the Holy Spirit in new ways” (10-4-21). She speaks of “joining a church” that “prioritized being led by the Holy Spirit.” That new church had a woman “pastor” who declared that the Holy Spirit gave her a “vision” as a “message of encouragement to me.”

Bloom marveled that the “pastor” had not only received an “amazing spiritual gift” but had the “discernment to know it was actually an image from God and not just her own imagination.” Eager to learn more, Bloom asked the “pastor” days later how she too, could receive “this type of revelation from the Holy Spirit.”

The answer given was that her “desire to fully understand this type of experience was coming from a good place,” and that these “desires were born of the Holy Spirit.” The “pastor” related that her first instinct also had been to “question the images.” She did not know if they were from God or not. Maybe the “images” and “dreams” were her own creativity? She did not know until an older “pastor” assured her that she was on the right track.

At the end of the day, Bloom writes, faith must play a role in our ability to receive revelation from the Holy Spirit. In other words, there is no certainty here, but one has to believe these visions come from God. This is what “being open to hearing the Holy Spirit” means.

What shall we say to these things?

First, if this is the New Testament method of “receiving the Holy Spirit”, Christianity would never have seen the light of the second century. Everything above speaks purely of subjectivism. No knowledge that God is involved at all. The only thing we are left with is: “God gives good things”; these visions are good things; therefore they must be from God. Upon these grounds every religion, no matter how far-fetched, is valid.

The New Testament teaches us that even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14). By what criterion does Bloom and her leaders know that Satan is not the one giving the “visions?”

Second, to underscore the subjective nature of what Bloom describes, note that these individuals had to ask others if this is from the Holy Spirit. In the New Testament, the Spirit endorsed His message by “signs, wonder, and manifold powers, and gifts of the Holy Spirit” (Mark 16:17-20; Heb. 2:4). When Philip preached to the Samaritans, they believed because they saw the signs (miracles) that he did (Acts 8:6). What miraculous signs do these give that the Holy Spirit is actually involved? As good-hearted as Bloom and her mentors may be, they have nothing but their own unguided feelings to give them assurance.

Third, if the Holy Spirit is actually inspiring persons like this today, why the need to ask someone else about it? Is this the nature of inspiration that was given to the apostles? Is this how the New Testament was written? Did Paul need ask Peter if his own epistle was God-given or his “own imagination?” If so, how would Peter have answered? “I’m not sure Paul, but if you write good things they must be of the Holy Spirit.” Does this sound like an apostolic conversation?

If this is how one is to establish the truthfulness of Christianity, we are totally lost and Jesus Christ is ridiculed in the streets. But this is where “pop-Christianity” is today. Blind leading the blind. Little wonder we have need of real Bible teaching on the Holy Spirit.

Bill Lockwood: How to Change Society-A Look at Philemon 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

Philemon was a Christian brother who lived in Colossae, Asia Minor (Turkey). The apostle Paul was imprisoned in Rome where,  by God’s providence (Phile. 1.1) he met a runaway slave named Onesimus. It so happened that Onesimus was a slave to Philemon, with whom Paul had been closely associated in Christian fellowship. What then occurs is instructive to all.

Paul sent Onesimus back to his owner Philemon with the inspired cover letter in the New Testament by the same name. After introductory matters, the apostle begins in (v. 8) with Accordingly, though I have all boldness in Christ to enjoin [command] you to do that which is proper … Paul is asserting he can be more assertive that he is presently.

An Alternative

But instead, he writes (v. 9), because of love’s sake, I would rather encourage you as Paul the elder. What is the essence of Paul’s encouragement? I beg you for my child, whom I have begotten in my bonds, Onesimus (v. 10). The prisoner of the Lord recognizes that Onesimus was “once unprofitable to you [Philemon] (v. 11), but now, because of his conversion to Christ, he is profitable to you and to me.

Now comes the key point. Paul says, I have sent him back to you … (v. 12), but at the same time I would like to have kept him with me that in your behalf he might minister to me in the bonds of the gospel; but without your approval I would do nothing.

The word “approval” in my translation above is from the Greek word (gnome) which is “purpose, intention, mind, mind-set, opinion, opinion, judgment, approval.” In other words, Paul needed Philemon’s agreement to have kept Onesimus on in Rome as his assistant. Note that the apostle considered the slavery of Onesimus still binding.

Slavery

Slavery is an institution at variance with the gospel of Jesus Christ. As one writer puts it, the principles of Christ “cuts up slavery by the roots.” “The principles of the gospel worked into the conscience of a nation destroy slavery.” However, the institution of slavery has imbedded itself in nearly every society and culture in the world. Instead of overturning society by upheavals or riotous behavior, the gospel of Christ works like leaven upon not only the hearts of men, but upon societies and cultures (Matt. 13:33).

Changing a person begins with the heart and works outward in behavior (Matt. 12:33). Changing society is much the same. It is gained one heart at a time, not by taking a wrecking ball to a culture to overturn what is despised.

In 1 Corinthians 7:20 Paul gives us further insight into the question of slavery. Let each man abide in that calling wherein he was called. That is, whatever life situation you may find yourself in, so remain in Christ. One does not come to Jesus Christ to be removed from a physical situation. Were you called being a slave? Care not for it; even if you can be free, use it rather! (ASV). Colloquially the text reads: Even if you were called into Christ being a slave—don’t worry about it. Use your slavery – that is, for Christ. The word “use” has often the sense of “undergo” or “endure.” That is, “use your slavery” for Christ.

The central point here is that there are greater questions of import to men’s souls than whether they are slaves or not, or descendants of slaves or not. The chief question is a spiritual relationship with God. Would that America would learn this simple truth from Paul’s letter to Philemon.

Bill Lockwood: “I Am Sick of This God Stuff” 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

In response to an article posted several years ago, one wrote me with this sour note: I am sick of this god stuff! The original piece is entitled “Where does the Constitution mention God?”  The letter-writer included several alleged quotes from Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and Washington that supposedly put the kibosh on the idea that the founding fathers had any recourse to God or biblical principles when crafting our nation.  But, as is common with atheists or those “sickened with god stuff,” their energy would be better served to learn the real principles of our Constitution as well as the Bible.

Modernists love to chide that the founders could not have been genuine Christians in light of some of their own statements which seem to decry Christianity itself, or in their toleration and practice of slavery. But the entire issue does not turn on whether or not any or all of them were actually faithful Christians. Rather, did the framers of our nation rely upon Christian concepts in forging our nation? Personal weaknesses or mistakes of the founders only show that all men have sinned.

Another salient but frequently avoided fact is that the founding generation of Americans warned continually of the errors of the Roman Catholic Church, from which their own fathers had fled to find freedom on the shores of the New World.

Thus, many statements which Thomas Jefferson or other founders made–for example, decrying religious bondage– had more often to do with Catholicism  than New Testament Christianity.  That they were not precise in their delineations is not to be taken to say that they feared pure Christianity.

For example, read what Thomas Jefferson wrote to Benjamin Rush in April of 1803. Jefferson refers to himself as “a Christian” in distinction to the “corruptions of Christianity.” “To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other.”

Jefferson many times referred to religious doctrines that did not originate in the Bible, but in the chair of Rome.

