Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Rev. Lacy Williams (1923-2010)

This past Sunday, my stepfather and the author of this blog, Pastor Lacy Williams, went home to be with the Lord after a short illness. I am posting his obituary below. Our family desires that his blog be left in place so that anyone may access his past essays. From time to time, additional essays that Lacy wrote may be posted here in the future. On behalf of the family, I'd like to ask for prayer for Lacy's wife, Lurea, and his children during these difficult days. We are thankful to the Lord for the blessing that Lacy has been to many during his more than 50 years of ministry.

Joel Griffith
Freeport, IL


Rev. Lacy A. Williams, 86, of Freeport (Red Oak), IL, died October 3, 2010, at Provena St. Joseph Center in Freeport, IL. Lacy was born December 15, 1923, in Rainelle, WV, the second of eight children. He was a World War II veteran, having served in the Navy for five years.
He then attended Freed-Hardeman College, Henderson, TN, from 1951-1954, where he became deeply interested in the Bible.

Lacy’s strong faith in Christ became the foundation of his ministry, which lasted for more than 50 years. Lacy pastored churches in West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, New York, California and Missouri. He retired in 2000 after serving for several years as pastor of the Church of God in Forrest, Illinois. As he would often say, “I have a deep, abiding faith in Jesus Christ and His Word.”

During the last 15 years of his life, Lacy learned to use the computer, published two books, maintained an online blog, “The True Believer,” and published a weekly series of e-mail essays also entitled “The True Believer.”

Lacy is survived by his wife, May Lurea, and his children, Sharon Sellers, Dianne Hershman, Donna Bean and David (Marcy) Williams, and their mother, Betty Lilly Williams. He is also survived by step- children Carol Garrison, Vicki (Barry) Collinson and Joel Griffith, seven grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, his brother Lovell
(Erma) Williams, and many loving relatives.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday, October 7, 2010, at the Moreland Funeral Home, 55 E. Schrock Road, Westerville, Ohio.
Visitation will be at the funeral home Wednesday evening from 6 to 8 p.m. In lieu of flowers, friends who wish may contribute in memory of Lacy to the youth ministry at Park Hills Evangelical Free Church, 2525 W. Stephenson Street, Freeport, Illinois, 61032. Contributions may also be made to Provena St. Joseph Center in Freeport, Illinois

Saturday, May 22, 2010

11. Christ‘s Witnesses (5:6 – 21)


Christ’s Witnesses Testify

6This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.
7For there are three that testify:
8the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
9If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for the testimony of God is this that He has testified concerning His Son.
10The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son.
11And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
12He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.

Summary: The water, the blood, the Holy Spirit and the hearts of the true believers all testify that Jesus is the Son of God and that He has brought us eternal life. Jesus is more than a historical person; He is the embodiment of deity.

That You May Know

13These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life. 14This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
15And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.
16If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this.
17All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death.
18We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.
19We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
20And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternal life.
21Little children, guard yourselves from idols – (and from the testimony of men, v.9

Summary: Christ assures true believers that we have eternal life, and in this assurance we may know that God will hear our requests and will also give life to those for whom we pray, providing they have not committed a “sin unto death” (an unpardonable sin). For these we are not asked to pray because such sinners either cannot or will not repent. All unrighteousness is sin but all sins do not carry a permanent death penalty; they can be forgiven. The true believers, those who are born of God, do not sin, i. e. they do not perpetual sins — they are sanctified and holy instead. Being in this state, the evil one does not touch them. The whole world is under the power of the evil one but true believers are of God. Christ has come and has given us understanding. Therefore, we must keep ourselves from idols (those objects that hold our attention and keep us from Christ.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

John's Letters

10. Faith and Knowledge

Can a Christian be certain of his standing with God? Faith grows to become assurance. “The main elements in ‘faith’ ... are (1) a firm conviction, producing a full acknowledgement of God’s revelation of truth, e.g., 2 Thess. 2:11-12; (2) a personal surrender to Him, John 1:12; (3) a conduct inspired by such surrender, 2 Cor. 5:7.” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary). John assures us that when we are in the Will of God we know that the things we experience by faith are true. The following quotations are from the letters of John.

l. We know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments (I John 2:3).

2. We know because we have been anointed by the Holy One (2:20).

3. We know the truth (2:21).

4. We know that when Christ appears we shall be like Him (3:2).

5. We know that Jesus appeared to take away our sins (3:5).

6. We know hat we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren... (3:14).

7. We know that when we love in truth, we are of the truth and our hearts will assure us before God (3:19).

8. We know that in whatever our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and will assure us (3:l8, l9).

9. We know that when our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God (3:21).

10. We know by the Holy Spirit that when we keep His commandments we abide in Him and He in us (3:24).

l1. We know the Spirit of God by this: ever spirit that confesses that Jesus came in the flesh is of God (3:24).

12. We know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error because those who are of God hear us (4:6).

l3. We know that Christ dwells in us and we in Him because He has given us His Spirit (4:13).

14. We know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments (5:2).

15. We know that we have eternal life (5:13).

16. We know that He hears us and will grant the requests that we ask of Him (5:15).

17. We know that no one who is born of God sins (Greek, continually sin) but Christ keeps him and the evil one does not touch him (5:18).

18. We know that we are of God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one (5:19).

19. We know that the Son of God has come, and that He has given us understanding, in order that we might know Him who is true and be in Him (5:20).

You will rejoice and be glad when your faith matures into knowledge.

Friday, May 7, 2010

9. Overcoming the World

1 John 5: 1-5

1Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him.
2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.
3For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.
4For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith.
5Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

I need not relate how wayward and wicked the world is. Everyone knows this, except those who are too blind to see and too dead to feel. I choose rather to ask you to reflect on the blindness and indifference you see about you and ask that you examine your heart and life and your relationship with Christ. If there is anything between you and your Lord that hinders your full enjoyment of life, now is the time to realize it and get it off of your mind and shoulders. John tells us how to do this; he calls it “overcoming the world.”

If you are a true believer in Christ, you have experienced the new birth and are a child of God. If you love God the Father for His goodness and grace, you are sure to love His Son also. And with this divine love in your heart, you will love your brothers and sisters in God’s family. In this love it is easy to obey the Father’s commands because they are not burdensome. Observe how others struggle with the commands of God. Many spend their entire lives in guilt and fear.

If God’s commandments become burdensome to you, this is a strong indication that there is something lacking on your part of the relationship. How vain and pretentious it is for one to talk about his love for God and show a lack of love for his brothers and sisters. If you love God you will surely love your brothers and sisters in His family. We have the best Father ever; don’t you think we should love Him and love one another as He loves us? If you have a problem loving and showing it, others will see that you have not yet overcome the world. Look around you and observe what people say and do; this will indicate whether they are children of God or people of the world. Others will judge you by the same standard.

The Old Testament Law commanded those under it to “Love the Lord your God;” the New Testament is full of assurance that God loves us, and that “We love because He first loved us.” We love not just God but our spiritual siblings and everyone because God showed us the meaning of love by loving us.

Faith is the victory that overcomes the world. “Everybody who's talkin' ‘bout heaven ain’t a goin’ there.” Are you a true believer? Do you truly believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? Do you believe that His death satisfied the condemnation of God upon your sins? And that His resurrection is your assurance that you will also be raised to meet Him when He comes? “Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

Observe the following truisms in this reading.
1. If one believes in Jesus Christ, he is born of God.
2. Whoever loves the Father loves His children also.
3. We know that we love one another when we obey our Father command to do.
4. Our Father’s commandments are not burdensome to those who love Him and His other children.
5. Just as God’s commandments are not burdensome, neither is the world – once it has been overcome.
6. How will others know that we as brothers and sisters are the children of God if we don’t show then by the way we live? Perhaps our love for them will be their invitation into the family.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

8. Surprise by Love – No 2

I appreciate the favorable response I received from last week’s, “Surprised by Love” essay. There is much more that should be written about my love epiphany – my confrontation by the love of God – my surprise. In this essay I will fill in some of the gaps in my testimony to this experience. But first, I hasten to say that no one should spend his life chasing experiences; “Cast your burdens upon the Lord.” “Draw near to the throne of God with boldness.” Don’t envy the experiences of others.

On the plane in our return trip from Florida to Indians, after I had discovered that God loves Lacy Williams, I started talking about my dad who had been dead for 15 years. I didn’t understand why he came to mind or why I felt such love for him. Dad and I were not very close. Although he was a fine Christian man, I don’t recall him ever telling me he loved me. Instead, I learned years later, that he told mother that I was his “strange son.” On the other hand, I don’t remember telling him that I loved him. I know we loved one another; we were just unable to express it. But at this moment I felt a deep affection for him and wanted very much to talk with him and to share what I was experiencing. (You don’t want to wait until its fifteen years too late to tell your father you love him, so do it now ! Do it while he is able to hear you. It will mean the world to him and give him an opening to express his love for you.)

