Stealing From God

Insurance Without The Policy…

On C-Span Chris Hedges interviewed Alain de Botton about his book “Religion for Atheists”.    Alain de Botton was new to me but Chris Hedges has paid a price for standing with his convictions and has used his considerable literary talents to project shreds of truth to power.  The title of the book attracted my attention.

Both Hedges and de Botton are smart, well read, and well educated; both bring forth considerable erudition on a variety of subjects.  Alain de Botton described the secular world as having voids in several places citing ethics, community, structure, institution, art, and education.  In these deficient areas de Botton proposes that atheists avoid the doctrine but use the product of religion to fill the voids.

Botton approaches the Word of God with the same disdain used by many Christians; he is the arbiter, he does the picking and choosing; like a child eating the frosting from a freshly baked cake all he wants is the sweetness.  This is, of course, blasphemy and God treats it the same way a mother treats her little frosting thief.

The need that Botton expresses is obvious to a sentient person but escapes the turgid, atheistic intellectuals who regularly claim divine qualities.  Every child is born with an innate desire to be the lord of its universe.  Removing a baby from its mother’s breast before its stomach is full will result in an irritating tantrum.  That totalitarian characteristic will continue as long as the child’s scream is able to control its surroundings.  In some adults the scream may be silent but the control is still evident.

Christians are an independent lot.  There are very few Indians in the Christian tribe – lots of chiefs but few Indians.  This competition for leadership is exacerbated by the prevalent practice of usurping God’s authority by acting as arbiter of His Word.  Christians seldom approach the Bible with true reverence. He is the Creator, we are His creation, born in sin and unable to overcome the screams of our infancy we cannot live successfully until we obey His overarching word.

In spite of Libertarian opinion to the contrary, human power will always tend to be tyrannical.  For those who doubt, a review of human history will prove my point.  We are members of a species that has a history of theft, murder, mayhem, and tyranny.  The common man has enjoyed scant periods of freedom in the history of our world.   We need government because we are sinners who given the proper opportunity would tyrannize our fellows.  We all think we are right, that our opinions are righteous and above reproach.  Because we are often wrong but never in doubt, God did not create us to govern ourselves and there is no human being, however brilliant and wisdom filled, that has the proper perspective to govern his fellows – only God can do that!

The late Rousas Rushdoony pointed to the fact that God’s Ten Commandments have gradually been replaced by the Ten Planks of Communism. These secular, collectivist tenets are now encoded in our law replacing the Biblical based legal system brought from Europe by our Founders.  The Christian Church should have been a bulwark against this wicked tsunami but without legal standards it was unable to resist.  We are beginning to experience the totalitarian chaos and suffering that is the inevitable product of a God hating system.

Christopher Hedges is the son of a Presbyterian minister.  He was gifted with a brilliant intellect and received an excellent education.  From Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Ct. he earned a degree in English Literature from Colgate followed by a Master of Divinity from Harvard and an honorary doctorate from Unitarian Starr King School in Berkeley, California.  Raised in a home immersed in a Christian religious denomination; initiated to higher education at a Baptist College, and intellectually honed at a Divinity School noted for its flawless academics, Hedges was able to resist orthodox Christianity, take a fling at Unitarianism and spend fifteen years working at the New York Times.  One would be hard pressed to find a more salient example of progressive religious humanism.   Nevertheless, if his owlish round glasses are a symbol of wisdom, they have a large degree of authenticity.

Vehemently against the Iraq War Hedges publically condemned the press coverage.  In a speech at Rockford College in 2003 he said, “We are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige and power and security.”  The Jewish owned Times reprimanded Hedges and shortly thereafter he left the Paper, joined a think tank and began writing on his own.

Chris Hedges approaches religion as a divine arbiter of truth.  Christian churches throughout the world are full of people who use the same technique.  The result is an individualized humanistic religion that deifies the person and defies God.

Evangelical Christians make up the bulk of American Christianity but few understand the importance of being chosen.  When the creature chooses the Creator it is a humanist transaction; when the Creator chooses the creature it is a Divine calling.