Jefferson’s Bible

It is also interesting that the booklet which Jefferson put together of Jesus’ teachings he himself advertised as proof that he was a “real Christian” and that those who referred to him as an “infidel” were wholly in error and motivated by doctrines which Jesus Christ Himself did not inspire. The following is from Jefferson’s letter to Charles Thomson:

“I too have made a wee little book, from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus. It is a paradigm of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen. It is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel, and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what it’s Author never said nor saw. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man, of which the great reformer of the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to return on earth, would not recognize one feature.”

To modern unbelievers who find offense in Christianity, we quote the words of Christ, “go learn what this means.” That is, instead of scouring the writings of the founders to discover a godless phrase or two, let them teach you the significance of Christianity and its beneficent influence on our nation.

Christian Nation

America was founded as a Christian Nation. This is not “Christian Nationalism” as the modern attack mischaracterizes. It refers to the fact that the principles of Christianity are those which undergirded our nation. John Adams wrote, “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were … the general principles of Christianity … I will avow that I then believed, and now believe that these general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

Patrick Henry was even more forthright. “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, people of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom to worship here.”

Benjamin Morris, a second-generation American, having thoroughly surveyed the founding generation for these same ideals, summarized it this way. “Christianity is the principle and all-pervading element, the deepest and most solid foundation, of all our civil institutions. It is the religion of the people—the national religion; but we have neither an established church nor an established religion.” Some of the founders even referred to America as a “Christian Republic” because they considered our form of government to be an outgrowth of Christianity and freedom.

It would be well for modern professorships and their blind followers to actually study what the founders had in mind on this topic rather than being so jaundiced against Christianity and the Bible. Perhaps that would keep them from “being sick.”

Bill Lockwood: The Rabidly Anti-Christian Biden Administration 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

Christians and conservative Americans have lost their government. The sooner constitutionally-minded citizens awaken to this fact, the better. Individual freedom is a thing of the past, and no amount of “suing the government” is going to recapture it. Through the Biden Administration the liberal, Neo-Marxist, post-modern humanists, atheists and God-haters make up a Deep State.

If one doubts that assessment, consider the current lawsuit against the Administration by the College of the Ozarks.

According to The Federalist, the “College of the Ozarks in Hollister, Missouri, is suing the Biden administration over a directive from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development forcing religious institutions to permit students of the opposite sex in the same bathrooms, dorm rooms and dormitories.”

Here is the White House’s “justification.” It announced in February that “it will administer and enforce the Fair Housing Act to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Religious liberty legal group Alliance Defending Freedom filed a suit on behalf of the Missouri college, asserting Biden’s decision “requires private religious colleges to place biological males into female dormitories and assign them as females’ roommates.”

In other words, the Biden Administration is in the business of forcing private institutions to open girls’ dormitories to males based upon their “perceived” sexual identity. What high-handed arrogant atrocities by rulers! Biblical teaching regarding sexuality, marriage, chastity, and social order is under direct attack. As Dr. Jerry Davis, president of the school, announced, “To threaten religious freedom is to threaten America itself.”

Davis went on to make clear that “College of the Ozarks will not allow politicians to erode the essential American right or the ideals that shaped America’s founding.”

Recent History

In the above, I stated that “suing the government” is not going to fix this hedonistic communism that has taken over America. For proof, examine a source of this moral sepsis. In part, they go back to the outrageous “ruling” by the Supreme Court last summer in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia.

In that case, six justices “turned themselves into legislators, rewriting the intent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to fit the current narrative, ruling that there is to be no ‘discrimination’ against the LGBTQ community, regardless of rights guaranteed in the Constitution protecting religious freedom.” This ruling was a 6-3 decision, in which supposed-conservative Neil Gorsuch, writing the majority opinion, stated that Title VII protections extended to sexual orientation and gender identity. “Sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes will prove unsustainable after our decision today,” he opined.

No, what is “unsustainable” is a Supreme Court, and Socialistic/Marxist government that intrudes upon all freedom—religious and otherwise. The federal government, and particularly the judicial branch in this case, has radically overstepped its constitutional boundaries. What solace therefore, should Christians take in “suing at court” the Biden Administration? And, even if there is a win in the College of the Ozarks’ case—what security has Christian America that these God-hating totalitarian trends will not continue?

The Constitution

Besides the obvious fact that the bounds of propriety, common-sense, decency, and morality have been trampled by Gorsuch and the Court, what about the Constitution? Ours is a Republic—the rule of law. This eliminated from the beginning the “rule by mob”, riotous mutineers, or even black-robed propagandists who goose step to political correctness. Adherence to law has been the hallmark of American society.

To change the law, specific provisions were instituted by our founders. These begin and end with the lawmaking branch of government—the Legislative. There is absolutely no lawmaking power granted by the Constitution to the judicial branch. Instead, they are sworn to uphold the Constitution as written.

However, in the Bostock case, the Supreme Court legislatively declared that that 1964 Civil Rights Act, which forbade discrimination on the basis of sex, must now include the non-scientific categories of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” Gorsuch and crew enlarged the meaning  of the 1964 law so that “sex” now includes “manipulations in the biological makeup of human beings or conduct that is clearly forbidden by the Almighty.” These six justices brazenly and boldly cast science and God behind their backs and inserted their modernistic version of what they believe we should be doing in America.

In sum, we have no rule of law. It is the whim of the Judicial Branch, among other areas of deterioration. So, again, I ask, what will be accomplished by suing in the courts the Federal Government? Justices are making it up as they go along. Christians, beware!

Bill Lockwood: What is Cancel Culture? 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

Western culture is built upon Christian presuppositions. The word cult, in its original connotation, meant religion. Religious ideals at the foundation of society make up what we call “a culture.” This is why almost every definition of the word “culture” includes such items as values, beliefs, and customary views of a society.

These “customary beliefs” of America, which many have taken for granted, are summed up in the Declaration of Independence; specifically, that our individual rights are gifts from God and that the prime role of government is simply to protect those rights. Biblical values all. Our culture not only sprang from these concepts, but is the only culture in the history of the world to provide this framework for a nation.

This is all anathema to Marxists who play a heavy hand in America today. Karl Marx, one of the founders of what we know of as Marxism/communism, whose efforts to explain the world solely in terms of materialistic philosophy is well-known, actually began at the starting point of atheism. His Manifesto called for “the abolition of religion.” His Marxists followers, whose number are legion, Goosestep with the same hatred for all things religious—particularly Christian.

Antonio Gramsci was an Italian communist, born in 1891. After founding Italy’s Communist Party, he moved to Russia where he expected to find that Marxism was a success. On closer inspection, however, he concluded that Stalin’s terror was unnecessary. But he did not relinquish the atheistic worldview which was at the center of Marxism. Instead, after moving back to Italy and then being imprisoned by Mussolini, he gathered his thoughts on how a nation could be made into a “Marxist paradise.” These thoughts are in nine volumes, known as Prison Notebooks.

His notes included the following.

Any country grounded in Judeo-Christian values can’t be overthrown until those roots are cut … Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity … in the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.

In these revolutionary ideas is the “cancel culture” being carried out in America today. First, there is the “overwhelming” of Christianity, the basis of western culture. Cut the Christian roots of society. Second, replacing Christianity is the “new order,” the “religion of socialism.” As with Karl Marx, criticizing, even condemning and blaspheming Christianity, would be the very foundation of the new world order. This is socialism—a new religion.

