Prophetic Preachers
While whiney liberals drone on about how Judge Roy Moore is such a major threat to a free America--because of his alleged theocratic political aims--the Alabama gubernatorial candidate is raising flags against tyranny in his own state.
Moore is questioning the "strange coincidence" of a case of mad cow disease in Alabama while officials are considering a national tracking system for animals. Apparently Moore is versed in the old-fashioned trick of big government: create a problem and then offer a solution. Western history is replete with despotic regimes and governments utilizing this political trick on an unsuspecting populace.
I've never seen so many examples of government officials, families, and celebrities speaking out against the present despotism in America. Stars like Charlie Sheen are questioning the official story of 9-11, and noble men like Roy Moore are scrutinizing the new cases of mad cow disease. But, it seems most Americans are numb to the encroaching totalitarianism, and equally blind to the growing surveillance society. And yet, through it all, the president keeps talking "freedom." Yea, well, freedom for whom?
The church has the primary responsibility "to speak truth to power." It is our prophetic obligation. Although the nature of prophetic ministry changed in the first century, we are still in need of prophetic ministry. Not the foretelling espoused by contemporary charismatic gurus, but covenant proclamations by anointed spokespersons for Biblical law:
Judge Moore is lifting his voice because he represents both traditional conservatism and Biblical law. For this he's hated. While many conservative Christians stand beside his advocacy of the Ten Commandments as America's moral foundation they are unable to connect the dots politically. The state is stealing, bearing false witness, promoting another God, murdering, and coveting private property. Yet many Christians are oblivious to statist sin because they're busy "bootlicking" the administration--they heard the president reads Oswald Chambers! Until our leaders are reading Calvin, Dabney, and Rushdoony they are still heathen in my mind. Ideas have consequences.
So, where are the prophets? Especially the reformed prophets? Calvinistic professors are introverted in their theological academic focus. Young seminarians are boasting of the latest thing they've learned from Vos and Berkhof. While many others are swooning over the rediscovered "Jesus" of N.T. Wright, and the redefinition of justification. Compounding this is the incessant dialogue with "contemporary culture." Oh boy, Christian hip-hop! How long before we get a Christian Brokeback Mountain? I could see the ads now, "Christian Worldview Conference: Rethinking Gomorrah."
Much of this is due to humanistic foundations. This was made apparent to me recently when an 18 year-old Christian girl was perplexed by my comments regarding homosexual culture. She said she could understand God's condemnation of bestiality and pedophilia, but struggled with Him condeming gays. I told her, "now you know how the devil works."
Humanism is redefining ethics for the modern Christian. Christian children are easy prey because a fair majority spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, in the philosophically immoral public school system. In addition, they are not trained in God's law by their parents nor intellectually prepared for cultural confrontation -- parents prefer acclimation to confrontation. These children then attend weekly services in churches that serve a steady diet of greasy grace and sloppy agape. The once great faith has been reduced to the "gospel of Dr. Phil."
We are headed for trying times. Humanism has undermined the larger Christian community with liberation theology. When nearly half of all Christian men are experimenting with pornography there arises the need for creative self-justification. Therefore, if a good many of our church leaders are themselves guilty of perversion, they are tempted to comport with the plight of homosexual culture. Then, both the heathen and the Christian communities will unite against Biblical Christianity and it's advocacy of Biblical law. This was always the goal of the Marquis de Sade, as Rushdoony notes:
The Kingdom of God is being defended by toddlers.
Moore is questioning the "strange coincidence" of a case of mad cow disease in Alabama while officials are considering a national tracking system for animals. Apparently Moore is versed in the old-fashioned trick of big government: create a problem and then offer a solution. Western history is replete with despotic regimes and governments utilizing this political trick on an unsuspecting populace.
I've never seen so many examples of government officials, families, and celebrities speaking out against the present despotism in America. Stars like Charlie Sheen are questioning the official story of 9-11, and noble men like Roy Moore are scrutinizing the new cases of mad cow disease. But, it seems most Americans are numb to the encroaching totalitarianism, and equally blind to the growing surveillance society. And yet, through it all, the president keeps talking "freedom." Yea, well, freedom for whom?
