When I was a boy, my mom used to make homemade rolls and donuts. She would make several varieties. She would make cream filled rolls. She would make jelly filled rolls. She would make donuts and donut holes. But regardless of what kind of roll or donut she would make, she put them all through the fryer, where hot and bubbling oil was contained for the cooking process. The donuts may have been slightly different, but they all had to pass through the oil, and as such they all had a similar taste.

Something similar happens today to our different professionals. Like my mother’s donuts they have their differences (some are Attorneys, some are Psychologists, some are Social Workers, some are Ministers, some are Teachers), but the one thing they all have in common is that they have passed through the bubbling oil of Secular Humanist education and consequently, even though they have their differences, they are more like than unlike.

The ubiquitous Secular Humanist education that is the hot oil through which all must pass and from which few recover is comprised of the premises of the inevitability of progress, the inherent goodness of man, and the perfectibility of man. Further the hot oil of Secular Humanist education is comprised of an anthropologically oriented epistemology, axiology, teleology, and ontology. The students come in with sin natures prone to express themselves in various directions, but Government education puts them through the hot oil with the consequence that regardless of their particular giftings and abilities and chosen disciplines, they all are, in the end, just another one of my Mother’s donuts or rolls.

Now the interesting thing here is that the Church, because it is not realizing what is going on, brings a Gospel that doesn’t challenge the shaping and forming effect of the hot oil on these people; the consequence is that the Church becomes full of ‘saved,’ Secular Humanists who haven’t been challenged to re-think the hot oil environment that made them rolls and donuts. The further consequence of this is that now that the Church is filled with Christians who are still thinking like Secular Humanists, the Church itself becomes a hot oil environment passing on a Christianized form of the dogma of Secular Humanism to its people.

All of this is why clear back in 1963 Harry Blamires could observe that “there is no Christian mind; there is no shared field of discourse in which we can move at ease as thinking Christians by trodden ways and past established landmarks.” Blamires’ point wasn’t that there weren’t still some people living who thought like Christians; rather, his point was that the context for conversations among those people in different disciplines didn’t exist in such a way that the influence of Christian thought could be brought to bear upon a set people or culture. Blamires’ point seemed to be then that those who did think like Christians were so isolated in their various fields that for all intensive purposes the Christian mind was in eclipse.

The reality of this can be seen by a shift in the Revolutionary West beginning with the Endarkenment and continuing through to the present. This shift has made itself known in the various disciplines with its emphasis upon increasing evolutionary, naturalistic, and statist type training models. In the area of education, Horace Mann led the way in moving this discipline away from its Biblical moorings. Men like Henry Barnard, John Swett, John Dewey, William H. Kilpatrick, and Harold Rugg followed in Mann’s wake, setting in concrete an evolutionary, naturalistic, statist teaching model that the discipline of pedagogy and education now holds as the definitional standard. In the area of law, men like Christopher Columbus Langdell, Roscoe Pound, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and Benjamin Cardozo moved the discipline of law away from its biblical moorings towards an evolutionary, naturalistic, and statist paradigm. Langdell did yeoman’s work moving law training away from what the law said to what the law was moving towards saying (i.e., case law training). Sociology, in our culture is a given, but the word itself wasn’t coined until the 19^th century by Auguste Comte. Comte came up with sociology as a way to explain men’s behavior apart from biblical Christianity. In America men like Lester Frank Ward, William Graham Sumner, Albion Small, and Franklin Giddings were pioneers in anchoring the evolutionary, naturalistic, and statist paradigm of sociology (whether leftist or rightist) on the American consciousness. The individualistic attempt to do in an anti-Christian fashion what sociology attempted to do on a corporate level started as phrenology and eventually developed into what we today call psychology. Today, psychology, like sociology, is a given in the American mindset, and like sociology in its origin it was anti-Christ to the core. Psychology became part of the American psyche thanks to work of men like Freud, Jung, Rogers, Maslow, Skinner, and a host of others. The various fields of psychology and sociology have spawned countless fields in the West the way Spielberg’s Gremlins multi-duplicated with the addition of water, and with just as much danger.  Regardless of what discipline we inquire into, we find Secular Humanist presuppositions and assumptions holding the field so much so that a foundational challenge to these positions is often taken as an un-Christian attack on good wholesome teaching by those in the Church who spent their formative years in the hot oil of Secular Humanist training.

