Fall of Mankind

“Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.”   Proverbs 16:18

In “Against the Heathen,” early Church Father Athanasius reveals that pride and haughtiness preceded man’s fall into idolatry and paganism.  A haughty spirit led them to make light of higher things, and deliberately disregarding what they knew to be true they began to seek in preference things in the lower or natural dimension.  Thus they fell into worship of self, sexual pleasures and acquisition of status and things to the living God and higher things.

The truth as to evil said Athanasius,

 “….is that it originates, and resides, in the perverted choice of the darkened soul” which, “materialized by forgetting God” and engrossed in lower things, “makes them into gods,” and thereby  “descends into a hopeless depth of delusion and superstition,” whereby ”they ceased to think that anything existed beyond what is seen, or that anything was good save things temporal and bodily; so turning away and forgetting that she was in the image of the good God, she no longer… sees God the Word after whose likeness she is made; but having departed from herself, imagines and feigns what is not (and then) advancing further in evil, they came to celebrate as gods the elements and the principles of which bodies are composed….” (Against the Heathen, New Advent)  

Having descended into delusion and superstition they imagined they had no free will and further that “all that exists” is the natural dimension— a divine One Substance, watery abyss, chaos, or void, primordial matter, animated natural powers, forces, and deterministic laws, all of which they celebrated and attributed miraculous powers to.   So for example, with the Egyptians’ self-created Sun-God Ra, the divine abyss or One Substance out of which he evolved is Nu–primordial matter:

“I came into being from primordial matter…I made all the forms under which I appeared by means of (or out of) the god-soul which I raised up out of Nu (i.e., the primeval abyss of water.) (The Long War Against God, Dr. Henry Morris, p. 243)

This is naturalism, or materialism, which is the belief that there is neither living God nor heavenly realm.  There is only the natural dimension, thus evolutionary materialist Dr. Scott Todd wrote in the science journal ‘Nature:’

“Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.”  (Naturalism in the Light of Reality, Robert Gurney, creation.com, June 14, 2012) 

Materialism is of the worldview of monism which is held in common by pantheism and spiritualism and dates back to pagan antiquity and was or is taught by all non-biblical thought systems.

Greek Stoics and Epicureans, for example, were materialistic monists and these two schools of natural science and evolution held the ancient world of thought in allegiance well into the Roman Empire.  Epicureanism reigns supreme in our own age through modern evolutionary materialism, which is merely revamped and revised Epicureanism.   

The pagan philosopher Epicurus (342-270 B.C.) believed in an infinite number of worlds, or parallel universes in the words of contemporary ‘new’ pagan materialists.  Like his modern counterparts, Epicurus taught that there was no god or gods, first principles, moral law, souls and afterlife as all things on earth had evolved from the earth material.  

 Epicurus preferred lower things to higher things, as do his contemporary followers, thus he taught that “all that exists” is an eternally existing void and animated matter.  This made human beings, their intelligence and volition, an evolved accident of chance.    Reason is left, but reason is active only because sensations (i.e., firing of neurons, chemical interactions) stimulate it.

In modern “scientific” terms, the idea that brute matter spontaneously generated itself from nothing (void) in much the same way as Ra spontaneously generated himself from Nu is called abiogenesis.  On the basis of this ancient mythological superstition, new-pagan evolutionary materialists assert that the living supernatural God, souls, spirits, angels, demons, heaven, hell and metaphysics do not exist.

As for ‘modern’ evolutionary theory, anthropologist Henry Fairfield Osborn, longtime director of the American Museum of Natural History reveals that Darwin is not its’ originator but rather ancient pagans are.  In the introduction to his history of evolutionism Osborn wrote:

“When I began the search for anticipations of the evolutionary theory….I was led back to the Greek natural philosophers and I was astonished to find how many of the pronounced and basic features of the Darwinian theory were anticipated even as far back as the seventh century B.C.” (Osborn, From the Greeks to Darwin, p. xi)

Abiogenesis is such an obvious embarrassment that today some naturalists such as SETI researcher Paul Davies and Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA molecule, have abandoned it in favor of panspermia.  

Panspermia is the idea that life on earth was accidentally seeded by meteorites containing the essential building blocks of life or perhaps by highly evolved extraterrestrials who for billions of years have been guiding the evolution of man.   The extraterrestrial idea was favored by Arthur C. Clarke in his book, “Childhood’s End” and a variation on this theme has recently been advanced by Davies, Crick, and Ralph Pudritz of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

 Davies has written seriously about the possibility of “alien bioengineering” that could be detected in the DNA of life on earth and suggests that citizen scientists and school students be enlisted to help search for evidence. (An Alien Code Close to Home: Seeking ET Beyond the Radio Silence, Astrobiology Magazine, Jeremy Hsu, 10/27/2011)

Pudritz theorizes that humans and aliens may share the same DNA which itself could be part of a universal structure “of the first genetic codes anywhere….” (Why Aliens Might Look Like You, Eddie Wren, dailymail.co.uk/ June 11, 2012)

Crick proposes a theory called “directed panspermia,” the idea that,

“…life on earth may have begun when aliens from another planet sent a rocket ship containing spores to seed the earth.”   

He admits however that his theory only pushes the unresolvable problem of the origin of life out into deep space:

“This scenario still leaves open the question of who designed the designer [aliens] — how did life originally originate?”   (Crick, Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature, 1981)

The Myth of Extraterrestrials

In his book, “Scientific Mythologies,” James A. Herrick traces the ‘aliens from outer-space’ idea back to certain Renaissance astrologers, occultists, and mystics such as Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) who claimed to not only receive telepathic secrets from spirits but to have visited populated planets during out-of-body experiences. 

Swedenborg’s influence is far-reaching.  From Kant to the occult theosophist Madame Blavatsky and points in between and on into our own time to psychologist J.B. Rhine, a vast array of science fiction writers (i.e., Clarke, H.G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, Steven Spielberg) and numerous evolutionary scientists.

Over time, Swedenborg’s astral plane ‘space travels’ gave birth to what Herrick dubs “The Myth of the Extraterrestrial.”  As far back as the seventeenth century science fiction writers were imagining “the intelligent extraterrestrial visitor” and preparing the public to accept their existence.   And accept them they have, for the twentieth century has witnessed a veritable population explosion in the alien domain, said Herrick.  (p. 43)

In general, science fiction, like new-pagan evolutionary materialism, is neither particularly scientific nor futuristic.  It is rather a regression to the mystical pagan origins of modern science that reappeared in the heart of Christendom during the Renaissance.   In “The Abolition of Man” (1974) C.S. Lewis points out that the Renaissance reawakened a magical view of the world closely connected with pagan Gnostic sectarianism, Hermetic magic, astrology, Eastern pantheism and alchemical scientism .   Accompanying all of this was evolution, occultism, Epicureanism, reincarnation and karma.

Evolution is both the antithesis of creation ex nihilo and the primary doctrine of both Eastern pantheism and Western scientific materialism, and so early on Lewis understood that both movements were merely two sides of the same pagan revival.  Thus he argued that pantheism and materialism are not enemies in principle but rather cooperating philosophies united against the supernatural Creator, His Revelation, creation ex nihilo, all higher things, the linear view of history and Christian-based civilization.

What this means is that naturalism, abiogenesis, chance, natural selection, multiple universe and panspermia theories are but six contemporary adaptations of ancient pagan “idolatry, magic, occult mysticism and mythology.”   These six are of a whole host of fallacies derived from modern evolutionary thinking that have permeated the post-Christian West and American society giving birth to a “new” pagan religion of evolutionary science.

Fall of Western Civilization

Christendom and Protestant America arose on the wings of the Genesis account of creation ex nihilo, the Biblical view of man’s sinful condition and God’s Moral Law.   Their subsequent fall was traced by Richard Weaver in his book, “Ideas Have Consequences,” (1945).   In many ways Weaver’s analysis parallels Athanasius’ account of the fall of man.  

Weaver writes that 14^th century Western man had made an “evil decision” to abandon his belief in the transcendent God and universals and thus the position that “there is a source of truth higher than, and independent of, man…”  The consequences of the rejection of “higher things” were catastrophic:

“The denial of everything transcending experience means inevitably…the denial of truth. With the denial of objective truth there is no escape from the relativism of ‘man is the measure of all things.” (The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, George H. Nash, pp. 32-33)

“Now the soul of mankind, not satisfied with the devising of evil, began by degrees to venture upon what is worse still.”   Athanasius

Fueled by a corrupted motive of dominating and bull-dozing the real world so as to coerce other wills, Western apostates conceptually murdered the living God, sealed off the supernatural dimension and elevated Nature to the supreme reality.  The doctrine of original sin was abandoned and replaced by the “goodness of man.”  With only the material realm of the senses held to be real, supernatural Christianity declined, the omniscient mind of human-gods arose, and pagan materialistic science became the most prestigious way to study man.  With knowledge limited to the sensory realm, man’s spiritual attributes—-soul, mind, conscience and volition—were soon lost in an endless cycle of reductionism and determinism.  Man, created in the spiritual likeness of his supernatural Creator was lost.  In his place stood the soulless human ape, an accidental emergent product of evolution and “earth material.”

 Fall of Western Man

From the Renaissance to our own time, a stunning spiritual transformation of consciousness has shifted Western and American thinking away from the supernatural God and biblical religion and toward the lower thing, the new pagan religion of evolution.    In his book, “The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Tradition,” James Herrick calls it the “New Religious Synthesis” and briefly outlines seven of its components:

1. History (as well as unchanging truth and moral absolutes) has no spiritual significance.  This is because the idea of continuous evolutionary change makes them absurd.

2. The supremacy of omniscient reason, mystical mind-powers, intuition, and collective consciousness.

3. The spiritualization of science. Since the empirical study of the material universe employs reason to acquire knowledge, and reason is not physical but rather spiritual, today it is acknowledged that reason is in fact acquiring spiritual knowledge.

4. Animated nature (animism).   The natural dimension is alive with energies, divine spirit, Zoe, god-soul, and consciousness. 

5. Gnosis, or esoteric knowledge, the provenance of spiritual elites and extraordinarily gifted individuals, including some scientists.

6. Spiritual evolution.  Through control and direction of their own spiritual evolution certain naturally selected humans are destined to realize unimaginable spiritual advances. Spiritual or conscious evolution leap frogs off of Darwin’s’ biological theory and will supposedly lead to actual human divinity.

7. Religious syncretism rooted in common mystical experiences and telepathic revelations from disembodied intelligences. (Herrick, pp. 33-35)

“But in his estate shall (Antichrist) honour the God of forces.” Dan. 11:38

Under the New Religious Synthesis, the animated god-force called evolution is the principle miracle-producing power of the cosmos. Whether by way of abiogenesis or by accidental or directed panspermia, human beings are evolution’s conscious products and can now achieve ever-higher levels of consciousness by directing their own evolution.

In the book, “The Aquarian Conspiracy,” Marilyn Ferguson pointed out that the efficient direction of evolution requires “a mechanism for biological change more powerful than chance mutation” which will open “the possibility of rapid evolution in our time.” (p. 148)

Some evolutionists now claim that this powerful mechanism is presently available to man from aliens who will solve mankind’s problems and conduct man to a new “cosmic” age. Aliens are busily transforming the consciousness of abductees and other Westerners and through them teaching evolution, naturalism  and occult New Age philosophy as well as warning of a coming planetary apocalypse and denying the living God, the supernatural dimension and Christian theism. 

All of this has led French physicist and UFO researcher Dr. Jacques Vallee to conclude that something is happening to human consciousness that is causing a major shift in man’s belief systems and his relationship to the concept of the invisible.  Vallee believes that the same “powerful force’ that influenced the human race in the past is influencing it again:

“…..human belief…is being controlled and conditioned, man’s concepts are being rearranged, and we may be headed toward a massive change of human attitudes toward paranormal abilities and extraterrestrial life.”  (Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, Fr. Seraphim Rose, p. 109)

In light of this, Vallee proposes the hypothesis that there is a control system,

“… for human consciousness…I am suggesting that what takes place through close encounters with UFOs is control of human beliefs, control of the relationship between our consciousness and physical reality, and that this control has been in force throughout history….” (Alien Intrusion: UFOs and the Evolution Connection, Gary Bates, p. 158)

Frank Baumer concurs and observes that evolution has,

“….persuaded people to think of everything in nature as the fruit of a gradual growth rather than an original creation.”   The sweeping acceptance of evolutionary thinking means that it is “now difficult if not impossible for an educated man to conceive of a primitive revelation such as traditional Christianity taught, or even of an original natural religion from which men had declined.” This difficulty arises because “in an evolving world, perfection obviously lay, not in the past, but in the future.”(Religion and Rise of Skepticism, p. 147)

In occult terminology, transformation of consciousness is egregore, a concept representing a “thought form” (i.e., Richard Dawkins’ memes) or “collective group mind,” resulting from a psychic entity influencing the thoughts of a group of people.   However, egregore derives from the Greek word for “watchers,” leading the French occult magician Eliphas Levi (1810-1875) to identify egregore with the fallen angel ‘fathers’ of the nephilim.   In Christian language, transformation of consciousness means “demonic outpouring.’ Vallee’s “powerful force” is a new demonic outpouring being loosed upon mankind.

So complete has the transformation been that the God of forces has successfully inverted the order of creation and reversed the direction of Biblical theism.  With creation ex nihilo virtually replaced by evolution, it is now believed that men have not fallen from perfection but instead are gradually evolving upward from their ape beginnings toward greater and greater spiritual perfection.  Self-perfecting man no longer needs the living, supernatural God as the idea of “conscious evolution” means he can save himself, and perhaps even attain god-hood.

“The gradual abasement of the Soul from Truth to Falsehood (is) by the abuse of her freedom of Choice.”     Athanasius

Two brilliant visionaries foresaw the stunning events we are witnessing today—the wholesale rejection of Truth tied to the fall of Westerners into idolatry and paganism influenced and directed by a demonic outpouring effecting a transformation of consciousness in tandem with the rise of the New Religious Synthesis.  Each man in his own way predicted these events would usher in the end of the world and the appearance of the Antichrist. The two visionaries, Vladimir Soloviev (1850-1900), a brilliant Russian philosopher and theologian, and Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914), an English Catholic priest, recorded their predictions in gripping novels—Soloviev in the “A Short Tale of the Antichrist” and Benson in “Lord of the World.”

Benson saw through the scientific pretenses of new-pagan materialism and its’ primary doctrine, evolutionary theory, leading him to describe it and its’ ideological movement Communism as “quiet pantheism.” 

Benson predicted that evolutionary thinking would prepare Westerners and Americans not only to embrace the ‘new’ pagan religion but to worship and adore Antichrist, for this human-god (Mr. Felsenburgh) is the first perfected product of nature and evolutionary forces. Mr. Felsenburgh has arisen in America and he is,

“….the first perfect product of that new cosmopolitan creation to which the world has labored throughout its history…” (p 85)

He transfixes men, and they excitedly declare they have seen, 

“…the Son of Man,’ the ‘Savior of the world,’ we knew Him in our hearts as soon as we saw Him, as soon as He stood there. It was like a glory around his head (and now we) understand it all… It was He for whom we have waited so long; and He has come, bringing Peace and Goodwill in His hands.” (pp. 85, 89)

Christianity failed, it divided people. But now Jehovah is gone.  He never existed at all except as a hideous nightmare. Now at long last man’s natural Savior has arisen:

”The reign of God has really begun (and) we are all partakers of God” because God is in everything, including all men….”Jehovah has fallen. He is in His grave.”  In His place is the evolved Son of Man, a god indeed and a man as well…”a god because human and a man because so divine.” (ibid, pp. 93, 95)

Soloviev’s predictions regarding events in our age are astonishing in their prescience, primarily because they not only offer an amazingly accurate glimpse into the mind of the super-man who will become the Antichrist but they also illustrate the real obstacle to salvation, the refusal by proud, willful men to recognize and admit to their sinful condition. 

Prior to his transformation, Soloviev describes the proud super- man as outwardly just, but within he is full of pride and is morally reprehensible:

“…. He believes in God but loves nobody but himself. His relationship with Christ was quickly defined as one of superiority (for he will never) bow before Him like the most stupid of Christians (nor) mutter senselessly….’Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me’….’I, the bright genius, the superman! No, never!” (The Wrath of God: The Days of Antichrist, Livio Fanzaga, pp. 39-40)

As the super-mans’ spiritual fall progresses, instead of the former cold rational respect for the living God and Christ:

“…..there was born and grew in his heart, first, a kind of terror, and then a burning, choking and corroding envy and furious breath-taking hatred.”  Devoured with envy of Jesus Christ he cries out “He rotted in the tomb, rotted like the lowest…” (ibid, pp. 40-41)

This is the moment the Evil One has been waiting for.  He openly approaches the proud super-man and possesses him:

“He saw those piercing eyes and heard…a strange voice, toneless…stifled, and yet clear, metallic and absolutely soulless as though coming from a phonograph.” Satan pours out his spirit, saying, “I ask nothing of you, and I will help you for your own sake…Receive my spirit…it gives birth to you in power. At these words…the superman’s lips opened of themselves, two piercing eyes came quite close to his face, and he felt a sharp, frozen stream enter into him and fill his whole being. And at the same time he was conscious of a wonderful strength, energy, lightness and rapture.” (p. 43)

Soloviev masterfully portrays a striking contrast between the apostles of Christ and the Antichrist. The former receive the power of the living God and are full of wisdom, truth, and courage while the latter receives the power of the devil and is full of nihilistic pride, lies, burning envy, murderous hate, blasphemy, cursing, resentment, deception, covetousness, and perversion.

The Antichrist, as described by Soloviev, suffers the same massively inflated pride and envy that transformed Lucifer into the devil. This same pride and envy animated the pantheist sorcerer Hegel, the neo-pagan Masonic Illuminati who planned and instigated the bloody French Revolution, as well as Karl Marx, Nietzsche, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, the West’s “God is dead” theologians, America’s Ruling Class, and many contemporary New World Order globalists. 

  The “New” Pagan Religion of Darkened Souls

“….human history can now be hesitantly traced back as an unbroken narrative to 4000 B.C.  The facts must not, however, be twisted to suit the fallacy of necessary human progress.  For the picture emerging….is one of the Fall of Man in historic terms as well as his rise; it is a picture …more of degradation than of success; it is a picture of monotheism breaking down into polytheism and of the struggle to return to monotheism.  The establishment view of the history of religion gradually progressing from animism to polytheism, from polytheism to monotheism is the reverse of facts.”  (The God-Kings and the Titans: The New World Ascendancy in Ancient Times, James Baily, 1973, p. 296)

Evolution is a religion, said Michael Ruse. From the beginning it was a religion and this is true of evolution today.  (Michael Ruse, former professor of philosophy and zoology at the University of Guelph, Canada, “How evolution became a religion: creationists correct?” National Post, pp. B1, B3, B7, May 13, 2000)

Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.  From the beginning this was true, and in these last days it is still true.  Pride, haughtiness and envy are the common bonds linking Satan, the Antichrist, idolatry, paganism, the Religion of Evolution and all who have been and are being spiritually transformed by it.   Thus when the Antichrist arrives, perhaps as a highly evolved extraterrestrial or as the Transcended Master Maitreya, all darkened souls will perversely celebrate him as the highly evolved god and man they foolishly believe they too will become.

Limbaugh’s New Racism

For some years, several times a week while driving to go shopping and do errands, I have listened to Rush Limbaugh on the radio.  Pretty much all the time I have become angered because every few sentences I realized that with his total sincerity and conviction he was stating absolutely incorrect things.  Add to endless wrong information complete lapses in logic, causing me to be bewildered that Limbaugh has reached such success.  My only explanation is that he appeals to a very large number of ignorant and unintelligent people who, like religious zealots, remain enraptured by his ultra-ring wing rhetoric.  What a surprise therefore that recently Limbaugh has been speaking relentlessly about “information poor” Americans as his pseudo brilliant explanation of why President Obama has succeeded.

Two things stand out.  First, he clearly refuses to face the reality that it is his incredibly loyal audience that must be information poor to readily accept all the falsehoods he dishes out daily.