After a while I remembered a verse from I John, “We love because He first loved us” (I John 4:19). I loved my father as I had never loved him before because, for the first time, I experienced God’s love for me! I know this statement to be true because, for the first time, I also felt a strange affection for everyone. I began expressing my feelings and showing my love for others in ways I had not done before. And I was rewarded with statements and gestures of affection that I wasn’t accustomed to receiving. We love our fathers, mothers, siblings, eve n our enemies, because God first loved us. What a surprise! What a life changing experience!

The following is humorous and full of joy. On Saturday when I was in the church building by myself, I started walking around the auditorium practicing my sermon aloud, as I often did. I related our trip, our blessings and the incident on the plane. When I came to the Book marker and the statement, “God loves Lacy Williams,” I was suddenly filled with joy. I laughed, I cried and I praised God for His grace and deliverance. This was the culmination of my epiphany, which I shared with my congregation the next day.

John Wesley said of his disciples who had experienced this sanctifying change, “Scarcely one third of them maintain their experience.” Of course we can’t be up on the mountain all the time, but we can remember that the God of the mountain is still God in the valley, the God of the good times is still God in the bad times, and the God of the day is still God in the night.” And we can always remember our mountain top experiences and thank God for them.

Finally, don’t be discouraged or intimidated by those who have had experiences that you haven’t had. You can’t know how much they have prayed or how long they have waited for God’s love to break through. If you don’t have an out of this world experience to relate, just tell others what the Lord has done for you. Rest in what you have and praise Him for it and He will give you more.

My Faith Has Found A Resting Place -- Words by Eliza Hewitt, music by Andre Gretry

My faith has found a resting place—
Not in device or creed:
I trust the ever living One—
His wounds for me shall plead.

Enough for me that Jesus saves—
This ends my fear and doubt;
A sinful soul I come to Him—
He’ll never cast me out.

I need no other argument,
I need no other plea;
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

7. Surprised by Love

I John 4:7- 21

7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
13By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
14We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
16We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
17By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.
18There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
19 We love, because He first loved us.
20If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

It’s not enough to learn about God’s love; you must experience it. Like an epiphany, (“a moment of sudden and great revelation”) God’s love will open your mind and heart and possess your being. Have you ever had this experience? Henry Drummond, in his famous sermon, “The Greatest thing in the World,” gives an excellent example of this experience.

While a little boy was dying and his family was standing around his bed, thinking that he was in a coma, an elderly man laid his hand on him and said softly, “God loves you son.” Hearing this, the boy sprang up in bed and said, “God loves me! God loves me!” There was life in this realization. And this was the boy’s epiphany.

After preaching the love of God and the gift of the Holy Spirit for years, I questioned whether I had received the Holy Spirit and whether I actually knew that God loved me. I preached a series of sermons on God and determined to know Him better. Just after this series, Lurea and I were invited to attend a conference on the Holy Spirit in Orlando, FL. I went with great anticipation, feeling certain that I would receive a special blessing. Nothing happened suddenly but I was aware that things were happening that were leading me in the right direction. I bought a new Bible and rededicated myself to a new study. The man at the book store put my name on it in gold, and while doing so stamped my name on a Happy Face book marker, causing it to read, “Smile, God loves you Lacy Williams.” In the plane on our way home Lurea pointed this out to me, and like the boy in the above incident, I said, “God loves Lacy Williams! God loves Lacy Williams!” That was my epiphany, although I didn’t realize it fully until later.

On Saturday I was in my church preparing Sunday’s sermon. I would share my experiences with my church. After announcing that we would not have Sunday school because I needed some extra time for my message, I preached for an hour. My people were aware that I had been with Jesus, and they were moved also. One woman said aloud, “I want what Lacy has.” I had never experienced the help I had that day in preaching a sermon. On this day in my life my epiphany was realized. Although emotions rise and fall, I have never questioned the power of the Holy Spirit or the Love of God that I experienced thirty years ago.

Nothing one might experience in life is more precious than being surprised by God’s love, to know without doubt that one has received the Holy Spirit and that God loves him. I am praying for everyone on my contact list that this essay will bless you as I have been blessed.

part 2 to follow

Friday, April 16, 2010

God's Children Love One Another

I John

3:1- 24
1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
4 Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.
5You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.
6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.
7Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous;
8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
9 No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.
11 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another;
12 not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him;
Because his deeds were evil, and his brother's were righteous.
13 Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you.
14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.
15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
16 We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
17 But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?
18 Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.
19 We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him
20 in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.
21Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God;
22 and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
23And this is His commandment that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.
24 one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And we know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

From this Scripture learn:
1. We are children of God.
2. When Christ appears we will be like Him.
3. In this hope we are purifying ourselves to meet Him.
4. As we abide in Him we cannot abide in sin.
5. As we practice righteousness we are righteous. “No one who is born of God practices sin.”
6. As brothers and sisters in God’s family we should love one another.
7. In our love for one another we have passed from death to life.
8. As Jesus gave His life for us, we should be willing to give our lives for one another.
9. Our love is shown by our deeds; “love is “active good will.”
10 We know that Christ abides in us by the Holy Spirit He has given us.
11 As we live in a way that pleases God, our hearts do not condemn us and our prayers are answered.

Friday, April 2, 2010

3. Misplaced Love

I John

2:15-24

15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, are not from the Father, but are from the world.
17 The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
18 Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.
19 They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.
20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.
21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and no lie is of the truth.
22Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.
23Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.
24As for you let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.”
______________

This is not a prohibition against loving God’s creation and the people who inhabit it; it is a warning not to love worldly things rather than heavenly things. “Keep seeking the things above, where Christ is....Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Col.3:1, 2). We will all have our mindset; we must each decide what it will be. There is a very good reason for this teaching: “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

“All that is in the world” falls into three categories – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life.” These are the areas in which we are tempted and in which we either resist and stand or yield and fall. This was so in the case of Adam and Eve in the Garden, Jesus in the desert, and the rest of us when we are tempted, wherever we are. Whatever gets your attention gets your mind. And whatever gets your mind gets you. “The world is passing away, and also its lust; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”

We hear a lot about the antichrist coming in the last days. What does John say about this? He said that he and his generation were living in the “last hour,” and that the antichrist was coming, just as many antichrists had already appeared. These were the ones who separated from the apostles and went out on their own. They were called “antichrists” because they were opposed to Christ, rejecting Him rather than accepting Him as believers do. If you have an anointing from God you know these things, while those who have not the anointed are speculating and concoct theories, which they use to persuade their followers. You must rely on John and come out of the world to go with Christ.

If you truly believe that God, Christ and the Holy Spirit abide in you, you also abide in the Father and in the Son. Don’t ever forget this truth. You don’t have to guess about your relationship with the Holy Trinity, just exercise your faith as a follower and you will have all the evidence you will need. You will know whether you are in the word of in Christ, whether you love is true or misplaced.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

2. Be Honest with Your Advocate

John 2:1-14
Advocate: “One who pleads another’s cause.” Christ Is our Advocate.

1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;
2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
3 this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.
4 The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;
5 but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:
6 the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.
7 Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard.
8 On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.
9 The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now.
10 The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.
11 But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
12 I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name's sake.
13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I have written to you, children, because you know the Father.
14 I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

If you were to appoint an attorney to represent you in court, he would surely expect you to tell him the details of your case, and to relate them accurately. How could he represent you properly if you are not open and honest with him? John sees God as your Judge and Christ as your Advocate. And he is instructing you to be honest with your Advocate.

1. In the first place, you are not to sin.
2. But if you sin, you have an Advocate with the Father.
3. Your Advocate is interested in your case, and is well qualified to represent you. He is the propitiation for your sins (He died in your place in order to remove your sins and restore you to favor with God.)
4. You know Him because you keep His commandments.
5. Your advocate is just and is representing you well, but how honest have you been with Him? His light is shining on you; are you careful to walk in His light? Here is a test for you. (a) If you say you are living in the light and yet hate a brother, you have been in darkness until now. (b) The darkness has blinded you until you can’t see where you are going. (c) But if you love your brother, you abide in the light of your Advocate— a comfortable places to be as you stand before the Judge.
6. John tells why he is writing this letter. He reassures the “little children” (those who are new and inexperienced in the faith) that their sins are forgiven. He reminds the “fathers” that they have known their Advocate from the beginning. He encourages the “young men” to remain strong and continue overcoming the evil one.
7. If you keep Jesus’ commandments and walking in His light you are in good standing with God, but if you are only pretending to walk in the light and are not being honest with your Advocate, you are a liar who is still walking in the darkness. Don’t wait until you are called to judgment to obey your Savior; it will be too late then. Be honest with Him now, since He is your present Advocate before the Judge.

Friday, March 19, 2010

First John

I John

1. The Life and the Light

1:1-4 The Life: 1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life—
2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—
3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
4 These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.

“The beginning,” is a good place to start a Bible study. Some translations say “That which was from the beginning.” Others say, “What was from the beginning.” In either case, John soon gives us his subject – a divine person, who is and who gives “eternal life.” How could he have been so certain about the one he is describing? He tells us: he heard Him speak, saw Him, looked at Him (more than just seeing) and touched Him. He was convinced that the One he had been with in ministry for three and a half years was “eternal life – and that He was the Son of God. John wanted everyone to know this Life so they could also have fellowship with the Father and His Son. This is not just another Bible study to gain knowledge about eternal life; it is a venture in fellowship with Eternal Life, who will transform our nature. Most of us have been studying the Bible for years, and we are quite familiar with John’s words; can’t we go a little deeper this time and establish a familiarity with the Object of his affection?
John wrote to fulfill his joy, but is he interested in fulfilling our joy? Yes he is. He wrote to us saying, “These (truths) have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31). As we set out on our journey through John's First Letter, we go in faith and fellowship.

5-10 The Light:

5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;
7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.

John received a message from God for us: “God is Light.” Then he becomes very personal. We lie if we profess to be walking in God’s light while actually walking in darkness. It is our life, not our claim that matters with God. The only true fellowship we may have with God or one another is in the light of Christ, Who is God’s Light to us. It is in this enlightened, holy fellowship that we are cleansed from all sin. If we fully understand this, will we not stay close and help one another? We can rationalize all our lives, saying that we have no sin or have not sinned, but that doesn’t clear us with God; we only deceive ourselves and continue walking in darkness. We can’t just think these thoughts; we must live this life if we want to share in this holy fellowship with God and His Son. Let us become more like our Savior as we walk with Him in the light of God's Word. This is the purpose of this study.

Father God, we were as “Infants crying in the night, Infants crying for the light, And with no language but a cry.” In our darkest hour, when we acknowledged our sins, Your divine light shown on us and showed us that the way out of darkness was through your Son. As we make this fellowship journey with You and our Savior, please shine on us brighter and brighter until the perfect day.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Liberation Theology

6. “Contextual Theology”


In an article titled, “Contextuality and Missions, (The Seminary Today, Spring 1991), Professor Douglas E. Welch of Anderson School of Theology explained his version of contextual theology. He imposed Marx’s philosophy of history upon Paul’s Christian theology, in an attempt to determine what Paul’s writing means to us. He, being a progressive, wouldn’t have thought of interpreting Marx in the light of Pail’s theology. What Paul meant when he wrote his letters is irrelevant to progressives because they believe history is progressive, having no fixed meaning. This means that each individual has the right to interpret the Bible for himself, according to his own subjective understanding and in his own context. The personalized theology resulting from this process is called “contextual theology.”
“Paul’s theology, then,” writes Welch, “becomes our model par excellence of the genuinely contextual theology—or, perhaps more correctly, set of theologies. In each new contingent situation, we reflect afresh on the gospel, from the perspective afforded by the context itself. And thus we have contextual theology. It is this we mean when we talk about contextual theology…an indigenous or contextual theology therefore, is one that arises in a specific context…Translators may become contextual outsiders; interpreters are insiders. They are indispensable in the communication of the gospel and their interpretation is the only way a contextual theology can result. Perhaps it is on this that our missionary strategy should concentrate.
“To the struggle for justice we must be committed. And who knows? In so doing, we may even ourselves become a word of the Lord for others.” (This “struggle for justice” is a Marxist term for the conflict between a thesis and its antithesis). The “old” traditional meaning of a text is the thesis, which is challenged by a new progressive meaning as its antithesis, out of which struggle a new meaning, perhaps a composite meaning, will emerge as a new thesis. This process is cyclical, and will continue until universal communism or the kingdom of God or absolute truth or whatever a cult is expecting emerges. This is Karl Marx’s philosophy of history, the liberationist’s theology and Prof. Welch’s contextual theology that blows in the wind and conforms to every economic, political and social context it encounters. Every line of Welch’s quote above is contrary to all we have learned from the Bible by the long-established discipline of biblical hermeneutics (“interpretation, especially of the Bible”).
First, when we speak of “context” we mean the surrounding verses or chapters that give us a larger picture and a greater insight into the verses we are trying to understand. To Welch the context is the total circumstances and conditions in which the interpreter lives. One’s context might be poverty or a minority race or women or homosexual. Each person is free to interpret the Bible for himself, in his context. Whatever it says to him in that context is what it means, since it has no meaning apart from the individual interpreter’s subjective understanding of it. This approach is tantamount to saying that the Bible can be used—as it is being used—to justify any individual’s view of Scripture in whatever context he is.
Second, an interpretation that “arises in a specific context” is superior to one that’s brought in from without; no matter if the indigenous interpreter is illiterate and the visiting missionary is a brilliant biblical scholar. The same Scripture can be interpreted in as many different ways as there are interpreters and contexts—and they can all be right! Therefore, indigenous peoples can surpass the scholars because their interpretation of the Bible is their own.
Third, there is no established truth. That which is “truth” to one interpreter may not be “truth” to another; that which is called truth in one context may not be considered truth in another context; and that which is called truth at one time may not be called truth at another time. The Bible was believed to have been the truth by those who wrote it and at the time it was written but it is to be reinterpreted now in the light of changing contingencies.
Fourth, it seems very wrong to assume that Paul’s theology “becomes a model par excellence of the genuinely contextual theology,” because his theology was not flexible, adaptable and “contextual.” He knew what he was to preach and he preached it everywhere he went. He didn’t, like modern theologians, study the “context” first and then alter his message to suit it. People were to be convinced, convicted and converted; how could this happen if they are told only what they want to hear and not the truth about sin and their Savior who had died for them.
Modern theology is like a chameleon; it changes colors with changing contexts. Schleiermacher and Marx taught that history, like everything else in the universe, is progressing and that meanings change with time and place. Professor Welch and his comrades in the School of Theology have taught the very same thing for years.

Contextual Theology Illustrated
A missionary gets his Bible and heads for the mission field. He has a splendid biblical education and is well trained in hermeneutics. He also has a burden for lost souls. But he must not have a preconceived interpretation of Scripture since he cannot know what the text may mean to the people until he arrives and understands their social, political, economical and philosophical context. Assuming that he becomes familiar with all of these, his interpretation will still be his own; each indigenous person will have a better interpretation than his because he will also have his own. Hence, the “insider” is a better interpreter than the “outsider.” Upon learning this, the missionary understands that the Bible has a different meaning “in the place where we live” than it does in the place where we don’t live.
This flexible concept totally destroys the belief that the Bible is the established Word of God. Has the Church of God as a whole accept this modernism or is it just for professors, pastors and other leaders? Inasmuch as it is blatantly taught in the School of Theology and sent out to pastors and alumni but not to the congregations, one might suppose that it is meant for leaders only. But of course, it is assumed that these leaders will “enlighten” their congregations.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Liberation Theology

5. A Grateful Prostitute Thanks Liberation Theology

A prostitute was called as a delegate to speak at the Pastoral Commission on Marginal Women, which convened in Brazil in July of 1984. Her speech was titled, “In Praise of Liberation Theology.” This is what she said (emphases added):
“We prostitutes were invited to participate in the fourth national meeting of the Pastoral Commission on Marginal Women, a meeting was called by the church and the prostitutes called in as delegates. It was during the first five meetings that I discovered that we are not alone in our efforts to organize. There I met bishops, priests, pastoral agents, who called prostitution a social sin. Nobody was indicted as a sinner. Prostitution is a social sin generated by economical, political and social structure. It’s the government; it’s the social structure that causes prostitutes. They’re not responsible for who they are, so the bishop told the prostitutes. (Prostitutes are not responsible for their actions, someone else must be blamed. This is a characteristic of LT.) We must organize. Then we must unite our efforts with those of other oppressed sectors of society in order to advance together toward our liberation. Not liberation from sin, but liberation from the stigma of being a prostitute. What concretely does this support from the church mean for us? For me and my companions, who have always been stigmatized and excluded by society, this acceptance by the church means simply, and I want to emphasize this in capital letters, REDISCOVERING OUR DIGNITY. We could go on and be prostitutes, now that the pastors have explained it to us, and still maintain our dignity. It is because of this rediscovery of our worth that I’m now able to stand before you and speak out without feeling like a public sinner. For us, the theology of liberation is not just a label used to describe a new trend of Catholic thought. It is much more. It is a life project grounded in faith. It offers proof that we prostitutes, by rediscovering the spiritual power contained in our religious belief, will also encounter a self actualization project that confirms our humanity and we discover that we are women, too. This is what my voice and that of the five million prostitutes in Brazil want to tell our gathering. With great assurance and great faith, I am able to say many thanks to Liberation Theology; Many thanks to those theologians who have helped to make this possible for us, the outcasts of society. We have access to the Gospel.” (Dr. Fred Schwarz, Christian Anti-Communism Newsletter, 1989)
God had not “liberated” these sinful women from their sins; carnal churchmen and a false theology had, in their minds, liberated them from the “stigma of being prostitutes.” If anyone thinks I am being unfair by mentioning priests and prostitutes together, let me assure you that I didn’t put them together; they put themselves together in the Latin American Marxist Revolution.
You can see clearly that truth and sin meant one thing to Paul in the first century and quite another to priests and prostitutes in the 20th century. And this progressive philosophy is the going theology in post-modern churches. If your church is above this, just remember, the churches that believe this today were above it yesterday!
God said through Hosea, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because they have rejected knowledge, I will reject you as my priests” (Hos. 4:6). The people would be rejected because they lost their knowledge of God and the priests would be rejected because they had failed to keep the people properly informed—they had misled them instead. This should serve as a stern warning to both people and priests today, who want to believe that their sins are someone else’s fault. Prostitutes who think someone else is responsible for their sin and priests who teach them to think this way, both fall squarely into the category of those whom God said He would reject. It’s a strange religion in which prostitutes, preachers and priests can unite. I know we live in a time of grace rather than law, but grace is no license for people to do as they see fit and blame others for causing them to do it. “Shall we go on sinning,” writes Paul, “so that grace might increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”(Rom. 6:1, 2)
If there is no established truth there can be no established authority or morality, a prostitute may practice her trade with impunity while her priest confirms her in it. And before you, my liberationist reader, pass judgment on a prostitute, you should reflect on the fact that you as a progressive hold the very same theology that she and her priest did. You have all denied God your Creator and Jesus Christ your Savior and Lord. Everyone who understands will know that you are in denial. When you say, “There are no absolutes,” you are saying, “There is no God”—God being the Supreme Absolute. The prostitute will go on living in public disgrace, the priest will go on living in defiance to Christ, and you will go on living in self-righteous pride, believing that your philosophical faith is superior to the biblical faith of true believers—and all of you will look to your reasoning rather than your Redeemer for justification.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Liberation Theology

