I recently received an email from Concerned Women for America praising religious liberty as the source of American freedom. Curious, I headed over to the CWA website and started snooping around. CWA is one of those ostensibly Christian parachurch outfits looking to reclaim the realm of politics and culture for Christ. On its website, we learn of the purpose of CWA: “The mission of CWA is to protect and promote Biblical values among all citizens – first through prayer, then education, and finally by influencing our society – thereby reversing the decline in moral values in our nation.”

I quickly stumbled upon a series of articles spreading fear about the rise of an Islamic caliphate. Here is a short missive weaving a web of lies and half-truths, many of them typical knee-slappers. I’ll paraphrase a few: “If we don’t kill them there, we’ll be killing them here”; “Democracy is the last, best hope of mankind”; “There is no civil war in Iraq”; “If we leave now there will be chaos”; “If we get out now Christians will die”. You get the point.

In short, CWA regurgitates the Neocon line that if we leave Iraq there will be a slaughter of innocents, political disorder, and a movement of the war from Baghdad to Boise.

CWA is headed up by Beverly LaHaye. Bev is the husband of Tim LaHaye, co-author of the “Left Behind” series, noted prophecy guru, and hardcore Zionist. Perhaps it is the Dispensational theology, ably propagated by Dr. LaHaye, that explains the unyielding support CWA has expressed for the “War on Terror.”

Of course, the truth is that Muslims have been radicalized by the war, and our invasion of their lands. The war has made us less secure and made the life of Iraqi Christians perilous.

What really disturbed me, though, were several articles written for CWA by a young lady named Sarah Rode, who is an Assistant Policy Analyst for CWA.

In one essay, Ms. Rode calls Code Pink activists anti-American and compares them to Communists. I thought the Red-baiting was over, but perhaps Islamo-Commies will soon replace Islamo-Fascists as the moniker of choice among Neocons. Probably not considering they are little more than Trotskyites in drag.

Ms. Rode chastises Cindy Sheehan, who apparently told a five-year-old boy that his “daddy died for a lie.” While coarse and unnecessary, Ms. Sheehan is telling the truth. In fact, our servicemen are dying for lots of lies. Do you remember the propaganda about WMDs and mushroom clouds? Do you recall the promises about oil revenues and the salvific quality of democracy imposed at the point of a gun?

Ms. Rode also explains why she wants to go fight in Iraq. You see, Ms. Rode is a United States Marine Corps Officer Candidate. Yes, a Marine.

If you assume that a Christian organization would reject egalitarianism in favor of a complentarian understanding of gender roles you would be mistaken. Conservative Evangelicals used to object to the continuing sexual integration of the armed forces. Now in their zeal to prop up the warfare state, wallowing in egalitarian presuppositions, Christians routinely deny that there are in fact God-ordained sexual roles.

The Scriptures paint a different picture of a comprehensive pattern of differentiation between men and women. It is men who protect and lay down their lives for women, even as Christ died for the Church, and it is women who bear a responsibility as nurturers not warriors. In Joshua 1:14, we read that the “wives, young children, and livestock” of Israel remained on the other side of the Jordan River while the “fighting men” crossed the river to wage war against the Cannanites.

Today, Christian men prefer to send their wives, aunts, sisters and daughters to die on foreign battlefields instead of fighting themselves. A reader sent along a link recently which tracks the number of women servicemen who have died in Iraq. According to the latest figures, 100 women have perished in the war. Wow, a real milestone to celebrate.

Writing about this issue in 2004, I asked the following: “Where are the pastors with the courage to preach on what God says about sending women into combat, and where are the Christian publications and leaders who will stand up and call the problem of women in combat what the Bible does: an ‘abomination?’ Where are the teachers who will call the doctrine of equality what it is: heresy?”

I’m still waiting.