Here are just two simple example of intentional misinformation and disinformation he has dispensed, like the proverbial Kool-Aid keeping his listeners doped up.  He recently was admonishing President Obama for doing terrible things or not doing the right things and in his routinely glib, smooth style spoke of the five years of the Obama presidency.  This happened at about 10 percent into Obama’s second term, in other words some weeks, or about 90 percent less than the full fifth year of the Obama presidency.  How could an honest, fair person so easily state to his vast audience that there had already been five years of Obama as president?  And yet, there it was.  I quickly realized that this specific event was just part of the normal design of the ludicrous Limbaugh rhetoric, actually propaganda designed to maintain the conservative idiocy of his loyal audience.

And then today I heard Limbaugh refer to the settlement of Minnesota by the Vikings.  As usual I shook my head in disbelief.  I could not imagine how the Vikings had managed to get so far inland when they had hit North Americaaround the year 1000.  So when I got home I did some easy research on the web and, of course, verified that I was correct to disbelieve what Limbaugh had said.  The Vikings discovered Eastern Canada, not what is now defined asMinnesota.  But like everything else Limbaugh mutters he conveys a complete sense of honesty, correctness and conviction, despite being totally wrong.  Does Limbaugh connect the Minnesota Vikings to historical fact?  Perhaps he has learned from many years of astounding radio success that he can say just about anything and get away with it.

Now for my major point about information poor people that he now talks about endlessly.  Limbaugh has shown semantic creativity in expressing racist thinking.  When he uses the presence of many millions of information poor Americans to explain Obama and Democratic successes he has devised yet another way to attack African Americans and Hispanic Americans that, indeed, are demographic realities causing failure for Romney and other Republicans.  Moreover, it is also apparent that Limbaugh does not appeal to the poorest Americans who he routinely condemns for living off of government handouts.

I suspect that if there were good data about the demographics of the Limbaugh audience they would reveal, like those voting for Romney, that it consists mostly of older, higher income white American men.  Well, turns out there is some decent information.

As to the listeners of Limbaugh’s daily radio show, according to a 2008 news media consumption survey conducted by PewResearch, 72 percent are male and 80 percent are conservative.  About three-quarters of his listeners identify themselves as Tea Partiers and Christian Conservatives.  In other words, Limbaugh does not change the thinking of people, he appeals to a mindset and gives those people exactly what they like.   Another source says his audience is 95 percent white and two-thirds earn more than $60k a year with the majority earning over $100k a year.  In other words, not only is his audience mostly white men, they are also in the upper parts of the economic spectrum (I suspect mostly small business types who may have learned how to make money but nevertheless are quite ignorant and prejudiced.)

As to his website, according to quantcast.com (as of March 3, 2012) the vast majority of visitors to RushLimbaugh.com are aging white males: 54 percent are 45 and older, with 28 percent 55 and older, and 91 percent are Caucasian.

So here is a radio god whose success depends on having information poor people as addicted listeners using the same concept to condemn those minority Americans he aggressively blames for the ruin of the nation because they vote for Democrats.  And of course with his male dominated audience he has shown himself to be rude and worse towards women, another demographic that Republicans have lost.

It is time for people, especially decent Republicans, to condemn wacko Limbaugh for all of his many failures, especially his new attempt to mask racism with the cloak of information deficits.  If Republicans ever want to appeal to a broad cross section of Americans they should have the courage to disown and openly condemn the appalling strategy of bloviator Limbaugh to cater to the most stupid and biased Americans.  They may, indeed, be seen as the core constituency of the Republican Party, but they are a heavy anchor pulling it down.  Interestingly, among Republicans, only 13 percent say they tune in to Limbaugh “regularly.”  Time to dump Limbaugh.

Governments And Guns Are Socially Analogous

People Control Both…

Libertarianism has become popular.  But is it really the answer to the despotic regimes that have characterized the history of human society?  Some who claim the name are close but many are far into utopian fantasies.

I like Lou Rockwell.  His internet page is always a source of truth and commendable prose. I saved a quote where he said that the “moral law applies across the board, and that one is not exempted from it by a government suit.”  That is a good starting point as long as the source of the moral law is the Word of the Christian Triune God.  Unfortunately, God’s Law is rarely, if ever, mentioned in Libertarian circles.   

Most Libertarians are pedagogic, articulate, intellectual, and industrious; they have no peers in chronicling the swift deterioration of our nation.  Their primary moral code is that coercion is evil and freedom is righteous.  Most envision a society free from restraints where everyone considers the rights of their fellows. Their objective is attractive and though its realization is murky and imprecise their ranks are growing.

Libertarianism has roots in the Godless intellectualism of the Enlightenment.  Seventeenth Century French intellectual Rene Descartes declared   “I think, therefore I am”. Deification of the human mind began the tragic and irrational march toward human divinity.  Thomas Paine called it “The Age of Reason” and with the irreverence of a rebel and the brilliance of an intellectual he discarded the formal religion of the ages in favor of his own deistic opinions.

Intellectualism spawned the Enlightenment and like its progenitor Libertarianism is steeped in intellectualism.  Free trade ala Ludwig von Mises takes on an almost divine character.  The fractured condition of the movement provides insight into the results of the deification of the human mind.

Libertarian ranks include Liberals, Conservatives, Paleo-Conservatives, Anarchists, Minarchists, limited government rebels, mislead Christians, freedom loving intellectuals, and rebellious youth.  There are Socialist Libertarians and Capitalist Libertarians.  European definitions tend to be anarchic and politically left while American definitions are broader supporting free market capitalism.  All tend to resist coercion and emphasize freedom, liberty, and voluntary association.  There are moral Libertarians and immoral Libertarians.  There are Koch Libertarians and Rockwell Libertarians.  As with many Godless intellectual movements there is a wide acceptance of free sex.

Former Congressman Ron Paul has done as much as anyone to popularize the Libertarian Movement. His run for the Presidency was filled with wisdom and honesty that would serve us well but his defeat was programmed before he began his campaign.  Peter Theil, an openly gay member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group, provided major support.  I voted for Ron Paul and thought his financing was a result of large quantities of small contributions from internet sources.  I now wonder if it was a setup to insure the election of Barak Obama.

Libertarianism lacks an anchor and is plagued with the anarchy of human opinion.  When organizations become fractured by opposing opinions they become weak through diversity.  Power results from a clear objective.  There are too many voices in the movement. In a Business Insider article Eric Zuesse writes that Libertarians “entirely avoid the real question, which is: What type of government is good? As an “ideology,” libertarianism doesn’t even make it to first base: it’s fake, from the get-go. That’s why libertarianism fails.”

Allegiance to God’s overarching legal system provides an anchor and a big step forward for freedom. Opinions are a form of coercion with each proponent striving to dominate.  Anthony Wile at the Daily Bell recently posted a fascinating interview with George Guilder.  Guilder is a consummate insider who lost his father to WWII and was parented by David Rockefeller.  Some of Guilder’s opinions are compatible with patriots, new world order opponents, and some Libertarians.  The interview is here.   It is an interesting interview of a very smart man.  However, I am not as much interested in the interview itself as I am with the demeanor of Gilder’s responses. He responds with the assurance of the wealthy elite and Wile accepts his responses with the demeanor of the proletariat.  Though they are just opinions Gilder expects them to be heeded; there is tyranny in his manner.  An interview with Walter Block provides another example of dominate opinion.  Block has the lofty credentials of an academic. He expects respect for his positions but with less dominance.  Read his interview here.

Rejection of the Christian doctrine of original sin undergirds scores of disastrous social and political ventures. The government of the United States of America was founded and has been conducted under the assumption that government is a human domain.  We live in a Democratic Republic which depends on the voting public to elect individuals who will abide by a Constitution.

God provided Commandments, not opinions.  Commandments are authoritative and dominating, they demand compliance.  Opinions vary from man to man and are subject to rejections.  Commandments vest authority in God while opinions vest authority in the creature.  One is God centered, the other is humanistic.  God’s Commandments are simple and immutable; human law is voluminous, complex, emendable, and often obtuse.

The United States Constitution is a man made document that is being shredded by men and women who have taken a sacred oath to uphold it.  These are evil, dishonest people.  This kind of behavior is typical of the majority of kings, queens, and dictators that have enslaved and abused the earth’s population from antediluvian times.  It would create severe problems in an anarchic Libertarian society.

Absolute freedom is like infinity, it is beyond the kin of mankind.  We are captives in a body and captives in a universe.  We had nothing to do with our birth and baring suicide we have little to do with our death. Our inclination is to fall into a captivity of action that imprisons our lives.  Some of us become obsessed with business, some with learning, some with drugs, some with sex, some with ego, etc.  A mature person in a properly governed society should be free to choose where he will use his life.

Al Benson began one of his recent columns with this paragraph: “We see in operation today two kingdoms in the world—the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of man (the state). There are few legitimate governments anymore that really comprise the “state.” Most of the legitimate ones are gone, having been replaced with dictatorships, oligarchies, or fake “republics” that fool people with charades they refer to as elections and whose results have already been predetermined long before the “election” takes place. We recently had one of those in the United States.”

The human freedom being pursued by the Libertarian agenda is at war with the Kingdom of God and in spite of its popularity it cannot realize its objective. Freedom is rooted in Christianity.  It is rooted in individual responsibility and obedience to God’s Commandments.  God’s government is the opposite of the new world order; His government is decentralized. The family is the basic unit.  The state acts as protector and the church is God’s agent.

The universal application of Law is the key to freedom.  All of society; the individual, the church, and the state, must abide by God’s Law.  Government cannot be allowed to pass laws to which they, themselves, are not subject; it always ends in tyranny.

Christians have been living in a dream world and the next few months and years may bring a big change in their religious perception.  God’s Judgment has fallen on our world!   R. J. Rushdoony wrote that “the Moloch state is a product of apostasy.”  We are in the grip of a product of apostasy that is abolishing our freedom and conducting a war against God and His people.  Hobby Lobby is resisting the new health care law which demands support for abortion.  The Moloch state will require a massive daily fine for non-compliance.  The state does not worship the Christian God of Hobby Lobby; its god is the anti-Christ.

Hundreds of thousands of Dispensational Christians are expecting world government to bring the Rapture and the Second Coming of Christ.  It could happen but it is likely it will not.  If they are wrong they will be shocked to find themselves living in a police state run by an evil cabal that hates their Savior.  The dictionary defines apostasy as abandonment of a previous loyalty.  We have abandoned the orthodox Reformed Christian Faith that was bequeathed by our fathers and followed a heresy that has allowed the humanistic hand of evil to invade our religion, our lives, our homes, and our nation.

As the horrors of the new world order afflict the Western World people will realize that government is not the source redemption.  They will concede that we have not followed the gift of salvation with obedience and dominion; and that if we expect to live in freedom again we must turn from our sin and repent of our wicked ways.

Christians often quote 2 Chronicles 7:14 where God promises to remove His judgment “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”.   I get many emails quoting this Bible passage but none of them specify what is meant by turning from our wicked ways.   God’s judgment is not confined to abortion or to homosexuality or to disobeying the often questionable personal guidance that comes from God “speaking to” individuals.  Judgment comes for disobedience to His Commandments (His Law).

We have lost our nation to Moloch because we have allowed a foreign religion to change our laws legalizing the evils of abortion, homosexuality, murder, dishonesty, theft, injustice, war, genocide, hate, pugnacity, greed, torture and independence.   When a society allows its government to disobey God’s Law that society is on the road to ruin.

Freedom is not realized by abandoning government and allowing moral evil to run rampant, it is not a product of a lack of laws, nor can it be produced by intellectual endeavor.  Freedom is a result of obedience to the Commandments of our Creator.  Libertarians put the rational product of their minds above the Law of God.  They are not the only ones who believe their opinions are superior to God’s. Our society is full of legal standards, folkways, and mores that are at odds with God.  We are living in a cesspool created by our own vain laxity and many have not yet smelled the stench.

Rick Warren And Joel Osteen Acquiesce To Oprah

Is there no end to the lack of spiritual discernment within the Christian community?  Even some of our Church leaders are showing a startling lack of discernment.  And if we can’t trust our leaders to help us stay on the straight and narrow path, who can we trust?

On October 5^th, Southern Baptist preacher Rick Warren sat down with New Age/New Thought high priestess Oprah Winfrey for an interview.  Although Oprah claims to be a Christian she most assuredly is not as I clearly demonstrate here and here.  Joel Osteen, who is said to be “one of America’s most influential spiritual leaders,” appeared on the show prior to Warren to promote his new book, “I Declare: 31 Promises To Speak Over Your Life.”  Around 45,000 people attend Lakewood Church each Sunday to hear Osteen preach the word-faith prosperity gospel “lite.” It’s really not surprising that he was invited to appear on “Oprah’s Life Class.”  The duo has become fast friends ever since she and Tyler Perry attended a Lakewood service some months back.  They soon discovered how like-minded they are.  In fact, Osteen has this Oprahesque declaration on his website:

The words we speak set the course for our life. If you want to know what you’re going to be like in five years, listen to the words you are saying about yourself today.

Egads!

Osteen not only teaches a false gospel, he apparently has scant knowledge of the scriptures which is the main reason the man who pastors the largest megachurch in America is unaware that the Lord has called His followers to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Tm 2:15).

Rick Warren’s claim to fame is his books “The Purpose Driven Church” and “The Purpose Driven Life.” PDL is the best-selling hardback non-fiction book in American history and is translated into more than 50 languages.  By using modern marketing methods he helped lay the foundation for the Church Growth movement (CGM).  Largely due to the popularity of his purpose-driven books the CGM has spread through churches like a windstorm sweeping across the Great Plains, ushering in a “new paradigm” of transformational leadership to meet the challenge of the new century.   CGM “emphasizes mainly missionary work combined with sociological awareness of the target population.” In other words, it utilizes slick marketing techniques.  The object is to reach the “unchurched” using the age-old principle: You can draw more flies with honey than with vinegar.  Hence, the “seeker-sensitive” label.

Over the years Pastor Warren has become controversial, and rightly so, for a multitude of reasons which I’ve tackled here and here.  For one reason or another controversy continually swirls around “America’s Pastor.”  Still, he is highly regarded by many in the Christian community and likewise the press.   What’s stunning is that he’s often invited to speak at events with New Calvinist luminaries like John Piper, Mark Driscoll, James MacDonald and Matt Chandler.  Before I move on, I must bring to light influential Reformed theologian John Piper’s recent endorsement of Rick Warren.  Many of us in the discernment ministries were both surprised and troubled by his endorsement.  Christine Pack observed:

[Piper] gave his “stamp of approval” by having Warren be a keynote speaker at Dr. Piper’s annual Desiring God conference. This was an event that caught many in evangelicalism off guard and resulted in a flurry of articles and blog posts over a number of months. The problem with Dr. Piper welcoming Rick Warren into the fold is that Dr. Piper has long been known as a champion and protector of the purity of the gospel message. (Source)

Pastor celebrity James MacDonald was once asked to comment on the “seeker movement” and he replied, “The seeker movement [should be] subtitled: How to Fill Your Church with Tares.”  Later he publically affirmed Rick Warren in a tweet even knowing that the seeker movement that filled churches with heathens was the brain child of “possibility thinker” Robert Schuller.  His most recognized disciples are Bill Hybels and Rick Warren. Excuse me, but a shepherd’s duty is to point out error and guard the flock from wolves in sheep’s clothing, not to invite them into the sheep pen!

Sorry to digress.

Another prominent pastor who shares the stage with Rick Warren is Greg Laurie of Harvest Christian Fellowship, a Calvary Chapel in Riverside, CA.  Laurie is best known as the founder and featured speaker for Harvest Crusades.

So, what is going on in the visible Church?

Glad you asked.  In a word: syncretism. Syncretism occurs when elements of other religious beliefs are mashed into mainstream Protestant denominations. In a piece entitled Purpose Driven Dismantling of Christianity, I examined the effect syncretism has on the Church:

Satan uses syncretism to separate God from His people. God loathes syncretism:

“When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.” (Deuteronomy 12:29-31)

Grievous wolves (Acts 20:29) masquerading as evangelicals introduced false religious beliefs (abominations) into mainline churches. Many of them are forthcoming about what they’re doing, others not so much. Their main goal is … change. The plan (yes, they have a plan) is to dismantle historic orthodox Christianity and usher in a “new paradigm,” a “new kind of Christianity.”

Wolves are skillful at drawing people in. They’ve learned how to use TV, radio, the Worldwide Web, human potential seminars, psycho-therapeutic counseling, so-called Christian entertainment that includes movies, DVDs, books and music. Some believers are drawn in through political groups. As you can see, a whole host of lures are used to bait the hook.

Many professing Christians have accepted the blending of religious beliefs with no questions asked. They sit in churches where they’re not taught the truth but are fed a steady diet of half truths and outright lies! Jesus wanted those who believe in Him to read and understand the Word. “Sanctify them through thy truth,” He prayed. “Thy Word is truth!” (John 17:17 ) (Source)

Now, let’s get to my questions: Why did Rick Warren agree to do an interview with Oprah? Moreover, why would he want to be associated with word-faith heretic Joel Osteen?  We discover after the fact that he did not use the opportunity to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the lost, many of whom were tuned into the show.  No.  Instead he used his time with Oprah to pass on his sage advice to the audience, peppered with a few Bible quotes — taken out of context!

Former New Ager and astrologer Marcia Montenegro watched the 3 hours of live taping on Oprah’s Life class.  I think the following excerpt about what she observed clearly identifies the sort of pastor Rick Warren is:

Although Rick Warren has had New Age Dr. Oz at his church (along with a supposedly Christian doctor who also endorses some New Age practices), I was hoping he (RW) would somehow give the gospel in the midst of his motivational advice, but he never did. He used the imagery of a poker game to explain we are dealt certain cards, and then gave a teaching on this that sounded like moralistic self-help programs I’ve heard so many times, throwing in a few Bible quotes taken out of context or misquoted. It was something almost any New Ager could accept. God becomes a tool for self-improvement and success.

Warren referred to Jesus, but took scripture out of context and applied things said to believers to everyone. He also misused the Proverbs passage that says “as a man thinketh, so is he.” This passage is a famous passage misused by New Thought proponents and is used in “The Secret.”

What was really hard to watch is when a woman in Norway Skyped to say she realized she needed God but wanted to know who God is and she asked, “What should I do?” It was clear that she was ripe to hear the gospel and needed Jesus! It was a great opportunity to share the gospel with her, and at the same time, for Oprah to hear it. Instead of giving the gospel, Rick Warren seemed uncomfortable and finally just said something like, ‘Go to God and find your purpose.” It was a terrible moment! The woman looked surprised and sad, like she was expecting something else. I prayed for her later and am hoping that the many Christians who witnessed this will pray for her.

Not only that, but when Oprah referred to God, as she often did, Rick Warren agreed with her as though she was referring to the biblical God, which she was not. He even said a few times, “Oprah has a good point.” No, she never did! She was speaking totally out of her New Thought/New Age beliefs. I am grateful that RW recommended that people read the gospel of John. That was the best thing he said. (Read Marcia’s entire piece here)

Why do so many followers of Jesus Christ view Rick Warren as dangerous?  Evangelist Tony Miano’sindictment is blunt:

Plastic pastors transparent enough to see through, like Joel Osteen, are not as dangerous as Rick Warren. Modalistic moguls of the painfully-obvious-money-hungry prosperity movement, like T.D. Jakes, are not as dangerous as Rick Warren. Self-serving sorcerers of the false signs and wonders movement, like Todd Bentley, are not as dangerous as Rick Warren. No. None of the before-mentioned personalities or groups are all that dangerous because what you see is what you get. They all lack the ability to change their appearance to accommodate a change in environment. They lack the chameleon-like ability, the self-serving ability, to say what needs to be said in order to keep people in every camp liking them. 

Now listen to former Catholic Priest Richard Bennett:

Warren teaches that God ‘created the church to meet your five deepest needs’ just as the Roman Catholic Church says, ‘The Church is the mother of all believers.’ Warren, like Rome, has switched from obedience to the Word and Person of the Living God to submission to a church to achieve one’s needs. It is the oldest and cleverest temptation known to man. 

I’ll close with warning from the Lord Jesus:

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous [ferocious] wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?  Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.(Mat. 5:15-20)

Recommended:

Word of Faith articles—On Solid Rock Resources
Creating Community – Part 1: Purpose-Driven Change through Transformational Leadership–By Berit Kjos
James Sundquist’s rebuke to Desiring God participants regarding Rick Warren

Joel Osteen:
Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-ZTeOEG6a4&feature=related
Read: Joel Osteen and The Prosperity Gospel

Apocalyptic Fever Running High

Apocalyptic fever is running high.  A friend in the Bible Belt, who recently became “born again,” called me excitedly to tell me she was leaving me her house. “In case I suddenly vanish,” she confided.

