America: Freedom to Fascism

Aaron Russo has produced a movie soon to be released in theatres which is probably the most significant contribution from Hollywood in its history. You may view the trailers at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1616088001333580937

The link to his web site is in the column on the right of my blog. My earnest prayer is that you take very seriously the things discussed in these videos. America needs to wake up and understand the basis for the demise of this country.

By the way, Congressman Ron Paul is interviewed in this film regarding the police state that is America these days.

May God help us.

Dean John Burgon on the Trustworthiness of The Text

"We trust to the Church of all ages as the keeper and witness of Holy Writ, we bow to the teaching of the Holy Ghost, as conveyed in all wisdom by facts and evidence; and we are certain, that, following no preconceived notions of our own, but led under such guidance, moved by principles so reasonable and comprehensive, and observing rules and instructions appealing to us with such authority, we are in all main respects

STANDING UPON THE ROCK."

(Dean John Burgon, The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, p. 230)

Pastor, What Would You Have Done? by Gary DeMar

Gary DeMar's lastest article should be read with great humility and introspection by American pastors. Accomodation is the watch-word amongst Evangelical and Fundamentalist pastors these days. Cowardice and lack of vision and knowledge the basis for this accomodation. One has to also wonder if we do not have some agent provocateurs installed in our pulpits as well. The evidence speaks for itself. (Editor)

The full article below can be viewed at http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive/07-12-06.asp

"‘I will protect the German people,’ Hitler shouted. ‘You take care of the church. You pastors should worry about getting people to heaven and leave this world to me.’"1 Adolf Hitler’s angry response was directed at Martin Niemöller, a German submarine commander in the First World War, an ardent nationalist, and a minister of the gospel. Niemöller had written From U-Boat to Pulpit in 1933, showing that “the fourteen years of the [Weimar] Republic had been ‘years of darkness.’ In a final word inserted at the end of the book he added that Hitler’s triumph at last brought light to Germany.”2 He was soon to learn, however, that the light was a fire that would consume hundreds of thousands of bodies in gas ovens. By 1935, “Niemöller had become completely disillusioned”3 with Hitler and his social experiment.

Niemöller protested “against the anti-Christian tendencies of the regime, denouncing the government’s anti-Semitism and demanding an end to the state’s interference in the churches.”4 He published a series of sermons with the title Christus ist mein Führer (“Christ is my Leader”). Not everyone followed Niemöller’s example. Numerous pastors swore a personal oath of allegiance and obedience to Adolf Hitler: “The Swastika on our breasts, the Cross in our hearts.”5 Those who refused to follow the party line were sent to concentration camps for their defiance. Niemöller was imprisoned as an “enemy of Hitler,” spending seven years in a concentration camp.

Why did so many comply with Hitler’s worldview? Why did so many pastors act, as Hitler described them, like “submissive dogs . . . that sweat with embarrassment when you talk to them”?6 For the most part, the people believed that their heavenly citizenship obligated them to accept the prevailing civil requirements of citizenship, no matter what their demands, and to remain silent no matter what atrocities were being committed.

The belief that one’s citizenship is exclusively heavenly means that there is no relation between the Christian worldview and the world in which we live. The Christian is simply a pilgrim and a stranger on his way to heaven. What he sees as he travels the road to his earthly reward is no concern because his citizenship is elsewhere. “In no country except with the exception of Czarist Russia did the clergy become by tradition so completely servile to the political authority of the State.”7 When the social and political world of Russia was crumbling, the clergy remained relatively silent. Some were occupied with more important things. Donald G. Bloesch writes:

"It is a sad but irrefutable fact that the Russian Orthodox Church at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution was engaged in a fruitless attempt to preserve its religious treasures (chalices, vestments, paintings, icons, etc.) and was therefore unable to relate meaningfully to the tremendous social upheavals then taking place." 8

For Hitler, the Christian worldview stood between Nazism and his newly resurrected pagan world order. Under the leadership of Alfred Rosenberg, “the Nazi regime intended eventually to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists.” Martin Bormann, “one of the men closest to Hitler, said publicly in 1941, ‘National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable.’“9 William Shirer would later write: “We know now what Hitler envisioned for the German Christians: the utter suppression of their religion.”10

