July 28, 2010
President Abraham Lincoln once said, “The philosophy in the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next.”
How we Americans think about creation affects our view of the laws of our country. The Founders of our country understood this and therefore could write that “all are created equal” and that all people possess God-given “unalienable Rights” based on the law of Nature, which proceeds from “Nature in God.”
The concept of law (legal theory) is built on the relationships between law and morality. Natural Law is a view of law that sees God as Creator who gives people through eternal reason the ability to understand Natural Law because as people we are created in His image (imago dei) and we as people have intrinsic value based on God creating us. This view helps us really understand the effect of creation on what we think and the laws we create in regard to abortion and euthanasia. Because we are created in God’s image we will protect life.
Our country has had the benefits of Natural Law through most of its history. A new philosophy of law has appeared over the years and it is called Positive Law. This view of law sees man with temporal reason creating laws that are relative and subjective. They do not believe that God is involved in this process or product at all. Because they do not believe in creation man does not have intrinsic value and is left with only human reason to create social norms or power over people through law. This group finds it easy to support abortion and euthanasia.
How did America shift from Natural Law to Positive Law? If you look back in history you’ll find three reasons. They are:
1. Influence of Friedrich Nietzsche, the German atheist (1844-1900) who created a philosophy that “God is dead” and mankind is self-sufficient.
2. Utilitarianism. This is a moral theory that sees an action as morally right if and only if it produces at least as much good (utility) for all people affected by the action or any alternative action the person could do instead. This means there are no absolutes in law. It all depends on the person.
3. Charles Darwin (1809-1882). His writings on the Origin of the Species and his philosophy and teaching that mankind is basically a high functioning animal. Darwin was also an atheist.
If you put the influence of all three of them together you’ll see we as a country have shifted to Positive Law based on the rejection of God as Creator and with that the elevation of mankind to a place where only God belongs.
Next time you are reading about judges or lawyers or congress and the word law is used, it might be wise to know -- are they referring to law as our Founding Fathers believed it to be, Natural Law (based on God as Creator and therefore people having intrinsic value) or Positive Law where man is the center of it all and does not have intrinsic value.
By the way Positive Law changed its title to “legal realism” or “critical legal studies.”
The person nominated to be a Supreme Court Judge by President Obama is in her own words a “legal realist.”
Man-centered law that attempts to cut God out of the picture and ignore his laws will be out of step with reality. Pray for all those who lead us! Pray and put into practice Romans 13:1, “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established…”
John Owen, perhaps one of the sharpest theological minds in Puritan history said, “Without absolutes revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers.” (Owen 1616-1683)
I’ve been thinking lately, as most American are, about our economy. Two ideas are on the stage for acceptance: capitalism or socialism.
Throughout world history these two ideas of social organization have squared off against each other. Either collectivism or individualism will prevail. Collectivism has taken many forms: fascism, welfare-statism, socialism and even communism. I left out Nazism—add that also. The only social system that has worked for individualism is laissez-faire capitalism. (The French term means “let do” or “let it alone” in reference to the economy. In 1680 it was first used to advocate for leaving industry alone—to be free from government intervention.)
For the average Christian in America it is obvious that the battle to lead our country to socialism is in high gear. If you interviewed college professors, politicians and main-stream journalists, you would hear the callous and base put-down of capitalism. They believe socialism is “morally” superior to capitalism.
Dr. David Noebel, in his book The Battle for Truth, writes “The Christian worldview embraces democratic capitalism (laissez-faire) for a number of reasons. The Bible not only grants man the right to private property, but also calls for man to be a good steward of his property, and the free enterprise system affords man the most opportunity to act as a responsible steward by creating wealth and opportunity. Further, the competition in a free market works according to the principle of comparative advantage, which affirms the inherent worth of every individual.” (Page 295)
Which system is more just? Dr. Noebel writes, “Capitalism is also more socially just than socialism. While the socialist calls for economic equality, capitalism respects the Biblical requirement of equality before the law. This does not, as the socialist contends, cause the rich to get richer and the poor poorer. Rather, it encourages the rich to create more wealth, thereby aiding all of society. The policies of redistribution, including welfare systems, only multiply the problems for the poor—creating needless bureaucracies and concentrating too much power in the hands of the government. Conversely, capitalism encourages freedom in the political sphere. This removes the danger of granting sovereignty to the state instead of God.” (Page 296)
If the Christian understands the battle over the economy today in worldview terms, he or she will end up in favor of capitalism and free enterprise. This truth was very evident to Frederick Engels (the father of communist theory) who said, “If some few passages of the Bible may be favorable to communism, the general spirit of the doctrine is, nevertheless, totally opposed to it.” (Page 296)
Socialism does away with private property and even individual responsibility. (Read Isaiah 65:21-22; Jeremiah 32:43-44; Acts 5:1-4, and Ephesians 4:28 supporting capitalism.)
