Is it just semantics or is "progressive" a better term for the new Left? I think it is a better term. They use it in order to distance themselves from the stigma attached to their previous liberal brand. However, I don't think it helps them much.
At the recent "progressive" conference in New York City, "Understanding Dominionism, Political Power and the Aims of the Theocratic Right," attendees asked several questions about why the Religious Right was so passionate and driven. They also inquired of the "experts" why progressive Americans were so apathetic and unorganized. One perceptive gentleman asked, "is it because the Christians have access to a faith that we don't have?" He's getting warm.
Progressives are running out of steam and the reason may be found in their self-descriptive title. To be "progressive" means forward moving, innovative, and promoting change. They choose this term because they think promoting innovative change and forward moving are admirable qualities.
Actually, these attributes are liabilities. The religious community is more unified, motivated, and focused because they are NOT progressive. They are moved to action by an established, unchanging faith that was once delivered to the saints (Jude 3). A progressive man lacks foundations because he does not stay planted long enough for the concrete to set. His progressive change provides no lasting focus or enthusiasm. He's moved by every wind.
The progressive worldview is bankrupt in my opinion. It can tell us what it opposes but not what it seeks to build. For us, it is the systems of men that we seek to tear down, and it is the kingdom of God that we seek to build. This war is waged in the arena of ideas, and the knowledge of God is our starting point.
Progressives will continually lose the "War of Ideas" because they have no faith in a transcendent God. They are their own gods, and their ideas expire along with their last breath. The ideas of the Christian are as enduring as the God Who grants them.
A progressive man is a changing man who has no goal. He's innovative for innovative sake. The Christian is progressive only in the sense that he is being transformed into the image of God's dear son. Our progression is actually sanctification. That is our goal. The outworking of that personal transformation is in making a world that glorifies the Son.
Given their life back? If that is not an admittance to the fact that most abortions are for convenience sake, I don't know what is.
I also am for a woman's right to choose. She should exercise it before she participates in unprotected sex! After that, she's out of choices. After that, it's murder.
Good news for religious liberty in Europe! Small-town Swedish pastor Ake Green, accused of a hate crime for delivering a sermon on the Biblical teaching that homosexuality is immoral, has been unanimously acquitted by the Swedish Supreme Court. For details, see http://www.becketfund.org/index.php/article/450.html?PHPSESSID=9cc0a4215d39ee36c862a36e856e8f0. Go to my article at www.chalcedon.edu for an in-depth report. So, it looks like you can still preach God's word in Sweden without going to jail. Now we'll have to see if you can preach it without being threatened with jail.
Talk2Action Hosts First National E-conference on Dominionism
A careful blend of the latest contenders in the battle against dominionism and the Christian Right has covened "digitally" at Talk2Action.org. This web site is the brainchild of long-time religious watchman Frederick Clarkson (author of Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy in America). I've had the pleasure of meeting Fred, who appears to be a sincere analyst, although I greatly disagree with much of his constructions.
With the recent issue of Mother Jones entitled "God and Country: Where the Christian Right is Leading Us" yet another wave of progressive resistance is hitting our shores. Participants in this E-conference include: Frederick Clarkson, Susan Jacoby (author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism), John Sugg (editor for CL Media), Monika Bauerlein (Senior Editor for Mother Jones), Richard Reynolds (Communications Director for Mother Jones), and even Senator Gary Hart who recently released a small book God and Caesar in America: An Essay on Religion and Politics.
It seems the order of the day is "fearmongering." Many of the essays featured by these alleged "experts" on dominionism are filled with the usual factual errors we've seen for some time -- this clearly displays the slack hand they labor with. When you make simple mistakes of basic facts it's difficult for readers to swallow your thesis.
In early October of 2004 I predicted that if Bush were to secure a second term that there would be a backlash from the far left. The reason being that progressives are convinced Bush's rise to power was in the fiery chariot of the Religious Right.
The essence of their tale of conspiracy involves a direct influence by Christian Reconstructionists on the popular pundits of the Christian Right (e.g. Falwell, Robertson, LaHaye, Dobson, Perkins, Barton, etc.). There is no doubt that multitudes have borrowed from Rushdoony, North, and Bahnsen; but you would hardly find the patriarchs of Christian Reconstruction siding with the political tactics of the Christian Right.
