Chalcedon Blog

This is the clearest example of how the 9/11 propaganda campaign absolutely reduces an otherwise intelligent woman to engage in gross doublethink. Talk about deluded.

Doubt and Unbelief

For unbelief is so deeply rooted in our hearts, and we so inclined to it, that not without hard struggle is each one able to persuade himself of what all confess with the mouth: namely, that God is faithful.[1]

We cannot please God without faith (Heb. 11:6), and therefore, we bring Him displeasure by our unbelief. On more than one occasion, our Lord rhetorically asked His disciples, "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" (Mt. 14:31; c.f., 6:30; 8:26; 16:8) When taken in conjunction with endless passages encouraging faith, it appears that God is at war against unbelief.

However, I must admit that I am a tad puzzled by the statement, "O thou of little faith." The difficulty is in harmonizing a rebuke for having "little faith" with Christ's teaching that "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you" (Mt. 17:20). Since a mustard seed "is less than all the seeds that be in the earth" (Mk. 4:31), then isn't having a "mustard seed of faith" equivalent to having "little faith?" If so, why would Christ rebuke His disciples for having little faith? Isn't little faith sufficient to move mountains?

What's common to all the above mentioned Scriptures are the equal references to doubt and unbelief. For example, "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou DOUBT?" In Matthew 17:20, Jesus began His answer to the disciples' question, "Why could we not cast him out?," by saying, "Because of your UNBELIEF."

Doubt and unbelief are a neutralizing factor to faith. The little faith Christ is referring to is simply another way of saying "doubt and unbelief;" and the presence of doubt has a debilitating affect on the force of faith. This is best illustrated in Peter's attempt to walk on water:

And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? (Mt. 14:29-31)

James certainly has Peter's example in mind when he explicitly states that the crippling power of doubt will leave a man believing with no results:

But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. (James 1:6-8)

In commenting on these passages, Calvin also highlights the explicit admonishment the Scriptures give regarding the force of faith that is so lacking in our time:

"Let him ask in faith, with no wavering" [James 1:5-6]. There, opposing faith to wavering, he most appropriately expresses the force of faith. Nonetheless, what he adds must also be noted: that they who in doubt and perplexity call upon God, uncertain in their minds whether they will be heard or not, will gain nothing [cf. James 1:7].[2]

Is this why so many of our prayers go unanswered? Is this why our prayers regarding the successful advancement of the Kingdom, and the undoing of the powers of darkness, end up as nothing more than ritual, recite, and liturgy? Are we provoking God with grand sounding prayers that we don't anticipate He'll answer historically? Calvin seems to think so:

It is amazing how much our lack of trust provokes God if we request of him a boon that we do not expect.[3]

This is not the prayer of faith (James 5:15) that Scriptures calls us to exercise. I have heard too many prayers that do little to stir my own heart, let alone move God to act on our behalf. The prayer of faith is "effectual and fervent" (James 5:16), and is modeled after a great prophet of power, Elijah, whom James states, "was a man subject to like passions as we are" (v.17). The NIV translates this: "Elijah was man just like us."

What then is the difference between you, me, and Elijah--since he was only as great as the God that was with him? The difference lies in this wonderful clause provided to us by James:

"He [Elijah] prayed earnestly..." (v.17)

The example of earnest prayer was Elijah's dual prayers that rain would be first withheld and then granted to Israel. James apparently has additional information because the story of Elijah in I Kings makes no mention of Elijah praying "that is might not rain" (James 5:17b). He simply appears from nowhere in I Kings 17:1, and announces to Ahab "there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word."

However, after God told Elijah that He would send rain upon the earth (I Kings 18:1), Elijah went to the top of Carmel (v.42) and prayed seven times for God's promise to be fulfilled (v.43). When did he stop praying? When on the seventh time his servant saw "a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand" (v.44). Only a man of little doubt would interpret the little cloud as the initial answer to his prayers.

The lesson here is that Elijah is just like us. He suffered the same passions as we do. The difference was the way in which he viewed God and His Word. God had told Elijah that He would send rain, and according to God's promise, Elijah prayed with earnestness AS IF the promise could only be fulfilled through his prayer of faith. Do we pray in this manner? What would change in our lives, and in our world, if we took God's promises as seriously as the men of Scripture? What's sad is that we often pray in an opposite fashion. Calvin ridicules such prayers:

Now what sort of prayer will this be? "O Lord, I am in doubt whether thou willest to hear me, but because I am pressed by anxiety, I flee to thee, that, if I am worthy, thou mayest help me." This is not the way of all the saints whose prayers we read in Scripture.[4]

Earnest prayer is the greatest cure for doubt and unbelief. This is what our Lord indicates in our cited example in Matthew 17 when He concludes, "Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting" (v.21). Calvin comments on this text are illuminating:

This kind goeth not out. By this expression Christ reproved the negligence of certain persons, in order to inform them that it was not an ordinary faith which was required; for otherwise they might have replied that they were not altogether destitute of faith. The meaning therefore is, that it is not every kind of faith that will suffice, when we have to enter into a serious conflict with Satan, but that vigorous efforts are indispensably necessary. For the weakness of faith he prescribes prayer as a remedy, to which he adds fasting by way of an auxiliary. "You are effeminate exorcists," said he, "and seem as if you were engaged in a mock-battle got up for amusement; but you have to deal with a powerful adversary, who will not yield till the battle has been fought out. Your faith must therefore be excited by prayer, and you are slow and languid in prayer, you must resort to fasting as an assistance." Hence it is very evident how absurdly the Papists represent fasting to be the specific method of driving away devils, since our Lord refers to it for no other reason than to stimulate the earnestness of prayer. When he says that this kind of devils cannot be cast out in any other way than by prayer and fasting, he means that, when Satan has taken deep root in any one, and been confirmed by long possession, or when he rages with unbridled fury, the victory is difficult and painful, and therefore the contest must be maintained with all our might.[5]

The Scriptures, as I mentioned above, show us that God is at war with our doubt and unbelief. Why? Because faith is the force that advances His power through His people as they bring the judgments of God to bear upon ungodly kings, nations, and cultures. By faith Elijah destroyed the false prophets of Baal; spurred a revival in Israel; brought severe judgment upon Jezebel; and deconstructed the house of the beast (Ahab). The Bible is replete, as Hebrews 11 testifies, of many such saints that prevailed by faith. It should be obvious that you and I must also learn to despise our own doubt in the same manner God does; in order that the neutralizing force of unbelief would be uprooted from our hearts. So says Calvin:

Surely, as often as God commends his Word to us, he indirectly rebukes us for our unbelief, for he has no other intention than to uproot perverse doubts from our hearts.[6]

1. John Calvin: The Institutes of the Christian Religion in Two Volumes, Trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1960), 3.2.15.
2. Ibid., 3.20.11.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., 3.20.12.
5. John Calvin: Calvin's Commentaries: Harmony of the Evangelists, Vol. I (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1996), 327f.
6. Calvin, Institutes, 3.2.15.

Here's the first paragraph of a lengthy whine from a man who's "scared" because there's not enough mainstream fictional films showing women aborting their children. He bemoans two recent films that show two women going full-term with their respective unintended pregnancies. How morally TWISTED can someone be to insist the blood lust be covered both off and on screen? For humanistic man, death is his solution for everything. These are the same people that get bent out of shape because a reconstructionist wrote that sodomites should receive the death penalty according to Biblical law. For them, only the innocent unborn are worthy of death.

