No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other, Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Matt. 6:24
The Scriptures are replete with such uncompromising axioms -- black and white statements that force the reader to decide this day whom he will serve. I often rejoice that the words "might" and "maybe" are shunned by the Biblical writers. They don't "feel" something is right. They rather admonish, exhort, and command. You are never unsure about where they stand, or what the Lord -- through them -- is requiring you to do. This would explain the rampant Biblical illiteracy: studying the Bible is like having a shovel full of responsibility tossed in your face. We tend to avoid that sort of thing.
We cannot serve two masters. This does not, however, prohibit us from making the vain attempt to do so. We are warned of this confusion of commitment because our tendency is to serve two masters. Man is -- as Aristotle posited -- a "political animal," and therefore, beset with multiple allegiances. This is the root of our personal and corporate confusion. Life decisions become simple when you're limited to two choices. Seeking to please anyone -- even yourself -- besides the Lord eliminates you from being a servant of Christ (Gal. 1:10).
Our Lord places the disparity between God and money. But, by money, He is not simply referring to an undue greed for wealth. The subtlety of the love of money is apparent in more than desiring unnecessary material comforts or pursuing the power that money often brings. As lusting in one's heart is equivalent to adultery so the love of money can be epitomized in ways not readily perceived at first glance.
Therefore, I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; or yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not life more than meat, and the body than raiment? v. 25
By taking thought about what we will eat and drink we are serving mammon. By concerning ourselves with where our clothing will come from we are granting an allegiance to the god of mammon. How so? Because instinctively we know that we cannot provide for ourselves. Even if we grow our own food we are still reliant upon weather and such for a healthy harvest. We are dependent upon additional factors other than ourselves, and therefore, these additional elements take on a "god-like" character. We rely on them. They absorb our faith.
Taking Thought
Worry is form of doubt. And though we do spend a great deal of time worrying, it produces no measurable results. So, why do we do so much of it? Why spend the energy worrying if it is insufficient in alleviating any of your burdens?
Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? v. 27
Worry is not only a form of doubt, it is also a form of faith. Worrying is our way of praying to the "natural order." However, the natural order is a dumb idol and cannot add even a second to our life span. Yet, we grant the natural order more authority than God. Worry is the evidence of our allegiance to naturalism.
In this sense we are equivalent to men of greed. We are equally committed to the god of mammon as the man who builds empires. But does money make the world go around? Some would say so. The Word of God says otherwise. Even creation understands this. Plants and animals demonstrate no kind of materialism nor concern for provision:
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into the barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? v. 26
And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. v. 28-29
Think of the implications. The fowl of the air have a job to do in the world God created. Their role is so important that the ecosystem would break down if they did not fulfill their order. Therefore, as the bird is about God's business the Lord graciously feeds him. As the bird picks up pieces of straw for a nest he snags a worm under the pile. The bird's concern is only his order, not his provision. God knows the bird needs food. The bird need not seek after it.
(For all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. v. 32
It is the Gentiles that seek after both greed and provision. It is because they are atheistic. Christians, however, can easily demonstrate the same form of unbelief. By occupying ourselves with our livelihood more so than the affairs of the Kingdom we are practicing neo-atheism.
But seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. v. 33
The order of the Kingdom breaks down when we take thought of our livelihood. God knows what we need and provides it as we are busy about His business. This is also a form of maturity as we move beyond the childish life of ceaseless "requests" and move into Kingdom service. For example, when my oldest son was small he constantly asked for things like a glass of milk, a piece of candy, and a toy. When he became a teenager he asked for gas money and the keys to the car. Now, he asks if he can help me with the yard work. He puts aside personal requests that he might be about his "father's business." He is now a man. He now understands that provision must be balanced with responsibility. Not responsibility to naturalism, but responsibility to his Christian ethic -- faithfulness to God's law and seeking first the Kingdom.
For too many Christians the fundamental matters of life are left to their own discretion. This is why millions of Southern Baptists can send their children to public school and their wives to launch independent careers -- thereby creating a "house divided." The Word of God is not consulted in such matters -- only in matters of the heart. This gross marginalizing of God has grave consequences. It is idol worship, for it exalts man, his reason, and the natural order above that of Scripture.
Our Lord says to consider the reckless abandonment of the fowl of the air or the lily of the field. They do not take a single thought about what they will need. They are completely dependent upon God and consumed with the task He has assigned them. These metaphors are hyperbolic. They are exaggerations to make the point. Much like when our Lord states, "if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out" (Matt. 5:29). You must be willing to forsake the god of mammon in order to live like the fowl of the air. If we truly search our hearts we would easily see just how much we bow before mammon's throne.
Our objective is to discard those elements or principles that hinder our effective service in the Kingdom of God. I am concerned about Christian Reconstructionists that are too focused upon the "principles of this world" in their decision making. When I read articles by reformed men on time management and personal organization I get a little suspicious. Rushdoony's comments on "orderliness" are most enlightening and further illustrate his example of godly purpose:
There is a fundamental disorderliness about life because the present is not the final order. My library, where I am writing this, is a very disorderly place, with books piled here and there, stacks of paper, and manuscripts, letters, and more, because work is in progress. To bring my library of 30,000 books to a final order is to walk out of it and die! The passionate purpose of my life and all that I have is God's final order, and the subordination of all things to that realm. It is pornography for me to impose an order of my imagination or desire on that purpose, or to supplant it. (Rushdoony, Roots of Reconstruction, p.214)
Wow. It would be "pornographic" to impose our own desire on the purpose of God. Now that's what I call "sticking it to the god of mammon."
If we believe that the most important aspect of anyone's life is his relationship with God, then we should agree that sending children to Godless public schools is not the best thing for them.
But what about "good" public schools, in good Christian communities, with good Christian teachers?
When I went to public school, every school day started with the Lord's Prayer and a Bible reading, usually a Psalm. We had many Jewish people in our town; but if there was ever any contention over the religious content of the school day, I never heard of it. We all got the Jewish holidays off, and the carols sung in class at Christmastime mentioned Christ. No one ever claimed to be hurt by any of it.
