“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and then bid the geldings be fruitful.”

C. S. Lewis

Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

The fundamental characteristic of the New Testament conception of redemption is that deliverance from guilt stands first; emancipation from the power of sin follows upon it; and removal of all ills of life constitutes its final issue.”

O. Kirn

Few Christian realities stand more contrary wise to our current culture then the Cross of Jesus Christ, since the death of Christ on the cross only makes sense in light of acceptance the category of sin.

This is a category that the Church has lost, and having lost the category of sin it has lost the category of grace – and without the category of sin and grace Christianity is eclipsed, either by way of obsolescence or by way of re-definition.

It seems often that the closest we can get to the idea of sin in the Church today is to see it as unfortunate but manageable. For example, fellow Minister, R. John Dewitt tells a story about a trip he and his wife took to Wales. It seems on one Sunday Rev. Dewitt and his wife attended a small methodist Church in the Welsh countryside. Apparently the attendance was thin and the assigned minister to the small elderly congregation was a woman. Dewitt recounts the sermon he heard that day about two frogs having fallen into a pail of milk, fresh from that days milking. The minister said that the first frog just gave up, sank and drowned. But the second frog being of sterner stuff just wouldn’t give up, and so he swam and swam and swam, until that milk, churned up from the determined frogs paddling about began to congeal into butter pads. Finally, much to the weary frogs delight, he was able to get enough leverage from one of those butter pads to jump out of the bucket, and live to see another day. The minister ended her sermon by saying; “And this is what Christianity is all about. Some people give up, but others just keep on trying. We need to keep on trying”

Quite to the contrary Christianity is not all about our effort at overcoming difficult odds. The Cross is plastered through the pages of Scripture to tell us, that because our efforts would never be enough, God in Christ undertook to do, what no amount of churning on our part could ever do, – ransom us from our sin.

The Church has lost the ability to communicate the message of sin and redemption. Perhaps it is because talking about sin makes people feel uncomfortable, and since the Church’s has taken a consumer mindset it doesn’t wish to make the consumer feel uncomfortable. Perhaps it is because that the Church no longer understands herself that the primary problem of sin is not that it is behavioral malfunction but rather that it is high rebellion against God. That is to say, that I think the Church, in many quarters, has forgotten that the problem of sin is not primarily that it makes us unhappy but rather the primary problem of sin is that God, in pursuit of the legacy of His name, in His just opposition, crushes the sinner.

And so the Church, when it has a negative but shallow view of sin, makes it its major work to help the sinner adjust. Sin is seen as dysfunction of some type and grace is seen as adjustment. When the Church successfully ministers adjustment to people’s dysfunction we behold what we might call ’salvation by therapy alone.’ We see it all the time. Legion are the name of the Churches that exist in order to help people adjust to their surroundings or to their difficulties or to their addictions. Having been helped by therapy alone Jesus is somehow dropped into the ‘evangelical mix,’ (often as the great therapist who lives in my heart) and Church membership roles are increased.

However, all the adjustment in the World will not solve the sinners problem with God. There is only one solution to that problem and it is the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. When we help people adjust without speaking to them of the opposition of God that can only be quenched by embracing Christ and by being united to His propitiation we are solidifying in their minds that Christianity’s purpose is to make people adjusted.

While it is true that the good news of Christ having died to take away the sin of sinners makes every penitent properly adjusted to God’s favor it often has the consequence of introducing maladjustment in the horizontal relationships of the redeemed one’s life. Instead of being able to fit in to one’s unredeemed culture, what happens instead is that one is persecuted for the sake of the Gospel. One can easily understand how such a possible eventuality has led so many churches to move from objective sin, a Wrathful God, and a bleeding propitiating savior, to, sin as maladjustment, a user friendly God, and a good friend therapist.

Still, God calls the faithful Church to placard the Gospel to gather those who will be given ears to hear. And the message he gives them is the Cross.

In the Cross, the Father, in pursuit of the magnificence of His justice and for display of the splendor of His mercy punished sin, so that in faith and repentance, the sinner, in pursuit of the promise of relief from God’s threatenings, and for the end of his perpetual alienations might find forgiveness.