4. The Basic Christian Community Movement


When Somoza was president of Nicaragua during the 1970’s, Ernesto Cardenal, a Nicaraguan priest, was a revolutionary poet, expressing his feelings of revolt against him. Cardenal got so involved in his opposition that he joined a revolutionary movement, the guerilla FSLN. Although he began as a pacifist, saying that arms should be used only in self-defense, in 1978 he changed to support armed insurrection. When Daniel Ortega came to power, Cardenal was appointed Minister of Cultural Affairs in the Sandinista regime. The Catholic Church censured him for his action as a Marxist.
In an effort to advance the Marxist Revolution, Cardenal formed study groups on the order of communist cells, in which he advanced the revolution by teaching liberation theology. He made his theology as he went. Leaders would later call this practice, “doing theology.” Cardenal called his groups “The Basic Christian Community,” and later, “The People’s Church.” This essay concerns the development of libration theology in these cells. In order to make the cell appear to be a Bible study, Cardenal read Bible stories about poor and oppressed people, such as Jesus’ reading Isaiah 53.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom
for the prisoners and recover the sight of the blind,
to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18, 19).

Cardenal asks, “What does this story mean to you?”
Someone responded, “It means that we are the poor, oppressed prisoners, the proletariat. We are poor because the bourgeois capitalists have exploited us. And comrade Jesus came to liberate us.”
“Very good,” says Cardenal, “if this is what you think this story means, if this is what it means to you, be assured that this is what it means.”
“Read us another story,” someone requests.
“Very well,” says the priest, and he begins to read again. “Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there” (Matt.21:12).
“I know what that means,” said an illiterate peasant “the money changers are the greedy capitalists and our Liberator is overthrowing them because they are exploiting us.”
“You must remember the other Bible stories we have read,” says Cardenal, “how the Egyptians enslaved the Jews and how the Jews overcame by organizing, overthrew the Egyptians and delivered themselves [Notice the emphasis on self-liberation].”
The people exchange stories, traditions, superstitions and an occasional Bible incident.
“You are not the docile poor,” Cardenal told the people “you are the erupting poor. You are angry and it’s all right to be angry. God welcomes angry people into the church on their own terms. As God’s people you are expected to engage in creative disobedience (emphasis added).
“After a catechism drill from Juan Luis Secundo’s, A Theology for Artisans of a New Humanity, they were dismissed.”
Harvey Cox of Harvard Divinity School, attempting to justify Cardenal’s innovations said, “The Basic Christian Community is “the Christian response to the bourgeois revolution, the economic pattern of the capitalists and their ‘modern’ religious mentality.” This is an example of how the liberationists blamed the U.S. rather than the Soviets for the Latin American Revolution. Cox goes on to say that Jesus also ran into difficulty, “not principally over doctrine but rather because he clashed with property owners, defending the poor and landless.” “It was the rabble,” Cox said, “who formed the majority of Jesus’ movement. Jesus was executed as a threat to the Roman emporium, and Christianity was a political factor from its earliest days,” not over doctrine but with property owners as a political factor.” What Bible, pray tell, is Cox reading? This is a clear example of how these LT proponents make the Bible say whatever they want it to say in order to justify their apostate theology.
Regarding the “liberation” movement, Cox said, “This represents the most promising response Christianity has made so far to the change of the tradition from a modern to a post-modern world, the clearest sign of the continuing presence of Christ in History.” Cox and his progressive friends advanced “post-modern” rather than biblical Christianity.
These LT cells, called “The People’s Church,” spread all over the world. By 1984, we were told; there were 200,000 such groups in Latin America, with 80,000 in Brazil alone. And the Catechism drills were so effective that Cardenal taped them and printed them as a “Commentary on the New Testament.” These cell groups were effective, in that they supplied the revolution with both men and motive. And as you know, the Soviet Union came in with lots of money and supplies, while the missionaries from the U.S. marched in lockstep with them in the Marxists revolution, all the time blaming the United States as the oppressor, lobbying for all the money they could get from our government, and enlisting their churches in the name of Christ to aid in the support of the Socialist Revolution.
When the People’s Church services were over, it was time for the people to engage in the revolution against those who would establish democratic governments. These people truly believed what they had been taught and were glad to do as they were told. They joined their Marxist comrades and the missionaries from the U.S. and they all marched together to the drumbeat of the Soviet Union.
Cox continues, “Liberation Theology is a church theology…par excellence, emerging as it does from basic congregations vigorously engaged in mission…By this radical interpretation of the Bible and ‘worldly’ definition of the ‘base’, the Latin Americans are projecting a decidedly ‘post-bourgeois’ worldview that recognizes class conflict…as a principle mechanism for social change.” Marx had begun the class conflict…as a principle mechanism for social change.” And, I might add, he set the world into conflict to bring it about. Liberationists, having a theology based on Marx’s philosophy of history, and they are committed to the Marxist cause.
Speaking of the French Revolution, Edmund Burke said, “Something must be destroyed, or they seem to themselves to have existed for no purpose.”

New Testament Commentaries
Many other liberationists besides Ernesto Cardenal have written commentaries on the New Testament. Rev. Theodore Snyder, the Methodist minister who went about lecturing on Theological Options wrote such a commentary on Romans. Phillip Potter, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches (1972-84), and his wife, Bärbel Wittenberg-Potter, an ordained minister in the German Lutheran Church, wrote a Liberationist commentary on Galatians, which she titled Freedom Is for Freeing. Such liberties have been taken with the Bible that our generation has almost forgotten what God actually said about anything. You wouldn’t believe how they have distorted Paul’s letters. If each individual, according to his subjective understanding and in his own particular context, is free to interpret the Bible for himself without regard for the rules of hermeneutics. I wonder why anyone would write a commentary to explain what Paul meant, if it is understood in advance that he means whatever each reader thinks he means. Each person’s subjective understanding is his teacher.

Pope John II Opposed Liberationists
The roots of LT in the Catholic Church go back to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), and the Second Latin American Bishop’s Council held in Medellin, Columbia (1968). Since the 1980s, the church hierarchy, led by Pope John Paul II, has criticized LT and its advocates for supporting the Marxist class struggle and the violent revolution. The pope visited Latin America and insisted that the bishops and priests desist. Nothing is more clearly established than this facts; it was broadcast in the news.

Marxist radicals influenced the Catholic missionaries to work with them in the “liberation of the poor.” Catholic missionaries, in turn, persuaded Protestant missionaries to join the Movement. Instead of liberating sinners from sin, both Catholic and Protestant missionaries, and their churches, assisted the Marxist in “liberating” the poor from poverty and oppression. As always, when people leave the Word of God, they also leave the God of the Word.

Along with the bishop’s declaration and the establishment of The People’s Church, another monumental event happened—Gustavo Gutièrrez, a Peruvian priest wrote the “bible” on LT in 1971 and titled it, A Theology of Liberation. From the 60’s on, LT has not been only “the preferred option for the poor,” but the preferred theology for the progressive churches – both Catholic and Protestant.