It’s almost December, tomorrow’s El Dio del Pavo (The Day of the Turkey, for my fellow gringos), and you know what that means. That means that for the next four weeks or so, as Christmas approaches, much of the world and much of the nominal church will join hands in a collaborative effort to demonstrate just how little Christianity is running around out there.In our story today, the world is represented by the Lowe’s chain of homeowner hells (let’s pause to properly credit Dave Barry for that oh-so-apt name). Before we proceed, I have to stop and give the management of Lowe’s some mad love, dude, for that little apostrophe between the E and the S in their corporate logo. As one of Lynne Truss’s admirers, I am touched by that old-school, properly-formed possessive; would that “Walgreens” had done so well! But enough digression; time instead for procession. Let’s proceed. The story:

It’s green, cone-shaped, and ready to be decorated and lit. But in the Lowe’s holiday catalog it’s a “Family Tree” not a Christmas tree.That’s put the Mooresville-based home improvement giant at the center of what has become an annual debate over whether retailers should specifically refer to Christmas in their advertisements.

Lowe’s 2007 holiday catalog triggered an outcry from the American Family Association, a conservative advocacy group.

Over the years, the association has led boycotts against Wal-Mart and other retailers for using the catchall “happy holidays” in its advertisements and greetings instead of “Merry Christmas.”

This year, the association posted an “action alert” on its Web site, asking readers to e-mail Lowe’s about how the “family” trees might be offensive to Christians.

Lowe’s spokeswoman Karen Cobb said the catalog page’s title was an error during the “creative process” and was inconsistent with the company’s practice of referring to the trees as Christmas trees. Cobb said the company is redoubling its efforts to proof its catalogs.

“We’ve apologized for the confusion we created,” Cobb said. “It was not our intention to offend anyone.”

Christmas is an important observance in the context of the Christian church. After all, without the incarnation of God, you could hardly have His atoning passion and death, nor could you have the crown and capstone of the faith: His resurrection. So it is proper — indeed, in my view, obligatory — for Christians to celebrate the incarnation. If the traditions of the church have incorporated some pagan stylistic elements (placing the time of the celebration near the ancient Saturnalia and the winter solstice, decorating with greens), well, so be it; these things are the “shadow” and not the substance, in Paul’s sense and meaning from Romans chapter 14. However, I search the Scriptures without success for any hint at all that Christian believers should compel the unbelievers of this world to simulate enthusiasm for the believers’ celebration, or to hector those unbelievers to display that simulated enthusiasm, or even to expect them to do so. What I find in my New Testament is explicitly contrary to this notion; again and again, the believer is told to expect trouble and abuse, ranging from ridicule to torture and death.

So: is Lowe’s, that corporate purveyor of “family trees” for “the holidays,” dispensing persecution? Ah, don’t make me laugh. Persecution means arrests, beatings, imprisonment, confiscation, torture, and execution. To first century Christians (and to many, many since then), “persecution” meant violent death. For some abstract corporate entity to fail to render some insincere show of respect for my beliefs is … well, let’s just say that if this is as bad as it ever gets for me, I’m either not much of a believer, or I’m living in a rather tranquil time and place. (I’d prefer to assume the latter, if that’s OK with everyone.)

I’ll interrupt this post with an admission that I have a little bone to pick with Lowe’s, too. Mine involves the difficulty of procuring a decent sheet of 3/4 BCX plywood at a decent price. But that’s for another day … and the Home Despot is usually just as bad, if not worse.

At His incarnation, my Lord took the form of near-ultimate powerlessness: an infant born to a couple of nobodies in an occupied backwater of the Roman empire. “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” indeed. Why does so much of His nominal church behave, at this time every year, like a posse of truculent gangstas, demanding our due respect from one and all? Must we insist on our props? Couldn’t we try to emulate our master just a little more closely?

I wonder, too, why so many of us buy into the notion that we’re supposed to have an emotional relationship with an animated money machine like Lowe’s. The American Family Association, after all, is urging us to have a quarrel of some kind with that corporation. There’s probably some footsore person manning the register at your local Lowe’s store to whom you can relate, and maybe minister, in some personal way. But the corporation … well, that’s what it is. What do we expect? Of course it’s going to do some silly verbal dance that’s been carefully tweaked to maximize the amount of “holiday” merchandise moved while minimizing the number of customers offended. Is that a good thing? Probably not; how many small, independently-owned “hardware stores” do you see these days? Are most of the alternatives worse? Under our omnipotent thug government, they undoubtedly are worse. But we claim we believe that this is a fallen world, dancing to the tune called by its dark Prince. Should we be surprised when unbelievers conduct themselves as such? To me, the real surprise is that most people behave as well as they do. Maybe God really meant it, when He said that His law is written on everyone’s heart.