It all came to an end by the time I was in high school, when the Supreme Court abolished school prayer. But of course it did continue at religious schools.
In college I lost my way as a Christian. How could that have happened? I was brought up in a Christian family (one uncle became a Protestant minister, one aunt a Roman Catholic nun), I went to church and Sunday school, and my full-time schooling started every day with a prayer. Why was my foundation so weak?
Teaching at a Catholic school gave me some insight into the problem. At this school, the children prayed several times a day; they had daily religious instruction, along with their academic subjects; the school was attached physically to a church: in short, this school really tried to provide a godly education--at least by comparison to the public schools.
But even here there was a problem. Unless they were constantly reminded otherwise, the children tended to take their prayers for granted--sometimes I caught them talking or playing tricks during prayer--and to dismiss their Bible lessons from their minds the moment the lesson was over.
This was not because they were bad children--in fact, they were very good children--or because their teachers were short on commitment: I never saw teachers who tried harder. But it's human nature to resist God. We naturally reduce prayers to "vain repetitions," and allow ourselves to be distracted by television, sports, and classroom politics, among other things.
In public school in 1959, the prayers were over early and forgotten for the rest of the school day. We learned history without God, science without God, and everything else, from penmanship to long division, without God. History "just happened." The natural world is "just the way it is." Whole realms of knowledge traversed, without any acknowledgment of reality's creator and sovereign lord, six hours a day, 180 days a year, year after year--it all added up to a lesson that God has nothing much to do with anything, outside of church.
But that was 1959. No one who is old enough to remember can deny that our culture has gotten monumentally filthier since then. If the public schools of 1959--with prayer and Bible reading, without homosexual storybooks like King and King on the shelves, without "sex educators" preaching teenagers' "rights" to sample an assortment of erotic lifestyles, without Kwanzaa, the Day of Silence, and the round-the-clock teaching of naturalistic evolution--if those schools couldn't foster a godly worldview, what chance that today's schools can?
We had "good" public schools, once upon a time, but they weren't good enough; and they are infinitely worse now. Christian teachers have nothing to do with it. They either teach the curriculum as given, or they'll lose their jobs. Children are taught that there are laws of physics, but not that God ordained those laws. They are taught "social studies," but never taught that God created the human race for His own transcendant purpose that has nothing to do with the grandiose ambitions of socialists and statists. Public education teaches children to separate God from His creation. So it taught in 1959, and so it continues to teach today.
There was no homeschooling movement when I was a boy, and no Protestant Christian school in our town--although there is now, plus several homeschooling co-ops.
For Christian parents today there are far better alternatives to public education, growing by leaps and bounds in their availability and effectiveness.
What are you waiting for? The sequel to King and King?
Jolted by protests from state chapters and individual members, the nation's largest teachers' union has decided not to proclaim its support for homosexual "marriage" at its annual convention this week and next.
The National Education Assn. expects 9,000 members to attend its June 30-July 5 convention in Orlando, FL (see www.nea.org/).
Orginally the plan was to push through a resolution supporting "gay marriage" and recommending that the vast resources of America's public schools be used to stump for it. But that plan came unglued when the public got wind of it and protests poured in--as reported by sources both on the Right (Focus on the Family, see http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0040990.cfm) and on the Left (People for the American Way, see http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.espx?oid=3459). And we wind up with this quote from NEA President Reg Weaver: "NEA has no position on same-sex marriages, and leadership is not seeking to establish such a position."
Heck, no--and Phillip Morris isn't trying to sell us cigarettes, either.
To mollify the homosexual activists who thought they had the resolution in the bag, the NEA posted a new statement on its website:
"The Association believes that legal rights and responsibilities with regard to medical decisions, taxes, inheritance, adoption [emphasis added], legal immigration, domestic partnerships and civil unions and/or marriage [emphasis added] belong to all these diverse groups and individuals" (quoted in http://www.family.org/cforum/briefs/10040978.cfm).
Perhaps President Weaver needs reading comprehension lessons. In plain English, the public statement says that the NEA is in favor of homosexual "marriage." In fact, the statement is better than a resolution because there is no need to put it to a vote, and risk the possibility that the 9,000 delegates might vote it down.
The convention will hold an open hearing on all resolutions on Friday morning, June 30. Watch for sparks to fly.
We are reporting this not because we are surprised that the NEA supports the anti-Biblical demolition of the family, with or without a formal resolution, but because there are still so many misguided Christian parents out there who want to "engage the culture" by sending their kids to public school. This attempt to engage the culture is not to be taken seriously.
The NEA is committed to teaching America's children that the Bible is wrong--about sexual morality, the origin and meaning of life, personal and public ethics, and everything else. Sending children into NEA-dominated public schools to be "salt and light" therein is on a par with sending them into the Colosseum to evangelize the lions.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you don't want your children to be taught that sodomy, promiscuity, and abortion are moral and good, you have no alternative but to pull them out of the public schools. Christian education, either at home or in a solid Christian school, is the way to go.
In the words of paganist John Lennon, "imagine there's no heaven. Imagine there's no Christian influence on culture." What would you get? Something like this.
"Modern man's love affair with the homosexual is really a hatred of God and a love affair with himself." R.J. Rushdoony (1)
A nation full of professed Christians continues to pursue its love affair with homosexuality, with help from church, state, and assorted "experts." This week the romance got big boosts from the Episcopal Church U.S.A., a handful of Congressmen, and the usual panderers among the sciences.
As reported by Reuters (Monday, June 19), the newly-elected leader of the ECUSA parted company with God's word by proclaiming that homosexual behavior is not a sin, contrary to everything said about it in the Bible. Bishop Katharine Jefforts Shori, the first woman ever elected to head the denomination, said, "God creates us with different gifts... Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender."
Uh-huh. And others come into this world with affections ordered toward children, animals, their own siblings, other people's wives or husbands, or lots of sex partners at the same time but no one in particular. Why does the bishop grant a "Get Out of Hell Free" card only to homosexuals? Or does she plan, at some future time, to bless others kinds of strangely "ordered" affections?