Of course.  She would be raptured up and I, a hard core “One God” believer, would be left behind. How sweet of her to make preparations for the damned.

But the projected date for the rapture came and went and disappointed, my friend abandoned her new found religion. Not so fast for the 2012-er’s however.  The end of the world is still scheduled for December 21, 2012 according to those who buy into the Mayan prophecies, Planet X, Niburu, exponential solar flares –did I miss anything?

The scenarios are stunning—tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, as the world comes crashing down around us.

And should we awaken the morning of December 22 to find ourselves still alive, the ratcheting up of doomsday prophecies will deflate like a spent balloon.

And we just may find ourselves sucker-punched.

Lurking right under our noses is the specter of what may occur in 2013.  While another war in the Middle East and a global pandemic might pale in comparison with the cataclysmic changes promised by the 2012-ers, the result might be very close to the same thing. We may not see the hand of God reach down and pluck His faithful from this troubled planet, we may not see  benign aliens beam themselves down into our living rooms while the walls are imploding around us, but the effect of what the governments of the world have cooked  up may result in a similar upheaval.

The announcements that the global pandemic will hit in 2013 have hardly been ear splitting.  One has to be attentive to find these predictions, which are being made by such insiders as former Senators Jim Talent and Bob Graham (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2M0eZ9GAdc) both of the WMD center (http://www.wmdcenter.org/).  Also weighing in on the 2013 Big Bug scenario is Dr. Daniel Gerstein of the Department of Homeland Security. Gerstein made this prediction during a side event hosted by the US at the Biological Weapons Convention just last December.

And what would be the connection between a global pandemic and those attending to biological weapons, like Graham, Talent and Gerstein?

A parallel thread runs through this last decade, right alongside the events of 911 and the fallout from that event. The parallel thread pertains to the anthrax attacks, which took place only one week later. Our government responded to the attacks of 911 with a Draconian shift towards a top heavy surveillance society and a concomitant stripping of our civil liberties, all of which has  made us increasingly vulnerable to government intrusion and attack.  Emphasis on the word “attack.” The response to the anthrax mailings was to invest billions of dollars in a biological warfare program for which there is no transparency and no public oversight.

Since September of 2001, the U.S. government has pumped over 60 billion dollars into what it euphemistically terms “biodefense.” Let’s take a moment to consider what has gone into that program and what has come out the other end.  The concept of “dual use” is the first thing we must consider in order to understand what constitutes “biodefense.”  To put it simply, dual use means that you first have to create the bug in order to find the cure.

And our biodefense program is top heavy with bugs: ebola, marburg, anthrax, we got ‘em and we are secretly working to cut and splice natural horrors into recombinant nightmares.

And that brings us to the crux of the matter.  What goes on in these “biodefense” labs  are occluded by protestations of “national security.” The now defunct Sunshine Project, which was dedicated to   working “against the hostile use of biotechnology in the post-Cold War era,” found that there was little if  any oversight as to the types of research going on in these labs.  In 2007,  in a report submitted to the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce for the Hearing: Germs, Viruses, and Secrets: The Silent Proliferation of Bio-Laboratories in the United States, Sunshine Project Director Edward Hammond wrote the following: “Our research indicates that in the vast majority of cases, it is not possible to verify that federally funded research is properly overseen at the local level, nor are the local committees that are charged with overseeing this research actually required to produce meeting minutes or annual reports that demonstrate that they have fulfilled this charge.” Elsewhere in the report, he states that “lab expansion under the Bush administration has gone far beyond what is prudent and necessary, and without an adequate regulatory framework.”

In summary, Hammond blasted the biodefense industry and wrote “The proliferation of BSL-3 and BSL-4 laboratories across the United States since 2002 is greater than what our country needs and what its safety and security net can absorb. One-off NEPA processes are not sufficient or appropriate for this national-scale problem .Congress should impose a moratorium on federal funding for construction and commissioning of new biodefense labs. No new construction contracts should be issued, and no new labs should open until a comprehensive needs assessment is performed by the Government Accountability Office.”

One must ask what has come out of all these billions pumped into biodefense.  The answer is clouded. We do know that we have not even produced a second generation anthrax vaccine. The first generation anthrax vaccine was reputed to cause Gulf War Syndrome and other ills. A scientist working in a BSL-3 in Arizona proudly informed me recently that he has developed a smallpox vaccine that also cures herpes.  Awesome, bro…except we pretty much stomped out smallpox decades ago….

When informed of the plans for a new biodefense campus at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, local activists became alarmed.   Beth Willis, chairwoman of the Frederick County Containment Lab Advisory Committee and founder of Frederick Citizens for Biolab safety, has stated concerns that the plans for the Homeland Security lab at Detrick may be in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention.  The DHS facility has opened but is not yet fully operational. While some of the Frederick activists have stopped short of declaring that the US has indeed launched an offensive biological weapons program, others are not so shy. Barry Kissin, an attorney and activist in Frederick has stated that the US is now illegally producing and stockpiling biological weapons.

In order to produce biological weapons you must first have a lab, properly outfitted for the seriousness of bug you are working with. The labs are designated from BSL-1 through 5, with the 3’s and 4’s housing the most dangerous bugs known to man. The 5′s purportedly deal with space bugs, although you wouldn´t ever hear that from the CDC. That agency recently responded to a FOIA Request about the containment specifications for the 5’s, stating that these records were not in their office. The CDC, which has the responsibility for tracking these bugs and registering the labs, is furiously shoveling out disinfo about the proliferations of 3’s and 4’s ,   tripping over itself in its eagerness to convince us that there are no more BSL-3 and 4 labs than before 911.

In fact, the proliferation of these labs has been astounding. There are at least 1360 BSL-3′s at this juncture, according to documents released by the DOJ and DOE  (although the CDC insists the number is closer to 250).  The CDC can only count as far as six when it comes to BSL-4s, although independent sources, such as the Federation for American Scientists, have come up with a head count of 13. Factor in the existence of secret labs on military bases, evidenced by the C.V.’s of a couple of engineering firms which proudly state that they constructed BSL-4s on at least two  bases, and the numbers of these labs , like Topsy, just keep on growing.

If a global pandemic should hit in 2013, the chances are good that we will have caused it through the release of a biological weapon that has been cooked up in one of these labs. The similarities between what is now happening in the US and what happened in Germany in the thirties are perturbing: A false flag event used to topple our civil rights and a project to poison us with …well, this time it won’t be Zyklon- B.

If our government learned anything from the mistakes made by Adolph Hitler, it was to keep appearances up.  The public image maintained by the United States is that of freedom and justice. The image is straining due to the weight of evidence to the contrary, and the more evidence that accumulates the higher pitched are the denials being issued by the State.

This reporter has been working off information provided by a high level source back in 2003, when he confided that the State of Israel would be destroyed around the time that the bugs were selectively released.   Israel, you say?  You thought Israel was pulling the strings all along, did you?

Israel was very likely set up to be destroyed.  A haven for the Jews after the horrific events of WWII and the holocaust morphed into a ghetto for those far- flung in the diaspora.  Forty percent of the world’s Jews now reside in Israel. A well placed missile or two and you’ve gotten rid of 7,848,800 people–approximately 5,865,300 are Jews.  Hitler will be high- fiving from the seventh circle of Hell.

The government of Israel is just itching to get into this war with Iran, a war for which Israel is poorly prepared, defensively speaking.  The much touted  “Iron dome”, Israel’s primary missile defense system, only works for incoming projectiles that are launched from nearby, like Gaza.  Israel is largely unprotected from a fly- over. Factor in the state- of- the- art S-300 defense system possessed by Iran, and the odds that Israel will survive this war appear to be almost non- existent.

Israel wiped off the map due to all the trouble fomented by the United States in the Middle East, culminating with a manufactured war with Iran and then a fatal bug, released through a selective mechanism such as the double line water system (http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2007/05/10214.php) or the imposter pharmaceuticals— and  there you have the makings of another  holocaust, all done under the mantle of plausible deniability.  The US comes out squeaky clean, as it scampers to innoculate its citizenry with vaccinations which may serve to further reduce its population, while insisting that all along, we tried to support Israel.

The hell, you say. The Zionists run the world! Well, yes and no. If the Zionists are the same guys, heavily anti-Semitic, (such as Mark Sykes and Otto Rand, ) who set up the State of Israel in order to lure the world’s Jews into that alleged haven—a desert mirage– so that Boom! Then yes, those Zionists may indeed run the world. And some of those Zionists are Jews. The Jews are ill informed as to the traitors within their midst, the same sort of saboteurs as Stephen Wise, head of the US Jewish Congress during WWII.  Wise lobbied heavily to keep the Eastern European Jews from immigrating to the United States, thus ensuring they would be unable to escape Hitler’s death machine. This reporter has had her own skirmishes with duplicitous leadership in the Jewish community, some of which are discussed in this article.

And please, don’t get me wrong. The Jews are certainly not the only ones on the chopping block. When the dust clears, after the Big Bug strikes, we will likely see a world divested of much of its people of color. This is already happening.

Africa is being emptied out by AIDS.  Dark- skinned people are also now experiencing an epidemic of the “silent killers” of diabetes and hypertension, believed to be a product of a biological weapon leaked into food and attaching onto melanin (those with darker skin have more melanin). According to Dr. Trudy Gaillard, a researcher and with the Wexner Medical Center, about 12% of African Americans are now diagnosed with diabetes, three times as many as reported in 1980.  The actual figures may be quite a bit higher. If you look at the statistics for African American women over the age of 55, 25% are now diagnosed with diabetes.  The numbers are also up for other dark- skinned groups, such as indigenous Mexicans and Pacific Islanders.

Dr. Wouter Basson, who sailed through the South African Truth and Reconciliation hearings, was under scrutiny for his work with Project Coast, which was the apartheid government’s biological weapons group.  Basson was purportedly working on developing a “blacks only” bioweapons back in the 1980’s  The epidemic of diabetes and hypertension among people of color began to surface shortly thereafter. Was Basson successful in creating this race specific bioweapons? He ain’t talking.

And, as a writer-friend in Los Angeles once noted, “Anyone who will sell out his brother for his own safety gets to sit at the table.” The resonant and beautiful voices of resistance may also succumb to the selectively delivered Big Bug.  How convenient and diabolical this plan is.  Any problem person, any out- of -favor demographic group, and our beneficent government utilities and/or Big Pharma will provide the final solution. No recriminations and no onus of responsibility. No Nuremberg Trials, no Truth and Reconciliation Commission and no one pointing the finger at anything except a wayward microbe, an accident of nature.

Just a whole lot of burying to do and the world made over, in a different image: Obedient and lily white. A Nazi’s wet dream.

The Biological Weapons Convention will meet twice this year in Geneva for intersessional meetings.  I hope to be able to attend in an effort to impact the direction of the above cited course of events. I need your help to do so. Please visit janetphelan.com to contribute for travel expenses via PayPal.  At the BWC in December, I blew the whistle on the illegal biological weapons program being run by the United States government. It was a good beginning and so much more needs to be done. The time is short.

A Simple Explanation of Scofield Dispensationalism

A flaw foundation lies under most evangelicals’ understanding of God’s moral dealings with humanity and particularly Jews. This foundation drives their support of the Jewish state. It is called “Scofield Dispensationalism.” It says that throughout successive epics, or “dispensations,” of time God has revealed Himself through extremely different moral standards. The law given before the Flood was different from the law after. The law given to Moses is completely different from what we now observe in the millennia after Christ. Cyrus Scofield lived at the turn of the 20th century and created an annotated Bible which claimed to lay out each dispensation’s unique requirements.

Scofield’s commentaries have greatly influenced evangelicals to this day. Written at the dawn of the modern Zionist movement, they suggested a nation of suffering and persecuted Jews, though Christ-rejecting, had a divine right to return and occupy Palestine.  This idea was virtually absent from Christianity before the mid-1800s. How did such permission gain so great a foothold that it’s now unquestioned dogma for most evangelicals?

It starts with a defect in the King James Bible. King James scholars mistranslated 2 Thess. 2:7.

For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only He who now letteth [restrains] will let, until He be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming…

The actual New Testament Greek says the one who restrains, the Holy Spirit, is not passively removed. Instead He “gets out of the way” or “steps aside” (ek meseu genetai). The Holy Spirit is never going to be taken out of this world. God owns the world. He is not about to be removed by a mere satanically inhabited man, Anti-Christ.

For hundreds of years Christians were unbothered by the King James Bible’s error. Yet in the first half of the 19th century, a Scottish Presbyterian minister, Edward Irving, seized on the mistranslated passage. He saw its profound prophetic implications. He said that since the Holy Spirit would be removed from this world just prior to revealing of Anti-Christ, so Christ’s church must also be removed, for Christians cannot function without the Holy Spirit. That removal is described, they said, in 1 Thess. 4:16.

For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. . .”

Clearly, said Irving and his later disciple, John Nelson Darby, these passages from II Thessalonians suggest two second comings of Christ: the first, when Christ descends and removes the Holy Spirit and all believers, both dead and living unto Himself. Then, three and half, He comes a second time. In His final second coming He converts remnant Jews, judges the nations, and begins His thousand-year reign on earth from Jerusalem.

The Beginnings of “Pre-Tribulationism”

Irving and Darby’s “prophetic breakthrough” had an electric appeal to evangelical Christians, particularly in the British Isles and North America. It assured Christians that, “raptured,” they would not have to endure the suffering that follows revealing of Anti-Christ. Thus began the “pre-tribulationist” interpretation of Bible prophecy. It started with a mistranslation of one verse by King James scholars. Incredibly, that disastrous mistranslation is repeated in most modern translations of the Bible.

Enter Cyrus Scofield.  He did not originate the pre-tribulationist rapture craze that has enthralled evangelicals and made millionaires of “prophecy experts” such as Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye. Yet Scofield did something far more damaging: he laid the keel of Christian Zionism. He taught that, under the dispensation Abraham was in, God gave the patriarch and his physical descendants unconditional rights as God’s chosen people. They were guaranteed the Promised Land and rights of occupation, even without obedience. Scofield said Israelites automatically receive “all blessings” by just being there.

Yet Scofield said Jacob and his sons, during world famine, unwisely left security in Palestine and went to Egypt. In doing so, he claims, they lost their ability to please God by simply staying in the Holy Land. Scofield contends that, even worse, they foolishly accepted the Mosaic Law at Sinai 400 years later. The Law imposed on them an onerous obligation to obey God on penalty of exile. Such conditional terms of occupation, Scofield said, didn’t exist under the “pure grace” that Abraham and his descendants enjoyed while in Palestine. (See, List of Conditional Salvation/Occupation Verses)

Scofield said of the dispensation and covenant Abraham enjoyed:

That covenant is wholly gracious and unconditional. The descendants of Abraham had but to abide in their own land to inherit every blessing. In Egypt they lost their blessings, but not their covenant. The dispensation of promise ended when Israel rashly accepted the Law (Ex. 19:8). Grace had prepared a deliverer (Moses), provided a sacrifice for the guilty, and by divine power had brought them out of bondage (Ex. 19:4); but at Sinai they exchanged grace for law. (Scofield Reference Bible, 1909, page 20)

Scofield conveniently omits the biblical record that God powerfully delivered Jacob and his sons from death by famine, providing safe haven for them under Joseph’s protection in Egypt. Similarly, God commanded the Hebrews at Sinai to obey the Mosaic Law. Scofield’s idea that simply staying in Canaan guaranteed to Hebrews “every blessing” is an affront to God’s timeless moral standards which say that in every age we are justified by trusting and obeying God. Only through such faith do we inherit “every blessing” from Him. Scofield’s view of the sanctifying power of the Holy Land, even for reprobate Jews, powerfully anticipated the teachings of the most extreme present day Israel-firsters who believe Jews to be so morally advantaged that they have a separate covenant of salvation and land rights without obedience to Christ.

Yet, Scofield said, when Jesus came and died at Calvary, God returned to a dispensation entirely of grace. This, by inference, means to millions of evangelical readers of the Scofield Bible that our present “age of grace” does away with the requirement of dozens of Old Testament verses demanding obedience for Jews to occupy Palestine.

Scofield, as no other figure, legitimized Christian participation in a Jewish political movement: Zionism. Evangelicals then united pretribulationism and its “rapture escapism” with Zionism. The new prophetic script for Christians read like this:

The right of God’s dispersed and persecuted chosen people to the Promised Land is covenanted to them by God unconditionally, forever. It is the duty of every Christian to honor God’s great last day’s regathering of His people, bidding them godspeed by any possible means. If any nation or person refuses to stand by God and the Jewish nation, he is in league with Satan.

Satan desires above all things to obscure the fact that Israel makes possible fulfillment of biblical prophecy that empowers Jesus to return as predicted. Without Israel’s existence and the hundreds of prophecies it fulfills, Christ cannot return. Christ stated clearly that “it must needs be that Scripture be fulfilled” before He could go forward with God’s plan.

Criticizing the state of Israel is thus to oppose the Almighty. It is to curse the Jewish people, incurring dire judgment. “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you…” (Genesis 12:3)  

In accordance with an end-times storyline created by Darby, Irving and Scofield, Zionist evangelicals now keenly watch Israel for necessary fulfillment of the following Scriptural predictions:

1. Rebuilding a Jewish temple. The new temple is necessary because Scripture says anti-Christ must profane it and sit in it proclaiming himself to be god. Without such a temple and its defilement, Christ cannot return as He predicted.
2. Israel enters a “covenant” or peace treaty with Anti-Christ.
   Once such a covenant has taken place, Daniel’s prophetic “clock” of a “week” or seven years leading to Christ’s second second coming will begin to tick.

The problem, however, for pretribulationists is this: If the church is to be raptured when the anti-Christ is “revealed,” what does Scripture mean by that term? Does it mean “revealed” as in anti-Christ signing a peace treaty with Israel or “revealed” such as occurs in the middle of Daniel’s week when anti-Christ manifests himself as the enemy of the Jews, bringing his armies against Jerusalem (Ez. 38). At that time, he desecrates the temple, kills two thirds of Jerusalem’s inhabitants, and exiles the remainder to the nations. Also, since most evangelicals believe Christ could come in his first second coming and rapture us out without preconditons, perhaps we will not even have to wait for the “revealing” of Anti-Christ at all.

Clearly, the Zionist evangelical prophetic scenario at this point becomes very clouded. But it is not at all clouded up to that point. The pretribulationist view point could not be simpler in its obligations: Dark as the world may become, if the church above all things makes sure to bless Israel, it will be blessed and kept safe. Jesus will be faithful to take out true believers before anything resembling great tribulation begins. In reality, nothing could be more unbiblical, corruptive to the church and the Jewish people, and ultimately dangerous to Christianity than building up that Zionist one-world system of oppression Scripture calls Babylon the Great. (See, ‘Babylon the Great’ is Israel)

Pre-tribulationism is thus escapism. Calvinists also very largely adhere to this idea.  It fits well with their belief that once we are soundly “born again” we are always saved, even if committing the grossest sin. If we as citizens fail in our duty to occupy and resist evil, this Calvinist/pretribulationist theology says Jesus understands. He will not require us to bear the consequences of our neglect. We will soon be gone. The consequences will be passed on to those of our children who are not born again, not fortunate enough to be raptured.

Of course, Scripture does promise a first resurrection or “rapture” of the dead and living of Christ at His second coming. Yet a high percentage of evangelicals actually believe the rapture will occur within several years. What’s the point of knocking ourselves out opposing evil, especially as Jewish big media corrupts our children…because very soon we’ll be in heaven? (See, Jews Confirm Big Media is Jewish)

We clearly see such apathy right now as ABC gores the church through its Christian-bashing sitcom “Good Christian Bitches.” But there is a virtual absence of Christian willingness to publicly oppose it. This largely originates in the ingrained belief that, if the power of evil proves too great, Christ no longer expects us to be the salt of the earth, resisting evil with all that is within us. Instead, we should buckle up for heavenly removal.

Yet Jesus said that the church would not be taken out of tribulation. Instead, He said, “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” (John 16:33) In China before 1949 a highly evangelized Chinese population also accepted pre-tribulationism, believing the church had little to fear from “anti-Christ” Mao Tse Tung and his armies. They would be raptured before great tribulation came. Yet deliverance for millions of pre-tribulationist Chinese came not through rapture, but death.