As a matter of helpfulness at this point, I should mention that one of the most helpful books against LT is Liberation Theology, the Church’s Future Shock, Gerald Berghoef and Lester DrKoster, 1984.

Friday, February 19, 2010

3. Liberation Theology Spreads, Part 2

The United States

Although persons and places have changed in the last twenty years, progressive Marxism in the form of liberation theology is still with us in economics, politics and religion. We continue with part two, the spread of liberation theology in the United States.

The Clergy
Under the caption, “American Clergy and Totalitarian Regimes,” Human Events (Dec. 3, 1988) described the attitude of the U. S. clergy during the Latin American Revolution, supported by the Soviets.

For reasons that are difficult to comprehend, many American clergymen, when they move from their religious vocation and regimes to discussing world affairs, show a marked tendency to defend and apologize for totalitarian regimes.

Consider their attitude toward the Sandinista regime, which has embarked upon a campaign of religious persecution…yet, rather than denounce religious persecution, many of our own religious leaders and groups have defended the Sandinista government. The National Council of Churches issued a statement entitled, ‘No Religious Persecution in Nicaragua.’ “The statement declared, ‘Reports of repression of religion in Nicaragua are exaggerated and are part of a general trend in the U. S. to discredit the Nicaraguan government.’

At about the same time, 525 bishops representing the 70-million-strong Anglican Communion met in Great Britain and gave their blessing to terrorism and the use of violence for political ends. This gathering…included 127 bishops from the U. S.

Why, in the battle between freedom and tyranny, are churches so often on the wrong side? This is a question that should trouble the men and women in the pews of churches that have turned the gospel on its head in an effort to be ‘relevant,’ not to the word of God but to the trendy politics of the movement. ”

This is unthinkable, but I can affirm that it is true. While researching and writing my book on this subject, I received little help from fellow-ministers, simply because we were on different sides – so many of they had bought this church-clad Marxism while I had opposed it.

The Reformed Church
The headquarters of the Reformed Church is in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This is Allen Boesak’s church. (Remember Allen Boesak? He’s the pastor who wanted revolutionaries for members in his South African church, even if they were atheists). The Reformed Church was once known for its solid stand on the Word of God, but now it has accepted LT with its distorted interpretation of the Word.

Publishers
Orbis Books of Catholic Maryknoll Mission is the foremost publisher of LT books in the United States. Friends Press, the Quaker publisher, has completely gone over to LT and environmentalism. William B. Eeerdmans Publishing Co. of Grand Rapids, publisher of great Christian books for decades, has turned to publishing books on LT, feminism and ecology. Eeerdmans is the Protestant counterpart of Catholic Paulist Press. Sometimes they publish jointly, as in the case of Arthur Simon’s book, Bread for the World. (Simon is the founder and for years the executive–secretary of a lobby group in Washington that doesn’t give a loaf of bread to anyone but instead collects millions from churches, and lobbies congress to pass all sorts of social spending bills.) Many others are pushing liberation theology books also.

The Civil Rights Movement
The American Civil Rights Movement has been greatly influenced by Marxist socialism. Jesse Jackson has been one of the most influential leaders of this movement. A number of years ago a Peruvian terrorist, a Maoist revolutionary, along with his guerillas were devastating Peru. He, like the other drug dealers, hid out and couldn’t be captured. But one day they caught and imprisoned him. A petition was sent out for signatures, demanding his release. I saw a copy of the petition and was not surprised to see that Jessie Jackson, along with a number of university professors and other influential people had signed it. Jackson’s protests, marches, strikes and shake downs are highly motivated by the Marxist philosophy of “spreading the wealth around.” This is an Obama quote, but Marx and Jackson said it first.

The Feminist Movement
Women picked up the Marxist philosophy and the LT parlance, and their new-found faith spread like the latest fashion from Paris. Some became all heart and wanted to give the world to the poor, while others became aggressive and controlling, disrupting the tranquility of their churches. Their “new affection” had expelled their lovely, gentle manner and turned them into secular materialists. By the time the Soviet Union fell, socialism and liberation theology had become deep-rooted in society. The women were deceived and changed by this experience; some were disillusioned and joined the drift toward socialism, led by their church organizations and national leaders. Do you realize how rapidly and how far our nation and churches have drifted in this direction? Deception is the better part of Marxism.

Women’s Study Groups
In my research, I noticed some words that the liberationists have brought into vogue in Latin America and South Africa, which were showing up in our church literature—words such as praxis (practice or doing and seeing results, i.e., “doing theology”) and kairos (the opportune time). The former word suggested replacing biblical theology with practicable theology (as if biblical theology is not feasible) and the latter referred to a theology for the present political crisis. The women of the churches used these revolutionary words in their classes, not knowing where they had come from or exactly what they meant in their contexts. For a while their theology was a praxis theology and every moment was a kairos moment! But when the Soviet Union fell and Latin America and South Africa stopped using these words, which also disappeared from the women’s literature. This was only liberationist jargon. These are good words but they were exploited for Marxist use. The women of the churches went right along, keeping step with both the Marxists and the liberationists. Why are people so gullible and so prone to follow passing fad?

Peace and Ecology Movements
Peace and Ecology Movements, ranging from Greenpeace to the Mennonites and Quakers, have gone completely over to Marxist theory of liberation. Two words have became very popular in these movements—peace and justice. “Peace” meant the cessation of anti-communist resistance and allowing the Marxist to establish socialism, and “justice” meant the elimination of capitalism and the distribution of wealth to the poor. American Christians picked up these words and used them as if suddenly they understood them for the first time. They harped on peace and justice without understanding what these meant in their context, just as the women used praxis and kairos.

The list could go on and on. That which was once an “exciting new theology,” is now so entrenched and familiar that it has become the norm. But you must remember that it is still religious Marxism. As Lenin predicted, Marxist philosophy has been “dressed up in religious clothes and accepted by the church.”

________________________________

Response to Liberation Theology Introduction: “Lacy, this is a lot to take in, but what a challenge.... love Betts.” (This will no doubt be the case with others, but those who accept the challenge for the next few weeks will be the ones who understand what is happening in the dark world of postmodern theology, and will shine the light of Christ upon it; stay with me. LW)

Saturday, February 13, 2010

2. Liberation Theology Spreads, Part 1

• Emilio Castro, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, after a meeting with Pope John II said, “God works through the Marxist Revolution in order to bring all men together.”
• Dr. E. Stanley Jones, missionary/author, said, “God reached out and put his hand on the Russian Communists to produce a just order and to show a reluctant church what it has missed ....”
• Dr. Otis Gatewood, minister/ missionary/college president said, “The communists themselves are in some ways advocates of Christianity… They are in many respects, practicing Christians… They deny God, yet they confess him, not only in action, but also in word.”
• Millions of others, including ministers, missionaries, professors and ordinary believers who would not go as far as these men went, have nevertheless accepted the same liberation theology, which is still religious Marxism. By the time the Soviet Union fell, these liberationists had this Marxist philosophy well established in their governments, universities and churches; and they went right on doing their Marxist thing, supposing that God is now working through them “to bring all men together.” If you have not followed the liberation theology movement, you will be shocked to learn how widespread and seductive it is. We see this every day on TV, and it is the major problem in our government. Socialism, whether secular or religious, destroys democracy.

Latin America

Liberation Theology began in Latin America, and in 1968 it was called, “The preferred option for the poor.” After that date, it dominated Latin America and from there spread around the world. This essay lists some of the people and organizations that worked in the Marxists cause and the result of their efforts.

The World Council of Churches

In 1972, the World Council of Churches (WCC) adopted a well-developed system of liberation theology. This Marxist inspired organization sent vast sums of money to North Vietnam, the communist backed South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), and South African communist front organizations, such as the African National Congress (ANC). The WCC is responsible for the overthrow of a number of sovereign nations and aiding the communists in their occupation of them. They supported thousands of both Cuban and U.S.S.R. troops in Angola against the sovereign state of Namibia during its formation.
The WCC believes in the broadest kind of pluralism. As far back as 1968 the WCC pledged “full fellowship with those of all races, classes, ages, religions, and political convictions, “in the place where they live.” They never had any qualms about supporting the communists. “The place where they live,” is a clear description of contextual theology, which, like a chameleon, changes its color to suit its environment.
We should familiarize ourselves with the World Council of Churches, its origin, its source of funding and its activities. The National Federation for Social Action flowed into the Federal Council of Churches in 1908. Rev. Harry F. Ward, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a professor at Union Theological Seminary, who had been identified under oath as a communist party member, was the Federation’s most prominent leader. The Federal Council of Churches evolved into the WCC on August 22, 1948. Eugene Carson Blake, a United Presbyterian minister, was the founder of the WCC and Executive Secretary from 1966-1972.
Blake was a Lenin Peace Prize recipient because of his friendship with the communists. And he promoted liberation theology when it came along. By 1960, the staff director of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Richard Arns, testified that the committee had found over one hundred persons in leadership capacity in the WCC who were either communists or had records of service to the communists. The WCC receives millions of dollars from churches and individuals who contributions to the National Council of Churches (NCC). Most of these people don’t know it, but much of their contribution to the NCC goes to the WCC for the support of Marxist socialism and revolutions, which create much of the poverty they are attempting to alleviate. These generous people are told that their money is going to the poor, but they are not told that the Marxists they are assisting often cause the poverty by their revolutions. In this way Marx has won the hearts and the support of many churches, whose politics and economics are Marxist socialism and whose religion is Marxist liberation theology.