In the “German Ideology” (1845), Marx and Friedrich Engels opined that “for the widespread generation of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause, it is necessary that man himself should suffer a massive change.”

Georg Jung, a Marx contemporary and member of the Doctors’ Club along with Marx himself, reflected that Marx was not a political revolutionary, but a theological-philosophical revolutionary who was attempting to overthrow the entire social system, not just an economic system.  This is the “massive change” required for cancel culture—the overthrow of Christianity.

Bill Lockwood: Christian Nationalism? 5 (3)

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by Bill Lockwood

A new bogeyman has supposedly made an entrance in the American scene: Christian Nationalism. Multitudes of Christians – specifically white people who support the Republican Party platform–are said to be in its clutches. The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF), a humanist organization that attacks all things Christian, co-founded by atheist Dan Barker and whose board boasts rabid anti-Christian heavy-weights such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, summarized what the concept means in a 2007 article by Michelle Goldberg.

She explains that it is a political ideology masquerading as a faith. Christian Nationalism basically holds that America was founded as a Christian nation, that the founders never intended to separate church and state, and that church/state separation is a lie and a fraud perpetrated by secularists in the last 100 years, which has to be undone so America can reclaim its ‘former glory.’

Christian Nationalism is the charge against those who believe America was founded as a “Christian Nation.” Goldberg worries that “this movement” seeks to “Christianize all the institutions of American life, from the schools to the judiciary to the federal government, the presidency, Congress, etc.” A similar screed by FFRF (10-14-19) blasted former Attorney General William Barr with “Christian Nationalism” for referring to the values upon which our nation was founded as “Judeo-Christian” ethics.

A 2017 booklet entitled Christian Nationalism in the United States, edited by Mark T. Edwards, a professor of US History and Politics at Spring Arbor University in Michigan, likens Christian Nationalism to the belief that America is a “Christian Nation,” even when the verbiage itself is absent. The accusation includes that even in the early 19th century, “lettered men and women were ‘reinventing’ the United States as a Christian nation. Outspoken Christian nationalists like Justice Joseph Story joined [Alexis de] Tocqueville in solidifying the Pilgrims and the Puritans as the foundation of religious and political liberty present in antebellum America.”

Kevin Kruse, professor of history at Princeton University, in his book, One Nation Under God (2015), makes the identical accusation against conservatives. George S. Benson, long-time president of Harding University, is heavily criticized for having advanced the cause of “religious nationalism.” The thesis of Kruse’s book is that America was “re-branded” as a “Christian Nation” in the 20th century. The chief culprits for such a plot were the religious professors, conservative politicians, and preachers, including Harding’s National Education Program, headed by Benson.

Fred Schwarz, the Baptist preacher from Australia who began the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, who worked in the same fields as did Benson’s NEP, is also called out by Kruse for pressing “religious nationalism.” As a matter of fact, the NEP’s model of a nation which is founded upon a “Fundamental Belief in God,” is singled out by Kruse for harsh criticism as being completely erroneous (p. 71).

The Christian Nationalism charge was picked up by Christianity Today in an article by Michael Horton (What Are Evangelicals Afraid of Losing? 8-31-2018). In it he lambasts preachers and professors who are on board with President Trump’s “America First” agenda as, “courting political power and happily” allowing “themselves to be used by it.” “This always happens when the church confuses the kingdom of Christ with the kingdoms of this present age. Jesus came not to jump-start the theocracy in Israel, much less to be the founding father of any other nation.” That which is “at stake” here, according to Horton, is “whether evangelical Christians place their faith more in Caesar and his kingdom than in Christ and his reign.”

Christian Nationalism in the churches of Christ?

From here the idea has been uncritically picked up and repeated in articles by members of the churches of Christ. In a blog entitled, For King, Not Country, Brian Casey (7-8-2020) informs us that “’Christian Nationalism’ is a contradiction in terms. ‘God and country’ is a misleading amalgamation.” “Things get very confused as Christian and national identities are blended indiscriminately and ignorantly. The mixture is so toxic to the Christian life…”

He introduces the article by criticizing with heavy-hand Harding’s George Benson for the mistake of confusing the church and the country. “…he promulgated the false marriage of the Kingdom of God (and the ideal of Harding) with the political machine of the United States. The National Education Program became the center of conservative political activism.” The madness in America today could have been avoided, says Casey, if Benson “not merged” nationalistic ideals” with “Christianity.”

Benson, the tireless missionary to China and president of Harding College, according to Casey even confused evangelism for Christ with “making America safe for democracy.” This is an “ill-blended mindset,” he intones.

Now comes The Christian Chronicle with articles written by Bobby Ross, Jr. (10-30-2020; 1-13-21) which carries the same ill-informed charges of Christian Nationalism against members of the churches of Christ who happen to be conservative Trump supporters. Interviewed in the articles are a number of ministers and church workers. The recent rash of attention on the topic is supposedly because some Trump supporters rioted and broke into the Capitol building on January 6. But that wrong-doing merely highlights a much more sinister sin, per these ministers.

Jeremie Beller, congregational minister of the Wilshire church of Christ in Oklahoma City and adjunct professor at OCU, repeats the Michael Horton charge (Christianity Today) that “Christian nationalism is the intertwining of the Kingdom of God with the kingdoms of men.”

Tanya Smith Brice is the dean of the College of Professional Studies at Bowie State University in Maryland. She gravely warned that Christian Nationalism is a “form of civil religion that places one’s earthly citizenship above one’s obligation as a follower of Christ.” Those who do this “falsely” give to a “nation-state a Messianic identity.” The “nation-state” is seen as the “primary mechanism for ‘saving’ human history.”

Tanya Smith Brice, who is black, now levels the racist charge. “White evangelicals are more likely to support the oppressive class and behaviors of our current federal administration than those who don’t identify as White evangelical.” She then remarks, “Christian nationalism has become inextricably linked with White Supremacy.”

Lee Camp, professor of theology as David Lipscomb University, goes so far as to say that this Christian Nationalism is “idolatry.”

Melvin Otey, former U.S. Justice Department trial lawyer for the Obama Administration and law professor at Faulkner University, says that “People believe that being an American or being a patriot or being a part of a political party is part of their faith. It absolutely is not. That’s what keeps people divided.” He admonishes with words of the apostle Paul, that we are “citizens of heaven.” Says Otey, “we have too many people in the church who aspire to be Christian Republicans, Christian Democrats …Their alliances and their allegiances are not first and foremost to Christ.”

Divided allegiances; white supremacy; confusing the church with Americanism; mistaking missionary activity for Christ for Americanism; idolatry invented in the 20th century—a heavier list of dark sins is hard to be found.

What Shall We Say to These Things?

First, America was founded as a Christian Nation. This is no “re-invention” by later generations, for the Founding generation spoke almost with one voice on this topic. It is noteworthy that celebrated authors such as Kevin Kruse of Princeton, in his One Nation Under God, hardly takes a glance at what the founding generation of Americans actually said. He assumes that in the mid-20th century the entire concept was invented, and he moves forward from there.

When our Founding Fathers referred to this nation, as “Christian Nation,” as did John Jay, one of authors of Federalist Papers, they did not intend that this be understood in the sense that an official church had been established, or that a “Theocracy” was in place, but rather that the principles upon which our republic rests were Christian in origin. Benjamin Morris, a second-generation American, in surveying the mass of material on this topic, summarized:

“Christianity is the principle and all-pervading element, the deepest and most solid foundation, of all our civil institutions.  It is the religion of the people—the national religion; but we have neither an established church nor an established religion.”