What she's really saying as that whatever "affection" we are "ordered" with when we're born is not our fault, it's what's only natural for us, and therefore it's good. Rushdoony identified this kind of thinking long ago as a pornographic worldview, pioneered by the Marquis de Sade: "In a purely naturalistic world, de Sade saw everything natural as normative. What Christianity termed fallen and depraved, he proclaimed ideal." (2)
While the bishop was rejecting the Bible's teachings on sodomy, an alliance of gay activists, liberal politicians, and "experts" took the Pentagon to task for listing homosexuality as a mental disorder and grounds for dismissal from military service, as reported June 20 by the Associated Press.
Nine Congressmen fired off an angry letter to the Dept. of Defense, demanding an overhaul of its policies on homosexuality. They got backup from the American Psychiatric Assn., whose president said "scientific and medical evidence," and all the findings of all the scientific "experts," require that homosexuality be "declassified" as a mental disorder--a step taken by the APA in 1973. No mention was made of the riotous demonstrations by gay activists that kept breaking up APA meetings until the activists got their way. If you want to call it "science," you can. We call it intimidation.
Why this incessant campaign to force society to embrace sodomy as morally, culturally, and medically acceptable? Why has America let it go as far as it has?
We find the explanation in the Bible, in Chapter 1 of Paul's Epistle to the Romans: a fascination with aberrant sex is only the symptom of a deeper spiritual illness. Discussing Romans 1, Rushdoony wrote:
"Man-centered worship, Paul says, leads to idolatry (which can mean worshipping graven images, or enthroning our own will, tastes, and wants as supreme). Such worship also leads to moral degeneracy which culminates in homosexuality..." (3)
America has been worshipping itself for many decades, while maintaining a facade of Christianity: and this is what has left us defenseless against the march of sodomy. The Bible says God's law is holy, and just, and good; but we say man's nature, man's worldly wisdom, man's money and machinery, man's lofty intentions, and man's laws are holy, and just, and good.
Apostasy is its own punishment. Having rejected the Creator and given our worship to created things, we have no God to turn to when our inventions fail us. Our own ideology of human moral sovereignty has landed us in the absurd position of trying to justify sodomy in the age of AIDS.
We need God's laws. We can't live coherent lives without them, let alone carry on a civilization. Someday, everyone will see that this is true.
1. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law, Vol. III, pg. 80 (Ross House Books, Vallecito, CA: 1999)
2. Rushdoony, Noble Savages, pg. iii (Ross House Books, Vallecito, CA: 2005 reprint)
The Presbyterian Church U.S.A. (PCUSA) has decided not to decide what kind of language ought to be used when addressing God or talking about Him.
According to a June 19 Associated Press report ("Presbyterians 'Receive' Policy" by Richard Ostling), the PCUSA at its annual general assembly voted to "receive" a policy paper approving "gender-neutral language" for the worship of God. "That means church officials can propose experimental liturgies with gender-neutral language for the Trinity, but congregations won't be required to use them," the AP reported.
The PCUSA is trying to have its cake and it eat, too--appease the feminists and gay-affirmers without driving any more Biblically-faithful Christians out of the denomination. The feminists et al don't want to have to say the words "Father" or "Son," although those are the words the Bible uses.
They propose speaking of the Holy Trinity as "Mother, Child, and Womb," or "Lover, Beloved, and Love," or "Creator, Savior, and Sanctifier," and so on. The assembly highlighted its Monday business session by singing a version of the Doxology ("Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow") that avoided the words "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."
I don't know about you, but my mother always taught me you can't please everybody, and you're foolish if you try. Apparently the PCUSA delegates never learned that lesson.
They want to cover their bases by "allowing" congregations to continue to use Biblical language for God, if they so desire. This in a denomination already hemorrhaging membership due to its flirtations with paganism, Gnosticism, feminism, and homosexual clergy!
Their latest caper only identifies them as lukewarm Christians, neither hot nor cold, whose fate will be to be spewed out by Christ Himself (see Revelation 3:16).
Another lesson it seems the PCUSA leadership has not learned is that no man can serve two masters. The PCUSA is now trying to serve both God and popular opinion. But putting popular opinion on a par with God, they have already betrayed their rightful Lord.
For the time being, "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision" (Psalm 2). That's Verse 4. If they persist in their course, they'll have Verse 5 to deal with: "Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure."
There are still faithful Christians in the PCUSA--but for how much longer?
"[H]ome schooling is the wave of the future for leadership development."
So says Gary North in his recent article describing his belated epiphany that homeschooling is superior to private schools. "Over the years, I have watched the parallel development of Christian home schooling and Christian day schooling. I have come to the conclusion that home schools are superior on average." North writes from experience. He knows the key persons, key systems, and key resources for the entirety of Christian education.
He arrives at the summation that homeschooling is superior because it's established upon the most fundamental positive economic element: self-government. There's nothing cheaper than personal responsibility; and there's nothing more inexpensive in terms of education than self-education:
[I]t took me 20 years of watching the home school movement develop to come to this conclusion.
This late conclusion may be an example that runs counter to my theory of child pedagogy. I wish that someone had pointed it out to me earlier. It might have saved me two decades. But I might not have believed it. Self-education is the best education as a general rule.
He's right. Self-education is the best means to preparing "old school" Christian leaders -- the kind we've not seen since the 18th century... in the South! In other words, something more akin to the noble Robert E. Lee and the stalwart Stonewall Jackson. Not the drunk elitist, Ulysses Grant, or the vicious terrorist, William T. Sherman. Godly, responsible, courageous leaders that defend Christian individualism and a decentralized civilization. The last "true" defenders of the Constitution and Christian civilization were lost during the War of Northern Aggression and the subsequent neo-slavery of southern reconstruction. Abolishing slavery for a handful of transplanted Africans became a perpetual slavery for 300,000,000 Americans, and counting.