South Africa

I must establish three facts: First, my chief concern is with liberation theology. Second, I oppose LT in favor of biblical theology and freedom. Third, my readers must understand that communism has deceived many Christians and enlisted them in the cause of universal socialism. This is first and foremost a study of the deceived and their deception. If this seems political, it is not my doing; I am only pointing out that both Marxism and liberation theology are economic/ political philosophies.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former General Secretary of South African Council of Churches, confirmed his solidarity with the Soviets by saying, “I am a revolutionary. If Russia were to come to South Africa today, then most of the blacks would welcome them as saviors.” He also said, “I find capitalism quite horrendous and unacceptable, I am a socialist.” And in anger he said, “To hell with the West!”
Tensions ran high in South Africa in those days; both black and white people said many things they would not have said under better circumstances. South Africa was having the same struggle as Latin America during this period—a conflict between the forces of socialism and democracy. And just as liberationists and Marxists worked together in Latin America, they also worked together in South Africa.
Harvey Cox of Harvard University Divinity School was a close friend of Bishop Tutu. Harvard welcomed Tutu, and in 1989 elected him to their board of directors.

Alan Boesak, a Reformed pastor, had a “come-as-you-are” church. He invited as members, “All who fight for justice,” with no other requirement. He said, “Jews, atheists, or nothing at all,” could be members, since all he wanted were revolutionaries. While visiting the U.S. during the summer of 1989, he called on the President—I presume to solicit funds—while at the same time condemning the U.S. for its “moral hypocrisy.” Boesak was later excommunicated from the Reformed Church for immorality.

Nelson Mandela was not imprisoned for his religion but for his violence as a Marxist revolutionary. In prison he changed his behavior but not his faith in the communist cause. His administration as president was a time of healing and reconciliation, but it was also the time during which the African National Congress (ANC), who had put him in power and elected Thabo Mbeki, an overt Marxist who had been exiled as a communist, to be his successor. Mandela supported Mbeke.

Winnie Mandela was a militant Marxist, who, in her typical rage, said, “Together, hand in hand with our boxes of matches, we will liberate this country.” She had reference to lynching by “necklacing," i. e., tying an opponent’s hands behind him, tying a gasoline-soaked tire around his body (“necklacing”), and igniting it. A victim burns to death this way, while others laugh and dance and stones him as he writhe in anguish in the flames. This was a mob-imposed penalty for supporting their apartheid government. (Type “Necklacing South Africa” and “Necklacing Haiti” in Google searches and see pictures, even videos, of lynching by necklacing. But I warn you, it is a horrible sight.

Thabo Mbeke, South Africa’s communist president following Mandela, appointed many of his Marxist comrades from the ANC to important positions in the South African government. Apartheid was eventually defeated, but Communism remained strong. And South Africa, which was once a strong Christian nation, is now in disarray as the murder capital of Africa.
I became deeply involved in a study of this, going back before Nelson Mandela was released from prison. I received periodic mailings of newspapers from South Africa, read books, magazines, and viewed videos my friends sent me. It was at this time also that I began to see how L T, which had begun in Latin America and had spread to South Africa and the U.S., had changed the churches into political action groups. Faithful Christians still preached the blood of redemption and salvation, but many missionaries condoned the revolution and violence, or at least looked the other way, as it was being perpetrated. Their mission was not to redeem souls from sin but to redeem the people from poverty and oppression. The missionaries and the Marxists worked together in this effort, while their liberal churches in the U. S. supported them.
These churches flooded these congregations with deceptive information. I know this to be true because I received much of the material that was sent out from my Mission Offices when I was affiliated with a liberal church. Liberationists hold the same philosophy as the Marxist, while at the same time placing the people in bondage to a false theology “Promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption” (2 Peter 2:19). Concluded in part two

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Liberation Theology

1. Introduction

Christian Definitions
1. “Liberation expresses the aspirations of oppressed people and classes, emphasizing the economic, social, and political process which puts them at odds with wealthy nations and oppressive classes.” –
David W. Belsiger, Family Protection Scoreboard, Liberation Theology Edition
2. “Liberation Theology is a movement…that seeks radical change along Marxist lines in politics and economics.” -- Ronald Nash, Christian author
3. Liberation theology is a combination of Marxism and Christianity, with the emphases upon the former. It does not liberation from sin but attempts to liberate from poverty and oppression. LW

Liberationists Own Definitions
1. “Liberation theology is an excellent new theology which reinterprets, in the light of the revolution, (Marxist Revolution) all terms of traditional theology: God, Christ, the priesthood, marriage, labor, everything. (Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaraguan priest and Minister of Cultural Affairs in the Sandinista Regime)
2. “Liberation Theology is an attempt to blend Marxism with Christianity by substituting political liberation for liberation from sin. When political and social transformation have occurred, the Kingdom of God will be established on earth…The mission of the church these days…is, above everything else, to preach communism. Communism, according to Marx, is a society in which there is no selfishness and injustice. It is the same as what Christians understand as the Kingdom of God.”(Ernesto Cardenal, a Marxist priest)
3. “Liberation theology is a strategic alliance with Marxism in the process of liberating the continent.” (Christians for Socialism, a Liberation Theology Publication)
4. “Liberation theology is revolutionary socialism…militant Christianity.” (Dorothy Soelle, A leading European Marxist and former professor at Union Theological Seminary)

Notes:
1. Socialism should have no part in a democratic government, nor should liberation theology have a part in Christian theology.
2. Liberation Theology is an umbrella, under which a great number of separate liberation movements shelter, such as feminist theology, black theology and contextual theology.
3. You may learn more about this “religious Marxism” and how it has affected Barak Obama and his friends, particularly Pastor Jeremiah Wright, by typing “Obama and Liberation Theology” or “Obama politics and religion” in a Google search. Type “James Cone” in a Google search for the founder of Black Power and Black Theology, the titles of two books written by Cone in 1959-60. Pastor Wright claims Cone as his mentor. Cone claims to have developed his theology by combining the teachings of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

Is Liberation Theology dated?

Someone is sure to ask, “Why would anyone be interested in liberation theology now? That was the going theology 25 years ago but you don’t hear much about it any more.” Yes, it was a popular theology of the past but do you know why there is less said about it now? There are several reasons. (1) During the Communist Revolution in Latin American, the cry for liberation was in the air. The revolutionaries were promising freedom, but when it came it proved to be even greater bondage; it was Marxist Liberation Theology (LT in most instances hereafter). The people flocked to it as it infiltrated the governments, schools and churches. And when it came to be the dominant theology, opposition waned and it was not talked about as much as before. (2) As LT was being established in the struggling nations, missionaries accepted it and brought it home to their churches, seminaries and divinity schools, which also accepted it and got all excited about it. They teach it now as progressive theology without even mentioning it by name. (3) LT was inspired by and grew up with Marxism, and is supposed to have died out with the fall of the Soviet Union. (4) A generation later, many who have been taught LT have seldom heard it called by name; they just came to believe it because it was being taught in these institutions. (5) While Marxism was changing society, religious Marxism, LT, was changing the church. But most Christians have not yet come to understand its Marxist origin and nature. (6) Lenin taught that deception and stealth are characteristics of Marxism – the end justifies the means.
Liberation theology didn’t die; nor did it fade away, it became the established belief system of thousands of churches and millions of Christians instead. No dead subject will ever be so widely disseminated after its demise. If you happen to see Will Rogers anywhere, tell him there are now three things that will always be with us: death, taxes and liberation theology. No, LT is not dated. My concluding essay on this theme will make it abundantly clear that this mindset is both the philosophy and theology of our time, but I need to give you one example of this fact at the outset. You will readily recall how Obama’s Pastor Wright invoked God’s name as he cursed America. Do you understand how he got this way? He has been a long-time adherent to the radical black liberation theology of James Cone, its founder, which affects people this way. Intolerance, anger and rage have always been a part of the Marx /Lenin heritage. After twenty years in Pastor Wright’s church, you can also see where president Obama got his socialist philosophy that he brought into the government with him. Liberation theology is not dated; it is alive and well, and a present part of our government and society.

Liberation Theology, the “Preferred Option.”

