Post-Christian America?

Churchian academics (seemingly especially of the Reformed variety) like to spray the phrase 'post-Christian America' around. Or 'post-Christian Europe.'

This exposes the shallowness of these academic Christian (excuse me, churchian) educators and leaders.

Not only are they ignorant of history in general (their general shallowness really knows no bounds), but they are ignorant of how their own religion operates in the world and in human beings.

In Calvin's day Christians were little islands surrounded by a vast sea of decadence. The Puritans were little islands amidst a vast sea of decadence. Do we call Calvin's Geneva 'post-Christian Geneva'? How about New England in the 1600s? 'Post-Christian New England'?

Let's go back further. I know, let's just save time and call anything after Pentecost 'post-Christian world.'

Christianity is leaven. It is mustard seed, and leaven. Its effect is greater than its number. Just as a school's effect is greater than the number of students in the school. Speaking of real school that is.

And it's not surprising that Christian - churchian - academics would be naive regarding history in general. "It's all different today! Today we are seeing really different things!" It's because they've never read any real history. It's not part of their course structure in 'seminary.' And they are too shallow to be motivated to do it on their own.

Alienation

Heard someone saying, "Whatever, nothing's interesting. Everything is stupid." Etc. He wasn't articulating his thoughts very deeply, but what he was expressing is alienation. Alienation is a feature of our fallen condition as human beings. We are not only alienated from God but from other people and from nature. Not only alienated, but everything's at odds with everything else.

The only solution to this alienation is reconciliation with our Creator in a redeemed world. The extra benefit when in that new world will be that we become, or are, the world around us, the world we inhabit.

Our Comfort In Dying

I was looking at some books, Puritan era books, on the subject of dying, then I remembered that I should always search my Kindle to see if I've already acquired something on a subject I'm interested in (I now have 400 books and documents on it), and so I did and it came up: R. L. Dabney's Our Comfort In Dying.

I've recommended it before [this post was originally an email]. If you got it back then look for it. It's a sermon, so very short. 35 pages in large font. But it's remarkable and just what I am looking for. He discourses on just what we are thinking of regarding death. Other theologians wouldn't talk of soaring through spiritual realms and meeting angels and other worlds and so on, but Dabney does this, and it is a sermon *on the battlefield of the American Civil War* which gives it some immediacy other writings on the subject wouldn't have.

Here is a sample:

"Third We learn from the text to what guidance the Christian may commit his soul during its unknown journey into the world of spirits. Let us endeavor, my brethren, to obtain a practical and palpable conception of that world. I believe that heaven is as truly a place as was that paradise of the primeval world where the holy Adam dwelt. When we first arrive there we shall be disembodied spirits. But finite spirits have their locality. The clearer evidence, however, that heaven is a literal place is, that it now contains the glorified, material bodies of Enoch, of Elijah, of Christ, and probably of the saints who rose with their Redeemer. But where is this place? In what charter of this vast universe? In what sphere do the Man Jesus and his ransomed ones now dwell? When death batters down the walls of the earthly tabernacle, whither shall the dispossessed soul set out? To what direction shall it turn in beginning its mysterious journey? It knows not; it needs a skillful, powerful and friendly guide. But more; it is a journey into a spiritual world, and this thought makes it awful to the apprehensions of man. The presence of one disembodied spirit in the solitude of night would shake us with a thrill of dread. How, then, could we endure to be launched out, into this untried ocean of space, peopled by, we know not what, mysterious beings? How would we shrink with fear at the meeting of some heavenly or infernal principality, rushing with lightning speed through the void, upon some mighty errand of mercy or malice, clothed with unimagined splendors of angelic attributes, and attended by the hosts of his spiritual comrades? How could we be assured that we should not fall a prey to the superior power of some of these evil angels? How be certain that we might not lose our way in the pathless vacancy, and wander up and down forever, a bewildered, solitary rover, amidst the wilderness of worlds? This journey into the unknown world must, else, issue in our introduction to a scene whose awful novelties will overpower our faculties; for even the very thought of them, when they are permitted to dwell upon our hearts, fills us with a sense of dreadful suspense. Truly will the trembling soul need some one on whom to lean, some mighty, experienced and tender guardian, who will point the way to the prepared mansions, and cheer and sustain its fainting courage. That guide is Christ: therefore let us say, in dying: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." It is a, delightful belief, to which the gospel seems to give most solid support, that our Redeemer is accustomed to employ in this mission his holy angels. What Christian has failed to derive sublime satisfaction as he has read the allegorical description in the Pilgrim's Progress of Christian and Hopeful crossing the river of death, and ascending with a rejoicing company of angels to the gate of the celestial city. It is, indeed, but an allegory, which likens death to a river. But it is no allegory -- it is a literal and blessed truth -- that angels receive and assist the departing souls which Christ redeems."

http://www.amazon.com/Our-Comfort-In-Dying-ebook/dp/B003X4KWVM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1376872373&sr=1-1&keywords=our+comfort+in+dying

Schools in the spiritual realm

Just now as I was looking in at a discussion of theology that to outsiders would look like hair-splitting nonsense I was reminded how we are all in groups and schools in the spiritual realm, and it matters what we think on these theological matters (doctrine is armor of God and protection is involved). Of course these groups and schools, or gatherings in the spiritual realm can be stronger or weaker, and we want discernment that comes from the Holy Spirit to be able to be in the strongest circles.

God knows where we are, and where we are manifests in the spiritual realm. It's not unserious.

It is another gospel

A pastor on Reformedforum made the statement that he wouldn't want to be a mystic because that is an unmediated way to connect with God. He, though, gave himself away. Why would he think a mystic wouldn't have Jesus as His Mediator between him and God? The answer is because the Reformed pastor considers himself to be the mediator between individuals and God. Like the Pope he by default was saying he, an ordained pastor, is God's vicar of Christ on earth.