One of my readers responded to an article about the devastation Jewish leaders have inflicted on the United States with this statement: “Perhaps if we were to expand just a bit, we might come to examine how the notion of being “chosen” by God is the ultimate form of collectivist thinking and can only lead to the destruction of the individual by considering him a part of a group, possessing nothing that exists above and beyond what he was born as, and giving him his worth only by being a member of it. Not only does it elevate some, it must demonize all others and creates an eternal state of enmity and conflict between groups, destroying the natural harmony and spontaneous order which develops naturally between men when they consider each other as individuals, each unique and possessing the same rights and liberties granted them by our Creator.”

Being chosen is intrinsic to the foundation of Christianity.  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob always does the choosing.  This essential tenet has been lost to the Dispensational cult and has become the illegitimate property of the Jews.  I understand that many present day Jews are not related to the Twelve Tribes but that is another subject.  What is important is that God chose Abraham and created a nation and a people from his progeny.  He promised to be their God and to bless them if they would obey His Commandments.  Not only did they fail to obey His commandments but they condemned His only Son, replaced His sacred Torah with the Talmud, and assiduously defied His rule. At the Diaspora God made a final break with them and henceforth the claims to being chosen by those who are not Christians are bogus.

One of the reasons for God’s rejections of the Jews is the humanistic arrogance that crept into their claim of being chosen.  God’s chosen people are ordered to lift up the Triune God of the Bible.  He is great and we are His servants.  Our ways are not His ways and righteousness is a product of His Word not of our thought.  Christians are God’s chosen people.  Being chosen changes the heart and sets us apart.  We are His ambassadors and His Word is our guide.  The spirit of the chosen is a spirit of humility.

When I began to watch the Hedges/Botton interview I thought it might be an unusual instance where both participants were Gentiles. However, it turned out that Alain de Botton comes from a very interesting Jewish family.  His Grandmother, Yolande Harmer (1913-1959), was born to a Turkish-Jewish mother in Alexandria, Egypt, she ascended socially to the court of King Farouk and was recruited to spy for nascent Israel. Her seductions were so successful that a town square in Jerusalem bears her name.  Alain’s father, Gilbert de Botton (1935-2000), was raised by his mother’s parents since both his mother and father were consumed by their vocations.  He was a brilliant man who caught the attention of the British and French Rothschild families and was selected to establish their operation in Zurich.   Eventually he became President of Rothschilds in New York.  Feeling he should be on his own the Rothschilds urged him to start his own business. (Jacob Rothschild provided financing and retained 40 percent of the business.) In 1983 he formed Global Asset Management, a multinational asset management firm.   As with many Rothschild associates he became fabulously wealthy.

It is difficult to find information on Alain’s mother who is apparently still alive.  Her maiden name was Jacqueline Burgauer; now Jackie de Botton. There is some information that suggests Alain considers her a high maintenance member of the family.

The Bible contains large sections of genealogy which ultimately result in the birth of the Christ. Meticulous genealogy is also kept by leading Jewish families because of the importance placed on their work.  Alain has a Sixteen Century relative,  Abraham de Boton (1560-1605), who was a famous rabbi and Talmudist.  If you open the page you will find that his teacher is listed on the page and if you open the teacher’s page you will find that teacher’s teacher is recorded, etc.  Talmudic scholars are important parts of Jewish history and carefully records are kept.  This substantial cultural foundation that Jews so meticulously maintain is the exact opposite of the policies they have successfully promoted in the United States of America.   Study of the Talmud is considered more important than study of the Torah.

As is sometimes the case, the participants in this interview were more interesting than the interview itself.  Several reviewers commended Alain de Botton’s outstanding literary ability.  His first book “Essays In Love” was a best seller and got glowing reviews. One reviewer included this metaphor as an example of the content.  “There is an Arabic saying that the soul travels at the pace of a camel. While most of us are led by the strict demands of diaries and timetables, the soul, the seat of the heart, trails nostalgically behind, burdened by the weight of memory…. The camel became lighter and lighter as it walked through time, it kept shaking memories and photos off its back, scattering them over the desert floor and letting the wind bury them in the sand, and gradually the camel became so light that it could trot again and even gallop in its own curious way – until one day, in a small oasis that called itself the present, the exhausted creature finally caught up with the rest of me.”

Alain de Botton is great writer on whose heart the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob may be tugging!