Some of founders even referred to America as a “Christian Republic.” That generation demonstrated this by the fact that they adorned public buildings with biblical symbols such as Moses crossing Red Sea; or Moses holding tablets of stone carved on the building of the Supreme Court; or that the state papers of the Continental Congress that are filled with Christianity.

One of the formative laws of the United States, listed in the U.S. Code, is the Declaration of Independence. It reads more like a theological statement that a political thesis. Our republic posited that rights come from God and that the single role of government is to protect what God gave us, inclusive of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Republic itself is an outgrowth of Christian principles.

Roger Sherman, from Connecticut, one of the most influential of the founders, having signed not only the Declaration of Independence, but the Articles of Confederation as well as the Constitution. He wrote to Samuel Baldwin in 1790 that “his faith in the new republic was largely because he felt it was founded on Christianity as he understood it.”

Joseph Story, a jurist who served on the Supreme Court during the founding era and wrote the first lengthy Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, commented as follows:

Probably at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the amendment to it now under consideration, the general, if not the universal sentiment was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.

The Supreme Court in numerous cases has referred to this as “A Christian Nation.” Most notable is the 1892 case entitled The Church of the Holy Trinity v. The United States. Here the Court packed its decision with a litany of precedents from American history to establish “this is a religious people, … this is a Christian Nation.”

The First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion …” simply forbade the establishment of an official National Denomination in the sense of a state church supported by federal taxes. Fisher Aimes, who offered the wording of the Amendment, makes clear from his original version that “religion” meant “a single Christian denomination.” This is also how Thomas Jefferson understood the Amendment in his comment upon it in which he used the phrase “separation of church and state.”

Even Justice Anthony Kennedy in 1989 expressed the same.

It was never intended by the Constitution that the government should be prohibited from recognizing religion …The Christian religion was always recognized in the administration of canon law, and so far that the law continues to be the law of the land, the fundamental principles of that religion must continue to be recognized … (County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573).

The charge therefore that our Founders desired “Christian Nationalism” because they spoke of a Christian Nation reveals a fundamental misunderstanding. The modern pretension misfires completely by suggesting that some of our brethren have been guilty of “re-inventing history” when they point to a Christian foundation of America.

Second, the blanket charge that great evangelists of modern times, such as George Benson, somehow confused the kingdom of God, or heavenly reward, with a Christian America is flagrant falsehood. I challenge any of these who make such an outlandish charge to produce one statement from Benson or James D. Bales, who also worked for the National Education Program, or any other prominent evangelist such as Baptist Fred Schwarz, who has made any statement that remotely resembles these accusations.

The truth is, our modern-day professorships completely misunderstand the concept of a Christian Nation. The reason our founders desired to have a nation established on a Christian principles was that it provided—for the first time in modern history—a zone of order established upon the fundamental concepts that God provided us our rights, including life, liberty, and property—that the government was merely an institution designed to protect those rights.

And instead of inventing charges of “Christian Nationalism” against fellow Christians, as if someone somewhere wishes to establish a theocracy where an official State Church would rule, I would like one of these ministers to take in hand to defend how a Christian can in any way subscribe to the Democratic Party platform, that enshrines as a principle the destruction of innocent human life through infanticide and abortion and champions the practice of sodomy in our land. It would be interesting to hear one of these professors defend supporting a political platform that sounds as if had been written by King Herod.

Professor Otey’s rebuke is that Christians are “citizens of heaven.” The logical conclusion to that argument in this context is that one should not be involved at all in anything that partakes of civil government. Yet, he is one who continually calls for “conversations” about “race” in the church. What does “race” have to do with being a citizen of heaven? (Gal. 3:28). Apparently there are things about which he thinks we should be concerned as citizens of the United States as well.

Politics is nothing more than the organizing of human society and its institutions upon certain principles. Why should not Christians desire biblical principles to help regulate conduct at various societal levels? The apostle Paul’s ultimate citizenship was in heaven, but that did not stop him from appealing to his Roman citizenship (Acts 22) and ultimately to Caesar (Acts 25) to prevent miscarriage of justice in civil society.

Earlier Paul had been beaten with rods—unjustly by Romans in the city of Philippi. When the magistrates of the community discovered his Roman citizenship they were fearful and invited him to leave quietly (Acts 16:22ff). The apostle would have none of it. He utilized his Roman citizenship to his own benefit. “They have beaten us in public without trial, men who are Romans, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they sending us away secretly? No indeed! But let them come themselves and bring us out.”

Did Paul do wrong to press his Roman citizenship and fair treatment in Roman society? Should we have remonstrated with him that his “citizenship is in heaven” and not to worry about such matters? Was Paul “blending his Christian and national identities,” in the words of Brian Casey? Was he “conflating” Roman citizenship with being a citizen of heaven?

There is nothing more erroneous about speaking of a Christian Nation than of a Christian Family. What is a Christian family? It is one where biblical principles are implemented. Does that mean it is a perfect family? Is this family absent of sins committed by mother, father, children? No. But the principles there taught we recognize as Christian and refer to it as a Christian family. No one objects by suggesting that the entire family has not been baptized into Christ, or that not every family member is a Christian. But we still recognize what is a Christian family. So also a Christian nation.

More importantly, shall we say that when someone uses the phrase “Christian family” that we have “conflated the concepts of heaven and the family?” Have we laid ourselves open to the charge that we have “confused the Lord’s church with the family?” The answer is obvious. Brother Benson and others who worked with the NEP merely recognized that just as a godly, Christian family is more conducive in which to rear children to love and respect God, so also the nation.

Cultural Marxism

Third, perhaps the most dangerous element revealed of the above critiques of Christian Nationalism is that they are born of Cultural Marxism. Classical Marxism, revealed in The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, is rooted in atheism. This atheistic creed demands that the sole factor that determines a person is his economic status. A person thinks and moves as he does because of the class into which he is born.

Society is divided between the bourgeois (land-owners, middle-class) and the proletariat (the workers, who do not have property to sell, but only their labor). Between these classes there is an inevitable class struggle. This is the dialectic. People are not considered as individuals, but as part of a class.

The Italian philosopher, Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), built on Marx’s materialistic base and developed the concept of “cultural hegemony” meaning that the dominant ideology of society reflects beliefs and interests of the ruling class. Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D. explains:

Cultural hegemony refers to domination or rule maintained through ideological or cultural means. It is usually achieved through social institutions, which allow those in power to strongly influence the values, norms, ideas, expectations, worldview, and behavior of the rest of society.

Cultural hegemony functions by framing the worldview of the ruling class, and the social and economic structures that embody it, as just, legitimate, and designed for the benefit of all, even though these structures may only benefit the ruling class. This kind of power is distinct from rule by force, as in a military dictatorship, because it allows the ruling class to exercise authority using the “peaceful” means of ideology and culture.

Gramsci would argue that “consent to the rule of the dominant group” in a nation is achieved by the “spread of ideologies—beliefs, assumptions, and values—through social institutions such as schools, churches, courts, …” The dominant values in America—designed solely to maintain power of this class—is white male heterosexual.