We should expect an increase in this progressive resistance in 2006. I suspect it will last so long as Bush is in office. My concern is the mistreatment and continued slander of R.J. Rushdoony and the message of Christian Reconstruction. SPECIAL REQUEST: Although I encourage you to read up on what the progressives are writing I ask that you respect the "posting" policy of Talk2Action. Their forum is restricted to those of like mind and our solution does not consist of invading their discussion. I ask that you demonstrate Christian character and respect for this free institution to publish and discuss what they like.
If you want to counter them you should start your own blog.
Vatican Newspaper Says Homosexuality Destabilizes Society
The Vatican released an anticipated document restricting homosexuals from the priesthood. Obviously, this document is intended as a stain remover from the surge of sex crimes involving minors amongst Catholic clergy.
The standard behind this document appears to be pragmatism and the authority of the Church. No mention is made of God's Word.
In the latest hit piece, "A Nation Under God," author John Sugg echoes the usual slanderous accusation that Rushdoony denied the holocaust. Critics repeatedly make this charge. This happens when journalists get lazy and neglect double checking the validity of the critiques they're lifting from.
In his discussion on the ninth commandment Rushdoony examined the implications of bearing false witness on modern thinkers:
"In every age, false witness has been extensive because man is a sinner, but in the modern era it has particularly been developed into a refined science. Humanistic man, from Machiavelli, through Hegel, Marx, Nietzche to the present, having no belief in an absolute law, has revived the platonic doctrine of the right of the state to lie." (Institutes of Biblical Law, p.586)
Modern man justified his bearing false witness for what he considered a greater cause. The righteousness of the sought outcome somehow atones for any means used to achieve it. This was especially true, Rushdoony wrote, in the case of Hitler's Germany, where holocaust numbers were inflated to create greater outrage:
In view of this massive insensitivity to murder, so that false witness is resorted to, the exaggeration of evil to make it seem evil, evil itself is growing in order to keep pace with the imagination of men, and evil imagination grounded in false witness. (ibid., p.588)
Rushdoony condemned the Nazi atrocities as outright evil but saw no solution in bearing false witness of genocide.
The evils were all too real: even greater is the evil of bearing false witness concerning them, because that false witness will produce an even more vicious reality in the next upheaval. Men are now "reconciled" to a world where millions are murdered, or are said to be murdered. What will be required in the way of action and propaganda next time? (ibid.)
Rushdoony then mentions the plight of his own heritage where during "World War I, the Turks sought to murder all Armenians." What's noteworthy is that Rushdoony never mentions the fact that his own family fled Aremenia and came to America in order to escape genocide by the Turks.
In other words, Rushdoony was born in America because he was escaping a holocaust. By no means was his criticism of the Jewish holocaust numbers an insensitivity to their plight. Rushdoony was committed first to God's law, and not the bleeding hearts of his progressive critics.
"We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing."
The Director of The Center for National Security Studies, Kate Martin, said that the measure "removes one of the few existing privacy protections against the creation of secret dossiers on Americans by government intelligence agencies." She said the Pentagon's "intelligence agencies are quietly expanding their domestic presence without any public debate."