Now, naturally, it cannot be held that all of these disciplines are sinful in and of themselves. In point of fact, the crying need of the day is for Christians to re-interpret these fields through a Biblical grid, but before that can be done the Church has to take the lead in providing a context where that can happen. The Church has to be the place where the context of a Christian mind is built up again. The Church has to begin teaching its Doctors, Lawyers, Philosophers, Teachers, Sociologists, Psychologists, Magistrates, Philosophers, and Literature Specialists that many of the assumptions they have taken in from their training are absolutely detrimental to the life of the Christian mind and in point of fact are anti-Christ. In short, the Church must make our professional class aware that they went through the Secular Humanist hot oil, and being Christian means a detoxification process where the remnant influence of the hot oil is scrubbed clean.

Until a Reformation occurs that provides a completely new context in which these disciplines can find biblical and Christian orientation, the Christian faith will continue to be in serious eclipse.

Cross-posted at Buried Treasure.

Spunky asked me a couple of days ago to mention this, and I’m sorry it took me so long to get to it, but because I admire Spunky so much, of course I must post it (sometimes I’m tempted to call myself Feisty, so we could be Spunky and Feisty—and then watch out!)

Actually, this story needs to be noticed and mentioned by lots of people who care about the rights of parents and the continued encroachment of the state into areas in which it has no business. A 16-year-old young man named Abraham Cherrix is sick with Hodgkin’s disease. Abraham tried conventional chemotherapy and became quite ill. After investigating alternative cancer treatments with his parents, he decided he wanted to try a more natural approach to fighting his disease. This is where the all-knowing, all-powerful medical and governmental gods decided to flex their muscles.

Appearing on Sean Hannity’s national radio program, Jay Cherrix said, “When the social-service worker came and interviewed me, I told him how Abraham felt and about how we had met a person who had been cured by this [alternative treatment] and how we were supporting Abraham’s decision. I said, ‘What will you do with my little boy? Will you take him somewhere and strap him down and put duct tape on his mouth and pump full of this stuff if he doesn’t want it?’

“He said, ‘No, I will come to your house with a uniformed officer, and I will take your son by force if he resists. And I will take him to somebody who will do that.’

“And I said, ‘I don’t think I can let you do that.’”

He added there have also been other threats to take Abraham away from the family.

Whenever I have had to obtain medical care for any of my children, I had to sign a release form giving the medical practitioners permission to do any procedures or give any treatment to my children. Pretty good racket they have there when they can cover their tender parts with those forms, but foist their “recommended” treatments upon us when we question their wisdom.

Even more feisty than I is Barbara Simpson, who writes more about the case here and calls the medical enforcers “terrorists.” She warns that this case, and others like it, is eroding the medical sovereignty of Americans, and the tentacles are spreading into areas such as immunizations being foisted on children for STDs and diseases which affect certain high-risk groups which most of our families will never be part of. Shades of a Michael Palmer medical thriller, but truth is as strange as fiction in this case (note: Palmer’s novels have some novel as well as plausible plots, but too much “thematic” material for me to recommend, though I recommend you read this article about how he came to write Fatal, a novel which not-so-subtly criticizes routine vaccination).

Folks, there are lots of bad things going on in the world right now, from young people getting serious illnesses to bullets flying in other countries, but the fundamental question we need to ask every time we consider taking action (or advocating action) on an issue is, “Whose responsibility is it?”

Yes, sometimes things fall through the cracks, but to say “something should be done” and blithely accept the Keystone Cop state’s bumbling solution because it’s eager and willing to proffer one—with it’s hand in your pocket, of course—is lazy at best, sinfully irresponsible at worst. One more time: there are four governments instituted by God, each with specific responsibilities and limitations: individual, family, church, and state. The state has no right to punish your child for not making his bed. The church has no right to execute murderers. The family has no right to excommunicate errant believers.

