Election 2020: Cracks In The Foundation

I have always sought to unify not divide. But we live in a divided nation. I have always sought to avoid politics on my site but everything has been politicized. So I will present my view. I have also never minced words about President Trump. I was somewhat vocal about my dislike of Donald Trump’s character early on in 2015 and never overtly supported him. I still often reserve comment because mentioning him 'triggers' people. Once they get spun up, few can listen with open minds. During the course of his term I have seen actions that have continually led me to believe he's still a narcissist and a misogynist that objectifies women. Indeed, he still comes off as detestable at times and his outbursts are at best unpresidential, petty or petulant. But…

I have also watched him follow through on campaign promises. I thought he was merely grandstanding for votes to win an election. Things that actually mattered. Of paramount importance has been his open support of pro-lifers and efforts to defund Planned Parenthood much to the consternation of murderers nationwide. They ask if my vote can be swayed by one issue. Yes, abortion. In addition, he’s tried to assure the sovereignty of the United States. National sovereignty that sanctuary cities in sanctuary states have undermined. We had a booming economy until the farce that was the COVID shutdown killed many state’s revenue. In truth, his policies have been friendly to Christians and people of faith in general. But…

I also need to admit I do not fully understand professed Christians that can or will vote unabashedly for the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ticket in the coming days. They have been informed of the deceptions of the Biden CCP connections and it doesn’t matter. A large portion of the media will not cover the outing of the Biden family by an old business partner Tony Bobulinski and the duplicitous Quid Pro Quo of the former Vice President. Quid Pro Quo...the very thing the entire Democratic party tried to pin on a sitting president through the charade and political theater of impeachment. An impeachment covered ad absurdium by a complicit media. These Christians will vote for these two anyway and it may become a contested election. I understand the non-believer with their seared minds (Romans 1) but I do not get proclaimed Christians doing the same. Unless those claiming citizenship in God's Kingdom aren't of the Kingdom.

The Christians that voted for Biden/Harris know Biden's and Harris’ monstrous voting record on abortion and/or partial birth abortion. Harris’ position is especially heinous being a woman willing to kill a child in her own womb as her right while hypocritically denying rights to that murdered child. At least Biden has a logistical out by being a man and deferring to a woman’s choice. Yet, off the 'Christian' voter will go and vote for the very people that promise them the world and will take the entire world away from them through legislation, executive actions and judiciary manipulation via packing a court. 

A willingness to manipulate the system to their favor just as they do with the truth. The Democrats have clearly asserted themselves to be a godless party. They even went as far as to remove ‘Under God’ from the Democratic National Convention in 2020. In God’s place they’ve supplanted themselves (in socialism / communism the State replaces God). In so doing they have literally taken on Romans 1 as the platform for their run for the White House. At least Trump feigns being Christian by appealing to the Christian base and makes Christian-like statements at times backed with reinforcing action (as with Planned Parenthood). Biden and Harris will feign no such pretense.

In truth I expected the godless (depraved) to subscribe to this philosophy but I never imagined a 'Christian' voter would take up the banner. What’s worse is that there are some orthodox churches jumping ship into the Romans 1 party too. Otherwise sound Reformed churches have succumbed to the Social Justice movement based on Liberation Theology started by Gustavo Gutiérrez (Roman Catholic priest, Peru). The theological mentor of the current socialist Pope (Francis). Socialists that are in fact Dialectic Materialists. If socialists were honest adherents to their own socialist philosophies, they would acknowledge their belief system is atheistic and godless (self-contradicting). But they’re not honest. They’re being disingenuous or they're deceived. If they do understand the philosophical foundations of their belief, they’re deceivers. If they don’t understand, then they’re deceived. Either way I clearly see Satan working here in the Democratic party and with the apostate Pope. Satan is at work aiding those who would suppress the truth of Scripture. What did Romans 1 tell a true believer about events we see unfolding right now?

Romans 1 says that wrath (therefore punishment) of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness of men, who by their sin suppress the truth. They receive upon themselves the penalties of the very same decisions they make. They’re own decisions and sins come back to haunt them. Bad decision-making is its own punishment because bad decisions usually produce bad results. Higher taxes, more sexual immorality spreading more disease. They know who God is but reject Him and his truths clearly written in the Bible. In so doing they begin to undermine their own thinking processes. Logic becomes a victim or slave to their emotion. We see this all around us. Anger. Fear. Confusion. They react based on emotion instead of reasoning and thinking. Inevitably they are unable to reason their way through easily remediable moral dilemmas. They become futile in their thinking. A society of confusion ensues. A place where people can’t seem to understand what is really going. Like America in 2020. Truth becomes foreign to them. Everything shifting and always in flux. By abandoning God, they thereby abandon any basis for moral and logical absolutism. A ship tossed about on a stormy sea with no anchor or compass.

Yet many will lay claim to the truth like politicians. Many will claim wisdom but their actions will scream foolishness and stupidity. Their comments and political positions will be at odds. They will pass laws that contradict what they say. What the say will contradict what they do.

In a word: Hypocrisy.

A kingdom in conflict with itself. A kingdom divided cannot stand. It will slowly divide within and die. Sloughing off morality and truth piece by piece until nothing is left of it. Like pieces of a sandcastle being eroded by a relentless tide. By not having a cornerstone of truth under it...cracks begin to form in the foundation compromising the democratic edifice. That is what we are already seeing. A nation undermined like the a kingdom built on sand at low tide (Matthew 7:24-27). The tide is now rising and beating against the shore like a hammer of justice.

