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Bill Lockwood: The Supreme Value of Man-Religious Roots to Political Warfare 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

America is in turmoil. It may be playing out on a “political” field, but it goes much deeper than that. It reaches down into the patterns of beliefs, values, ideas, and concepts upon which our culture is built. It is western culture, built upon a God-centered worldview, that is under assault. Political wars have religious roots.

Consider the biblical view of man. What is it that gives man value? Reaching further, what worldview encompasses principles which give value to humankind? The answer: only one basic understanding of the world recognizes that man has any intrinsic value—the biblical worldview.

Creation of Man

The creation of man is set forth in Genesis 1:26-27 in wherein God said, “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, …And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female he created them.”

Only man is said to be “created in God’s image and after His likeness.” The same is repeated in Genesis 5:1,3 as well as in 9:6. The latter specifically demonstrates that “the image and likeness of God” is not shared by the animal creation (see 9:3 where animals are for man’s consumption) whereas the taking of human life is that which merits the charge of “murder.”

Genesis 5:1,3 clearly echoes 1:26-27 and evinces the fact that “the image and likeness of God” continues even after man’s sin in the garden. New Testament passages such as Jas. 3:9 show that value is attached to man due to this “likeness.”

“The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts …” (Prov. 20:27). Professor Plumptre, educated at Oxford a century ago, remarked of this verse: “the higher life, above that which he has in common with lower animals, coming to him direct from God.” Then he adds, “Such a life, with all its powers of insight, consciousness, reflection, is as a lamp which God has lighted, throwing its rays into the darkest recesses of the heart.”

What is the Image and Likeness of God?

The “image of God” is a distinction that sets humanity apart from the animate creation. We have but to ask, what does the Bible teach about man that is not taught about animals? Since man shares a biological make-up like that of animals, as well as the animation of the body, the single factor which sets man apart is the fact that man has an eternal spirit within him that is answerable to God (see 1 Thess. 5:23; Ecc. 12:7). What does this entail?

First, man is a rational being. This is not to argue that all of us act rationally at all times, but it is to say that we have the capacity to weigh matters and make informed decisions about them. Man has the ability to think, the power of problem-solving, the power to frame hypotheses, gather materials, gain insights into reality, test explanations, and to determine whether or not the test worked or did not work. As Professor Plumptre put it, only man has powers of insight and reflection.

Second, man is a moral being. Once again, this is not to say that we all act morally upright at all times, but only humankind has the capacity of “moral sensitivity.” Even evolutionist of yesteryear, G.G. Simpson stated, that unlike the rest of the animal creation, “Man is a moral animal.” Only man feels obligated to to obey moral principles. Only man distinguishes between what IS, and what OUGHT TO BE. All men have a sense of duty, and the sense of obligation to this duty regardless of personal safety.

Third, man has free will. When options are laid out before a person, only man has the ability to weigh these options for action and move on them—sometimes to the detriment of his own personal safety. It is solely from this biblical basis that our entire culture is predicated upon the proposition that “all men are created equal.”

These are the qualities which Solomon in Proverbs called “a candle of the Lord.”

Worldviews that Deny the Value of Man

I mentioned above that political wars have religious roots. Take paganism, both ancient and modern. Paganism begins with a denial that all men are created equal. Kenneth Matthews authored the two volumes on Genesis for The New American Commentary series. Reflecting upon ancient pagan beliefs, Matthews had this to say:

In the ancient Near East it was widely believed that kings represented the patron deities of their nations or city-states. Among the Mesopotamians and Canaanites, royal figures were considered ‘sons’ adopted by the gods to function as vice-regents and intermediaries between deity and society. Egyptian society recognized pharaoh as divine who was Horus in life and Osiris in death. Some royal stelae describe the king as the ‘image’ of God.

Some are born to rule. They have the “image of God.” Others are born to serve. Not much different from socialism. If we but allow the elite ruling class to organize and manage the rest of us, all will be well. This is the “gospel of socialism.”

How about the “Green Gospel” of Environmentalism? The grandfather of the modern environmental movement is former Vice-President Al Gore. His magnum opus, Earth in the Balance, specifically attacked the Genesis passages mentioned above.

“…major scientific discoveries have often undermined the Church’s tendency to exaggerate our uniqueness as a species and defend our separation from the rest of nature.” “It is my own belief that the image of God can be seen in every corner of creation, even in us, but only faintly.”