Same song, second verse: The family has no right to declare war on another country (and neither does the state unless Congress does it). The church has no right to enforce traffic laws. The state has no right to educate children or make decisions regarding their health care (though I do believe the state can intervene in the case of obvious child abuse). Here’s what Abraham Kuyper says about the role of the state:

A people therefore which abandons to State supremacy the rights of the family…is just as guilty before God as a nation which lays it hands upon the rights of the magistrates. And thus the struggle for liberty is not only declared permissible, but is made a duty for each indivdual in his own sphere. And this not as was done in the French Revolution, by setting God aside and by placing man on the throne of God’s omnipotence; but on the contrary, by causing all men, the magistrates included, to bow in deepest humility before the majesty of God Almighty….

Meantime what the government in this respect demands of the churches, it must practice itself, by allowing to each and every citizen liberty of conscience, as the primordial and inalienable right of all men.

It has cost a heroic struggle to wrest this greatest of all human liberties from the grasp of despotism; and streams of human blood have been poured out before the object was attained. But for this very reason every son of the Reformation tramples upon the honor of the fathers who does not assiduously and without retrenching defend this palladium of our liberties. In order that it may be able to rule men, the government must respect this deepest ethical power of our human existence. A nation consisting of citizens whose consciences are bruised in itself broken in its national strength. (Christianity: Total World and Life System)

Let Abraham and his parents decide how to treat his cancer. Maybe they are right, maybe they are not, but it’s their decision to make. As Ray Sutton asked, “Who owns the family?” If the state gets its way in this, then the answer is frighteningly obvious. Pray for Abraham and his parents.

Update: Here’s another real-life example of what can happen when the medical establishment tries to collaborate with the state to mandate health decisions for families. Praise God, this one had a happy ending.

It’s old news, but I couldn’t resist posting a link to it because of this quote:

Recently, a Tory MP told me, in a spasm of political correctness, that Canada needed more women in Parliament. I asked him why, and he reacted as if he’d never been asked the question before. Which, of course, he probably hadn’t.

I continued: “Could it be argued that raising a child to be a respectful, intelligent, moral and good person is just slightly more important than sitting in a building in Ottawa and obeying the orders of some second-rate prime ministerial assistant?”

He called me an idiot. Which may be true, but it does not obscure the point: We’ve declared war on motherhood in the name of a better, healthier society and declared war on family in the name of women’s liberty.

Pitchfork tip to Ladies Against Feminism.

Chuck Baldwin heartily recommends America: Freedom to Fascism, a new documentary from major movie producer Aaron Russo. With the caveat that there is a bit of bad language and noting that there ought to have been mention of the pillory of Judge Roy Moore, Pastor Baldwin says:

The film runs for about one hour and forty five minutes. It is quite refreshing to see a first-rate documentary film which reveals the truth about the very real efforts of elites from both major parties and from international bankers to turn America into a fascist, globalist state, which is exactly what they are doing! I applaud the film and heartily recommend it! I further encourage Mr. Russo to produce a sequel and to seek assistance from likeminded Christians who can help him bring in those elements that will help his message connect with pastors and churches.

Premiering in only a few major cities so far, see if you can get your local theater to consider showing this film. Interviews with prominent backwater (isn’t that a great oxymoron?) figures such as Ron Paul, Edwin Vieira, Jr., and Franklin Sanders give me hope that there are still some people whose brains haven’t been co-opted by the statist borg; I just wish more of them were fighting for the crown rights of King Jesus than for their civil liberties.

I admire the goal of pro-life groups to end state-sanctioned infanticide in this country, so believe me when I say that I take no pleasure in pointing out that most pro-life supporters are extremely gullible. They seem to fall for just about any scam as long as it appears even remotely pro-life in principle.

We saw it happen when pro-lifers celebrated the purely symbolic victories of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, which is virtually unenforceable and prohibits the prosecution of murdering mothers, and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which contains a specific exemption for abortion providers. Pro-lifers were also duped into believing that the current administration cut off funding for organizations that promote abortion when in reality all it did was redirect money from the United Nations Population Fund to the pro-abortion United States Agency for International Development.