Of course, divine punishment like the power of the tide is so powerful it will act as undertow and pull us all down. One person doesn't suffer for their sin, the entire community does. Especially when the sinner is the leader. People will pursue the lusts of their hearts into impurity or insanity. People misuse their bodies because they exchange the truth about God for a lie and worship and serve the creature (themselves). They will self-idolize. This is why when a man attempts to elevate himself to God’s level he is always cut down (Adam/Eve, Tower of Babel, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod the Great, Antichrist). It literally is the clearest form of idolatry. It is also the purest example of Romans 1. We will idolize ourselves or love images of beings identical to us…instead of God. Stars. Heroes. Champions....idols. With no God, there will be no truth as truth is…absolute. If no absolute definitive truth exists then all truths can be true or nothing can be true. Both scenarios self-negating. It is madness…an ever-circling dog chasing its tale or returning to its own vomit.

If God does not exist everything is permitted. ~The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1880

A debased mind cannot reason or arrive at an answer that makes sense. The conclusions that a debased mind does arrive at are either contradictory or folly. He is therefore deemed a fool. No agreements with those that do not think the way they do will be possible because there can be no agreement on words: Love, Hate, Tolerance. Never mind big ideas formed from words: Theology, Socialism, Fascism, Racism. Entire party platforms become the ‘Big Lie’ as coined by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf. A lie so enormous that no one would believe that someone could have the audacity to distort the truth so disgracefully. The Big Lie…

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. ~Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany

This should give everyone pause and give rational people a wakeup call. A call to action.

“The State” needs to “...use all of its powers to repress dissent…”

“…truth is the mortal enemy of the lie”

Therefore, 'by extension the truth is the enemy of the State' that seeks to repress the truth by propagating a lie in its place.

How is there any difference right now between Joseph Goebbels’ statement and what a majority of the media and social media outlets are doing? Except for a handful or sources like Epoch Times and Andy Ngo at the Post-Millennial most are in the tank for one specific ideology or the other. Twitter and Facebook literally suppressed the Hunter Biden story last week. I see no difference anymore between Goebbels statement and the current media blitz in the days leading to the 2020 United States election.

The goal: Distortion of truth. Into the vacuum of political chaos steps those who will then manufacture a new truth or the big lie (Antichrist). A person who does not stand for absolute truth will fall victim to any statement. When you have half the people who know the truth of God/absolutism and half who do not have the truth of God/relativism you will have a sharply divided conflict. The endgame of distorted truth is conflict. A war is arising between absolutism (God) and relativism (Satan).

The only way I can make sense of all this chaos is that the hate of the president’s personality or persona overrides a desire to vote in favor of his policies which in many cases are vastly more Christian than the Biden/Harris ticket that is pro-abortion, pro-gender confusion, anti-sovereignty, etc. I like quite a few of these people and other then their politics I get along with them well. I can’t attribute it to anything else. The only way I can conceive that a Christian would knowingly vote for a Democratic platform (a pro-Romans 1 platform) is that they have embraced an all-or-nothing attitude. Anything but Trump. Even if it means voting for the Devil. It the end it may be self-defeating to these Christians but getting rid of Trump is all that seems to matter. Not even truth matters in this instance. Sadly, they’re not just rejecting Trump, they’re rejecting policies that have aided Christians and saved unborn lives. The hate of the president binds them to a commitment against him. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In the case of abortion...literally. The opposing view has trouble being able to comprehend those Christians. They find it remarkable that people are being presented with the truth and they still don't believe it or refuse to budge from their position in the face evidence to the contrary.

He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’ (Luke 16:31)

People will die if they believe they are fighting for the truth. Right now, there are multiple ‘truths’ out there but only one of them can be correct. The Law of Non-Contradiction requires that fact. Therefore, truth is absolute. It really does come down to one word: Truth. Everything else falls out from that.

Pilate said to him, “Quid Est Veritas/What is truth?” ~ John 18:38

What did Jesus say the truth is?

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ~John 14:6

In the end when it comes to this election and the love or hate of Trump, I will only say this. Trump is still a narcissist and a misogynist. He really isn’t a good person. At the same time, he is not the monster or the demon he is being made out to be. He has done some good things. Even Anthony Kapel 'Van' Jones on CNN admitted as much...and now the Progressives are calling for Van Jones' termination. As a Christian I will be voting for what the candidates have done not what they have said. As voter I am voting for policies and how a person has historically voted or performed their job. I am not voting for their personalities and private life. I have to draw that distinction. I’m voting to seat a leader over a sinful fallen nation not for a pastor over what is a holy church. We’d be wise to consider this before we pull a lever. The two candidates we are now forced to choose from are truly a revealing 'representation' of the United States populace. What these two candidates reveal about our nation is troubling and saddening. They reveal that there are cracks in the very foundation of truth, morality and our democracy. They reveal how far we have drifted from God.

Singing A Life Into Existence

In a recent post on Facebook about abortion and when life begins, I stumbled across a premise that should’ve been extremely evident yet had evaded me about the exceptional similarities between the creation of life via sperm fertilizing and egg and the creation of a life created by the binding of two adults in marital relationship. They are in essence the exact same thing.

Please allow me to explain.

I stated in my original post that life starts at conception. Specifically and scientifically at the zygote. Greek ζυγωτός zygōtos "joined" or "yoked", from ζυγοῦν zygoun "to join"). I believe there is a direct correlation to the passage about man being joined to his wife. Likewise, man will leave his parents and be cleaved προσκολληθήσεται from the root proskollaō (joined to) to his wife (Genesis 2:24, Mark 10:7).

One must leave one’s parents and join to one's spouse. Just as a sperm must leave the body of a man and reside within the woman. Israelite marriage was usually patrilocal or man continued to live in the same community or even home of the man’s parents. It was the wife who left home to join her husband. There is literally an exchange. Man would need to differentiate himself from his parents but the woman would geographically need to leave her parents. Literally, in becoming one there first needs to be division. Just as for a human embryo to produce sustainable stand-alone new life its cells must first completely divide to become independent. Yet it is still a merger of two different. Just as a marriage. Distinct from one another but unique in merger.  It was the idea that the combination was to be permanent like the merging of a seed and an egg in conception. Once together it cannot be taken apart unless death intervenes.