"I have been monitoring pop culture for a long time, examining trends and singularities that both reflect and influence public thought. One particular topic has been on my mind for some time now: the release to two films last year, Knocked Up and Juno, which use unintended pregnancies, both of which are carried to term, as a central plot device. In the case of Knocked Up, the pregnancy is the result of a drunken one-night stand; in Juno, the pregnancy involves a teenager who decides to put her unborn child up for adoption. Both films received mostly positive reviews, and both did very well at the box office; Juno has even garnered several Academy Award nominations. The popularity of these films have been nagging me, but it hasn't been until the recent anniversary of Roe v. Wade that I felt qualified enough to write anything about what scares me about these two movies. I don't believe that these films represent a complete shift away from the pro-choice perspective when portraying unwanted pregnancies in movies; after all, the documentary Lake of Fire takes a look at the anti-abortion/pro-choice debate in a very balanced manner. Nevertheless, it's the complete absence of abortion in FICTIONAL movies that strikes me as bothersome, as if abortion is a subject only worthy of discussion in the less emotional, more sterilized genres of documentaries, news reporting, and non-fiction books."

Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Mark 11:22-24

The entire Word of Faith movement is founded upon this text. By now, most have heard stories of the extreme applications of these passages by Charismatics laying claim to new cars, homes, and other trivial material gains. This is a stereotype that I believe has done serious injury to the Biblical idea of faith, and the end result has been the avoidance of these Scriptures in order to dodge the slander of being labeled "name it an claim it."

Added to this is an odd contrivance regarding our status before God. We don't want to be found guilty of "presumption" when it comes to our prayers and petitions. Again, the bracketing of our prayers with "God willing" may indicate an unfounded caution that actually debases the glorious position we have acquired in and through Christ Jesus. The suggestion that "ye shall have whatsoever ye say," chimes as too insolent, and the idea that whatever we desire when praying will be received, sounds audacious and unrealistic. There's simply no way the text can mean what it suggests.

Having two extremes when interpreting Mark 11:22-24 has left us with no applicable understanding of these glorious words of Christ. Were they merely isolated passages, they could be dismissed as textual anomalies by scholars, as has been suggested about Mark 16:14-18. But other Scriptures reveal equally pronounced provocations to faith that we are hemmed in by a steady encouragement of the Holy Spirit to believe for the impossible:

If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. Mark 9:24

The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. Luke 18:27

If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Matt. 17:20

Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. Matt. 8:13

Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. Matt. 9:22

According to your faith be it unto you. Matt. 9:29

The idea of moving mountains--an obviously "impossible" feat--was a well understood hyperbole in the first century. This notion of operating in a faith that wrought great and overwhelming demonstrations was the basic paradigm that showed the limitless possibilities to be found in God. The apostle Paul referenced this noteworthy concept of faith in his discussion about the necessity of charity as the primary motive behind any quest for the power of God:

[A]nd though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. I Cor. 13:2b

Later, in the book of Revelation, mountains begin to move as the judgments of God are enacted by the angelic host:

And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. Rev. 6:15

But contemporary "faith" advocates typically reference Mark 11:22-24 in terms of personal needs or desires where the "moving of mountains" becomes a metaphor for financial setback, relational difficulties, or serious illnesses. The basic question becomes, can we personalize such faith encouraging texts? Calvin's exposition of Mark 11 appears to advocate a general principle of faith, but qualifies the interpretation as he perceives the text to bear explicit restraints on abuse:

This passage shows also that the true test of faith lies in prayer. If it be objected, that those prayers are never heard, that mountains should be thrown into the sea, the answer is easy. Christ does not give a loose rein to the wishes of men, that they should desire any thing at their pleasure, when he places prayer after the rule of faith; for in this way the Spirit must of necessity hold all our affections by the bridle of the word of God, and bring them into obedience. Christ demands a firm and undoubting confidence of obtaining an answer; and whence does the human mind obtain that confidence but from the word of God? We now see then that Christ promises nothing to his disciples, unless they keep themselves within the limits of the good pleasure of God.[1]

Our affections are "bridled by the word of God," and thereby brought "into obedience." Calvin argues that "Christ promises nothing to his disciples, unless they keep themselves within the limits of the good pleasure of God," i.e., you cannot have faith for sinful pursuits.

Faith in itself is powerless. It is faith in the desires revealed by God's Word that must be the coveted objective; that faith is the belief to which God is most responsive. Calvin held to the idea that faith only becomes presumptuous when it is NOT accompanied by prayer; and fervent godly prayer cannot accompany selfish desires:

But as faith, if we have any, breaks out immediately into prayer, and penetrates into the treasures of the grace of God, which are held out to us in the word, in order to enjoy them, so Christ adds prayer to faith; for if he had only said that we shall have whatever we wish, some would have thought that faith was presumptuous or too careless.[2]

We cannot have what we wish. But we also cannot produce the God-kind of faith for a mere wish or sinful desire. The desperation of fervent prayer (James 5:16) is another way of saying the "prayer of faith":

And the prayer of faith will save the sick... (James 5:15)

We have lost this strong sense of faith in our praying. However, the absence of such believing prayer is really a mingling of faith and doubt--a doubt that the Scriptures warn will undermine faith:

But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. James 1:6-7

But many of those today who doubt are not like those who genuinely struggle with believing God's promises. They are not akin to the humility and inadequacy that plagued some of those who were challenged by Christ in their faith:

Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. Mark 9:23-24

Too much of the contemporary doubt springs from a misinformed religiosity that tends to discourage notions of bold faith, though this is not stated so baldly. The simple downplaying of faith texts, and the avoidance of encouraging great faith, results in an anemic Christian body that are strong in terms of their doctrinal system, but weak in terms of their demonstrative power. During the Reformation, the Papists viewed Calvin and his Protestants with disdain for daring to hold fast to God's promised care:

Hence we perceive by what a diabolical contrivance the Papists are bewitched, who mingle faith and doubt, and even charge us with foolish presumption, if we venture to appear before God under the conviction of His fatherly regard toward us.[3]

We know that "without faith, it is impossible to please God" (Heb. 11:6), and that "[T]he just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him" (Heb. 10:38). The lesson of faith must be learned by God's people, and since faith is the primary means of exchange, God may allow the hedges to come down (Job 1:10) in order to spurn us to an unshakable confidence in His benevolence:

But for the saints the occasion that best stimulates them to call upon God is when, distressed by their own need, they are troubled by the greatest unrest, and are almost driven out of their senses, until faith opportunely comes to their relief.[4]

I'd prefer to simply trust the promises of God, and build myself up on my most holy faith praying in the Holy Ghost (Jude 20), rather than receive my faith education via the ancient school of hard knocks. It was certainly more than precise doctrine that sustained the Reformation; the great faith of men like Calvin, who took Christ at His Word, was the same ingredient that fueled the first century explosion of the Christian religion.

What this means for us--living 2,000 years beyond the book of Hebrews--is that the great cloud of witnesses is also populated with Reformers and Puritans who together present a corporate exemplar that will either convict us of living in a shameful state of doubt, or provide us an abiding inspiration to match their example.

1. John Calvin: Calvin's Commentaries: Harmony of the Evangelists, Vol. III (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1996), 19f.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. John Calvin: The Institutes of the Christian Religion in Two Volumes, Trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1960), 3.20.2.

To have faith in God means, to expect, and to be fully assured of obtaining, from God whatever we need.[1] ~ John Calvin

There is a spiritual disease that has bedridden a good many Christians. It's a pervasive power that has suppressed the otherwise doctrinally brilliant Reformed believer who rests in a false security behind the repeated refrain Deo Volente. Yes, the will of the Lord will be done, but that must never become an excuse to not live by a vibrant and active faith that dispels darkness and advances the rule of God.

