Just Another Blog in the Wheel

Thursday, November 26th

Beloved family of Messiah,
Thanksgiving greetings in the  name above all others. Several of us have been delivered from that lugubrious shadow cast over the Christian life by the so-called Regulative Principle of Worship. It was originally intended to be a help, enabling Christians to live happier lives in their Christ-won liberty by keeping them free from unwarranted claims imposed by some tradition. It eventually showed itself to be little more than an invention of men which had been designed to protect us from inventions of men.

When it behaves itself, the RPW is indeed helpful, especially if the subject under discussion happens to be: What elements may be justly included in Divine worship? But the RPW,  like the traditions from which it first sought to save us, was itself imposed as a template to regulate the consciences of those same ever-harassed Christians. We might call it “The Babel Syndrome,” this human propensity to erect bureaucracies which become, in time, dedicated to the eradication of the purpose for which they were brought into being (as one old wag put it). A careful study of the decline of the great American Republic into its current Federal Mass Mess will reveal that parallel errors were at work in each entity. It seems that decentralization itself is the motif of faith (cf. 1 Samuel 8), and faith is hard to sustain. Everyone seems convinced that God needs all the help we can give Him and that such help must come from a centralized source. No one seems willing to believe that such centralization, regardless of the moniker that’s slapped on it, is invariably going to become a competitor with the True God, offering, as He does, salvation in exchange for loyalty, fealty, faith.

Thus, it was barely enough time to breathe from the Magisterial Reformers to the bureaucratizers. Even the Reformed were soon given to idle and speculative studies which tended increasingly to be devoted to the justification of respective Confessions of Faith rather than the exposition and application of the Word of God. The identical scholastic spirit which had taken possession of the self-important Romish elite just before the Reformation, took up residence in the halls of Geneva’s progeny right after it. It led them to become obsessed with such earth-shattering issues as supra- vs. infralapsarianism.  The main difference between the groups was that the post Reformers lacked an Erasmus to serve as a mirror for their madness through cutting satire. Consequently, they continued to take themselves much too seriously.

Then-as we noted men are wont to do-they set about to set in stone and then enforce the early policies which were really only suitable for the transition from Roman excess. Thus the RPW, like any self-respecting federal agency, began claiming jurisdiction wherever it could get away with it.

The calendar had been its first haunt of choice. That was quite understandable. Rome’s version of the follies had begun when they discovered how effective and beneficial calendrical modification was in weaning the newly converted barbarian hordes from their stubborn  idolatrous ways. “Instead of sacrificing pigs to your totem poles, what say we have a parade in honor of St. Columba?” “Capital idea!,” they all cried out in unison. But the good old Babel Syndrome must have lighted upon monks in a committee meeting one day. “Hey,” a young apprentice-monk said, “if it worked so well with those two holidays of theirs, let’s try applying a Christian significance to every day!”  And, because committees work this way, the motion passed and what started out as a clever (even ingenious) solution to a problem soon became a new problem by its own enormous weight. It took a Reformation to point out to people that however many days of sacred assembly you might find in the Old Testament, making every day a saint day or holy day has the same effect as underlining everything-that is, it’s identical in value to underlining nothing.

The RPW struck its early advocates with the same kind of force  that struck our young novice member of the Pagan-Day Replacement Program Committee. “What a splendid idea! Here are these Catholics who went overboard by making every day a holiday. Let’s clean up the whole problem with one shot by adopting a principle that will wipe the whole calendar clean.” And since the Regulative Principle of Worship functions on a negative basis, it was just the gimmick to do the job. Understand: The “negative basis” is like the way a Compact Disc Club works. Unless you tell them explicitly that you do not want their CD that month, you will get it. So the RPW said, “Unless God tells us there’s a holiday, there can’t be one.” Except for Lord’s Days, of course, the calendar was left pretty bone-picked clean. (I don’t know how the Europeans endured this back and forth rocking. Perhaps this explains their current mental state?) The neatest trick, though, had to be how the Regulativists dispensed with the entire Old Testament calendar of feasts. It was like, “God forbid that someone might think we have our faith from the Jews.” O, perish the thought! No matter what Romans and Acts and John might teach.

This negative basis thing really helped that RPW. Since it could be invoked anytime a practice might be said to lack express warrant from God, and since the number of things God has not warranted is potentially infinite, the Bureau of Weights, Standards and RPW was very busy.  For all its help and all its success, however, it was left to Christmas to become the OK Corral where the RPW would finally meet its match. When you blend Americanity with Keyensian economic policy (which depends entirely on consumer spending, with no debt or deficit high enough to be called “enough”), and throw in the sappy, effeminate yearnings of a population routed and ruled by egalitarianism, you’ve a formidable foe ready for a real showdown with any principle that preached self-denial in any form.

All these factors and forces have brought us to the present day, where the most interesting outcome has to be this picture: the offspring of earnest RPW-ites now finding themselves in the embarrassing (but instructive) position of having to argue in favor of the explicit celebration of  Christmas. This has come about because our national change-of-religion has arrived at the punch-list stage. Appointed sweepers roam the cavities of culture searching for anything which might remotely suggest the existence of a God or a particular God’s keen involvement with the founding and growth of this nation. When such a remnant is discovered, someone is appointed to “feel offended” and the courts are on permanent standby to provide the needed therapy for the poor victims who were obviously compelled against their will to hear a salesman say, “Merry Christmas.” That Kwanza greetings are still safe bets seems not to afford comfort to any-not even Regulativists.

All of this was to say, since we found that God is pleased to treat us as mature children of His, allowing us to exercise discretion and measured judgment in selecting which holidays we’ll celebrate and, within abiding parameters, just how we’ll celebrate them-since discovering this, many of us have spoken of Thanksgiving as our very favorite annual holiday.  Honestly, even Regulativists had a very hard time convincing other Christians that thanking God with special depths of gratitude one day each year was an evil He could barely abide.

All I wanted to add was this: I know some of us love Thanksgiving for its obvious apologetical potency. All these atheists get absolutely tongue-tied when you ask them just Whom they are thanking! I’m sure one or two have already tested alternate names, like, Acknowledgment Day (no help at all), Eating Day (ma nishtanaw ha yom hazeh mikol hayomim?), Turkey Day (plain stupid), or even Moment of Silent Meditation Day (har har hardy har har).

Delightful as it is to see atheists squirm-especially in the midst of their new campaign, by which they will convince moronic Americans that ethical behavior need not be dependent on belief in a deity (uh-huh)-there is much more to appreciate about this day. For one thing, for many of us who are first generation believers, this is a day when many discover their supposedly unbelieving family is less opposed to a prayer of Thanksgiving at the set table than at other times. All of us who starve for commonality in Jesus with our family members will recognize what I’m talking about. Additionally, Thanksgiving is also unique because it is not a Lord’s Day, yet it seems to cut through so much of our commercial body-armor to create a true feeling of specialness, which is, after all, the essential component of the sacred. To have a sense of sacredness penetrate into this pseudo-secular culture of fraud is a positive triumph of God in Christ. I’m not opposed to the proposition that God has shown an interest of pity in our Thanksgiving celebrations, permitting them to retain a modicum of dignity and sobriety rarely experienced by the vast majority of Americans. Thus, in nearly every home, on Thanksgiving we find a day where openness to truth may be at its annual cultural high-water mark. That is something every Christian can rejoice in.

But I just wanted to add this one thought: it is good to thank the Lord. It is good to enjoy Thanksgiving for no other reason than that we get to nationally, and family by family, give thanks to the God Who created us, Who sustains us, and Who is faithful to save. No other nation has ever been as obligated to thank God as we are. How wonderfully normal this is! What do you think about forming a committee to make every day Thanksgiving Day?

Yours and His,

Pastor Steve & Family

wishing you a most blessed Thanksgiving Day, as well as Advent Season

A glance at the output of contemporary philosophy departments justifies this sardonic assessment: 20^th century philosophy suffered so many hernias from pushing Kant against the wall, that the first decade of the next century has proved too short a time to calculate the damage, identify the lost trajectory, or get back to business. Publishing houses long regarded as belonging to the first rank, now promote philosophical tomes insisting that the real world and make-believe worlds share the same reality.

