Luther's Clarion Call

"Here I Stand . . . I Can Do No Other"

When churches and denominations die, it is a terrible thing to witness.  When churches or institutions which once had been faithful to God and His Son turn away and embrace Unbelief it is a tragedy.

But it also represents grave danger.  Those we once trusted and depended upon have developed patterns of speech which roughly resemble a serpent's hiss.  It is yet another instance of Saruman turning to Sauron, of Isengard to Mordor.

First, here is a warning from Douglas Wilson:

I would urge everyone who cares about the Church standing faithfully in the central assault against us being made in our time to go and read this article. If we want to continue to stand faithfully, we must have a full understanding of the ways in which we tend to fall unfaithfully. When we stumble, how do we do it?  This is happening to the PCA, [Presbyterian Church of America] today, and it is unfolding in real time. If you love the truth, then read the article.

Secondly, let us consider the implications.  We in New Zealand have long seen and experienced the death rattles of churches and denominations once faithful to God and His Son.  We would be foolish to think that such unfaithfulness as reflected in the article could and would not re-occur in "God's Own". 

Serving the Paymaster

The Swedish Church As Ministry for State Propaganda

The church in Sweden is funded by the State.  It comes as no surprise then, that as the years have passed, the church has morphed into a motley collection of false prophets, dancing dervishes to please Herod.  Never bite the hand that feeds, says the pragmatic realist.  

Sweden has evolved to where it believes multiculturalism is the highest of all humanist values.  It is the secular kingdom of god.  Yes, yes, yes chant the false prophets.  The following report was written by Nima Gholam Ali Pour for the Gatestone Institute:

After a French priest, Jacques Hamel, was murdered by ISIS sympathizers in Rouen, France, on July 26, 2016, an initiative started in Sweden where Swedish Christians took "selfies" with a cross to show solidarity with persecuted Christians. The initiative, called "Mitt kors"("My cross"), was started by three priests from the Church of Sweden.

The Church of Sweden, however, criticized it. Gunnar Sjöberg, Head of Communications for the Church of Sweden, wrote on his Facebook page:  "I really do not know about that. This thing about Christians suddenly wearing a cross as a sign for or against something. It is actually nothing new, but the call seems seditious and un-Christian in the conflicts that already exist."

So now, according to a senior official in the Church of Sweden, the call to wear a cross to show solidarity with persecuted Christians is "un-Christian".

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Aeneas, Anarchy, and America #1

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

INTRODUCTION:

This short series of messages can be considered as what used to be called “artillery sermons.” The custom (and the name) began in England in the first half of the 17th century, where military groups invited ministers to come and preach to them. In our colonial period, ministers used to preach such sermons prior to elections, in order to instruct and exhort their people in the duties of a Christian citizen. This kind of instruction is always most necessary, for politics is always complicated. But it is especially needed in this particular pig’s breakfast of an election cycle.

THE TEXT:  

“And it came to pass, as Peter passed throughout all quarters, he came down also to the saints which dwelt at Lydda. And there he found a certain man named AEneas, which had kept his bed eight years, and was sick of the palsy. And Peter said unto him, AEneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole: arise, and make thy bed. And he arose immediately. And all that dwelt at Lydda and Saron saw him, and turned to the Lord” (Acts 9:32–35).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT:

Many miracles are recorded in the book of Acts, and usually the people who are the recipients of the miraculous power are unnamed (Acts 5:12-16; 19:11-12). On the occasions when the recipient is named, they are part of the Christian community, like Tabitha (9:36-41) or Eutychus (20:9-12), or an opponent of the gospel like Elymas (13:6-11), or both, like Ananias and Sapphira (5:1-10). In short, this incident with Aeneas really stands out, particularly because of the use of his name.

Aeneas was the name of the legendary founder of Rome.

The Saruman's Amongst Us

Kissing Judases

I was once invited to a dinner with a Roman Catholic cardinal.  He was a friend of Pope John Paul II and had been on of those who elected his successor, Pope Benedict XVI.  The main topic of the evening was the state of religious freedom around the world, but the conversation ranged far wider, and it was both deep and delightful.

Just as we were about to finish our coffee and end the evening, he suddenly changed the topic and asked me about the crisis roiling the worldwide Anglican Church.  Not wanting to be drawn on what Francis Schaeffer used to call a "soup question" rather than a "dessert question" (one that requires asking early in a meal to do justice to its importance), I replied somewhat lightly, "The Anglican Church is flourishing in many parts of the world, especially in the Global South, but it certainly has huge problems in the West.  But then, you had your Borgia popes."

Instead of brushing off the remark, as I expected, the cardinal became serious.  "Yes," he said, "Alexander VI (with his record of incest, murder, bribery and corruption) was one of the worst leaders ever to have led the Christian church  But he never denied a single article of the Apostle's Creed, whereas several of the Episcopal bishops flout the teaching of the church catholic and deny the very heart of the Christian faith--and still stay on as Christian leaders.  That is the shame of the Episcopal Church, and that is unprecedented in Christian history."

The cardinal was correct.