So, what’s the alternative? What am I suggesting that Christians do, if they’re not filling their hours with e-mailing and boycotting and trying to bully unbelievers into insincere salutes to belief? Well, loving those who vex you is a biblically-recommended sort of pastime. The cultivation of humility is always becoming and appropriate to sinners, such as ourselves. Making merry is good, in and of itself. As for changing the world, fine; it very much needs changing. But we should keep in mind what the Lord told Paul, in 2 Corinthians chapter 12: My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.

Love is subversive. Servants are revolutionaries. Down with the Babylon system, mon. Amen and amen.

The New York Times reports this morning on roughly a dozen recent studies indicating that capital punishment saves lives. From Gary Becker to Cass Sunstein, the consensus is that a judicious and relatively quick use of execution serves as a deterrent for murder. I figured this out approximately around the age of twelve, but your run-of-the-mill academic or judge can’t be expected to have such discernment and wisdom.

“I personally am opposed to the death penalty,” said H. Naci Mocan, an economist at Louisiana State University and an author of a study finding that each execution saves five lives. “But my research shows that there is a deterrent effect.”

The studies, mostly conducted by economists, show that for each inmate put to death, 3 to 18 murders are prevented. One study looked at 3,054 counties over two decades.

Frankly, the issue of deterrence isn’t particularly relevant from my perspective. I’m more concerned about justice. Human beings are created in the image of God and have inherent worth. Thus the snuffing out of life is a crime worthy of death: “And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man” (Gen. 9:5-6).

Well, it looks like even the Sons of Perdition, that would be sociologists and social workers, have concluded that cohabitation is problematic for children. (OK, so I’m joking with that “Sons of Perdition” quip–kinda).

From the AP: “Many scholars and front-line caseworkers interviewed by The Associated Press see the abusive-boyfriend syndrome as part of a broader trend that deeply worries them. An ever-increasing share of America’s children grow up in homes without both biological parents, they say, and the risk of child abuse is markedly higher in nontraditional family structures.”

Other findings cited in the article:

Children living in households with unrelated adults are nearly 50 times as likely to die of inflicted injuries as children living with two biological parents, according to a study of Missouri data published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2005.

Children living in stepfamilies or with single parents are at higher risk of physical or sexual assault than children living with two biological or adoptive parents, according to David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

Girls whose parents divorce face significantly higher risk of sexual assault, whether they live with their mothers or fathers, according to research by Robin Wilson, a family law professor at Washington and Lee University.

To make a long story short, broken homes are places of disorder and instability where children become vulnerable on myriad levels.

“This is the dark underbelly of cohabitation,” says UVA sociologist Brad Wilcox. “Cohabitation has become quite common, and most people think, ‘What’s the harm?’ The harm is we’re increasing a pattern of relationships that’s not good for children.”

Wow, that’s almost clear enough to pierce the brain of your average Darwinian, or the heart of your average feminist.

Historically, the orientation of school and university in Western culture has been in terms of concepts of liberal education. The differences of opinion have been with reference to what is truly liberal…A liberal education has been ostensibly education for freedom and the mark of a free man. But what constitutes a free man? And what is the ground for his freedom? The question is thus inevitably a religious question.”

—R. J. Rushdoony, “The Messianic Character of American Education”

Critics of Rushdoony, who have apparently never read anything the man wrote, assume he was obsessed with a bizarre political ethic emphasizing the stoning of homosexuals and persecution non-believers.

After reading thousands of pages of Rush’s work, it seems clear to me that he was, if anything, a Christian libertarian, believing in maximum individual and family liberty under the law of God. While seeking the practical implications of every jot and tittle of scripture, Rushdoony was far more passionate about education than capital punishment.

During the early days of the Christian school and homeschool movements, Rushdoony often served as an expert witness on behalf of families and schools being persecuted by the state. He criss-crossed the heartland in support of families seeking to educate their children in the things of God.

For Rushdoony, all of life is religious and must be governed by God. The modern state, constructed on anti-Christian foundations, is intrinsically hostile to the Kingdom of God. Moreover, the engine of evangelism employed by the state to spread its “gospel” of freedom is the school.

The school is seen by “progressives” as an instrument of social progress, indeed as a messianic institution bringing the very Kingdom of God. Don’t believe it? John Dewey, whose influence on contemporary life and education has been extensive, wrote a “pedagogic creed” that included the following:

I BELIEVE THAT
–the teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life.
–every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth.
–in this way the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true Kingdom of God.

The purpose of the schools, then, according to Dewey is clearly religious. However, the Christian God is not being worshipped. The glue holding together the Tower of Babel under construction at the local high school is state-consciousness. More from Dewey:

…the American people is conscious that its schools serve best the cause of religion in serving the cause of social unification; and that under certain conditions schools are more religious in substance and in promise without any of the conventional badges and machinery of religious instruction than they could be in cultivating these forms at the expense of state-consciousness.

The center of this new community is the school. Dewey continues:

In conclusion, we may say that the conception of the school as a social center is born of our entire democratic movement. Everywhere we see signs of the growing recognition that the community owes to each one of its members the fullest development. Everywhere we see the growing recognition that the community life is defective and distorted excepting as it does thus care for all its constituent parts. This is no longer viewed as a matter of justice—nay something higher and better than justice—a necessary phase of developing and growing life. Men will long dispute about material socialism, about socialism considered as a matter of distribution of the material resources of the community; but here is a socialism of the intelligence and of the spirit. To extend the range and the fullness of sharing in the intellectual and spiritual resources of the community is the very meaning of the community. Because the older type of education is not fully adequate to this task under changed conditions, we feel its lack and demand that the school become a social center. The school as a social center means the active and organized promotion of this socialism of the intangible things of art, science, and other modes of social intercourse.

In speaking of the “socialism of intelligence and of the spirit” as the essence of community life, Dewey is challenging what had been an older conception of community, that individuals were free and independent to develop their callings and vocations under God with the bond of unity being a common faith, i.e. Christianity. Instead, our calling is to surrender our individuality—our intelligence and spirit–to socialization wrought by the established church of the Deweyite creed—the school. It is in the school as the “social center” that man is refashioned in the image of the democratic state and where the New Jerusalem is experienced.

The religious nature of statist education also demands the punishment of heretics. Here is one example of a woman being excommunicated from the temple for failing to endorse the creed:

A local author claims a Tri-Cities county mayor discriminated against her after her educational program was pulled from the calendar at a public library. Friday, a newspaper community brief promoted the home schooling discussion and book signing at the Jonesborough Public Library. That afternoon the library canceled the event. The author tells News Channel 11’s Melinda Perkins her program was pulled because of one government official’s opinion.

The Jonesborough Public Library scheduled Haskins to lead an informational session about home schooling this Thursday. Last Friday, Haskins says the library pulled the program at the request of Washington County Mayor George Jaynes.

“He said she had to retract it and cancel the program because it’s a public building paid for with public taxes and they have an obligation to support the public school system and doing anything about home schooling was a conflict of interest,” Haskins said.

The rise of Christian schools and the increasing popularity of homeschooling is a sign that many have lost faith in the state as a religious institution and are looking to lay surer foundations on the Conerstone (I Pet. 2:6, Eph. 2:20, Is. 28:16).

If the purpose of liberal education is freedom, then Christ must be at the heart of it. The state cannot bring freedom, for it has constructed its mosques and synagogues on shakier foundations, and they will ultimately crumble:

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash” (Matt. 7:24-27).

The major political movements of our day (i.e. conservatism, liberalism, libertarianism, etc.) are all bastard children of the Enlightenment, grounded in secular premises. They are anti-Christian at root.

The reigning faith of our age is Liberal Humanism (LH). LH naturally devolved into statism. As Rushdoony wrote, “Man needs a source of certainty and an agency of control: if he denies this function to God, he will ascribe it to man and to a man-made order.”

The rise of the messianic, imperial state has been ongoing for several centuries, connected to the ascendancy of LH ideology. But the loss of faith in secular premises and institutions will ultimately lead to a lack of faith in statist, i.e. political, solutions, and bring about a reconfiguration of the state.

Ideology is little more than the inversion of religion and hence hostile to Christianity. The religion of LH (whether called liberal, conservative, libertarian, etc.) is a dying faith. It is in a terminal condition collapsing under the weight of its presuppositions. Drowning in debt, awash in the silly coarseness of popular culture, and bleeding from imperial overreach, it is merely a matter of time before the ticking bomb explodes.

How long will the process take and what will succeed it? Those are the questions for serious Christians to consider. The collapse is inevitable, but have we so confused Christianity with America or Conservatism that we have no biblical alternative to provide?

A collapsing faith in the state will engender the sprouting of decentralizing institutions–and political movements. This is one reason for the rise of Dr. Paul:

I think people are tired of what they’re getting from their government. They don’t believe it’s working. They’re angry. They believe they’re being lied to when it comes to the economy. They believe they’ve been lied into going to war. And they’re tired of it all, and they want change.

In other words, they have lost faith in liberalism.

Ron Paul and the movement growing up around his candidacy, despite their flaws, represent an opportunity. The Establishment is slowly losing control and desperately clinging to power. The changes wrought by new technologies will make it possible to not so much circumvent as create a new elite, outside the control, funding and licensure of the state.

As Gary North writes, Paul “is now in a position to begin to mobilize this vanguard for a 20-year political battle that will reach into every local community – to train people in the techniques of political mobilization through digital communication, and to provide them with the materials to challenge the existing political Establishment.”

Despite its bravado and braggadocio, the modern state has made promises it cannot keep. The stack of IOUs is growing by the day, and at some point the populace will look elsewhere for solutions.

Will Christians be ready for that opportunity? Are we up to the task of thinking carefully about how the faith applies to every sphere of life? Have we done the hard work of exegeting the passages and constructing a fully-orbed theology of life? Or will we be engaged in pointless navel gazing?

Ron Paul’s cash haul has finally gotten the attention of political elites. Here is Howard Kurtz:

Ron Paul just grabbed the media by the throat and got their attention with the only language they understand: money.

Until now, journalists have basically dismissed the Texas Republican congressman as a joke, a fringe candidate, a comic-relief figure with a whole lot of wacky views. He was entertaining at debates, good fodder for the occasional bemused feature, but otherwise seen as cluttering up the stage.

What reporters and pundits respect, though, is poll numbers and fundraising numbers. And while Paul is anemic on the first, he raised a staggering $4 million online Monday, shattering the previous GOP record.

The one-day total would be a coup for a front-runner, let alone an eccentric also-ran. So reporters across the country put aside their Hillary and Rudy pieces to ask the burning question: How on earth did he do that?

What no news organization will ask, of course, is: How on earth did we miss the significance of the Paul movement?

Dr. Paul even manages to merit somewhat positive reviews in the NY Times.

Chuck Baldwin offers a plea to pastors to give Ron Paul a look. He also touches on a fundamental confusion that haunts the Religious Right:

Where pastors often become confused about Ron Paul is that when he is resisting the unconstitutional centralization of our federal government, he is often perceived as being anti-family. Many in these pro-family movements themselves have been co-opted into believing that the solutions to our family problems come in the form of more unconstitutional federal legislation and programs. And when one does not agree with these unconstitutional remedies, they conclude that he or she is “anti-family.” Such people mean well but are confused.

America would be much better off if we Christian pastors taught the need for Christ-honoring resistance–at the local level–to anti-family federal intrusions. We should call on our congregations to vote out of office any judge who passes rulings designed to pervert the Biblical family. That doesn’t take a Constitutional amendment. It just takes courageous pastors and people who understand that judges, too, must respect the Constitution and our Christian heritage.

Dave Black with pro-Paul musings here, here, and here.

As a Christian, I continue to be disappointed that so few evangelical poohbahs are supporting Paul. (As an aside, this isn’t true among rock-ribbed homeschoolers, who are supporting Paul in large numbers in spite of the machinations of the HSLDA). Now we have the spectacle of Bob Jones and Paul Weyrich supporting the snake-oil selling Mormon and Pat Robertson cozying up with the cross-dressing Rudy.