Adolf Hitler would have said “Amen” to this statement by Rev. James L. Evans: “These days . . . we are on the side. We are deposed rulers, stripped of our divine prerogatives. We have been reduced to the status of mere citizens in a body politic where one idea is regarded as good as the next. We’re second stringers, benched during the big game, watching it all from the sidelines.”11

1. Quoted in Charles Colson, Kingdoms in Conflict (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1987), 140.

2. William L. Shirer, The Nightmare Years: 1930–1940 (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1984), 152. For an account of Hitler’s Christian rhetoric and support for the Church and Niemöller’s initial support for him, see Basil Miller, Martin Niemöller: Hero of the Concentration Camp (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1942), 79–81.

3. Shirer, The Nightmare Years, 152.

4. Shirer, The Nightmare Years, 153.

5. Philip Yancey, “A State of Ungrace: In fighting the culture wars, has the church forgotten its central message?,” Christianity Today (February 3, 1997), 36.

6. A quotation of Hitler’s confirmed by Hermann Rauschning, once a confidant of Hitler, in his book The Voice of Destruction, 297–300. Quoted in Shirer, The Nightmare Years, 152.

7. William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), 236.

8. Donald G. Bloesch, Crumbling Foundations: Death and Rebirth in the Age of Upheaval (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), 30. See John Shelton Curtiss, The Russian Church and the Soviet State (Boston: Little, Brown, 1953), 112–20. “Patriarch Tikhon was quoted as saying that it was the government’s concern, not the church’s, to care for those dying of starvation (120). It is well to bear in mind that many Russian Orthodox priests as well as their parishioners did not follow the Patriarch’s lead and did use church valuables to provide for famine relief. It should also be recognized that Patriarch Tikhon at one point favored donations of nonconsecrated articles to the poor” (Bloesch, Crumbling Foundations, 141–42, note 1).

9. Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 240.

10. Shirer, The Nightmare Years, 156.

11. James L. Evans, “Why it’s right for us to be on the side,” The Decatur Daily (July 8, 2006): Online here.

Ron Paul's Latest Column: Why Money is So Important

Federal Reserve Policy Destroys the Value of Your Savings

July 10, 2006

For years officials at the Federal Reserve Bank, including Chairman Bernanke himself, have assured us that inflation is under control and not a problem-- even as the price of housing, energy, medical care, school tuition, gold, and other commodities skyrockets.

The Treasury department parrots the Fed line that consumer prices, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), are under control. But even many mainstream economists now admit that CPI grossly understates true inflation. The most glaring problem is that CPI excludes housing prices, instead tracking rents. Everyone knows the cost of purchasing a home has increased dramatically in the last ten years; in many regions housing prices have more than doubled in just five years. So price inflation certainly is alive and well when to comes to the largest purchase most Americans make.

When the Federal Reserve increases the supply of dollars in circulation, both paper and electronic, prices must rise eventually. What other result it possible? The supply of dollars has risen much faster than the supply of goods and services being chased by those dollars. Fed policy makers have more than doubled the money supply in less than ten years. While Treasury printing presses can print unlimited dollars, there are natural limits to economic growth. This flood of newly minted US currency can only increase consumer prices in the long term.

Mr. Bernanke has stated quite candidly that he will use government printing presses to stimulate the economy as necessary. He is famous for joking that he would endorse dropping money from helicopters if needed to prevent an economic slowdown. This is nothing short of an express policy to destroy our money by inflation. Every new dollar erodes the value of existing dollars based on simple supply and demand. Does anyone really believe the Treasury can make us rich simply by printing more money?

The coming dollar crisis is not likely to be “fixed” by politicians who are unwilling to make hard choices, admit mistakes, and spend less money. Demographic trends will place even greater demands on Congress to maintain benefits for millions of older Americans who are dependent on the federal government.