The disease is doubt, and it is a magnificently deceptive force that counters the advancement of the Kingdom in your life and our society. You might be well-versed in the doctrines of grace, and your systematic theology may be air-tight; but your life is powerless. Confusion, depression, anger, frustration, procrastination, laziness, and a lack of purpose dominate you emotionally and mentally.

A misconstruing of the purpose of doctrine is stifling the power of the Kingdom that is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost (Rom. 14:17). This affects all of us, so long as we are at home in the body. This is well-llustrated in Martha's encounter with Christ outside the tomb of Lazarus:

Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I KNOW THAT HE SHALL RISE AGAIN IN THE RESURRECTION AT THE LAST DAY. John 11:21-24

This statement drew a swift rebuke from Jesus. This is quite strange, since Martha was correct in what she said. What's even more odd is the fact that a few minutes later, her sister Mary said the exact same thing--"Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died" (v.32)--and this caused Jesus to weep (v.35).

Listen again to Martha's response to Jesus' assurance that her brother would rise again: "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Martha, like many a Reformed believer, was quite correct in her systematic theology. She had obviously read the doctrine of the resurrection in detail. She knew that at the last day a glorious resurrection would take place. She was confessional. She had been catechized. Her statement of faith was flawless.

But she could not move God to a demonstration of His power. She had stumbled over the same stumbling stone as the unbelieving Jews:

Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye may have life. John 5:39-40

Martha knew that at the last day she would be reunited with her brother in the resurrection. For her, resurrection was simply a doctrine. It was a statement of faith codified in the text. Her concept of the resurrection was easily believed because it was distant from her reality. But could her doctrine of the resurrection actually impact her life in the present? Could her statement of faith be converted into a life of faith? Jesus revealed to her the true nature and purpose of doctrine:

I AM THE RESURRECTION, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. BELIEVEST THOU THIS? John 11:25-26

The doctrine of the resurrection was standing in front of her. The power of the resurrection was contained in a person--the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a powerful lesson for those of us who love sound doctrine: we must not lose sight of the Person behind the doctrine.

Faith begins when doctrine is personified. In this sense, faith does war against reason. It wars against the neutralizing power of stoicism that causes otherwise brilliant Christians to live far below the great expectations God has for them. How can we as the temples of the Holy Spirit be so powerless in our affect on this world? It is because we separated doctrine from Him who is the Word of God (John 1:1), and this has left us faithless to be overcomers.

This result has been a misapplication of reason by using it to analyze the veracity of Scriptural propositions without coming to an understanding that helps us to live out it's power. This should never be the dilemma of the "believer." The fallout of reason should only be the poison of the unbeliever's philosophy. John Calvin describes the contrast wonderfully, and sounds quite "charismatic" as he challenges us to live spiritually:

For they set up reason alone as the ruling principle in man, and think that it alone should be listened to; to it alone, in short, they entrust the conduct of life. But the Christian philosophy bids reason give way to, submit and subject itself to, the Holy Spirit so that the man himself may no longer live but hear Christ living and reigning within him.[2]

This is the power behind our service to God. This is what it means be a Christian: we are filled with the power of the Holy Spirit that renews our minds to give expression to Christ's authority in this world. When we don't "hear Christ living and reigning within," our concept of obedience becomes much like the Pharisees in their emphasis upon outward forms. Calvin redirects us to the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit in overcoming this handicap:

I call "service" not only what lies in obedience to God's Word but what turns the mind of man, empty of its own carnal desire, wholly to the bidding of God's Spirit.[3]

This is the great starting point for faith. Not "the faith," but a life of faith that is driven by a full assurance in the promises of God that are "yes and amen in Him" (II Cor. 1:20). It is the concept of the life lived by faith that I'd like to examine with you; and for our teacher, I've invited the great John Calvin whom I quoted at the outset:

To have faith in God means, to expect, and to be fully assured of obtaining, from God whatever we need.

Our lives are driven by need, and we live in a world of great need. The powers of darkness have held sway over the minds, souls, and cultures of God's creation. The people of God are in need of faith; a faith that moves us to action. A faith that is so convinced of God's benevolence towards us that we are driven to constant prayer and spiritual confrontation. God wants us to drive out the kingdom of darkness. He expects us to run to the battle in every area of life. He's disappointed by our hiding behind books and confessions. As great as these are--and I have lots of them--they are a means to an end and not the end itself. Advancing the Kingdom of God requires an advancing faith, and that means, as Calvin stated, an expectation and FULL ASSURANCE of obtaining from God!

1. Calvin's Commentaries: Harmony of the Evangelists, Vol. III (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1996), 19.
2. The Institutes of the Christian Religion in Two Volumes, Trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1960), 3.7.1.
3. Ibid.

Each year, since 1899, the most powerful men in politics, finance, media, and industry have gathered together for over two weeks during July to engage in both bizarre rituals and serious discussion. Founded in 1872, the Bohemian Club of Northern California is one of the best kept secrets by America's Elite Establishment. Did you have any idea that the current president and his father are regular attendees? How about Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, Clarence Thomas, Newt Gingrich, David Gergen, Jimmy Carter, Art Linkletter, Walter Cronkite, etc.?

A 1981 ABC News story represents one of the rare occasions the Grove received any sort of mainstream coverage:



While still president, Richard Nixon described the distinctly homosexual dominance of the Bohemian Grove in one of his private discussions in the Oval Office. Bear in mind that the Bohemian Grove has been an exclusively male attended retreat since its inception:



The Club's symbol is an owl, and the great statue within the Grove that you saw in the ABC video is the "god" (?) for which they perform the "Cremation of Care" ceremony where a mock human sacrifice is offered. Granted, this is beyond silly to the outsider, and I cannot say how seriously these men take this tradition. What it does tell us is that the ceremonies are too bizarre for public consumption, and necessarily require discretion. Since George W. Bush ran as a "Christian" candidate, I'm sure he'd like to keep it under the table that he and his family participate in pagan celebrations teeming with homosexuals. Here's a photo from one of the Club annals showing the president and his father (and Newt) at the Grove:


For conspiracy theorists, the secrecy lends credence to the supposition that the gathering is an evil one where the elite hatch their plans of war against the rest of us. I have no way of confirming that accusation. I can say that it is certainly bizarre, and I would never allow an individual participating in such things to babysit my children. I also could never call myself a Christian and attend anything so explicitly pagan and homosexually populated. But, that's the Ruling Class for ya!

The Elite Establishment is immoral and pagan, yet they wield significant control over the apparatus of the modern centralized state. They remain in power due to the fault of much of contemporary Christianity. This is what they refer to as the "New World Order." It's simply the City of Man, nothing more. It's a world order made in man's image in which he works out the implications of his autonomy and rebellion against God. Regardless of the form it ultimately takes--i.e., one-world system, American super-state, regional super-state, etc.--it remains basic in its objective: man as god and the true incarnation of his godhood in the totalitarian state. But keeping this "vision of man" concealed lies at the root reason for secret groups:

So in the Carpocratians of the second century we find already the tendency towards that deification of humanity which forms the supreme doctrine of the secret societies and of the visionary Socialists of our day. The war now begins between the two contending principles: the Christian conception of man reaching up to God and the secret society conception of man as God, needing no revelation from on high and no guidance but the law of his own nature. And since that nature is in itself divine, all that springs from it is praiseworthy, and those acts usually regarded as sins are not to be condemned. (Nesta Webster: Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, p.30)

The remedy is not "exposure" alone. This seems to be the tool of conspiracy theory--simply expose the nefarious deeds of the wicked. This is no solution. In fact, it often leads to the ruin of men's minds and the destruction of relationships. Men cannot cope with an exaggerated conspiracy that they assume is so complex, sophisticated, extensive, and all-powerful that it devastates their sanity. Soon they are ascribing more or equal power to men than that of God Himself:

[E]xposure itself does not defeat the cryptocracy, because given the degraded and atrophied nature of modern man's perceptions and insight today, such revelations may only serve to strengthen the cryptocracy's mental hold. (Michael Hoffman II: Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, p.53)

The Christian must never succumb his or herself to such an unbiblical perspective. It is proper to view history as conspiracy--i.e., history is no accident due to a cosmic impersonalism--so long as you understand the primary source is Satan and the primary means is autonomous man, as Rushdoony says:

History, therefore, is not the outworking of impersonal forces but a personal conflict between the forces of God and anti-God, Christ and antichrist, with the ultimate victory assured to God and His Christ. The Bible as a whole presents a view of history as conspiracy, with Satan and man determined to assert their "right" to be gods, knowing, or determining, good and evil for themselves (Genesis 3:5). From beginning to end, this is the perspective of Scripture, and only a willful misreading of it can lead to any other position. (The Nature of the American System, p.156)

Rushdoony argues that we too often purposely misread the basic construct of the Biblical concept of history. This is why we are not the Church Militant. This is also why the "gates of hell" remain intact and secure. The failure of much of conservative conspiracy theory is that it neglects the religious nature of history:

[F]or history is replete with conspiracies, and many conspiracies, while very important, serve only to deflect the minds of the masses from the central and essentially religious issues. (Ibid., p.158)

Others do hold a "religious" view of conspiracies, but their concept is equally unbiblical because it leads to "false witness" concerning Satan:

We must not bear false witness concerning God or man, and we are not to bear false witness concerning Satan by ascribing to him power that belongs only to God. The true witness of the apostles was not a testimony about the powers of Satan but of the triumphant Christ. (R. J. Rushdoony: The Institutes of Biblical Law, p.564)

Those who do not comprehend the religious nature of subversion also neglect the overall objective of organized wickedness. They too often reduce conspiracies to a lust for power or greed. Such motives never succeed in the ultimate sense, and such motives can never explain the succession of conspiratorial groups. Longevity stems from a religious goal, more so than a material one, viz. money and power are a means to an end and not the end itself. The goal is the City of Man with man as god, and the hindering element to be eradicated is the Christian ideal:

For the final goal of world-revolution is not Socialism or even Communism, it is not a change in the existing economic system, it is not the destruction of civilization in a material sense; the revolution desired by the leaders is a moral and spiritual revolution, an anarchy of ideas by which all standards set up throughout the nineteen centuries shall be reversed, all honoured traditions trampled under foot, and above all the Christian ideal finally obliterated. (Webster, Secret Societies, p.337)

Only a strong sense of religious destiny can sustain a conspiracy over multiple generations. Conspiracy theorists recognize the great span of time involved in modern conspiracies, but they cannot adequately explain the perpetuity of them by citing greed and power as primary motives. They neglect the "postmillennial" sense behind the planners:

The fact of conspiracy rests on a sense of destiny, of inevitable progress. This destiny is not God's predestination but man's inevitable triumph: man must prevail. (Rushdoony, Nature, p.173)

This mission will fail, as the Scriptures make clear (Ps. 2:9); but some Christians refuse to see the victory historically. What they choose to see is an all-powerful enemy, and their minds are often blinded to God's use of conspiracies in the outworking of His plan in history:

[T]he orthodox Christian's philosophy of history cannot make the conspiracy, however central to the stage of history, the main fact of history. Believing as he must in the sovereignty and predestinating power of God, the meaning of history is for him transcendental. The main fact is the eternal decree and the certainty of the Son's victory, Who shall make the nations His inheritance and possess the ends of the earth, in history and beyond history. (Ibid., p.174)

A growing body of conservative Christians is becoming increasingly aware in our day of the longstanding conspiracies; but out of their hearts is streaming a form of Satan worship. They are so paralyzed by what they consider the insurmountable conspiracy that only the return of Christ shall free them from the evil about to come upon the world. Tim LaHaye represents this ilk. Others dedicate themselves to uncovering ritual, ceremony, perversion, and criminality in order to show others how omnipotent is the satanic power structure. In their world, the heretic is the one who does not embrace the emotional fallout of their conclusions:

Today, however, many so-called Christian conservatives not only spend their time studying the work of Satan but become angry if you question the omnipotence of Satan. They insist that every step of our world history is now in the hands of satanic manipulators who use men as puppets. To deny this is to be classed as some kind of heretic; the practical meaning of this position is Satan worship. But St. John tells us that, at the supreme moment of Satan's conspiracy, when Christ's death was decreed, the secret purpose of God was being most fulfilled (John 11:47-53). It is always God who reigns, never Satan. Any other faith is a false witness and an especially evil one. (Rushdoony, Institutes, p.565)

They also fail to recognize that the present state of man invites such nefarious despotism. In an age of compromised Christianity and the march of the state, elite groups are consistently successful in undermining institutions, traditions, systems, and individuals. The determination is man's faith alone:

Any directorate, even a very small minority, can exercise control when majorities are without faith and direction... More than the guilt of conspirators, however, which is very real, is the helplessness of the Christian West, a helplessness that is a confession of its own sin and shame. (Rushdoony, Nature, p.170)

This is why a moral revolution is needed in terms of God's revealed Word. Too much time is spent on the studying of evil. Supposed Christians are much more versed in the workings of freemasonry, satanism, and the occult than they are in "what saith the Scriptures?"

The key to displacing these grasping evil powers is not a study of the deep things of Satan, nor a belief in their evil power, but godly reconstruction in terms of Biblical faith, morality, and law. (Rushdoony: Institutes, p.564)

Technology is the tool that keeps all us within the "Matrix" of control, and the Scriptures call for the believer to depart from those who worship idols (and then televise it into your home!):

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?...Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. (II Cor. 6:16-17)

Our separation is for the purpose of arming ourselves for spiritual battle--purify our minds with the truth that we might be transformed (Rom. 12:2). Hoffman's advice in this regard is helpful and simple:

It is patent to anyone concerned about resisting the conspiracy that the focus of opposition must be on separation. It is a difficult pill for the modern mind to swallow, but a necessary one. There is nothing that can be done about such technology that is so effective as to stay away from it. In terms of positive engagement, we need to dwell inside the great books, beginning with the greatest of all. Neophytes might wish to obtain the five dollar edition of the 1611 King James Bible...and read it like a paperback. (Hoffman, Secret Societies, p.148)

I am a bit more optimistic and engaging than Hoffman. I believe that we are commanded to take dominion and assured that victory will be secured. What's needed--from our Bible reading--is an understanding of how the two kingdoms grow, and what is our responsibility in light of that understanding.

These are "tares" dominating the field with their "tare-ness," and are permitted to do so because the "wheat" refuses to work out the implications of "wheat-ness" in every area of life (Mt. 13:24-30). If you don't use a pre-emergent weed killer on your lawn, and plant new grass seed, the weeds will eventually crowd out your grass as the year progresses. This is a lesson for us as children of the Kingdom (Mt. 13:38). Jesus said "the field is the world," and there are two "seeds" vying for dominance of that field. We must either be about the expansion of the wheat, or we shall continually suffer the reign of the tares. If you're ready to become a part of the Christian World Order, then begin by equipping yourself with this larger vision. We must "let the dead bury the dead," and not be moved by what immoral men do amongst the Redwood groves of Northern California.

A Recently Discovered Letter from Francis Schaeffer to Rushdoony Casts Doubt on Frank Schaeffer's Testimony...