Making Room for Other Gods

Walking in the Ways of Unfaithful Fathers

In the last half of the nineteenth century, secularism had not just gained a foothold in the West. It was making rapid strides to the fore.  The causes and signs of this overthrow of the First Christendom were numerous.  As is always the case, hindsight shows them up more clearly.

Many of the causes lay with the Church, God's people.  They became unfaithful in numerous ways.  They forgot what their forefathers had taught them.  They forgot that the Kingdom of Christ was and remains a totalitarian kingdom--embracing the totality of all reality throughout the entire created universe.  They accepted a dichotomy between the realms of the sacred and the secular (courtesy of Immanuel Kant) and conceded that in the secular realm, the sacred had little claim and no authority.  God had His "sphere"--invisible, secret, beyond time and history--and the material or secular world had its sphere of autonomy--independent of God, operating under its own rules, truths and authority.  Thus began the long retreat, which cast children out of formerly Christian homes, seduced Christian parents away from Christ and His Church, and gradually turned Christian loyalties more and more toward the secular god--the State.

A generation which conceives of just one sub-atomic particle operating independently of the all encompassing command of the living, infinite, eternal, and unchanging God will be followed by generations which deny God in everything.  And so it has come to pass.  The surrender began in the Church as it tried to make room for the gods of this world.

One form of the capitulation was to elevate the State to a quasi-divine position of  being the means of bringing God's Kingdom upon the earth.

Via Dolorosa, Part III

After the Apostasy, What Then?

Christian suffering at the hands of Unbelief generally takes two forms: persecution and apostasy.  When the Gospel of Jesus Christ first comes to a pagan society the powers-that-be are threatened, offended, and eventually incensed.  The interests and social privileges of the pagan powers react and strike back at Christ and His followers.  Persecution breaks out.

The initial form of persecution is usually sporadic, occasional, and opportunistic.  A classic example is found in Acts 19 where guild interests led a riot against the Apostle Paul and the Church.  The silversmiths in Ephesus found that their lucrative trade in selling silver shrines to the goddess Diana became threatened as more and more people in the region became Christians and stopped buying the superstitious trinkets.  The silversmiths, led by one Demetrius, provoked a riot and dragged some of the Christian leaders into the local stadium, calling for their deaths.

Eventually, the hostility to Christ can grow until it becomes official--a governing policy of the realm. 

A similar pattern emerges when apostasy occurs--that is, when a formerly Christianised culture turns away to a renewed paganism.

Despising One's Parents and Rejecting Their World

Perpetual Childishness

Peter Hitchens describes the lust for perpetual youth which still afflicts so many in the West.

Behind the fear of submission lies a whole other set of things that my generation did not wish to acknowledge, the thing we fear perhaps most of all, of following our parents into conformity and suburban living, becoming parents ourselves, mowing lawns, polishing shoes, washing the car. . . .

It was unimaginable that we, the superior and liberated generation, should be trapped in this banality.  The very word "suburb" evoked a mixture of apprehension and scorn.  Why did we fear this fate so much?  Perhaps it was because they brought us up too kindly,  convinced in the post-war age that we should not endure the privation, danger and strict discipline they had to put up with, so we turned arrogant.  I certainly did.

Saruman Amongst Us

The Hole in World Vision’s Gospel

Justin Taylor 
March 24, 2014
Between Two Worlds


Russell Moore, president of the ERLC, comments on the stunning announcement that the Christian relief agency World Vision USA will hire professing Christians who engage in homosexual behavior as long as they are in a legally sanctioned same-sex “marriage,” even though World Vision does not see this as a “compromise” and thinks they are remaining morally neutral on this issue.  Moore's piece follows:

World Vision, an evangelical relief organization, announced today that they would now hire persons who are in same-sex marriages. The organization said, further, that this was no capitulation, just a recognition that some groups supporting World Vision have differing views on sex and marriage.

This is no surprise, on one level. The constellation of parachurch evangelical ministries founded after World War II have been running headlong, with some notable exceptions, toward the very mainline liberalism to which they were founded as alternatives. Some think if we can just barter away Christian orthodoxy fast enough we can catch the wave of that Presbyterian Church (USA) church growth boom.

But here’s what’s at stake.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

When a Public Mind Cannot Repent

Posted on Thursday, July 18, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog 

Many Christian activists and reformers are in that position because they see — they anticipate, they look forward, they can run out the consequences. If they were in a position to do so, they would be good providers for our society. The word provide comes from two Latin words, meaning to see beforehand. You can give the provision because you saw it coming.

When someone sees ordinary things coming — springtime and harvest, for example — he is considered diligent. The sluggard is surprised by the arrival of winter. He wants desperately, but has nothing (Prov. 13:4). He is reduced to begging in the time of harvest (Prov. 20:4). But can you warn him beforehand? Not a bit of it — he is wiser in his own conceits than seven men with good reasons (Prov. 26:16).

When someone sees extraordinary things coming — the famine that threatened Egypt, for example — he is considered a prophet like Joseph. When someone truly identifies future things in a way that is not consistent with chance, we say that he is a prophet of God (Is. 41:23). And (in a movie) if someone were able to predict the winning lottery numbers, we would say it was clairvoyance . . . or cheating.

But when someone sees damnation coming to someone, the more his prediction is confirmed, the more it is discounted and despised.