This is why we need Christian Reconstruction. It is a reversal of the despotic reconstruction of 1865-1877 -- although, in my opinion, that reconstruction of southern independence continues to this very day. The old South was compromised of predominantly theocratic republics. As a note, theocracy is not opposed to a constitutional republic governed by a rule of law and managed by a democratic process of elected representatives. The primary law book for morality in the South was the law of God as revealed in the Bible. This is why slavery perpetuated in the South -- the Bible did not condemn slavery, it simply established laws governing it (Eph. 6:5-9; Col. 3:22-24, 4:1; 1 Tim. 6:1-2; Titus 2:9-10; 1 Peter 2:18). Yet, it was not only slavery laws, but the majority of moral codes in the South were Biblically derived.
Pagan or Christian Culture?
For some contemporary Christian writers raising Godly leaders means acclimating to the culture. It's only the Christian porn star that can effectively reach the pervert. If we can only "dress up" the Gospel in the oversized sports jerseys and low-hanging jeans we might have a chance of reaching the hip-hop culture -- we only need to be sure our message rhymes. Such suggestions should be anathema, or at least a fringe belief. Rather, it is the celebrated mainstream.
And so, like the remnant of southern civilization that still exists today, Christian Reconstruction remains in the margins of society. We are, however, in good company. Whether it be Elijah, or John the Baptist, religious "extremists" are labeled such only because the populace is always pagan -- and that includes the Christian sell-outs. Obeying God in all things is only extreme when the majority is wicked or compromised -- as if there's a difference. The responsibilities, therefore, of the marginalized extremists are basic: remain faithful, proclaim the covenant, and raise Godly seed.
Operating independently of church and state in the rugged individualism of theocratic living is the only means to securing a Godly society. Theocracy means the "rule of God." It's often confused with "ecclesiocracy", the rule of the church or a religious elite. Christian theocracy is founded upon self-government. Self-government is founded upon self-education. There is no greater means to creating personal responsibility than teaching a child to learn on their own. The power of personal discovery in God's world is addictive, and turning children on to "pursuing wisdom" like a greedy man (Prov. 2:1-5) is our most significant task as parents.
The Tyranny of Institutions
I hope that Gary North's epiphanies will continue -- especially as it relates to the church. The essential dividing line between North and Rushdoony focused on the church and the family. Rushdoony gave primacy to the family in history while North (Jordan, et. al.) granted that to the institutional church. Hopefully, North's economic calculator will soon add up that institutionalism in any form is a greater hindrance to the expansion of the Kingdom than the responsibility-based model of the Christian family.
As Lee Duigon highlighted yesterday on his post (see below), the SBC -- for the second time -- declined to adopt a resolution calling for all Southern Baptist families to withdraw their children from public schools due to the overt homosexual agenda. In all honesty, I can't say that I'm too disappointed. I do not endorse a pragmatic solution whereby denominational tyranny is further established for the noble decision to remove one's children from public schools. Institutionalism is killing us; and the institutionalism of the church is as much a detriment to Christian civilization as is the overbloated state.
The best form of advertising is person-to-person. Most church attenders frequent a local church because a friend or relative invited them. Therefore, homeschooling will continue to grow as it always has -- by dedicated homeschoolers sharing their experience with other non-homeschooling parents. If the SBC had endorsed the "exit strategy" resolution the denomination would have experienced its greatest crisis since the liberal/conservative split. For bureaucrats in a denominational hierarchy, they will choose the institution over the Scriptures every time.
To add hilarity to the SBC convention, they did arrive at other, more important, conclusions:
Also Wednesday, the SBC unofficially barred members who drink alcohol from serving as trustees or members of any SBC entity. The ban, part of a larger anti-alcohol resolution that was easily approved by delegates, was proposed by Jim Richards, executive director of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. While stopping short of officially preventing drinkers from serving, it "urges" that no one be elected or appointed to SBC offices if they are "a user of alcohol." "Use of alcohol as a beverage can and does impede the message of Jesus Christ" that Southern Baptists are trying to spread, Richards said.
This is all I needed to hear to know they are not worthy of respect. Apparently, Christian children being taught by the secular sodomites is tolerable, but a leader in the SBC that drinks wine or beer is impeding the message of Jesus Christ. This is the height of Phariseeism -- you gag on a knat while swallowing a camel. What should be an issue, isn't. What isn't an issue, you make paramount. God help us!
Creating spiritual independence is not glamorous. It's difficult, tedious, and daily. It will not attract the support of professional ministers that must defend position and a paycheck. The responsibility lies upon the shoulders of dedicated Christian laymen that are convinced that the simple conformity to God's Word is the most expeditious, inexpensive, and effective means to creating future Christian leaders. It is another paradox of the Kingdom that although we are to deny our "self" we are to still embrace personal responsibility. Self-rule under God is the kind of "self-life" upon which He looks favorably.
The Southern Baptist Convention at its annual meeting this week rejected a proposal to call for "an exit strategy" from the public schools.
Instead, the SBC adopted a resolution commending "the hundreds of thousands of Christian men and women who teach in our public schools" and recommending that Southern Baptists "engage the culture."
The "exit strategy" resolution was offered by Roger Moran and Bruce Shortt, a Houston authority who is the author of "The Harsh Truth About the Public Schools" (available through Chalcedon). The resolution was described in detail in a recent Chalcedon website article (http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/article.php?ArticleID=296).
We can't help wondering what some of these Christian teachers do when the school directs them to teach the virtues of evolution, abortion, or homosexuality. We've never heard of a teacher getting an exemption, on religious grounds, from having to present anti-Christian curriculum materials. Could you refuse to teach evolution, for instance, and still keep your job? We'd be interested in hearing from teachers who have been in this dilemma.
Homeschooling advocates can't help being disappointed: for the SBC, America's largest Protestant denomination, to have adopted this resolution would have been a major coup. But we should not be surprised when major institutions, religious or secular, stop short of taking bold action.
What this means is that we must all work harder to convince America that homeschooling is the right choice for families--biblically, emotionally, and academically. Homeschooling has made great strides since R.J. Rushdoony spearheaded its growth into a movement in the 1970s. Now is certainly not the time to give up!