I believe that the image of the Creator which sometimes seems so faint in the tiny corner of creation each of us beholds, is nonetheless present in its entirety—and present in us as well. If we are made in the image of God, perhaps it is the myriad slight strands from the earth’s web of life—woven so distinctly in our essence … By experiencing nature in its fullest … with our senses and with our spiritual imagination, we can glimpse, bright shining as the sun, an infinite image of God.

To kick-off the modern environmental movement Gore felt the need to re-write Genesis. He recognized that a value shift was necessary to accomplish his green socialism.

The 1992 Biocentric United Nations Treaty did exactly the same thing. “Nature has an integral set of values (cultural, spiritual, and material). Where humans are one strand in nature’s web and all living creatures are considered equal. Therefore, the natural way is the right and human activities should be molded along nature’s rhythms.”

And just how might it be ensured that “human activities” be “molded along nature’s rhythms” and that humans recognize the “equality” of nature, since all of nature has God’s image, per Al Gore? Big Government—that’s how. It forces us to honor this “value shift” by recognizing humanity as no more valuable than a free-flowing stream, beautiful giant mountain, or a tall tree in the forest. And it is not “all men are created equal, but all living creatures.” No supreme value to mankind.

Denying the supreme value of man by jettisoning the biblical worldview lies at the bottom of the political left today. As Joe Biden himself stated on January 27, 2021, after one week into his presidency, his entire agenda is a “whole-government approach to put climate change at the center of our domestic national security, and foreign policy.”

That about sums up the entire machinery of government. All rooted in anti-biblical concepts that are the heartbeat of the Environmental Green Agenda. As stated in The First Global Revolution, a 1991 report by the Club of Rome, a powerhouse establishment group populated by people such as Al Gore, Bill Clinton, George Soros, David Rockefeller and Mikhail Gorbachev, “The common enemy of humanity is man.”

Bill Lockwood: “Mother Earth is Angry?” 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat, tells Americans that the raging wildfires that have been burning in her home state of California, are due to a cryptic message that “Mother Earth” is sending Americans. “Mother Earth is angry” she warns. “She’s telling us—whether she’s telling us with hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, fires in the West, whatever it is … that the climate crisis is real and has an impact.”

California, Washington, and Oregon have been recently devastated by wildfires. There are currently 29 major wildfires in the Golden State alone, burning an area of more than 4,800 square miles, the AP reported. As of September 14, 35 people have died in the out-of-control wildfires.

What is of more than passing interest is Pelosi’s personification of “Mother Earth” as being “angry” with America, presumably for being so non-cooperative with the United Nations’ globalist agenda on the Environment.

What Shall We Say to These Things?

First, Climate Alarmism is a Socialist Political Plot to Transfer Wealth from America to Third World Countries.  Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s new president, refused to allow the United Nations’ COP 25 conference to be held in his country last December, forcing the global socialists to meet in Madrid, Spain. Brazil’s foreign minister, Ernesto Araujo called Climate Alarmism a “Marxist plot” to undermine the West and build up Communist China.

When one reads the UN “Paris Agreement” that was adopted at the UN COP21 Conference, the “Marxist plot” is plainly visible. Setting up boards for “global governance” while finalizing “rules” for a “global common market,” the UN master plan promises to soak the American taxpayer to help pay people in the undeveloped part of the world to “save the climate.”

The UN Boss, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, formerly of Socialist International, has openly declared that “climate action” offers a “compelling path to transform our world.” This will involve planetary taxes levied by a world government upon the United States because of our emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). These monies will not only strangle our own industry, but be put into a slush fund to pay off dictators in underdeveloped countries.

Second, there is little science is Climate Alarmism. Dr. William Happer, an internationally renown Princeton physicist, recently spoke at COP25. He declared “We are here under false pretenses, wasting our time talking about a non-existent climate emergency.” Previously he had stated that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be good for the planet and its population. “It’s hard to understand how much further the shrillness can go, as this started out as global warming, then it was climate change or global weirding, now it is climate crisis and climate emergency. What next? But stick around, it will happen.”

Happer is not the only world-class scientist who warns that America is being fooled. Retired MIT Meteorology professor Richard Lindzen has pooh-poohed the entire Climate Alarmism as having little to do with science and everything to do with politics. Socialist politics, that is, promoted and endorsed by the Democratic Party in the United States.

