Friday, November 6, 2020

Two comments

Taken from a video discussion between Paul VanderKlay and Paul Anleitner.  Both are pastors – VanderKlay in Sacramento, Anleitner in Minneapolis.

My first comment:

The first five minutes or so of this conversation offers the best commentary that 2020 has been the fruit of evil.  No human power could have so easily infected the minds of men to willingly and suddenly abandon all the gifts that give life meaning - up to and including physical church attendance (to include Easter, and, soon enough, Christmas).  Whatever one believes of a proper understanding of Romans 13, it certainly isn't this.

What prompted this comment?  They discussed the world since corona – mostly VanderKlay discussed this.  His church was closed for the first three months, then opened, then the state wanted another shutdown, but he didn’t go for it.  He sees his parishioners deteriorating, especially the older ones.

VanderKlay laments that this is the new equilibrium.  No one has any idea what church looks like on the other end.  What will resolution of covid look like, etc.?  There is a tone of almost complete resignation.

Sadly, Anleitner says that his church shut down before any government decree.  “It was never really about meeting in person.”  Needless to say, this is stunning to me.

On to the second comment: At some point later in the discussion, they hit on the culture war.  They were discussing the attraction of Jordan Peterson.  He was saying many of the same things for many years prior to his rocket to fame.  One of the two Pauls noted: “The thing that really propelled [Peterson] was his entry into the culture war.”

Peterson could get people by the countless thousands to listen to him speak on the Bible – to spend real money to listen; they would come by the countless thousands to hear him speak about a life of meaning – to spend real money to listen. 

In other words, people spent money and came to hear Peterson speak on what the church should be speaking on for free every Sunday.  Yet churches are dying, despite not having a cover charge.

But what brought people to him was that he was not afraid to dive into the culture war, on the side of what I would describe as a natural law position.  Maybe church leaders could take a cue from this (and from Peterson’s positions on the matter) when discussing their concerns about why the congregation is stagnant or shrinking. 

But neither of these pastors want anything to do with this.  They don’t like the culture war stuff.  One of them said, paraphrased: “It is commendable that [John] Vervaeke doesn’t do the culture war stuff.”

My reaction?  No, it isn’t.  Perhaps don’t wonder why churches in the west are dying.  Destroy culture and you destroy meaning and, therefore, you destroy man.  Whose objective is it to destroy man?  It isn’t God’s, it’s the other guy’s.

Murray Rothbard would write, in 1992: “Yes, yes, you rotten hypocritical liberals, it's a culture war!”  It is a culture war, and, unfortunately, it is almost exclusively those on the side of evil that realize this.  My second comment at the site was on this point, the culture war:

One side of this culture war has the aim to destroy Christianity; the other side doesn't act accordingly, and, therefore, is losing.  Read Antonio Gramsci.

Gary North would write of Gramsci:

Gramsci in the 1930s acknowledged that Western society was deeply religious, and that the only way to achieve a proletarian revolution would be to break the faith of the masses of Western voters in Christianity and the moral system derived from Christianity. He placed religion and culture at the base of the pyramid.

Regarding Gramsci, Malachi Martin would write how the church must be adapted to a “this-worldly” vision of a communist “material paradise”:

They [communists] join with the Christian churches in brotherly dialogue and in common humanitarian ventures. But the object is to confirm the new Christianity in its anti-metaphysical and essentially atheistic pursuit of liberation from material inconvenience, from the fear of a nuclear holocaust, from sexual restriction of any kind and, finally, from all supernatural constrictions.... Total liberation is to construct the long-dreamed Leninist-Marxist Utopia.... By just that process, authored by Antonio Gramsci... has Western culture deprived itself of its lifeblood.

It was asked by Anleitner: “How to recognize ‘this is the evil we are actively to resist.’”  The evil we are to resist is right there, under your nose.  But too many Christian leaders either don’t want to engage in this battle or are fighting on the wrong side of it – either knowingly or unknowingly.  For those who are honest actors, the confusion stems from an ignorance of the value and necessity for natural law.

Conclusion

Ephesians 6: 12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Do we think these principalities and powers are just floating out there, only in disembodied spirits?  I have offered that it is not the case; this evil prince works through human actors, real flesh and blood.  Don’t trust me?  The Apostle Paul gives his answer:

Ephesians 2: 2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

The children of disobedience.  They are here, physically, today.  It is time to recognize this evil that we are actively to resist.

Epilogue

As mentioned, Anleitner pastors a church in Minneapolis; it is on the same street where George Floyd was shot.  He has had parishioners pulled from cars, beat up, etc., as he discusses in the last few minutes of the video.

Isn’t it obvious the evil we are actively to resist?

10 comments:

  1. Sounds like people in Anleitner's churh need to run far far away. He may be aligned with the enemy unawares from just the little you mentioned.

    I agree that there is a culture war and Christians need to get in the fight. We need to organize in more ways than just meeting on Sunday mornings. We need to do what the Armenian church has been forced to do, arm themselves into militias. That not to be an aggressor, but to be ready to resist the last stage of the Revolution if it comes.

    I actually said this on Tuesday to my Bible Study group. We were going through Mark 12:13-18 on how to argue about politics like Jesus. Our pastor actually said the Sunday before that Christians shouldn't be shy of discussing these issues with each other and outside also, because we do have access to the truth of it all.