When the Supreme Court, in early June, 1985, ruled against prayer in the "public" schools, even if it were silent prayer, there was much jubilation in humanistic circles and some dismay in church responses. Prayer in state schools dedicated to humanism and anti-Christianity was in itself no great advantage. Prayer in these schools for illiteracy and paganism would be inappropriate, as would be mandatory prayers in houses of prostitution. How can there be a blessing on the systematic neglect of the triune God? If faith without works is dead (James 2:14-26), so too is prayer without works. We cannot ask God to bless what is against His will, nor us if we are where we ought not to be.
Some very important issues were raised, however, by the Supreme Court's decision. Implicit in the Court's perspective and decision was what The Stockton (California) Record made explicit in an editorial, June 6,1985, "School Prayer Ruling Sound" (p. 12): "The Know-Nothings are at it already, calling the latest Supreme Court ruling on prayer in the schools 'an act of war against this nation's heritage.' The ruling, quite to the contrary, is an affirmation of this nation's religious heritage. That heritage was religion is a private, personal matter and that government can neither promote nor proscribe its practice."
It is emphatically true that the U.S. Constitution held "that government can neither promote or proscribe" religious practice on the federal level. In recent years, this has been extended to the states. The premise of this perspective is that God's Kingdom cannot be controlled by the state. The early church fought for this, as did the medieval and the modern church. Limits were thereby placed on the power and jurisdiction of the state, limits which the courts now treat as non-existent. If the church enjoys any immunities, it is viewed as a state grant and subject to statist change and control.
The central evil of the modern view is that "religion is a private, personal matter." This is a revolutionary idea, a product of the modern era and of revolutionary ideologies. Basic to the Western world has been the premise that, because the God of the Scriptures is the living God, the Maker of heaven and earth and all things therein, any attempt to establish man and society apart from Him and His law is suicidal. Because the triune God is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6), any attempt to establish anything apart from Him is a lie and a deadly venture (Ps. 127:1; Prov. 8:36). In terms of this, the free exercise of religion is a necessity in order that the wellsprings of human life be nourished, personally and socially.
To say that "religion is a private, personal matter" is to say that it is irrelevant. You and I may enjoy crossword puzzles, but such things are not public concerns, merely private ones.
On the contrary, however, the faith of a people is the most public of all concerns. In a very real sense, the life of the people depends upon its faith. What the state is, and its strength and virtue, depends upon the faith and character of the people, and the integrity of the church's witness. Tle state can be no stronger than its people and their faith. Our problem in the modern world is that nations confuse strength with armament and with controls over the people.
When the state limits the scope and freedom of Christianity, it limits its own strength and paves the way for its destruction. It is not an accident that the de-Christianization of schools and state since World War II have been followed by a great increase in crime, drug use, illegitimacy, sexual crimes, perversions, pornography, and more.
In this process, it must be noted, the churches have had a great part. By their growing modernism, their socialist gospel, and their faith in statist salvation, they have become gravediggers for both church and state.
Religion is both a public and a private concern. To restrict it to a personal matter is to deny its truth and to deny Christianity religious liberty. If "religion is a private, personal matter," then religious liberty has a very narrow scope; the area of religious freedom then, as attorney William Bently Ball has noted, is the distance between our two ears. If "religion is a private, personal matter" then it has no legitimate place on the public scene. It should then be barred, as the courts have progressively done, from the schools, the state, and all public agencies.
Of course, what is not barred is the new established religion, humanism. It is the new public faith, and its articles of faith are routinely affirmed by public figures as a public duty. The obscurantists deny that humanism exists or dominates; this does not say much for their honesty.
The Stockton Record went on to say, "It is a mis-reading of the Supreme Court's 1962 decision on organized prayer in public schools and its ruling this week to suggest the court has banned prayer in public schools. It has only prohibited government involvement in a private matter. Anyone can silently pray any time, any place and for any reason; government cannot suggest such prayer or ban it."
Again, this limits religious freedom to a purely private and personal realm. Such editorial writers are silent when Christian Home School parents, and Christian Schools, are on trial. Court ordered testing has repeatedly demonstrated the far greater scholastic achievements of such students, but the courts show no regard for their religious freedom. Do such people really believe in religious freedom for Christians? The past decade has seen the persecution and at times imprisonment of pastors and parents. The press which heralded this recent Supreme Court decision has usually been silent in these other cases. Is this not hypocrisy? And how long will the state respect freedom of the press when it destroys freedom of religion? The press, by approving the court's growing fascism, is preparing the way for its own destruction.
The Stockton Record quoted Justice John Paul Stevens (our John Paul III?) as insisting, in the majority opinion of the Court, that the school prayer violates the "established principle that the government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion." The state can have such a neutrality only after the Court can negate gravity and float in space as it renders its godlike decisions! The state rests on law; all law is enacted morality and represents as such a religious foundation and a religious faith about good and evil, right and wrong. Neutral laws cannot exist. Laws against murder rest on the premise that man is created in God's image and must live by God's law.
Peter J. Ferrara, in The Wall Street Journal ("Reading Between the Lines of the School-Prayer Decision," Tuesday, June 11, 1985, p. 32), said: "The fact that a moment of silence is inherently neutral between prayer and other forms of meditation or contemplation should have been sufficient for the court to uphold the Alabama law. The majority's suggestion that students would somehow be bullied into praying by the history of the Alabama statute or the expressed hope by some legislators that students would use the time to pray, surpasses fantasy. Moreover, in straining so mightily to hold the statute unconstitutional, the court communicated a message to the public of hostility to religion."
In this century, we have seen a massive persecution of various religions (Buddhists in Tibet, Jews in the Soviet Union, Moslems in Albania, Bahais in Iran), but most of all of Christianity. The Marxist states have, since World War I, slaughtered millions; Turkey massacred Christian Armenians and Greeks; Africa has seen countless massacres in recent years, as has southeast Asia; Cuba has persecuted Christians, as have many other states. The Christian victims number into many tens of millions. The world press has been largely silent on these matters, and increasingly so.
