Faster Than You Might Think

Secular humanist propaganda, for decades aided and abetted by the mainstream media and public education, is successfully turning the Christian church against itself. Jesus described a time when "many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." (Matthew 24:10-13) That time seems to be arriving with surprising swiftness.

Consider this excerpt from a two-year-old N.Y. Times article highlighted today by the conservative MRC/NewsBusters.org blog:

All debates with the Christian Right are useless. We cannot reach this movement. It does not want a dialogue. It cares nothing for rational thought and discussion. It is not mollified because John Kerry prays or Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday School. These naive attempts to reach out to a movement bent on our destruction, to prove to them that we too have "values," would be humorous if the stakes were not so deadly. They hate us. They hate the liberal, enlightened world formed by the Constitution. Our opinions do not count. This movement will not stop until we are ruled by Biblical Law, an authoritarian church intrudes in every aspect of our life, women stay at home and rear children, gays agree to be cured, abortion is considered murder, the press and the schools promote "positive" Christian values, the federal government is gutted, war becomes our primary form of communication with the rest of the world and recalcitrant non-believers see their flesh eviscerated at the sound of the Messiah's voice.

The writer of that article, Chris Hedges, is set to publish a book in January '07 titled American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America — add one more book to the mushrooming genre of "theophobic" lit (as dubbed by Dan at WithChrist.org) appearing on bookstore shelves these days. For commentary on and a comprehensive list of those books, check out the October 17th entry of the WithChrist blog.

The ecumenical Christian leaders and nominal Christians seduced by this kind of rhetoric identify more with the tenets of Rousseau than plain Scripture. They equate born-again Christians to the radical Muslims "hijacking" their religion. To mollify their secular counterparts, the Christian humanists will do whatever is necessary to survive.

Lost and Found

Last Thursday, a construction engineer digging up a bog in the Irish Midlands uncovered an ancient Psalter dated to AD 800-1000. Hailed as a "miracle find" by the National Museum of Ireland, the 20-page vellum manuscript was found opened to Psalm 83.

Authorship of Psalm 83 is attributed to Asaph, a Levite and choir leader who lived during the time of David (1 Chronicles 15:16-17). In Psalm 83, Asaph describes Judah's neighbors conspiring against her and beseeches the Lord to stop these enemies:

³ With cunning they conspire against your people; they plot against those you cherish.
⁴ "Come," they say, "let us destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more."
⁵ With one mind they plot together; they form an alliance against you —
⁶ the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, of Moab and the Hagrites,
⁷ Gebal, Ammon and Amalek, Philistia, with the people of Tyre.
⁸ Even Assyria has joined them to lend strength to the descendants of Lot. Selah

The locations of those neighboring tribes can be found today in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, as well as southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Bible scholars believe the confederacy described by Asaph did not exist in antiquity and remains an unfulfilled prophecy. Islam, the single most plausible unifying force for such a coalition, did not come along until the 7th century, some 1,500 years after Asaph's time. As the fighting in Lebanon prepares to enter its third week, any existing tolerance for Israel in the Middle East (e.g. the recent split in the Arab League) will diminish badly.

Update: The National Museum of Ireland clarified Thursday that Psalm 83 of this Latin Psalter corresponds to Psalm 84 in today's Bible translations. Certainly less dramatic, yes. However, worldwide exposure of Psalm 83 in light of current events is the real story here.

Trial Balloon

While the world community publicly recoils at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's stated desire to push Israel into the sea, secular humanists are nodding their heads with discreet approbation....

The worst-kept secret in the West is the growing anti-Israelism and/or anti-Semitism among the ranks of academics, media, and other assorted intellectual elite. Usually couched in terms of "measured concern for the stability of the Middle East (i.e. Israel is the real problem)," the rhetoric got a little less subtle this past week when Richard Cohen of the Washington Post dropped this trial balloon in his column:

The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself.