In the Cross the sinners guilt is extinguished, never to accuse him again. For those who have understood their sin and have closed with Christ there can never again be condemnation or the guilt that goes along with condemnation because at the Cross Christ bore his peoples sin and guilt. Guilt, having been removed, no longer is that driving force which propels the unredeemed sinner to the oddest of guilt relief behaviors. As being in Christ, the redeemed sinner no longer has to find new mechanisms to temporarily relieve himself of his guilt. And with his guilt and alienation removed between God and himself other walls of guilt and alienation can begin to fall. The guilt and alienation from God having been dealt with in Christ, the sinner is free to no longer transfer that guilt and alienation into their horizontal relationships. The guilt and alienation from God having been dealt with in Christ, the sinner is free to no longer transfer that guilt and alienation into their own internal life. Forgiveness with God, because of the work of the guilt bearing Christ, brings with it a removal of the guilt that alienated us from God, from others, and from self.

Because of the Cross sin shall no longer have dominion over the forgiven. Those who are in Christ for the first time are free to overcome sin. On the Cross Jesus said, “It is finished,” and with his finished work on the Cross the power of sin has been broken in the believers life. And while it is true that we will continue to always have need to put off the old man and put on the new man created in Christ Jesus, we have the promise that where sin abounds, in the pursuit of sanctification, Grace abounds all the more. Because of the poured out Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing that which is to come, the idea of ‘disobedient Christian’ is a gross oxymoron. Having died with Christ to sin we have the promise of currently being resurrected with him to walk in newness of life. Therefore, Christians, when living in cultures shaped by other gods then the God of the Bible are considered, at the very least ‘odd.’

What we see here is that not only does the finished work of Christ redeem us from God’s wrath, but it also redeems us from our previously empty way of lives handed down to us by our fathers. We are redeemed not only from the pollution of sin but also from the power of sin. In the work of Christ we are redeemed from the Kingdom of darkness where once was our zip code, to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son, and the consequence of that is that we currently are living in God’s new world order. The old is past. The new has come.

Finally, because of the ransom of Christ on the Cross for sinners, we have the certainty that what we have in the way of complete and filling foretaste now we shall have in full banquet yet to come. Redeemed sinners, having closed with Christ, are not what they once were, and regardless of how long they have walked with Christ, neither are they yet what they will one day be. All the despair at the work that is not yet finished here in extending the crown rights of King Jesus, all the failure of not conforming personally to Christ as much as we desired, all the disappointments that are inevitable to life – all of these will be removed and replaced with the joy of seeing our Liege Lord Master, face to face, and combined with the joyful expectation of being eventually better equipped for the service that will be yet ahead in the new heavens and the new earth.

So, in the finished work of Christ, there is indeed deliverance from guilt, and emancipation from the power of sin, and the certainty that the slight residue of defeat that is so often concomitant with this life will be utterly removed.

It is indeed a Good Friday.

Aside from his able discussion of the unsustainability of American foreign policy, in Day of Reckoning, Pat Buchanan predicts the dissolution of America. “It is the belief of this author and the premise of this book,” writes Buchanan, “that America is indeed coming apart, decomposing, and that the likelihood of her survival as one nation through mid-century is improbable—and impossible if America continues on her current course. For we are on a path to national suicide.”

The existential crisis identified by Buchanan is largely a byproduct of the immigration invasion unleashed by elites enthralled by the dual ideologies of homo economicus and multiculturalism.

Before 1965, immigration was shaped by the national origins quota system, which granted visas primarily based on an immigrant’s country of birth. As a result, 70% of visas went to three countries–Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany. Modifications to the 1965 law established family reunification, and to a lesser extent employment preferences, as the new criteria for admission and led to a demographic tsunami that is changing the political, economic and cultural landscape.

Coupled with a falling birthrate among American whites and the wholesale slaughter of a generation as a consequence of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. is undergoing an epic demographic transformation. Writes Buchanan,

According to the U.S. Census Bureau…our minority population rose 2.4 million to exceed 100 million. Hispanics, 1 percent of the U.S. population in 1950, are now 14.4 percent. Since 2000, their numbers have soared 25 percent to 45 million. The U.S. Asian population grew by 24 percent since 2000, as the number of white kids of school age fell 4 percent. Half the children five and younger today are minority children.