The only theology I know supporting socialism is called “Liberation Theology,” misreading and misunderstanding Acts 2:44-45. Personal salvation is based on a relationship with our wonderful Savior. Liberation Theology is “collective” salvation from so-called economic, political, and social conditions. Personal salvation from sin or social collective salvation from economic, political, and social problems? The government “saves” us, or we will choose salvation from sin through Christ. You can’t have it both ways.
In a culture that has abandoned “absolute” in relationship to God, moral laws, ethics, etc. in favor of relativism, it is great to be reminded of what John Owen wrote, “Without absolutes revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers.”
God’s truth is by its very nature absolute. It does not depend upon any time, place, or condition to be true.
Jesus said, "There was once a rich man who had a manager. He got reports that the manager had been taking advantage of his position by running up huge personal expenses. So he called him in and said, 'What's this I hear about you? You're fired. And I want a complete audit of your books.' Jesus went on to make these comments: If you're honest in small things, you'll be honest in big things; if you're a crook in small things, you'll be a crook in big things. If you're not honest in small jobs, who will put you in charge of the store? No worker can serve two bosses: he'll either hate the first and love the second or adore the first and despise the second. You can't serve both God and the Bank.” Luke 16:1-2, 10-13 9 (The Message)
God Bless,
Woody
One of my favorite quotes is from C. H. Spurgeon, who said, “The religion of both Old and New Testaments is marked by fervent outspoken testimonies against evil. To speak smooth things in such a case may be sentimentalism, but it is not Christianity. It is a betrayal of the cause of truth and righteousness.”
So, with that in your heart and mind, let me bring up the name of a deceased radical who still reigns in our world—Saul Alinsky. Alinsky was a community organizer from Chicago who traveled the U.S. and gave lectures on college campuses and union halls, to persuade people to follow his socialism. He wrote two books, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals (this was dedicated to Lucifer, the first radical), and his second book, Reveille for Radicals.
Rules for Radicals was published in 1972. Alinsky’s favorite word in this book is “change” and his next favorite was a phrase “Community organizer.”
Alinsky wrote, “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the “Haves” on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the “Have-nots” on how to take it away.”
Alinsky was born in 1909 to Russian Jewish immigrant parents. His parents were “strict orthodox Jews” and so was Saul, until he was 12 years old. He said he had kicked the habit of orthodoxy by that time.
What makes Alinsky noteworthy, even though he is dead (1972) is his influence on organizing for more power today.
When Alinsky said he “believed in change,” Brannon Howse stated, “Alinsky means revolution.” “Alinsky said we need to have a socialist communist revolution. We need to do away with private property, free enterprise, free market, capitalism. But we do it over time, by penetrating every institution and changing their worldview.”
Alinsky called for radicals to defend their agenda by ridiculing the opposition. He wrote, “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counter attack ridicule. It infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.”
Robert Knight said of Alinsky, “he is all about using deception, manipulation, and raw power to bring about a communist future.”
Who has been influenced the most by Alinsky’s writings? Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama are high on the list. Clinton wrote her senior thesis at Wellesley College on Alinsky. The title of her paper was, “There is only the Fight, An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.” She wrote, “If the ideals Alinsky espouses were actualized, the result would be social revolution.”
President Obama taught at least four years of the Alinsky model as a community organizer in Chicago. Obama did his primary work by building coalitions of black churches.
Interesting to me is that Alinsky’s ideas were not original. They started with a Neo-Marxist in Italy by the name of Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci said a guns and bullets revolution never works but he said “gradualism, infiltration and the dialectic process” was a sure thing.
A final thought on Alinsky. He was deeply influenced by the social science insights of his times, one developed by his professor at Chicago: that the pathologies of the urban poor were not hereditary but environmental. This idea, that people could change their lives by changing their surroundings, led him to take the obscure social science phrase, “the community organization,” and turn it into, in the words of Alinsky’s biographer Sanford Horwitt, “something controversial, important, even romantic.”
Don’t overlook this idea. Change my surroundings and you change me. The Bible tells a different story. God’s Son came to change our hearts even if the environment never changed. We call that salvation from sin, not liberation from a job, community or government.
In case you haven’t paid attention to the TV news or news magazines, the assault on Biblical absolutes and Christian values has been the threat for Alinsky and followers since 1972.
What can you do to change this slide toward socialism? C. H. Spurgeon’s quote at the beginning of this blog says it all. Call it evil!!! Read your Bible every day! Learn to use the Word of God daily to see how
1 Chronicles 12:32 can be used in your life!
1. “Understand the times”
2. “Knowledge of what to do”
God Bless,
Woody
To check out the 11 Rules for Radicals, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals
