Wednesday, November 12, 2008
A Spectre is Haunting America. Don’t Let It
This article was too good to not post.
By Dr. Richard A. Jones
November 12, 2008
American Vision
Now that what some might call the “unthinkable” has actually happened, it’s certain that a vital remnant in the Church will wake up and realize that, “It’s time to start paying attention.” Had McCain won, the Christian Right likely would have given another overconfident sigh of relief, hoping that the other side would somehow not be able to advance its anti-Christian offensive in 2012. (It would have advanced anyway.) Either way, it’s folly to forget that the difference between the American Dream-killing, wealth-redistributing leftist, Obama, and the RINO McCain is negligible. A tip-off that both are operative socialists was made clear last primary season when mainstream media palmed off these two inexplicable “choices” onto us. Values voters never had a say. But that’s all spilled milk. It’s time to explore how it was that what was once essentially a Christian-leaning, U.S. voting populace was so easily set up for passive acceptance of a clear-cut socialist candidate in each party. Don’t be surprised by the major cause.
Dedication to Marxism by East Coast political, academic and media types goes back to the days of FDR and even before. But, it neared max toxicity in the 1960s with Viet Nam. By 1989 and 1990, Marxist devotion in the U.S. had not weakened in the least even though the Cold War had ended and the USSR folded. That’s because, as we’ve argued here, true socialism at its core is an intense, life-dedicated hatred of God and the Christian family. And hatred of God is ever-present. This passion is what keeps the fires of nihilism and Marxism burning on campuses nationwide (and eventually in the public schools) even though it waned (for a season) in the Soviet Motherland. Viet Nam era zealots like Bill Ayers never stopped pushing radicalism at ever-lower grade levels in the schools. So it’s no surprise that mind-programmed young voters (and plenty of church goers, per Barna polling) have slowly fallen for Washington’s “equality, compassion (and vote-buying) plan;” i.e., socialism. How did this catastrophe come to pass with nary a whimper?
Many think that a deceived Protestant Church in America was the key. It abetted the slippery slope to socialism via a century-long bad habit of effeminate pietism and its cave-in to an “it’s just about over,” irrelevance-guaranteeing, dispensationalism. (Both of which developed mainly because due to loss of the best U.S. men during the cynically contrived Civil War.) Once the shroud of pessimistic end-times resignation had smothered what de Tocqueville experienced as “pulpits aflame,” the soft undermining effect of passive church irrelevance in a fast-changing society was assured. By election time 2008, scores of feminized, liberal-leaning pulpits had been taken in by the Left’s vague slogan of “change;” a change that a “truly loving God” supposedly desires.
As 1960’s radicals like Ayers and company wormed their way into the teacher colleges, the plan was that children…especially Dr. Benjamin Spock’s permissively trained and spoiled victims…would be progressively dumbed down to accept humanistic, anti-Christian socialism. The zeitgeist of the age was one of busy Baby Boomer parents marching resolutely to the beat of “me, mine and materialism.” While both parents took two salaries in order to pay their taxes and feed a consumption mentality, the planners knew that schools would be the perfect holding tank by day for “open minded” (read “gullible”) children who were getting, if any, only minimal moral guidance at home. What was being surreptitiously taught in the mega-compliant government schools was less critical to parents than the convenience of the handy babysitting. A passive Church, meanwhile, yawned. Only Rev. Rousas J. Rushdoony, virtually alone through the 1970s and 1980s, warned about the grave threat on the near horizon should government-controlled education be allowed to prevail. Has it prevailed? Having to ask the question gives the answer.
It was during this pivotal and still feasible-for-action time frame that others besides Rushdoony should have perked up and given the alert. Pro-active response conditions were still favorable. Post-Viet Nam, as socialist fruit began growing apace in the schools, pastors and young parents alive in the 1980s and 1990s (who would have been born at a time when the Cold War’s lessons about communism’s threat were still vivid) should have paid attention. And communism, as is well known, is merely the freedom-hating socialism of Obama and McCain worked out to its inevitable conclusion. With the facts so clearly visible, why didn’t those Boomer parents and their pastors figure it out?
It wasn’t just Dr. Spock. It wasn’t just end-times misinterpretations that led to irrelevance within church leadership. Post-Viet Nam pastors had other concerns stopping them from storming pulpits and with rhetorical swords drawn, proclaiming; “Parents: Remove God’s children from the humanist schools.” With Christianity under attack on all fronts, especially media, academia, and the entertainment sectors, humanistically-deceived moderns began leaving church. With tithing and giving down, pastors had worries other than the pesky socialism threat. They caved in to financial “reality,” very often using the wholly unjustified “salt and light in the schools” pretext. Instead of “taking a chance on God” and declaring truth, they ignored the get-them-out warning. They feared backlash from parents and public school teachers among the congregants. It was and is that simple.
But there’s plenty of blame to go around. All of the best known national power ministries on radio and TV happily followed suit. They too feared jeopardizing their donations and product-sales base. True, these national voices gave occasional, random attention to the school problem, but were quick to say, as a covering mantra, that the two alternatives, home education and private schools “are not for everyone.” Result: Only a few previously pro-materialism-leaning parents were sufficiently aroused to change gears, even for their own children. From pew to pulpit to the big production ministries, the ball was dropped, and the youth contingent response in the 2008 election reflects this failure. Millions of younger voters from churched homes (and often joined by their parents) had, in fact, succumbed to school socialism-based, pro-permissive, pro-class envy, pro-homosexual, pro-green, anti-defense and anti-capitalism deception. Twenty-first-century parents and leaders must wake up. “If you forebear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain…. If you say, behold, we knew it not, does not he that ponders the heart consider it? And he that keeps the soul, does he not know it? And shall he not render to every man according to his works” (Proverbs 24:10-11).
“Children of the State” in World Magazine for November 1, 2008, unintentionally revealed the degree of American reluctance to grasp 40 years of brutal truth…years at least somewhat reminiscent of 1930s Germany. It stated: “If you want a classic example of how fast a whole culture can be turned on a dime, redirected by 180 degrees, try this: Just when it seemed, through the 1980s, 1990s, and even well into the past decade, that a socialist mindset had been successfully put down in the United States, back it comes- with a vengeance.” No! 2008 was not a “here it comes back,” inexplicable surprise. Exactly the opposite! Since the 1970s, youth socialism-indoctrination has been like a freight train coming. And in 2008 it arrived-with a vengeance, right on schedule and just as planned. If not addressed now, 2010 will be worse. Today’s younger voters are politically illiterate, socialist-leaning, damaged goods and much of this because of a church-wide, millstone-risking refusal to protect Christ’s “little ones” (Matt. 18:6). “For the leaders of this people cause them to err, and they that are led of them are destroyed” (Isa. 9:16).
Wiser heads in the Church; in some rare pockets of government, and we here at American Vision, know that this trend to socialism and, with it, the soon loss of our freedoms, must end. That pitiable throng of those taken in by this fairy tale must decline. Those adults-to-be of tomorrow (and already-adults of today) who would help lead us out of the trap must increase. American Vision’s specialty in the culture wars has always been to supply God-honoring materials for Christians who want to enhance their Kingdom-advancing skills. But AV’s offerings will fall increasingly on deaf ears if the adult readers of tomorrow continue “learning” in the other side’s youth training camps. Why not tell your pastor to think over the challenge? Tell him that an obedience-respecting God will honor his leadership. This is a transformational hour in history and the hour is late. As Cliff May wrote last week in National Review; “The Democrats, i.e., the Left, now have the White House, control of both houses of Congress, a majority of governors’ mansions, a majority of state legislatures, the entertainment media, the elite news media, the unions, the educational establishment, the lion’s share of the philanthropic community, and increasing power over the courts.” ACORN is on its way to OAK status. Christians need to grow trees of influence of their own, their own forests, and fast. Failure to act now guarantees that things will all only get worse, and not just in the political realm but in all of them. We ask you to join us by removing your own children and encouraging others to do the same. Set January, 2009 as your target date. We don’t have forever. Thank you.
By Dr. Richard A. Jones
November 12, 2008
American Vision
Now that what some might call the “unthinkable” has actually happened, it’s certain that a vital remnant in the Church will wake up and realize that, “It’s time to start paying attention.” Had McCain won, the Christian Right likely would have given another overconfident sigh of relief, hoping that the other side would somehow not be able to advance its anti-Christian offensive in 2012. (It would have advanced anyway.) Either way, it’s folly to forget that the difference between the American Dream-killing, wealth-redistributing leftist, Obama, and the RINO McCain is negligible. A tip-off that both are operative socialists was made clear last primary season when mainstream media palmed off these two inexplicable “choices” onto us. Values voters never had a say. But that’s all spilled milk. It’s time to explore how it was that what was once essentially a Christian-leaning, U.S. voting populace was so easily set up for passive acceptance of a clear-cut socialist candidate in each party. Don’t be surprised by the major cause.
Dedication to Marxism by East Coast political, academic and media types goes back to the days of FDR and even before. But, it neared max toxicity in the 1960s with Viet Nam. By 1989 and 1990, Marxist devotion in the U.S. had not weakened in the least even though the Cold War had ended and the USSR folded. That’s because, as we’ve argued here, true socialism at its core is an intense, life-dedicated hatred of God and the Christian family. And hatred of God is ever-present. This passion is what keeps the fires of nihilism and Marxism burning on campuses nationwide (and eventually in the public schools) even though it waned (for a season) in the Soviet Motherland. Viet Nam era zealots like Bill Ayers never stopped pushing radicalism at ever-lower grade levels in the schools. So it’s no surprise that mind-programmed young voters (and plenty of church goers, per Barna polling) have slowly fallen for Washington’s “equality, compassion (and vote-buying) plan;” i.e., socialism. How did this catastrophe come to pass with nary a whimper?
Many think that a deceived Protestant Church in America was the key. It abetted the slippery slope to socialism via a century-long bad habit of effeminate pietism and its cave-in to an “it’s just about over,” irrelevance-guaranteeing, dispensationalism. (Both of which developed mainly because due to loss of the best U.S. men during the cynically contrived Civil War.) Once the shroud of pessimistic end-times resignation had smothered what de Tocqueville experienced as “pulpits aflame,” the soft undermining effect of passive church irrelevance in a fast-changing society was assured. By election time 2008, scores of feminized, liberal-leaning pulpits had been taken in by the Left’s vague slogan of “change;” a change that a “truly loving God” supposedly desires.
As 1960’s radicals like Ayers and company wormed their way into the teacher colleges, the plan was that children…especially Dr. Benjamin Spock’s permissively trained and spoiled victims…would be progressively dumbed down to accept humanistic, anti-Christian socialism. The zeitgeist of the age was one of busy Baby Boomer parents marching resolutely to the beat of “me, mine and materialism.” While both parents took two salaries in order to pay their taxes and feed a consumption mentality, the planners knew that schools would be the perfect holding tank by day for “open minded” (read “gullible”) children who were getting, if any, only minimal moral guidance at home. What was being surreptitiously taught in the mega-compliant government schools was less critical to parents than the convenience of the handy babysitting. A passive Church, meanwhile, yawned. Only Rev. Rousas J. Rushdoony, virtually alone through the 1970s and 1980s, warned about the grave threat on the near horizon should government-controlled education be allowed to prevail. Has it prevailed? Having to ask the question gives the answer.
It was during this pivotal and still feasible-for-action time frame that others besides Rushdoony should have perked up and given the alert. Pro-active response conditions were still favorable. Post-Viet Nam, as socialist fruit began growing apace in the schools, pastors and young parents alive in the 1980s and 1990s (who would have been born at a time when the Cold War’s lessons about communism’s threat were still vivid) should have paid attention. And communism, as is well known, is merely the freedom-hating socialism of Obama and McCain worked out to its inevitable conclusion. With the facts so clearly visible, why didn’t those Boomer parents and their pastors figure it out?
It wasn’t just Dr. Spock. It wasn’t just end-times misinterpretations that led to irrelevance within church leadership. Post-Viet Nam pastors had other concerns stopping them from storming pulpits and with rhetorical swords drawn, proclaiming; “Parents: Remove God’s children from the humanist schools.” With Christianity under attack on all fronts, especially media, academia, and the entertainment sectors, humanistically-deceived moderns began leaving church. With tithing and giving down, pastors had worries other than the pesky socialism threat. They caved in to financial “reality,” very often using the wholly unjustified “salt and light in the schools” pretext. Instead of “taking a chance on God” and declaring truth, they ignored the get-them-out warning. They feared backlash from parents and public school teachers among the congregants. It was and is that simple.
But there’s plenty of blame to go around. All of the best known national power ministries on radio and TV happily followed suit. They too feared jeopardizing their donations and product-sales base. True, these national voices gave occasional, random attention to the school problem, but were quick to say, as a covering mantra, that the two alternatives, home education and private schools “are not for everyone.” Result: Only a few previously pro-materialism-leaning parents were sufficiently aroused to change gears, even for their own children. From pew to pulpit to the big production ministries, the ball was dropped, and the youth contingent response in the 2008 election reflects this failure. Millions of younger voters from churched homes (and often joined by their parents) had, in fact, succumbed to school socialism-based, pro-permissive, pro-class envy, pro-homosexual, pro-green, anti-defense and anti-capitalism deception. Twenty-first-century parents and leaders must wake up. “If you forebear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain…. If you say, behold, we knew it not, does not he that ponders the heart consider it? And he that keeps the soul, does he not know it? And shall he not render to every man according to his works” (Proverbs 24:10-11).
“Children of the State” in World Magazine for November 1, 2008, unintentionally revealed the degree of American reluctance to grasp 40 years of brutal truth…years at least somewhat reminiscent of 1930s Germany. It stated: “If you want a classic example of how fast a whole culture can be turned on a dime, redirected by 180 degrees, try this: Just when it seemed, through the 1980s, 1990s, and even well into the past decade, that a socialist mindset had been successfully put down in the United States, back it comes- with a vengeance.” No! 2008 was not a “here it comes back,” inexplicable surprise. Exactly the opposite! Since the 1970s, youth socialism-indoctrination has been like a freight train coming. And in 2008 it arrived-with a vengeance, right on schedule and just as planned. If not addressed now, 2010 will be worse. Today’s younger voters are politically illiterate, socialist-leaning, damaged goods and much of this because of a church-wide, millstone-risking refusal to protect Christ’s “little ones” (Matt. 18:6). “For the leaders of this people cause them to err, and they that are led of them are destroyed” (Isa. 9:16).