In both there is the assumption and evidence of something completely new…from the old. There is a genealogical continuity. A continuation and a departure. A permanency of lineage but also a diversification. Created from two differentiated individuals yet absolutely unique. New life/lives. Another very close parallel world is the Greek σύνδεσμος sundesmos or 'to stick together' in a manner in which it is nearly possible to distinguish the original components of the amalgamation. Whose identity produces such a close harmony between members joined together that one note merges seamlessly into another as notes do in music. As one letter merges together into words and then sentences in Scripture. Like one lettered nucleotide merges into another in DNA to form the genome. 

Quite literally σύνδεσμος sundesmos means to ‘sing in’. Singing…as in music. A congruence and flow of a symphony. A symphony that literally means συμ syn/sym together; synthesis and φωνή /phone meaning voice or sound. Together sound. A sound or melody caused by being together. If they’re not put together they do not form the music. In Greek medical terms it also meant that which binds together, a band of the ligaments by which the members of the human body are united together…ζυγωτός zygōtos, σύνδεσμος sundesmos and προσκολλώ proskollaō. Joined in harmony. Every time a new life is created it is as if God is singing another person into existence. Just as He spoke the Universe to fruition. Poetry in motion...literally, forever.

As the tape passes through the head of the recorder it is 'read' and converted into music or other sounds. Thus magnetic markings are 'translated' into notes. When a 'string ' of mRNA passes through the 'playing head' of a ribosome, the 'notes' which are produced are amino acids, and the 'pieces of music' which they make up are proteins. Thus DNA as the base code provides the structural framework, thus the notes of amino acids are formed into are proteins or 'pieces of music'. Douglas Hofstadter. Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. (New York: Vintage Books Edition, (1980)

… the principle of repetitious recurrence pervades both the construction of coding sequences in the genome, which can be regarded as being representative of nature and musical composition which can then be regarded as the most abstract and therefore the most intellectual expression of nature.' ~Dr. Susumu Ohno, Geneticist-Beckman Institute of the City of Hope Hospital, Duarte, California (1988).

Cleaving or the joining referred to in zygōtos/proskollaō resembles weaving two threads into one new piece of cloth. Like a DNA helix. Two completely different symphonies weaving together. Also referred to as antiphony/antiphons in music. The anti/ἀντί meaning "opposite" and phone/φωνή again meaning "voice". The texts of antiphons are in the Psalms in the Old Testament. When a chant consists of alternating verses (usually sung by a cantor) and responds (usually sung by the congregation), a refrain is needed. Antiphonal music is music that is performed by two choirs in interaction, often singing alternate musical phrases. Not unlike the different interactions of a husband and wife or parent and child and the very DNA within them. Therefore, word zygōtos suggests the ideas joining passion and permanence. In marriage a man's priorities change. Before they were primarily to his parents, but now they are primarily to his wife. This can then be extended to an even larger group in community and this is called polyphony or a musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody. Within these layers can be symphony and/or antiphony. Weaving, interacting forming new creation. Like music. Like relationship. Like life. Expressive. Unique. Beautiful. I am convinced this is why music impacts people so profoundly. It is literally in our DNA.

Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and join to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

A modern reader needs to realize that "one flesh" is not the same as marriage (1 Cor. 6:16). For a marriage to exist there must also be a commitment to "leave" one’s family and create a new one by joining to what is essentially a complete stranger prior to meeting. In this way it can then also be reasoned that the bond of spouse is even more functionally important than that of parent-child. Why? Because the child will essentially do the same when it is presented with the same choice at adulthood. Everything is secondary outside of the προσκολλώ proskollaō of the parents. We are only stewards of our children for a short time. At the same time though it should be understood that the child’s identity is a result of that one flesh that the union produced. The children possess a special genetic makeup and markers that identify it as unique but also carries vestiges of what constituted it before being sung together in the mother’s womb like the ligaments tying muscles to bones.

It is as if the mother and father are instruments and the children are the chords of the song. The combined notes forming more than the sum of its individual components. These individual notes make up the family. These families make communities. The community at large is a constitution of all these individual melodies. A unified communal symphony of flesh and blood. This helps us understand why a divided community causes such pandemonium. We now can see that when some of these elements become out of synch with others a cacophony occurs. Instead of harmony we only hear dissonance, discord or noise. Diverse but unified in strength. We are indeed one body yet utterly unique.

1 Corinthians 14:26 What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.

A Last Great Awakening I: The Devil, Forever God's Ape

If one does a historical examination of the (Christian) Great Awakenings in the United State and Europe, a pattern slowly emerges. I am beginning to believe the Great Awakenings caused two things to happen. One helped focus society back on God. A theological re-centering. This is the view taught in all orthodox church history degrees. I also believe there was another simultaneous counterfeit revival of unorthodoxy that allowed a gradual if not imperceptible drift away from God. I believe the Church history I learned only captured half of the true picture. These incremental changes affected both religious and political thought within the nation over the last 300 years. I believe we need to analyze this thesis to understand what is taking place today in a dangerously divided America. These are not coincidences, they are indicative of existing socio-political and socio-economic conditions and the work of larger spiritual forces not easily quantified through natural means. Most have attributed these awakenings solely to the work of God. They are. I believe God allowed them. I suspect also that all the events that transpired were not of complete divine origin. There is a mixture here that needs to be shown. Not all the fallout of the awakenings were benevolent. The Devil tried to mimic and therefore mock God (1 Peter 5:8). The evil like a parasite hung on the revivals lurking in the shadow. Regardless, God worked through events to achieve His ends (Genesis 50:20).

The awakenings appear to have been cyclical. They are pointing towards something just like the Old Testament's events pointed...they point to Christ. The Old Testament point to the birth of Messiah. These Awakenings point to His return. Each awakening or revival lasted about 50-100 years in varying states of rise or fall. They are calls to repentance. This ironically parallels the cyclical nature of the Jews history in Israel. The process of: Sin-repentance-obedience. Sin-repentance-obedience ad nauseum. Second, the Great Awakenings consist of three phases, each about a generation long (30-40 years). The cycles begin with a phase of religious revival, propelled by new technological advances outpacing the human capacity to cope with ethical, moral and practical complexities that those new technologies brought.