Faced with uncomfortable financial realities, Congress will seek to avoid the day of reckoning by the most expedient means available-- and the Federal Reserve undoubtedly will accommodate Washington by printing more dollars to pay the bills. The Fed is the enabler for the spending addicts in Congress, who would rather spend new fiat money than face the political consequences of raising taxes or borrowing more abroad.
The irony is that many of the Fed’s biggest cheerleaders are the same supposed capitalists who denounced centralized economic planning when practiced by the former Soviet Union. Large banks and Wall Street firms love the Fed’s easy money policy, because they profit at the front end from the resulting loan boom and artificially high equity prices. It’s the little guy who loses when the inflated dollars finally trickle down to him and erode his buying power. Someday Americans will understand that Federal Reserve bankers have no magic ability-- and certainly no legal or moral right-- to decide how much money should exist and what the cost of borrowing money should be.

Thomas Jefferson: The Atheist?

"The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time;
the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them."

-- Thomas Jefferson (Rights of British America, 1774)

Reference: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Lipscomb and Bergh

Can Verbal Plenary Inspiration Do Without Verbal Plenary Preservation?

Jeffrey Khoo, Can Verbal Plenary Inspiration Do Without Verbal Plenary Preservation? (http://www.deanburgonsociety.org/PDF/Verbal_Plenary.pdf)


"The case of Alexander [Archibald Alexander, Princeton University] shows that a rejection of verbal preservation in favour of conceptual preservation could lead ultimately to a denial of verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures. This was clearly what happened to Bart Ehrman (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) who had Bruce Metzger—Princeton’s George L Collord Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Emeritus, but known also as “Bible Butcher”5—for his mentor. In his book Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman testified how a Bible filled with scribal errors today became a problem for him:

'If one wants to insist that God inspired the very words of scripture, what would be the point if we don’t have the very words of scripture? … It’s a bit hard to know what the words of the Bible mean if we don’t even know what the words are!


This became a problem for my view of inspiration, for I came to realize that it would have been no more difficult for God to preserve the words of scripture than it would have been for him to inspire them in the first place. If he wanted his people to have his words, surely he would have given to them (and possibly even given them the words in a language they could understand, rather than Greek and Hebrew). The fact that we don’t have the words surely must show, I reasoned, that he did not preserve them for us. And if he didn’t perform that miracle, there seemed to be no reason to think that he performed the earlier miracle of inspiring those words.'(Bart D Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 11.)

It is significant to note that Ehrman began as a fundamentalist in Moody Bible Institute, but eventually succumbed to the “dark side” when he went to Princeton where he came under the mentorship of textual-critical Vader—Bruce Metzger—whom he calls his “Doctor-Father.” (Ibid, “Acknowledgments.” Ehrman dedicated his book to Metzger.)

Edward F Hills had long warned that a denial or even a low view of the special providential preservation of the Scriptures would logically and ultimately lead one to a denial of the verbal and plenary inspiration of the same Scriptures.

Conservative scholars ... say that they believe in the special, providential preservation of the New Testament text. Most of them really don’t though, because, as soon as they say this, they immediately reduce this special providential preservation to the vanishing point in order to make room for the naturalistic theories of Westcott and Hort. As we have seen, some say that the providential preservation of the New Testament means merely that the same “substance of doctrine” is found in all the New Testament documents. Others say that it means that the true reading is always present in at least one of the thousands of extant New Testament manuscripts. And still other scholars say that to them the special, providential preservation of the Scriptures means that the true New Testament text was providentially discovered in the mid-19th century by Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Westcott and Hort after having been lost for 1,500 years.

If you adopt one of these false views of the providential preservation of Scriptures, then you are logically on your way toward the denial of the infallible inspiration of the Scriptures. For if God has preserved the Scriptures so carelessly, why would he have infallibly inspired them in the first place? It is not sufficient therefore merely to say that you believe in the doctrine of the special, providential preservation of holy Scriptures. You must really believe this doctrine and allow it to guide your thinking. You must begin with Christ and the Gospel and proceed
according to the logic of faith. This will lead you to the Traditional text, the Textus Receptus, and the King James Version, in other words, to the common faith."(E. F. Hills, Believing Bible Study (Des Moines: Christian Research Press, 1977), 216-20.)

A New Declaration

Congressman Ron Paul's Latest Column

July 3, 2006

On the fourth day of July, in 1776, a small group of men, representing 13 colonies in the far-off Americas, boldly told the most powerful nation on earth that they were free.

They declared, in terms that still are radical today, that all men are created equal, and endowed with certain inalienable rights that government neither grants nor can take away.