Steven Koonin, former U.S. Department of Energy Undersecretary, has written that climate science isn’t, in fact, settled and that we lack the knowledge needed to make sound climate policy (The Epoch Times, Sep. 9-15, 2020). In one article Koonin wrote:

The public is largely unaware of the intense debates within climate science. At a recent national laboratory meeting, I observed more than 100 active government and university researches challenge one another as they strove to separate human impacts from the climate’s natural variability. At issue were not nuances, but fundamental aspects of our understanding, such as the apparent—and unexpected—slowing of global sea-level rise over the past two decades.

Third, the American Left has been moving more closely to ancient paganism. One of the most remarkably outstanding features of Pelosi’s dire warning as she “speaks” for “Mother Earth” is this: she attributes goddess-like status on the planet which is messaging us about our climate sins. This is plainly a religious movement. And this, from the same crowd which has flagrantly ridiculed Christians for remotely suggesting that such things as the AIDS epidemic is a retribution from God upon America for its embrace of homosexuality. The legs of the lame are not equal.

Pelosi’s Paganism is idolatry. Idolatry is broadly defined as “the worship of idols, or the act of ascribing to things and persons properties which are peculiar to God alone.” The components of pagan idolatry is a View of the Past (A Cosmogony: how we came to be here); View of the Present (How the world works, including a value system); A View of the Future (What is the end game—the goal). Climate alarmists display all three.

One of the ancient pagan religions in the Old Testament was the worship of Moloch. Moloch, or Molech (1 Kings 11:7) was the god of the Ammonite people who lived next door to Israel, just as Chemosh was the god of Moab.

These gods were worshipped at “high places” throughout the Old Testament period. Connected with these gods was the pantheon of the Canaanites who honored Baal as one of their gods. These idolaters considered the seasonal changes as reflecting their ancient myths and consequently worshipped nature. More horrific still was the fact that these pagan religions all practiced child sacrifice, euphemistically mentioned in the Bible as “passing their children through the fire” (Lev. 18:21; Deut. 18:10).

Ahaz, for example, king of Judah in the 8th century B.C., is said to have made “his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations, whom Jehovah cast out from before the children of Israel” (2 Kings 16:3). 2 Chronicles 28:3 confirms the account, adding that there was more than one son whom Ahaz sacrificed. “He burned incense in the valley of the sons of Hinnom (outside the walls of Jerusalem), and burnt his children in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom Jehovah cast out before the bible children of Israel.” 

Jeremiah, the prophet of God, who would come a bit later, stood at the valley of Hinnom and condemned it in chapter 19 of his book. “Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, that they know now, they and their fathers and the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents, and have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind …” therefore, “I will break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again.”

If “Mother Earth” is angry, Nancy Pelosi, perhaps this question should be asked. “Why has she not already been propitiated by the millions of children aborted in America, encouraged and financed by the Democrat Party?” There is no difference in the slaughter of the unborn, overseen by socialists and High Priestesses such as Nancy Pelosi, and the sacrifice of children to Moloch.

A better question is: Isn’t it past time for America to give up its pagan errors and return to Almighty God? 

Bill Lockwood: The Left: A Coven of Neo-Canaanites 0 (0)

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by Bill Lockwood

Nothing more clearly demonstrates the pagan religious orientation of the left than the recent effort by Democrats to begin turning our entire economy Greenward as their input into the recent COVID-19 stimulus package. According to Jeff Brady of NPR, “Clean energy and climate advocates say the huge stimulus bill Congress is negotiating should address not only the economy, but also climate change.” To Democrats, the Corona Virus pandemic is not about helping the American people—it is about fundamentally transforming the American economy. 

For example, eight Democratic U.S. senators also called upon fellow lawmakers, according to NPR news, to tie financial help for airlines and cruise lines to new environmental requirements that would reduce their carbon footprints.” According to Michael Greenstone, who served as the Chief Economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, “We can both stimulate the economy … and we can lay the foundation for a lower-carbon future.”

Environmental Paganism

The Green Agenda, sponsored by all socialists and Democrats, is not about science. It is more nearly akin to a paganistic religious belief which jettisons real science in favor of doctrine. Like the Canaanite paganism of the Old Testament which involved itself in nature-worship and sacrificing in “sacred groves”, the New Green Deal advocates root themselves in a false ideology.

In what was called the “Eco-shot heard ‘round the world,” Berkeley historian Lynn White, before the American Association for the Advancement of Science over 30 years ago, frankly admitted that the source of our environmental “crisis” was the “victory of Christianity over paganism.” Plainly siding with ancient Canaanite paganism, he went on to say that “Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of detachment to the feelings of natural objects …Christianity bears a huge burden of guilt.” He went on to predict that “more science and more technology are not going to get us out of the present ecological crisis until we find a new religion.” 