Take it further to see how this presupposition among such pastors of the Reformed (or any other) tradition plays out. The word of God. When I read the word of God myself this pastor would consider this an unwise effort on my part to have an 'unmediated' connection with God Himself. I mean, think about it: the direct, raw, naked word of God. Who am I, an un-ordained, un-seminary-educated (I've never sat under Peter Enns, this pastor's institution) 'lay' person (more Romanist language) to think I could have an 'unmediated' experience with the very living word of God, the Old and the New Testament, itself? This is where such a presupposition lying in the darkness of these pastor's inner being leads them, if unconsciously. It still manifests in their thoughts and words and actions.

This is part and parcel of the absolute objectifying of the faith these seminary-stunted churchians are engaging in. It is another gospel.

Evangelism

God wants people convicted by the Word, not begged into the Kingdom.

Black-faced sinners

Two black people, a man and a woman, beat to death a five year old boy for wetting his pants. The news story was accompanied by a photo of the two. The look of the two black people is the type of look that makes white people shudder. One wonders what society is supposed to do with such people.

My further thought, though, which can be called racist or insensitive by the moralists out there all you want, was the way we see those two might just be the way God sees all of us. On a forum I speculated that perhaps God made some people black so that we would have to see ourselves in their image: black-faced sinners, if you will.

This further led me to the thought that God only accepts us *in* Jesus Christ. We black-faced sinners, repugnant to God otherwise, are only made acceptable because God the Father sees us in Jesus Christ. Our righteousness is the righteousness of Christ. All basic theological fact, but to really see it via the image of those two child killers brings it home.

We have to remember

We have to remember that real Christianity is as strange, or occult, to the general run of the world as any cult or Hermetic writings or anything else similar. It really is that way. "Mystical oogie boogie," the common sense businessman would say. Rationalist academics the same. The man of the earth just knows there's something higher, but might be impatient with the details. But just look at the basics of Christianity. Union with God who came down to earth. The anthropology is pretty easy to accept, once you know the world and yourself somewhat. The sin nature, the existence of evil. The supernaturalism is a stumblingblock for most, even self-identified Christians. But it's all in the realm of occult type activity and thought to most people. Hooked by the Spirit and separated out and up or you're just a dog who still wants to be a dog.

Dead souls leading dead churches

"As Dean Burgon (1883) pointed out, the history of the New Testament text is the history of a conflict between God and Satan. Soon after the New Testament books were written Satan corrupted their texts by means of heretics and misguided critics whom he had raised up. These assaults, however, on the integrity of the Word were repulsed by the providence of God, who guided true believers to reject these false readings and to preserve the True Text in the majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts. And at the end of the middle ages this True Text was placed in print and became the Textus Receptus, the foundation of the glorious Protestant Reformation.

"But Satan was not defeated. Instead he staged a clever come-back by means of naturalistic New Testament textual criticism. Old corrupt manuscripts, which had been discarded by the God-guided usage of the believing Church, were brought out of their hiding places and re-instated. Through naturalistic textual criticism also the fatal logic of unbelief was set in motion. Not only the text but every aspect of the Bible and of Christianity came to be regarded as a purely natural phenomenon. And today thousands of Bible-believing Christians are falling into this devil's trap through their use of modern-speech versions which are based on naturalistic textual criticism and so introduce the reader to the naturalistic point of view. By means of these modern-speech versions Satan deprives his victims of both the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit and leaves them unarmed and helpless before the terrors and temptations of this modern, apostate world. What a clever come-back! How Satan must be hugging himself with glee over the seeming success of his devilish strategy." - Edward F. Hills, The King James Version Defended

The denial of the supernatural really is a blatant main, no longer denied or attempted to be hidden, part of the approach of most Christian leaders and educators and academics in general. I mean, it's right there in the open with everything they say and write.

Also, in the above quote, these same types will say, "So...how does that follow?!?" when Hills writes: "And today thousands of Bible-believing Christians are falling into this devil's trap through their use of modern-speech versions which are based on naturalistic textual criticism and so introduce the reader to the naturalistic point of view." It happens this way: when your general approach is to look down on the word of God as if it were a mere document, no different than any other document from the past; when you decide that the word of God needs you (to determine what it is, to construct it) more than you need it; when you are no longer looking up to it as something higher than you, then you slowly (or quickly) slip into the naturalistic point of view that Hills mentions.

Think of it this way: there is one set of manuscripts, one English Bible version that your fallen nature hates the most. It is the one that forces you to look up to it, to receive it, to value it as something higher than you. That is the one that is the pure and whole word of God. Go against your fallen nature and value that Bible. It's been preserved - supernaturally - for you. Don't reject it.

One last point: these people will say, "The Received text needs to be edited too!" Answer them: there is a difference between editing a received stream of manuscripts that are from the same source vs. constructing a 'bible' from manuscripts that are from diverse streams and sources.

The deadness and heresy and shallowness in the visible churches today derive from a hatred of the Holy Spirit and the word of God. To paraphrase Goethe, modern day Christian leaders and educators wouldn't know the devil if he had them by the throat. (Which he does, and by other places as well.) The ones who adopt the name Calvinist, and Reformed, for instance, think they are being orthodox and on-the-mark, yet their hatred of God's sovereignty in regeneration ("God," they say, "we'll give you sovereignty in creation and providence...but sovereignty in grace is going too far. We'll let our ordained clerics and ritual see to that. Sorry, God.") and their hatred of the biblical doctrine of regeneration (being born again) itself, which goes along with their hatred of the pure and whole - received - word of God is what makes them dead souls leading dead churches.