Bishops in Latin America wove popular modernism and Marx’s dialectic materialism into a LT umbrella, under which a variety of liberation movements shelter. Marxist socialism had been around for years, and churches had drawn on it, but it had never been turned into a theology until the Latin American bishops declared it to be such. Catholics had been studying in Europe and accepting Marxist views, while priests at home were infiltrating the governments and leading the people into the Marxist camp. The Second General Council of Bishops convened at a seminary in Medellin, Colombia in 1968 and declared LT to be the “preferred option for the poor.” This is significant for two reasons: It was the first public declaration that LT is the preferred theology and it was declared to be the option for the poor not by the poor.
In addition to the bishops’ declaration there were other factors at work. The Soviets were supporting the Revolution, revolutionaries were violently opposing democracy, liberal priests had joined the Revolution and were spreading rebellion among the poor, the Student Christian Movement became strongly committed to the cause, the World Council of Churches—which had adopted LT in Bangkok in 1972—gave their support to the Revolution, many LT books were being published, cells that served for the training of Marxist revolutionaries suddenly incorporated LT into their programs because they realized its power, missionaries became propagandists, supported by their churches in the United States, the Marxist regimes violently opposed the citizens who were trying to establish democratic governments, the Gospel became a message of revolution and liberation rather than salvation, causing many to lose sight of their mission of evangelization and to become Marxist sympathizers and liberators, and the Church and Society of Latin America becoming a leading force in the liberation movement.

“The Liberationist starts with a Marxist commitment and draws from the Bible whatever suits his allegiance to Marxism.”(Rev. James Colbert, Christian Anti-Communism Crusade Newsletter, 3-1-89.

“For Karl Marx, socialism would be the socioeconomic system that arises after the proletarian revolution, in which the means of production are owned collectively. This society would then progress into communism.” Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Can’t you see how our progressive president and congress are leading us according to this Marxist plan?

A serious challenge

One cannot understand the present unless he has knowledge of past events, which have led up to the present. It seems incredible that so many people have no concern about how we got to where we are, what we’re doing here or where we are going. These essays on Liberation Theology will give you valuable information on these maters. Some may be displeased that they are longer and more difficult than my usual essays, but I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to know about the theology that has invaded, not only our churches but our society, our families and our lives. I spent years researching and writing my book, and a lot of time drawing these essays from it. Please don’t be like the lazy schoolboy who never studied his History lessons. His teacher kept reminding, even threatening him, because he was so lazy. One day she said plainly, “I’ve had enough of your stalling, tell me why you are unwilling to study history.” The boy replied, “I’m willing to let bygones be bygones.”

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Big House Speaker and Little People

QUEEN PELOSI and the Little People-- I don't care who you are, Democrat, Republican, Independent, liberal or conservative, blue state or red state, you have to be appalled at the sheer gall of this woman!

Pelosi wasn't happy with the small USAF C-20B jet, Gulfstream III that comes with the Speaker's job; she was aggravated that this little jet had to stop to refuel, so she ordered a Big Fat, 200-seat, USAF C-32, Boeing 757 jet that could get her back to California without stopping! I understand that a former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, flew commercial most of the time. Since Pelosi works only three days a week, this gas guzzling jet gets fueled and she flies home to California every Friday and we have to pay for her returns every Monday, at a cost to the taxpayers of about $60,000 one way! That is $480,000 per month. Keep in mind, this figure does not include the cost of plane or crew – just the fuel. Think of the military families doing without while this woman keeps fueling that jet at our expense. She wants us to buy smaller cars and to conserve our carbon footprint. And on top of this, now she wants to tax our IRA's & 401K's!

Look at History; see what happened to nations that allowed their leaders to put themselves before their nation. We can stop this drift and save our nation if we will; but if we don’t, the next generation may not have either the will or the power to do it.

Monday, January 25, 2010


In this time of suffering and need, this little girl is doing her best to help. She will make it. And isn't she a grand example for the rest of us!

Friday, January 22, 2010

The Progresssive Movement

Progressive Churchmen Commend Communism

Observing the change in the church over the last few decades and feeling the loss of that which has been precious to us for generations, I tried desperately to be heard by writing a book— Beyond the Intention of Jesus, hoping that someone would take a stand with me against the progressive movement, known as Liberation Theology. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t more successful. But I understand now: It was too late to succeed! Liberation theology had already become the“preferred option,” not only of the “poor” but of the governments, universities and churches as well.

It’s too late to change the “main-line churches” that have accepted this evolving scheme, but how can we be silent! I am constantly reminded of our plight and, as in the case of Jeremiah the prophet, there is a fire burning in my bones, compelling me to speak out. In these essays I am speaking out, hoping that someone will listen and take a stand for God and truth, and perhaps accomplish something for Christ that I have not been able to do. If there is such a person out there, thank you in advance for your faith and courage. But let no one think it will be easy —leaves float with the tide; rocks stand against it.

Go back into the history of your church and recall how you used to have Bible studies and hear sermons from the Bible and sing biblical songs. Remember the sincere faith you received from your parents and your church when you were young. If you don’t have these special memories, perhaps you will have to ask someone in the previous generation. Compare what you remember or learn with the present theology of your church, the lack of interest they show in those who have not kept pace with their progressive theology, and their disdain for those who would dare to speak of the “old paths” and the “ancient wells;” observe your preacher’s failure to preach expository sermons from the Bible. While you are in a reflective mood, think of your own journey and see if you have also drifted. Is so, repent and return to the road you once traveled with Christ. It may take some effort on your part to get past the indifference that has so stealthily and gradually overtaken you and with which you have grown so familiar. But to see the light of grace again will be worth it all! Alexander Pope wrote of familiarity as follows:

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
Is to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

No wonder the Bible says, “Remember,” 232 times. Consider the trouble people have had because they failed to remember. “Remember, repent and return,” was the Lord’s instruction to the church at Ephesus. (Rev. 1:1-7) This is wonderful advice for the church today. Progressive deception has done its destructive work, leaving many uncertain about their faith and the truth of God they once held dear. Jesus is still saying, “Remember, repent and return.’

Missionary/Educator, “Communists are advocates of Christianity”

Dr. Otis Gatewood, a well-known minister in the Church of Christ, went to Germany as a missionary Soon after WW II. I learned about him when I became a Christian in 1950, and in 1960 I heard him speak at Michigan Christian College where he was president. I never heard of him again until 1989, when I was reading Dr. Fred Schwarz’s Christian Anti-Communism Crusade newsletter. Schwarz had written an article titled, “Evangelical Misinformation Concerning Communism,” in which he quoted an article from Dr. Gatewood’s mission paper, World Wide Contact Vol. XXIII No.3. The article was as follows:

“The communists themselves are in some ways advocates of Christianity. They teach truthfulness, honesty, thrift, industry, dedication, equality of all, monogamy, chastity, sobriety, diligence, obedience, humility, patience, love and honor in the family, productivity, fruitfulness, and they erect great school and hospitals, and give support to the aged. All these things are fruits of Christianity. The communists are, in many respects, practicing Christians. One Communist guide in Kiev pointed with pride to the statue of Prince Vladimir, on the banks of the Drieper River, who brought Christianity to the Soviet Union. I asked: ‘Have things been better since Christianity was brought to the Soviet Union?’ She replied: “Very definitely because before Christianity came here our people worshiped stones. Now we worship God.’ They deny God, yet they confess him, not only in action, but also in word.”

I was about as stunned as Dr. Schwarz was to read this from a Christian preacher, missionary and college president in an ultra-conservative church. But then I realized that Marxism is no respecter of persons—it gets into the mind and heart of preachers, teachers, missionaries and educators the same as it does the peasants. And once it does it stays there for a lifetime.

Missionary/Author, “Communism is an example for a reluctant church”

Dr. E. Stanley Jones, a prominent Methodist minister, author and missionary to India for many years, took the same turn Gatewood did. I have always loved Jones’ books and I was greatly inspired by a sermon I heard him preach on The Unshakeable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person in 1973, which became the title of his book later that year. I regarded him as a true believer and a great preacher, but I didn’t understand that he was equating the Kingdom of God with global socialism until I read his book.

When Stanley Jones was young he wrote the following: “I found…in Russia during a visit in 1934…the communists…building up a civilization without God, and doing it enthusiastically. The young people carrying earth out of the subway were chanting, ‘We are making a new world.’” (The Unshakeable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person, Abingdon Press, NY 1974, p. 32)

When Stanley Jones was old he wrote this: “When the Western world was flourishing in an unjust and competitive order, the church was bound up with it and was a part of that order, God reached out and put his hand on the Russian Communists to produce a just order and to show a reluctant church what it has missed in its own Gospel…To the degree that the Communists have caught the meaning of the Kingdom of God and have embodied them, they are a part of that Kingdom, even if they repudiate that Kingdom.” (Pastor Herman J. Otten, Baal or God, Lutheran News, New Haven, MO, p. 88)

First, Jones saw the Russian Communists “building a civilization without God,” but later he saw that “God reached out and put his hand on the Russian Communists to produce a just order and to show a reluctant church what it has missed in its own Gospel. This is Marxist liberation theology exemplified.

