Just Another Blog in the Wheel

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.

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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.

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

Recent events have made it inescapably plain that we are living in the times when prophecy is being fulfilled. Oh, perhaps I’d better make that clearer—I’m not speaking of Matthew 24, or any other canonical prophecy. No. I refer rather to the prophecies of the Great Ones of the last two centuries, the men who are enshrined as prophets in my very own, homemade pantheon. We are speaking, of course, about Groen van Prinsterer, Bobby-boy Dabney, and Herman Bavinck. To be sure, their prophecies, like Rushdoony’s after them, are anchored in the Bible’s teachings, but they share not in that authoritative certainty granted to seers such as Samuel and the other capital P Prophets. Nevertheless, I’m deeply grateful to God for having given the insight to these “Latter Rain men” so I was enabled to understand the times in which I am living.

(If you’d like a sampling of Dabney prophecy, read his “Women’s Rights Women,” or order my sermon set, “A Little Dabs’ll Do Ya” for a modest gift to the ministry, by writing to CraigBrann@gmail.com.)

But to be brief, two things appear to me to be rather plain. 1) The West has officially and fully changed religions. The God-based Bible-revealed religions have been rejected in their entirety, though the fact that there are some residual forms that appear here and there, like ghostly reminiscences, confuses quite a few. They need only to remember how Paul by the Spirit taught us that the Form can easily be professed while the Power is denied—absent for having been rejected. Hello! Congress opens in prayer and then passes one anti-Christian bill or bill-provision after another.

Because God actually did create the world, and actually did send His Son to be our Savior, reality has it that there can be no neutrality. To be neutral in regard to Christ (you might recall Him having said this same thing) is to be against Him. Thus, what we now have in place of our God-based, Bible-revealed religious foundation is, very simply, a rather unashamed and energetic anti-God and anti-Bible based religion, rooted in the atheism that made its debut in our hemisphere in 1789. Since people mistakenly believe religion consists only in certain positive assertions and ritual actions, they are easily fooled by anti-Christianity, thinking it is not really a religious rival. Serious mistake. It is as earnest and zealous as any religion in history. It was the first religion to appear in the Garden (where “religion” was NOT an add-on, but simply a true view of and response to reality) after the creation, introduced by none other than God’s and our archenemy.

We are not so naïve as to think that anti-Christianity will long be content to remain in an amorphous condition. The strategy calls first for the dismissal of the received faith in its society-wide expanse. As Christianity becomes more distant in our memory-and our having accepted the proposition in schools and courts and la-la-land that we NEVER were ‘a Christian nation’ has certainly facilitated Beelzebub’s plan—and therefore less likely to re-emerge to assert itself, the plan calls for widespread introduction of sundry ceremonies by which our allegiance to the State as the Only Savior will be certified and renewed. There is no question about this. All consistent religions are total in their claims, comprehensive in their scope and exhaustive in their perceived right to rule. It’s just that living under the True God’s reign means freedom, whereas living under similar claims issued by the State means bondage altogether. Which leads to…

2) Deuteronomy 28 will be played out nearly fully in our generation and the next. There is already quite a head start in place for the curses section. Until now, our matchless prosperity had hidden this fact. With the coming home to nest of the egalitarian chickens in the recent Wall Street fiasco, followed in hump-fast step by a federal takeover of everything, with no blinking of note recorded, we seem well on our way toward that period or estate in which the consequences of apostasies such as ours are felt.

In light of all this, I’ve been applying myself to thinking about what our most prudent choices might be if we eliminate resignation and despair from the list of viable ones. While I have several proposed strategies for Christians to consider, one occurred to me today that is particularly attractive. Let us help bring an end to Social Security. Here’s the thinking:

First, we all know Social Security (we call it Soy Sauce Security in my house as sort of a family joke after my family came to include five Asian children; ya get it?) is doomed, done for, kaput. We also know it grows exponentially as a percentage of federal budget. We also know the amount filtered through federal hands is a direct indicator of federal power. Thus, Social Security’s demise is one of the brightest goals any freedom-lover might envision.

The trouble is, terminating the program hastily would result in more misery than anyone would willingly choose to accept. But remember! Our Wall Street-owning feds are being positioned by several intertwined threads to find themselves unable to turn away from the reality of no tickee-no washee, or, no money/no programs. If Christians can introduce THE solution to this problem, they might find that they’ve retraced steps sufficiently to come to the definitive wrong turn standing in need of correction. Moreover, correcting this problem can potentially fix a host of related problems.

What is being suggested is that we provide the feds AND the general public with some Reality Therapy. Explain that our starting point must be, SS is ending. Period. No time for discussions. We’ve got 20 years left, MAYBE, if God is patient. IN THE MEANTIME…

Here’s where it gets interesting. We demonstrate that the ONLY viable solution is to recover the sense of familial responsibility wherein all children growing up now see themselves as headed toward the fulfilling of their universally expected responsibility to care for their aging parents. This would require the greatest immersion in a radical ethic (which just happens to be Biblical) that America as ever seen.

America would have to pledge total cooperation so that every grade in every school, every department of government echoed the same theme: Children are a blessing, a blessing appointed to one day return the favors and provide care for their parents.

Dear Steve: Recently I responded to a facebook article entitled something like “forced monogamy encourages sexual immorality” posted by a gentile convert to Messianic Judaism in which he seemed to suggest it was okay to have a sexual relationship with someone besides ones wife, although if an offspring results then a man must take financial responsibility for that child. Somehow that doesn’t sound very biblical to me (except perhaps the latter part of paying child support)! What would your opinion on this be?