Note carefully the Environmental Activists were sounding apocalyptic alarms over 30 years ago. They haven’t changed. Noteworthy it is as well that it is all about religion.

The same thing is true according to Green Grandfather Al Gore. His infamous book Earth in the Balance made a frontal attack on the Genesis account of creation by re-writing the entire first few chapters of Moses’ account. The end result was a complete VALUE SHIFT from a human-centered world view to what the Clinton Administration called A Biocentric Worldview. This tells us that humans are seen as merely another species inhabiting a democratic “ecosystem.” No more value a human being than a bug.

Steven C. Rockefeller of Middlebury College, a theology professor and environmentalist, explains: “In a biocentric approach, the rights of nature are defended first and foremost on the grounds of the intrinsic value of animals, plants, rivers, mountains, and eco-systems rather than simply the basis for their utilitarian value or benefit to humans.”

This biocentric approach was formally adopted by the Clinton Administration. Alton Chase, in his book In a Dark Wood: The Fight Over Forests and the Rising Tyranny of Ecology, describes the new faith of the elite, as it sprang to life in the Clinton Administration. “The Administration, under the rubric of ‘reinventing government’ … adopted biocentrism as the guiding philosophy of all federal land management.”

Recent COP25 Conference

In December of last year the United Nations sponsored a COP25 conference in Madrid, Spain. Attendee Alex Newman writes that the “cult-like nature of climatism was on full display.” An alternative conference occurred in Madrid which was totally ignored by the Main Stream Media. It was called “Climate Reality Conference” hosted by a coalition of environmental groups that reject climate alarmism, including The Heartland Institute, the CO2 Coalition, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE).

The Climate Reality Conference featured numerous scientific experts which totally debunked the UN Global Alarmists. But what is particularly interesting is that a number of these world-class scientists likened the Green Agenda to so much religious propaganda.

William Happer, for instance, an international renowned Princeton physicist, put it plainly. “I hope sooner or later enough people recognize the phoniness of this bizarre environmental cult and bring it to an end.” MIT Meteorologist Richard Lindzen has frequently referred to the Global Warming crowd as a “cult” because they refuse to change their beliefs in response to evidence and proof. (See Alex Newman, “Dangerous Climate ‘Cult’ Ignores Science,” in The New American, 2-17-20).

Lindzen even stated it this way in a 2015 radio interview: “Think about it: You’ve led an unpleasant life, you haven’t led a virtuous life, but now you’re told, you get absolution if you watch your carbon footprint. It’s salvation!” Dr. Ivstan Marko, a chemistry professor at the Catholic University of Louvain and head of the European Chemical Society, told The New American magazine that “the climate cult had perverted Christianity to develop its dangerous theology. Instead of repenting of sins, climate cultists want you to believe that you must repent of your ‘carbon footprint.’”

“It’s a new religion going on,” Marko explained. Many other top scientists and political leaders are also calling the Green Agenda pushed by Democrats and soft-shelled Republicans a religion. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott as well as Eco-activist Stuart Scott have so likened it.

The entire Green debate illustrates the throes of a religious conflict occurring in America. Unless enough American Christians, oriented and educated sufficiently in the Holy Scriptures to combat the growing forms of ancient Canaanite religious beliefs, engage in the cultural wars, America has seen its better days.

Bill Lockwood: Socialism is Slavery 0 (0)

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SOCIALISM IS SLAVERY- “It is the mainspring of socialism as well. Not only do these superior beings need to recognize the equality of all men, having been created by God, but to count others better than themselves (Philippians 2:1-4).”

by Bill Lockwood

Socialism begins with the basic tenet that some people are superior to others and should therefore manage the activities of the lesser. All men are created equal but some of us are more equal than others. It is a dictatorship of the elite who are required by the very nature of things to govern the lives of others.

Oscar Jaszi, the famed Hungarian socialist, explained socialism as: (1) A condemnation of the existing political and social order; (2) Advocacy of a new order; (3) A belief that this ideal is realizable; (4) A conviction that the immorality of the established order is traceable not to a fixed world order or to the unchanging nature of man but to corrupt institutions; (5) A program of action leading to the ideal through a fundamental remolding of human nature or of institutions or both; and (6) A revolutionary will to carry out this program.

Max Eastman, in his 1962 book Reflections on the Failure of Socialism, mused about the years he wasted in the doctrine of Socialism. Referring to socialism as a “Marxian religion” he emphasized that the real issue is “the usurpation of power” and that the “tyrant has no honest instinct for the liberties of man.”