Apologists for mass immigration point to the assimilation of prior waves of immigrants. The Wall Street Journal rhapsodizes, “These newcomers by and large aren’t listening to the left-wingers pushing identity politics. Mexican immigrants, like their European predecessors, are assimilating. Their children learn English and by the end of high school prefer it to their parents’ native tongue. They also marry people they meet here. Second-generation Latinos earn less than white Americans but more than blacks and 50% more than first-generation Latinos.”

Likewise, political whiz Michael Barone, who ought to stick to politics, said, “I believe the likelihood is strong that Latinos will eventually become interwoven into American life. With luck, it will take less than 100 years.”

But immigration from Mexico is an entirely different animal. “Mexican immigration,” writes Samuel Huntington, “differs from past immigration and most other contemporary immigration due to a combination of six factors: contiguity, scale, illegality, regional concentration [in the American Southwest], persistence, and historical presence… Demographically, socially, and culturally, the reconquista (re-conquest) of the Southwest United States by Mexican immigrants is well underway.”

The happy twaddle that “diversity is our strength” is recited by editorialists and politicians sounding like a five-year-old reciting a catechism. But it is in unity that strength resides and an excess of diversity goes hand in hand with Balkanization, social isolation and the breakdown of community.

Buchanan suggests terminating birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens who become anchor babies, eliminating subsidies for illegals in the form of welfare, health care, and education, and punishing lawbreaking employers with steep fines and jail terms.

What will be the consequences of failure to stem the tide? Tyranny– for immigration and multiculturalism are inextricably tied to statism. A social order constructed on the sure foundation of broad ethnic and religious unity provides a framework for trust, fraternity, and security, but syncretizing ethnicity and culture produces collectivism and imperialism, a bureaucratic order governed by social engineers and meddlers. States with diverse populations ultimately require authoritarian governments as the only alternative to anarchy. Hence, mass immigration is welcomed by those who manage racial, ethnic, and religious conflict.

“History teaches,” writes Buchanan, “that multiethnic states are held together either by an authoritarian regime or a dominant ethnocultural core, or they are ever at risk of disintegration in ethnic conflict.”

The post-Christian West is in the process of committing suicide. Is it too late, or can we yet save what remains of the common culture and destiny we have inherited from our forefathers?

It seems that the machine continues to try and justify the words of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Most recently what is being attempted is trying to equate the words of Wright with the words of well known orthodox ministers, such as Francis Schaeffer. What is hoped to be accomplished is not only that Wright’s words will be seen as justified but also that orthodox ministers will be seen as extremist as Wright.

Unfortunately, it is Franky Schaeffer that is leading the charge against his own dead father’s memory. In a column written yesterday Franky wrote that,

When my late father – Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer – denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.

Franky seems to forget that not all denouncements are equal. Francis Schaeffer’s denouncements were against those matters which Scripture denounces, and Franky’s Dad didn’t suggest that the sins of this country belonged uniquely to any one people group. Wright on the other hand denounced a country and a people that in the last 50 years has bent over backwards to accommodate black sensibilities – to the great harm of black and white people alike. The accommodation of which we speak has come in the form of Welfare, Quotas, Family, and Education policy and legislation and has only made muckier the mire that people of all ethnicities are stuck in while at the same time impoverishing a nation while creating a new plantation ‘massa’ class in governmental politicians and bureaucrats to which blacks and whites are both enslaved. Franky apparently remains too bitter towards his father and towards what his father built in order to see that not all denunciations are created equal.

Franky goes on with his immoral, moral equivalence argument,

Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers (following in my father’s footsteps) rail against America’s sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the “murder of the unborn,” has become “Sodom” by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say, as my dad often did, that we are, “under the judgment of God.” They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. By comparison Obama’s minister’s shouted “controversial” comments were mild. All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton.