In fact, many editorial writers act and write on the premise that Christians are persecuting them when they protest such treatment! This should not surprise us: a bully with a bad conscience hates and resents his victims because he knows their presence is an indictment of him. I was told of a schoolyard bully who loved to pick on and mercilessly pummel boys smaller than himself. Then, as he started to leave, he would turn on his victim, or a bystander, saying, "You don't like it, do you?", and, whatever the answer, beat up on them at once ' . Not even an unspoken dissent is tolerable to a bully. The bully press has a very loud voice, and it knows that its enemies have a very small one.
The new definition of religious liberty is tailor-made to destroy Christianity. By reducing its freedom to "a private, personal" realm, it is doing what the Soviet Union has done. This kind of "religious freedom" exists in the Soviet Union. Practically, it means that parents cannot speak about their faith to their children. In some states of the U.S., parents can be jailed for educating their own children, i.e., by applying their Christian faith to education. In the Soviet Union, husband and wife are often silent about their faith one to another; in a time of trouble, such knowledge can be used against them.
As the Soviet Union defines religious liberty, i.e., as a private personal matter, it can and does boast of its record of religious freedom. What faith men hold between their two ears, they are free to hold!
But Christianity cannot be so restricted. It governs our lives, our marriages, children, homes, schools, churches, civil governments, vocations, arts, sciences, and all things else. It governs them by governing us and making us instruments of God's law and order. It makes us dominion men so that God's Kingdom is manifested in and through us.
To do this, Christian faith transforms old institutions into new ones and creates new agencies for the new life. It can only do this if our faith is for us a personal and a public concern, the way of life for man and for society. If Christianity does not do this, it perishes.
This is what our Lord means when He says, "I am come to shed fire on the earth" (Luke 12:49). What He gives is not a purely private and personal matter: it is a transforming power which will destroy what needs destruction, renovate what needs renovation, and build what needs to be built and established.
The Lord declares, "Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. 21:5). Where men prefer their ways to God's justice, they will resent and wage war against God's remaking of all things. Because they see themselves as their own gods, and man as his own source of law (Gen. 3:5) they want no part of the faith. They will seek to suppress and destroy it without being honest enough to say so.
This should not surprise us. It is logical on the part of unbelievers. It has been this way all through history.
The important question is this: what will those who call themselves Christians do about this? Will they be silent "mummified" churchmen, as General William Booth described them, or will they be the Lord's dominion men? (July, 1985)
(From Chris Ortiz: This entry was penned by R.J. Rushdoony - Chalcedon Position Paper No. 64. Who wants to read me when I can just as easily post from the thousands of pages of Rushdoony?)
Today, Alex Jones posted an mp3 from his Monday radio program. During the program he describes his recent trip to the Bilderberg meeting in Canada. I was genuinely moved as Alex -- a very tough-minded man -- was brought to tears as he described the struggle we all face, and massive love of God he experienced.
I must again call for all Christians that love liberty to pray for Alex Jones. I am sincerely concerned that he may have crossed the line last weekend. Please pray for his protection.
Death was an academic topic before Genesis 3:5; it was not until the curse that it became real. God's judgment was to make death real to men, to make it part of their consciousness. The only way man can truly accept death is to accept the justice it represents, to see it as a consequence of God's curse on our sin. To dream of conquering death is a refusal to acknowledge the moral cause and meaning of death. It is a desire to reenter Eden and partake of the Tree of Life in defiance of God. Read more>>
Can Experience Teach? By Rev. R.J. Rushdoony
Inability to learn: this is our national problem. We are destroying everything that made us great. We are undermining the farmer and pushing him towards ruin. We are pursuing immoral courses as though they were godly ones. And, like a gambler, the more foolish we become, the more we persuade ourselves that our course of action will make us a winner. Read more>>
Alex Jones, host of the daily Alex Jones Show on radio, and a weekly television program, visited the secretive meeting of the world's most elite bankers, corporate heads, media pundits, and politicians -- the Bilderberg Group.
This elite cadre are the usual suspects behind any all pushes to global government and international tyranny. Listen as this brave American "speaks truth to power" in the name of God, freedom, and all that is decent. Let us pray for fighters like Alex Jones.
The religio-political branch of the web is all a buzz with controversy over a soon-to-be released PC video game Left-Behind: Eternal Forces. This desktop software is a "real-time strategy" game based upon the multi-million dollar Left-Behind book series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. The leftward anti-theocrats at talk2action (or "moretalkthanaction") are garnering significant web traffic -- along with laying considerable PR pressure on Christian conversatives -- by placing consistent focus on the issue... Choose ye this day, what game shall ye play? Doom, or Left-Behind: Eternal Forces?
The game is as idiotic as the books, but with a difference. Since a video game is interactive players can participate in a violent campaign of Tribulation violence for the cause of Christ! (I know, it's hilariously ridiculous, but stay with me.) It's being proffered as the "ultimate fight of good against evil" as a player, or players, can head up the Tribulation Force or the Anti-Christ's Global Community Peacekeepers in a combination of both spiritual and physical warfare.
The setting for the game is New York City where a group of "left-behind" Christians are left to contend with a U.N.-like international force of peacekeepers loyal to the regime of the Anti-christ. According to one analyst, "the dialogue is pretty lame -- people saying, 'Praise the Lord' after they blow away the bad guys." This is typical for most violent video games. This is not typical for a game that espouses to be Christian.
The problems for the more secular critics are what they refer to as the embedded themes of "Christian supremacy" and "eliminationist rhetoric." Of course, it's Christian and violent, how else is it supposed to turn out? The trouble comes when this game is lobbed on top of the compounded conspiracy theorizing of the soon-coming theocracy.
In all honesty, I do harbor a genuine concern for the less informed readers of the secular laity -- those who'll never turn a page of a Christian book. They only have these left-wing conspiracy bloggers to rely on; and this cadre is web-spinners are daily serving the ill-informed a frightening vision of the theocratic future. I wonder who will take to the streets first: the Christian zealots or the frightened secularists?