Many capable counterpoints have been made to Cohen's assertions, including Eric Rosenman's response at CAMERA.org (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East reporting in America). Obviously, the secular media has found in Richard Cohen a perfect spokesperson for criticizing Israel without appearing anti-Semitic. In this case, Cohen pulls it off. But the fact remains, secularists still can't see beyond their materialistic worldview. Religions (and especially their spiritual underpinnings) are still a puzzling mystery to them.

Cohen was surely echoing the water-cooler chatter of like-minded colleagues. Was it newsworthy? Not really. This kind of pandering to moral equivalency and the Islamic Middle East is very much unsurprising these days.

The worst part is, these kinds of sentiments are heard more and more in Christian circles. Watch out.

Upside Down

For the most part, the secular Western media's been relatively silent on the sickening genocide (tens of thousands dead in three years) taking place in Darfur, Sudan. They took notice when George Clooney and Angelina Jolie — two big Hollywood stars with decidedly globalist, leftist agendas — recently made separate tours of the war-torn region. Even then, the media focused on the victims, relief efforts, Western politicking, and everything but the perpetrators of the genocide.

That's because said perpetrators — the Sudanese government and its proxy militia the Janjaweed — are Arab and Muslim, and the genocide is most definitely about race (the victims are black Africans) and religion (Islamic jihad). The thing is, these killers aren't white, European, and Christian (or Jewish, for that matter).

Speaking Wednesday to The New York Times, the secular left's de facto mouthpiece, UN human rights commissioner Louise Arbour implied that Israel is committing war crimes as it fights Hezbollah along the Lebanese border: “The scale of killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control."

The Arab Muslim government in Khartoum has repeatedly rejected calls for UN peacekeeping forces to intervene in Darfur as the genocide there continues. Meanwhile, the secular media pummels Israel's "disproportionate" retaliation against Hezbollah, an Islamic terrorist organization which, not unlike the criminals in Khartoum, views human life (i.e. non-combatants) as fodder for the advancement of its religious ideology. (This same media would like us to believe such "religious imperialism" also describes current U.S. foreign policy. Hence their confusion.)

In National Review Online this week, conservative commentator Lawrence Kudlow wrote: "When the dust clears the world will applaud Israel for its courage." If the world hasn't gone completely insane.

See also Samaritan's Purse Sudan page.

Checking In

Back in March, Dan at With Christ wrote, "It's hard to know what to write about. Too many choices! The world, while never 'stable,' seems to have come really unhinged." Four months later, these words couldn't be truer.

"Rumors of wars" reached a fevered pitch this past week as the Israel Defense Force (IDF) struck back at the terrorist group Hezbollah. By killing eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapping two on July 12, Hezbollah and Iran appear to have rolled the dice and gotten the predictable responses they were hoping for: an all-out Israeli retaliation followed by a supportive American (and British) response and then European/Russian handwringing. Their objective? Accelerate increasingly negative world opinion against Israel and prick U.S. resolve concerning Israel and the Middle East. Hezbollah and Iran stand to lose a few thousand outmoded rockets and maybe a few square miles of strategic real estate while gaining serious leverage in the (appeasement-minded) court of world opinion. Western media reinforces the Islamist meme by referring to Hezbollah terrorists as "militants," "guerrillas," or "Lebanese resistance."

For the mainstream media, the "story within the story" is the United States' supposedly delayed response to American evacuees in Beirut. Facile comparisons to last year's Hurricane Katrina disaster ignore the logistics, threat level, and simple insurance nightmare (these days) of extracting thousands of civilians from a war zone. Reporters filed stories on complaining Americans — largely ignoring the grateful ones — which, depending on your political point of view, reinforced the prevailing attitude that a) the current U.S. administration is callous/inept, or b) Americans today are just really spoiled.

Rome is Burning, Part 1

The comparisons are inevitable.

