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.

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.”

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.

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.

Responses to last week’s entry have made this one necessary. Many of you thought it was Sarah Palin in the cross hairs of my scope. It was not. Now that you mention it, of course, it is perfectly obvious why you drew that conclusion. I apologize. A qualifier was called for. Please understand, though, the reason I didn’t say she was not in view was that she was not in view. Y’know what I mean?

I haven’t the slightest worry about Sarah Palin’s hormonal fluctuations. The journal entry to which this serves as a footnote was meant to remind us, not of Sarah or any person in particular, but rather, of an abiding truth: gender roles are not perfectly interchangeable. Sarah Palin’s place in history, coming after Geraldine Fararro, might be thought to turn on whether she, unlike Geraldine, makes it into the #2 Office. But from where I sit, that is not the marker.

If I had been writing about Sarah, my approach would have been the same as that taken in my recent Lord’s Day sermons, all of which have included references to her. I point out that Sarah’s appearance as a veep candidate, and more particularly, the vitriolic response to her, serves as the most powerful vision enhancement the Christian community could hope for. Before Sarah, Christians had little excuse for needing a weatherman to know which way the wind was blowing. Post-Sarah, they have no excuse at all.

Sarah Palin, you see, is us. Sadly, American Christians still don’t get it. Her significance is NOT as the second female VP candidate of a major party. It is altogether as a Christian that her name has been despised, battered, whipped and abused. Sarah Palin’s gender is wholly immaterial. The stir is against her faith. Check that. The stir is against her God. The media hate her to the exact extent that our God–His existence and attributes–is revealed through her. She therefore serves as the perfect barometer of public sentiment toward Christ and Christianity. And since that public sentiment is wholly hostile, you might say she is a pretty, very unfrozen, sacrificial lamb.

Didn’t you notice? As soon as news got out that she is “pro-life,” Sarah was stripped of her gender. If you wait for a clearer example of politics trumping ontology, you’ll be waiting till long after Celine Dion’s heart stops (she said it would go on forever). The only parallel I can think of was on a radio talk show in New York. It was several years ago. A caller was asking why certain Black people are not prominently recognized. The surprising answer was forthcoming.

When the host asked for an example from the caller, he said, “Well, like Thomas Sowell,” the brilliant economist and social thinker. The host replied, “Thomas Sowell is not Black.” Coulda fooled me. And the caller. But in what must have been one of radio’s most honest and revealing moments, the radio host made it abundantly clear that race is politically defined. Since Sowell believes in personal responsibility, since he looks with justified hostility at quotas favoring Blacks, correctly arguing that to the degree they are adopted, to that degree you have permanently disenfranchised all who have used them to “get in,” that is, used a political loophole instead of their talent and test scores. Quotas mean making inescapable the brutally racist sentiment that Blacks are incapable of competing intellectually with Whites.

Since Mr. Sowell is opposed to the outstretched hand begging for favors, he lost entitlement to his race. He was assigned to the no-man’s-land of colorless, raceless souls (Sowells?). And the same was done to Sarah in regard to her gender. As a Christian who honors the God Who ALONE gives life, and Who ALONE dictates the terms governing its taking, Sarah has ripped the phony mask off the hypocritical faces of all those feminists who pretend to want “choice.” When presented with a woman who “chose” life, as Sarah did after learning that her youngest child would be a Downs baby, she is vilified.

Salon.com was probably the news source with the most to be embarrassed about when it comes to Palin-reaction. There she was brutally attacked for seeking to “deny to others the very choice which she herself employed.” DUH?! Wha? Huh? Sarah is seeking to prevent women from carrying their babies to term? Hardly! What they meant, of course, was that she is opposed to murdering unborn people. The time during which choice can be exercised without murder is before there is a new human being present. I don’t recall hearing Sarah say anything that would suggest she was against such choice (though I could speak against it in certain cases, without trepidation). What upset them is her failure to make the choice that THEY embrace: the choice to murder anyone who gets in your way.