    I don't know exactly how to fight the culture war but by standing firm on what I know to be true and to be ready to tell others when the time comes.

    That doesn't always mean arguing about politics and culture itself. I think Christians should still focus on the central message of our guilt before God as sinners, His payment for our sins on the cross, and our access into grace and peace with Him through believing in that message.

    It is easier to come to agreements with people who have faith than with those who don't. Even when there isn't agreement, the distance between the 2 view points is smaller and the relationship between the 2 parties is more likely to remain healthy.

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    Replies
    1. "We need to do what the Armenian church has been forced to do, arm themselves into militias." - RMB

      Yes, because after all, a shepherd must tend his flock, and at times, fight off the wolves

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    2. Do you live in an urban, suburban, or rural area? I ask because I am in suburbia. The more I get into the ideas of Strong Towns, showing that the suburban model is doomed to failure, the more I see that in suburbia, even as active in my parish, we are essentially disembodied spirits floating around. Our culture is dying on the cross of the American dream: two car garage, cul-de-sac, and of course mortgage.

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    3. RMB / ATL: I have some thoughts on your comments here (including ATL's comments below), but too long to reply here. I will post these, probably on Monday.

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  2. "Isn’t it obvious the evil we are actively to resist?"

    Yes. The really hard question is: how are we supposed to thwart the plans of those enthralled to it while still maintaining love for them in our hearts as our King commanded?

    "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you" - Matthew 5:44

    To walk perfectly in the footsteps of Christ, must we submit to their persecution, even if it means the eradication of Christianity from the face of the earth?

    And then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” - Luke 23:34

    I hope not. It is not an answer I can accept. Would any church mentioning the name of Christ still be around today if the men of the Middle Ages had not defended it against invasion from the Islamic empires to the South, the Viking tribes of the North, or the barbarian nomads of the Eurasian Steppes to the East?

    Probably not. But I could certainly be wrong. Maybe the Christian path was meant to be walked under persecution. Maybe it would have survived all these conquests and many more. It survived the Soviet system in Russia.

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  3. Perhaps you see this as an invasion of your world. But I don't see anger at police brutality, and I saw the whole video of the Floyd disaster. The pastors don't come against the worldliness of the media and capitalism, where women's skin sells, where tasty foods and wine and fancy looking cars and material goods are promoted nonstop.
    Jas_4:4  You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
    When did the church tell the congregations of the evils of Israel and when did representatives of the prince of peace tell congregations of the wrong of joining military...EVER? No, the pastors did as told to by the Vatican and government and told Christians that the Quran instructs Muslims to kill Christian and Jews, which it doesn't.. and encouraged Christians to join military murdering Arabs- when 9-11 was a demolition job. The church is the problem, not the solution. Do you have the balls to publish this?
    THE UNTOLD NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY on sale on Amazon for $3 because I am not a pastor loving money- I want to inform.

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    1. Michael, I have written more times about the problems in the modern church than I care to count. Beyond this, you seem to be a quite vulgar and negative individual.

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    2. Michael,

      I read your bio from your amazon page, which I'm guessing you wrote yourself in the third person. Here are a few things that stuck out to me, for whatever they're worth:

      1) "Michael Kahn is a true revolutionary"

      2) "he adopted the character and mentality of the proletariat"

      3) "Michael proudly considers himself a black man with white skin"

      4) "he debunked major Christian doctrines like the dispensation of grace, pretrib rapture, and eternal security"

      5) "He then saw his error, and debunked the whole bible soundly"

      6) "That book will have more impact on the church than Luther did"

      7) "a man of incredible clarity in understanding difficult concepts, scientifically researching world systems and perceiving patterns and motivations of powers and principalities previously not known by most, he has refocused his awesome energy into changing those systems, his life-mission is now to change the whole civilization of the planet."

      8) "lost all his possessions and friends"

      9) "POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!!"

      1) and 2) make me think you are a communist. 3) lends me to believe you are either mentally disturbed (in which case you have my sympathy), or you are a self-hating white (in which case you don't). 4) just makes me think you were toying with the idea of being the founder of a new sect of Christianity. 5) How humble of you! 6) is an understatement. Apparently it's going to turn all churches into public restrooms or museums, since you debunked the entire basis of the faith and all. 7) is exactly what I was expecting: classic megalomaniac. 8) Megas rarely keep friends or employment, unless they wind up in government. 9) No thanks. I know what happens when 'The People' get power, or wanna-be tyrants like you.

      I won't be reading any of your books or converting to your faith or supporting your cause in any way, shape or form. I sincerely hope you find some more friends. You might start by letting Jesus back into your heart.

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    3. ATL, in the meantime - even before your reply, Michael posted several more comments for moderation. Given his tone in the one above (which I almost didn't publish), I am not going to publish anything further from him.

      My supply of balls is not unlimited!

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    4. Well, you can't please everybody! Lol

      I probably should not have attacked this poor guy's bio like that, but this damned election (and a few arguments I've had with liberal friends on account of it) has got me in a contentious mood lately. Sorry Michael. You didn't deserve that. My bad.

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