Peel away the emotion, the romanticized delusion, the pleasure-induced coma, and we are confronted with the picture of a nation dying. It's not a modern-day Grapes of Wrath story — as the mainstream media would have us see it — about the trials and tribulations of itinerant, God-fearing farm workers searching for a better life. It's not about a strident, xenophobic, hopelessly outdated few who oppose them, especially when this "opposition" is neither vocal nor few. It's not just about the U.S., especially when Europe finds itself in the same dire situation.

Yes, Rome is burning again, and the elite still don't care.

Last August at WithChrist.org, Dan S. wrote:

The President and his Administration's failure to secure the Nation's borders will probably go down as one of biggest policy blunders and moral failures of the decade. America's southern border is being overwhelmed by violence, crime, and property destruction associated with the smuggling of drugs and human-cargo into the United States. New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson was forced to recently declare a 'state of emergency' in counties on the border. Of course, Mexico has suffered for centuries from spiritual darkness, corruption, crime, and poverty--the social fruits of Catholicism. Quite obviously, George Bush sees it differently. (August 14, 2005)

Historical Perspective

Libertarian writer Steven LaTulippe compares the 43rd U.S. President, George W. Bush, to Theodosius the Great. Who was Theodosius? He was a Roman emperor in the late 4th century who allowed the barbarians to settle in the Empire as a concession to mounting military losses.

The word "barbarian" comes from the ancient Greek barbaros, meaning a person with different speech and customs. The "Conan the Barbarian" sense of the word does not entirely apply to ancient Rome. But when we think of Rome falling to the barbarians, our mental image is of an invading horde of uncouth belligerents. It turns out the invasion was a lot less war-like than we are popularly led to believe.

That's what makes Rome's end so pathetic, in the truest sense of the word. Rome went out, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

In January 2004, Tulippe wrote:

Essentially, the proponents of Theodosius’ policy made three arguments. First, was that the expulsion of the Germans was simply impractical. There were too many of them already within the borders, and their deportation would involve potentially explosive conflict. Second, was the belief that the intruders would eventually succumb to the overwhelming power of Roman culture and assimilate…becoming productive Roman citizens. Third, was the belief that the importation of this new population would economically benefit an Empire which was suffering from a declining population.

They were wrong on all counts. Within 100 years, the Western Roman Empire was gone, and the Dark Ages were ushered in.

Populist columnist Frosty Wooldridge cited these statistics back in January:

From January 2000 to March 2005, a whopping 7.9 million legal and illegal immigrants settled into the United States. Over half of those immigrants arrived as illegals in that five year period.

Four of those years were the first four years of the Bush administration.

7,000 to 10,000 illegal aliens according to Time Magazine, pour across our borders every night of the year equaling 3,000,000 annually. They number over 15 to 20 million and there is no end to the line that grows by 85 million desperately poor added to the world yearly.

In his recently published book, The Fall of the Roman Empire, Oxford historian Peter Heather argues that insatiable imperial expansion combined with unfettered immigration of the Huns and the Germanic tribes were the most significant factors leading to the death of the Roman Empire.

The Romans were deeply embroiled with war in the East the Persian empire. Emperor Valens was forced to admit Gothic hordes. All went well until food supplies ran short and tempers flared. From the Gothic War until the fall of Rome, continuous pressure from the Huns forced more barbarians into the empire. Eventually, the immigrants grew more powerful than existing Roman authority.

(Heather disputes the popular theory that Rome was also in social and moral decline at the time. To believers, the social and moral decline of the West, circa the 21st century, could not be more obvious. In Scripture, the superpower of the world faces judgment before the world as a whole — Revelation 18:2.)

Time Is Not Standing Still

After Theodosius I, it took nearly 100 years for the Western Empire to finally expire. At the time of its death in 476 A.D., the Roman Empire had lasted 500 years. It had succeeded the Republic, which itself lasted 500 years. The United States, however, is a mere 230 years old. But things today are moving at a considerably more rapid pace.