I've posted my assessment of the recent interviews with Frank(y) Schaeffer regarding his latest book Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back. It is my contention that Frank(y) is spinning a convoluted revision of his father's history with R. J. Rushdoony and Christian Reconstruction. After journalist Jeff Sharlet asked Frank(y) about Rushdoony's influence on his father, Frank(y) states unequivocally that his father Francis deemed Rushdoony as having serious psychiatric problems.

I remember this vividly: I’d just come back from Rushdoony’s Chalcedon commune, or whatever, out in California, where I’d heard all this really weird stuff. Stoning homosexuals, putting adulterers to death, reconstructing Old Testament law. It was some of the most bizarre stuff I’d heard. And I went home and I said to my dad, “Who is this guy? I’ve never heard anything so weird.� And my dad just said, point blank: “Oh no, he’s crazy.� And then he said, “That’s not a figure of speech. I believe he has psychiatric problems.� Later, when all the political stuff started happening, those people tried to muscle in to what dad was doing. Gary North would show up, Rushdoony was writing him letters. But my father was not at all happy about the connection.

In order to make my case against Frank(y), allow me to bullet the important items stemming from his "vivid" memory:

1. Francis Schaeffer believed Rushdoony had psychiatric problems.
2. Rushdoony and North were "muscling in" on what Francis Schaeffer was doing.
3. Francis Schaeffer was not at all happy about the connection.

Ironically, a non-reconstructionist academic recently secured permission from Chalcedon to examine the papers of R. J. Rushdoony as part of his doctoral dissertation for a major university (storage for the material he collected will require up to six DVDs). He brought to my attention, after reading my recent posts on Frank(y) Schaeffer, that only one correspondence between Francis Schaeffer and Rushdoony was found. Even more ironic is the date, content, tone, and names mentioned. All of which paint a much different picture than Frank(y) described:

November 20, 1978
Dr. R. J. Rushdoony
Chalcedon
P.O. Box 158
Vallecito, CA 95251

Dear Friend:

Thank you so much for your letter of October 28, I did appreciate your writing so very much. I, too, am glad for our contacts and the fact that we are speaking on the overwhelmingly central things and to the same issues in our day.

You will be glad to know that I now have the results of the tests from the second set of treatments and we everything to be thankful for. The first set of treatments are only 75 percent strength to see how one tolerates them, then the second set is 100 percent. We held our breath for the results, but both the physical tests and the blood tests are overwhelmingly good and we are thankful. Wonderfully, too, the side effects for me have not been strenuous. Of course, the battle will not be over in a day but at this time we can press on with real expectancy.

Edith has been in Cambride, England for the last several days lecturing at surprisedly open doors--she phoned me last night and things have gone very well. The Lord willing, she gets back tomorrow (Tuesday night). Pricilla and Libby, one of our L'Abri workers from Los Gatos, have been caring for me very well, indeed.

Please do convey my warm greetings to Dr. Gary North, I did appreciate his sending the things which he sent.

With warm personal greetings in the Lamb,

Francis A. Schaeffer

For a man who deemed Rushdoony as "crazy" (with serious "psychiatric problems"), Francis appears to be quite sincere in his appreciation of their relationship and mutual missions. He also shares personal medical information regarding his health--something you wouldn't expect from Francis, since he thought so poorly of Rushdoony. Why send such personal information to a "mad man?" Finally, in a stroke of sheer irony, Francis closes his correspondence by asking Rushdoony to "convey his warm greetings to Dr. Gary North."

I'm not sure how to reconcile Frank(y)'s testimony with that of his father's letter to Rushdoony. They both offer different conclusions. In court, the evidence of personal correspondence by Francis Schaeffer would hold more veracity than the hearsay of Frank(y)'s vivid memory. In addition, Frank(y) spends so much ink demonizing the Religious Right and the reconstructionists, you have to consider the fact that he may be repositioning himself again. This would not be the first time.

Andrew Malcom of the Los Angeles Times has written a fact-filled brief editorial highlighting the uncanny success of Ron Paul, who is beating Giuliani like the New England Patriots. America is waking up. The attempts by big media to shut Paul out are backfiring. The growing support of Ron Paul is a direct message to the Establishment: "No more statism!" And ladies and gentlemen, that's our message! If you're a devout conservative Christian, then join the fight for freedom here in America. Not the fake fight for freedom involving the invasion of foreign countries, but the freedom that comes from shutting down the fed, cutting spending, bringing our troops home, overturning the Patriot Act, and returning to some semblance of the Constitution.

AND, I'm not saying, "Vote for Ron Paul." I'm saying, "Join the truth and freedom movement that has grown up around Ron Paul." If conservative Christians would rally around this movement, and cease the praise of the Establishment's message through the fake GOP, we could now level the greatest attack on statism in recent history. The Establishment is banking on the fact that the Religious Right is in the back pocket of Huckabee, Romney, McCain, et al. These men are all the same. The difference lies in subtle nuances. They are all "blessed" by the Council on Foreign Relations and will perpetuate both the U.S. police state as well as these expensive wars. You can make a difference. You can help turn the tide back towards freedom.

So, what am I suggesting? Join the truth and freedom movement by taking advantage of what Ron Paul has achieved in awakening millions of Americans to the threat of despotism. Take some time, if you can, to share that liberty is founded on the law of God. That without self-government in terms of God's law, any constitutional restoration will only be subverted again.

Microsoft is creating software that can remotely monitor "a worker's productivity, physical well-being and competence." A worker will be wirelessly "linked" to their computer which will measure "heart rates, movements, facial expressions and blood pressure." Microsoft's patent application refers to it as a "unique monitoring system."

Specifically, "wireless sensors could read 'heart rate, galvanic skin response, EMG, brain signals, respiration rate, body temperature, facial movements, facial expressions and blood pressure." Even frustration can be detected. Microsoft claims this will better enable the corporation to provide proper assistance. Does somebody smell a euphemism here?

While Macintosh is releasing innovative products for the ease of life, Microsoft is serving the New World Order agenda--all of this predicted by Jacques Ellul in The Technological Society:

"The prime purpose of state or corporation might even be to rob and despoil the individual by the exploitation of these techniques. I repeat that it could not have been otherwise. From a certain degree of development onward, every technique concerns the collectivity of men." p. 235

"In a great corporation, the workers are more than ever enslaved and scarcely in a position to act in a distinctively human way." p. 154

My last post, "The Progeny of Schaeffer and Rushdoony," addressed a recent interview by Frank Schaeffer's new book. Now that Frank Schaeffer interviews are popping up in the blogosphere, I realize Frank has a clear agenda: He's playing the role of the "PR guy" after the fact. Listen to his response to Jeff Sharlet's (our next target) question about the relationship of Francis Schaeffer to Rushdoony:

What was your father’s relationship to some of the other fundamentalist intellectuals? I’m thinking here of Rushdoony. Your father read his work pretty early on, didn’t he?

I remember this vividly: I’d just come back from Rushdoony’s Chalcedon commune, or whatever, out in California, where I’d heard all this really weird stuff. Stoning homosexuals, putting adulterers to death, reconstructing Old Testament law. It was some of the most bizarre stuff I’d heard. And I went home and I said to my dad, “Who is this guy? I’ve never heard anything so weird.� And my dad just said, point blank: “Oh no, he’s crazy.� And then he said, “That’s not a figure of speech. I believe he has psychiatric problems.� Later, when all the political stuff started happening, those people tried to muscle in to what dad was doing. Gary North would show up, Rushdoony was writing him letters. But my father was not at all happy about the connection.

I don't believe a word Frank is saying. First, he refers to Chalcedon headquarters as a commune. Pardon me, but wasn't it a commune at L'Abri (the shelter)? On Chalcedon's property is the home of R. J. Rushdoony and some office space. Nobody lived there but the immediate family. Second, he claims he heard "stoning homosexuals, putting adulterers to death, reconstructing Old Testament law." This sounds fishy to me. Those items are taken right out of EVERY critique of Christian Reconstruction ever written. Am I to believe that it just so happens that the day the Schaeffer's arrived in Vallecito, that Rushdoony was covering all of his most controversial doctrines?

And what exactly, Frank, is "reconstructing Old Testament law" supposed to mean? Christian Reconstruction has nothing to do with "reconstructing Old Testament law." It means to reconstruct all things in terms of Biblical law--all of it, both Old and New Testament.

Does anybody see what Frank is doing? He's demonizing the Religious Right and R. J. Rushdoony. By doing so, he's catering to a new audience of disenchanted secularists wearied by Christian political domination since 1980, and separating himself and his father from both.

Schaeffer then discusses the difference between his father and his intellectual offspring like Charles Colson:

Let me put it like this: Somebody like, say, [Fellowship member] Chuck Colson and my father could not have been further apart. I can’t imagine Chuck Colson at a Jefferson Airplane concert with his kids and passing a joint to the person next to him and really listening to the music. My dad wasn’t smoking the joint, but he didn’t care about it. Dad used to say that he learned more from the students than they learned from him. And it was true. Dad got his first Dylan album, Route 66, I think, from a student who was carrying it in her back pack.

Yea, you're right, Frank. I can't imagine Mr. Colson at a Jefferson Airplane conference WITH HIS KIDS sniffing second-hand marijuana smoke. Nor can I imagine him picking up a Dylan album from someone's backpack.

Frank seems to operate in cycles, and with each phase there usually comes a name change. Next time, he may refer to himself as "the author formerly known as Franky."

Third-parties? Lesser of two evils? How should we vote?

"This is an area of Christian liberty. Some of us may feel that there are times when we are faced with a choice of respective candidates for senator, or mayor, or governor where we can vote for neither because the lesser of the two evils is still too big an evil to vote for. Other times we may feel that we have to do something in order to oust at least an incumbent. At other times perhaps still another attitude may govern our mind--or we may feel that it is important to work to get a third candidate on the field--at least to upset the Establishment and the established pattern. These are all questions of individual liberty. And it's not an area where we can in most cases issue an overall moral requirement."* ~ R. J. Rushdoony

Don't Neglect Local Politics

"The law, if it is truly law, rests on, and is an expression of, the Ten Commandments. So, the first point of upholding the law is for us in our personal lives to uphold it. That's the beginning of all law enforcement: to enforce the law on ourselves. Second, we enforce it in our community and in the organizations we are associated with on the local level. And this is, I think, the big area where Christians have to work today, if they're going to work on politics. It's a little difficult now to do much about the national scene. We can hope that something will be done and will end our efforts. But at least on the local scene, the county still has the right to refuse any and all federal and state funds. It can close down welfare. It can close down any and all such programs if it simply says 'We will not take the money!' It simply requires that act of courage. And this is an area where a great deal can be done politically. But you see, we cannot hope to win on the national level, if on the local level, nothing is done. And today, one of the problems is, of course, that every one is for cuts in federal spending, but not for anything that affects their district or their state. So, a revival of law and order begins on the personal, and then on the local level. This is basic. And, this is the neglected area of politically activity by and large. The amount of money--millions upon millions--poured into state and federal elections, as against that dedicated to local elections, is startling."* ~ R. J. Rushdoony

*Transcribed from the question and answer period of his taped lecture "The Sword of Authority: Pergamos" from his series on the Book of Revelation. Delivered in Los Angeles, CA in 1967.

This is how much people hate George Bush. They'll vote for a black african-centric man with two names sounding like America's national enemies and who refuses to place his hand over his heart during the national anthem.



He speaks nothing of the Constitution. He's ready to bomb Pakistan. Let's face it, he shouldn't be a small town mayor let alone a senator, or God forbid, president!

Loony liberals accuse the Religious Right of making an election come down to God, abortion, gay rights, and other moral issues--as if they're limited in their thinking for doing so. For the life of me, I can't see the difference here. Loony liberals are supporting Obama for what reason exactly? Because he's the most pro-abortion candidate they have?

This is senseless. You cannot think you're going to lead the American people and insult their flag and anthem so disrespectfully.

With a stated objective of making it "harder for terrorists, illegal immigrants and con artists to get government-issued identification," the Department of Homeland Security (I still shudder when I say that) is still experiencing difficulty is selling REAL ID to "skeptical state officials."

REAL ID is an act of Congress to create a tighter federal identification system for all U.S. citizens. Presently, your home state is the issuer of your driver's license, but the REAL ID Act features legislation (Title II) that will impose federal standards for all U.S. driver's licenses. This is truly a significant step towards the complete federalization of the United States. The State of North Carolina is already issuing such licenses which feature a hologram on the back of the license displaying an image of the North American continent:
This is an odd image to utilize. The fifty states of the U.S. do not include Mexico or Canada, so the obvious question is why highlight the North American Continent? This lends credence to the charge by many that the Establishment is determined to create a North American Union in which Canada, the U.S., and Mexico will be merged into a Western super-state. This is happening now along with the indefatigable development of the European Union. These were stated goals of such organizations as the Council on Foreign Relations.

But civil liberties groups are mounting stiff resistance to the REAL ID. The original deadline of May 2008 is giving way to a proposed date in 2011 with "further measures to be enacted three years later." The REAL ID Act was signed in 2005, and full implementation could be as late as 2014.

The ACLU is quite right in describing the REAL ID driver's license as the "first-ever national identity card system." This much is true since "by 2014, anyone seeking to board an airplane or enter a federal building would have to present a REAL ID-compliant driver's license." This will also be true for those desiring to visit any National Parks. You won't be able to take the family to see "Old Faithful" without a REAL ID. There is an exception for those over 50 by 2014, but by 2017, it will required for everyone.

Conspiracy theorists allege that the REAL ID cards will feature an RFID chip for data tracking. RFID chips (Radio-frequency identification) are tiny circuits designed to store an individual's information so as to be easily read by RFID databases and monitors. The RFID tracking system may also be used for material items such as food, clothing, and cash. At present, the Department of Homeland Security denies RFID tags will be mandatory for the READ ID cards--they'll leave that for the states to decide.

However, in the digital age, it is inevitable that such data technology will be used universally for personal identification. It may be true that the first phase of REAL ID cards will not feature RFID tags, but that won't be for long. Especially if another "terrorist" attack hits U.S. soil. The Patriot Act was pushed through Congress easily right after 9/11. If we've gone that far, an RFID tag is guaranteed.

As I've argued in past blog posts, there is sufficient evidence that REAL ID itself is simply one step towards the larger goal of implantable microchips. This is not the fodder of conspiracy investigators; it is spoken of openly on major news networks by both media personalities and prominent politicians:





The point is that the U.S. marching forward towards a Brave New World of centralization, federalization, massive security and surveillance measures, and a continual decrease in civil liberties. This sufficiently explains why Congressman Ron Paul has acquired such a sizable following. He argues for the U.S. Constitution--a document that will soon be meaningless by the massive overlaying of anti-terror legislation:

"The biggest threat to your privacy is the government. We must drastically limit the ability of government to collect and store data regarding citizens’ personal matters. We must stop the move toward a national ID card system. All states are preparing to issue new driver’s licenses embedded with “standard identifier� data — a national ID. A national ID with new tracking technologies means we’re heading into an Orwellian world of no privacy. I voted against the Real ID Act in March of 2005." ~ Congressman Ron Paul

Therefore, it will be "over their dead bodies" before the Establishment permits such a man as Ron Paul to even smell the White House lawn. There are even rumors circulating the internet that some "Insiders" of the elite Bilderberger Group have discussed "assassination" as an option to handling the Ron Paul Revolution. The source of this revelation is a single independent journalist; but when coupled with the passionate support of a wide spectrum of Paulites, it quickly becomes the stuff of paranoia. If the Elite wanted, there are much simpler means to stifling Ron Paul, e.g., just keep highlighting his support of self-government. I know first-hand what a hard sell that is!

The U.S. frog is being boiled in water. With great patience and longsuffering, the march of statism seems to be inching ever closer to its objective of a New World Order. And despite the perpetual, and undocumented, slander that any such supposition is "delusional" and "paranoid," the fact remains that we are much closer to such an Orwellian system.

What to Do?

What is the solution to international socialism, a.k.a. "One-World Order?" Well, in the short term, there are many. Education is central, and that is the primary value of the Ron Paul campaign. Certainly, political activism is also needful to mount resistance to globalist policies. But no one is really offering a long-term solution--which is the solution most needed. Small political victories can be overcome by the international power-brokers, and even a sudden return to the Constitution cannot guarantee the New World Order will stay in the grave. That's why Patrick Henry said, "I smell a rat in Philadephia!" He saw the clear implications of our constitutional system, viz. it can be subverted by long-term thinkers as it has today.

The ultimate solution is the one offered by Christian Reconstruction, i.e., The Christian World Order. Only a regenerated humanity self-governing in terms of God's law can suppress the resurrecting tendencies of organized wickedness. The push for a return to constitutionalism is a great first step, but ultimately, only the gospel and the law-word of God are sufficient to sustain liberty and salvation. Therefore, I would offer the challenge for all of us to continue to promote the great works by noted writers such as R. J. Rushdoony, Gary North, Greg L. Bahnsen, and Gary DeMar. It's as Gary North has continually reminded us, "You can't beat something with nothing."

MEDIA ADVISORY, Jan. 7 /Christian Newswire/ — Recovering Republican John Lofton, Editor of TheAmericanView.com and co-host of “The American View� radio show with the Constitution Party’s 2004 Presidential candidate Michael Anthony Peroutka, has issued the following statement:

Mike Huckabee has said that he is a “Christian Leader.� But, as a Presidential candidate, he is not leading as a Christian. He has given no explicitly Biblical answers to any question. In fact, on numerous issues, he has run away from his professed Biblical faith sounding, operationally, de facto, like an atheist, like just another politician.

If you will listen to The American View radio show 137, you will hear Mr. Huckabee: Refusing to defend the Christian faith and running away from his having once said that America must be taken back for Christ; saying he would have no problem appointing atheists to positions in his administration (what would an oath mean to such an unbeliever?).

In addition, Mr. Huckabee refuses to support and say what God says about homosexuality; he opposes criminal penalties for women who murder their children by abortion; and, of course, there’s that unbelievably stupid and dishonest press conference where he said he had done an anti-Romney but decided not to show it - and then he showed it to the press corps so they could see what he wasn’t going to show! Then, after supposedly spiking his anti-Romney ad, he appeared on network TV making some of the same charges that were in the ad he, alledgedly, killed!

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Christians, above all others, should speak honestly and plainly letting their yeas be yea, their nays be nay (Matthew 5:37, James 5:12) lest the cause of Christ be disgraced and ridiculed. But, alas, Mr. Huckabee is not such a plain, honest speaker. In many ways, without exaggerating, it could be said that he is a political cuttlefish who, even, when confronted with direct quotes re: things he actually said, squirts cloud-after-cloud of obfuscating verbal ink all over his questioner the result being that many times one forgets the question he was being asked - that being, of course, his intention. Cuttlefish, incidentally, have been called the chameleons of the sea because of their remarkable ability to rapidly alter their skin color at will.

(The above statements are Mr. Lofton's. God bless you, John!)

To this day--and maybe it's because I'm missing something--I still cannot comprehend the fascination with Francis Schaeffer. He's such a towering figure within evangelicalism, and many a reconstructionist found their way to Rushdoony through his ministry, but the telling absence of central doctrines in his system makes we wonder why all the hub-bub. Equally, I cannot understand the further fascination with his offspring both physical and intellectual. Chuck Colson has always been radically opposed to Christian Reconstruction, and Nancy Pearcey--though prolific--lacks those same central doctrines, that in my opinion, handicap Schaeffer's thinking. Her 2004 volume Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity sports a thesis that sounds very close to Christian Reconstruction. Here's a snippet from the dust jacket:

Does God belong in the public arena of politics, business, law, and education? Or is religion a private matter only--personally comforting but publicly irrelevant? In today's cultural etiquette, it is not considered polite to mix public and private, or sacred and secular. This division is the single most potent force keeping Christianity contained in the private sphere--stripping it of its power to challenge and redeem the whole culture.

However, in the index of this 479-page book there is not a single entry for law, commandment, or covenant. How, pray-tell, shall we develop a Christian worldview, and then use it to redeem the whole culture, without Biblical law or an understanding of the covenant? Is it not the covenant from which any cultural mandate proceeds? The question is not Schaeffer's "How Should We Then Live?," but rather Rushdoony's "By What Standard?" Herein lies the central division between the worldview movement that grew around Schaeffer and the mission of Christian Reconstruction issuing from Rushdoony.

Gary North, in a sizable chapter targeting Schaeffer, touches the Achilles Heel of Schaefferian thinking:

It does not matter how many times a person assures us that he is in favor of Christian civilization and opposed to the humanistic myth of neutrality. If he does not affirm the continuing validity of the biblical case laws, his affirmation in favor of Christian civilization is in vain, intellectually speaking. At some point, his denial of the continuing moral and judicial authority of God’s revealed law will logically force him to affirm some form of natural law theory or common ground reasoning, i.e., the myth of neutrality.[1]

There it is. If Schaeffer, Colson, Pearcey, et al. do not systematically affirm Biblical law, all that they say regarding "redeeming the culture" is intellectually in vain. They are asking how to live without first inquiring by what standard. Even Cornelius Van Til addressed the issue in his The Apologetic Methodology of Francis A. Schaeffer in which Van Til takes his former student to task for his natural law apologetics. This leads to a form of antinomianism that may explain the serious sins of scholarship committed by Schaeffer. His disciples are not aware of his plagiarism where he features near verbatim copies of paragraphs from both David Chilton and Richard Flinn's essays in the Journal of Christian Reconstruction [2].

Schaeffer also borrowed a great deal from Rushdoony's early writings, but he never revealed the source. This would explain the ostensible "reconstructionist" framing of Schaeffer's ideas; and since he was presenting the worldview aspects of reconstruction without acknowledging the standard of God's law, he became a more popular influence on evangelicals than Rushdoony.

Schaeffer was a Presbyterian, but he never defended the Five Points of Calvinism in any of his works[3]. There is a price to pay for this, and it reveals itself in the thinking of the "disciples." I was saddened to read the following interview with Frank Schaeffer where it seems the legacy of his father has waned. Frank sat down with John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute to discuss the recently published Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back. Here is some of the Q&A:

JW: In the book, you portray your mother as speaking down to her husband, the renowned Francis Schaeffer.

FS: Right.

JW: You also indicate that your father abused your mother.

FS: Right.

FS: Dad had a very strong temper. He and mother had a good marriage, in the sense that it lasted. They had a lot of affection for one another, and they were very dynamic. But there was also, as there are in a lot of human relationships, a very dark side. One of those dark sides came out when they were fighting. My father would yell and scream and throw things. Sometimes, it went beyond that. Basically what I talk about in the book is as much as I want to say about that. People can draw their own conclusions.

JW: You write in the book that your father, for example, threw plants at your mother.

FS: That was no secret. I’m sure other L’Abri workers knew that. Their relationship at times turned violent...

JW: I quote from your book: “I believe that my parents’ call to the ministry actually drove them crazy. They were happiest when they were the farthest away from their missionary work. I think religion was actually their source of tragedy.� What do you mean by that?

FS: What has been interesting is discussing this book with my sisters. All three of them have read it, and they all have various ways of seeing things differently than I do. But I think we all agree that Mom and Dad were happiest when they weren’t in the work of L’Abri...

JW: You write that you remember your dad screaming at your mother one Sunday. Obviously upset or enraged, he throws a potted ivy at her. Then he goes downstairs and preaches the gospel. Is this hypocritical?

FS: I don’t think so, no more than some other L’Abri workers whom I won’t name who have had marital troubles, left their wives and still go around talking about the value of family...

JW: In your book, you said your father could be screaming at your mother one minute and then muttering “I’m going to kill myself� the next. In fact, you write that your father contemplated suicide and spoke about hanging himself. Was Francis Schaeffer suicidal?

FS: I don’t know if he was really suicidal, but he was certainly depressive. My father spent big chunks of his life in very deep depressions, and, again, that is no secret.

JW: In the book, you discuss an incident at L’Abri when your father walked in on you having sex in the nude with the woman who later became your wife. He just kind of walks away from it. Some evangelicals are going to wonder, didn’t Francis Schaeffer lecture his son on premarital sex?

FS: They may shake their heads in disbelief. But my dad didn’t take a moralistic judgmental angle. If it had been a L’Abri student, he wouldn’t have said anything. It’s not that he wouldn’t express opinions on sexuality, but Dad was just not that kind of judgmental person. He had a very strong moral chord but not in terms of a church-lady kind of response to that sort of situation with a teenager.

JW: You paint your family at the end of the day as dysfunctional. You say your sister Susan and her husband lived in an assisted living facility. Priscilla was on Prozac. You were in therapy. You had a problem with name identification—you kept changing your name.

FS: Right. The name change thing is somewhat trivial, but it is symptomatic of something.

JW: Do you believe life begins at conception?

FS: Yes, I believe life begins at conception, both technically and morally. But I also think that in terms of the present American climate, we are not going to be able to have all the abortions outlawed. It is totally unrealistic to push for that. What we need to do is rethink Roe v. Wade. But we don’t need to roll it back in the sense of getting to a place where all abortions are illegal. Thus, my view on the legality question of abortion has changed. But I don’t think my view on the morality of abortion has changed.

JW: Obviously, your feelings about the Religious Right have affected your faith.

FS: My faith is a little more nuanced than it would have been at one time. I am certainly not a fundamentalist. I have a lot of questions and a lot of doubt. I try in the book to give a snapshot of where my own faith would be now, and pretty much that is where I would leave it. But in terms of the fundamentals of the Christian faith, I do believe Jesus Christ was the Son of God. Do I believe in God? Of course. That question should come first. Do I believe all religions have equal values? No, I do not. The further they get from the teachings of Christ, the less valuable they become. On the other hand, I don’t see myself as a fundamentalist because I read the Bible with a lot of questions about what is allegory and what is literal. As a child at L’Abri, I would not have had such questions. I would have just taken everything literally. I certainly don’t focus on the issues in the Old Testament of the creation of the world in six days versus evolution or creationism or intelligent design. None of these things interest me very much.

JW: Are you an evolutionist?

FS: Oh, I certainly believe in evolution. But I always have. Even my dad in the early days of L’Abri said he didn’t care whether the world was created 600 million years ago or 6 million or 6,000. He was very open to the idea of a kind of theistic evolution. Where I disagree with the Darwinian view is that I think it is too limited. How something happened is not an answer to why it happened. The why is because God created it to happen. That is an interesting subject, but my faith doesn’t feel threatened by the world being 600 million versus 6,000 years old. Those things really don’t interest me.

Just a tad disturbing, wouldn't you say? Frank represents a deviation from the faith, and there's a good chance his progeny will further that divide. This is where I'm most puzzled about the great interest in Schaeffer's thought. The Scripture says that "wisdom is justified of her children" (Mt. 11:19), and if the physical and intellectual offspring of Schaeffer are any indication, there are clear problems with some of his presuppositions.

I do understand that a good many people began reading reconstructionist literature after imbibing Schaeffer's teaching. This was not my path, but I realize that a general interest in the Christian worldview is aggressively put forth in Schaeffer's works. However, the obvious absence of the Biblical law, and the departure from Van Til, lessens the value of the system in my mind.

Another comparison is made when I consider the years I've now spent with the Mark Rushdoony. It's been a great learning experience for me witness his commitment to his father's system. I have received more than a few rebukes for him for the slightest deviations from his father's thought. Mark is thoroughly "Rushdoonian," and his lovely wife Darlene is more like a pastor's wife in her undying commitment to Chalcedon's supporters.

I am doubly blessed by my friendship, and working relationship, with Chalcedon vice-president, Martin Selbrede. As Mark Rushdoony has noted, "Besides Gary North, no other person knows my father's works as Martin does." I've often referred to Martin as "the best kept secret in the Kingdom of God," and the only man living that can truly continue the intellectual work of R. J. Rushdoony. If I could describe Martin, I'd say he was a delightful blend of the conceptual creativity and vast knowledge of Rushdoony mixed with the polemical muscle of Greg Bahnsen. I'll be featuring video of his recent lectures in the weeks to come, and we're presently digitizing over 400 of lectures into an mp3 format.

About three years ago, Mark Rushdoony and I sat around a space heater in his father's library talking about his father's legacy. I said to him, "Mark, your dad produced so much in his lifetime, and he had a wife and five children to care for. Were you neglected? I mean, did you grow up with a 'PK' (Preacher's Kid) complex? What did you and your siblings think of your father?" I was not expecting his answer. In fact, I've never heard such an answer.

His eyes began to tear, and he said, "Chris, my sisters and I were in awe of my father." I couldn't help but tear up myself. I've heard of kids being proud of their fathers, or the usual "my dad is my hero," but I've never heard someone use the descriptive "awe" in reference to their father.

Rebecca, Mark's oldest sister, and the woman most likely to answer the Chalcedon phone, described her childhood with her father this way:

My father loved large, noisy family gatherings where he spent hours sharing his stories and wisdom with us. He loved the noise of his children and grandchildren talking, laughing and sharing, and would often sit back listening to their chatter, smiling. “Very good, very good,� he would repeat. He understood that his legacy would continue in their lives. The first few family dinners after he passed from this world were very quiet in comparison, and I can remember sitting there wanting so badly to hear one more story, one more joke.

My father’s libraries were always a special place we entered with the reverence of church. In Santa Cruz, Dad’s library was at the back of the house in a beautiful room with parquet floors and a large bay window that had a window seat. There were rows and rows of bookcases with aisles just narrow enough to walk through. It was a place of refuge for me. As the oldest daughter I spent a lot of time helping and watching my little brother, Mark (a handful, I might add), and three little sisters, Joanna, Sharon, and Martha.

Dad understood that I sometimes needed to have time away from them and would help me hide between the rows of bookcases with a book to read. It was there, hidden in his library, I read Moby Dick, <