The phase of religious revival is followed by one of rising political effect and reform, followed by a phase in which the new ethics and politics of the religious awakening come under increasing challenge and the politics promoted by the awakening goes into decline. Slowly a traditional religious orthodoxy is replaced with a ‘progressive’ movement with a diminishing moral return or erosion of righteousness. This then gives way to another revival or awakening. We see Romans 1. Given a choice man’s heart and mind are constant enmity against God. Yet God continues to draw us back to him. 

The First Great Awakening occurred around 1730 to 1830. Theologically it started with a weakening of predestination doctrine or recognition that many sinners may be predestined for salvation / condemnation. There was introduction of revival meetings emphasizing spiritual rebirth. There was also a rise of an ethos of compassion and goodwill. The rise of altruism may not have been the pure theological impetus but it is what created the change of society to look to God. Weakening of predestination allowed for the leaking of the sovereignty of God from the Church at the very same time. This allowed the ingress for liberalism to enter. The door that allows good in can also allow an enemy to enter too. Calvinism and the Puritanical belief were slowly rejected in favor of a notion that salvation was available to everybody if they worked at it.

This was consistent with the American ideal of exceptionalism. It was a time where the frontier was open and anybody who wanted could obtain land becoming relatively prosperous. Americans were asked to Manifest Destiny as a birthright. All it took was the virtues of honesty and hard work. The idea of salvation though works gained popularity even though it wasn't entirely consistent with the Bible. It was the church already beginning to cater to the culture.

This inevitably lead to the American Revolution in 1760 to 1790 because of a belief in equality of opportunity or principle that accepted the inequality of income and other circumstances of life as natural but changeable. No taxation without representation was the call-to-arms. A belief that that persons of low social rank could lift themselves up by industry, perseverance, talent, and righteous behavior. Some could even rise to the top of the economic socio-economic ladder. An affluent middle class began to emerge. What we see for nearly the first time in history is the establishment of egalitarianism as national ethos in the United States. The American ideal with all its good...and bad. Near the end of this awakening America began to wrestle with liberalization of society started in its churches and its negative political effects 1790 to 1830. A society directly impacted by the watering-down of theology in the churches. Instead of unity in the house of God, division starts. Socio-economic, socio-political discord followed in parallel with the imperceptible hairline fractures initiated in the church. The Church...made of the very people that make up society. Fractured theology assisting in the creation of a fractured society. A war of division quickly followed in 1861-1865.

For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel... Thus is the Devil ever God's ape. ~Martin Luther

The Second Great Awakening occurred approximately 1830 to 1930. Due to the downgrade of theological belief and drift from Christian orthodoxy started in the First Great Awakening we began to enter a Second Awakening. The First Great Awakening brought God back to the fore but it also brought the Devil to try and subvert God at every step. The Devil is God's monkey. The Second Great Awakening being a spiritual movement in awareness of God leading later gives way to war and subsequent repentance again in WWI. The Second Great Awakening had to do with personal salvation. The American and French Revolutions and centuries of war were still fresh on people's minds. The theory was that we were all born equal but some had not achieved their full potential. The social movements were attempts at abolition of war, discord, colonialism, slavery, temperance, women's suffrage and most of all a society of only two class, aristocracy and serfdom.

The objective was equality of opportunity. A theory of egalitarianism consistent with the new American ideal pervaded the populace...even though it is not entirely a Scriptural principle. The Bible never says that we have inalienable rights. Regardless, the belief remained that different people will achieve different levels of success due to differences in their innate nature or God given gifts. There was also a liberal belief that everybody should have an equal opportunity at the start. The Bible never promises this...the Constitution did. There was the belief that anyone can achieve saving grace through inner and outer struggle against sin; introduction of camp meetings and intensified levels of revivals; widespread adoption of an ethic of benevolence. Again, we see an honest movement towards God that was simultaneously hijack by a belief that man could somehow affect his own salvation. A nation maintained its course away from its Calvinistic/Puritan roots and accidently believed because it was wholly Constitutional it was also wholly Biblical. It wasn't. 

In terms of social politics, in approximately 1840 to 1890 America saw a rise of single-issue reform movements intending to contribute to making America more fit for the Second Coming of Christ. The belief that man could directly affect his salvation caused these. The underlying assumption was that by pushing these social agendas we were helping usher in the Kingdom of God. These included but are not limited to the nativist movement, the temperance movement and the abolitionist movement that culminated in the formation of the Republican party. This of course led to sweeping reforms aimed at eliminating all barriers to egalitarianism and equal opportunity. Although in-and-of-itself egalitarianism isn’t always a bad thing, it clearly got hijacked more and more as time progressed.

Egalitarianism helps end slavery but taken to its extreme it led to overt feminism and dismantling of the family unit/structure in the 20th century. The good that comes out of the Second Great Awakening/limited egalitarianism included antislavery and addressing moral corruption of the South. It also unfortunately led to the Civil War. As before, good comes out of the awakening but also an evil that deliberately shadows the actions meant for good. The Devil being an ape. This then leads to the transitional period between the second and third awakenings of  about 1860s to late 1910s that sees the replacement of pre-war evangelical leaders with a shift towards unorthodox liberal theology. Midway through this revival it also sees the rise of what is termed Fundamentalism which was a rejoinder against liberal theology in Europe and America.