The common denominator of all socialist theories, be they fascism, communism, Nazism, environmental paganism, economic theories championed by humanism—or whatever, is the following: “… that society can be made more free and equal, and incidentally more orderly and prosperous, by a state apparatus which takes charge of the economy, and runs it according to a plan.” Bottom Line: some people consider themselves to be naturally endowed to govern the rest of us.

Slavery

This is why Socialism is in reality another system of slavery. Socialism is a theory of government which requires the strong arm of the state to re-distribute private resources according to its plan. As an institution slavery begins with exactly the same assumption, both in the ancient and modern world. Some people are “more equal” than others.

Thomas Edwards, in his classic commentary on the biblical book of 1 Corinthians (p. 182), explained slavery on these terms while discussing the apostles’ remarks in chapter 7:11-24: “Slavery was an institution that sprang from other fundamental ideas—namely, the superiority of men over women; the religious pre-eminence of Jew over Gentile; the Greek consciousness of creative political genius; so that in discussing the question of slavery, the apostle [Paul] not only arbitrates between master and slave, but addresses himself to the antagonisms most deeply seated in the religious, political, and social condition of the time.”

It is THIS that Christianity alters—the view of mankind.  “All men are created equal” is a Christian axiom. The fact that biblical principles reconstruct one’s view of humankind from the ground up also explains why Christianity did never create firebrands of people to march in the streets demanding the overthrow of the social order, but instead operates over a period of time as leaven on a society.

As Edwards put it, “The distinction between master and slave ceases at the door of the church. But Christianity abolishes slavery by assimilating and sanctifying the relation of master and servant in its inmost nature. While it refuses to wield the sword and destroy civil institutions by violence, it so transforms their ruling ideas that those institutions become what they never were before.”

For instance, Christ bestows on the most degraded and despised slave who is a believer, spiritual endowments that cannot fail to inspire him with a consciousness of freedom. He ceases to be a slave by the very fact of knowing that in the sight of God he is free, and his service ceases to be a bondage because it is now a willing obedience to Christ.

See the slow but constant growing influence of these principles in the early ages of the church. Christians began “manumitting slaves” at Easter; then later on the Lord’s Day; at last they were freed on a daily basis. In the law Constantine forbade the owner of slaves to break up slave families; later came the sentiment that led rich men to consider the education and manumission of slaves an act of piety; finally, one witnesses the election of slaves to offices of the church, such as Calixtus, once an indentured servant, who became a bishop of Rome in 3d century.

Warped View of Mankind

Both slavery and socialism begin with a warped view of mankind, namely, that some people are more sufficient to manage the lives and activities of others. In reality, socialism is another face of slavery. This also demonstrates why the environmentalists continue to tend towards the socialistic Democratic Party.

In the following quotes, centered chiefly around the doctrines of environmentalism, one finds recommendations for massive population control, eugenics, and euthanasia. All of these require an elitist disposition. These geniuses are clearly positioning themselves to be the caretakers of ‘we the people.’

David Graber, once a biologist with the National Park Service, declared that “a particular species of a free-flowing river is of ‘more value’ to me than another human body, or a billion of them. Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.”

The late Jacques Cousteau was quoted in the UNESCO Courier in November 1991 and again in November 1994 as saying, “The United Nation’s goal is to reduce population selectively by encouraging abortion, forced sterilization, and control of human reproduction, and regards two-thirds of the human population as excess baggage, with 350,000 people to be eliminated per day.” It’s terrible to have to say this. World population must be stabilized and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. This is so horrible to contemplate that we shouldn’t even say it. ” But say it he did.

Barbara Marx Hubbard, former Democratic vice-presidential candidate, prominent futurist and occult leader, in her The Book of Co-Creation, (self-published, 1980, Part III, p. p. 59), says, “The present vast overpopulation, now far beyond the world carrying capacity, cannot be answered by future reductions in the birth rate due to contraception, sterilization and abortion, but must be met in the present by the reduction of numbers presently existing. This must be done by whatever means necessary.”

Barack Obama’s top science advisor, John P. Holdren, opined that “A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men. “The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.”

Quotations like these are endless. They demonstrate that the very mindset which produces slavery throughout history and around the world– the supposed superiority that too many nurture in their own minds when they compare themselves to others–is alive and prevalent today. It is the mainspring of socialism as well. Not only do these superior beings need to recognize the equality of all men, having been created by God, but to count others better than themselves (Philippians 2:1-4).

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