To Gramsci’s Marxism the founders were only “a group of white men” constructing a government to protect their own cultural dominance. So also today. Laws in America supposedly reflect whiteness; the proof of this is the fact that minorities comprise the majority of prison populations. The assumption is that white America—the dominant culture– is racist. Hence, Cancel Culture rages in our streets.

Tanya Brice Smith’s blanket charge of sin of White Supremacy among Trump supporters is nothing less than this cultural Marxism. An entire class of people—white males—are guilty. Period. No need for evidence or fact. It just is. White people may insist continually the opposite of these things, but to no avail.

Cultural hegemony also explains why Jim Wallis, the “spiritual advisor” to Barack Obama, lambasted America by saying that “Racism is America’s Original Sin.” Sin attaches to white people because of whiteness. Again, no proof necessary. Whites are guilty. Lamentable as it is, now there are black preachers among us who will sound more like Jim Wallis than the Apostle Paul. Some suggest white people have “racism” in their “DNA.” Again, no proof necessary before a bar of justice. Just assume and blast away. Cultural Marxism.

It is indeed a sad day in America when preachers of the gospel of Christ will be more about beating the drums against an entire culture that has provided the greatest freedom to preach since the days of Adam and Eve. And that a Christian paper would allow these types of blanket Marxist-style charges indicting a large portion of the brotherhood of Christians shows how far we have gone.

Bill Lockwood: Christianity & Christian Education Targeted by Biden? 4.5 (2)

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by Bill Lockwood

Selwyn Duke tells in The New American of a tour guide in Hungary who once explained to visitors how that nations’ Marxists “dealt with” Christians. “It wasn’t that you couldn’t be a Christian … you could pray at home, worship at home and with your family, even get baptized and go to church. However, you had a choice. You could either be a Christian … or you could be successful.”

Unfortunately, this is the same picture that is being filled in America today, and will become eminently so if and when Biden takes the oath of office. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which is America’s largest and most powerful LGBTQ Lobby, is pushing the incoming Biden Administration to target Christian Colleges and Universities, and in essence, Christianity itself. The HRC offers 85 suggestions in their Blueprint for Positive Change, including eliminating non-discrimination exemptions for religious colleges if they refuse to ABANDON the biblical position on marriage.

Christian Colleges

Holding the federal government’s “accreditation” standards above the heads of Christian educational institutions, the HRC recommends:

Language regarding accreditation of religious institutions of higher education in the Higher Education Opportunity Act could be interpreted to require accrediting bodies to accredit religious institutions that discriminate or that do not meet science based curricula standards. The Department of Education should issue a regulation clarifying that this provision, which requires accreditation agencies to ‘respect the stated mission’ of religious institutions, does not require the accreditation of religious institutions that do not meet neutral accreditation standards including nondiscrimination policies and scientific curriculum requirements.

There it is in plain language. Withhold accreditation to Christian Universities if they do not abandon biblical standards for teaching, hiring admissions, student housing, student life, college clubs and organizations, and even teaching. There will be no student loans—since the government already has removed that from the free market several years ago—no grants, no assistance to fund private university education. Christian schools must lose their Christianity.

Setting aside the forcible co-opting of “science” to imply that people are born homosexual—for science is not determined by political pressure, and science has NOT substantiated that people are born homosexual—consider also the fact that converting people to Jesus Christ is to be outlawed.

Conversion Outlawed

Beneath the section Department of Education, a sub-section is entitled “Prohibit Pupil Services from Engaging in Conversion Therapy or Referring Students to Conversion Therapy.”

“Conversion therapy,” the phrase that the LGBTQ community uses for making efforts to “convert” or “change” a person from their so-called “sexual orientation”, is absolutely forbidden. As noted above, the homosexual community dons the false mantra of “science”—aided and abetted by the Democratic/Socialist Party—and from that standpoint, demands that no “school counselor” or “school-based mental health professionals” or “social worker” provide or even refer students to “providers of conversion therapy.”

What shall we say to these things?

First, this means that the homosexual agenda is so weak that it needs the full strength of government force to demand that society “recognize” that homosexuals are “born that way.” It naturally follows from this that there will be no preaching of the message of Christ which requires repentance from sinful activity. This is tantamount to setting the government itself up to define what is SIN and what is NOT Sin.

For those who suppose that this would never occur in America, they are lagging in information. Such laws already exist in states such as California and New Jersey—the latter state having implemented similar programs during Gov. Chris Christie’s governorship.

Second, this is nothing less than an unabashed war on Christianity and biblical values and anyone who espouses them. Next we will be hearing, “Bring on the Lions!” It is past time for Christians to engage and get political, if they wish to preserve their freedoms. The Democratic Party, and now the government itself, is at war with you.

Unalienable Rights?

An example of how the homosexual agenda turns logic and morality upside down is its push for recognition of “inalienable rights.”

The Homosexual Lobby explains that, in the past, “The Commission on Unalienable Rights” was created by the State Department “to challenge the international consensus”; but it had a too “narrow view of human rights.” This narrow view has left “LGBTQ people” out. Hence, the HRC demands the Biden Administration bring on a “principles based approach” which would be fully “inclusive” for homosexuals.

In short, HRC demands that homosexual practices be counted as an inalienable right. However, This empties the concept of all meaningful content. Rights are inalienable because they are given by God—that’s why they are inalienable—they cannot be removed without incurring the wrath of God. This is sole reason government was formed to begin with—to protect what God gave us. “…to secure these rights governments are instituted among men…”

But HRC repudiates God and His Holy Word. As a matter of fact, not just the HRC’s strategy, but any effort that seeks a government endowment to define or give “rights” has nothing to do with the concept of “inalienable.” Government endowments are not inalienable. They are government grants; government creations. And what government can give, the government has the ability to remove. When God is removed from the equation the concept of “inalienable” evaporates.

Over a century and a half ago, Frederic Bastiat, who was trying to preserve freedom in France, explained to the world the following.

Life, faculties, production—in other words, individuality, liberty, property—this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.

The inescapable quandary of the homosexual community is this: it wishes to repudiate God—Who makes our rights “inalienable.” Yet, it wishes to retain the idea of “inalienable.” Beware of the HRC and its influence on the Biden Administration.

John L. Kachelman, Jr.: Pollyanna or Phinehas—Reality Refused or Reality Realized! 4.5 (2)

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by John Kachelman, Jr.

Reality…accept it or deny it…

An amazing irony is observed in one’s choice to live a life of denial. It is personally satisfying to ignore reality and believe the convenient. It is easier to excuse personal duty when you refuse to admit reality. It is tempting to sit back and “wait” for someone else to “fix” the problem. It is soothing to say, “Well let’s just pray about it and not say anything!” What is actually being said by that ridiculous comment is that if we close our eyes and refuse to listen to facts, then it will all “go away.” But…reality will not go away!

This article is asking the question, do you refuse reality OR do you realize reality?

Buchenwald was one of the largest concentration camps in the German Democratic Socialist governing system. It was the first camp to be liberated by American troops. Just outside the barbed-wire fence was a thriving town (Weimar, Germany) whose population went about its daily schedule and never noticed the horrors that they saw. General Eisenhower forced the town citizens to march through the camp’s horrors and look at what they had permitted.