This unbiblical shift to extreme egalitarianism led to the massive tectonic theological shift away from the supernatural elements within traditional orthodox Christianity. The liberal theology movement of the late 19th century sought to demythologize the Bible or remove the supernatural elements in the Bible to make it dovetail better with empirical scientific evidence. To move it away from what the late 19th century philosophers viewed as its ‘unbelievability’ and align it to the enlightened, evolutionary and scientific viewpoint. A view that, ironically, had begun to surface in the Enlightenment as a retaliation to centuries of religious wars. Liberal Theology like the Enlightenment sought to remove God from His throne and enshrine human knowledge and reason instead. The irony of Enlightenment or light…being that it is the primary characteristic of Lucifer…the Angel of Light (2 Corinthians 11:14). All these events leading to the imperceptible but inexorable slide away from theological orthodoxy. These liberal ideas appear to have started with Friedrich Schleiermacher and were further spread by the German schools of thought via biblical higher criticisms like the Wellhausen Theory/Documentary Hypothesis. A hypothesis that attempts to refute the truths of Scripture. This slide away from Biblical Christianity was aided by Darwinian evolution and the profound effects of the Enlightenment spread worldwide by French, British and subsequently American influence.

Did this affect all of the Church negatively? Of course not. There was still a remnant of people that were completely Biblical and orthodox in their Christian beliefs. What it did profoundly affect is the orthodox churches influence on society. With less biblical orthodoxy (truth) to positively influence the world as salt and light we see a slow degradation of morality in society. The lack of Christian influence on the world after the Great Falling Away from orthodoxy into liberal theology in the late 19th Century portends the darkest evils humanity will ever face in the 20th century. The 20th Century in which we will see atrocities, crimes against humanity in World Wars and mass deaths under godless fascist and communist regimes.

{completed in Part II}

A Last Great Awakening II: Breaking Bad Theology

{continued from Part I}

Due to all the suffering and losses of centuries of religious warfare the entire world leaned towards justice and equality for all.  It was egalitarianism at a global scale brought on by an unbiblical view of forced equality that wished to avoid more wars and death and technology that would allow its globalization. A noble albeit misguided idea. In truth had the world just obeyed Scripture there would've never been 'religious' wars that need avoiding...

So, we enter the Third Great Awakening. It begins around the turn of the 20th century and lasting until 1980 is probably best characterized by the "Social Gospel". It is a philosophy that began to form out of the Second Great Awakening that man can, through works, gain salvation through their own efforts. There is a shift away from the emphasis on personal sin to that of communal or social sin. An idea that went away with the civil law of the Jews when Jesus abrogated it in His sacrifice at the cross. This gives rise to a belief that a thing like poverty is not a personal failure but somehow someone else’s fault or a sin that should be shared and therefore should be addressed by the society/state. The individual needs to take little or no responsibility. This causes a further liberal shift towards a secularization of Christianity.

During the time period of approximately 1920-1970 after WWI there is an attack on corruption of big businesses. There are activists for labor reforms and the strengthening of labor unions. There are civil rights, women's rights, gay rights and now gender neutral movements. There has been a belief in equality of condition or the principle that equality is to be achieved or imposed primarily by government programs aimed at raising wages, transferring income from rich to poor through taxation or finance welfare programs. There are also judicial rulings to redefine what constitutes normal sexual behavior or what defines a family unit (nuclear family). These events are no longer left to the direct sovereignty and providence of God. 

Mankind believes they can somehow redeem themselves via the governmental or social activism due to the propagation of the 'Social Gospel' as purely secular force in legislation and the courts. There is an inherent belief that poverty, racism and discrimination are not a personal sins or failures but a societal failures and that they can be legislated or ruled away.  Therefore there have been expansion of godless secondary and higher educations; attack on religious and racial barriers to equal opportunity (leading to later attacks on sexual and gender-based assumptions of behavior and discrimination based on sexual orientation).

This put responsibility for the success of members of society not on the individuals but on society itself. The theory was that people could be born into circumstances that they did not have the individual strength to overcome. This was a philosophy behind the welfare state introduced by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and later exacerbated by Lyndon Baines Johnson and modern Progressives, Liberals. Please note that this is also the Marxist / Socialist / Communist philosophy – people could not do it on their own, they needed a government to look out for their interests. The enemies of this time were the powerful trusts and corporations the same as they are today. Then was the oil rich ad is now the tech rich. All during this time as well we’ve seen the mainstream churches atrophy as government takes over more of the social burdens, reforms and welfare – that had occupied the mainstream Protestant churches in the prior great awakenings. In so doing we see the State has slowly taken over the role of God by becoming a god to the godless. The churches have slowly abdicated their role as salt and light in the world in direct proportion to their decline in orthodox Christianity. The effect on society was and continues to be morally devastating.

In approximately the 1970 to 2010 timeframe we see a gradual shift back again to more orthodox belief in what I believe to be a Fourth Great Awakening that began in the late 1960s and early 70s. We saw the start of it in the West Coast Jesus movement, Jesus freaks and the likes of Chuck Smith, Keith Green and those of their kind. We see a push back on the rebellion and radical changes wrought by theologies such as Liberation Theology and radical Marxist / Socialist philosophies in American universities of the 1960s. This awakening has presented itself in a return to robust relational belief in a living relational God and reassertion of experiential content of the Bible. It has also been a reassertion of the concept of personal sin and in some cases even a return to puritanical Christianity and the Inerrancy of Scripture.

Unfortunately, as with prior awakenings it as also manifested in a further liberalization in the unbiblical church in the form of Liberation Theology, Social Gospel Theology, Queer Theology, Vatican II, Ecumenicalism and a myriad of other unorthodox theologies devoid of sound Biblical teaching. I believe this is directly fueling the societal division we currently see. The division is not just political. It is also a division directly fuel by competing theologies or 'spirits' right within our churches. Society's current division is not just political, it is spiritual at its core. Bad theology as led to bad society.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that making any absolute biblical truth statement that was construed as politically incorrect would cause enormous amounts of division not only right in my church but also here on this blog. It was apparent to me that a false spirit and unbiblical teaching was manifesting itself in an unwillingness by quasi-feminists in the evangelical church to submit to biblical male headship. In fact, some within local conservative congregations outwardly fought it. This anti-Christian spirit also revealed itself in overt resistances to renounce adultery and homosexuality right within conservative denominations such as Presbyterians and Baptists. Instead they've chosen to embrace the recent surge in Social Gospel theology in light of the BLM protests and move towards non-binary gender identification. These are the exact reasons  why I’ve chosen to write politically incorrect and lengthy posts about these issues. To expose these truths, show how insidious and deep these heresies run and show how the Church got to where its at...on the edge of a spiritual precipice. 