The unrelenting, irrational, blatant scapegoating that is being practiced now with Sarah Palin is the target of choice can honestly be said to lack example in modern times, unless we go back to 1932 Germany. What we are witnessing is the warm-up of the pitchers who will dominate the game as America goes down the tubes in judgment before the holy God she has forsaken. They will be throwing out invective against Christians as Hitler did against Jews. Christians of the nominal, politically correct sort will be used as proof that there is no grudge against Christianity per se. No, it is only these extremists, these fundamentalists, these Sarah Palin-types who must, like the European Jews of the 1930’s and 40’s, be gotten rid of. All the economic (and other) ills of post WWI Germany were said to be generated by the Jews. Our recent glimpse of God’s ever-present ability to humble or destroy markets, or anything else man makes, give us also a glimpse into the various woes which denizens of the not-so-distant future will use to carry public sentiment against Christians to whatever extremes are within reach.

Judging by the ceaseless hatred being spewed toward my sister, Sarah Palin, and its lack of shame for lying, twisting, distorting, perverting the facts, Sarah’s significance seems to me to be a marker in our rush toward wrath. This little “hockey mom” has God in back of her. As long as she remains willing to let the fools show their folly, she is safe. The first time she bends to accommodate their demands, she–and we with her–are sunk.

In a manner of speaking.

Imagine this scene, a few short years in the future. We see a nation spent past its resources. The future is already in hock to the third generation, what with expenses from wars around the world, maintenance and expansion of Home-land Security (which chooses to spend billions rather than simply profile), another couple of weather-related disasters, not to mention the 1.5 trillion dollar spending spree when the Feds gobbled up Wall Street. Well, at least the SEC became superfluous, since there were no longer any traders to regulate who did not already work for them directly.Now add this to your vision: the Gore Scouts have done really well at convincing congressmen and senators that “global warming”–after a three-year retreat that saw colder temperatures at the poles (which they’ll claim to have both predicted and factored in)–is back. A blue-ribbon panel assembled by three United Nations agencies, has just released what they call “The Final, Pre-catastrophic Report” (FinCat for short). FinCat predicts a worldwide flood will engulf the coastal borders of every body of land touching a major ocean. The seas will overstep their current bounds by at least 600 miles to the interior. That means the Mississippi River will be absorbed by the Atlantic and Indiana will be the eastern-most state of the USA. California will be entirely submerged as New Mexico steps to the front of the line to become the New West Coast.

FinCat offers just one hope: a radical, massive, worldwide  confrontation of the problem to be led by the United States. The proposal includes the demand that every able-bodied citizen of every nation expected to be affected by the swelling arctic waters be conscripted to construct sea-walls and other emergency structures and vehicles and watercraft. Those not engaged in this First Tier battle plan would be assigned to work for a new international agency call VSS, or, Vital Support Services. All work on planet earth would be restricted to First Tier or VSS. The cost to implement  the FinCat proposal–which would entirely eradicate all non-emergency related business and enterprise–is figured to be at least $13 trillion. The alternative, they say, is simple: annihilation.Though sore wounded, bleeding and limping from the series of crises mentioned in the first paragraph, the United States is still the leader of what’s left of the “free world.” All other world leaders believe their nations are  technologically and intellectually incapable of interacting with, much less challenging, the UN’s gold star panel. The only thing of which they are certain, aside from the fact that they cannot rebut FinCat, is that the USA, with the most talent and the most to lose, is the only entity that could possibly stand up to the UN agencies and their twelve apostles of science.

In fact, an alternate report, which claims to contain irrefutable proof that the Gore Corps and their sympathizers, including the UN panel, relied upon erroneous presuppositions which skewed the data, which in turn severely distorted the conclusions and predictions dictated in FinCat. Released only six days after FinCat, the other report, which can fairly be said to represent the only other credible and credentialed scientific voice addressing the critical matter, was the fruit of the labor of virtually every first-rank scientist who had not been drafted by the UN agencies. In addition to castigating FinCat for its “faulty premises and radically wrong conclusions,” the group, which adopted the moniker “Not Only About Heat,” or “N.O.A.H.,” said that they included in their considerations the Bible as an authoritative source. In it, N.O.A.H. said in a press release, was “an unequivocal promise from God that no universal flood would ever overtake the earth and its inhabitants again.” FinCat’s authors point to this admission as proof that N.O.A.H.’s report “is not, and could not by definition be, good science.” The President of the United States was said to be giving very serious ear to both sides.

At this time in history, would you want as your President a menopausal or premenstrual woman, who was experiencing radical temperature shifts–including hot flashes–at unpredictable times for unpredictable durations?