The citizens of Weimar, Germany lived a life of reality’s denial. Their denial brought catastrophic results and, frighteningly, these catastrophes lay in the immediate future of our nation.

Scripture stresses that mankind must accept and confront reality so God’s Law is honored. Look at a few of the many verses:

• Exodus 32: 25, 26, “Moses saw that the people were out of control…then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Whoever is for the Lord, come to me!”

• 1 Chronicles 26:14, “Zechariah, a counselor with insight”

• Ezra 8:18, Sherebiah “a man of insight of the sons of Mahli”

• Proverbs 12:8, “A man will be praised according to his insight”

My personal favorite is 1 Chronicles 12:32, “The sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do.”

This is reality today…your nation is perched precariously on the precipice of catastrophe. Our nation needs an unquestioned majority of those mimicking the sons of Issachar “who understand the times and with knowledge of what the USA should do!” This is the reality that YOU must either refuse or realize.

Two personality types deal with reality. These are life’s perspective in opposite ways. You are one or the other.

The first is “Pollyanna.” The term is from Eleanor H. Porter’s 1913 novel. This novel focuses on an orphan named Pollyanna. She has an unrealistic optimistic attitude. It is an entertaining and escapist read BUT it is a totally banal possibility for reality. It refers to a person who is excessively and blindly optimistic person. Thus, it identifies one who is unreasonable and illogically optimistic. Such a person is a fool, an idiot and a coward.

Modern psychology has identified the Pollyanna syndrome as “an excessively or blindly optimistic person who refuses to accept reality.” They say “Well things are not so bad.” These refuse to look at reality. The syndrome describes the difference between an ineffective and an effective approach to problem solving; the difference between escaping responsibilities from delusionary optimism and being realistic about personal duty to challenge reality.

The “Pollyannas” of this world threaten responsible living. Such offers no specific counsel but only generalities that can be understood in various ways. These remain silent “but prayerful.” They utilize “prayer” as a convenient amulet or talisman for dismissing the “bad situation” being discussed. These profess confidence in God BUT they fail to put faith into practice—they fail to uphold and bind God’s Laws. James asks this group, “What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?” (2:14). If you have faith that God will overcome then you will be active in that belief and aggressively seek God’s righteousness in reality (James 2:17, “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself”).

A Pollyannaish character embraces compromise that leads to disaster. Such people are unreasonable, illogical and subversive to reality. These are NOT the characters you want by your side in war. Victory is assured to those who are boldly confident and aggressively active in their faith in the Almighty God. This brings us to the next personality…

The second is Phinehas. He was the son of Eleazer and the grandson of Aaron. This is a man of heroic statute. When God’s enemies tried to compromise Israel and bring the nation to ruin, they first hired Baalam to curse the nation. But God turned Baalam’s curses into blessings. Baalam was dismissed but as he left, he advised how Israel could be compromised. The narrative states, “the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So, Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the Lord was angry against Israel” (Numbers 25:1-3).

The compromise of Israel at Peor was devastating. The flagrant anarchy was shocking. No authority was respected. The population was in chaos. The existence of Israel as a nation was “hanging by a thread.”

There was consternation in the nation. People were upset at what was happening. Numbers 25:6 describes a large group standing at the Tabernacle. They were witnessing the disintegration of their society. Their culture was unraveling before their eyes. They were weeping. They were whining. They were asking “What is happening! What can we do!” They were wringing their hands in nervous anxiety and shaking their heads in dismay. Even Moses was present but inactive. No one was trying to correct the issue. The only action was crying, wringing hands, shaking heads, perplexing words and an overwhelming sense of defeat.

In the midst of the anarchy and hopelessness, “when Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he arose from the midst of the congregation and took a spear in his hand, and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and pierced both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman, through the body. So the plague on the sons of Israel was checked” (Numbers 25:7-8).

Phinehas realized the reality of his situation. His faith prodded him to confront reality. His heroic faith saved his nation and glorified God.

He was aggressive; he was realistic; he was bold; he refused to cower to the prevailing actions; he refused to be intimidated by the compromised majority. He was steadfast in his faith in the Almighty God. This faith refused to be intimidated or silenced.

He took the initiative.

Phinehas understood that he must recognize reality. He did not seek a comfortable excuse to avoid being involved. He did not hide behind a Pollyanna optimism that God will suddenly pop up and put an end to the anarchy.

Phinehas took the initiative, realized the reality of his nation’s sin and anarchy, and acted with bold aggression. Because of this he is held in great esteem throughout the Scripture. He is a hero NOT because he was timid and nice BUT because he was upholding God’s righteous Law.

Here is how Inspiration memorializes this hero, “Phinehas stood up and interposed, and so the plague was stayed. And it was reckoned to him for righteousness, to all generations forever” (Psalm 106:30-31). Phineas saved his nation not by being “nice” to the anarchists but by upholding God’s righteousness.

The United States of America needs citizens who are like Phinehas NOT as Pollyanna. Our nation desperately needs citizens aggressively standing for God’s righteousness. Our nation needs voices boldly proclaiming and defending biblical truth. Our nation seeks the heroic hearts that are more concerned about upholding righteous morality and individual freedom instead of being “nice” and ignoring flagrant blasphemy that is known to them.

The presence of a Pollyanna is entertaining and it is an escape from reality. It is comfortable and convenient. It is “nice.” But you cannot survive in such a delusional existence. The Pollyannaish perspective is criminal; it is inhumane; it is ungodly; it is cowardly. During the horrors of the German National Socialist governing the general population lived in a Pollyannaish delusion. They refused to look at the reality of the evil surrounding them. As the daily purging of the “deplorables” continued, the residents of Weimer, Germany awoke each day to milk their cows, till their gardens, work their jobs and enjoy their families. Within easy eyesight were the walls of Buchenwald that held unfathomable horrors. They would hear rumors but conveniently dismissed these saying “Oh where is your proof? You are always looking at the negative. You are not being nice.” But they could not escape reality for very long with such Pollyannaish dismissals.

The real issue asks, “Are YOU a Phinehas or a Pollyanna?”

As you consider the points above, I ask, “Where are YOU with the reality of our nation today? Are you more concerned with being ‘nice’ and silent or are you striving to teach God’s righteousness? As you observe family, friends, and associates whose behavior, words and attitudes are contrary to God’s righteousness, do you respond as Pollyanna or Phinehas?”

This is YOUR reality…your nation is being decimated; morality is nonexistent; politicians refuse to condemn violence, rioting, looting and murder. YOU have family, friends and associates who have thrown away God’s righteousness to accept a personal anarchy. You cannot casually dismiss their behavior and be excused just as Weimar’s population could never excuse their silent approval of Buchenwald.

Are you a Pollyanna or a Phinehas?

Exactly what will Inspiration say about the way you refused reality or realized reality?

This is where YOU are today…your nation is perched precariously on the precipice of catastrophe. Current polls have the Dems winning both Houses of Congress and the Presidency. I pray the polls are significantly wrong and that God’s Providence will provide for us to continue as “one nation under God.”

Our nation needs an unquestioned majority of those mimicking the sons of Issachar “who understand the times and with knowledge of what the USA should do!” This is the reality that YOU must choose so that Inspiration will memorialize your life with the same compliment earned by Phinehas.

