God and the Establishment Clause

If the founders were moved to include the establishment clause in the Constitution because of their understanding of God, was that a violation of the establishment clause?

Doug

Continue in the Scriptures

It is important that we continually be reading Scripture because we continually have new questions that need to be illuminated by its light.

Doug

Deceived to Believe the Truth

If we use an argument that we know is fallacious simply because we know most people will not catch the fallacy and it will move them closer to the truth, we are being deceptive.

Doug

The Empiricist's Dilemma

To rationalize that you should only believe things you can experience with your senses is to argue for the invalidity of your rationale, since rationality itself cannot be tasted, touched, seen, heard, or smelled.

Doug

It's Better to be Called a Hypocrite

It is better to be called a hypocrite by those who think everything is a sin, than spending a long period of time trying to please them only to find out that you are actually wearing a mask of religiosity that you do not really believe.

Doug

Searing the Conscience and Quenching the Spirit

"The more often [a man] feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and in the long run, the less he will be able to feel."

- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters-

On Pitting Paul Against Jesus - C.S. Lewis

“In the earlier history of every rebellion there is a stage at which you do not yet attack the King in person. You say, ‘The King is all right. It is his Ministers who are wrong. They misrepresent him and corrupt all his plans –which, I’m sure, are good plans if only the Ministers would let them take effect.’ And the first victory consists in beheading a few Ministers: only at a later stage do you go on and behead the King himself. In the same way, the nineteenth-century attack on St. Paul was really only a stage in the revolt against Christ. Men were not ready in large numbers to attack Christ Himself. They made the normal first move—that of attacking one of His principal ministers. Everything they disliked in Christianity was therefore attributed to St. Paul. It was unfortunate that their case could not impress anyone who had really read the Gospels and the epistles with attention: but apparently few people had, and so the first victory was won. St. Paul was impeached and banished and the world went on to the next step—the attack on the King Himself.”

-C.S. Lewis-

The Reason For Democracy

"A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. . . I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. The real reason for democracy is: Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows."

-C.S. Lewis-

Glenn Beck, Mormonism, and Christians

It seems that there is a crucial distinction that needs to be made when it comes to Glenn Beck, his Mormonism, and his cause which many evangelical Christians are supporting. Based on what can be seen online so far, this distinction seems to be rising to the surface but has not yet been clearly defined. This distinction is between Beck’s promotion of conservative ideals (many of which seem to be Biblical), and the Gospel and his understanding of God. The first distinction is that there are many things on which evangelical Christians and Mormons can agree. For example, we can agree on the importance of family, the sanctity of life, the institution of marriage, and many other ideals which are clearly grounded in the Word of God. It is upon these very issues, and many others, that we can unite to combat the erosion that is taking place to the foundational principles upon which this nation was built. And this is a crucial fight since these are the very principles that were established in the constitution to combat tyranny and oppression. As we peruse the internet, is seems that one flaw is that many Christians are blind to this aspect of the commands of scripture. We are to free the oppressed and safeguard others so they will not be oppressed in the future. Another flaw is that others seem to see it as our sole calling. In other words they seems to equate Christianity with doing those things, and as long as you do them you are a Christian regardless of who you think Jesus was and what he accomplished while he was on this earth.

This leads us to the second distinction that needs to be made, and that involves the Gospel and the commands of scripture surrounding it. We must have the discernment to realize that Beck’s understanding of God and the Gospel is contrary to the truth of God’s word. First, his understanding of God is that the godhead entails a god the father and god the mother. These two began to produce spirit children, two of whom were Jesus and Lucifer. In the Mormon view Jesus is a created being and not the eternal God. Second, their understanding of the Gospel is that what Jesus accomplished on the cross is not center of our hope. In the Mormon view, what Jesus accomplished on the cross will only get people to the first level of heaven, which is still often equated with damnation. To them, the Gospel entails all the works you can do to get to the third level of heaven in order to become a god over your own universe. This of course is a seriously false Gospel. Now one of the main arguments made by some who argue that we should support Beck is that the Scriptures command us to stand for righteousness, and to neglect this is to neglect many commands of scripture. On this every Christian should wholeheartedly agree, but we are also commanded to stand against false teaching and false Gospels. To argue, like some have, that Beck is lifting up the name of Jesus, or that he is crying out so that the rocks will not have to, also seems to neglect crucial commands of Scripture. Beck is neither lifting up the true Jesus, nor is he fulfilling the words of Scripture when it says, if you do not praise him, these rocks will cry out.

In conclusion, there are many areas where we can agree and unite, and, as some have suggested, maybe even praise God that he has raised up a man to promote those truths (for the Lord often uses the unregenerate to accomplish his purposes), and Christians need to understand this and not throw the baby out with the bathwater. It also seems important to keep in mind that Beck’s primary work has very little, if anything, to do with the Gospel. On the other hand we must also not be so blindsided with the things we can agree upon, that we neglect our due diligence to the commands of scripture in other areas. We must be discerning and, with the same emphasis as Scripture, emphasize the importance of the purity of the Gospel. And even though Beck’s primary work has little to do with preaching the Mormon gospel, the minute he invokes the name of Jesus, or uses the word “God,” we must be aware that he means something very specific by these terms. To believe that anyone can interpret those terms any way they want and that authorial intent does not matter, is imbibing in the very postmodern thought that is driving much of the secular liberalism which they are trying to combat. And worse, they are saying that the authorial intent (God’s meaning) of scripture doesn’t really matter either, as long as it helps us meet some pragmatic end.

Doug

A Horrific Error

Hadley Arkes once pointed out that at one particular holocaust display you will find a vast vat filled with shoes. These were the shoes of the victims that the Nazis kept because they saw them as valuable. The most horrific error in this is that they discarded the human life made in the image of God and who has an eternal existence, and saw the shoes as “the real durables.” But isn’t this always the case with the deceitfulness of sin? It will always lead us to discard what is really durable in exchange for what is passing away.

Doug