One of the paramount reasons Christians must understand how the church has gone so far astray is so we may marshal ourselves to hold back anti-Christian offensives leading to persecution. “Good Christian Bitches” is one such offensive that simply must not remain unopposed. If it is, it will only beget worse attacks, leading to outright persecution. Someday, if the church remains apathetic and pre-tribulationist like the Chinese Christians, American Christians will be standing in front of firing squads. They are about to be taken out of this world, not out of the mercy of the rapture, but the “mercy” of a bullet.

Source: Truth Tellers

Iraq. Began With Big Lies. Ending With Big Lies. Never forget

“Most people don’t understand what they have been part of here,” said Command Sgt. Major Ron Kelley as he and other American troops prepared to leave Iraq in mid-December. “We have done a great thing as a nation. We freed a people and gave their country back to them.”

“It is pretty exciting,” said another young American soldier in Iraq. “We are going down in the history books, you might say.” (Washington Post, December 18, 2011)

Ah yes, the history books, the multi-volume leather-bound set of “The Greatest Destructions of One Country by Another.” The newest volume can relate, with numerous graphic photos, how the modern, educated, advanced nation of Iraq was reduced to a quasi failed state; how the Americans, beginning in 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one dubious excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the government, tortured without inhibition, killed wantonly, … how the people of that unhappy land lost everything — their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women’s rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives … More than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile … The air, soil, water, blood, and genes drenched with depleted uranium … the most awful birth defects … unexploded cluster bombs lying anywhere in wait for children to pick them up … a river of blood running alongside the Euphrates and Tigris … through a country that may never be put back together again.

“It is a common refrain among war-weary Iraqis that things were better before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003,” reported the Washington Post on May 5, 2007.

No matter … drum roll, please … Stand tall American GI hero! And don’t even think of ever apologizing or paying any reparations. Iraq is forced by Washington to continue paying reparations to Kuwait for Iraq’s invasion in 1990 (an invasion instigated in no small measure by the United States). And — deep breath here! — Vietnam has been compensating the United States. Since 1997 Hanoi has been paying off about $145 million in debts left by the defeated South Vietnamese government for American food and infrastructure aid. Thus, Hanoi is reimbursing the United States for part of the cost of the war waged against it. (William Blum, Rogue State, p.304) How much will the United States pay the people of Iraq?

On December 14, at the Fort Bragg, North Carolina military base, Barack Obama stood before an audience of soldiers to speak about the Iraq war. It was a moment in which the president of the United States found it within his heart and soul — as well as within his oft-praised (supposed) intellect — to proclaim:

This is an extraordinary achievement, nearly nine years in the making. And today, we remember everything that you did to make it possible. … Years from now, your legacy will endure. In the names of your fallen comrades etched on headstones at Arlington, and the quiet memorials across our country. In the whispered words of admiration as you march in parades, and in the freedom of our children and grandchildren. … So God bless you all, God bless your families, and God bless the United States of America. … You have earned your place in history because you sacrificed so much for people you have never met.

Does Mr. Obama, the Peace Laureate, believe the words that come out of his mouth?

Barack H. Obama believes only in being the President of the United States. It is the only strong belief the man holds.

Items of interest from a journal I’ve kept for 40 years, part VI

• If the US really believed in 2002-3 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction why did they send in more than 100,000 troops, who were certain to be annihilated?
• In a letter released August 17, 2006, 21 former generals and high ranking national security officials called on President George W. Bush to reverse course and embrace a new area of negotiation with Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. The group told reporters Bush’s “hard line” policies had undermined national security and made America less safe.
• Throughout most of the 20th century, the Catholic Church in Latin America taught its flocks of the poor that there was no need to do battle with the ruling elite because the poor would get their just rewards in the afterlife.
• The US overthrew the Sandinistas in Nicaragua because the Sandinistas “intended to create a country where there was only a colony before.” — Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer
• “[George W.] Bush said last week that part of the purpose of the Indonesia trip ‘is to make sure that the people who are suspicious of our country understand our motives are pure’.” (Washington Post, October 22, 2003)
• “Wars may be aberrant experiences in the lives of most human individuals, but some nations are serial aggressors. American society is unique in having been formed almost wholly by processes of aggression against external and internal Others.” — The Black Commentator, June 8, 2006
• President Obama should accompany the military people when they inform parents that their child has died in the latest of America’s never-ending wars. And maybe ask George W. to come along as well.
• During the Vietnam War some University of Michigan students created a brouhaha when they threatened to napalm a puppy dog on the steps of a campus building. The uproar of indignation at their cruelty was heard nationwide. Of course, when the time came they didn’t do it, having successfully made the point that people cared more about napalming a dog than they did about napalming people.
• “It’s a lie and an illusion that we have an inefficient government. This government is only inefficient if you think its job is, as stated in the Constitution, ‘to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.’ These objectives are beyond our government’s talents only because they are beyond its intentions.” — Michael Ventura
• “Get some new lawyers” – US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook when he told her he was informed that the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 (which Albright championed) was illegal under international law.
• The two countries of the world, along with the United States, which have the greatest national obsession with baseball are two of the main targets of US foreign policy: Venezuela and Cuba.
• The Cuban Five case: This is the first case in American history of alleged spying and espionage without a single page from a secret document. The government never presented any evidence of a stolen official document or any attempt to steal an official document. This is the first spy case without secrets from the government. (Read more)
• “If a bomb is deliberately dropped on a house or a vehicle on the grounds that a ‘suspected terrorist’ is inside, the resulting deaths of women and children may not be intentional. But neither are they accidental. The proper description is ‘inevitable’. So if an action will inevitably kill innocent people, it is as immoral as a deliberate attack on civilians.” — Howard Zinn
• “The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Saturday to impose limited sanctions on North Korea for its recent missile tests, and demanded that the reclusive communist nation suspend its ballistic missile program.” (Associated Press, July 15, 2006) … Internet commentator: “Test some missiles that land harmlessly in the ocean? Unanimous condemnation. Fire some missiles at targets on land, kill hundreds of people, and destroy hundreds of civilian targets including power plants, airports, roads, bridges, TV stations, etc., all in violation of the Geneva Convention? Hey, no problem.”
• For some nine years, American B-52 bombers relentlessly dropped tons of ordnance on a southeast Asian country (Vietnam) that still cultivated rice fields using draft animals.
• “The messianism of American foreign policy is a remarkable thing. When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaks it seems like Khrushchev reporting to the party congress: ‘The whole world is marching triumphantly toward democracy but some rogue states prefer to stay aside from that road, etc. etc’.” — Natalia Narochnitskaya, vice chairman of the international affairs committee in the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament. (Washington Post, April 3, 2006)
• Washington … Propagandistan
• The bulldozer, driven by an Israeli army soldier on assignment to demolish a home, rolled over Rachel Corrie, who was 23 years old. She had taken a nonviolent position for human rights; she lost her life as a result. But she was rarely praised in the same US media outlets that had gone into raptures over the image of a solitary unarmed man standing in front of Chinese tanks at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre. — Norman Solomon
• American sovereignty hasn’t faced a legitimate foreign threat to its existence since the British in 1812.
• There are two major patterns in foreign policy: the rule of force or the rule of law. On February 8, 1819 the US decided, after a very long debate in the House, to reject the rule of law in foreign policy. The vote was 100 to 70 against requiring the Congress to approve illegal invasions of other countries or peoples. This pertained to the “Seminole War”, actually the invasion of Florida. Since then every president has had the right to “defend America”, code words for the use of force against whomever he chooses. — Kelly Gelgering

Happy New Year. Here’s what to look forward to.

JANUARY 22: Congress passes a law requiring that all persons arrested in anti-war demonstrations be sterilized. House Speaker John Boehner declares it is “God’s will”. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says she supports the law but that she has some reservation because there’s no provision for a right of appeal.

FEBRUARY 15: Ron Paul assassinated by man named Oswald Harvey.

FEBRUARY 18: Oswald Harvey, while in solitary confinement and guarded round the clock by 1200 policemen and the entire 3rd Army Brigade, is killed by man named Ruby Jackson.

FEBRUARY 26: Ruby Jackson suddenly dies in prison of a rare Asian disease heretofore unknown in the Western Hemisphere.

MARCH 6: US President Hopey Changey announces new draconian sanctions against Iran, Syria, North Korea, Pakistan, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba, declaring that they all possess weapons of mass destruction, are an imminent threat to the United States, have close ties to al Qaeda and the Taliban, are aiding Islamic terrorists in Somalia, were involved in 9-11, played a role in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the attack on Pearl Harbor, do not believe in God or American Exceptionalism, and are all “really bad guys”.

APRIL 1: Military forces overthrow Evo Morales in Bolivia. US State Department decries the loss of democracy.

APRIL 2: US recognizes the new Bolivian military junta, sells it 100 jet fighters and 200 tanks.

APRIL 3: Revolution breaks out in Bolivia endangering the military junta; 40,000 American marines are sent to La Paz to quell the uprising.

APRIL 8: Dick Cheney announces from his hospital bed that the United States has finally discovered caches of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — “So all those doubters can now just go ‘F’ themselves.” The former vice-president, however, refuses to provide any details of the find because, he says, to do so might reveal intelligence sources or methods.

APRIL 10: ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, General Electric, General Motors, AT&T, Ford, and IBM merge to form “Free Enterprise, Inc.”

APRIL 16: Free Enterprise, Inc. seeks to purchase Guatemala and Haiti. Citigroup refuses to sell.

APRIL 18: Free Enterprise, Inc. purchases Citigroup.

MAY 5: The Democratic Party changes its name to the Republican Lite Party, and announces the opening of a joint bank account with the Republicans so that corporate lobbyists need make out only one check. In celebration of the change the new party calls for eliminating the sales tax on yachts.

MAY 11: China claims to have shot down an American spy plane over the center of China. State Department categorically denies the story.

MAY 12: State Department admits that an American plane may have “inadvertently” strayed 2,000 miles into China, but denies that it was a spy plane.

MAY 13: State Department admits that the plane may have been a spy plane but denies that it was piloted by a US government employee.

MAY 14: State Department admits that the pilot was a civilian employee of a Defense Department contractor but denies that China exists.

JUNE 11: Homeland Security announces plan to collect the DNA at birth of every child born in the United States.

JULY 1: The air in Los Angeles reaches so bad a pollution level that the rich begin to hire undocumented workers to breathe for them.

AUGUST 6: The Justice Department announces that six people have been arrested in New York in connection with a plan to bomb the United Nations, the Empire State Building, the Times Square subway station, Madison Square Garden, and Lincoln Center.

AUGUST 7: Charges are dropped against four of “The New York Six” when it is determined that they are FBI agents.

AUGUST 16: At a major demonstration in Washington, the Tea Party demands an end to all government expenditures. They also warn Congress not to touch Social Security or Medicare.

AUGUST 26: Texas executes a 16-year-old girl for having an abortion and a 12-year-old boy for possession of marijuana.

SEPTEMBER 3: The Labor Department announces that Labor Day will become a celebration of America’s gratitude to its corporations, a day dedicated to the memory of J.P. Morgan and Pinkerton strike breakers killed in the line of duty.

SEPTEMBER 12: The draft is reinstated for males and females, ages 16 to 45. Those who are missing a limb or are blind can apply for non-combat roles.

SEPTEMBER 14: Riots breaks out in 24 American cities in protest of the new draft. 200,000 American troops are brought home from Afghanistan, Iraq, and 25 other countries to put down the riots.

SEPTEMBER 28: The Tea Party calls for giving embryos the vote.

OCTOBER 19: Cops the world over form a new association, Policemen’s International Governing Society. PIGS announces that its first goal will be to mount a campaign against the notion that a person is innocent until proven guilty, in those countries where the quaint notion still dwells.

NOVEMBER 8: The turnout for the US presidential election is 9.6%. The voting ballots are all imprinted: “From one person, one vote, to one dollar, one vote.” The winner is “None of the above”.

NOVEMBER 11: US prison population reaches 2.5 million. It is determined that at least 70 percent of the prisoners would not have been incarcerated a century ago, for the acts they committed were then not criminal violations.

DECEMBER 3: Supreme Court rules that police may search anyone if they have reasonable grounds for believing that the person has pockets.

DECEMBER 16: The Occupy Movement sets up a tent on the White House lawn. An hour later a missile fired from a drone leaves but a thin wisp of smoke.

Madam Jane Predicts: American Wars Will Cause Deadly Climate Change

I just had a dream that it was the end of the world. So should I still go Christmas shopping or not?  Why bother, I thought.  But just to be on the safe side, I also asked the mysterious psychic Madam Jane for some input.  “Are my dreams and the Mayan calendars and all those Rapture freaks right?  Is the end of the world actually on its way?  Are we really all gonna die soon?”

“Yes of course,” replied Madam Jane.

Oh dear.

“The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is mounting at a catastrophic rate and will cause irreversibly-disastrous climate change in the next five years — and by far the biggest cause of this problem is the U.S. military and its allies.  Every time NATO bombs Libya and Americans bomb Pakistan and Israel bombs Gaza or a helicopter takes off in Afghanistan or a U.S. carrier fleet steams toward Syria and the Persian Gulf, we move one step closer to irreversible climate change,” stated Madam Jane, swaying back and forth with her eyes closed.

“Would it help at all if I had my car smog-checked today?” I then asked her hopefully.  Madame Jane just rolled her eyes.   “We’re doomed,” she replied.

So.  How do I want to spend my last days here on Earth?  Not a clue.  If you knew that seven billion people had approximately five years to live before climate-change-caused floods started pouring in from our rivers, and deserts started taking over our farmlands and oceans started drowning our coastal cities and a dreadful ice age started to set in, what would you do?

“I’d move to Hawaii,” replied Madam Jane.  Not me.  I’d buy hip-waders, ear muffs and really warm coats.

PS:  According to a recent AlterNet article entitled “Game Over for Planet Earth,” we’re all gonna be fried like fish in a skillet first before we even get a chance to freeze to death or drown.

      AlterNet says, “[Here's a] prediction offered by Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency:  Without an effective international agreement to staunch greenhouse gases within five years, the door will close on preventing a potentially disastrous rise in the planet’s temperature.”

PPS:  Madam Jane’s ominous-sounding and doom-like claim that irreversible climate change is only five years away is actually erroneous.  And AlterNet’s five-year claim is wrong too.  According to the Christian Science Monitor, irreversible climate change is already here.

“Even if all the world’s smokestacks and tailpipes were to suddenly stop spewing CO2, if all the trees everywhere were to be left standing, and if all the remaining coal, oil, and gas were to stay in the ground [and the American war-machine would suddenly stop spewing CO2 like there's no tomorrow as well], the planet would still be feeling the effects of global warming a millennium from now.”

PPPS:  How can we keep cheering on American wars abroad — without bringing those wars back home to us too, like the recent violent shootings in Oakland and the recent pepper-spraying at U.C. Davis?

My Christmas shopping may just have to wait.

EXTRA!  EXTRA!  Madam Jane also predicts that the “American war” on Iran is about to happen too!

Remember back when, long before the war on Iraq was declared, millions of tons of war material was being amassed at various East Coast military bases here in the U.S.?  Well, Madam Jane states that they are at it again.  “Long endless lines of container trucks are currently pouring into supply depots all over the East Coast.”  Oops.

Plus America’s bottom-kissing “yellow journalism” media is already geared up to make Iran look like the ultimate bad guy — just as it did right before Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq.

And not only that but, according to Middle East specialist David Pratt, the video game Battlefield 3 has just come out with a brand new version — starring good old Iran as the penultimate evil villain.  It just doesn’t get any more “War Profiteers Gone Crazy” than that!

And when Iran does get attacked, just THINK of all the air pollution that will be released!  Good grief.  Then Battlefield 3 will have to put out an even newer version — featuring deadly hand-to-hand combat with radioactive smog.

Zion’s Zealots: A Book Review and Nailing of Christian Fundamentalism

Many American Christian Evangelicals interpreted the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the return of the Jews to the Hebrews ancient homeland as a precondition for the Second Coming of Christ.

Millions of Americans believe in the theology espoused in the “Left Behind” series of novels that chronicle apocalyptic times set in the 21st century that winds up in Israel where, according to the author’s understanding of the Book of Revelation, the final battle in the world will be fought on an ancient battlefield called Armageddon. These literalists believe that war will be followed by seven years of global tribulation before Jesus returns to begin a 1,000-year rule on earth; but the Jews and all others who do not believe Jesus is God will be annihilated.

The bottom and nearly the last line in the book of Revelation is this warning:

“I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues which are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are written in this book.

These fundamentalists also believe that the only Jews who are following God are the hard line Jewish fundamentalist settlers who occupy legally owned Palestinian property in the West Bank and who were evacuated from Gaza in 2005. The Jewish settlers and Christian fundamentalists share the core conviction that God made a real estate deal with the ancient Hebrews that gives 21st century Jews every grain of sand between the Dead Sea, the Jordan River, and the Mediterranean.

My first book, KEEP HOPE ALIVE counters the theology found in the Left Behind series and the fictional character, Brother Harold nails this particular fundamentalist misunderstanding in Chapter 8

Harold lifted his almost empty pouch of Crown Royal and exclaimed, “Let’s toast the man, and then I’ll tell you what my daddy told me when I was a kid, when my brothers and I would get out of hand. He’d say, ‘boys, you all are going the way of Cain and Abel, and you’d better quit. For one of those boys was filled with so much hatred and jealousy that he killed the other.’

“Then my old man would be on a roll, and he’d tell us about Sarah, Abraham’s wife. And we loved to hear that part, so we’d quit our fight. You see, although Sarah was already menopaused, she still desired a child. God had even shared a laugh with her about it coming true, but just like a woman, she took the matter into her own hands, and refused to wait for the Lord to deliver. So old Sarah decided to give her maidservant to her old man, and that chick and Abraham made a kid. Everything was fine when Ishmael arrived, but only for a very short while.

“Now, although Sarah was a dried-up old crone, she, too, birthed a son, and named him after the laughter she had shared with God, but called the kid Isaac. Sarah had gotten very territorial and demanded Abraham cast out his beloved first son with his mama Haggar, into the barren wilderness, and Abraham did it! But, as God always hears the cries of mothers and sons, he promised to make a great nation from Ishmael’s descendants, too. And thus, the Arab nation was born.

“By the sixth century before Christ, the conflicts in the land were already old news, and Jeremiah warned the people that all God could see was violence and destruction in the city. Sickness and wounds were all around.

“And then my old man would get tears in his eyes and softly recite:

“For every misunderstanding, every condemning thought, every negative vibration, every tear torn from a heart, every time one grabbed and wouldn’t let go, and they only did it because they did not know. The Divine is within all creation and within all women and men.

“And every tiny kindness you have ever done, every gentle word spoken, every time you held your tongue, every positive thought, every smile freely given, every helping hand that opens, helps bring in the kingdom. And the kingdom comes from above, and it comes from within. Imagine a kingdom of sisterhood of all creatures and all men.”

Dr. Rev. Stephen Sizer is an Anglican priest from the UK and internationally recognized Biblical authority regarding Christian Zionism.

In ZION’S CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS? Sizer sheds much needed light on how Jesus/The Prince of Peace- who commanded of his followers that they must forgive their enemies and love all people equally- has morphed into a militant crusader by many professing Christians.

Sizer’s timely focus on the Holy Land, in particular Jerusalem, The Temple and the future of the world juxtaposed with the current political climate and neo-con ideology could wake up many American Christians who have been led astray by the heretical teachings of John Hagee, Hal Lindsay and Tim LaHaye.

The vast majority of American Christians are unaware that since 1948, the indigenous Christian population of the land we call Holy has gone from 20% of the total population to less than 1.3% today.

Scholars and researches claim that unless things change asap, there will be no Christian witness in the land where Jesus promised that it is the Peacemakers who are the children of God by 2020!

“It is irresponsible to suggest that God will bless us materially if we support the largely secular State of Israel, especially when this invariably means ignoring the plight of the indigenous Christian population of Palestine.”-page 46, Zion’s Christian Soldiers

Sizer’s previous book Christian Zionism-Road Map to Armageddon? is the companion text to ZION’S CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS? which details how a cultish escapist theology fused with neo-con political ideology which has lead millions of US Christians astray as it tips the world on its side heavy with military artillery.

“Zion’s Christian Soldiers” utilizes easy to comprehend diagrams and thought provoking end of chapter questions that could help bring American Bible Study programs into the 21st Century and infuse them with a much needed breath of fresh air.