Most recently, pro-lifers have been cheering George W. Bush’s first veto in his five-and-a-half year presidency. The bill he vetoed would have expanded federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Naturally, pro-lifers are patting him on the back, but they forget that it was Bush who forked over federal tax dollars to fund embryonic stem cell research in the first place.

When it comes to legal and constitutional considerations regarding pro-life issues, most pro-life supporters are as clueless as your average politician. Consider, for example, their reaction to Louisiana’s recent abortion “ban.”

Dorinda Bordlee and Nikolas Nikas, founders of Bioethics Defense Fund, a public-interest law firm “whose mission is to advance human rights from beginning to end,” wrote an article praising the legislation as a critical step toward protecting pre-born children once and for all: “That’s because the bill, La. S.B. 33 by Senator Nevers, has a Post-Roe Activation clause, meaning that the law goes into effect only when ‘[a]ny decision of the United States Supreme Court … reverses, in whole or in part, Roe v. Wade, … thereby restoring to the state of Louisiana the authority to prohibit abortion.’”

They are critical of those who have called this “feel-good legislation,” but that’s exactly what it is. It perpetuates the myth that the states are subject to unconstitutional federal court rulings. You see, the authority to prohibit abortion was never taken away from Louisiana—at least not in the legal or constitutional sense. It only seems that way because we have willingly ceded control of the country to a judicial oligarchy.

What pro-lifers—and Americans in general, for that matter—do not understand is that Roe v. Wade is not the law of the land; it never has been and never will be. Despite its name, the “Supreme” Court does not have the authority to enact legislation. That is a power reserved to Congress. Article I of the U.S. Constitution makes that perfectly clear. Legally and constitutionally, Roe v. Wade affects only the parties involved in that particular case.

I realize this may sound like blasphemy in a land ruled by black-robed tyrants, but judges are not gods. Unfortunately, pro-lifers like Bordlee and Nikas continue to buy into the notion that federal judges are above the Constitution and that only they can set things right. What we need are representatives in Congress with the courage to stand up for life, law, and liberty and impeach those judges who seek to legislate from the bench.

Oh, but that would require action on our part. We voters would actually have to exercise a little discretion at the ballot box. It’s much easier to simply sit back, cross our fingers, and hope that the corrupt, bloated bureaucracy will one day correct itself.

In the meantime, we can all break out the Champagne and pretend we’re making strides toward protecting innocent life. If ignorance is bliss, then we pro-lifers must be some of the happiest folks on the planet.

John Hagee is coming to Sin City next week for a “Washington/Israel summit,” the inaugural gathering of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which will showcase a deeper cooperation between evangelical Christians and Jews looking to advance Israeli interests in the Middle East.

Hagee says that a pre-emptive strike of Iran is necessary and American evangelicals must provide cover for Israel when the attack occurs.

The Executive Director of CUFI is David Brog, former chief of staff for Senator Arlen Specter. Apparently, one’s position on abortion, civil rights for sodomites, stem cell research, etc. is no impediment to working closely with Hagee–as long as you have the “right” position on Israel.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Hagee has been calling on Jewish groups across the country, assuring them that his group will not be proselytizing. “There would be absolutely no proselytizing or missionizing associated with Christians United For Israel,” says to the JP.

But don’t trust the Jerusalem Post. Just listen to the words of Brog: “All activities of CUFI are strictly non-conversionary. Christians who work with Jews in supporting Israel realize how sensitive we are in talking about conversion and talking about Jesus. So those who work with us tend not to talk about Jesus more, but talk about Jesus less. They realize it will interfere with what they are trying to do — building a bridge to the Jewish community to insure the survival of Judeo-Christian civilization.”

Does Hagee look askance at Christ’s command to His followers? Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

Jesus has a word, too, for those who are ashamed of Him: “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38, see also Luke 9:26).

Do we really love war more than Christ?