In the Declaration of Independence, the founding fathers sought to demonstrate to the world that they were rejecting a tyrannical king. They listed the “injuries and usurpations” that contain the philosophical basis for our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

One point of consternation to our founding fathers was that the king had been “imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.” But 230 years later, taxation with representation has not worked out much better.

Indeed, one has to wonder how Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin would react to the current state of affairs. After all, they were outraged by mere import tariffs of a few pennies on the dollar. Today, the average American pays roughly 50 percent of their income in direct and indirect taxes.

In fact, most Texans will not start working for themselves for another week. Texans, like most Americans, work from January until early July just to pay their federal income taxes, state and local taxes, and the enormous costs of regulation. Only about half the year is spent working to pay for food, clothing, shelter, or education.

It is easy to simply blame faceless bureaucrats and politicians for our current state of affairs, and they do bear much of the blame. But blame also rests with those who expect Washington DC to solve every problem under the sun. If the public demanded that Congress abide by the Constitution and pass only constitutional spending bills, politicians would have no choice but to respond.

Everybody seems to agree that government waste is rampant and spending should but cut—but not when it comes to their communities or pet projects. So members of Congress have every incentive to support spending bills and adopt a go-along, get-along attitude. This leads to the famous compromises, but the bill eventually comes due on April 15^th.

Our basic problem is that we have lost sight of the simple premise that guided the actions of our founding fathers. That premise? The government that governs least is the government that governs best.

When we cut the size of government, our taxes will fall. When we reduce the power of the federal bureaucracy, the cost of government will plummet. And when we firmly fix our eyes, undistracted, on the principles of liberty, Americans truly will be free. That should be our new declaration.

Patriotism v. American Imperialism

I watched the movie Syriana last night. If you want a glimpse of the machinations of "American" policy around the globe, take a look at it.

The relationships of American business as executed through governmental agencies are really frightening. I see nothing patriotic in this kind of behavior: manipulating commerce and sovereign nations so as to profit from it and removing any "obstacles" to their agenda stopping short of nothing. Read Ron Paul's speech below. He mentions this.

The reaction of Muslim nations to us may have been precipitated by events of which we are unaware. This does not take into account the "wag the dog" policy of our government which must always be factored in in ascertaining who really is manipulating circumstances.

Remember, "Create a problem; solve a problem," is the philosophy of those who hold power. It guarantees job security as well.

Patriotism: An Example

"The United States Supreme Court, as at present constituted, has departed from the Constitution as it has been interpreted from its inception and has followed the urgings of social reformers in foisting upon this Nation laws which even Congress could not constitutionally pass. It has amended the Constitution in a manner unknown to the document itself. While it takes three-fourths of the states of the Union to change the Constitution legally, yet as few as five men who have never been elected to office can by judicial fiat accomplish a change just as radical as could three-fourths of the states of this Nation. As a result of the recent holdings of that Court, the sovereignty of the states is practically abolished, and the erstwhile free and independent states are now in effect and purpose merely closely supervised units in the federal system.

We do not believe that justices of once free and independent states should surrender their constitutional powers without being heard from. We would betray the trust of our people if we sat supinely by and permitted the great bulk of our powers to be taken over by the federal courts without at lest stating reasons why it should not be so. By attempting to save the dual relationship which has heretofore existed between state and federal authority, and which is clearly set out in the Constitution, we think we act in the best interest of our country.

We feel like galley slaves chained to our oars by a power from which we cannot free ourselves, but like the slaves of old we think we must cry out when we can see the boat heading into the maelstrom directly ahead of us; and by doing so, we hope the master of the craft will heed the call and avert the dangers which confront us all.

But by raising our voices in protest we, like the galley slaves of old, expect to be lashed for doing so. We are confident that we will not be struck by 90 percent of the people of this Nation who long for the return to the days when the Constitution was a document plain enough to be understood by all who read it, the meaning of which was set firmly like a jewel in the matrix of common sense and wise judicial decisions.

... When we bare our backs to receive the verbal lashes, we will try to be brave; and should the great court of these United States decide that in our thinking we have been in error, then we shall indeed feel honored, for we will then be placed on an equal footing with all those great justices who at this late date are also said to have been in error for so many years." (Utah Supreme Court, Dyett v. Turner, 439 P.2d 266.)