‘Defenders of the Faith’ (2014)

Mark Rushdoony on Charity & Welfare - YouTube

Why do we need anyone to defend the Christian faith?

And what must they defend it from?

Mark Rushdoony answered those questions in this 2014 essay.

https://chalcedon.edu/magazine/defenders-of-the-faith

Mark refutes the contention that the early church was “pure.” Good lord, no! As people throughout the Roman Empire joined the church, they brought all sorts of pagan ideas in with them. The church needed to call authoritative councils to weed out the paganism and state orthodox Christian belief as plainly as possible–which is why we have formal creeds.

We hardly need say that they’re still trying to import pagan notions, and humanist delusions, into the church (can you say “feminist theology”?). Because the church today is split into so many denominations, it’s no longer possible to hold a council that would speak with real authority. So we rely on the ancient creeds to protect us–and to keep us clear about what we believe.

Mark also provides a list of the major heresies the church had to deal with in the first centuries of its history. Most of them are still around, repackaged under new names. Well, that’s Original Sin for you. In a fallen world, we are always obliged to defend the Christian faith.

 

Inside the Madhouse

Inside the Yankees: The Championship Year: Ed Linn: 9780345276414 ...

If you don’t know or care about baseball, and turn around and leave the room if pro sports are on TV, that’s OK–but stay with me. Because this “baseball book” is really about something much more interesting (and morbidly entertaining): how people in an organization drive each other nuts, leading to irrational and counterproductive decisions.

Yeahbut, yeahbut! The Yankees won the championship anyway, didn’t they? So they couldn’t have done anything that wrong.

They won in spite of all the craziness. Besides, the teams they were playing against surely had their own corporate kookiness.

So it’s all here: the clash of bloated egos, gossip and backbiting, unbelievably stupid quotes that get out there in the media and cheese everybody off, spite galore, and individuals doing really dumb things just to show each other who’s boss. And you begin to wonder, “These are grown men? Really? Men who are allowed to vote and drive cars?”

But the foolishness that went on inside the Yankees can be found inside a business, big or small, inside a political party at any level, in an army, in a freakin’ fishing club, churches, softball teams–wherever people get together to rub each other the wrong way. And most of them are otherwise rational people who never would’ve gotten anywhere at all if they’d acted like this all the time. And did I mention that it only takes two people to make a messed-up organization? If it could be done solo, it would be.

The Bible warns us not to put our trust in man, whose breath is in his nostrils. Original Sin doesn’t have to confine itself to starting World War II: the devil’s just as happy with a one-on-one pissing contest.

 

‘Terrible TV and Public Policy’ (2014)

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This one makes everybody’s list of “Worst TV Shows Ever”

With so much experience, so much expertise, and so much research devoted to it, how do TV studios still manage to create shows that are total abject failures?

Terrible TV… and Public Policy

Honestly, how can that happen? It costs an awful lot of money to produce a TV show–and you still wind up with Mrs. Columbo?

If it’s this easy to create truly dreadful television, how hard can it be to create truly dreadful public policy?

Think about it!

‘The Persistence of Leftism’ (2017)

Painting a couple of melted clocks seems like a lot of trouble to go to, for very little gain, but it made Salvador Dali famous.

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Even more persistent than Dali’s memory is the evil in the human heart that leads us to leftism.

The Persistence of Leftism

“The human heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

It’s important to defeat the Left wherever and whenever it reaches out for power; but remember that unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it (Psalm 127:1).

(If you were wondering where was the link to the original 2017 post–well, I forgot to include it! The error has been rectified.)

Scam Artist Stings Woman for $9,000

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From the Daytona Beach News-Journal

A man claiming to be her nephew recently scammed a Palm Coast woman out of $9,000, the Flagler County, Florida, sheriff’s department has reported.

The victim got a phone call from a man, supposedly her nephew, saying he’d been arrested in New York City and needed money. He told her to go to Home Depot and buy him $4,000 worth of gift cards–with cash. He called back later and got the serial numbers of the gift cards.

The next day he called again for more money, another $5,000 worth of gift cards. This time she paid with a credit card instead of cash.

Only then–gee, lady, what took you so long?–did she phone her nephew and find out he hadn’t been arrested and that hadn’t been him asking her for money. She then called the credit card company, and they agreed to cancel the $5,000 transaction. But she was still out the $4,000 that she’d paid in cash. Police are investigating. Good luck with that, guys.

Someone tried almost exactly the same trick on me a couple of years ago: a phone call from someone pretending to be my great-grandson, telling me he’d been involved in a serious traffic accident in Las Vegas and needed thousands of dollars toot-sweet. A stranger wouldn’t know that me coughing up that kind of money simply wasn’t on the cards. When I said I didn’t have it, he hung up right away.

Is it really necessary to warn anyone not to fork over big wads of money to some joker who calls you up on the phone with a cock-and-bull story about being in trouble with the police and needing you to bail him out? I mean, okay, it could conceivably be true–in which case you should call the police department involved and ask them for the details. When it becomes apparent that they don’t know what you’re talking about, which shouldn’t take more than a matter of minutes, you’ll know you’re being scammed and–I hope!–hold onto your money.

Original Sin is out there all the time, and takes many forms. This is one of them.

 

Original Sin? ‘Hate Speech,’ Facebook Says

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[Thanks to Susan for the news tip]

Love turns into hate when secular social media bigwigs encounter it.

Christian blogger Ginger Taylor was banned from Facebook for seven days for quoting St. Augustine on the central Christian doctrine of Original Sin–which the barbarians at Facebook decided was “hate speech” (https://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/2019/07/i-am-blocked-from-facebook-for-seven.html?fbclid=IwAR1TaS2P2xWkhObKiPhy6bD-4b33XJwMMI02liFxJgEgzsmjhaZuv-OYOq0).