While religiously and politically we are seeing a deliberate resistance to materialistic corruption, and a rise of pro-life, pro-family, and media reform movements. We are simultaneously seeing vicious attacks on these very principles by the liberalized versions of Christian theology embraced by the Progressive elements in society. This isn’t just a politicization of the Church. It is a fundamental departure in doctrine. A large part of the Democratic Party aligns itself with what is essentially unbiblical liberal theology which at its core…is not Biblical or Christian. It is demonic and heretical. Similarly, Republicans are aligned with what amounts to neo-orthodoxy. Although a small percentage or remnant of Christians remain obedient to orthodox Christianity in both parties most are corrupt. As the entire political spectrum shifts further left the entire political spectrum becomes more unbiblical and demonic.

Instead of the orthodox evangelicalism, other powers, most notably the neoconservatives, have taken control of the supposedly conservative Republican Party and shifted the entire religio-political system leftward towards liberalism. This shift has resulted in a amassing of an enormous national debt, deep societal division and a move to completely undermine the American democratic society in favor of a Social Gospel style change. A change that is the Marxist/Socialist underpinnings that drive that ideologies that include BLM, Antifa and other radical progressive groups.

The highwater mark of the Fourth Great Awakenings seems to have been about the 2010 timeframe. Things have since begun an extraordinarily quick downward plunge. A drop dramatically faster than the awakenings of the past. I believe this trend has been accelerated by a technology and mediums unknown in prior generations: The internet and social media. If history is an accurate indicator…we’re again heading towards massive discord that will culminate in conflict or an outright war. Due to our new technology…we’ll get to the flashpoint faster than ever before. I fear we are already seeing the opening offensives. We need to pray that the spiritual aspects of this are held at bay by God because it is clear we’re in head-to-head conflict with the Devil. The gates of Hell are wide open in our society right now. I believe only God is capable of shutting these gates now and turning the horde of destruction that is currently descending on our shores. He is the only way to right this chaos. We're just too far gone morally as a people to do it ourselves. 

Hippocratic Hypocrite: Abortion As ‘Healthcare’

Here is a Greek to English translation from the Original Hippocratic Oath. The National Institutes of Health offers a 1595 Greek version of the ancient Hippocratic Oath on their website (accessed Oct. 11, 2020):

“I swear by Apollo the physician, and Asclepius, and Hygieia and Panacea and all the gods and goddesses as my witnesses, that, according to my ability and judgement, I will keep this Oath and this contract…I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgement, and I will do no harm or injustice to them. I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly, I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion. In purity and according to divine law will I carry out my life and my art. I will not use the knife, even upon those suffering from stones, but I will leave this to those who are trained in this craft. Into whatever homes I go, I will enter them for the benefit of the sick, avoiding any voluntary act of impropriety or corruption, including the seduction of women or men, whether they are free men or slaves. Whatever I see or hear in the lives of my patients, whether in connection with my professional practice or not, which ought not to be spoken of outside, I will keep secret, as considering all such things to be private. So long as I maintain this Oath faithfully and without corruption, may it be granted to me to partake of life fully and the practice of my art, gaining the respect of all men for all time. However, should I transgress this Oath and violate it, may the opposite be my fate.” ~ October 11, 2020 - National Institutes of Health (NIH)

I pose this conundrum to all my liberal or pro-abortion friends. There is something that I really don't understand. I hope one of you can explain this to me. It concerns doctors who perform abortions as a form of birth control or as Margaret Sanger encouraged...as a means of population control or limiting the offspring of 'undesirables' in society. Sanger implied the undesirables to be minorities, specifically blacks and the mentally challenged/ill in the frequent contributions to 'science', societal magazines and 'ladies' journals in the early 20th century.

The original Hippocratic Oath explicitly forbade harming a patient(s) either through euthanasia or abortion regardless of race or mental state by saying:

"... I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly, I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion."

How does a doctor reconcile this practice with the principle underlying a Hippocratic Oath?

What happened to adherence to the original doctor’s Hippocratic Oath? The oath was essentially one of the oldest known binding documents or contracts in history. It is a contract of benevolent intent to a patient(s) from the one that treats them. The oath was intended as a set of standards and principles that unified all physicians under one moral principle. The Hippocratic Oath states three key principles: 

(1) The continuance of the education of medicine. 

(2) The use of skills for the good; and 

(3) To uphold behavior to the religious standards of society in practice. 

The last point being the most intriguing morally. We live primarily in a godless society whose religion is humanism. Humanism that makes mankind the ultimate moral/ethical authority. Therein lies some of the moral thorn that is abortion in modern times. Thus, abortion is an ongoing moral dilemma / problem.

The original Oath actually goes into something far deeper than the initial implications of, “I will do no harm or injustice to them. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will.” Do no harm or primum non nocere. Both of these statements are glaring announcements of a doctor’s responsibility to only do things to the benefit of a patient or patients self-interest. In the case of a pregnant mother there are two patients being treated at that point. The child being symbiotically linked to the mother. In essence they could be considered one-and-the-same considering they are linked via umbilical cord. So that which harms the child harms the mother and vice versa. Additionally, I should define a patient as being derived from the Latin verb "patior" meaning "to suffer". It is a person(s) who suffer(s) or requires medical care. A person receiving medical or dental care or treatment, under a physician's care for a particular disease or condition or who is waiting for or undergoing medical treatment and care. 