The debate over the political future of America is equally ridiculous. It's not only the left-wing alarmists, it's also the sensationalists on the Religious Right that are causing an unnecessary public crisis. Millions of Christians are buying into a "War on Christians" while millions of secularists are trembling over a gay-stoning theocracy. While Christian protest of the DaVinci Code is improving the box office sales for Ron Howard, the left-wing boycott of Left-Behind: Eternal Forces is providing the game-makers with more PR and guaranteed sales then they'd ever achieve themselves.
Political pressure will soon be leveled at the conservative Christian community to renounce the game. I'm sure a good many of them will. But, I'll remain astonished that grown men and women could spend so much time critiquing movies and video games. This will all pan out to be meaningless in the end. But, in the meanwhile, it's a mountain out of a mole hill. I didn't want to spend ANY blog time on it, but I'd rather go down on the record lest my silence be construed as "guilt by association."
Here's all I have to say: much of the Christian popular media industry (books, video, gaming, paraphernalia, movies, and television) is a horrible affront to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's nonsensical. The cancer of materialism and a watered-down Christian message are signs of a great decline in Christendom. For the first time I can finally see that there will be an end to modern evangelicalism as it splinters off into a multiplicity of factions. All the while, the faithful continue to imbibe sound doctrine, build solid churches, and raise their children in the faith. The way is narrow and few there be that find it.
Rushdoony was a man of letters. He didn't care for book covers and disliked paperbacks. He consumed a book a day for his entire adult life. He accumulated 40,000+ volumes in his personal library by the time he died in 2001.
We at Chalcedon have walked with great thinkers over the years. But, judging by the size of our mailing list in comparison with the multi-billion dollar Christian media industry, we are far from the vision of a theocratic nation. The fictional world of LaHaye and Jenkins is just that -- a fiction. It is a ridiculous portrayal of the future derived from a ridiculous eschatology. It is being packaged by compromised Christian capitalists who easily dispense with ethics when it comes to making a buck.
Those who take them all seriously are in danger of a stomach ulcer. I suggest our far-left critics relax like Rushdoony did, and be confident that the righteous Lord of the Universe will fulfill His will, and discipline His own children for their frivolity. I don't recommend "dignifying" a video game with serious discussion. I know you're worried that young impressionable teenagers will take it all seriously and start shooting unbelievers. Rest assured that will not happen. All you've done at this point is increase the projected sales and inspired investors. Not a smart move.
I don't know Chuck Baldwin personally, but I appreciate his willingness to lay rebuke at the door of conservative Christian leaders that are silent in regards to the loss of national soveriegnty.
"For the record, the real battlefield today is not abortion. It is not homosexual marriage. It is not Social Security. It is not al Qaeda. It is not taxes. It is not inflation. It is not electing conservatives. It is not posting the Ten Commandments. That is not to say that those issues are not important and not deserving of our best efforts and attention. We have fought and continue to fight for those issues. But those issues do not represent the major battlefield today.
The battlefield where the devil has amassed his greatest forces and is thrusting his deadliest armies is the surrender of our national sovereignty and independence, and the creation of global government! Yes, Martha, the devil has targeted the United States for destruction, and he is using our own political leaders to do his diabolical work! Furthermore, unless God awakens His people, especially His preachers, America's fall will be swift, and few will even notice that it happened-until it's too late." Read more...
Just when you thought you'd heard the last word in hysterical, mean-spirited, and chowder-headed arguments against homeschooling, the Religious Left outdoes itself again.
We ought to give out an award for this sort of thing. And no one would deserve it more than Dr. Jim West, Th. D., for his performance last month on his blog (http://petrosbaptistchurch.blogspot.com).
His May 2 posting, "An Exodus From Public Schools Isn't Holiness, It's Paganism," takes the cake for intemperate language.
People who homeschool, says Dr. West, are "foolhardy and uninformed... frenzied, uninformed, twaddling and prattling mobs of unwashed peasants." If they really feel so strongly about homeschooling, West says, they ought to pass up college and "teach their children at home to be doctors and lawyers and theologians and preachers and, of course, housewives."
West was at it again on May 9, in "The Hypocrisy of Al Mohler," going even farther: "...if homeschoolers really are genuinely concerned that the world will influence their children wrongly, they [should] pull them out of the world completely and isolate them thoroughly, in a cult like [sic] environment, where no outsider is allowed and no one ever travels outside the cult compound... Except, of course for the child molesters, rapists, abusers, and other criminals who will inhabit the compound along with them."
What would make a doctor of theology write like this? Obsessive, repetitive viewings of Night Shylaman's The Village? Improper nutrition? If he were speaking like this behind the wheel of a car, we'd call it road rage. A comment he makes in his "Exodus" essay offers a clue:
"The only people who pull their kids from public schools out of fear are the same sort who haven't ever read the bible in Greek or Hebrew... the sort of people who get all their information second hand."
Damn that Tyndale! We knew this would happen, if you translated the Bible into English and made it available to the riffraff.
Doc, Doc, get a grip. You're 500 years behind the times. You're not really against translations of the Bible, are you? Or is it just your elitist slip showing?
Does he really think that if only we could read the Bible in Greek and Hebrew, we would instantly see that God wants us to educate our kids in aggressively secular government schools, promote and celebrate sodomy, cheerfully acquiesce to confiscatory taxes for the purpose of bloating the state into a socialist behemoth, and worship "goddess Sophia"? I don't care if he can read the Bible in Akkadian cuneiform: he won't find anything in it to justify his wacko worldview.
Meanwhile, you unwashed, compound-dwelling, non-Greek-speaking, homeschooling peasants, don't let Dr. West's rant offend you. He and his kind would not be using such wild language if they weren't unhinged by the prospect of their imminent defeat. He has abused you because he knows, in his heart of hearts, that the homeschooling movement is growing all the time and there's absolutely nothing he can do about it.
But we do wonder where he's getting his information about homeschooling families.