Uh, why do we need a Savior, if there’s no Original Sin? But God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

This is “hate”?

Now, if we were able to save ourselves just being piling up good works and being nice guys, why would we need the Son of God? Why would the Word need to become flesh, be born into this world, live among us, and be crucified, dead, and buried? Why should Christ have needed to be atonement for our sins, if we can simply cleanse ourselves by works of the flesh?

This is the original Christian doctrine, this is the whole point of Christianity–and Facebook calls it “hate speech.” God’s sublime love for His creation–for us!–becomes, in their eyes, “hate.” Why? Because God knows what we are and loves us anyway, and knows how to sanctify us by His sovereign grace? Because He won’t give us participation trophies and “Good job!” refrigerator magnets?

And now let’s see if FB lets me post this…

My Newswithviews Column, Nov. 29 (‘The Push for Open Borders’)

See the source image

“Borders, schmorders!”   –Attila the Hun

No country in history ever had “open borders” on purpose–although people like Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan treated other people’s countries as if they had no borders.  I guess if you can’t enforce ’em, you don’t really have ’em.

https://newswithviews.com/the-push-for-no-borders/

So the push for open borders is on, they think their public schools and collidges have dumbed us down enough to make us ready for it–and God the Lord defend us.

‘Crazy Jane, the Queen of Spain’ (2015)

This poor queen! Locked up for most of her life, diagnosed as “insane” when there was probably nothing wrong with her at all. Her nephew was Charles V, emperor of practically everything in Europe that wasn’t France or England. Her niece was Katherine of Aragon, wife of Henry VIII. Queen Jane, Juana La Loca, Crazy Jane–all those high connections, and no one ever lifted a finger to help her. History can sometimes make for harrowing reading. That’s Original Sin for you.

https://leeduigon.com/2015/09/18/crazy-jane-the-queen-of-spain/

The New Killer! ‘Religious Trauma Syndrome’

Well, thanks to Science, we now know why so many people are so messed up. It’s because they have Religious Trauma Syndrome (https://valerietarico.com/2013/03/26/religious-trauma-syndrome-is-it-real/).

The term was coined two years ago by Dr. Marlene Winell, and it’s starting to catch on. It has to do with “toxic religion” and “harmful experiences within religion,” which supposedly scar you for life and lead to all sorts of self-destructive behaviors.

But what is “toxic religion”? Winell says it’s religion that’s “controlling” and insists on conformity. But that could apply equally to–well, to going to college, these days. See what happens to you in a college classroom if you buck the party line.

I think we all know what perverted religion would look like, and would agree that it does harm. But Dr. Winell warns of “toxic teachings like eternal damnation and original sin.”

She cannot distinguish between genuine “toxic religion” and mainstream Biblical teaching.

Ah, but there’s a cure–atheism! Or at least conversion to some kind of waffy-daffy “spirituality” that tells you that you’re good, you’re the cat’s pajamas, whatever you believe is true, everybody goes to Heaven, light a scented candle and you’re home free, blah-blah-blah.

I mean, really, doc! Non-religious people don’t have these same problems?

Bottom line: it’s just another secularist stab at building a morality-free society with themselves sitting on top of it.

The Will to be as God

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As I sat in the laundromat today, the TV nooze–you just can’t escape it–presented a story that distressed me.

It was the trial of a band of merry carjackers who killed a man because they wanted his car and whatever might be in it. We were shown the victim’s widow addressing the convicted trigger man in court: “You took away everything I had, all my hopes and dreams, because you decided to play God, deciding who should live and who should die, deciding you had the right to kill because you wanted something that you hadn’t earned.”

God has given the civil government the authority and the duty to avenge these wrongs, and yet the government all too often refuses to do that (see Romans 13). Instead, the court is expected to sentence the trigger man to 30 years in prison–three square meals a day, color TV, weight room, and the company of like-minded savages. That is not justice. Again, the civil government has failed to carry out its function. The victim is still dead; his wife is still a widow; his children remain fatherless.

Adam and Eve inherited Original Sin by listening to the serpent’s promise that they themselves would be “as gods” if they disobeyed the real God (Genesis 3:5), and we, their descendants, have been doing it ever since.

The 20th century was a festival of murder. Think of Mao Tse-Tung, who killed at least 40 million people as part of his mad scheme, the Great Leap Forward, to transform China into a leading industrial power in five years. And that was only one of countless examples.

We haven’t learned a bloody thing. Today the Humanist Manifesto II declares there is no God, but that’s no problem–“using technology wisely,” we can do all those things God should have done: we can do His job. Paradise on earth. Just break a few more eggs, and we’ll have our omelet. Meanwhile, The Smartest People in the World wage war against reality itself while the Davos crowd, invoking Man-Made Climate Change as their warrant, works tirelessly toward a world government.

Like, we should trust them?

Our country’s founders were blessed with the wisdom to impose strict limits on the central government–limits which The Anointed of our day work ceaselessly to overthrow. If I’ve learned one thing from observing the nooze and reading history, it’s that the Original Sin, the will to be as God, features an insatiable lust for power over other human beings.

Which brings me back to the carjacking case. What was that, but an untrammeled will to power over the rightful owner of the car, and a decision to exercise it by killing him? You don’t have to bump off 40 million of your countrymen to be a little tin god: a single murder will do just as well.

God has a plan to heal the human race and regenerate His whole creation. He will do it in spite of us. For this cause Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born, and died on the cross, and rose from the dead… and will return.

Come, Lord Jesus, come. Because we are not fit to do God’s job; but you are.