In the post-911 era American citizens have become the target for federal investigation and the only population whose civil liberties are being lost. All the while, the administration speaks much about the present war being one of "freedom." It is Orwellian to tout freedom while restricting liberties. Rushdoony states this well:
[T]he ideal social order and civil government was believed to be one which was dedicated to liberty, one which made basic to its purpose freedom of religion, speech, and press. But a society which makes freedom its primary goal will lose it, because it has made, not responsibility, but freedom from responsibility, its purpose. (Institutes of Biblical Law, p.581)
He concludes by saying, "The goal must be God's law-order, in which alone is true liberty." America's departure from Biblical law has led to the expansion of the totalitarian state. The modern state now claims total jurisdiction over its citizens:
For a state to claim total jurisdiction, as the modern state does, is to claim to be as god, to be the total governor of man and the world. Instead of limited law and limited jurisdiction, the modern antichristian state claims jurisdiction from cradle to grave, from womb to tomb, over welfare, education, worship, the family, business and farming, capital and labor, and all things else. The modern state is a Moloch, demanding Moloch worship: it claims total jurisdiction over man and hence requires total sacrifice. (Institutes, p.34)
The surveillance society has arrived. What was fictionalized in Orwell's 1984 now exists as a pale shadow in American society. As technology advances it is absorbed by the totalitarian state. President Eisenhower in his farewell speech of 1961 spoke of this phenomenon and its inherent dangers:
In this [technological] revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
As dangerous a marriage as is the federal government and the defense contractors so also is a union of state and technology. The means to extend federal policing policies are readily available and in the name of terrorist threat are being implemented upon the supposedly free American citizenry. Jacques Ellul, in his massive volume on technology (pub. 1964), forecasted the result of advanced technology in the hands of the state:
Finally, technique (i.e., technology) causes the state to become totalitarian, to absorb the citizens' life completely. We have noted this occurs as a result of the accumulation of techniques in the hands of the state. Techniques are mutually engendered and hence interconnected, forming a system that tightly encloses all our activities. When the state takes hold of a single thread of this network of techniques, little by little it draws to itself all the matter and the method, whether or not it consciously wills to do so. (The Technological Society, p.284)
Avoiding the dangers of the massive federal-military-technological union required an alert population according to President Eisenhower:
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Security and liberty are not prospering together. Only the state is prospering at this point. After repeated failures by defense, intelligence, and emergency management departments in the past five years the federal government has granted itself greater authority and an expanded budget. We, the taxpayers, are footing the bill for the new "security measures" while are civil liberties are being erroded by a growing police state. I always find it disturbing and humorous to watch decent American citizens subjected to humiliating searches by airport security and the needless postings of "colored" alerts by the DHS.
Eisenhower was wrong. A knowledgeable citizenry is an incomplete solution to tyranny. Freedom for freedom sake is not a Biblical goal.
"The goal must be God's law order, in which alone is true liberty." (Institutes, p.581)
Despite my herculean efforts to speak directly with the primary pundits of the progressive left they still insist on publishing the same old misinformation about Christian Reconstruction. If it continues I'm going to think it's disinformation.
The latest amateurish outlay by a professional journalist is the article "A Nation Under God," by John Sugg, senior editor for Creative Loafing. This article was published in the December/January issue of Mother Jones.
It's filled with so many factual errors I lost count.
In a recent conference on "Dominionism" put on by The Open Center in New York City, panel expert Chip Berlet entitled his last session From Scopes to Reagan: The Political Crusade of the Christian Right. In this session Berlet described the "danger" inherent when social movements attach themselves to political parties. Simply stated, he's referring to the alleged marriage of dominion theology and the Republican party.
He brought this to a fine point by criticizing contemporary dominionism as a "social movement bent on taking over society."
He then briefly criticized his "progessive" (i.e., liberal) audience for being too reactionary to the encroachment of dominionism. He said it wasn't enough to simply "sneer" at the dominionists — they needed a counter strategy.
His solution? Simple. Do the same thing the dominionists are doing. He concluded by saying, "we need to create a social movement and take back our society."
In case you've been wondering what ever happened to the Defense of Marriage Amendment that President Bush promised us when he was running for re-election, there's news. The proposed amendment this week squeaked through a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 5-4 vote, and will next appear before the full committee. For details, see http://www.cwalac.org/article_282.shtml. Our thanks to Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KA) for shepherding it through the subcommittee. Of course, none of this would be necessary if Congress just exercised its constitutional authority to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction in marriage-definition cases...
From the SF Gate, this introspective gem from an environmental wacko who's thinking of joining "The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement." See http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article-cgi?f=/g/a/2005/11/16/gree.DTL. "Is the impact of a new person justified?" he asks, concluding... no. King Solomon nailed it, as usual: "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" [Prov. 14-12]. If this way of thinking catches on among the environmental movement types, won't it mess up the Sierra Club's fundraising?
Massachusetts, the Gay Marriage State, is now thinking about easing up on bestiality. See "Bill softens bestiality statute," http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47416. Looks like the slippery slope may be even more slippery than we thought! But if you're not standing on the word of God, you really have no place to stand.