It is so important that more conservative Christians speak out against the slide to despotism presently underway in this once free republic. Christian leaders must rally their congregations and organizations to question this administration on its reasons for war and clamp down on civil liberties. Where are the voices on the Christian Right? Why aren't Dobson, LaHaye, Perkins, and Robertson speaking out? Have they all sold their birthright for the lobbyist's pottage?
Whether you're discussing Derrida's literary deconstruction, or the effeminate "emergent church movement," the world is awash in postmodern reactionism. Thousands of Christians are beside themselves in giddy rejoicing over the new found awareness that rationalism ain't what it used to be and fundamentalism is in need of an enema. A new world has opened up, and Christians are pressing violently into the "culture" when they should be pressing into the Kingdom:
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. Matthew 11:12
I don't think you can list a more non-emergent church leader than John the Baptist. He saw no value in "engaging dialogue" with the adulterous King Herod. He did not placate the rebellious, God-defying nation of Israel -- a people that he continually commanded to repent (Matt. 3:1-2). John was a fundamentalist of the most extreme sort. He was separate from culture. He did not eat their delicacies; he did not wear their clothes; and he did not live in their communities. He chose rather the "comfort" of the wilderness, the taste of locusts -- he wore 100% wool and irritated everybody!
His model was Elijah -- the prophet that defied a rebellious nation. John did not see the Kingdom of God as a "narrative of love" that embraced the homosexual or the stubbornly sinful. John did not speak of the "extended hand of God." He offered instead the holy axe of God to cut down any pretense that rebellious Israelites were children of Abraham (Matt. 3:7-11). John did not call for the religious leaders join an emergent church or empathize with the cultural illness. John warned instead of the wrath to come (v. 7).
Some will say, "yea, but, Jesus was coming after John the Baptist, and He was bringing in the age of love and compassion!" "Jesus was going to put away the age of condemnation and proclaim the message of multicultural love." Was Jesus going to do that before or after He burned the chaff with unquenchable fire?
I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Matthew 3:11-12
At first glance a historical Jesus scholar would highlight the gross contradiction between the wrathful prophet of John and the loving, effeminate shepherd of Christ. This would demonstrate the procrustean recklessness of the NT writers that confirms an undermining of true religion by these vagrant apostles. John and Jesus simply don't harmonize. Jesus and Paul don't harmonize. The Scriptures are cloudy and likely manufactured to create a false movement.
Whom Does Jesus Love? His Cousin!
What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written: Behold I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You. Matthew 11:7-10
God despises those ministers who are shaken by the wind. Seeker-sensitive or emergent church -- it's all the latest wind that blows weak-minded men who desire more the approval of men than being a servant of God. These are they that wear "soft clothing" for they long to be welcomed into the king's house. They have refused God's most prestigious offer to be a prophet of the Lord, and instead, they choose to be whores for the sake of culture. Their prayer is, "Oh God, make me relevant." It is a dangerous thing to blog so close to hell.
The eternal Son of God granted no greater endorsement to any man than the one He granted to His beloved cousin:
Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist... Matt. 11:11
Our Lord goes on to say that "he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." That is by no means an endorsement of multi-cultural pluralism. It's an encouragement to gratefulness. It's not a statement of universal acceptance of fallen man, or a demeaning of John's uncompromising message. It's a call to flee the fires of hell and take the kingdom by violent force -- press your way into it lest you be consumed by the wrath to come. He who is least in the kingdom is greater than John in that the redeemed experience the fullness of salvation that John only saw in a pale vision.
How Shall I Liken This Generation?
To what shall I compare the postmodern generation and it's emergent enablers? They are remotely similar to the compromised generation of Christ's frustration:
But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions, and saying: "We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; We mourned for you, and you did not lament." Matthew 11:16-17
A postmodern church is flute-playing for a postmodern culture in hopes the rebellious will dance. If that doesn't work, the postmodern church will adjust itself and sing a dirge of mourning; but still the culture will not lament. What's the lesson here? Don't play to the culture. They will not heed a compromised community that seeks to pluck the fruit instead of sever the root. Lay the axe to the tree and let God sort them out.
The postmodern culture hates God. Singing and dancing for them only makes court jesters out of emergent church leaders. They are playing the fool to a culture that will exhaust itself in evading repentance. If you come as a strict prophet they will say "you have a demon." If you eat and drink with them they will say, "Look, a glutton and a wine-bibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!" (Matt. 11:18-19)
Worse Than Sodom
After this glowing endorsement of John by our Lord, He moves to further rebuke the cities in which His mighty works had been done. He did so because they refused to repent:
Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.” Matthew 11:20-24
Imagine living in a city in which God would be more lenient towards Sodom than yours. This should cause shivers in the godly. This should spark a great fear in God's people NOT to cater to society's whims. If you want to know whether your "movement" is of God, you should look to the aftermath. Are your churches filled with postmoderns lying on the floor "repenting in sackcloth and ashes?" I doubt it. They might spill their Starbucks coffee in such a religious display; and God knows a Grande Latte ain't cheap.
If a culture refuses to repent after God has made Himself known through Christ it can only anticipate a judgment far worse than Sodom. What's worse than being gay? Being a Christian that enables them. What's worse than being postmodern? Being a postmodern Christian.
Postmodernism is a pretext for a sin-enabling church. Emergent church leaders incessantly repeat the refrain "we are living in a post-modern world." This creates the pretext for their theological adjustments and revised cultural stance. It's the same ridiculous pretext as living in a "post 9-11 world" that justifies perpetual war and an oppressive police state.
Necessity is the mother of invention and the pressure to cater to culture is inspiring a myriad of religious leaders to remake God in their own image -- that of fallen man. It apparently helps the homosexual to know that Jesus was tempted with the same thing. Blasphemy! These ideas are wicked and anathema. We are just another stage in the extensive line of rebellious generations that refuse to hear the word of the Lord and demand of our spiritual leaders to only speak to us the comforting words of religious deceit:
Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness. These are rebellious people, deceitful children children unwilling to listen to the LORD's instruction. They say to the seers, "See no more visions!" and to the prophets, "Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!"