America should be condemned for what Franky notes above. Wright fault wasn’t in saying God D*&% America. Wright’s fault is that his purported evidence couldn’t carry the weight of his indictment. Wright also made blanket bigoted statements against white people as a whole – something that his father never did regarding any people group. Wright’s comments weren’t mild because Wright’s comments, unlike Franky’s fathers, missed the mark. 1.3 million aborted children annually confirm Francis Schaeffer’s indictment of America. Nobody can confirm that the American government infected black people with AIDS per Wright’s indictment. If any minister is going to say that ‘we are under the judgment of God’ he better have his facts straight. Francis Schaeffer did. Jeremiah Wright doesn’t.

Finally, on this score, Wright made it clear on the video clip that he wasn’t going to sing God Bless America because “uh uh uh, God D*&^ America,” suggesting that his congregation would be better served singing the ‘Damn refrain.’ There are few people that are harder on the sins of this nation then myself but I sing ‘God Bless America’ with passion because it is my desire that God would bless America. I don’t want God to D*&% America though I know a just God eventually will unless we repent. Wright seemed to be taking some perverse glee in the idea of singing his song.
Franky, you’re comparing apples and mosquito bites.

Franky continues quoting from His Father’s book, “A Christian Manifesto” – a book that every thoughtful Christian should read,

If there is a legitimate reason for the use of force [against the US government]… then at a certain point force is justifiable….

In the United States the materialistic, humanistic world view is being taught exclusively in most state schools… There is an obvious parallel between this and the situation in Russia [the USSR]. And we really must not be blind to the fact that indeed in the public schools in the United States all religious influence is as forcibly forbidden as in the Soviet Union….

There does come a time when force, even physical force, is appropriate… A true Christian in Hitler’s Germany and in the occupied countries should have defied the false and counterfeit state. This brings us to a current issue that is crucial for the future of the church in the United States, the issue of abortion… It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is contrary to God’s law it abrogates it’s authority. And our loyalty to the God who gave this law then requires that we make the appropriate response in that situation…

Again, Franky wants us to believe that this language is at least as bad, if not worst then what Rev. Jeremiah Wright said. But consider that Dr. Schaeffer’s diagnosis was accurate, whereas Rev. Wright’s comments were not accurate. The reason that Wright has incensed so many people is not because he is a black man and people are showing their racism by having a different standard for him then what was applied to Francis Schaeffer. The reason that Wright has incensed so many people is that the reasons that he is giving for his indictment is either old news that no longer is the current coin (Tuskegee experiments, Jim Crow) or is just plain loopy (Government infecting black population with AIDS).

Franky complains that a double standard is also seen in the Wright case in the response each has generated. Franky says his dad was wined and dined by the Republican political establishment when he gave his sermons while quite to the contrary Wright is being vilified. Franky complains that while his dad was embraced the outcry is for Wright to be denounced. The answer to that though is easy to see. What Dr. Schaeffer was saying resonated with people. People could see that a tectonic cultural shift had taken place and they sensed that Dr. Schaeffer had his finger on the pulse of the reasons behind that shift. Rev. Jeremiah Wright on the other hand is in lala land with his accusations. They bear no correspondence to reality. It is the difference between embracing a physician who rightly diagnosis gangrene in the right leg of a sick man, calling for it to be cut off, and repudiating a physician for wrongly diagnosing gangrene in the left leg of a sick man, when in point of fact it is the right arm that is gangrenous. There is no moral equivalence between Franky’s Dad and Rev. Wright, nor is there any double standard between those who heaped accolades upon physician Schaeffer while repudiating physician Wright.

Continuing with Franky,

Take Dad’s words and put them in the mouth of Obama’s preacher (or in the mouth of any black American preacher) and people would be accusing that preacher of treason. Yet when we of the white Religious Right denounced America white conservative Americans and top political leaders, called our words “godly” and “prophetic” and a “call to repentance.”

I don’t believe this is true. Speaking only for myself if you took the exact same words of Dr. Francis Schaeffer and put them in the mouth of an inner city Black minister I would be sending checks to his ministry. Franky’s words reveal that not only does he harbor hatred for his immediate family but also that he harbors hatred for his people in general.

I am saddened for Francis that his son has made an argument that suggests that his dad was no better or worse then Rev. Jeremiah Wright.