What human beings suffer more than a child being murdered via dismemberment, burned chemically and a mother who might later loathe or regret the willful slaughter of her own offspring? I posit none suffer more greatly. Furthermore, it is a 'doctor' inflicting this suffering.

Furthermore, the deepness to which I refer to in the oath is the superscript of the oath's introductory phrase. “I swear by Apollo the physician, and Asclepius, and Hygieia and Panacea and all the gods and goddesses as my witnesses...". It is making appeals to a greater moral authority in terms of those who will bear witness to their actions and their ethos...to God/gods. It is in essence appealing to a higher moral authority outside of one’s self. It doesn’t mean modern doctors are asking fake gods to bear witness to their deeds or basing their moral authority on them. It is a pattern of thought or principle. In essence a doctor is appealing to an authority outside of themselves to do good at all times. They are being held accountable for their actions. 

For a Christian it is the God of the Bible. A Jew appeals to the God of the Hebrew Bible. An Islamic doctor appeals to Allah, etc. But what of the atheist or humanist doctor? He would need to appeal to humanity or himself. He would need to make himself his own highest moral authority. Inherently a conflict of self-interest. He would essentially need to self-deify. This of course would be in contradiction to the principle of the oath’s original superscription. Therefore the original oath becomes a moot point to a godless doctor. The oath they swear to would be morally meaningless to them even though they create the illusion that they abide by an oath.

Surprisingly, in modern times this is exactly what we’ve seen happen. So that there is no contradiction to the oath yet still be able to appeal to an oath in an informal contract with a patient. Some medical institutes and associations have rewritten the oath to remove appeals to God/gods yet ironically thereby swear not to ‘play God’. Hypocritical and ironic if you ask me. That is why I kept referring to the  ‘original oath’ prior to this. What most doctors swear by at the present time isn’t the original oath nor does it have the same principle anymore. Having removed the appeal to a higher moral/ethical authority (God) they’ve made the oath mean nothing. Its whole purpose of being spoken aloud or written down was to hold the doctor accountable. Just as a witness swears an oath on a Bible or Qur'an in a court of law. The modern version now uses equivocal religious language like covenant and God but it is merely religious window-dressing on a contact that has no true morally binding undergirding. It is literally Jesus' whitewashed tombs.

Matthew 23:27 ~ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.

A version of the new Hypocritical Hippocratic Oath as follows:

“I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant: I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow. I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug. I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery. I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God. I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick. I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm. If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.”

So therefore, someone, please...explain or justify these abortion doctors’ actions. The deceptive but false statement that an abortion doctor is doing the abortion in benevolence or for the benefit of the patient is only taking into account the welfare of one of two patients. It only takes into account the mother that seeks the abortion. The child in the womb has no say, no confidentiality in the matter (nor usually the father either). The taking of the child's life is not being taken as an 'awesome responsibility' nor is that life being approached with 'great humbleness' or an 'awareness of... the frailty' of human life. The child's life is being approached with compete insensitivity and casual disregard of that life's worth. There is no justice here. This of course violates the right of life to the child. The abortion itself is often initiated and performed on the child by either (1) poisoning or (2) dismemberment. Both cause harm and both violate even a liberal interpretation of the modern oath let alone the old oath as it is clearly doing harm.

As stated, by appealing to themselves as their own highest authority in the oath mankind then makes themselves only accountable to themselves. This means that the highest authority that governs doctors isn’t their conscience or God, a morally perfect being. The appeal is to the lex terra or law of the land. In this way the doctors have sidestepped the ethical trap they create for themselves by using the original oath. Just as government has removed God from Government making government God, so too medicine has removed God and supplanted themselves in His rightful place. They can then immorally appeal to Roe vs Wade in absence of God.

Abortion doctors or purveyors of this type of slaughter cannot really adhere to the true original life preserving Hippocratic Oath because they are in direct contradiction to it in multiple principles. So, they changed the wordage. They changed the rules to the game to make themselves morally god and allow themselves to act as gods in God’s stead. The very thing that the new oath actually speaks of and wishes to avoid…making a single person their own moral authority accountable to no one. Hence the need of the oath in the first place. They changed their moral obligations to nothing and thereby make the revised oath worthless and contradictory.

In truth abortion doctors are still in violation of their own modern oath. How? They’re not to play God. In taking a life that is perfectly healthy and deeming that life not worthy to live...how else can that ever be construed as anything other than playing God? All this to say something I’ve said before. Abortions are barbaric and a horrendous wrong perpetrated on the most defenseless members of society…even though many wouldn’t even consider them human let alone members of society. 

The Bible is clear, we are all a person at the point of conception (Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139:13-16, Psalm 139:13). A unique creation. Life begins at conception. Morally and ethically there is no way around the Biblical language or the language as written in the original Hippocratic Oath. Abortion that is not performed with the understanding it is saving the mothers life is a murder and unethical taking of life. Medically unjustified abortion and euthanasia are a violation of both the Bible and the oath. A person who performs an abortion is neither Biblical, moral or a doctor. They deny God in their oath but act as Him in His stead. In the very acts they're perpetrating they reveal themselves to be anything but Godly. They reveal themselves to be godless hypocritical monsters. They claim to preserve life but do just the opposite (Romans 1:29). The very definition of hypocrisy.

Go Ahead and Jump...

I generally don’t write to make other people happy. I write because I’m compelled to. Something usually moves within me that spurs a thought. Just as a musician is inspired, so am I. I often make the leap from thought to writing to capture that inspiration. It’s a gift I was graced with a long time ago that I’ve needed to continue to practice, cultivate and refine. Just like a musician hones his skill on his chosen instrument and a singer exercises their voice to keep things in tune.

In my writing, one thought becomes another and an entire train of thought begins to take shape like stringing notes together to make a melody or symphony. Today I wanted to look at mortality and the transient nature of humanity. One moment upon another strung together to create a lifetime. A person's life being a series of events. I wanted to look at the limited window of time we have in this life and how we utilize it. I suppose it has a lot to do with the passing of Eddie Van Halen yesterday. We’re fragile creatures actually. Not just our bodies but our minds too. 