Do you recall a court decision wherein MOMENTS OF SILENCE were struck down as unconstitutional? “Don’t try to kid us,” the Court said. “Your silent moments IMPLY prayer. Prayer is a religious activity. Religious activities [they WRONGLY ASSUME] may not be sanctioned or supported by the State (fed, state or local governments). Schools, especially, may not create a climate of pressure whereby religion, through ritual, verbal or non-verbal, is imposed on the six poor atheist students in Nebraska.”

Some of you heard me lament a couple weeks ago how difficult it is to convey to people who think they are “secular” that they are in fact quite religious. They think they are absent that which makes for “religious observance.” It is difficult for people to grasp that it is not ever a question of whether religion, but only and always which religion.

Well, thanks to the principle of accelerating epistemological self-consciousness, the enemies are making the lesson clearer, all by their itty bitty selves. As they begin to luxuriate in the space given them by their victories (enjoy it while you can!), God’s foes find liturgy irresistible and, like the buds of March preceding the full leaf and flower, so these nascent religious exercises (described below) are come to warn us that the religious void in the Public Square, being an impossibility to sustain–even in appearance–the filling of the void is now begun, and that in earnest.

Their goal was never to eradicate religion from the Public Square– just Christianity. Having succeeded with Goal #1, it is time to begin implementing the balance of the program: the new religion, full-tilt, belief demanded, heretics hunted—Egalitarianism unto death. Evolution is the force-fed, State-sponsored answer to origins and ontology, while answers to “How should we then live?” are sought in our innate (and inane) sense of fairness! You thought religion was void where prohibited by law, didn’t you? Remember: It is NEVER a question of WHETHER, but only a question of WHICH. Homosexualism, my friends, IS our rival religion. Believe it. It’s true.

-Pastor Steve

Homosexual Day of Silence - Is Your Child’s School on the list?

Dear __________,

Because of the action of concerned parents, hundreds of schools have removed their school as a listed participant in the pro-homosexual “Day of Silence.” You can join the fight for your children too!

On, Friday, April 25, several thousand schools across the nation will be observing “Day of Silence (DOS).” DOS is a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools.

When AFA alerted parents of this public school classroom disruption by homosexual student activists, many took action immediately! If you haven’t gotten involved, it’s critical that you do so today!

A simple phone call or letter to school administrators, telling them your child will not attend school the day it observes DOS, may be enough to cause some participating schools to change their plans. Sample letter here.

Please listen to a 60-second radio ad warning parents about Day of Silence, then forward this email to your local Christian or conservative radio station. Ask them to broadcast it as a Public Service Announcement (PSA)! MP3 file or WAV file

Click here for Frequently Asked Questions about the Day of Silence.

In the past week alone, over 200 schools have announced they are dropping plans to participate. Please, get involved for the sake or your children, and all children, today!

Take Action!

What should parents do? Check with your local school principal to see if your child’s school will be participating in DOS. If the school is participating, notify other parents about DOS and ask them to join in keeping their children out of school on that day.

Here is a partial list of schools which are expected to participate in DOS: If your school is listed, call your local school and ascertain whether they officially or passively allow students to observe “Day of Silence.” If your school is listed, please double-check with your local school to see if the school is actually sponsoring DOS. Sometimes the “participation” turns out to be a handful of kids who are saying they have a homosexual club and are observing this protest day, but without school endorsement. We sincerely hope your school, if listed, is not actually an official sponsor. If it is not, we will take them off the list, if a school official asks us to do so. Please e-mail your correction to webmaster@missionamerica.com.

Some tips:

1. Be sure of the date that DOS is planned for your school. (The national date is April 25, but some schools observe DOS on a different date.)
2. Inform the school of your intention to keep your child home on that date and explain why. Click here for a sample letter.
3. Explain to your children why you’re taking a stand: Homosexual behavior is not an innate identity; it is a sinful, unnatural and destructive behavior. No school should advance a physically, emotionally, and spiritually destructive sexual lifestyle to students.
4. Schools do not have to tolerate students remaining silent in class. Schools can adopt policies that require parental consent for students to attend any club, including those premised on sexual orientation or gender identity. Click here for more information from Attorney Mat Staver with Liberty Counsel who provides free information to parents, students, and schools regarding their rights associated with noncompliance on the Day of Silence.

Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman American Family Association