It gets better (worse?). In fact, philosophy has fallen so far off the curb, it has become for the profession less a question of which way is up, as whether “up” has any meaning. If it is suggested by some rapscallion that it does, you may expect another Rabelaisian to immediately publish his thesis in which he “proves” that, if “up” does actually exist, it evidently bears no relation to “down.” Rab and Rap then join forces in securing a Federal grant which enables them to construct a team of scholars ready to demonstrate… something.

This nearly chaotic condition afflicting Socrates’ child offers the raw materials for a splendid, even a riotous, evening. All you need to do is,  1) secure the most recent Oxford University Press catalog of philosophical offerings;  2) buy two or three bottles of  fine Merlot;  3) gather several adults for an after-dinner fellowship; and 4) have each take turns reading aloud the titles, subtitles and blurbs. You cannot go wrong; you will not be disappointed. You’ll create a memory. Consider the following thrilling volumes, each alleged to own real estate on the cutting-edge of mankind’s intellect-in-action:

· Moral Machines, “The first book to address the problem of creating ethical robots…”
· Philosophers Without Gods, which appears to be a sort of devotional for God-haters. The subtitle says it’s Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life, which I take to be a claim that it will aid readers in thinking deeply about what isn’t. Come to think of it, this book might explain a lot—about the authors. They’re missing something for sure.
· Drugs and Justice,  Oxford says, addresses “the central issues in drug policy: the lack of a coherent conceptual structure for thinking about drugs.” This is clear proof that the authors have not yet taken enough drugs to qualify to write such a book.
· Worlds and Individuals, Possible and Otherwise, explains how you can get a terminal degree while believing “that non-actual possible worlds and individuals are as real as the actual world and individuals.”
· Value, Reality, and Desire -Oh man, I treasure this book. Really. I want it.

All together, these portend the imminent self-immolation of the Enlightenment Project. Safe bet that the altar flames will be carried first from the Philosophy Department to the rest of the campus. Listen—I didn’t even mention the book which argues for the moral superiority of non-existence. (Stay tuned.) That’s right. For this optimist,  to be or not to be is not the question. “Not to be” is his aggressive preference, for everyone, as a norm. Leave it to a philosopher, well-practiced in his atheistic devotions, to tell us a better use for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Consider this: if, as some have suggested, Nietzsche’s Superman paved a highway for Hitler, what do you suppose awaits us when some leader-to-come operates on the presupposition that bringing everyone into non-existence is to do them a favor?

Here, surely, is the terminus of man’s autonomous reason: exactly as Scripture says—death. And not as a dreaded, hated thing, an intrusion. And not, as the Word calls it, an enemy. No. This is to gaze upon it as a lover. To prefer never having been to life everlasting  is to have allied one’s self with Satan at an earlier, an even more primitive  point of departure than that taken by our First Parents. Their devotion to Satan was so strong that to rescue them God first had to place enmity where their allegiance had been. Just so, all who begin the knowledge enterprise apart from the fear of the Lord, do not engage as neutral players, but as lovers of death (Proverbs 8:28). This love may be dormant; it is easily disguised.

But when, in an age of epistemological self-consciousness—when the darkness covers every landscape beyond Goshen’s borders—that fetid love feels safely hidden. As light causes the plant of pure love to grow, to blossom, so it is when surrounded by darkness that the darnel dares lift up its head. Having neither light to see in nor eyes to see with, still it boasts, it swaggers, it beats against the wheat and calls out to it, “Come! Join me. For behold, my dearest companion has arrived and bids us feast with him. How I have longed for his appearing! And now he is here. Come meet him. Come meet my only friend, the End.”

Yes, this is the truth of knowledge falsely so called. Yet, by God’s common grace, we must acknowledge that this century of philosophy past was not entirely worthless. For example, even a casual survey would reveal that the futility of unbelieving philosophy, has, in several sub-departments, made itself known, if not yet felt. And, skipping past other, brighter spots, there was important progress made in appreciating the inseparability of Word and Being. More narrowly, work of inestimable importance was done demonstrating how language does more than influence, does more than shape our perception of reality. To a very large extent, it determines it.

Not being one to start a celebration while there’s a perfectly good funeral to go to, I must report that the inextricable connection which enables language to define reality has not gone entirely unnoticed. That’s right. It’s been noted, and put to work, by feminists and sodomites and by numerous other entitlement groups. Yet, despite this exploitation having taken place in full view of the Church, Christians have—even with a Bible in hand that disclosed, even on its first page!, the Word/Reality relation millennia before Wittgenstein was a gleam in his daddy’s eye—Christians somehow (one is tempted to say miraculously, but it’s too painful, precisely because it is too true) managed to remain oblivious to the progress noted above, and altogether unaware of its value.

Which brings me to the provocation which prompted this lament—it was a brochure publicizing the Annual Conference of the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors. “Wait a minute!,” you say. “Aren’t they the good guys?” Indeed they are. They are the people who are “pursuing excellence in Biblical Counseling.” And therein lies the tragedy. Even those among us who have the proven discipline and skill to win skirmishes, somehow manage to show themselves ever more skillful at losing entire wars.

“Why? What are you talking about, Schlissel?” I’m talking about something that appears on the inside front cover of the brochure. “What? What? What could it be?”

Please don’t be offended if I say, I fear you may not yet share with me the sort of alarm-value indicated by the word I read. But I won’t keep you in suspense. It was the simple, casual, hardly noticeable identification of one of their principal people as “Chairperson” of a certain department.

“Chairperson?! You get this worked up about the use of ‘chairperson?’ How sad!” The writing on the wall, however, is the fact that so very, very few do get worked up by this. For, first of all, the man in question is no such thing. He is the chairman. Of course those determined to turn God’s order upside down would buck and chafe at reminders of His sovereignty, and His ordained order, but those who find God’s will irresistibly sweet must surely embrace the use of reality-impacting language that speaks reflectively in accordance with God’s will.

You see, feminists began their work in good communist fashion, by unjoining that which God had joined together. In order for them to set men and women at odds with each other, in order for them to effectively initiate policies that would destroy families, they had to cast life as lived, not by families, but by “individuals.” In this way, specialized segmentation could take on a life of nearly infinite adaptations. Order is not to be found in that which well serves families, but rather in that which serves individuals, abstractly defined after being first abstracted from families.

If families had one vote each, cast by the head of the family, it was twisted to appear not as “one family-one vote,” but as one vote for a man, and a vote denied to a woman. Never mind that God had declared these two one. When political purposes demand the redefinition of an entity, unbelievers are always quick to make it. The news, however, used to be in how quickly believers joined them. But it isn’t news anymore.

The reason this instance was so very distressing is because I’ve been compelled to witness the demasculization of language as the style-czars cemented it into place as policy governing the printed works of every secular publisher. Then, one by one, it has mowed down (nearly) every evangelical publisher, with hymn-publishers reckoned among the earliest casualties. Thus, I reason, if we can’t speak like God would have us speak when we write for others, at least we can use covenantally inclusive language¹ when we write for ourselves. But no! The rot has infested so deeply, so thoroughly, the wall is so horribly mildewed that any priest worth his salt knows it’s his sad duty to tell the dwellers, their abode must be torn down. It is time for judgment to begin with the household of God. When those who advertise themselves as the most faithful among us start using the rhetoric of the Revolution (i.e., as van Prinsterer defined it, viz., raw, anti-Christian unbelief), that time of judgment has arrived.

Why do we prove ourselves ready to censor or alter any word which might remind anyone that God made man to be a covenant head? When Christians self-publish, any willingness shown by them to adopt the rhetoric of anti-Christianity should be met by severe disapproval. Why deliberately reinforce a distortion of reality and a falsehood?

Although the world has waged war on male headship, it seems necessary to remind my fellow Christians that, this war, whose chief weapons are nouveau-speech, redefinition and censorship, is doomed to fail. Why do Christians insist on being distinguished as the folks who walk in the same direction as revolutionaries, only a few yards to the rear? You’ve heard that “slow obedience is no obedience.” But understand this: slow disobedience is still disobedience! Every time a self-described Christian organization adopts the egalitarian style book, they betray their God, His created order, and they give aid and comfort to His enemies.

All my life I witnessed men and women speak and write about men—chairmen, postmen, handymen and mankind—with no offense given or taken. It was only when feminists decided to exploit the one area of philosophical progress of the 20^th century that women were made to feel as if they should be offended. But it was—and is—all as phony as a three dollar bill. There is no offense to any God-created reality—not for His own children!

As long as men are taller, and as long as women insist on marrying taller men-and as long as the first floor of Department Stores are devoted to cosmetics—feminism confesses itself a fraud. Jesus is the Truth. His church is its pillar and foundation—presenting and representing His truth in this world. It’s time for women of both genders to get used to Christian writers and publishers using language which accords not with a fantasy world, but with the one real world which God has made, the same one He pronounced good.

NANC—repent. Seeing how central gender is to identity, if you can’t honor gender differences (even in language), and the callings respective to each of the two genders, why would anyone trust you to help them become more integrated in terms of who they “really” are? There are rules—and exceptions. That language is legitimate which reflects God-imposed rules. Language which subverts those rules is illegitimate. It is language in service to a revolt against His ordinances.

NANC: Repent. Please. Rewrite. Today.

.                                                                                      .

1. He/she, or the recent s/he is, contrary to a self-conferred description, not inclusive but exclusive language. The use of “man” so as to include men, women and children is actual, genuine inclusive language. But make no mistake, the double pronouns and strained possessive cases are temporary. Already the burden has led many publishers to abandon s/he and its cognates in favor of straight up “she,” “her” and more. It seems it wasn’t power that was offensive. It was power that recognized and served the family above abstracted individuals—that power was offensive—or so fools were made to think. In consequence of such thinking, they allowed themselves to be set to war against their own interests, for the profit of  parties other than the fool combatants.

Where you find

• the Word of God proclaimed with clarity in its fulness as found in Messiah Jesus alone;
• those betrothed to Jesus as His disciples, baptized;
• those who profess Him in His glory, nourished in the uncommon meal;
• the Antithesis carefully maintained;
• extraordinary love freely encouraged and freely expressed in self-abnegating service and humility;
• compassion in action, joy in song, hearts inclined toward God in prayer, decency, integrity;
• and inviolable families

–there you find the Holy Mother Church.

Where you find a like faith as found above, but weighted down by

• formality cultivated as the fruit of fear;
• ubiquitous images and statuary intercepting attention;
• assorted material stimulii, conducted along multiple sense-paths, seductively inviting attendees to shed words to be enveloped by mysteries;
• attribution to substances and forms of that which may warrantably be predicated of God in Christ, His Word—alone;
• blurry borders allegedly keeping distinct, reverence, adoration, petition and praise, on the one hand, from worship, on the other;
• a place where pleadings for divine mercies, entreaties for assurance of pardon for sin, supplications for omnipotent assistance, and invocations for the Divine Presence are said to be better addressed to a deceased Jewess awaiting the resurrection than to her extremely living, exhaustively ruling, unfathomably loving, and very jealous Son, the world’s only Savior

–there you find the Church of the Holy Mother.

These two are not the same. By their roots you will know them.

* Maundy Thursday is so named from the Latin for new commandmant (John 13), “mandatum novum.” So, whatever else you do, honor Messiah’s Mandate: love your Christian brothers and sisters.

Nothing can replace Psalm 23 in King James English, so firmly anchored is it in our collective cultural consciousness. Nevertheless, there is a wonderful translation of the last line which I thought you might like:

Ah, how goodness and kindness pursue me,
every day of my life;
my home, the house of Yahweh,
as long as I live!

It is from the Jerusalem Bible (not to be confused with the New Jerusalem Bible!). I think you can tell why I like it — it is more dynamic, more personal, more certain, declaring that God’s “chesed” (His lovingkindness) is not merely a passive entity, hanging around until someone decides to make use of it. His mercies are not even like shadows that coincidentally happen to be wherever we are. Rather, this translation of this Psalm portion reveals to us God’s love and grace in warm and swift pursuit of us. God’s lovingkindness is God in action. Where can we flee from His presence? Nowhere. But here we are reminded why we’d never want to be away from His presence (apart from the fact that being away from His presence is the very definition of Hell). Our God is aggressive, a characteristic He repeatedly applies to Himself in Scripture. He is aggressive and jealous. Jealous for us. This is personal, not generic. God’s love is brand name love, not white label. It is directed, purposive, determined, not to be denied. He is quite—He is completely different from the mushy, Arminian conception of Deity so prevalent in our time. He is not an impersonal power called Love which is universally available. He is everything He is for us, His people. He doesn’t wake up each morning wondering, “What shall I do today?” He is, He knows, He does. His ways are inscrutable, beyond tracing out. His bounties unfathomable. Our God has given to all and borrowed from none. And all He has, all He is, He is and He gives for us. Every good and perfect gift comes from our Father, Who does not change like shifting shadows (James 1). He’s not merely aggressive, not an ADD boy itching to do something, anything. He continues to work out His specific, perfect plan, the conception and adoption of which predates the Fall of image-bearing man, just as it extends beyond time itself. He is in pursuit of us to BLESS us. How insane that most of the planet devotes themselves to running away!

Ah, how goodness and kindness pursue me,
every day of my life;
my home, the house of Yahweh,
as long as I live!

And that is forever. Baruch HaShem, indeed!

The following paragraph is from a press release honoring Black History Month, by Alan D. Aviles, the President of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation.

Both in New York City and the nation, people of African-American descent often face greater health challenges than the general population. African-American adults are twice as likely to have a stroke and 60% more likely to die from a stroke than white adults. African-Americans have a higher incidence of asthma, diabetes, heart disease, HIV/AIDS, hypertension, infant mortality and sickle cell anemia than other ethnic groups. In addition, they have a higher incidence and poorer survival rates of certain cancers, including lung, prostate and stomach cancer.

We are told that it was Mark Twain who observed that there are three categories of untruth: lies, damned lies, and statistics. It is paragraphs such as the above which provide to the gleg observer a disclosure of just how statistics are recruited for such (ig)noble purposes. A moment’s reflection ought to jolt the reader: How is it that these statistical observations are not joined to an explanation of WHY these disparities might exist? Whatever connection these “facts” might have with life is left to linger above the earth, the orbiting satellite of racial guilt, set to pass overhead at regular intervals to remind every American that…what? What exactly is the point of highlighting these disparities if one does not find accompanying the “inequity list” the very best or the most likely explanation which can account for the items listed? If someone really cares enough to notice the disparities, how do we account for them not caring enough to go just a tiny bit further, to bring us a tad nearer to a solution by tracing out for us the root causes of these unequal realities? It is in the Bible one may find the answer: “The mercies of the wicked are cruel.”

Prior to the 1960’s the absence of any attempted explanation would have been viewed as a lapse in integrity by the author and/or publisher. What kind of man is it who knows where a fire is raging but refuses to tell the location so that help might be sent? But you see, inequity lists such as these no longer even pretend to be doing front work for genuine concern. Rather, they are purely political, which is to say creedal phrases, recited not so that anything might be done to solve a problem or cure a disease, but to propagate a faith. They are rehearsed for no purpose beyond perpetuating a favorite myth. The Heidelberg Catechism teaches us the religious explanation for man’s problems. Illness and death are consequences of sin. Paragraphs like the one cited intend the same thing: illness and death are the result of a cardinal sin (if not the Original Sin) identified as such by the priests of the egalitarian state. This paragraph is pure catechetical preaching.

In this case, the catechism holds that all of America’s problems are rooted in inequalities. If egalitarianism has yet to descend upon a segment of life, if its visitation of destruction has failed to reach a sphere because the spreading leaven was halted in some way, then the populace is to meditate on it, chant and recite verses that they hope will, by religious fervor and force, finally bring the Great Solution of equalitarianism to all spheres. This is a religious exercise, my friends. It is because we are on this side of the communist egalitarian utopia–which it is our duty to ever hold before our eyes as THE great goal of man and state–that these terrible imbalances exist.

Black people suffer higher incidence of sundry and assorted “leading bad health indicators” because America and its health care systems are utterly racist. Isn’t it obvious? Here is the proof! There are health inequities! What further proof is needed? In the current American environment, at least, to say nothing by way of explanation is tantamount to saying, “Racism did this.”

But surely enough knowledge is available, enough data known to correlate these higher incidences with certain “lifestyle” choices. If the announcement were generic, speaking of total populations (i.e., regardless of race) in region “X” in, say, 1978 compared with the same in 2008, a conclusion stating that the 2008 population was “twice as likely to have a stroke” as the 1978 group, would certainly be joined to a hypothetical explanation. No editor worth his salt would accept the story for print if the reporter didn’t dig further for an explanation. These considerations, I insist, reveal this sort of selective reporting, in which the important questions are left unasked, to be nothing less than race-baiting, less than worthless and inexcusable. To know WHY the disparities exist and to be silent concerning these reasons, especially when seeking to draw attention to the additional burden borne by one segment of the population, is, to every sensitive conscience, unconscionable. But like the “Rev.” Al Sharpton, these people make their living off of racism. Though they put themselves forward as enemies of inequality, the truth is they are devoted to perpetuating and extending it. Without it they’d be out of a job. Any decline in real racism (and its ugly fruits) means a corresponding decline in their bonuses. And hey, these are hard economic times.

So expect lots more of these mysteriously abstracted observations. It’s like the figures bandied about by ignorant (I’m being kind) feminists who ask you to be indignant about “inequitous” (my new word!) pay between men and women. By failing to connect it to women’s choices about what sort of work they are trained or willing to do, or the number of hours they elect to be away from home, or the costs to employers who hire and train women only to find over time that other items on their agenda made it too easy for women to forsake the workplace altogether–by leaving it as an abstraction, it best serves its religious function as a training tool, instructing the next generation just what sin is. It is “any want of conformity unto or transgression of 50/50.”

If you are skeptical, if you suspect that I’ve done my own abstracting, I place before you Mr. Aviles’s next two paragraphs. If you find a reason for the disparity that might prove helpful to Blacks, let me know, will ya?

HHC has a proud history of addressing racial and ethnic health disparities faced by African-Americans in New York City. For example, we have developed numerous initiatives, such as our Web-based electronic diabetes registry, to help our patients with diabetes better control their illness and avoid long-term complications. Similar technology and special care programs help keep our pediatric asthma patients out of emergency rooms and hospital beds.

We continue our work to expand access to preventive screenings for heart disease, hypertension, and cancers; make HIV testing part of routine medical care; help people to quit smoking; and provide optimal perinatal care.

It is time for Americanity to recognize that Political Correctness is not about politics. It’s simply that old Baal showing his version of “tolerance.”

No effort is being exerted to list these in a careful or meaningful order.

1. A number of American Christians have awakened to Christ’s legitimate claims in the political and social spheres. Unfortunately, this realization occurred long after it was needed for it to result in much good.

2. We are taught to pray, “Establish the work of our hands, O Lord.” We have become a land which has notified all its citizens that the works of their hands may not, in any materially significant way, be said to belong to them, the people. Over the last nine years, the Retail Trade and Manufacturing sectors have lost about 5 million jobs. Government employment during the same period is up 1.7 million jobs. A little thinking will reveal some interesting realities. Manufacturing in the USA has long been forsaken, giving way in this sector to China and other New New World nations (no longer Third world). America has kept up the appearance of prosperity by an unwieldy dependence on the service sector. Much of the service portion of the economy is sinking (example: information sector lost three-quarters of a million gigs). The government in its entirety is properly in the service sector. Government produces nothing. Yet government is far and away the leading employer, and its edge is growing, pitifully dwarfing every other sector. What’s more, while producing zilch in terms of widgets, etc., the government either owns or is buying or seeking to buy ownership interests in several of the remaining sectors. Health services, for example, is entirely shaped and driven by government programs, and no program of the next four years will amount to a blip in pulling back. On the contrary, the essential trend is toward complete and total government-owned health care. Similarly, in the last 6 months, the federal government has gone much further than to pretend to being a mere regulator of the finance sector–it is now THE shaper, shaker, mover and owner of the largest players in the once independent industry. This is not to speak of government control of every sphere of life, from education to transportation. When the Detroit/DC spitswap is done, Washington will even control the transportation we use to get to other transportation. The lesson that every claimant to sovereignty MUST move toward exhaustive control of ALL is becoming so painfully evident, pretty soon even college professors might realize it. All this to say, nothing is left that belongs, in any meaningful sense, to us. Everyone is herewith working for Uncle Sam, either directly or slightly indirectly. The American Experiment has concluded, ironically, on the tail of Communism’s colossal failure. We wanted to prove that old saw which you heard from all Commies: “It isn’t that Communism doesn’t work. It’s just that what they do in (Choose One: China, Russia, Cuba, VietNam, Korea, Eastern Europe, etc.) is not REAL Communism,” has one more round to go, while the birthplace of the free market becomes the last spot on earth to prove the complete futility of Communism’s egalitarian, covetous, anti-production, anti-liberty mentality. “Communism hasn’t worked because America hasn’t showed everyone how to do it.” Don’t take a nap. We don’t have “x-feet” to go; we are already there.

3. Consequently, it behooves those who would rather pour their lives into something resembling a family held legacy or trust, as opposed to State fodder, to seek circumstances wherein such freedom as is required to attain those ends is a reality.

4. The whinings of counter-cultural Christians who would stop short of secession must, of necessity, result in the continuing of the pouring of the future and its resources into Leviathan’s belly. Eventually, Leviathan will put them in its belly, but first things first. The train called America will be making no more stops. Those who see the wisdom in allowing those determined to crash and burn to proceed without them will have to arrange for their own exit from the speeding train.

5. This requires from those with vision a strong neck and stomach, accompanied by a severe determination to define what it is that is being proposed. First, of course, it must be distinguished from the War between the States of the century before last. This is about the rejection of universal slavery, not racist or race-based slavery. The secession spoken of now will doubtless have to contend with Constitutional issues still unresolved, even after the Great War, but it need not allow itself to be derailed from the first by moronic comparisons. Liberty, in the minds of our Founding Fathers, meant but one thing when a referent was in view: Liberty FROM government control, or political tyranny. Those who have passively observed the reaction of politicized homo-ism to the slim loss in California this past election day have seen precisely the sort of tolerance they may expect in all future debate in the “old country.” I suggest that such states which, for example, share Barack Obama’s views, and who wish to live by those views and form policy to enshrine them, that these states be called America. While those who still get choked up reading the commitment of our fathers to be ever free of intrusive tyrants using the sword to push their will upon the necks of all–those who actually share the American vision will select the other states and be known as the United States, ever to be used with a plural verb. (I will offer a small variety of possible distribution patterns, not this just mentioned as THE one.)

6. I’m sorry to report that optimism, though once inseparable from any sound description of the American character, because it was fitting and helpful in view of our freedoms, is no longer justified. In fact, optimism concerning the future of the USA is no longer helpful. The alteration in the American character looks the result of an altercation–with a shark–while we had our hands chained behind our backs. The change is more profound, more devastating, more irretrievably hopeless than any pundit known to this writer seems to recognize. If we were to describe this change moving from its source forward, we could choose either the Garden of Eden or 1789. The identical transaction was simply repeated societally at the later date.

7. What was offered in place of a world defined by God was a world which man, duped into becoming a competitor with the Creator, imagined he could define for himself. The essential component in the transaction was the substitution of category content: what God declared ought to be called right, what He’d reveal ought to be called wrong, were switched, like “The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle, but the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.” We put the pellet in the chalice and vice-versa. What’s the result? Right. Death.

8. New York City is said to permit corrections to birth records, a policy narrowly encompassing folks who want to believe that they are actually a gender other than that listed on their birth certificates. The old boogie-man from the ERA Amendment era didn’t die–he just came back by way of administrative code. Now municipalities and states will begin to strategically prevent all ladies comfort stations from being invadeable by men who simply claim that they are actually women. People who have a hard time envisioning a world where such things are seriously overtured–and adopted–has not been paying attention. Just as the Jacobins wanted a ten-day week, and a reconfiguration of the calendar to make the Year One begin with the Revolution, in a scarcely veiled scheme to be rid of the pesky ubiquitous reminders of Creation and Sovereign Redemption, so also redefinition at the fundamental level is necessary and intended to accommodate an entire overturning of the order. The redefinition of marriage, for which heterosexuals, thank you very much, are 100% to blame–the politigays merely took advantage of the tattered, shredded institution that was handed to them on a platter. It is more than a mistake to blame homosexuals for the loss of marriage’s definition–it is untrue, unfair, and unhelpful. There’s enough sin to go around that we needn’t unnecessarily pile in front of one party what rightly belongs at the door of another.

9. But speaking of untrue, the truth has entered a period of impenetrable darkness. This has been brought home to me on several levels in the recent past. There was a time when ARGUMENT was had in order to provide two or more presentations of things said to be SO, to be true, usually retaining an antithetical character reminiscent of “If a, then not non-a.” But now, in truth (I speak to a number diminishing more rapidly than is true of any other identifiable entity larger than the individual), argument occurs for many other reasons but hardly ever to come to a knowledge of TRUTH.

10. More specifically, we have put behind us altogether the time when the discovery of TRUTH meant, in a good number of instances, the discovery of DUTY. But when we chose our sense of what is “fair” as a replacement for the Creator God’s inherent right to instruct us as to what is fair (regardless what we think), we began a longish slide toward where we find ourselves today: having little use for truth in any way, shape or form. Some parents (who still hate their children enough to give them up to public education) find the roughest shock when they discover that Dick & Jane have their answers marked correct IF Dick & Jane felt passionately about their answer, wrong though it might be. Lessened emotional intensity does not necessarily mean your wrong answer will be judged to be wrong. For you have a double-sliding scale: if you are less passionate about your guess, but actually closer to the answer, you can pass the subject. You see, 5+4=8 can be correct if you “kinda feel good about it,” because you are only, after all, one digit off. But to make the teacher buy, say “54,” or even “16,” requires a stronger sell.

11. Which leads to education starting to look very much like a single course on emoting regardless of what topic the parents are told is being studied. The stark recognition and nearly universal understanding among public school teachers that kids are being taught nothing (of value) no longer needs to be kept secret. In fact, it hasn’t been. The parents, like Israel of old, “loved the lies” that served their purposes. People’s beliefs are not informed by TRUTH, after all! So facts such as those revealing what is and what is not being taught in the engine room of evil today have already been long known and verified. Parents simply do not care.

12. And who can blame them? After all, they are not bundled with responsibilities the moment they hear of their freely chosen recreation having resulted in a new life. There’s still plenty of time to kill the child. And while I concede that a Roe overturning is conceivable under certain circumstances, Nov. 4th, 2008 made those circumstances about as likely as a cool summer in Louisiana, with or without global trending.

13. Before moving too far along, it is appropriate to make comments that probably should go in a sidebar. So pretend. Nota Bene a) Yes, Peaceful Secession Now is 100% serious. It is not an intellectual exercise, a tease, nor is it an impossibility. Everything depends on God’s will, groundswell, the winds. b) It is perfectly incorrect to say it cannot happen. That is a choice, not a fact. c) It is a best case option for a whatever-case outcome with the present USA. Our nation as it is has wholly spurned the liberties, documents, integrity, vision, sanity, courage, views, faith and outlook of our Founding Fathers. On any reckoning, their return to what we have become would send them to a time machine market to try to return to the 18th century to see if there were ways they could have improved the likelihood of success beyond 100 years. I do not fault them. Who is creative enough to anticipate the magnificent strategies of Satan? Only God can know the future. Our Fathers did the best they could. But if they glimpsed a Federal government claiming the first 5 months wages of every year’s earnings of every worker, they would say, “Surely it’s fallen to brigands. Worse tyranny than ever we imagined has overshadowed the land and our hopes.” Where do you want them to look? Choose a field. They won’t like it. Government, THE entity they sought to restrain, say whatever else you will about our founding documents, it is undeniable that what they sought to limit has now taken upon itself the authority to limit everything else. Federal greed is the only unrestrained and unrestrainable power functioning in our nation. (Forgive me for keeping denominational considerations out of this set. Of course the living God, His Word, CANNOT be bound. But I seek to explain our responsibilities, not God’s options.) Concluding point “c”, we are far past the point of possible repair. This is a setlled conviction that is clearly a prerequisite for those who would have more than a condescending interest in this topic. If our health COULD be restored, I’d be there to rally that we pull out every stop in order to effect the repair. But triage says otherwise. And what we are permitting now, by not beginning EARNEST efforts toward Peaceful Secession Now is the compelled funding by ourselves of the very Beast that is desirous of owning us and keeping us and our seed in perpetual servitude. Consider: whatever the deficit was before the current president took office, our entire nation has been notified that EVERY EFFORT will be made to double or triple it in the next four years. That means every delay of PSC is an action to extend the bondage of our progeny, to saddle them with an insurmountable, unserviceable debt. OUR GOVERNMENT IS THE BIGGEST SUBPRIME BORROWER IN HUMAN HISTORY. What we are now witnessing is the ascent of the foxes to their thrones over the hen house. We have ASKED, we BEG the that the very policies which have brought us to the door of God’s wrath be ACCELERATED. Understand this: there is zero possibility of a PRINCIPLED argument or discussion taking place on ANY ISSUE confronting us today, IF we are hoping to hear a proponent speaking from a position of informed faith and verifiable historical precedent. This seems out of place in this context but it actually isn’t: the fact that Christians differ little from the haters of God and Truth in their television habits is the only measurable factor needed to know that defeat of right is inevitable. I’ve been around the block on this one enough to know: TV is positioned as THE MEDIATOR of reality in place of God in Christ. Anyone who dreams that a 30-minute verbal bubble bath on Sunday morning can counteract the effects of subliminal, presuppositional worldview imbibing that takes place 6, in some cases 7 days a week, for as much as 4, 5 or 6 hours per day, is plainly an idiot. And that is what Americanity can boast: impotent idiots leading other impotent idiots to pools of fake Viagra.

14. There is no sane alternative to Peaceful Secession Now for those who believe their lives have meaning, their children are their heirs, freedom matters, and responsibility is the major component of manhood. The gravest threat we face is the violence coming our way FROM the government installed to SERVE us. Is there a fool nearby who believes that if the Second Amendment was surrounded by impenetrable protections and maintained in pristine glory that this would make for a level playing field NOW or in the future? Don’t tell me what COULD be IF ONLY WE HAD…. Tell me if it could happen given what IS. This question is related to the question of Public Debate. The urgency of PSN comes from the undeniable double fact that, THERE IS NO ROOM FOR PUBLIC PRINCIPLED DEBATE remaining in this nation. Those who employed pleas for tolerance as a device to gain ascendancy SUCCEEDED. Once installed in their seats, do they want to CONTINUE the tolerance they were shown? It has not happened in human history. It will not happen now. THINK! What PUBLIC debates have you seen about abortion which PERMITTED graphics and video? Not one. Why not? Because the use of graphics and video, being an introduction of truth and reality into the discussion, absolutely guarantees the victory going to the Life cause. Therefore, the mechanism which would insure the victory–the communication of truth and fact–is ruled out of bounds before the discussion begins. The latest move by NBC to censor a positively BRILLIANT life ad from appearing during the Super owl is simply par for the course. Listen to me, please: There is no PUBLIC DEBATE permitted if “debate” implies the presence of a view that is regarded as “politically incorrect.” (In actual truth, it is RELIGIOUSLY incorrect, but I accommodate those who struggle to understand, that is, those who still watch TV, ESPECIALLY those who insist it doesn’t affect them–when I worked with the drug addicted population nearly 40 years ago, helping them to put their death ways behind them, I could count on one hand the number that didn’t assure me they “could stop whenever (they) wanted.” Yeah, right.)

15. One of the most conservative REFORMED periodicals published in North America, featured a political “analysis” in their most recent issue which is illustrative of how hopelessly schizoid and intellectually polluted is that one-time bastion of productive thought. After excoriating, for no cited reason, President Bush, the “analyst” went on to praise numerous of his accomplishments in the body of the balance of the article. Among the items eliciting groans of approval were the appointments of Alioto and Roberts to the Supreme Court, BECAUSE they are perceived by the writer as INTENTIONALISTS. Hold that thought: The author praised the President she despised for doing this GREAT thing, and the reason provided was, they sought to interpret the Constitution in accord with the intent of the framers. In the virtual next breath, she flamed Bush once again for reducing the Republican Party to that hopeless condition wherein some Republicans actually seriously considered “extreme right wing” candidate Rep. Ron Paul, as a possible presidential candidate. I hope she is standing on soft ground when someone tells her the REASON Dr. Paul was labeled as “extreme right wing” by the LIBERAL PRESS was precisely and ONLY because he is an INTENTIONALIST. Now see how many terminal points come together in this paragraph. We have the uselessness of the once great Reformed perspective (for even if the writer is an excusable newbie, what on earth is the editor doing running that drivel?), the bell tolling in the matter of our pool of people who COULD debate IF public debate permitted the truth, the prozac-worthy news that the one tiny encouragement God gave sane people during the last 18 months, viz., the blessed voice of sanity heard in Dr. Ron Paul’s manly points of view, was publicly urinated upon by a writer who should have kissed his feet if she had even an inkling of self-consciousness about what SHE herself professes to believe. Don’t you see? Twenty hours of TV per week will rinse the best of brains free of what they once thought they knew.

16. Put all of today’s additions (13-15) together and think. The only way people can peacefully live together while cherishing divergent, mutually exclusive views, is to have outlet for meaningful discourse, dialogue and debate, each shouted out into an environment where freedom of thought is more highly regarded than most other so-called rights. But when freedom of thought is no longer permitted, two things have happened. One, somebody has reached a position of influence and power that is more than merely confident they will, but is but has already become well-practiced at, stifling oppositional speech and sentiment. Two, the last remedy this side of violence has been rendered inoperative in the Public Square. What I am saying is blatantly obvious. No crystal ball needed. Just that people pull their heads of that tuchas called tv, and look. This week, comb all the newspapers and magazines, watch every news program you can stuff down. report to me next week exactly HOW MANY arguments you encountered which sought to explain that SPENDING money to remedy the problems which have befallen us BECAUSE we spent money in that very fashion is simply a mark of insanity. Those who propose it do not have feet on firm ground. This is something that SHOULD appear MORE obvious than the futility of trying to put out a fire with gasoline. But you will ONLY hear differences concerning speed, implementation, details, which programs to fund with how much funny-money. What you will not hear is that there is nothing any sane person should be discussing. We sinned, at least, some people and companies sinned. I won’t, just here, press my conviction that egalitarian policy drove us to this current financial disaster, but I will insist upon this: If the government cared 1% about honoring the restraints imposed upon it by the Constitution, they would not be PROPOSING, REGULATING or PRETENDING to FUND a solution. The companies went down while everyone watched, hoping, of course, to benefit on the way? Then let them die and be buried. THE LAST THING TO DO is the same thing you did to create the crisis! But such talk has been deemed out of bounds, if for no other reason, it might discouraged our White President. (Are you not weary of a man who is 50% white being irreversibly categorized as black? Everywhere we look, we see what appears to be the inspiring observation which resulted in this summary: Ephesians 4:18,19. Brain death is not reversible. It is over.

17. Permit me to lay out some additional broad strokes. for example, note that in january of THIS YEAR the State of New Hampshire started to shake and move by introducing the following in their State House. New Hampshire legislators have stepped up to the plate.

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_status/Results.aspx?q=1

Text of bill:

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2009/HCR0006.html

For a few years NH has been brought to the attention of potential seceders as a friendly place where it just might happen. They report that thousands have moved there, with thousands en route. I think this certainly ought to be encouraged. But I want to add that what I am envisioning is quite a bit different. Nevertheless, it would not hurt to point out that, should people believe that State decrees, or even State actions, will adequately prepare the way, they’ve got another think coming. Peaceful is the prominent word in Peaceful Secession now, and the likelihood of peace is enhanced when that which is sought is considerably more comprehensive and equitable. Moreover, a landlocked and relatively isolated portion in the Northeast is hardly the sort of equitable distribution that our circumstances would deem appropriate. I think it would be fair to say that our nation is a polarized one. Contrary to those who decry polarization, I pray to God that it happens completely and immediately. For the trend does not bode well. The anti-polarization crowd must be given the same shrift that the “tolerance” crowd should have been buried under. Tolerance, don’t forget, in the REAL world, is most often nothing more than a device which, after being successfully deployed, is jettisoned in favor of the New Intolerance, which hates nothing quite so much as the source from which it came. Fleshing that out, we see that as the God-haters staked out and seized strategic positions (while Christians became consumed with a fatal lust for prosperity and personal peace and solitary happiness), they brilliantly employed each advance as a platform from which the next assault would be waged. In a healthy society you may find a balance between “Conservative” and “Progressive,.” and all for the good, I’d say. This creates and regulates the pace at which human beings can experience cultural change (through growth and development) without being so blinded by the light of their imagined accomplishments that they just throw away everything inherited. It seems axiomatic that every healthy society must have that tension that comes from some pushing for change while others push back for none. It is only then that constructive change can come, absorbable, digestible change. In other words, REAL progress. What we have come to now, however, is far past the tipping point. Now the captive institutions, being collectively the most important in shaping and imposing the new doctrines, are routinely successful in turning out the sort of product that looks a lot like the blueprint according to which human beings would be constructed if totalitarianism were the goal. This point, like every other I’m seeking to make here, can certainly be launched for a life of its own. But rather than develop it, I’ll leave the same to you, while merely noting that all the qualities one might be looking for in an easily enslavable people, well, it’s our modern American specialty. Students–every one of them not in an unusually conscientious school or homeschool (read 90% of our young)–grow up not merely without much knowledge of American history, but they are processed through schools that leach out of them any true love for their country. (On this matter, the balance that is beautiful can only be had when one’s nation is conceived of as UNDER GOD, for without our nation being held accountable to that Higher Authority from whom all authority in heaven and on earth derives its name, the nation itself becomes an idol. I must remind you again and again that our war is against abstractions, but almost just as intensely, we must strive against means becoming converted to ends. To exclude God as King of a nation is to play the fool rebel begging for judgment. But seeing how Americans have already been conditioned to cry to the feds for things such as consequences of hurricanes [they cannot stop them, they are not responsible for them], or AIDS prevention [it is already virtually 100% preventable; that this fact manages to escape the notice of nearly every college graduate in America says something] one may be forgiven for concluding that we have past the preparation stage and we are poised for implementation.

18. Our ripeness for bondage, continued. I was saying that polarization is the best strategic goal anyone who loves our country could aim for, because polarization MEANS a cessation in the acceleration of our decline. We are a people without understanding. Americanity breeds “believers” who can boogie, who can get hysterical, fornicate, divorce, abort, etc. But it has not produced “believers” who can recite the Ten Commandments. The level of knowledge of EVERYTHING worthwhile has rotted from disuse and/or contempt. But don’t confuse the disappearance of THE Ten Commandments from our collective memory with the disappearance of ten commandments. Every one of them is still in force; it is just that they have been revised so as to render service to another god. And here we stumble upon a point which begs for notice, so I will yield (for a few sentences). No one living is ever without a religion anymore than any living person is without a source of oxygen. The Village Ignoramus thinks religion is stuff about “God,” or liturgical enactment, or… But this misses the mark widely. Life is religion, as H. Evan Runner used to say, but even closer to our point, religion is the belief underlying every engagement, project, hope, wish, relationship, endeavor, from which, we each maintain, MEANING is derived or or worth had. So science is incapable of proving that any thing, process or event is necessarily connected to any other. The connections are made, my friends, by faith. Every single breath of words you hear from the mouths or pens of atheists who wish you to believe their words have meaning, comes from hypocritical liars who have stolen our world view for the benefits which it alone confers, but the theft was intended to provide them with a weapon, not a tool. They borrow in order to destroy. What, I dare say, can they BUILD? NOTHING! For way before all is said and done, the only reason Richard Dawkins expects to be listened to is because HE thinks he should be listened to. when the Lord speaks, “Let the whole earth keep silence before Him!” When these clowns speak, everybody jump on a whoopee cushion. They have NO authority beyond their own imagination. There is NO PLACE for their authority to COME FROM.

19. All to say that polarization means nothing other than a stop to our hemorrhaging. Polarization is a dadblane IMPROVEMENT, as they say in New Hampshire. And speaking of which: a LIBERAL organization “corrected” a widely circulated email which had interpreted the Obama/McCain results as vastly to the advantage of McCain in most considerations other than electoral votes. But listen to the figures THE LIBERALS came up with. “The total [land] area of states won by Obama is actually 1,483,702…” McCain’s states have an area of 2,310,315 square miles. This translates to less than 40% of the LAND composing the United States of America bet on an undefined dream (how fitting), while more than 60% voted for McCain. Why be satisfied with New Hampshire (it’s only 9,351 square miles)? We’re entitled to 3/5, or another 2,300,964 square miles. (By the way, New Hampshire voted for Obama, which gives the tiniest inkling of how complex this secession is going to be. One of the states he carried is looking to pave the way for secession.) Another interesting statistic reveals 45% of Catholics and 54% of Protestants voted for McCain while 54% of Catholics and 45% of Protestants voted for Obama. This translates to a dead heat. Perfect polarization. For we find that 49.5% of American Christians voted for Obama and 49.5% of American Christians voted for McCain. Unless the public schools are abandoned tomorrow (talk about a pleasant dream to follow), a quick polarization is the only way to prevent the loss of future members of the sanity pool. Do not defend yourself when accused of causing polarization. Glory in it! It’s God’s own work for us. (Yet I must be honest–as long as Americanity keeps the TV on, and their kids in dumbdown, the rupture will continue, even increasing in speed and effect. We have waited FAR too long. The urgency is SO urgent we should invent a better word.

20. There must be a secession. At least, we ought to agree that of all goals worth pursuing, none holds forth as much promise as does a fresh start. Are problems standing between those with the vision to begin again and the new beginning? Bet your Adam’s apple! But it is my experience that the ones with the love of freedom, disciplined lives, obsession about family, confidence in the future under God, and a desire to see righteousness (if not rewarded, AT LEAST) not mocked or damned in the Public Square, and a burning desire to see sin become NOT seen, that these are the prime candidates upon whom one can rely, who love responsibility more than the modern mindless love to talk about sexual abandon. (No one believes sin will be eradicated this side of That Day, but our present culture has become irredeemably committed to the celebration of debauchery. Speaking honestly about SINFUL behavior, has often been known to result in sinners becoming personally offended. This poor little offended baby then takes his wounded baby-feelings to suit. Who is surprised that the more hurt feelings find a payday in litigation, the number and intensity of alleged hurt feelings increases rapidly, astronomically? This is already cliche, stale, hackneyed: say anything 7 degrees separated from a racist remark, lose your job . Remember when, a few years ago, a furor erupted when a speechmaker actually used that o-so-offensive word, “niggardly”–OFF WITH HIS HEAD!, they shouted–”How insensitive!!” (You’ll need my oath on this, I’m afraid, so I testify to this truth: the New Oxford American Dictionary has a WARNING, a CAUTION against using the word without some compelling reason, for it causes imbeciles to get “confused.” Is there room enough in the psycho-wards for all of us? We are on the shuttle passing madness. I do not recall ever seeing a WARNING about using a word long found in non-slang dictionaries and I’ve been reading dictionaries all my born days. Will this soon become a slam dunk for litigants, i.e., a guaranteed win if they can prove , “he used a word with a warning next to it, your hunor, your humor, er, your hummer. And he didn’t give ME no warning at all.”) That these dingbats expressing outrage in all the regional papers weren’t EMBARRASSED to reveal their ignorance, or the fact that no one loved them enough to forewarn, “It means cheap, stupid; it has zero to do with color.” Yet this is hardly half the story–how about all of us being forced to accept a store, with its logo everywhere proclaiming FCUK? You don’t think they employ those initials prominently for a REASON, do you? But those things which cause Christians, Jews and other devout people profound offense, are uniformly and self-consciously DENIED as occasions granting standing to bring suit. Only feelings hurt on the correct side of the political (read: religious) spectrum may dare claim offense. If a mature person explains that he is offended by the comedy in the dentist’s office which is blaspheming God, he’ll get an “Are you for real?” gaze, as the volume is turned up. Being compelled to watch veritable parades of male-type singers at sporting events, singers who seem to believe their diaphragm control might be improved if they keep elevating a portion of their crotch every 6 seconds (or perhaps they are just terribly fearful of sudden, mysterious, inexplicable castration–it has been known to happen like that at sports arenas, hasn’t it?– and they’re merely checking to see if there is still some equipment there: or could it be they transplanted a zipper from their sneakers to their pants and they have a sinking feeling it didn’t work?) –being forced to endure that parade (you’d so love to rain on) is not a just occasion to claim offense. The best result you might hope for is the promoter offering you a refund because he suspects your niggardly disposition to underlie your complaint. Ha! Of course, all you’ll get, instead of moola, is “Grow up, jerk!” and an FCUK t-shirt, AND a rejection at the courthouse door. And why is no standing given to a Christian whose child is forced to read “literature” describing anal sex in his public school, along with myriad other perversions, but standing IS given to someone whose kid is “forced” to hear people say, “One nation, under God”? I submit this, and ten thousand other examples identifying the level we’ve sunk to today, as pure unassailable evidence that every lawful path which holds potential for providing sanity, societal renewal, transformation, and/or moral progress has been closed, or had a DETOUR sign hung at its entrance. Humanly speaking, it is impossible to peacefully recover the Public Square which favors good and disfavors evil. The positions of genuine temporal power have been purchased, co-opted, usurped, or simply GIVEN to our neo-pagan neighbors (by our gnostic Christian relatives practicing Americanity). And they have shown themselves quite skilled at using their positions to guard and protect perversion and to punish even a plea for righteousness, justice, peace and self-control. The INTOLERANTSIAS are in the chairs of power, and we’ll not see them sent to the chairs of electric anytime soon. Oh, right. Only Texas is barbaric enough to actually care about victims and justice and restitution–we don’t “do” executions anymore. Now we do lunch instead. We can continue to “dialogue” about abortion ONLY when abortions are being permitted or encouraged. To insist that while discussion takes place or certainty is reached, abortions ought NOT to be permitted, that, that, that is..UNREASONABLE, intolerant, horrible, insufferable.It’s nothing less than totalitarian fascistic oppression. We can continue to dialogue about “gay so-called marriage” as long as these are first ENDORSED (not merely permitted). Try to vote against it–and you will die. Live and let live. NOT!

21. As if Things Weren’t Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S. - WSJ.com

It is not uncommon at Messiah’s for people to shout out answers to rhetorical questions. Over time, this led to some questions being asked from the pulpit to which answers are expected. In fact, questions are sometimes thrown by the congregants at the pulpit. It’s a pretty unified intent—definitely orderly, undergirded by love, trust and respect. We all want to learn together.

Last Lord’s Day David gave us all a warm heart with a question that preceded a brief story. [Go here to download the sermon mp3—the portion being discussed begins at the 14:20 mark and lasts just over a minute.-CB]

A long-time member, Dave listened as I mentioned a Jewish custom whereby you are permitted to hint to a non-Jew about something you would like to have done on a Shabbos but which rabbinic law forbids to
be performed by a Jew. David held up his hand. “I have a story about that.”

“Great!,” says I.

“Ya got a minute?”

“Do I have a minute? Where do you think I’m gonna go?”

So he told his story, to everyone’s delight and edification. And that’s how it should be in church. At least, it should give you a real feel for the way it is at Messiah’s.

You can certainly do without him.

The easiest way to find that out is to read the following book (click the link to be taken to it). Revolution and Unbelief, by G. van Prinsterer, translated by H. Van Dyke, is the single book to read for anyone wishing to understand our current circumstances. Revealing egalitarianism to be far more than simply an application of a principle of democracy, van Prinsterer identifies it with blazing clarity as ANTI-CHRISTIANITY itself.

The CRC—by itself—has proven these contentions, as God and His Word have been systematically rejected in favor of the Revolution. (The CRC has NOT reached bottom—I say this merely to illustrate the outworking of van Prinsterer’s observations. It can be viewed.)

Do you know what this means? You can see a prophetic analysis of Western Civ from the mid-19th century and then follow a precise unfolding of the fulfilment of that analysis and its concommitents. It is astonishing, vital, necessary, and the only thing you’ll need to understand, to understand the times.

And the Times.

www.allofliferedeemed.co.uk/groenvanprinsterer.htm

I believe it was the late Senator Everett Dirksen who once quipped about the cost of some proposed legislation, “A billion here, a billion there. Pretty soon you’re talking real money.” Americans have surely become inured to the staggering amounts of money collected, spent, fabricated and lost by the federal government. We rarely take time to convert the other-worldly dollar figures bandied daily in glib government press releases and reports; we don’t convert the amounts to meaningful measures. When I was a child, a billion was a number we held in awe—positive awe. I remember booklets designed to help folks conceptualize “a billion” by translating it into the length a billion dollar bills would amount to if laid end-to-end and how many times it would wrap around the earth, or reach to the moon, and so on. A trillion brought us near to comedy or science fiction. Filed in a mental folder it shared with “zillion,” it was a number we were certain would never be used in any setting pertaining to real life. Today, however, Americans nonchanantly listen to nonchalant announcements informing them that their national debt has exceeded ten trillion dollars and is growing, growing, (and we are nearly) GONE!