Having been to Israel Palestine seven times since June 2005, I highly recommend Sizer’s scholarly yet easy to comprehend work to all Christians who have the courage to face reality and reclaim the gospel Jesus taught which is The Peacemakers are the children of God.

Sizer’s struggle is also intended to provoke Christians to remember that the Prince of Peace is the fulfillment of the Hebrew scriptures as fundamentalist militant minded Christians have replaced Jesus with the state of Israel.

On 23 November 2011, Stephen Sizer wrote:

After extensive field use, I’ve pruned and, I hope, enhanced the Seven Biblical Answers leaflet. I have removed verses used twice and added two illustrations. I hope you find this useful.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Sizer
Christ Church Vicarage
Virginia Water,
GU25 4LD
www.stephensizer.com

What follows is an excerpt from Sizer’s Seven Biblical Answers to Popular Zionist Assumptions can be downloaded here: http://www.sizers.org/articles/7answers.pdf

God blesses those who bless Israel and curses those who curse Israel

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:2-3). The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ… There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:16, 28-29)

“I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore… and through your seed all nations on earth will be blessed…” (Genesis 22:17-18)

This popular assumption is based on Genesis 12:3. First, note that the promise was made to Abram (that is, Abraham) and no one else. Second, there is nothing in the text to indicate God intended the promise to apply to Abraham’s physical descendants unconditionally, or in perpetuity. Third, in the New Testament we are told explicitly that the promises were fulfilled in Jesus Christ and in those who acknowledge Him as their Lord and Saviour. God’s blessings come by grace through faith, not by works or race (Ephesians 2:8-9).

The “Promised Land” was given by God to the Jewish people as an everlasting inheritance

Contrary to popular assumption, the Scriptures repeatedly insist that the land belongs to God and that residence is always conditional.

For example, God said to his people, “‘The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers.” (Leviticus 25:23). In Ezekiel, it seems the Lord anticipated the reasoning of those who arrogantly claimed rights to the land because of the covenant originally made with Abraham.

“Son of man, the people living in those ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land. But we are many; surely the land has been given to us as our possession.’ Therefore say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Since you eat meat with the blood still in it and look to your idols and shed blood, should you then possess the land? You rely on your sword, you do detestable things… Should you then possess the land?’ … I will make the land a desolate waste, and her proud strength will come to an end.’ (Ezekiel 33:24-26,28-29)

Residence was open to all God’s people on the basis of faith not race. Indeed, the writer to Hebrews explains that the land was never their ultimate desire or inheritance any way but a temporary residence until the coming of Jesus Christ. Our shared eternal inheritance is heavenly not earthly.

Jerusalem is the exclusive and undivided, eternal capital of the Jewish people

The Christian Zionist assertion that God intended Jerusalem to be the exclusive and undivided eternal capital of the Jewish people has no basis whatsoever in Scripture. God insists in Psalm 87 that Jerusalem must be a shared and inclusive city. Nations specifically mentioned include what is today, Egypt, Iran and Lebanon. Even the hated Philistines are mentioned as “…born in Zion” on the basis of faith not race. Likewise, the vision of Isaiah 2 associates Jerusalem with the end of war, with peace and reconciliation.

“In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” (Isaiah 2:2-3)

But what of Luke 21:24, “Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled”? The assertion that this prophecy came true in 1967 is problematic since Revelation 11:2 says the Gentile ‘trampling’ of Jerusalem would last only ’42 months’. The context of Luke 21 shows Jesus was referring to the events of 70AD and God’s sovereign use of foreign tyrants to fulfil his purposes. The focus of the New Testament instead moves away from the earthly Jerusalem toward the new, heavenly Jerusalem as the home of all who trust in Jesus (Hebrews 12:22-23; Revelation 21:2; 22-27).

Believers will soon be ‘raptured’ to heaven before the ‘end-time’ battle of Armageddon

The rapture is a popular idea that Jesus will actually return twice: first of all secretly, to rescue true believers out of the world, then later visibly with his saints to judge the world. There is, again, no basis in Scripture for this novel idea. The Bible is emphatic: the return of Jesus will be personal, sudden, public, visible and glorious. -Matthew 24:30-31

“At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the peoples of the earth[a] will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”- 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

The idea of a secret rapture is actually based on a misreading of Matthew 24:40-41 and Luke 17:34-35…Our mandate is to be peacemakers not widow makers (Matthew 5:3-10). We are ‘God’s co-workers’ entrusted as ambassadors with a ministry of reconciliation not speculation (2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2)…###

A recent Zogby International poll found that 31% of those surveyed in the national poll strongly believe or somewhat believe in the ideas behind Christian Zionism, defined as “the belief that Jews must have all of the promised land, including all of Jerusalem, to facilitate the second coming of the messiah.”

A CNN/Time poll showed that 59% of the American public believes the prophecies contained in the Book of Revelation will come true.

Christian Zionism is an extremist Christian fundamentalist movement which supports the claims of those who believe that the State of Israel should take control of all of the land currently disputed between Palestinians and Israelis and views the creation and expansion of the modern state of Israel as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy toward the second coming of Jesus.

Christian Zionism is a two hundred year old theological and political movement that embraces the most extreme ideological positions of Zionism, thereby becoming detrimental to a just peace within Palestine and Israel.

The Christian Zionist program provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism. In its extreme form, it laces an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than living Christ’s love and justice today.

Christian Zionism is also an escapist theology and a match made in hell for neo-con ideology.

These Christians believe that God fights on the side of Israel and they call for unqualified support for the most extreme right wing political positions related to the Holy Land. Christian Zionism has significant support within American Protestant fundamentalists, who number between 10 and 20 million. Its reach is broad, by virtue of its favorite themes related to the “End Times” and an Israel-fixated Christian media.

Christian Zionism is both a “movement” and a way of interpreting current events. Its focus is on Israel and the Middle East, as much an ideology as a “movement.” Its promoters share many beliefs but are not organized through any one institution.

Throughout history Christians have at times twisted scripture to justify violence: for the Crusades, for Anti-Semitism, and for slavery. Too often the church has been neglected to respond to these biblical distortions and with disastrous results.

Although the Christian Zionists motives are couched in terms of compassion toward the Jewish people based on a literal reading of scripture their political agenda of territorial expansion Zionists has allowed the ongoing injustices against Palestinians.

Tikkun is Hebrew for mend, repair and transform the world. Tikkun is also an organization that researched to discover that there are three distinct elements energizing the Christian Zionists:

1. A strong commitment to conservative and ultra-nationalist American politics (so strong, I believe, that if the U.S. were to decide to break with Israel, this part of the Christian Zionist leadership would go along with that and drop its defense of Israeli policies).

2. Dispensationalist religious commitments that lead many of the Christian Zionists to yearn for a cataclysmic “end of history” eschatological war in the Middle East that will precipitate the second coming of Jesus and the Rapture in which all true Christians will go to heaven and all Jews who have not yet converted to Christianity will burn in hell for eternity.

3. A widespread understanding among many Christians that atonement and repentance is needed for 1700 years of murder, rape, and oppression of Jews that was frequently generated by the Church (though, of course, the Evangelicals do not recognize that church as their church). In this category are many Christian Zionists who genuinely feel terrible about what has happened to the Jews and genuinely want to help the Jewish people. Their philo-Semitism is real and sincere.- Rabbi Lerner, TIKKUN Magazine page 9, Nov/Dec. 2007

Jews and Christians worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but many fail to comprehend that the first mention of Israel is in Genesis 32:22, when Jacob was renamed Israel for having wrestled and struggled with the Divine.

Thus, to claim that the secular ethnocratic state of Israel has a divine right that supersedes the divine rights of the indigenous people of the land, reeks of racism and misses the point of what the Hebrew prophets were always on about:

“What does God require? He has told you o’man! Be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with your Lord.” -Micah 6:8

“My people are fools, they do not know me! They are skilled in doing evil, they know not how to do good.”-Jeremiah 4:22

“From Moses to Jeremiah and Isaiah, the Prophets taught…that the Jewish claim on the land of Israel was totally contingent on the moral and spiritual life of the Jews who lived there, and that the land would, as the Torah tells us, ‘vomit you out’ if people did not live according to the highest moral vision of Torah. Over and over again, the Torah repeated its most frequently stated mitzvah [command]:

“When you enter your land, do not oppress the stranger; the other, the one who is an outsider of your society, the powerless one and then not only ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself’ but also ‘you shall love the other.’”-Rabbi Lerner, TIKKUN Magazine, page 35, Sept./Oct. 2007

The term Christianity was also not even coined until three decades after Jesus Christ walked the earth.

Until the day of Paul, followers of Jesus were called members of The Way; meaning the way he taught his followers to be!

Christ was never a Christian, but was born and died a Palestinian devout Jew who was a social justice radical revolutionary road warrior that challenged the job security of the Temple authorities by teaching the people they did NOT need to pay the priests for ritual baths or sacrificing livestock to be OK with God; for God already LOVED them just as they were: sinners, poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under a brutal Roman Military Occupation.

What got Jesus crucified was disturbing the status quo of the Roman Occupying Forces, by teaching the subversive concept that Caesar only had power because God allowed it and that God preferred the humble sinner, the poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under Roman Occupation above the elite and arrogant.

The problem is not with Christianity, but that too few who claim to be Christians have actually done what Jesus taught and I spin Jesus’ Manifesto this way:

About 2,000 years ago, when Christ was about 33, he hiked up a hill and sat down under an olive tree and began to teach the people;

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”

In other words: it is those who know their own spiritual poverty, their own limitations and ‘sins’ honestly and trust God loves them in spite of themselves who already live in the Kingdom of God.

How comforted we will all be, when we see, we haven’t got a clue, as to the depth and breadth of pure love and mercy of The Divine Mystery of The Universe.

God’s name in ancient Aramaic is Abba which means Daddy as much as Mommy and He/She: The Lord has said, “My ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not yours.” -Isaiah 55:8

Christ proclaimed more: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

The essence of meek is to be patient with ignorance, slow to anger and never hold a grudge. In other words: how comforted you will be when you also know humility; when you know yourself, the good and the bad, for both cut through every human heart.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be filled.”

In other words: how comforted you will be when your greatest desire is to do what “God requires, and he has already told you what that is; BE JUST, BE MERCIFUL and walk humbly with your Lord.”-Micah 6:8

“Blessed are the merciful, they will be shown mercy.”

In other words: how comforted you will all be when you choose to return only kindness to your ‘enemy.’

“For with the measure you measure against another, it will be measured back to you” Christ warns his disciples as he explains the law of karma in Luke 6:27-38.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they see God.”

In other words: how comforted you will be when you WAKE UP and see God is already within you, within every man, every woman and every child. The Supreme Being is everywhere, the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. Beyond The Universe -and yet so small; within the heart of every atom.

“Blessed are The Peacemakers: THEY shall be called the children of God.”

And what a wonderful world it will be when we all seek peace by pursuing justice; for there can be none without the other.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires, theirs is The Kingdom of Heaven.”

And one fine day the lion will lie down with The Lamb; meaning man will make war no more and that would create a sisterhood of man which just maybe the Kingdom of God on planet earth.

John Hagee, Martin Luther King, Jr: Birmingham Alabama & the UK

Fundamentalist and rabid Zionist fire and brimstone preacher John Hagee is taking his ‘mission’ to Birmingham, UK on 18-20 August, “teaching the Book of Revelation” with the “goal” to “reveal the world tomorrow, confirm the total accuracy of Bible prophecy and give you a better understanding of the current crisis America and the world are facing.” [1]

Hagee and his ‘disciples’ should begin at the very end of the book of Revelation which “warns everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them. God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life.”-Rev. 22:18-19

The Book of the Revelation of Saint John the Divine, who written during the time John was was exiled to Patmos in the Aegean archipelago during the reign of Domitian, at the end of the 1^st century.

No one knows what John was burning as incense or how much wine he consumed when he wrote this piece of apocalyptic literature which is “marked by distinctive literary features, particularly prediction of future events and accounts of visionary experiences or journeys to heaven, often involving vivid symbolism.”

John’s poem, dreams and visions were written for the people of his day and it was his way to confront the Roman Occupying Forces.

In his Letter from Birmingham Jail,  Reverend Martin Luther King,  Jr. directly challenged his “fellow clergymen” and the willfully ignorant “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

“There are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

“I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever and if repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history.”

For the many who take the Bible literally I wonder why they do not take Jesus more seriously, for he warned it is the Peacemakers who are the children of God-not those that bomb, torture or occupy others and do NOT judge others.

“John Hagee believes the Holocaust was part of God’s plan to force Jews to return to Israel…He compared Adolf Hitler in one sermon to a ‘hunter’ sent by God to force Jews to live in Israel and said the Koran gave Muslims ‘a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews’.

“He also claimed that 200 million Muslims were ready to commit violence against the US and Israel. In the same interview he claimed Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,800 people in 2005, was ‘the judgment of God against New Orleans’ because of a planned ‘homosexual parade’.” [2]

On 6 November 2007, I attended a CUFI/Christians United for Israel event at the James L. Knight Center in Miami, which was packed to the rafters with Hagee’s tribe of Christian Zionists and south Florida’s right wing Jewish community.

Zion’s Fire Banners, dancers, singers and a band whipped the crowd into a frenzy of spinning, jumping, clapping, twirling and moved the rotund Hagee to link arms with men in skull caps and dance the Hora-not to Hava Nagila, but to repeated choruses of:

Shout for joy and victory! Bat Yerushalyim

From one end of the stage to the other, the largest American and Israeli flags I have ever seen were draped side by side and by the end of the evening I imagined every star on the red-white-and blue had morphed into the Star of David.

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Joe Martinez pointed to the flags and exclaimed: “Isn’t that beautiful up there together? I get goose bumps! All nations have been created by an act of man, except Israel was created by an act of God.”

Rabbi Freedman delivered the Invocation, “We are all friends of the only democracy in the Middle East.”

I immediately recalled what American Israeli, Jeff Halper, the Founder and Coordinator of ICAHD/Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions told me during one of my five journeys to Jerusalem:

“Israel is a not a democracy but is an Ethnocracy, meaning a country run and controlled by a national group with some democratic elements but set up with Jews in control and structured to keep them in control.”

Rabbi Freedman continued on, “From Mount Sinai to Mount Zion to Mount Vernon we are all Zionists! Israel is second to America in how many immigrants we have absorbed.”

Immigrant absorption in Israel comes with perks and is called Aliyah, ["go up"] and is a fundamental concept of Zionism enshrined in Israel’s Law of Return, which permits any Jew from any where in the world the legal right to government assisted immigration and settlement in Israel, automatic Israeli citizenship, unemployment benefits, free medical, and subsidized housing. Young adult immigrants receive free room, utilities, and three meals a day for the first five months and 100 percent of their tuition is paid by the government.

Hagee’s mastery of manipulating the fears of his audience garnered him a standing ovation as the shofars blew, “Israel was re-born by an act of God and Israel lives! The Jews have suffered great persecution and survived slavery and the Final Solution! God Jehovah will bury Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran! The flag of Israel will fly over the undivided Jerusalem and be the praise of all the earth! It’s 1938 again and the new Hitler is Ahmadinejad! Radical Islamisicts are threatening to develop nuclear weapons in order to destroy Israel and then the USA! But we are indivisible and we are both here forever!”

However, “In his October 2005 speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad never used the word “map” or the term “wiped off”. According to Farsi-language experts like Juan Cole and even right-wing services like MEMRI, what he actually said was “this regime that is occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.”

“In this speech to an annual anti-Zionist conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad was being prophetic, not threatening. He was citing Imam Khomeini, who said this line in the 1980s (a period when Israel was actually selling arms to Iran, so apparently it was not viewed as so ghastly then). Mr. Ahmadinejad had just reminded his audience that the Shah’s regime, the Soviet Union, and Saddam Hussein had all seemed enormously powerful and immovable, yet the first two had vanished almost beyond recall and the third now languished in prison. So, too, the “occupying regime” in Jerusalem would someday be gone. His message was, in essence, “This too shall pass.” [3]

Tikkun is Hebrew for mend, repair and transform the world.

Tikkun is also an organization and magazine that researched to discover three distinct elements that energize Christian Zionists:

1. A strong commitment to conservative and ultra-nationalist American politics (so strong, I believe, that if the U.S. were to decide to break with Israel, this part of the Christian Zionist leadership would go along with that and drop its defense of Israeli policies).

2. Dispensationalist religious commitments that lead many of the Christian Zionists to yearn for a cataclysmic “end of history” eschatological war in the Middle East that will precipitate the second coming of Jesus and the Rapture in which all true Christians will go to heaven and all Jews who have not yet converted to Christianity will burn in hell for eternity.

3. A widespread understanding among many Christians that atonement and repentance is needed for 1700 years of murder, rape, and oppression of Jews that was frequently generated by the Church (though, of course, the Evangelicals do not recognize that church as their church). In this category are many Christian Zionists who genuinely feel terrible about what has happened to the Jews and genuinely want to help the Jewish people. Their philo-Semitism is real and sincere.

But in Miami that night, multitudes of misled and misinformed Christian’s celebrated military occupation, violence, power and control and ignored the gospel Jesus preached: “It is the peacemakers who shall be called the children of God.” –Matthew 5:9

Hagee repeatedly cited that all worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but neglected to mention that the first mention of Israel is in Genesis 32:22, when Jacob was renamed Israel for having wrestled and struggled with the Divine.

Hagee threw out the names of all the Hebrew prophets, but not the fact that God raised up prophets to speak truth to power and arrogance and to remind people of what God desires:

“What does God require? He has told you o’man! Be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with your Lord.” -Micah 6:8

God raised up prophets to admonish the “stiff necked people” [Exodus 34:9, Proverbs 29:1] because “My people are fools, they do not know me! They are skilled in doing evil, they know not how to do good.”-Jeremiah 4:22

Hagee invoked the “Torah Way” but neglected what the Torah commands:

“From Moses to Jeremiah and Isaiah, the Prophets taught…that the Jewish claim on the land of Israel was totally contingent on the moral and spiritual life of the Jews who lived there, and that the land would, as the Torah tells us, ‘vomit you out’ if people did not live according to the highest moral vision of Torah. Over and over again, the Torah repeated its most frequently stated mitzvah [command]:

“When you enter your land, do not oppress the stranger; the other, the one who is an outsider of your society, the powerless one and then not only ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself’ but also ‘you shall love the other.’”

1. www.jhmevents.org
2. Controversial US Preacher John Hagee due to speak in Birmingham
3. www.counterpunch.org
4. Rabbi Lerner, TIKKUN Magazine, page 35, Sept./Oct. 2007

The Religious Right unites with Religious Renegades, Part 3

There’s an old saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” meaning that people who believe they are doing good often end up doing evil.  It’s the law of unintended consequences.  Unfortunately this is what has happened to some–not all–religious conservative organizations.   I know of altruistic Christian activists, both conservative and liberal, who believe they are doing God’s work, but in their effort to “right wrongs” they have utterly failed to honor God’s command to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. “ (Jude 1:3)

What does Jude mean?  Simply that true followers of Jesus Christ are first and foremost to share Christ with the lost.   Yet many so-called Christians are not evangelizing the lost for fear of being perceived as trying to “push their religion on others.”  They detest being thought of as intolerant, thus they remain silent.  News flash:  The Gospel of Jesus Christ always has been and always will be offensive to those who are lost!  It’s a whole lot easier to say “Jesus loves you” than “take up your cross and follow Him.”

Some prominent Christian Right (CR) leaders that head up ginormous organizations are so busy fighting the culture war that they’ve forgotten what’s most important — Truth!  Jesus said: “Thy Word is truth!” (John 17:17)

The CR (unrepentantly) unites with pretty much anyone who is likeminded politically. Sadly this includes a slew of false teachers, cultists, and Social Justice Christians (SJC) a.k.a. Progressive Evangelicals.  SJCs are chiefly liberals whose main goal is to dismantle historical, orthodox Christianity and usher in a “new kind of Christianity.”  In the name of social justice, SJC leaders stealthly steer undiscerning believers into a left-wing collectivized utopia!

SJC is beyond of the scope of this article so I’ll move on.

PRAGMATISM = COMPROMISE

Many in the CR leadership are uniting with evil doers (God’s word, not mine). They have climbed aboard the SS Pragmatism and are proceeding full speed ahead into shark infested waters. Uniting with evil doers serves two specific purposes.   It helps get the message out and provides an additional source of revenue.  And let’s face it.  When the money stops rolling in organizations are forced to close their doors.  So these additional funds, regardless of the source, keep the message alive and the group afloat.