The compression and intensity of events in the last 100 years are totally unlike pre-20th century levels. Hundreds were killed and thousands were wounded in the Battle of New Orleans, which culminated the War of 1812. It turns out America and Britain had already signed a peace treaty in Belgium two weeks earlier. The news simply had not reached the enemy combatants on the field.

In 2006, worldwide travel and communication are at unprecedented levels. Consequently, knowledge is increasing at an astounding rate never before seen. (These last few decades are often referred to as the Information Age.) Economists now argue that knowledge and innovation drive the modern economy, not the old bedrock factors of land, labor, and capital. It all means that, in the 21st century, a nation's decline can and will occur that much faster. And America's decline need not be speculation any longer; we see it happening (very quickly) before our own eyes.

Christian Citizenship

Illegal immigration, and globalization in the bigger picture, are not morally neutral issues. The lawless influx of immigrants into any nation is not something to be celebrated or rationalized by Christians, as some church leaders are doing. Spiritual separation does not mean forfeiture of earthly (national) custodianship or some kind of acquiescence. Patriotism and Christianity are not mutually exclusive, and patriotism certainly does not mean dominionism.

In April 2005, Dan S. addressed the subject in his With Christ blog:

From time-to-time, we receive comments from those who have fallen prey to what I call dispensational asceticism. These individuals have come to appreciate the unique role of the Apostle Paul and his message to the heavenly Church; however, they go too far in asserting a unitary citizenship for the Christian. This is contrary to the dual (primary and tertiary) citizenship model taught and lived by the Apostle Paul. Their hearts are in the right place; but their minds are not. This is typically the realm of soul eradication. Sadly, a few dispensationalists today even lay claim to being "super-spiritual" or "super-apostles" (2 Cor.11:5).

He continued:

The Church, the Body of Christ, holds dual citizenship. See Acts 16-23 where the Apostle Paul exercised rights under his Roman citizenship. One might ask, "If Paul believed Christians had only a heavenly citizenship, why then did Paul "interfere" in the Roman legal system? Why did he not just remain silent?" Similarly, why are the Pauline epistles filled with instruction regarding the earthly (Matt.20:30) institution of marriage? Why would the Hebrew epistle call marriage "honorable", if engaging in such an union was worldly and contrary to one's heavenly citizenship. Paul warns of those who "forbid" believers to marry (1 Tim 4:3).

...The Risen Lord does not deem the heavenly Christian’s moral influence ("salt") upon the world to be “interference.” Further, having this moral influence is not the equivalent of seeking to usher in the Millennial Kingdom--a patently false accusation.

While heavenly Christians are called to "live in the world", we are warned against spiritual warfare by fleshly means (2 Cor.10:3-5), being "entangled" by the affairs of the world (2 Tim. 2:4), adopting the "principles of the world (Col.2:8), or being a "friend of the world" (James 4:4). But nowhere are we taught to withdraw from the world. This is not Pauline. (April 10, 2005)

Rome is Burning, Part 2

Last August, Dan at WithChrist.org remarked: "Mexico has suffered for centuries from spiritual darkness, corruption, crime, and poverty--the social fruits of Catholicism." (August 14, 2005)

Catholic leaders are noticeably among the most vocal religious opponents of U.S. immigration reform. After all, aren't the majority of the illegal aliens Catholics themselves? But this familial comparison is rather deceptive. The Catholicism of Latin America is simply not the same thing as the Catholicism encountered in Europe and the U.S. It is often a Catholicism blended with native pagan superstitions and practices (e.g. Santería). William E. Cashion II describes the typical experience of the missionary in Latin America:

Most evangelical missionaries have gone to Latin countries prepared to witness to the vast host of nominal Christians within the Roman Catholic Church or to the secular-minded that inhabit the major cities....The missionary then arrives on the field believing that he is somewhat prepared to proclaim the gospel in the new culture. Soon it becomes clear that something was overlooked during orientation. The missionary comes into contact with what seems to be an unknown religion. True, the majority of the people say that they are Catholic.

...Even in the United States, especially in those areas that are home to large hispanic populations, it is common to observe these unusual practices among the Catholic "faithful." Those who serve as evangelical missionaries among Roman Catholic communities wonder if they have not encountered a yet unnamed world religion.

In February, Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony in Los Angeles attracted controversy after saying he would encourage his priests to ignore any tough new immigration laws when providing aid to illegal aliens. His bluff was a publicity stunt, but a successful one nonetheless. Mahony and the Catholic Church know full well that restrictive immigration legislation is unlikely to ever pass, considering the Bush administration's rigid position on the issue, plus the fact that millions of working-class Catholic immigrants represent a potentially huge Democratic voting bloc.

Double Standard

Actually, the underlying lesson here is that the humanist elite can freely exercise a double standard when it comes to breaking the law, all the while portraying patriotic Americans and especially those intolerant fundamentalist Christians as the true enemies of the Constitution.

Mahony is, of course, only one of many to exploit issues of poverty for political capital and certainly not the last to sprinkle on Biblical references for good measure. In March, New York Senator Hillary Clinton was widely quoted condemning the now-defunct Congressional bill (H.R. 4437) designed to curb illegal immigration:

It is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scriptures. This bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself.

These remarks reflect a growing trend by the elite: using the Bible to silence critics. Political grandstanding aside, many in the U.S. realize that amnesty for illegal immigrants is not about helping the poor, but creating a subclass of Americans for the international corporations. It's a modernized version of indentured servitude that will depress the wages of legal Americans. So, really, it's about helping the rich. President Bush recently told CNN Español that the illegal immigrants are "doing jobs Americans won't do." In this day and age, that kind of political transparency is surprising.

Yet another parallel: historian Peter Heather, in his new book Fall of the Roman Empire, contends that the Roman economy was still going strong in the century leading up to its final demise.

Furthermore, the U.S. government's southern counterpart is hardly a passive observer. Mexico does not hide its desire to shed itself of undesirables and reap the economic benefits. The romanticized media view is one where illegal immigrants are entirely comprised of hard-working individuals and families who've been handed a bad break in life. But that's not the whole story. Some illegal aliens are not only trying to find a better life, they're trying to escape the law — and succeeding. Some estimate that 1 out of every 10 illegal aliens is a criminal/fugitive. Included among that number are various sexual predators and gang members, not to mention possible terrorists.

Globalization

"Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there....They said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.'" (Genesis 11:1-4)

Globalization has always been about the glory of man, going all the way back to the days of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel in Genesis Chapter 11. And although God did scatter the people and break their common language, mankind has found itself, thousands of years later, in a position to put it all back together again. And man, in all his pride and vanity, could not be more delighted.

The New International Order (a term used often by Alan Keyes, among others) currently faces two major roadblocks. One is the Muslim world in the Middle East. The solution, up to this point, has entailed military engagement and threats of engagement, in addition to major pressures applied to Israel. The other roadblock is the strong Judeo-Christian tradition in the U.S. and Britain, especially its persnickety defense of national sovereignty and wariness of global governance.

So far, the solution to that roadblock has been all political but certainly no less belligerent. In July of last year, the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was ramrodded through the U.S. House of Representatives at the stroke of midnight with various House rules falling by the wayside. This came 12 years after the ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which helped set in motion the events we see happening today.

The global media is doing an excellent job of playing to the emotions of readers and viewers. Not surprisingly, the news coverage on the immigration issue is going for the visceral reaction: wide-angle pictures depicting thousands upon thousands of unified immigration marchers with occasional references to small or nonexistent groups of angry and defensive counter-protesters. There are some telling but brief glimpses of demagoguery which are mostly edited for sound bite consumption.

Images of massive crowds can also evoke a far different meaning. From Nimrod's people and their Tower of Babel to the Israelites and their Golden Calf, massive assemblages of people in the Bible reveal the extent of mankind's spiritual rebellion. Man derives a kind of empowered consciousness when in great numbers. In those instances, he shuts out God. Fallen man's impulse is to seek strength in the unity of mankind rather than in the Lord. So that sinful ears would listen, God scattered His own.

Jim Wallis's Christian humanist organization Sojourners is pleading for "compassionate" immigration reform with their chosen Biblical panacea, Leviticus 19:34:

The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 19:34 is abused almost as much as Matthew 5:39, and it just does not tell the whole story. Their argument ignores the alien's obligations to reject their pagan gods and practices and conform to Israel's social and religious customs:

The seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. (Exodus 20:10)

In a sense, this is what the legal process of immigration is designed to accomplish: to demand assimilation and national obligation from immigrants. The real issue is not that U.S. immigration law is broken, but that it isn't being enforced.

What's worse, this common abuse of Leviticus 19:34 by humanist Christians conflates a macro issue with a micro one, with nondispensational aplomb. They confuse government responsibility with personal and private sector responsibility. This is not a surprise since all humanists wish to replace God with government. They play upon themes of Christian service and guilt by disingenuously changing the whole issue from one about immigration (national interest) to one about poverty (personal interest). Humanists make individual responsibilities into government obligations because, in their worldview, a nation does not protect the interests of her people; instead, a nation takes care of her people. Or better yet, a world government takes care of all people.

Lastly, the humanist misapplication of Leviticus 19:34 conveniently implies some kind of unbroken connection between the theocracy of ancient Israel and the Church Age that we live in today — even though "theocracy" is normally a verboten concept for the humanist.

It is also interesting when humanist Christians treat one Biblical passage as an open-and-shut case but not others, like this one, just one chapter earlier in Leviticus: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." (KJV)

The Social(ist) Gospel

"In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." (John 14:2-3, KJV)

Heaven in the Bible is not a commune. It is a place where people have personal identities and personal property. On Earth, God raised up a nation (Israel) and gave it a home. A sense of national identification is part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Families and nations are part of God's will; only sin has introduced suspicion and strife.

Many leaders in the mainline and emerging churches would like us to think that Jesus espouses socialist values. But the meek inheriting the earth in Matthew 5:5 is not referring to some kind of proletarian revolution or "Robin Hood" scenario, i.e. stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Rather, it refers to the true followers of Christ: strangers in this world but inheritors of the Millennial Kingdom.

Not Just an American Problem

The immigration issue in Europe is just as big as (if not bigger than) it is in the United States. The riots in France last fall focused world attention on the worsening tensions between disenfranchised Arab and African immigrants and the government there. Some U.S. officials now see Europe as a threat for Islamic terrorism on par with Afghanistan and other parts of the Middle East. After the July 7 London Underground bombings, one poll discovered that 1 out of 4 British Muslims sympathized with the terrorists' motives. It's about an invasion of values, not just people, much as it was in Rome 1,600 years ago.

Back in the U.S., there are reasonable solutions to illegal immigration (which is only a problem on its southern border). Syndicated columnist Victor Davis Hanson writes:

We should allow those illegal immigrants who have been living and working here for at least five years to start their citizenship process. But we should insist this be a one-time exemption rather than yet another periodic amnesty that encourages others to break the law and unfairly cut ahead in the immigration line. ("Assimilation Is the Real Debate," April 3, 2006)

On his radio show, Albert Mohler referred to this type of solution as "this much and no more." The only problem is, the elite aren't listening. They're too busy fiddling.

Further reading:

"Barbarian Invasions" (June 8, 2005) by Timothy Birdnow at The American Thinker

"A Biblical View of Illegal Immigration" (February 6, 2006) by Ron Gleason at Christianity: Doctrines and Ethics