There are moral consequences to the common employment of these “once regarded as astronomical” numbers. Our minds work in such a way—covenantally—that we only calculate, measure and figure within a frame. When the upper or far regions of the frame extend beyond certain conceptual limits, notions of right and wrong are like a police precinct that has had its area of responsibility doubled with no increase in personnel. The same 100 cops who provided protection for the Borough of Brooklyn from 8am to 4pm must now provide protection for Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, every day around the clock. Moreover, the additional area needing coverage has within it large sections that have either poor lights or no lights. What should we expect? An inescapable reduction in quality of coverage. Not to mention a plunging morale. Which leads directly to a “Why bother?”-ism.

You can feel the phenomenon I’ve attempted to describe if you perform the following exercise: Imagine for a moment that our ancestors, Adam and Eve, were created as described in Genesis, and that about 10,000 years ago. Think: THIS IS REAL. Just 10,000 years ago, God formed man from the dust of the ground. Within reasonable race-memory-time, we sinned, were caught, expelled, and became “dogs without a bone, actors out on loan: riders on the storm.” The totality of human history—ALL of it—has happened between then and now. With this scene set, let us bring center stage, the Ten Commandments. Does it seem reasonable to you that God revealed them to Moses and Israel while intending that a millennium and a half later, He’d reveal through the Messiah-King and His people, their normativity for the world, applied to each situation through the accomplished work of Jesus?

But if you jettison this entire framework and put in its stead one which offers nothing but unlit or shadowy origins and sources, no known ultimate cause of all things or anything, no Person under, above and throughout it all, but merely matter and forces, doing whatever it is matter and forces do for at least 14 billion years—if you own that as your framework, consider what happens to your moral frame of reference? If we emerge from “nature red in tooth and claw,” what place remains for any fixed, invariable, transcendent and ever-valid ethic? I’m putting all other issues to the side and asking you to consider the effect of the frame’s vastness on the sense of what may be for us moral imperatives.

Think, also, of the line John Lithgow once uttered when portraying a brilliant, maniacal thug: “Kill five people they call you a serial killer. Kill a million people and they call you a hero. Go figure.” I think we can “go figure.” Morality MUST function within a setting in which proportion can be discerned and appreciated. And the vastness of the frame makes it harder to identify the scale by which acts ought to be measured. Enormity comes with more shadows built in.

Consider working in an office. If you take ten rubber bands home from your insurance-company-employer’s office supplies, you may feel a tinge of conscience. But if you work for a rubber band manufacturer, and there are hundreds of millions of rubber bands all over—rubber bands everywhere you turn: underfoot, overhead, on shelves, stuffed behind couches, on top of the coffee maker, on shelves in the bathrooms, on the grounds, in the grass and in the parking lot, how does your conscience treat you for taking home those same ten? We may SAY it is the same thing, but if we were surrounded by the rubber bands, I propose we’d think (and live it) differently. It is similar to this: Abe Lincoln walked along way to return a couple of pennies owed to a customer. If pebbles from a customer’s land had snuck into his shoe, and if, seeking final relief, he emptied the pebbles onto the sawdusty floor of Lincoln’s shop, would Lincoln have felt himself obliged to walk the pebbles back to him in a snowstorm?

Okay. So we get the point. But now apply it to people’s behavior in the shadow of a government 11 trillion dollars in debt. Would the average citizen feel conscience-plagued to run up personal debt of, say, $8,000? Would others be averse to take on debt, say for a mortgage on a home, that they well know they may not be able to serve? The question, actually, concerns the likelihood of their taking it on with a spending-crazy government before their eyes, which adopts a deficit budget every year, versus the likelihood of assuming that risk when living in a land where the government simply did not take on debt it could not certainly and swiftly repay.

Now let’s shift our focus to the Wall Street bailout. We have descended below the mire from the time when Congressman Davey Crockett was led to repentance by a farmer from his district who cared enough about the Constitution to confront Mr. Crockett for passing legislation with his fellows that granted public moneys to a needy and well-liked widow of a well-liked man. Seeing the principle—that Congress was not permitted to spend that money which was not theirs to spend—Davey (the real one, not Fess Parker or whoever) repented and did deeds (and didn’t do the opposite) in keeping with repentance. But what happens to the immorality of those Congressmen spending money that wasn’t theirs on a needy widow when it is compared to the millions and billions and trillions spent by Congress on infinite programs they had no right to inaugurate or fund? It becomes a non-issue-because the scale is too vast. You are talking about pebbles versus all the gold in all the fortresses in all the world.

So, when our violations of God’s laws of economy present the bill in the form of catastrophic failure of financial institutions and banks, we no longer possess repentance as an option appearing on the screen. A quick fix is what we want—what we demand, without a moment’s thought given to the gasoline we are carrying that we intend to use to douse the flames burning a hole in our financial underpinnings. Surprise! And there’s no room for sanity when the Fed reduces the rate on money to near zero, while the Treasury, fully determined to make it less than zero, announces without shame that they will “print as much money as it takes” to get the economy moving. That is like giving Pepto Bismol to a dead man in the hope of relieving his irregularity. It is difficult to get anything MORE wrong than our leaders are (not) getting the meaning of recent events. The wilfull introduction of more paper dollars into an economy lacking any standard pegging the value of a paper dollar can ONLY result in the devaluation of the dollars already in existence. So what the Treasury is saying is, “We’re going to fix the problems caused by greed on Wall Street by showing you the kind of greed Washington is capable of when determined. We’re going to effectively cut the value of everyone’s wages, everyone’s savings; we’re going to dilute every penny you put away for retirement and guarantee to you that it will be more useless than you ever nightmared; and we’re going to keep doing it until there’s no value left in anything remotely related to us: not our academic degrees, not our currency, not our word, our promises, and most assuredly not our future.”

And the people cheered.

Truth be told, all I started out to say in this piece was this: Madoff, like Crockett, is a concern over petty, petty numbers. $200 for a widow or $50 billion for “investors.” It’s all the same—when you compare it to Social Security: the greatest Ponzi Scheme of all time, hands down.

And that’s where we will put our hands. Until we are told to “Lift ‘em up,” by the same authorities come to arrest us. In their determination to NOT be responsible, while knowing that, in a God-created and ordered universe, responsibility NEVER simply disappears, do you put it past them to put the blame on the people? First in line? All the little boys who yelled, “The emperor has no clothes.” That is, the Christians, along with others who seek to live by a recognizable standard.

Like I said, I had a more modest goal when I first put virtual ink to this virtual page. So please let me sneak in this one last note: Medicare and government-sponsored health insurance in general, is a fraud of like proportion to the Ponzi Social Security system. Built into it are “safeguards” to insure that such unimaginable sums of money actually make it to their intended target. That, we are told, is the reason for the massive, unresponsive, gigantic bureaucracy. “Checks and balances.”

Well, apparently, there weren’t enough. When auditors were sent to look for Medicare overpayments in JUST SIX STATES, look at what they found, according to the following article.

The Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program, a CMS pilot program, has recovered nearly $700 million in Medicare overpayments in six states. RAC began in 2005 in California, Florida, and New York, expanded to three other states in 2007. The program widely criticized by hospitals, which account for 85% of the recoveries, is required under federal law to expand nationally by January 2010. During the three-year pilot period ending March 2008, auditors reviewed a total of $317 billion in claims and found $1.03 billion in improper billing, $992.7 million in overpayments and $38 million in underpayments. After factoring in $187.2 million paid to the audit firms and $60 million overturned in appeals, $694 million has been returned to Medicare trust funds. Additionally, 14% of overcharges were appealed, and 4.6% were overturned. CMS says it intends to modify the program to require audit firms to use clinically trained personnel, ensure they evaluate medical necessity in a manner consistent with the agency’s operations, and increase their communication with medical providers about their audits. CMS is adding staff to oversee the program and is taking steps to ensure that providers will be able to track the progress of audits. The AHA-backed Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor Program Moratorium Act, introduced by Reps. Lois Capps (D-CA) and Devin Nunes (R-CA), would place a one-year moratorium on the RAC program.

My favorite part? Look at what the auditors got paid! $187,200,000.00. OOOWEEE! Unfortunately, with new Federal policy, their wages will soon be worth 77 dollars and 86 cents.

And it took only 14 billion years to turn out such sophisticated swindlers and thieves. So beside my question of, “Who is going to audit the auditors?,” another one rings: “Can you imagine what deceit and sin we might have come up with if only we had been given some real time to evolve?” Just wait. Right, Bahama? Right.