Before I move to my next point I need to stress that it is my belief that Christians should try to influence public policy.  How?  By casting their vote, serving in local government, forming and joining special interest groups, writing letters to the Editor, giving financial support, and participating in lawful demonstrations. Anti-abortion activists are a good example of Christians trying to influence public policy.  Pro-lifers have formed groups comprised mostly of Christians that engage in politics because it is the only means they have to end abortion.  If Roe v. Wade is overturned, it will happen because of the dogged determination of political action groups.

For obvious reasons Christians should never relinquish control of the government to godless secular humanists and “grievous wolves” (Acts 20:29)!  On the other hand, Christ never commanded His followers to build a theocracy!

Isn’t the NAR’s attempting to do this?

A SUBTLE SHIFT

P. J. Miller urges visitors to Sola Dei Gloria to read an essay by Rachel Tabachnic titled Lions In the Pews. “This is an extremely interesting article,” says Miller, “one I would suggest reading in its entirety. You may not agree with all of it, (the author touches on the rapture and a few other points which many believers differ over, theologically) but sitting that aside, the information concerning the subtle shift many Churches are making into Dominionist/Dominionism theology is excellent reading for those interested in the goals these people have set and are pursuing: That includes the NAR…”  (Bold added by P. J.)

The following is an excerpt from Tabachnic’s article with bold by P. J.:

But this strand has emerged from Pentecostal and Charismatic backgrounds and has been nearly invisible to both the mainstream press and progressive writers. Like other Dominionists the New Apostolics are culture warriors and have specific stated goals for overtaking all spheres of American society and government as seen in the video above.

Also, like other dominionist groups they actually invest much of their efforts in fighting the traditional institutionalized church.

However, they differ from most other Dominionist groups in their embrace of the outpouring of gifts of the holy spirit, or manifestations, like being slain in the spirit, Holy Laughter, and other states of altered consciousness that are a part of their very experiential worship style.

The New Apostolic Reformation is also much more focused on the expulsion of demons as the process for healing, social reform, or even raising people from the dead.  They have a unique and extensive lingo that is dedicated to the description of the expulsion of territorial demons including terms like ground level spiritual warfare, occult level spiritual warfare, and strategic level spiritual warfare.

While Pentecostal churches have always celebrated a restoration of the church, this has been tempered with Rapture theology.   As churches embrace this Apostolic revolution they are moving away from the traditions of Assemblies of God and other denominations and  are adopting a  view of the end time that includes the triumph and perfection of the church as opposed to escaping  in the Rapture from an evil world descending into the apocalypse.

They see the imminent end times as a time of great glory for the restored true  Apostolic church greater than the one of New Testament times, and a time when the foot soldiers of this church will be imparted with supernatural powers.

This outpouring of powers will allow them to crush evil with a “rod of iron” and deliver a purified church to Jesus when he returns.

Seeing as pro-family leaders Tony Perkins, Don Wildmon, Janet Porter and Mat Staver have united with the NAR one can’t help but wonder if they share their end times beliefs.  It’s a legitimate question to ask.

PENTECOSTAL MOVEMENT

Methodist holiness preacher Charles Parham is considered the founder of modern Pentecostalism. Parham broke with the Methodist church and started his own ministry. In 1901Agnes Ozman began to speak in “tongues” when hands were laid on her. Parham believed that speaking in tongues was both a sign of Spirit baptism and also the signal of the end of the age. Parham also linked the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with a latter-day Pentecost.

“What began on a corner at the turn of the twentieth century is now barreling down Main Street. What was once known as thePentecostal movement has now splintered into numerous diverse, yet overlapping movements: Pentecostal, Charismatic, Vineyard,Word-Faith, and Holy Laughter.” (1)

Add to the list Latter Rain Restorationism/ International House of Prayer (IHOP)/Third Wave/Deliverance/ Soaking in the Spirit/ and the aforementioned Dominionists/ Seven Mountains/Elijah Revolution/Kingdom Now/Joel’s Army/Manifest Sons of God and most recently the NAR.  I’ve only scratched the surface!

Bud Press of Christian Research Service lamented:

The Prophetic Movement is a dark, evil wasteland teeming with false apostles, false prophets, hyper-heretics, false healers, and greedy, money-hungry con men and women, all of whom are overshadowed by Satan and his demonic forces.

There’s plenty of blame to go around for the unholy mess the Church has become.   Liberals, liars, and loons have infiltrated her.  To paraphrase my pastor’s teaching (from my notes), believers have been misled by well-spoken, self-promoting, self-serving, charismatic leaders who emphasize power gifts but put little emphasis on preaching the gospel.   These men and women think nothing of exploiting God’s people for their own gain.

Jesus gave us fair warning:

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. (Mat 7:15-17)

While we’re on the subject of ravening wolves, some false teachers deny the divinity of Jesus Christ…

There was no bodily resurrection…

The Bible was written by men, not by Divine inspiration.   It’s a book of myths and fables, full of contradictions, open to interpretation, holds hidden meanings that only the “enlightened” can know…

Seriously?

Wolves teach that God loves, doesn’t judge, so all humans go to heaven.

Triniterianism is out…

No vicarious Atonement…

The virgin birth?  Don’t make me laugh!…

As for sodomy? No sin there!…

Fornication and cohabitation? What’s the big deal?…

Abortion?  It’s my choice!…

Wait a minute!  A Christian can choose to murder a baby?

Really?

I could go on, but hopefully the point is made. The postmodern Church will only tolerate a small “g” god who simply rolls his/her eyes at sin and say, “Boys will be boys.”

Over 20 years ago the late Dr. Walter Martin took on liberalism in the Church:

Let me tell you something that I have learned; I know the liberals. I know them well; I was one of them. And they are the most dangerous, insidious, and all-pervading cult that’s loose in the United States right at this moment…

And this theological flea infestation is ruining the lifeblood of the Church, which is evangelism. And, you think these are very strong statements; I intend to back them up in—if necessary—excruciating details. For any person who does not know that today in the United States, and in denominational structures world-around, we are in an accelerating apostasy does not know—I repeat—does not know what’s going on…

We have, for more than one hundred years, been under sustained attack in the United States; in our theological seminaries, church related schools, and our churches. A sustained attack by people, who have the form of godliness, and work within the structure of the Church and have—wherever they have been permitted the opportunity—diluted the Gospel and destroyed the Faith.

They occupy today the chairs in our major theological seminaries; the rulership of our major denominational structures—they maintain boldly and boastfully—“This[is] the Church!” But it’s not the Church if it denies the power of the Gospel… (2)

LYING SIGNS & WONDERS

The NAR travels the globe allegedly performing miraculous healings, raising the dead back to life and breaking down “demonic strongholds.”  They have visions as clear as a movie screen… give future prophecies…experience visitations from Jesus, angels, and Aimee Simple McPherson.  As an extra added bonus they get “revelation knowledge” directly from God and have the unmitigated arrogance to say, “The Spirit of God spoke to me…” but there’s no way to verify whose voice they hear!  According to Isaiah 8:20, “[I]f they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them.”

With all the powers these wolves possess, I presume some of them can walk on water.

WE’RE STILL WAITING, RICK

In 1988 “super-prophet” Rick Joyner shared his “vision” concerning the coming “revolution” in the Church:

“What is about to come upon the earth is not just a revival, or another awakening; it is a veritable revolution. The vision was given in order to begin to awaken those who are destined to radically change the course, and even the very definition of Christianity. The dismantling of organizations and disbanding of some works will be a positive and exhilarating experience for the Lord’s faithful servants. A great company of prophets, teachers, pastors and apostles will be raised up with the spirit of Phineas; it will be said of the apostles soon to be anointed that they have turned an upside down world right side up. Nations will tremble at the mention of their name.” (3)

Have I missed something?  I can’t think of a single nation that trembles at the name of Rick Joyner or the other so-called apostles and prophets.  Joyner’s alleged prophecy came to him over two decades ago. He claimed that the “soon to be” anointed would turn an upside world right side up. Well, what’s the hold up? With the way things are going in this country, I’m eager for the “great company” to turn things right side up, aren’t you?

A CALL TO DISCERNMENT

Admittedly there are some CR leaders that want to build a theocracy as do Dominionists, but many in the CR do not.  The CR leadership unfamiliar with the NAR’s global goals is leading those involved in fighting the culture war into shark infested waters.  They must “take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them (evil men).” (Deut. 12:30)  In other words, listen up — and abandon ship!

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. (2 Cor. 11:13, 14)

Part 1
Part 2

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The History of the Charismatic Movement–By Gary E. Gilley

[2] Walter Martin, The Cult of Liberalism, CD Rom—Obtained from Apprising Ministries

[3] Rick Joyner. Restoration, May/June 1988, “The Harvest”

RECOMMENDED READING

For a more thorough understanding of the NAR, go to “Recommended Reading” in Part 1 & Part 2

The Prophet Movement: An Evil and Adulterous Generation—Christian Research Service website

Alexander Campbell Looks Beyond the Dominionists’ Seven Mountains–By David Brumley

Apostles and Prophets and the Foundation of the Church: Biblical Exegesis that Proves that Only the New Testament Apostles are Authoritative—By Critical Issues Commentary

Former IHOP Member Explains Why IHOP (International House of Prayer) Is A Cult— Sola Sisters website, posted by Christine Pack

VIEW VIDEOS:

The Religious Right’s Modern Day Spartan Army—Tony Perkins of FRC talks with NAR “Apostle” Rick Joyner

America Needs Godly Leaders–Tony Perkins of FRC talks with Word of Faith preacher James Robison

Mat Staver invites you to TheCall Sacramento—Mat Staver, President of Liberty Council

LISTEN TO INTEVIEWS:

Ingrid Schlueter’s interview with Sarah Leslie of Discernment Ministries

Jan Markell’s interview with Mike Oppenheimer of Let Us Reason Ministries

Christian Goats

There is a time coming when we will be forced to determine what constitutes a problem and what constitutes a solution – for those who are not Christaphobes we might call it separating the sheep from the goats.  There are a lot of goats!  With all the turmoil in the world we have not heard much from the Communist Party but it is still there and when the turmoil reaches an apogee it will be well organized and ready to take charge.  Already people are taking to the streets in demonstrations; here and throughout the world. Domestic demonstrations are contagious so our media does not report them.

Attempts to destabilize America have been going on for a long time.  Revolutions produce chaos and chaos provides an opportunity to install new governments. There are many organizations and groups seeking power; some present a real threat.  The Communist Party is ready, able and a world-wide danger; Zionism is a similar threat.  The New World order and its United Nations arm are eager and ready.  Standing armies have always been a threat.  China and Russia are powerful nations ready to stand on top of the pyramid.  Libertarians and Anarchists have ideological agendas, and Mexicans are waiting in the wings.

Over the past several decades law enforcement in the United States has increased its use of force and its demand for undeserved “respect”.  Lack of concern for justice and robotic enforcement of the law (often bad law) fosters widespread public resentment at a time when chaos is imminent and a respected, efficient police force is sorely needed.

Unfortunately, the Christian Church has forsaken God and pursued a humanistic political solution to a religious problem. It has taken an untenable position; complaining loudly about abortion and homosexuality while steadfastly denying the basis for forbidding these practices.  Christians do not understand that law forms the religious base of society and it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God while obeying the laws of a secular government.

In the current issue of the SCP Journal (Spiritual Counterfeits Project) Lee Penn has written an interesting article entitled “Anti-Christs and False Messiahs Down the Ages”.

Penn believes that “within the Catholic and Protestant churches, there are movements and habits of thought that may predispose many people to heed the Deceiver when he stages a falsified “Second Coming of Christ.”  He believes that both Catholics and Protestants “have similar dreams of establishing a national – or global – Christian regime before the end of the age.  Included with those that might produce a “false Christ” is much maligned Christian Reconstruction, one of the few sheep in a sea of goats.

Sans some essential pieces, the objectives of Christian Reconstruction are fairly well outlined.  Penn uses the phrase “Old Testament Law” as a derogatory term and informs his readers that Reconstructionists seek to Christianize the world and set up a theocracy before the Return of Christ.   He describes this quest as a “dream of an orderly, righteous, religious utopia”.

Penn is rejecting a sheep and siding with a goat.

After tracing the Biblical description of times that will precede the Second Coming, he fails to note that this description has resulted in the imminent anticipation of Jesus’ return repeatedly from the New Testament era to the present.  He also fails to mention that Jesus said that He, Himself, did not know the day or time, nor did the Angels. (Matthew 24:36)  That statement should be enough to stop the embarrassment, contention, and massive waste of time and energy numerous theories about this event have created.  The day and time should be left in the Hands of God (where it belongs) and we should fight the battle and do the work assigned to us.

Penn has fallen into the disastrous trap of “occupying” until Jesus comes again.  He seems to believe that “occupy” is a Pietistic term that means biding an indeterminate amount of time with navel gazing (introspection and self evaluation), repentance, prayer for our enemies, humility, and spiritual acuity.  There is nothing specifically wrong with any of this but it is a truncated directive that immobilizes the Body of Christ and allows the forces of evil full sway.

Jesus directed us to take the Gospel into all the world.  Evangelism is close to God’s Heart and an essential part of the Christian religion.  It is, however, not the most important part; that is obedience.  From Genesis to Revelation God seeks an obedient people. The Bible describes the character of God.  He changes His mind but not His character.  When God gave the Law to Moses He gave His people directions on how they were to behave to bring lasting righteousness, peace, and prosperity.  For those who do not heed His Commandments He promised immorality, strife, and poverty.  The Law is a reflection of God’s character and a perennial guide for proper behavior.

There are several problems with Lee Penn’s theology:  1) He has fallen into the trap of assuming the Second Coming is imminent.  This assumption plays into the hands of God’s enemies by paralyzing His warriors.  The day and time of the Second Coming will be determined by God.  It is not our concern!   2) He believes the quest for order and righteousness is a “Utopian” “dream” and seems willing to allow evil forces to overcome Christianity while he waits to be raptured.  3)  He advises us to “occupy” and joins the do nothing but wait body of Christian fig trees that Christ specifically condemned. 4) His antinomian position fails to provide a structure for obedience.  5) Mr. Penn concludes that false Christs are a spiritual problem when the Bible identifies them as an obedience problem.  False prophets are to be executed and if we really believed in the God we pretend to worship we would agree with that punishment.

Immorality is progressing quickly, violence is increasing by leaps and bounds, and poverty is apparent everywhere.  These are the punishments God promised to those who disobeyed His Commandments.  Professing Christians do what is right in their own eyes and all of us are subject to the immoral laws our government has legally placed upon us.  Spirituality is not an antidote to behavioral sin.  The only antidote is repentance and obedience.  God has not changed.  His standards for behavior have not changed.  His Son has provided forgiveness for our sins but that has not changed His expectations. In the New Covenant Christians are His chosen people.  He expects us to be obedient

Christian Reconstructionists do not intend to impose God’s Law on a secular society.  We believe an ever increasing number of Christians will assent to obey God’s Laws and eventually an obedient world will result.  We are a tiny group but God showed His preference for tiny groups by reducing Gideon’s men to 300. (Judges 7)

Penn advises us to examine ourselves and repent of our sin.  He advises us to end our participation in evil and deception.  It is good advice but Penn does not specify exactly what constitutes “sin”, “evil”, and “deception”.  Pietism always leaves the door open for humanism by failing to provide God’s specific direction.

Sin is disobedience to God’s Law.  If we are ever to regain God’s blessing we must become obedient.

Penn chides Reconstruction’s intention to return God’s creation to His control by obeying His Laws.  He is a pragmatist who believes Christians cannot be successful in transforming entire social structures.  As he reproaches the full orbed theology of Christian Reconstruction he fails to note that Islam is growing faster than Christianity and according to one of their websites it is because “Islam is a complete way of life. It tells man about the purpose of his creation and existence, his ultimate destiny, his place among other creatures and more importantly, it provides him with guidance to lead a balanced and purposeful life which will enable him to avoid the Hell-fire and be rewarded with a place in Paradise in the life after death.”

Penn is a smart guy; a Phi Beta Kappa who graduated cum laude from Harvard.  His research and writing are above reproach but he leaves Christians in the same useless quagmire they have occupied since they allowed foreign theologies to dominate their religion more than two centuries ago.

Sheep obey their Master’s voice, goats do not.

Israel’s Best Friends Are Its Worst Enemies

Only if we truly love our friends will we always tell them the truth and call them on their bad behavior. When religion and politics get in bed together, we the people for JUSTICE and PEACE get screwed.

Many of my Christian sisters and brothers are members of the fastest growing cult in America: Christian Zionism-which has nothing much in common with what Jesus was all about- and one of its leader is the fundamentalist fire and brimstone preacher, John Hagee.

On 6 November 2007, I attended a Hagee fest in Miami, Florida at the James L. Knight Center that was packed to the rafters with Hagee’s tribe of Christian Zionists and south Florida’s right wing Jewish community.

Zion’s Fire Banners, dancers, singers and a band whipped the crowd into a frenzy of spinning, jumping, clapping, twirling and moved the rotund Hagee to link arms with men in skull caps and dance the Hora-not to Hava Nagila- but to repeated choruses of:

Shout for joy and victory! Bat Yerushalyim

From one end of the stage to the other, the largest American and Israeli flags I have ever seen were draped side by side and by the end of the evening I imagined every star on the red-white-and blue had morphed into the Star of David.

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Joe Martinez pointed to the flags and exclaimed: “Isn’t that beautiful up there together? I get goose bumps! All nations have been created by an act of man, except Israel was created by an act of God.”

Rabbi Freedman delivered the Invocation, “We are all friends of the only democracy in the Middle East.”

I immediately recalled what American Israeli, Jeff Halper, the Founder and Coordinator of ICAHD/Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions told me during one of my five journeys to Jerusalem:

“Israel is a not a democracy but is an Ethnocracy, meaning a country run and controlled by a national group with some democratic elements but set up with Jews in control and structured to keep them in control.”

Rabbi Freedman continued on, “From Mount Sinai to Mount Zion to Mount Vernon we are all Zionists! Israel is second to America in how many immigrants we have absorbed.”

Immigrant absorption in Israel comes with perks and is called Aliyah, ["go up"] and is a fundamental concept of Zionism enshrined in Israel’s Law of Return, which permits any Jew from any where in the world the legal right to government assisted immigration and settlement in Israel, automatic Israeli citizenship, unemployment benefits, free medical, and subsidized housing. Young adult immigrants receive free room, utilities, and three meals a day for the first five months and 100 percent of their tuition is paid by the government.

Hagee’s mastery of manipulating the fears of his audience garnered him a standing ovation as the shofars blew, “Israel was re-born by an act of God and Israel lives! The Jews have suffered great persecution and survived slavery and the Final Solution! God Jehovah will bury Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran! The flag of Israel will fly over the undivided Jerusalem and be the praise of all the earth! It’s 1938 again and the new Hitler is Ahmadinejad! Radical Islamisicts are threatening to develop nuclear weapons in order to destroy Israel and then the USA! But we are indivisible and we are both here forever!”

The oft repeated comment ascribed to President Ahmadinejad, that “Israel must be wiped off the map,” was addressed by Virginia Tilley, Professor of political science who wrote:

“In his October 2005 speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad never used the word ‘map’ or the term ‘wiped off’. According to Farsi-language experts like Juan Cole and even right-wing services like MEMRI, what he actually said was ‘this regime that is occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.’

“In this speech to an annual anti-Zionist conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad was being prophetic, not threatening. He was citing Imam Khomeini, who said this line in the 1980s (a period when Israel was actually selling arms to Iran, so apparently it was not viewed as so ghastly then). Mr. Ahmadinejad had just reminded his audience that the Shah’s regime, the Soviet Union, and Saddam Hussein had all seemed enormously powerful and immovable, yet the first two had vanished almost beyond recall and the third now languished in prison. So, too, the ‘occupying regime’ in Jerusalem would someday be gone. His message was, in essence, ‘This too shall pass.’”

Tikkun is Hebrew for mend, repair and transform the world.

Tikkun is also an interfaith organization which researched to discover that there are three distinct elements energizing Christian Zionists:

1. A strong commitment to conservative and ultra-nationalist American politics (so strong, I believe, that if the U.S. were to decide to break with Israel, this part of the Christian Zionist leadership would go along with that and drop its defense of Israeli policies).
2. Dispensationalist religious commitments that lead many of the Christian Zionists to yearn for a cataclysmic “end of history” eschatological war in the Middle East that will precipitate the second coming of Jesus and the Rapture in which all true Christians will go to heaven and all Jews who have not yet converted to Christianity will burn in hell for eternity.
3. A widespread understanding among many Christians that atonement and repentance is needed for 1700 years of murder, rape, and oppression of Jews that was frequently generated by the Church (though, of course, the Evangelicals do not recognize that church as their church). In this category are many Christian Zionists who genuinely feel terrible about what has happened to the Jews and genuinely want to help the Jewish people. Their philo-Semitism is real and sincere. [Rabbi Lerner, Tikkun Magazine page 9, Nov/Dec. 2007]

But in Miami that night, multitudes of misled and misinformed Christian’s celebrated military occupation, violence, power and political control but ignored the gospel Jesus preached: ”It is the peacemakers who shall be called the children of God.” –Matthew 5:9

Hagee repeatedly cited that all worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but neglected to mention that the first mention of Israel is in Genesis 32:22, when Jacob was renamed Israel for having wrestled and struggled with the Divine.

Hagee threw out the names of all the Hebrew prophets, but not the fact that God raised up prophets to speak truth to power and arrogance and to remind people of what God desires:

“What does God require? He has told you o’man! Be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with your Lord.” -Micah 6:8

God also raised up prophets to remind them they cannot know the mind of the Mystery of the Universe, for ”His thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.”- Isaiah 55:8

God raised up prophets to admonish the ”stiff necked people” [Exodus 34:9, Proverbs 29:1] and that ”My people are fools, they do not know me! They are skilled in doing evil, they know not how to do good.”-Jeremiah 4:22

Hagee invoked the “Torah Way” but neglected what the Torah commands:

“From Moses to Jeremiah and Isaiah, the Prophets taught…that the Jewish claim on the land of Israel was totally contingent on the moral and spiritual life of the Jews who lived there, and that the land would, as the Torah tells us, ‘vomit you out’ if people did not live according to the highest moral vision of Torah. Over and over again, the Torah repeated its most frequently stated mitzvah [command]:

“When you enter your land, do not oppress the stranger; the other, the one who is an outsider of your society, the powerless one and then not only ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself’ but also ‘you shall love the other.’” [Rabbi Lerner, TIKKUN Magazine, page 35, Sept./Oct. 2007 ]

Because I love ALL people as sisters and brothers and I seek SECURITY for Israel by pursuing JUSTICE for Palestine, in 2005 I wrote KEEP HOPE ALIVE

Because as Don Hewitt always said: “The formula is simple and it’s reduced to four words every kid in the world knows: Tell me a story. It’s that easy.”

In Chapter 16, I told the story of  A CONFRONTATIONAL CONVERSATION

“Father Paul, you cannot possibly be telling me that an Episcopal priest has been taken in by fundamentalist theology?” Terese incredulously asked the new assistant to the rector at St. Joan of Arc Episcopal Church in Orlando, who also served at the noon mass every Wednesday.

Father Paul Hendricks was a passionate evangelist on a mission to convert every Jew he encountered to become a Christian. Terese had kept her silence for the first six months she had been listening to his Wednesday noon sermons, but finally broke her silence after the rest of the parishioners had departed.

Paul sighed and shook his head. “Look, Mrs. Hunter, I read your op/ed in the newspaper about Israel and Palestine, and we both agree we want peace; we just go about it differently.”

“Father, let me say that the fastest growing cult in the U.S.A. is the cult of Christian Zionism. Approximately 25 million U.S. Christians believe as you do, and I am most depressed to see that the simple answers of fundamentalism have reached their tentacles into the thinking man’s church. You just preached for thirteen minutes on Genesis 12:3–‘I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse: and in you all the families of the world are blessed’–as if God meant blessings to be political power and military might. Father, surely you understand that the belief of the ancient Israelites, who held that they were chosen, as if they were somehow special from others, as if God esteemed them above others, is just basic primitive nationalism. Come on, Father, looking down on one’s enemies to foster one’s own tribal interest and praying to God to smite one’s enemies is what the ancients did. Isn’t it about time we moved beyond that limited thinking?”

Father Paul clenched his fists and held them behind his back, as he suppressed a simmering rage. He stood nine inches above Terese’s upturned head, and with a slick smile and condescending tone told her, “Mrs. Hunter, you are very misled. The text is understood to mean a blessing to Abraham’s lineage–”

Terese cut in. “Agreed! And Genesis 12:3 was promised even before Ishmael, the father of the Arab nation, and Isaac, the Jew, were born! And what about the very first mention of Israel? Jacob was renamed Israel for having wrestled and struggled with God. That is how I understand Israel; everyone who struggles and wrestles with God is Israel, too. Israel means more than a geographical location, Father Paul.”

“Mrs. Hunter, the modern state of Israel is the fulfillment of the prophetic scriptures, and God’s covenant with Israel is eternal, exclusive, and will not be abrogated. I refer you to Genesis 12:1-7, 15:4-7, 17:1-8; Leviticus 26:44-45; and Deuteronomy 7:7:8.”

“And Father, I refer you to Matthew 5:43-45, which does not only critique Genesis 12:3; it blows it apart, for Christ commanded, ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despite-fully use you, that you maybe children of your Father.’”

The two had reached Paul’s SUV and he silently prayed he could make a swift escape, but Terese had positioned herself at the driver’s door, and if he were to open it swiftly, she could be easily moved aside. Father Paul entertained the thought for more than a moment, but remained mute and still, as the tiny woman exploded with a torrent of words.

“Look, blind allegiance to the Israeli government has allowed them to become a big bully, and isn’t God always on the side of the oppressed? My sense is that you Christian Zionists see the political state of Israel as a replacement for Christ and that certainly is not Christianity!

“How do you take Genesis 12:3 to literally mean that blessings equal land and political power, yet ignore God’s promise in Genesis 21:17-20 to ‘make a great nation out of Ishmael’s descendants and that ‘God was with the boy.’ Yet your way of thinking allows the growing apartheid wall to continue, and supports occupation and oppression of people that God also made promises too.”

“Mrs. Hunter, why don’t you make an appointment and we can discuss this further? I really have to go.”

“Okay, I can take a hint, but let me leave you with this: when religion and politics are in bed together, everybody gets screwed! The Israeli government is using you Zionists as apologists in support of their agenda of illegal occupation and settlements in the West bank, Golan, and Gaza, on literal biblical grounds taken out of context. Your blind allegiance to every act of Israel, understood as being orchestrated by God and which should therefore be condoned, supported, and even praised, makes me want to puke! And I wonder about the true motives of Christians who actually relish the idea of Armageddon and love to speculate on who gets ‘left behind.’ Christ was very clear that there will be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth by those who were so sure they were in, but get left out. God has always been on the side of the oppressed, and your uncritical endorsement and justification for Israel’s racist and apartheid policies are an abomination.”

The stunned and silent priest watched in relief as Terese turned, flipped her braid, and walked away…….

I will not, I cannot walk away until US policy changes course and Gaza Palestine are free from military occupation, so I am on my way to D.C. to converse with my American and Israeli sisters and brothers at AIPAC’s annual conference.

Education leads to Compassion, Compassion leads to Change

An Interview with Richard Forer and the Arab Awakening…

Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, was born in 1957 in Beit Sahour, a suburb of Bethlehem. He became a Professor of Genetics and taught at Yale University School of Medicine and Duke University. He is currently teaching at Birzeit Universities in occupied Palestine and his main interests are media activism and public education, human rights and international law. In a 30 January 2011, email he wrote:

“Arabs everywhere (yes even here in occupied Palestine) are talking about a transformation and about revolution.  But all such transformations carry pain. Over 200 Egyptians were killed, thousands injured, and there is much destruction. Yet in a nation of 85 million people this is still a relatively peaceful transformation…I know most politicians like to feel 100% safe (mostly for their position of power) and are afraid of any change. But I wish they would realize that daring politicians make the history books and those who hang around trying to protect their seats will be forgotten. Cowardice is never a virtue…Clearly, the era of ignoring the masses is gone.”

Richard Forer, was born in New Jersey in 1948 and attended Sunday school at his reform synagogue from the ages of five through fourteen. In 2006, Forer zealously supported of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. At about the same time, he became a member of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying organization in the U.S. When a Jewish friend challenged him on the ‘facts’ he used to justify his support for the invasion, he began an intensive study of the history of Israel Palestine. That led to a crisis of identity as he discovered that his attachment to the State of Israel had blinded him to the heart of Judaism and to the universal truth that lies beyond all labels and beliefs: there is no exclusive or separate self. We are all connected.

Regarding Islam, Richard said, “Many who’ve been influenced into forming enemy images of Islam will find the fact that all but one of the Koran’s 114 chapters mentions compassion infuriatin­g because their identities require an attachment to a belief that Islam is evil. In my book, Breakthrou­gh: Transformi­ng Fear into Compassion – A New Perspectiv­e on the Israel-Pal­estine Conflict I describe my awakening to True Compassion­.

“Briefly, True Compassion only arises when one gives up his/her core identity. Once that relinquish­ment occurs the world is no longer seen as a realm of Us against Them. That is because the attachment to a separate/i­ndividual identity requires the creation of the ‘other.’

“The other is a person, society, religion, idea that does not fit within the boundaries of how an individual­, consciousl­y and unconsciou­sly, defines his/her identity. Thus, the other is a threat to the ‘reality’ of one’s self-image or identity. Additional­ly, I assert that Clarity always accompanie­s True Compassion­. True Compassion­, unbounded by labels or definition­s and the influence exerted upon one’s belief structure by a presumed identity, can see from a 360 degree perspectiv­e and, therefore, understand or be willing to understand all points of view. Thus, I can also say that although I find the brutal violence carried out by extremists abhorrent I understand that deep in their hearts even these extremists want the same things we all want – self-deter­mination, freedom and peace.”

Regarding particular Christians, Richard wrote: “Christians who ignore the suffering of human beings by using the same justification as the more fundamentalist of Jews – that ‘God gave the land to the Jewish [or chosen] people’– need to take a closer look at the teachings of Christ. Did Christ single out some for his blessing while ostracizing others? Did he teach hatred or did he teach love and compassion? And they need to look more deeply into their own hearts. Then they will discover that in denying the humanity of some they deny their own humanity…Separative thinking is never divinely inspired. It is always narcissistically inspired; it is, in fact, the very antithesis of the unifying and all-encompassing nature of the divine.” [1]

Regarding the fundamentalist fire and brimstone preacher, John Hagee and his Christians United for Israel/CUFI cult, Richard said:

“Hagee raises millions of dollars annually for Israel’s settlement enterprise on Palestinian land. He believes that the boundaries of Israel are set by God, that Judea and Samaria, otherwise known as the West Bank, are within these God-given boundaries and that these lands must be inhabited by Jews. This, of course, would require the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. One can argue that this viewpoint obstructs the chances for peace but it certainly doesn’t qualify as anti-Semitism.

“Unfortunately, though, Hagee is an exponent of the ‘End of Days’ when Jesus will return to Earth and non-believers, Jews included, will have to either convert to Christianity or fall into a lake of fire (Hell). Hagee further believes that the Jewish people are guilty of deicide – the murder of Christ – the one unpardonable sin. This belief has been at the heart of anti-Semitism for nearly two thousand years. Without this belief, Adolf Hitler might not have been able to rely on both the hatred and the silence of those who supported or closed their eyes to the evils of the Holocaust. But most perniciously, Hagee has stated that the Nazis had operated on God’s behalf to chase the Jews from Europe and ‘shepherd’ them to Palestine. And, Hagee continues, Hitler was a ‘hunter’ sent by God to expedite His will of having the Jews re-establish a state of Israel.”

I was born in Greenwich Village, New York in 1954 and up until that day we call 9/11, I never gave a thought beyond my family, friends and local community. That day transformed me and I began to research about the Middle East and traveled seven times to Israel Palestine beginning in 2005.

On 6 November 2007, I attended a John Hagee cult event in Miami and was astounded by his mastery of manipulating the fears of Christian Zionists and south Florida’s right wing Jewish community.

As the shofars blew in the packed to the rafters James L. Knight Center, Hagee blew idiot wind that brought the crowd to their feet, “Israel was re-born by an act of God and Israel lives! God Jehovah will bury Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran! The flag of Israel will fly over the undivided Jerusalem and be the praise of all the earth! It’s 1938 again and the new Hitler is Ahmadinejad! Radical Islamists are threatening to develop nuclear weapons in order to destroy Israel and then the USA! But we are indivisible and we are both here forever!”

The oft repeated comment ascribed to President Ahmadinejad, that “Israel must be wiped off the map,” was addressed by Virginia Tilley, Professor of political science who wrote:

“In his October 2005 speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad never used the word “map” or the term “wiped off”. According to Farsi-language experts like Juan Cole and even right-wing services like MEMRI, what he actually said was “this regime that is occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.”

“In this speech to an annual anti-Zionist conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad was being prophetic, not threatening. He was citing Imam Khomeini, who said this line in the 1980s (a period when Israel was actually selling arms to Iran, so apparently it was not viewed as so ghastly then). Mr. Ahmadinejad had just reminded his audience that the Shah’s regime, the Soviet Union, and Saddam Hussein had all seemed enormously powerful and immovable, yet the first two had vanished almost beyond recall and the third now languished in prison. So, too, the ‘occupying regime’ in Jerusalem would someday be gone. His message was, in essence, ‘This too shall pass.’”[2]

Tikkun is Hebrew for mend, repair and transform the world.

Tikkun is also an American Jewish progressive political and spiritual community and organization, that researched and discovered that there are three distinct elements energizing the Christian Zionists:

1. A strong commitment to conservative and ultra-nationalist American politics (so strong, I believe, that if the U.S. were to decide to break with Israel, this part of the Christian Zionist leadership would go along with that and drop its defense of Israeli policies).
2. Dispensationalist religious commitments that lead many of the Christian Zionists to yearn for a cataclysmic “end of history” eschatological war in the Middle East that will precipitate the second coming of Jesus and the Rapture in which

all true Christians will go to heaven and all Jews who have not yet converted to Christianity will burn in hell for eternity.

3. A widespread understanding among many Christians that atonement and repentance is needed for 1700 years of murder, rape, and oppression of Jews that was frequently generated by the Church (though, of course, the Evangelicals do not recognize that church as their church). In this category are many Christian Zionists who genuinely feel terrible about what has happened to the Jews and genuinely want to help the Jewish people. Their philo-Semitism is real and sincere. [3]

But in Miami that night, I witnessed multitudes of misled and misinformed Christian’s celebrating military occupation, violence, power and control but they ignored the gospel/good news that Jesus promised, “It is the peacemakers who shall be called the children of God.” –Matthew 5:9

Hagee repeatedly cited that all worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but neglected to mention that the first mention of Israel is in Genesis 32:22, when Jacob was renamed Israel for having wrestled and struggled with the Divine. This Christian Anarchist [meaning I take Jesus very seriously but all the rest is commentary for me] contends that anyone who wrestles and struggles with the Ultimate Mystery of the Universe is also Israel, for Israel is not just a State but a state of mind, spirit and soul.

Hagee threw out the names of Hebrew prophets, but neglected the fact that God raised up prophets to speak truth to power, to confront arrogance and to remind the people, “What does God require? He has told you o’man! Be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with your Lord.” -Micah 6:8

God also raised up prophets to remind the people that they cannot know the mind of God for “His thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.”- Isaiah 55:8

God also raised up prophets to admonish the “stiff necked people” [Exodus 34:9, Proverbs 29:1] and warned them that, “My people are fools, they do not know me! They are skilled in doing evil, they know not how to do good.”-Jeremiah 4:22

Hagee also invoked the “Torah Way” but the Torah commands:

“From Moses to Jeremiah and Isaiah, the Prophets taught…that the Jewish claim on the land of Israel was totally contingent on the moral and spiritual life of the Jews who lived there, and that the land would, as the Torah tells us, ‘vomit you out’ if people did not live according to the highest moral vision of Torah. Over and over again, the Torah repeated its most frequently stated mitzvah [command]: When you enter your land, do not oppress the stranger; the other, the one who is an outsider of your society, the powerless one and then not only ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself’ but also ‘you shall love the other.’” [4]

A Brief History of Christian Zionism:

In 1891, Christian fundamentalist and lay-preacher, William Blackstone appealed to President Benjamin Harrison to help establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Blackstone was a disciple of Dwight L. Moody and the father of premillenial dispensationalism, John Nelson Darby, influenced them both.

Darby had great success in connecting with the post-Civil War survivors and was able to transmit his new heretical theology into the heartland of America. Despite the horrifying news of Czarist pogroms that could have been the catalyst to establishing a Jewish state before the Holocaust, the Christian fundamentalists moved onto the Scopes Trial and forgot about the Jews-for a while.

Fifty years later and after millions of Jews and other innocents who had been deemed outcasts by the Third Reich were tortured and murdered and the British Mandate ran out, the land we call Holy was partitioned by the United Nations to make a home for Jewish immigrants.

Most evangelicals interpreted the establishment of the state of Israel to be the fulfillment of -how they understood and interpreted- certain prophetic scriptures. They interpreted the Israeli victory in the 1967 War and the capture of Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights to be an act of God but neglected to consider the fact of Israeli superior military might.

The American Bi-Centennial in 1976 was a watershed year for the religious right. While mainline churches declined, evangelical and fundamentalist churches became the fastest growing sector of American Christianity. TIME magazine named 1976 as The Year of The Evangelical and suddenly they became a political force.

Following the War of 1967, Israel gained an increased portion of USA foreign aid and military budgets, becoming the ‘western pillar’ of the USA strategic alliance against Soviet incursion into the Middle East.

During this period AIPAC and other pro-Israeli lobby agencies began their ascent to power in shaping USA foreign policy. The Roman Catholic Church and mainline Protestant denominations began to develop a more balanced approach to the Middle East, bringing them closer to the international consensus on the Palestinian question but Pro-Israel organizations interpreted this shift as being Anti-Israel and in turn began to court conservative and fundamentalist Christians.

In 1977, when President Carter stated “The Palestinians deserve a right to their homeland,” Christian fundamentalists and the Israeli lobby responded with full page ads stating: “The time has come for evangelical Christians to affirm their belief in biblical prophecy and Israel’s divine right to the land…and affirm our belief in the Promised Land to the Jewish people.”

The Reagan White House hosted a series of seminars from the Israeli lobby and Christian right. This was when Hal Lindsay, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and the Moral majority infiltrated the West Wing.
Falwell received a Lear Jet from the Israeli government for his personal travel. When Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear plant in 1981, Prime Minister Begin called Jerry Falwell -before he called Reagan- to ask him to explain to the Christian public the reasons for the bombings!

In 1996, Netanyahu and Likud ideology dominated Israeli policy and 17 evangelical USA pastors pledged their support of the illegal colonies in the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and full support for a Jerusalem under sovereignty of Israel.

The Christian Zionists launched a PR campaign under the banner: “Christians Call for a United Jerusalem.”

They ignored the fact that they were in conflict with American policy and the Oslo process as well as a direct attack on Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant unity with the Churches for Middle East Peace that called for a Shared Jerusalem.

In 2006, Hagee wrote for the Pentecostal magazine Charisma, “The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty. Israel and America must confront Iran’s nuclear ability and willingness to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. For Israel to wait is to risk committing national suicide.”

With the publication of the fictional Left Behind series many more Christians were mislead and a major reason I wrote KEEP HOPE ALIVE was to challenge its escapist heretical theology.

274 years ago on 29 January, Thomas Paine was born a man before his time; but his wisdom and spirit speak to the NOW:

“Soon after I had published the pamphlet Common Sense [on Feb. 14, 1776] in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion…The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.”

Thomas Jefferson penned The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth which weeded out the miracle stories as it illuminated what Jesus’ was about:
Always work for PEACEFUL resolutions, even to the point of returning violence with COMPASSION.

Consider valuable the things that have no material value.

Do not judge others and do not bear grudges.

Give out of true generosity; not because you expect to be repaid.

Being true to your self is more important than being loyal to ones family/tribe.

Those who think they know the most are the most ignorant.
Jesus said that his mother, sisters and brothers were those that did the will of the Father and again, the Hebrew prophet Micah summed it up best: “What does the Lord require? He has already told you o’man: Be Just, Be Merciful and walk humbly with your God.”

To be just is to be fair and reasonable.

To be merciful means to treat all people the way we want to be treated.

To be humble is knowing oneself; and good and evil cut through every human heart.
Jesus taught that the only way to resist evil is with good. Jesus was a nonviolent Palestinian devout Jew who was mocked, whipped and nailed to a cross and his final prayer was, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”

Education is the way to compassion and compassion will bring in the change we all really want to see in this world for we all desire this same trinity; self-deter­mination, freedom and peace.

When the people Rise Up/Intifada to seize their RIGHTS governments had better get out of their way and let them have them.

Hear Richard’s latest interview here:

http://www.radio4all.net/files/ jblankfort@earthlink.net

/1752-1-totw012611rforer.mp3

Very RELATED:

7:35 God’s Side and The 9th of Av: Number 9, Number 9, Number 9

1. http://www.richardforer.com/writing/jewish-support-for-anti-semitic-theology-dooms-israel-to-endless-conflict/

2. http://www.counterpunch.org/tilley08282006.html

3. Rabbi Lerner, Tikkun Magazine page 9, Nov/Dec. 2007

4. Rabbi Lerner, Tikkun Magazine page 35, Sept./Oct. 2007

R. J. Rushdoony, A “Radical Libertarian”?

What is a “Radical Libertarian”?

“Rushdoony was a radical libertarian… law is not the prerogative of church or state but rather the condition of man, an inseparable aspect of life and environment, and hence coextensive and coterminous with existence… Wherever church or state have claimed a prior, or any, jurisdiction over every other sphere of human activity or institution, there has been, with the realization of their claim, a steady diminution of liberty and the substitution of an institutional bureaucracy for law…Bureaucracy begins with bylaws, and bylaws are the regulations created by an organization to control its members. The family, and the individual, can work easily with Biblical law, but church and state require pages of additional bylaws in order to establish their authority.” Excerpted from “Theocracy and a Liberal Education” Chalcedon Blog.

Rushdoony’s Institutes (primarily the first volume) changed the character of my Christian life. In my early Christian years I reacted to any mention of law like I had been handed a hot potato; the idea was quickly dropped and soothed by Grace. Many of Jesus’ followers were attracted to miracles; I was attracted to Grace. The Charismatic Movement was home and the Gifts of the Spirit its primary objective. There was an overwhelming evangelical spirit and a vibrant excitement. The lame, the sick, and the captives were brought to services where hands were laid on them and prayers were pronounced. Many were healed, many were converted, and many put down roots. We watched our little country church grow from 30 Sunday worshipers to 150 at each of two services.

In some of those services there was an ineffable presence of the Holy Spirit that produced palpable healing. It was as if agape love permeated the atmosphere. Tears of joy rolled down our faces. Unfortunately this rapture was not received as an irreplaceable gift from The King but as a condition that could be created by men. Worship became a pursuit of emotional bliss, spiritual gifts, and healing. The public was attracted to this hedonistic worship and many were converted. Charismatic churches grew by leaps and bounds. They grew so fast that real fellowship was difficult to find. As new converts came in older converts left. Church hopping, a never-ending search for loving fellowship, became the norm.

The number of Christians increased dramatically but because what was called the Full Gospel was only a fraction of what God intended, the new converts failed to mount the steps of righteousness. The secular society in which we lived continued to plot against God, create tyranny, live with lies and fantasies, kill babies, engage in sexual abominations, and mock the One True God. Christians complained but their complaints fell on the deaf ears of a humanistic government and pagan power structure. We were living in the Devil’s lair and the Devil was king.

It was in this atmosphere that I, a twenty-seven year-old Christian, sixty years of age, began to seek a solution to the dearth of fruit. I wrote a letter to a Charismatic leader we had followed and supported. He did not answer. I was referred to Chalcedon and read their magazine for several months. I was urged to read R. J. Rushdoony’s “Institutes of Biblical Law” but was intimidated by its scholarly content and put off by the implication of Law. Finally I purchased a copy and began to read. I am a slow reader and it took me several months to read and underline the entire first volume. As the completed Gospel of Jesus Christ began to emerge from the pages of Rushdoony’s writings I experienced a new Epiphany of understanding and direction. I now understood that the Law was not given by a tyrannical God Who wanted to curtail our enjoyment but by a loving God who wants us to be free, peaceful, and prosperous. I learned that the primary work of every Christian was to work toward God’s dominion over His creation through obedience to His Law. The confusion was gone replaced with sound direction!

I was so impressed with Dr. Rushdoony” work that I purchased an additional copy of the Institutes to be passed around to interested individuals who might then purchase their own copies. It lasted for three or four transfers; the last recipient failed to return it.

I had learned to love and live the Law but not how to apply it to our complex, debauched society.

“Theocracy and a Liberal Education” was published on the Chalcedon Blog. It described R. J. Rushdoony as a “radical libertarian”; explaining his quest to preserve liberty by centering The Law in the family and refusing to allow the “institutional bureaucracy” of church or state to secure jurisdiction and challenge freedom with tyrannical by-laws.

My dictionary has two definitions of libertarian: One, “a person who believes in the doctrine of the freedom of the will”; two, “a person who believes in full individual freedom of thought, expression, and action.”

On Page 581 of “The Institutes of Biblical Law”, Dr. Rushdoony writes: “But a society that makes freedom its primary goal will lose it, because it has made, not responsibility, but freedom from responsibility its purpose. When freedom is the basic emphasis it is not responsible speech that is fostered but irresponsible speech. If freedom of the press is absolutized, libel will be defended finally as a privilege of freedom, and if free speech is absolutized, slander finally becomes a right. Religious liberty becomes the triumph of irreligion. Tyranny and anarchy take over. Freedom of speech, press, and religion all give way to controls, totalitarian controls.”

Ayn Rand was a “radical libertarian”. She was an enlightened humanist who said the purpose of her famous novel “Atlas Shrugged” was to describe “the role of the mind in man’s existence—and, as a corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the morality of rational self-interest.”. Somehow I cannot picture Dr.Rushdoony “standing naked on the edge of a cliff”. (Rand wrote this description of her hero, Howard Roark.)

The writer quotes R. J. Rushdoony, “Liberty is not license, and liberty and law are inseparable, but law is not the prerogative of church or state but rather the condition of man, and inseparable aspect of life and environment, and hence coextensive and coterminous with existence.”

Over the years as I have written about the need for obedience to The Law I have been hesitant to delve into the social construct that would be required for its proper administration because the subject is extremely complicated. The question of jurisdiction opens that subject. I know that the family is God’s basic unit of government and that it, the Church, and the State, are to function in separate spheres but I am not sure how that might work in practice.

God gave us penalties for disobedience; they are recorded in His Word. He gave us penalties because He knew that sin would rear its ugly head. There are penalties for disobeying God’s Law. If The Law is centered in the family, how would society address family transgressions? Who are the policemen and to whom are they responsible? Do members of the family seek justice from magistrates and are the magistrates a branch of the government? How does the church maintain discipline and how does the government administer justice and protect the nation without jurisdiction? Would a functional Theocracy require abandoning our present form of government? If our nation’s leaders and citizens assented to begin to obey God’s Law what steps would be taken to begin the process? There is a host of questions.

When Libertarian Christian Laurence Vance seeks to decriminalize prostitution maintaining that it is a victimless crime isn’t he missing the degradation of sin that is present in the woman and in the man who uses her services? Doesn’t the use of drugs fertilize sin and disrupt the peace and efficiency of society? Would it be a crime to be drugged or drunk and would by-laws be needed to criminalize it? The answer, of course, is that The Law does criminalize both prostitution and drunkenness but radical libertarians do not recognize God’s Law.

The need to keep the Law from being overcome by “institutional bureaucracy” is real but the need for by-laws seems real as well.

The Industrial Revolution brought the masses relief from the drudgery of everyday life by severing direct dependence on the land. It also challenged the family and morality by removing one and now often two parents from the home. It set the stage for the birth of corporations, business competition, complex economics, and a plethora of ethical problems that did not exist in simpler times. The electronic revolution is restoring a form of hands-on supervision (cameras and listening devices), challenging interpersonal relationships, increasing the availability of information, advancing scientific research, and transforming record keeping. We are now living in an industrialized society that is almost totally digitalized. The results of the industrial and electronic revolutions have not enhanced our dependence on God but have had the opposite effect.

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony was a brilliant Christian theologian who was aware and warned of the sinful accumulation of power inherent in the Church and the Government. He believed that men were not created with the ability to govern themselves and only when God’s Law is intrinsic in the individual, in government, and in the church can maximum liberty be realized. The death penalty is a form of eugenics that over successive generations would produce a more obedient culture. That culture, cleansed from rampant rebellion, would require less enforcement. However, God has provided penalties for a reason and they should be heeded.

Libertarians are diverse. Many Christians have chosen the Libertarian umbrella. Under the same covering are atheistic and agnostic anarchists who are humanistic, intellectual and often anti-Christian. Godless Libertarians might continence minimum legal restraints but they would bristle at the immutable Laws of God which are the bedrock and the only source of liberty.

The Libertarian philosophy of ultra-free markets spawns the institutionalized power Dr. Rushdoony deplored. This morning I traveled several miles to a UPS terminal to return a parcel. We had mistakenly ordered the same item twice. I had prepared the labels and put them on a properly sealed box. When I arrived the UPS attendant ushered me to a computer terminal where I was told to type out my label. It was difficult typing on a keyboard below my waist while standing up but I succeeded in duplicating the label that was already on my parcel. The attendant told me it was necessary to type the label for tracking purposes. The new label emerged from the printer and the attendant scratched over my labels with a black crayon and affixed the new label to the package. She then calculated the rate at $9.03. I had received two items from this company and paid $4.65 for shipping. I asked why it cost over twice as much to ship merchandise back than to ship it out. She had no idea. Neither did I. Quasi-monopolistic organizations like UPS, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and many others are no longer consumer oriented. Their concern is with mass markets, not individuals. Consumers put up with their arrogant ways because it is too difficult or too expensive to go elsewhere.

The concentration of individuals (now called human resources) into small areas was a result of the Industrial Revolution and mass merchandising is a result of the concentration of individuals. Retail selling would be quite different in an agrarian culture.

Libertarians assign a godlike quality to the free market. There is very little reference to any legal restriction. They support open borders, open markets, and open morals. While I believe in free markets and international trade it should be restrained by prior national interests.

Both Libertarians and Christians seek liberty but liberty is inextricably joined with law. Libertarians are not enamored with law.

It is difficult to imagine how a legal system might work with Law centered in the heads of families who are employed by mammoth corporations that have no regard for the individual or the family. Law is a function of power and unless power is returned to the family the head of that family will be unable to exercise dominion. Businesses must serve families not visa versa.

God does not impose His Law on a culture. The Biblical model for Godly living involves the intent of the entire social order to live under God’s Commandments. Leaders in the separate spheres of Family, Government, and Church would need to determine to obey God’s Law and citizens would need to voluntarily follow. It would be necessary to address violations. The framework for a Christian order should be determined in some detail and how such a transition might be accomplished.

Who Wants This American Dead?

Why kill Anwar al-Awlaki, an American who inspired the Times Square Fizzler and advised the Crotch Bomb Sizzler?

This Islamic preacher is “out there.” No doubt about it. So is Christian preacher John Hagee.

Hagee promises his flock a Rapture that will beam them up to Heaven. But not just yet. First God’s Chosen People must recover Jerusalem.

Remind me: isn’t the status of Jerusalem THE most contentious and volatile issue in the entire Middle East?

Hagee is much loved by the Likud Party wing nuts that have never shown any desire for peace with an indigenous population that has been ethnically cleansed, imprisoned and provoked with impunity for six-plus decades.

Isn’t Hagee’s preaching an incitement to violence? Yet members of his flock can claim a tax deduction to support his inspired preaching. We call this freedom of religion

If the recovery of Jerusalem for The Chosen requires an Armageddon, so be it. That too is part of God’s plan. Hagee should know. He claims a direct line to Yahweh. Just ask him.

Even a nuclear holocaust would fit God’s Plan. Why? An Apocalypse would assure the reappearance of a long-dead prophet.

This End Days prophecy is routinely foretold on the public airwaves by this tax-subsidized televangelist. For The Faithful, he offers an inspiration that has a twisted logic behind it.

When The Chosen recover their God-Given real estate, God will smite all those who refuse to join Hagee’s flock. Or some Christian affiliate thereof.

And, yes, that includes The Chosen. Convert or die. That’s the Hagee-inspired, tax-subsidized version of Christianity.

Such smiting does not qualify as a Holocaust. Why? Because those smitten are only The Chosen who refuse to choose a conversion to this version of a Loving God.

By then Hagee’s True Believers will be safely enfolded in the post-Rapture embrace of a God that prefers Christians Above All.

What about The Smitten? It was their Choice as The Chosen not to Choose. That’s their problem in this Biblical version of Blue State vs. Red State politics in a post-Apocalypse world.

Democracy-meets-theocracy supported by freedom-of-religion tax subsidies that inspire both The Saved and The Smitten.

Light Unto the Darkness

This blend of Star Trek and the Old Testament lacks any basis in either fact or faith. But Never Mind. That’s the burden that befalls those inspired by such a vision.

Just keep on keeping on, faithfully secure that you will be on the side of The Chosen in the post-Apocalyptic era. Provided, of course, that you choose wisely.

For that, consult Reverend Hagee. And keep those tax-deductible donations flowing.

Why do U.S. taxpayers subsidize such preaching? Why are we now using our tax dollars to hunt down and kill Muslim preachers in faraway lands?

Were there not a consensus that Hagee’s preaching merits protectiion as religion, he would be consigned to a padded cell. Or described as a terrorist and a Christian Evil Doer.

But the immediate issue here is neither about sanity nor the freedom to inspire.

The issue is what conduct you inspire. Yelling “fire” in a crowded theater is a no-no. Unless, of course, there’s a fire. Yell “Apocalypse” and you may find yourself in one of those cells.

What about taxpayer subsidies for televangelists who preach a nuclear Apocalypse? Why subsidize such “inspiration” in the world’s most volatile region?

Is Hagee’s inspiration subsidized because it fits into a “Judeo-Christian” narrative? What if he were calling for an Apocalypse here instead of the faraway Middle East?

What is it about a U.S.-born Islamic cleric living in Yemen, the poorest Arab nation, that makes him such a danger to Americans’ interests in the Middle East?

Who benefits from his death? Why is he so problematic?

Why now?

A Contract on the New Mexican

Barack Obama, a political product of the Chicago Outfit, reportedly approved this hit.

Who persuaded this former professor of Constitutional law that this was a good idea?

What is the rationale for this contract? All we know is what’s been reported to date.

But we also know this: FBI agents were actively monitoring at least three “incidents” by Muslim Evil Doers with whom this New Mexico native was in contact:

• The two San Diego hijackers who flew jets into the World Trade Center on 911.
• The Fort Hood shooter. See: Make the Real Terrorists Accountable, and The Christmas Day Crotch Bomber

And now we discover that he also “inspired” The Times Square Fizzler. Who knew?

Akin to an online Billy Graham for evangelical Muslims offering inspirational DVDs to his faithful flock, Mr. Awlaki appears uniquely capable of inspiring serial acts of “terrorism.”

Or to reframe these events in game theory terminology, perhaps he was uniquely well qualified to inspire uniquely well-timed “incidents”?

But wait a minute. The facts confirm he advised and/or “inspired” four such incidents, including at least three incidents undertaken during FBI oversight of Awlaki.

How did the Times Square Fizzler make 16 trips to and from Pakistan with impunity? How did he show up in Manhattan to launch a high profile “incident” just as the United Nations began debate on a treaty to create a Middle East free of nuclear weapons? See: Israel Defense Official Defends Nuclear Ambiguity.

Well-Timed Sparkle?

Imagine yourself seated in a darkened theater focused on a mystery thriller featuring a complex plot with several intricate subplots.

Then someone in your peripheral vision lights a fireworks sparkler. What happens to your attention? Then someone lights another. What then happens to your focus?

That’s why, in national security parlance, well-timed incidents are called “sparkle.”

Is it coincidence that Awlaki is found on the periphery of so many well-timed incidents? Why are federal law enforcement agents also found on the periphery?

Who benefits from having a Muslim cleric killed in a Muslim country by U.S. forces instead of apprehending him for questioning?

Kill him and watch this evidentiary trail vanish like the “dancing Israelis” who were spotted filming and celebrating the mass murder of 911.

For game theory war planners, a provocation is only the appetizer. The main course is the cascade of reactions that advance a narrative in support of a geopolitical agenda.

Provoked by 911, prodded by phony intelligence and duped yet again by a trusted ally, the U.S. reacted by invading Iraq, a nation now known to have no hand in that event. At last count, 1.3 million Iraqis are reportedly dead of war-related causes.

Rather than a nuclear-free Middle East, we’re now urged to invade Iran, the latest nuclear Evil Doer. Or is the next target now the Evil Doer Pakistan? How about Syria?

What’s been the reaction to our reaction to 911 among Muslims worldwide? Was our reaction modeled by game theory war planners? Are we that easily profiled? How much of the ongoing cascade of reactions-on-reactions-on-reactions could be modeled such that today’s outcomes became foreseeable—in the sense of being probable?

As Israeli war planners aptly say: “When the orchestra starts to play, we just hum along.”

What if the anticipated reactions fail to emerge on a timely basis? Are these Awlaki-inspired incidents “sparkle?”

Were they meant to distract attention and diffuse the focus required to press for an end to Israeli occupation of Palestine—including Jerusalem? Did the Times Square Fizzler further delay U.N. treaty—first proposed in 1995—that would force Israel to abandon its nuclear arsenal?

If we experience a nuclear “incident,” does it now appear more “plausibly” the work of Muslim Evil Doers? Iranians? Pakistanis? Syrians?

Or will it be the work of Israeli provocateurs?

Advancing the Narrative

Anwar al-Awlaki has the gift of gab. There’s no dispute about that. Raised in New Mexico and steeped in the Koran, his fiery rhetoric combines fluency in both pop culture and theology.

What radicalized him? What personal experiences transformed him from a glib Islamic cleric to a U.S.-bashing Muslim Evil Doer?

How about 18 months in a Yemeni prison, most of that sentence served in solitary confinement?

That alone might not suffice to turn him against his native country—unless his confinement was traceable to an American official.

Remember John Negroponte? He first emerged on the global scene as an overseer of death squads in Central America during the mid-1980s as part of the Reagan administration.

Regarded as a mass murderer by those knowledgeable in that volatile region, he reemerged in February 2005 when Secretary of State Colin Powell was dispatched to the United Nations. With Negroponte seated behind him, Powell’s credibility as a former general was associated with intelligence falsely alleging Iraq’s possession of mobile biological weapons.

Such “associative” psy-ops are business-as-usual for those skilled at displacing facts with what a targeted populace can be deceived to believe. Displacement is an essential component when waging Information Age warfare. See: Guilt By Association.

When watching Powell’s performance (he now concedes he was duped), television viewers saw over his right shoulder CIA Director George Tenet. The intelligence operative that no one could see behind Tenet was Paul Joyal, his chief of staff who boasts of being a Khazar.

Over Powell’s other shoulder peered John Negroponte, then director of national intelligence with oversight of the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies. None of those agencies now support Powell’s Power Point presentation of “facts” proving those biological weapons.

Negroponte was the U.S. official who did not object when Yemen imprisoned a U.S. citizen and held him in solitary confinement—where Awlaki immersed himself in the Koran for 18 months.

The U.S. approval of his release in 2007 suggests that he could have been released much earlier.

Try to imagine a better formula for radicalization. Who better than an outraged articulate American cleric to inspire Muslim-American Evil Doers? Or Pakistani-American patsies such as the Times Square Fizzler.

Why was Awlaki imprisoned? Equally important, why was he released? Capture him alive and we may find out. Kill him and the trail goes cold. Could that be the point?

Why has his death been ordered by a U.S. commander-in-chief? Why do Barack Obama’s advisers not want him brought in alive?

When unwinding the multi-layered forces at work behind game theory warfare, what distinguishes the agent provocateur from those profiled to react to those provocations?

Who is the real enemy in this hall of mirrors? Faced with yet another well-timed “incident,” how do we sort out the source of this evil doing?

Do we protect U.S. national security by killing a U.S. citizen?

Think about it.



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