Robert Louis Dabney, in his little tome on ethics, surveys the Scripture teaching on monogamy. God created Adam & Eve. The first bigamist was a jerk. Every patriarchal instance of bringing in more than one female would move anyone who was awake when they read the accounts to avoid multiple partners like a plague. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? The fool who thinks you can stuff the house into a harem. Idiots.

Dabs goes on to remind us that honor is enjoined for mother and father (one of each), and the commandment forbids coveting the neighbor’s wife, not wives. These and assorted other mentions, make a nice little case that the Creator’s obvious intention, if the Bible be the judge, is lifelong monogamy between two people (one of each gender, and yes, there are but two) of like faith.

The really interesting element to all this is that the polygamists are just drooling, waiting to have a go at those who think sola scriptura means that no tradition is authoritative. The Moron, I’m sorry, Mormon arguments have been published for well over a century. Take a peak if you want to know the sound you’ll hear down the road a piece. What this particular babbler you refer to may say is completely inconsequential. But when the issue is seriously put forth by folks in the Public Square (the enemy, you might have guessed, is almost certain to employ WOMEN as the chief advocates of polygamy, assessing it as an ideal situation where Ms. Domestic can wash all the pots she wants while Ms. Career goes out and earns some bacon), the real battle will be engaged wherein Protestants who remain blind to the inescapability and importance of tradition, will be publicly humiliated.

Rummaging in the attic for Viagra will not help them recover from the shame. North American Evanjellyism is flaccid to stay, in part because they don’t hear the Lord of All saying in a thousand voices that, while His Enscripturated Word is indeed the final arbiter in all disputes where the subject is indeed addressed in the Bible, He has not elected to have the Bible speak about everything. And that is okay! Silly jellyfish don’t realize that a high view of Scripture can be joined to heretical zeal for want of interpretive skills, while a somewhat less than fully appreciative view of the power of God’s Word in Scripture may well be joined to a staunch advocacy of orthodoxy.

Do you follow this? I’m sorry if I sound muddled. The above is actually cogent, even if it isn’t well said. But let me add a little P.S. The Jews can clearly trace their ban against polygamy, not to the Bible, but to a particular ruling of a particular rabbi one thousand years after the Messiah came (my time line, not theirs–mine is correct). Would you rather have a universal proper practice predicated on an extra-Biblical authority, or a doctrine of Biblical authority that is forced to confess before a watching world that it’s a little bit fuzzy on this question of multi-partnered marriage?

In keeping with the brilliant exegesis applied to some things I’ve spoken or written, I suspect it would be well to say: If anyone thinks they detect less than fully Protestant sentiments in the above, they are wrong. Anyone who smells a budding apologist for Rome should have their nose examined. And anyone who senses a less than maniacal devotion to the authority of Scripture hasn’t much sense.

All right, Weirdsma, you got your answer. Now send a donation to Messiah’s. You can Paypal it at our site: MessiahNYC.org. And how about a few illustrations from your talented hand?

steve

We’ve nearly concluded a lengthy sermon series on POWER. It is, itself, part of a longer series on INESCAPABLES. By inescapables we mean things or categories or realities that no one can avoid in life. We have in mind, more narrowly, those categories and entities which we “religious people” are accused of making use of which our more enlightened, “secular” colleagues do not, having escaped the need for such things as atonement, they say, through normal evolutionary growth. “When we Westerners were children,” they might be heard saying, “we certainly believed in religion. How else were we to explain the inexplicable? We were without the means—the technologies and mechanics—as well as wanting in adequate theories and postulates. Of course we attributed an object falling to the Deity of Down, but Newton got us out of the batter’s box and we began making contact with the bases. The whole playing field opened up for us. In the several hundred years since the Enlightenment, the questions man asks have changed nearly entirely. Then we looked at what was and wondered, ‘Why?’ Now we look it what might be and ask, ‘Why not?’ (With that wink and nod to Bobby Kennedy, we turn our kepela to acknowledge our debt to Virginia Slims for helping us articulate—without recourse to metaphoric light years—the distance traversed by man since Newton: You’ve come a long way, baby! Yes, that says it.) We’ve no longer any need for religion, except in so far as it serves as a psychosocial balm to ease distress and fear resulting from the responsibilities which we have found accompanying our fantastic discoveries. Man, or I should say, Humankind, has more than flirted with Aquarius. We’ve dang-near mated. Everything will be coming up roses soon, and when it does, we’ll have ourselves and science to thank, not the Deity of Down, or Up, or Trees, or Whatever. Man, er, Humankind is the measure of all things. Well, me! I almost found myself saying, ‘Amen’!”

Against this sort of tripe, we aver that the categories necessary for man to find coherence and meaning—not to mention relief from fear—have not changed since they’ve been experienced in Eden, and ever onward, treated in Holy Scripture, and given voice through the great theological and systematizing efforts of the Church, particularly in the West. The need for atonement, for example, is simply inescapable.

R.J. Rushdoony was doubtless often brilliant, but rarely more so than when he nailed the truths concerning inescapable categories. He wisely began his Systematic Theology with essays recycled from an earlier period in which he explained that INFALLIBILITY is a concept shared by all, not just the “religious.” He explained the same in regard to systematization of knowledge. It can’t be helped, it will be done, either well or poorly. But it will be done.

Likewise, Rush exposed the methods by which modern man seeks atonement. This was done with bracing clarity in the first chapters of POLITICS OF GUILT AND PITY. No one should be permitted to counsel another (or himself) who has not first read how sadism and masochism arise not in a vacuum but as a result of failure to find the downward-spiral-breaking power of Jesus Christ, the Lord.

All right. I’m done. It’s 2am and I have a meeting at 6am. Perhaps I’ll be of more use to others if I got a wink to go with all these nods, above.