The church has the primary responsibility "to speak truth to power." It is our prophetic obligation. Although the nature of prophetic ministry changed in the first century, we are still in need of prophetic ministry. Not the foretelling espoused by contemporary charismatic gurus, but covenant proclamations by anointed spokespersons for Biblical law:
The inspired, predictive role of the prophet ended in Christ; the duty of the prophet to proclaim God's word to church, state, and all of life remains. It was the duty of God's prophets and Levites to declare God's word to all men, to reprove kings and governors, and to "accredit" or refuse to certify in terms of God's law-word, the things of this world, including the state. (Rushdoony, Roots of Reconstruction, p.20)Rather than rebuke the state for it's radical pursuit of totalitarianism, the Religious Right is a strange bedfellow of the contemporary GOP. Whereas "old-school" conservatism represented small government and personal responsibility, today's Republican advocates massive state expansion in both entitlements and national security. Sometimes I wonder if protestant leaders can even spell "t-y-r-a-n-n-y."
Judge Moore is lifting his voice because he represents both traditional conservatism and Biblical law. For this he's hated. While many conservative Christians stand beside his advocacy of the Ten Commandments as America's moral foundation they are unable to connect the dots politically. The state is stealing, bearing false witness, promoting another God, murdering, and coveting private property. Yet many Christians are oblivious to statist sin because they're busy "bootlicking" the administration--they heard the president reads Oswald Chambers! Until our leaders are reading Calvin, Dabney, and Rushdoony they are still heathen in my mind. Ideas have consequences.
So, where are the prophets? Especially the reformed prophets? Calvinistic professors are introverted in their theological academic focus. Young seminarians are boasting of the latest thing they've learned from Vos and Berkhof. While many others are swooning over the rediscovered "Jesus" of N.T. Wright, and the redefinition of justification. Compounding this is the incessant dialogue with "contemporary culture." Oh boy, Christian hip-hop! How long before we get a Christian Brokeback Mountain? I could see the ads now, "Christian Worldview Conference: Rethinking Gomorrah."
Much of this is due to humanistic foundations. This was made apparent to me recently when an 18 year-old Christian girl was perplexed by my comments regarding homosexual culture. She said she could understand God's condemnation of bestiality and pedophilia, but struggled with Him condeming gays. I told her, "now you know how the devil works."
Humanism is redefining ethics for the modern Christian. Christian children are easy prey because a fair majority spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, in the philosophically immoral public school system. In addition, they are not trained in God's law by their parents nor intellectually prepared for cultural confrontation -- parents prefer acclimation to confrontation. These children then attend weekly services in churches that serve a steady diet of greasy grace and sloppy agape. The once great faith has been reduced to the "gospel of Dr. Phil."
We are headed for trying times. Humanism has undermined the larger Christian community with liberation theology. When nearly half of all Christian men are experimenting with pornography there arises the need for creative self-justification. Therefore, if a good many of our church leaders are themselves guilty of perversion, they are tempted to comport with the plight of homosexual culture. Then, both the heathen and the Christian communities will unite against Biblical Christianity and it's advocacy of Biblical law. This was always the goal of the Marquis de Sade, as Rushdoony notes:
"Sade thus is the most modern of men. He is ahead of these liberated people in that he openly vindicated murder and all other offenses. If there be no God and no fall, then nature is normative, Sade held, and nothing can be called a sin or a crime, and all things are permitted except Christianity. The world will soon catch up with Sade, unless it abandons its humanistic foundations." (Rushdoony, Noble Savages: Exposing the Worldview of Pornographers and Their War Against Christian Civilization, p.5)How shall this be resisted? God has chosen the foolishness of preaching (1 Cor. 1:21), but we lack a sufficient number of prophetic preachers. Today's pastor wants to be cool. Today's preacher wants to be perceived as "successful." At the end of the day it's church attendance and the mailing list that rules. That's why we need tent-making ministers, like Paul, who would rather preach the gospel faithfully than be compromised as a servant of man. When you pay your own way then you can say what you please. When the people pay your salary you are enslaved to their whims. And the people want pop-psychology, not Calvinism. They prefer the watery mixture of universal acceptance and religious toleration to the responsibilities of an uncompromising faith.
The Kingdom of God is being defended by toddlers.