Wiser heads in the Church; in some rare pockets of government, and we here at American Vision, know that this trend to socialism and, with it, the soon loss of our freedoms, must end. That pitiable throng of those taken in by this fairy tale must decline. Those adults-to-be of tomorrow (and already-adults of today) who would help lead us out of the trap must increase. American Vision’s specialty in the culture wars has always been to supply God-honoring materials for Christians who want to enhance their Kingdom-advancing skills. But AV’s offerings will fall increasingly on deaf ears if the adult readers of tomorrow continue “learning” in the other side’s youth training camps. Why not tell your pastor to think over the challenge? Tell him that an obedience-respecting God will honor his leadership. This is a transformational hour in history and the hour is late. As Cliff May wrote last week in National Review; “The Democrats, i.e., the Left, now have the White House, control of both houses of Congress, a majority of governors’ mansions, a majority of state legislatures, the entertainment media, the elite news media, the unions, the educational establishment, the lion’s share of the philanthropic community, and increasing power over the courts.” ACORN is on its way to OAK status. Christians need to grow trees of influence of their own, their own forests, and fast. Failure to act now guarantees that things will all only get worse, and not just in the political realm but in all of them. We ask you to join us by removing your own children and encouraging others to do the same. Set January, 2009 as your target date. We don’t have forever. Thank you.
5 Comments:
Even with children removed from the school tier it doesn't change the fact that most homes in the Christian ranks do not teach, walk, and live by the name they mark on a census.
American Christianity is more bankrupt than the nations economics because it has been inflated and saturated with cheap Christians since the days of Wesley.
As Dr. Jones has written in his article about the "unthinkable" socialist focus so Dr. MacArthur speaks on the "unthinkable" removal of the Gospel in his Together for the Gospel session.
"American Christianity is more bankrupt than the nations economics because it has been inflated and saturated with cheap Christians since the days of Wesley."
Can I get that on a bumper sticker?
Very nice, Ben!
I am a little offended by Ben's comment: "since the days of Wesley." I happen to be one of those Wesleyans. While there are many Christians that may be "cheap", it is unfair to lump everyone together. That is a lot like saying all Catholics are going to hell. That is a false statement and to make statements like that are inflammatory and against Christ's prayer for the church in John 17:
"'I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will[e] believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
'Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.'" John 17:20-26 (NKJV)
Some that call themselves Christians, like a great deal of our elected officials, do not live up to what we are called to be by our Father, but we are human. We are imperfect. We are trying, and we must do as Christ did and pray that we have the "huevos" to live in a way that the world knows who He is because of us....in spite of us.
APX
JD
JD,
Thank you very much for your comment. It was not exactly an inside joke, but there was a lot more to Ben's comment than would have necessarily appeared to you.
Ben and I used to teach Way of the Master together at our church and I know that's the origin of the comment.
To his credit, he said "the days of Wesley" not "the doctrine of Wesley." But perhaps this would have been better understood if he had said "the days of Finney." Because I know our greatest "beef" has been with him.
What was not said, but was understood between Ben and me was the revivalist tactics of many preachers throughout history - sham emotional experiences worked up through the music and preaching to force sinners down the aisle. Sign a decision card and you're in.
I've seen many swear that someone must be in heaven -- even though he tried to murder his wife, lived in adultery, eventually committed suicide -- because "I was with him when he walked the aisle."
I'm afraid that there are many today, especially in the Osteen Variety Hour churches, who never hear a sentence of Scripture all Sunday, but have brilliantly emotional experiences and hear dynamic motivational speaking, who are convinced they must be going to heaven but who are not headed that direction at all because they've never even heard the Gospel.
I'm actually finding myself personally less and less likely to "lump", but I'll still attack bad tactics.
Thanks for the clarification Brian. I know what you mean and it will be a rude awakening for those that are missing the Gospel in the end. That is what I enjoy most about my pastor, the welcome and call to sinners to serve and repent and good scripture basis for the sermons. The biggest difference is the meeting of the "unchurched" through media in a way that gets them interested in Christ in our microwave society, but gets them excited and missional as well. The irony of it all is more people are attracted and respond to the full gospel of both challenge and "emotion," than those who look for emotion only. The challenge of truth is lasting, a foundation for your relationship with Christ. Not puppy love.
PAX
JD
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