Pat Buchanan wonders why Christians have reacted with silence to the bombing of Beirut: “But where are the Christians? Why is Pope Benedict virtually alone among Christian leaders to have spoken out against what is being done to Lebanese Christians and Muslims?”

In a discussion on the Albert Mohler Show and from his Henry Institute weblog, Dr. Russell Moore defends the Israeli response. “I, for one, support Israel’s response (so far) to the terrorist attacks against it. It seems to me to be well within the framework of Romans 13 for a state to defend itself against aggressive evildoers in this way,” writes Moore.

Moore’s view is restrained and reasonable compared to most of the callers to his show. It is clear that a Dispensational reading of Scripture vis a vis Israel is the majority report among Evangelicals sitting in the pews of our churches.

Moore, and his listeners, completely neglects the issue of proportionality. As Buchanan writes, Israel “is imposing deliberate suffering on civilians, collective punishment on innocent people, to force them to do something they are powerless to do: disarm the gunmen among them. Such a policy violates international law and comports neither with our values nor our interests. It is un-American and un-Christian.”

Pat’s morality is obviously confused. He should talk to US United Nations ambassador, John Bolton. Commenting on the deaths of 8 Canadian citizens in southern Lebanon as a result of an Israeli strike, Bolton said, “It’s simply not the same thing to say that it’s the same act to deliberately target innocent civilians, to desire their deaths, to fire rockets and use explosive devices or kidnapping versus the sad and highly unfortunate consequences of self-defense.” OK, just a second. What was the act that precipitated the most recent action by the Israelis? It was the kidnapping of two SOLDIERS by Hezbollah. Soldiers are legitimate military targets, civilians are not.

Meanwhile, numerous eggheads in “conservative” think-tanks are upset with the Bushies. Apparently they’re not being quite aggressive enough. What we need, they say, is more war. Invade Syria, Iran, North Korea…blah, blah, blah. Newt Gingrich says, “We have accepted the lawyer-diplomatic fantasy that talking while North Korea builds bombs and missiles and talking while the Iranians build bombs and missiles is progress. Is the next stage for Condi to go dancing with Kim Jong Il?” Ken “Cakewalk” Adelman says, “What they are doing on North Korea or Iran is what [Sen. John F.] Kerry would do, what a normal middle-of-the-road president would do,” he said. “This administration prided itself on molding history, not just reacting to events. Its a normal foreign policy right now. It’s the triumph of Kerryism.” From his perch at the Weekly Reader, Bill Kristol says that what’s happening in the Middle East is “our war.” “For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.” At least George Will is beginning to come around. In his column yesterday, he wrote, “The administration, justly criticized for its Iraq premises and their execution, is suddenly receiving some criticism so untethered from reality as to defy caricature. The national, ethnic and religious dynamics of the Middle East are opaque to most people, but to the Weekly Standard — voice of a spectacularly misnamed radicalism, “neoconservatism” — everything is crystal clear: Iran is the key to everything.”

William Lind wonders if we are about to re-play the summer of 1914.

In political news, Ralph Reed took it on the chin in Georgia, dragged down by his connection with Jack Abramoff. Well, at least Ralph can go back to ringin’ up the cash register. McPaper asks, “Will Christian right embrace — and support — one of its own?” Speaking of Sam Brownback’s potential presidential run, SBC bigwig Richard Land says, “I love Sam Brownback. Sam Brownback is a great man, and Sam Brownback is a great senator. Whether he is a credible presidential candidate is up to Sam to prove.” Brownback would like to apologize for slavery–and possibly open the till to pay reparations, he supports unlimited immigration, and seems prepared to send American troops into Darfur. To top it off, Richard Land says he’s “a great man.” Doesn’t this give you some idea what’s wrong with the “religious right?”

The war is going so well in Iraq that the Pentagon thinks we can leave–in 2016. Meanwhile, the civilian death toll in Iraq has climbed to 100 a day, with nearly 6,000 dying in May and June. Recall that this is a country 1/8 the size of the U. S. If you extrapolate the numbers, they become even more dire.