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 2 Corinthians 4:7

Hearts break too. There are quite a few broken ones today. Obviously, not literally but perhaps spiritually. We gain, and like yesterday, we lose. Our minds and out bodies. They say its just chemical reactions but Christians know it’s also something more than the sum total of chemistry and physics. Chemistry and physics might explain the complex interaction of a man shredding a guitar. The electricity in the guitar and blood that flows in the veins of the artist. Ye all this doesn’t explain the structure and exaltation of the transcendent lyrics (ideas) and the soaring solo on an instrument (feeling). The music or poetry is a product of a soul given flight. It is an instrument to illustrate its existence. Just as a paintbrush allows the painter to capture an essence from deep within. Just as the preacher exults in the exposition of the Bible to his laity. It is the Spirit driving behind it all.

I’m not a musician so I didn’t look up to Eddie. He wasn’t a hero of mine. Instead, his death is more of a reminder that as I age, more and more of the memories and events that filled my childhood and adulthood are fading off. Dying off. A series of musical notes coming to an end. They’re literally becoming history. I did love Van Halen’s music. I am pretty sure it played a huge part in my love of Hard Rock. My first albums were VH’s Women and Children first and Boston’s debut on 8-Track (yeah, I’m dating myself). But its more than that today. It’s a reminder that we are all on borrowed time. Every day is a gift and a grace of God. Just like the gift of writing appropriate words for articles or playing music. If not for God I we would have no true eternal purpose. None of us would. If not for God we would have little value. Yet the Bible reminds me daily that God valued us so greatly that he would take on the attribute of humanity so that there would be an ability to actually allow himself to die too…so that none of our deaths would be in vain. That our actions would have purpose.

Too often this fact is missed. We measure by the worlds measure of worth. It is at this exact juncture that we totally get it wrong. When we don’t succeed by the world's standard, we feel we have failed. That is why our feelings can’t always be trusted. Sometimes we need to reason and understand that our gut feelings could be wrong or not match the facts. Sometimes we don’t even have facts. Sometimes we need to rely solely on faith/Spirit. That is why we are to be in the world but not of it. One foot here and one foot beyond. It’s as if the world expects us to measure our worth based solely on how much we make an impact in this world. Nothing could be farther from the truth. There are some who will make no indelible mark whatsoever by the world’s standard but by God’s standard and the spiritual… mountains will be moved. Others will move a generation on earth yet in God’s economy in the spiritual the needle barely budges off of the zero.

We all started as broken vessels capable of carrying a message of immeasurable worth. A damaged/deformed instrument capable of a miracle if we would only let God work through us. Ironically not unlike a hybrid monster of a guitar that inspired a generation of believing and non-believing guitar players alike. A guitar that was a merger of two different flawed creations merged into one. I truly appreciate the irony that some of the most awesome sounds in my library of music could come from such a monstrosity of an instrument. Eddie’s Frankenstrat. A hodgepodge of parts making a new improved creation. From it came some amazing sounds. In a way we are very much like Eddie’s guitar. Horribly flawed and disfigured but capable of being something completely profound and beautiful. A new creation entirely. Something more than the sum of its parts. God using us all as instruments regardless of how flawed we are.

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are...1 Corinthians 1:28

Common grace falls on all including Eddie. Was he saved? I don’t know. That’s a measure and relationship with God (or lack of it) that I was not aware of. I do know that many that are saved were affected in a profoundly positive manner by Eddie’s and Van Halen’s music. Therein is the catch. God gives common grace to all so that others can benefit and appreciate the gifts they were given by God. Eddie was certainly gifted. Does every piece of an artist’s work glorify God? No. of course not. As I've already said, we're all flawed. But some of it did. Sometimes directly other times indirectly. I see it in the tributes given by other rock and metal guitarists that specifically glorify God and Christ in their music. Not the least of which were the tributes from Stryper’s Michael Sweet and Bill Menchen of Final Axe, Seventh Power, etc. It is in these instances where I am doubly blessed due to God’s grace in Eddie's playing. It had a positive effect on others still glorying God. From Van Halen to Stryper to me writing this article to you reading it.

But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. Ephesians 4:7

From one instrument to another to another in an unbroken chain...doing unto other as you wish done to you. It’s a chain enabled by grace. Passing the grace on. We all benefit from God’s grace even when some don’t realize it or if they refuse to acknowledge that grace and their gift is from God. In this way believers can benefit from the common grace given to all...even non-believers. It is efficacious grace by which all are saved in Christ. Yet common grace helps pave the path to efficacious grace. Without which none would be saved.

And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 2 Corinthians 9:8

Believers and non-believers alike play into the narrative. We see this every day. Eddie Van Halen’s death is another reminder in a long line of reminders of what is actually important. We can’t ever lose sight of the fact that we may or may not be destined for greatness here in this world by the world’s standard but it is all history when we depart. No, we need to realize that we are all destined for greatness when we accept what Christ did for us in rising from death. What really matters is what lies after when we shut our eyes for the last time here. How did we live? What choices did we make? Did we do the right thing(s)? Its about what God thinks not what men think.

We’re all part of a greater plan that none of us can see from ground level. We think we see clearly but we only see dimly and in a distorted reflection. There is a day coming for those who will believe that will allow them to soar like the guitar solos of a once great rock virtuoso. I honestly believe that a piece of that victory is captured within the music that was a product of God’s grace. 

For those that don’t believe I can only offer this. Sometimes, logic and reason can only take you so far. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean something doesn’t exist. God, grace, love, a gift of music. Things that exist but cannot be seen or empirically proven. It requires something more. A gift of grace to accept things in faith. Sometimes you just need to make Søren Kierkegaard’s Leap of Faith. Accept that some things do exist without provable empirical evidence. A leap of faith.

Sometimes you just need to Jump.