Plutarch’s Parallel Lives records the history of a General Lucius Cornelius Sylla. His general appearance was foreboding. He was of unusual height, had piercing blue eyes, and his face’s complexion was described as “white with blotches of fiery red.” He was a commander who was followed by committed troops. He held a “vehement and implacable desire” to conquer Athens, and he did so. On one maneuver he prepared siege to a city. He directed his troops to divert the River Cephisus. The troops were obedient to the order but they really desired to attack the enemy. Sylla pointed them to the most difficult position that had to be taken and told them to show their valor by their actions. The spirit of the men and their devotion to their Commander carried them forward and in spite of the difficulties, the victory was won. The moral of that historic victory must not be lost in our current situation. A courageous spirit is half of the battle won and often the courageous wins unexpected successes! It is this heroic courage and unquestioned commitment to our Commander that identifies us as “Phinehas.” This illustrates well Inspiration’s words, “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7).

John Kachelman, Jr. is a Christian patriot, preacher, and missionary for Jesus Christ to foreign countries. He lives in Montgomery, AL.

John Kachelman, Jr.: Sacrificing God in the name of feeding the hungry!  4 (1)

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by John Kachelman, Jr.

The painting shown above is by Ivan Alekseevich Vladimirov entitled “Confiscation of Church Property in Petrograd”. It was painted in 1922. Ivan Alekseevich is known as a painter of the Socialist Realism and a member of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia.

His paintings depict the realism of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution. In 1917-1918, he worked in the Petrograd militia. This position helped him create documentary sketches of the events of these years. Here is a link to some of his more recognized paintings- Russia Travel Blog| All about Russia in English. Note: Closely examine these paintings. They are intended to portray the realism of the Russian Revolution that was to usher in Marx’s “synthesis” (remember this synthesis promised the ideal society; total equality; and astonishing contentment. Ivan Alekseevich’s paintings are a real portrait of what happened—anarchy and oppression!).

Subsequent history agrees that it was all a lie! No ideal society. No total equality. No contentment. All that resulted was a brief period of anarchy and then totalitarian dominance of the majority by the elite!

I am not a follower of or believer in Confucianism. However, there are some accurate truisms presented. Reportedly Confucius said, “Study the past if you would define the future.” This practical truth was repeated by Edmund Burke (1729-1797), “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” Later the Spanish philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952) remarked, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The ploughman’s simple version of this truth says, “Learn from your mistakes.”

Tragically many do not like to study history. Many, ignorant of history, blindly walk into catastrophe. And, the majority follow the Pied Piping of evil because they are deceived about the coming consequences which they encourage by silent acceptance.

This article examines a remarkable and redundant historical event. Its evil is amply documented but it is on the verge of being embraced by the United States of America in 2020-2021.
1789 France

An interesting footnote in history focuses on the two significant revolutions in the 1700s. The Colonies in America revolted against King George III’s tyranny. The French Revolution revolted against social and political standards. The two were polar opposites. One primary difference was the religious perspective. The Colonists emphatically embraced the sovereignty of the Lord God Almighty of the Bible. The French viciously vilified any association with the Supernatural. One revolution focused on God’s power and the other focused upon mortal ability.

A milestone event of the French Revolution was the abolition of the privileges of the First and Second Estate on the night of August 4 1789. This abolished the right of churches to receive donations. On October 10, 1789, the National Constituent Assembly seized the properties held by the Church and sold them as “assignats” (a form of monetary exchange). On July 12, 1790, the assembly passed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy that subordinated the Church in France to the French government. The Church could function BUT only as the French government allowed.

The Revolutionary Government promised equality in a perfect society. The French Government said the Church was not necessary; that the church ownership of buildings was improper; and, that the practice of religion was absurd. However, subsequent history shouts that it was all a political lie! No ideal society. No total equality. No contentment. It was a subtle design erasing the presence of religion in society. The promised peace was displaced with a murderous reign of anarchy called “The Reign of Terror”! Such aptly summarizes the consequences when governments control religion.
1700-1800 SPAIN

The Spanish government was in great debt. For the “greater good,” the government confiscated land and property from the Church and religious orders that had received possessions from donations, grants, and will. The Spanish government then sold the property. Confiscation was one of the political weapons with which Spanish liberals modified the system of land ownership during the first half of the 19th century.

The Spanish government’s purpose was presented as enriching the nation and establishing equality. History examines this and unmistakably announces that it was all a lie! No ideal society. No total equality. No contentment. The promised peace was never found and modern Spain continues to struggle with problems left festering from its efforts to assist the “greater good.”

1917-1918 the Bolshevik Revolution 
In 1918 Vladimir Lenin began consolidating all aspects of the revolution. It was a godless revolution utilizing Karl Marx’s “dialectic” to create the perfect society. The focus was upon the State’s absolute supremacy. Various decrees were passed and implemented that would assure the absoluteness of the State. One such decree issued by Lenin deprived the Russian Orthodox Church of its legal status, the right to own property, and the right to teach religion in schools or to children.
On February 5, 1918, the Soviet government issued the Decree on Separation of Church from State and School from Church. According to this document, all property possessed by the Russian Orthodox Church and other religious organizations (land, church utensils, etc) was nationalized and became the property of the State. Basically, this meant that all buildings and objects intended specifically for liturgical purposes were now the State’s property. Resistance was crushed, and resistance activists ended up in prison.

And history adds an interesting development. In 1921, a severe famine struck Russia. There was a need for money to purchase bread, but the Republic of Soviets said it did not have the money. An idea was suggested that there were unused and ample valuables in the Churches and these could be used to feed the hungry. On February 23, 1922, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued a decree called “On the Seizure of Church Jewelry.” The decree ordered local mayors to remove from the churches all products made of gold, silver and precious stones and transfer them to the “Central Fund for the Relief of the Starving.” Patriarch Tikhon, the 11th Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, hindered this confiscation. He forbade the seizure of sacred objects and called this act “svyatotatstvo” – stealing of sacred things. Tikhon’s opposition did nothing to stop the State and assured his punishment. The removal of jewelry from churches in Russia “for the help of the hungry” was completed on May 26, 1922.

The revolutionaries had promised that the stealing of the Church properties and valuables would give the hungry bread. But it was a lie! No ideal society. No total equality. No contentment. No vanquishing of hunger. The promised peace was never found and thieves and anarchists plundered and pillaged and the hungry died of starvation.
2019 SYRIA

The timeline now brings us to times that are easily remembered. Idlib is a city in northwestern Syria, 59 kilometers (37 mi) southwest of Aleppo. “We have nothing left in Idlib, no properties, houses, or rents. The Sharia Committee seized everything.” With these words, Issa from Idlib city described what happened to his family’s property after the Islamic factions took control over the city.

Issa adds, “We had a house, agricultural land, and a number of stores, all of which, were rented through my father’s agent, who used to transfer the rents to us on a regular base.” He continued saying, in 2019, the Sharia Committee issued a decision providing for the confiscation of any property that was not managed or supervised by its original owners. “Due to the decision, our properties were confiscated, and we were told the rent would be paid to us. But the rents were paid to the committee and not us.” The confiscation of property owned by Christians in Idlib was supposed to restore equality and peace in the war-torn location. It was a lie.

This is the reality awaiting those victimized by a government seizing property under a pretense of “helping” others.
Whenever Issa’s 86-year-old grandmother left her one-room house to visit her children in other locations, she returned to find the door’s lock broken and the house inhabited by a foreign family on the pretext of being “displaced.” This happened repeatedly to his grandmother, who had to go to the Sharia Committee to file a complaint; nevertheless, she had to sleep outside her house for at least a month every time until the committee found another housing alternative for the displaced family.
ISIS…

While we are stopped in Syria and observing how the government said that confiscation is necessary for the “greater good” (when in reality it is only for the governing elite), let me observe how this confiscation mentality leads to total destruction. Not only are the buildings, possessions and legal rights of the Christians violated, but historical and cultural destructions result because of anarchy’s evil. As the destruction of ISIS spread through Iraq, Syria and Libya, it left behind the ruin of cultural monuments and objects of historical note. It was a deliberate and savage destruction of the cultural heritage. In Iraq, between the fall of Mosul in June 2014 and February 2015, ISIL had plundered and destroyed at least 28 historical religious buildings. In the name of “justice” and “liberty” historical monuments, sculptures and statues were demolished. On 26 February 2015, ISIL released a video showing the savage destruction of various ancient artifacts in the Mosul Museum. The video shows the defacement of a granite statue by a jackhammer. The Palace of Ashurnasirpal II was bulldozed and destroyed. Perhaps the greatest evil was in the destruction of Palmyra where all statues were destroyed because they were deemed “unfit.”

The savagery of ISIS in destroying monuments, statues and sculptures that were deemed unfit was done “for the protection and reconstruction of society and culture.” But such was action prompted by evil objectives promising a mirage of the perfect Caliphate. Religious properties, possessions and valuables were seized in the name of helping the “greater good.” Historical statutes, memorials and sculptures were decimated to bring “justice and liberty.” But it was all a lie! What resulted was an act of savagery that left a wasteland of destruction by those intent on following man and not Jehovah.

2020 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
July 27, 2020 the LOS ANGELES TIMES published an Editorial: “Just say ‘Yes in God’s backyard.’”
The editorial urges a historical re-run…Californians need homes, and houses of worship have land; California’s homeless needs a place to live and Churches have land they do not need. The echoes of The French Revolutionaries, the Spanish Confiscators, Lenin’s Bolsheviks, and ISIS are heard once more.

California’s Senate Bill 899 is a proposal that makes it much easier for religious institutions and nonprofit colleges to build affordable housing on their land. Just as Lenin’s Bolsheviks first presented their position, we now hear how the Church can work with the government and provide for the poor. We await the next shoe drop in the Bolshevik scheme…seize the Church’s property and possessions because the State has the ownership of everything. Individualism must be replaced with a communal personality.

We are told by Los Angeles that “many churches, synagogues and mosques are sitting on large, underutilized properties. As fewer people choose to participate in organized religion, many congregations have seen their membership shrink along with their budgets. So why not encourage them to use their land to help ease one of California’s most pressing problems, which is the crushing shortage of affordable housing?”

This editorial asserts a number of untruths to cloak its dastardly objective. Listen carefully…“Roughly 38,800 acres of land in California — roughly the size of the city of Stockton — are used for religious purposes and could be developed for housing, according to an analysis by UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation. Nearly half of those acres are in so-called high-opportunity neighborhoods that have low poverty and greater economic, educational and environmental amenities. These are communities where it can be particularly difficult to build affordable housing because of the price of land, zoning and neighbor opposition.”

The unwitting reader is led to this conclusion…“SB 899 would streamline the process by allowing 100% affordable housing projects to be built by right — meaning they wouldn’t need planning commission or city council approval — if the projects are on land owned by religious institutions or nonprofit colleges, and the institutions partner with nonprofit developers to build the housing.”

Do you see the maneuver? An unbelievable “win-win” situation is presented! How can anyone oppose this? Of course the individual would not need any of the State’s planning or approval because the individual has become the State!
The urging continues with this baited insinuation that “something” is in this for everyone…“The idea is to create a new supply of land for nonprofit developers who build housing for low-income residents, while letting religious institutions better use their property and generate a small income from rentals. For nonprofit colleges, it would make it easier for campuses to add affordable housing for employees and students.” Note the baited phrase: “letting religious institutions better use their property and generate a small income.”

And the final crowning conclusion, the climatic crashing of cymbals, the completion of California’s manipulative arm-twisting sweet-talking, “SB 899 can help houses of worship turn their buildings, offices and even parking lots into homes.”

But wait! This is exactly what Lenin suggested in 1917 in his appeal for the Church to cooperate with the State. The promised payment was NEVER received. Never was the Church allowed independence. This is exactly what ISIS said to Issa’s 86-year-old grandmother but never once did they receive any of the rent from their confiscated possessions. It was all an amazing mirage—a promise that vanished. Here is a pure illustration of the doublespeak of the State!
The end result is very clear for those with eyes to see. The result is the “transformation” that the Democrats promise—“SB 899 can help houses of worship turn their buildings, offices and even parking lots into homes.” Note: the operative word is “turn.”

Sisyphus is the mythological figure depicting the ultimate re-run. The truism attributed to Confucius is certainly valid: “Study the past if you would define the future.” When confronted with the lunacy of absurd politics President Reagan often sighed and remarked “Here we go again!” In response to the LA Times editorial Sisyphus, Confucius and Reagan all sigh and exclaim “it is happening AGAIN!”

Another truism says, “Freedom isn’t Free.” Freedom is a fragile state. There are constant encroachments threatening our individual freedoms. These are masked with deceptive words and purloined presentations. These hide the destructive, evil reality that they seek to develop. They promise a “transformation” that brings equality and societal bliss. They focus on the real, or imagined or manufactured evils suggesting that the newly emerging nation arising from this “transformation” will not be controlled by evil. But it is all a lie!

Efforts to destroy freedom appear as Lenin’s “useful idiots” are involved in probing actions. These initiate riotous rallies and hijacked protests. These seize legitimate concerns and manipulate them for their evil purpose of destroying freedom and dominating societal thought and action.

When framed in the context of history, the Los Angeles Times editorial is greatly disturbing. Cultural thinking refuses to learn from historical anecdotes. Today we hear constant clamoring that total equality and a perfect society is possible ONLY IF we allow anarchy and savagery to control the population and refashion civility into a perfect society (i.e. “houses of worship, buildings, offices and even parking lots” are transformed; historic monuments, statutes and sculptures are destroyed).

This has never worked in civilization’s past. The failure of this to work in today’s society is a repetition of a redundant historic failure. Why? This guaranteed failure comes because ignorant man fails to study the past and define the future by responsible criterion. Ignorant man thinks he has a better way.

The incremental pillaging and plundering of the Church continues. Deceptive promises announce the “ideal” solution that only possible in the total consumption of and silencing of the Church. Evil’s cunning and man’s gullibility are the tragic historical constant.

The Old Testament prophet observed this tragic historical constant and observed: “They do not know, nor do they understand…they cannot see and…they cannot comprehend. No one recalls, nor is there knowledge or understanding…You felt secure in your wickedness and your wisdom and your knowledge, they have deluded you…evil will come upon you…there is none to save you” (Isaiah 44:18-19; 47:10-11,15).

And, once again, man sacrifices God on the doublespeak altar of feeding the hungry!

John Kachelman, Jr. is a Christian patriot, preacher, and missionary for Jesus Christ to foreign countries. He lives in Montgomery, AL.

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