Conclusion

Now communism is old and Stanley Jones is gone. As communism was aging, a radical young
Liberation Theology Movement came of age. And after communism was deeply imbedded in society, this movement began to drop its title and become a part of the Progressive Movement. As communism is a cancer on the world, religious communism, in the form of liberation theologians, is a cancer on the church and university. But in time liberationists will be old also and will go the way of their Communist Party comrades, while the faithful remnant of God, which will always be young, will march triumphantly on. The glory that is Marxism will have passed away, taking millions of souls with it, and the liberationists with their unbelieving churches will have followed their demise.

When our churches were young people sang “Back to the Blessed Old Bible” and “There Is Power in the Blood,” but now that they too are old, they sing of a false liberation and a political kingdom, which have no place for either the Bible or the Blood.

Lenin said, “As long as capitalism and socialism coexist, we can not live in peace; in the end, one or the other of us will triumph—a funeral dirge will be sung over the Soviet Republic or over world capitalism.”

Some of us, who were contemporaries of Lenin (I was born a year before he died in 1924), belong to the Christian remnant who sang a funeral dirge over the Soviet Republic. But millions, like Otis Gatewood and Stanley Jones, heard the Marxist call fir liberation and left the doctrine of Jesus Christ for the propaganda of Karl Marx. They too defend Marxism by their demand for “peace and justice, i.e., yielding to socialist control and distributing the welt of the rich. But God will always have a remnant, which will stand up for Christ and speak out against this progressive socialism in our drifting nation and churches, and will remain standing to sing the funeral dirge over the Marxist Liberation Theology Movement. Perhaps we will sing about the Progressive Movement from the Gnostics to the liberationists, how it deceived and destroyed souls, and how the saints of God stood up for their Lord and fought it until its demise. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Don't Cry For Me, Argentina (America)

In the early 20th century, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world. While Great Britain’s maritime power and its far-flung empire had propelled it to a dominant position among the world's industrialized nations, only the United States challenged Argentina for the position of the world's second-most powerful economy.

It was blessed with abundant agriculture, vast swaths of rich farmland laced with navigable rivers and an accessible port system. Its level of industrialization was higher than many European countries: railroads, automobiles and telephones were commonplace

In 1916, a new president was elected. Hipólito Irigoyen had formed a party called The Radicals under the banner of "fundamental change" with an appeal to the middle class.

Among Irigoyen's changes: mandatory pension insurance, mandatory health insurance, and support for low-income housing construction to stimulate the economy. Put simply, the state assumed economic control of a vast swath of the country's operations and began assessing new payroll taxes to fund its efforts.

With an increasing flow of funds into these entitlement programs, the government's payouts soon became overly generous. Before long its outlays surpassed the value of the taxpayers' contributions. Put simply, it quickly became under-funded, much like the United States ' Social Security and Medicare programs.

The death knell for the Argentine economy, however, came with the election of Juan Perón. Perón had a fascist and corporatist upbringing; he and his charismatic wife aimed their populist rhetoric at the nation's rich.

This targeted group "swiftly expanded to cover most of the propertied middle classes, who became an enemy to be defeated and humiliated.

Under Perón, the size of government bureaucracies exploded through massive programs of social spending and by encouraging the growth of labor unions.

High taxes and economic mismanagement took their inevitable toll even after Perón had been driven from office. But his populist rhetoric and "contempt for economic realities" lived on. Argentina’s federal government continued to spend far beyond its means.

Hyperinflation exploded in 1989 and the final stage of a process characterized by "industrial protectionism, redistribution of income based on increased wages, and growing state intervention in the economy was the result.

The Argentinean government's practice of printing money to pay off its public debts had crushed the economy. Inflation hit 3000%, reminiscent of the Weimar Republic. Food riots were rampant; stores were looted; the country descended into chaos.

And by 1994, Argentina’s public pensions - the equivalent of Social Security - had imploded. The payroll tax had increased from 5% to 26%, but it wasn't enough. In addition, Argentina had implemented a value-added tax (VAT), new income taxes, a personal tax on wealth, and additional revenues based upon the sale of public enterprises. These crushed the private sector, further damaging the economy.

A government-controlled "privatization" effort to rescue seniors' pensions was attempted. But, by 2001, those funds had also been raided by the government, the monies replaced by Argentina’s defaulted government bonds.

By 2002, government fiscal irresponsibility induced a national economic crisis as severe as America’s Great Depression.

In 1902 Argentina was one of the world's richest countries. Little more than a hundred years later, it is poverty-stricken and struggling to survive.

We've seen this movie before. The Democrats' populist plans can't possibly work, because government bankrupts everything it touches. History teaches us that ObamaCare and unfunded entitlement programs will be utter, complete disasters.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Progressive Radicals

Karl Marx; Vladimir Linen and Saul Alinsky

1. Marx was impressed with Hegel’s dialectic idealism and Feuerbach’s progressive materialism, so he married them and called the union “dialectic materialism.”
2. Lenin became obsessed with Marx’s dialectic materialism, so he enforced it and changed the Russian Republic into the United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR)
3. Alinsky was born in Chicago in 1909 and came to prominence during the first half of the 20th century. His book, Handbook for Radicals, had a great influence on both Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama in Chicago. Hillary wrote a critique of Alinsky’s book as a college thesis, which she titled There is Only the Fight. She had learned Alinsky’s method well and was ready to implement it. When her husband was elected president, she gleefully announced, “You got two for the price of one,” and jumped right in writing a socialist health care bill—just as the progressive Democrats in congress are doing in the Obama administration.

Barak Obama, James Cone, Bill Ayers, Pastor Wright and Michelle Obama

1. Barak Obama, a socialist community (union) organizer in Chicago, teaching the Alinsky method. He was also a member of Wright's church for twenty years, while Wright was preaching James Cone's radical black liberation theology
2. James Cone, founder of Black Theology and Black Power. He developed his Black Theology by combining the teaching of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. He became angry and ugly like Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan, and told his followers to kill nonconformist, even their parents. And then he became a professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary.
3. Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground gang, who went around blowing up things, became a professor at Chicago University.
4. Pastor Jeremiah Wright has been under Cone’s spell for many years and is an angry man, just as his mentor. We heard him invoke God’s Name as he cursed America.
5. Michelle Obama, like her husband, was a radical activist in Chicago, but she doesn’t have the patience her husband has. When Barak won the election she said, “This is the first time in my life that I have been proud of America.” And while true patriots praise America’s goodness, she showed her contempt by saying, “America is downright mean.”

Comments: These activist radicals prefer world government to national soverignty; hence they are attempting to bring all nations under United Nations control. This is why we see so many socialists in government, working to change America into a socialist nation. All free nations that have fallen to communism have first fallen to socialism; the major difference between the two is their different shades of red.

In this series of essays, I want to give you an inside look at black liberation theology and its consequences. (I will have a brief series on liberation theology very soon). I also want you to know about contextual theology, feminine theology, gay theology and other varieties that reside under the liberation theology umbrella. And in order to understand what is happening to our constitutional government, we shall look into President Obama’s belief system, as well as that of Pastor Wright who preaches black theology according to James Cone rather than the Gospel of Christ according to the Bible. James Cone, Wright’s mentor, wrote Black Theology and Black Power forty years ago, which set black churches on a revolutionary quest for power and their own theology. Under the influence of Karl Marx, they believe that socialism must triumph over capitalism, blacks must subdue and subjugate whites, and the wealthy must be made to share their wealth (“spread the wealth around,” as Obama says). This is the old Marxist doctrine of thesis, antithesis and synthesis, which says that the thesis (capitalism) must be provoked to struggle with its antithesis (anti-capitalists) until a new thesis (socialism) is formed. This struggle will continue until socialisms developers into full-blown communism where everyone will be equal and share alike, and in the mind of religious Marxists, this perfect socialist (communist) state will be the Kingdom of God on earth. This process is the Marxist philosophy of history and the socialists’ dream of global unity. God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Bible and everything else that gets in the way of this progressive movement has to be rejected, renamed, ignored or destroyed in this quest for peace and justice. They say that peace will come with the cessation of conflict (when socialism takes control and destroys capitalism), and justice will be realized when wealth is distributed and everyone shares alike. Oops! There goes our national sovereignty and power, our independence and freedom, and our entire democratic form of government!

Don’t let anyone deceive you; we are in a struggle for survival. Both Marx and Lenin taught that the thesis (the capitalist free market system) is to be provoked by its antithesis (socialist forces) and engaged in a struggle for control. While democracy is fair and just, Marx and Linen taught that whatever means is necessary to accomplish a task is justified by the end result. This is what we are up against. Think for a moment about the presemnt congressional conflict over money, health care, stimulus packages, and progressive government control. All of thse are, at thteierheart, a socialist struggle with democracy for dominance. At present the liberals, many of whom are socialists, have almost complete control, but better times and a better nation are coming, just you wait (vote) and see! (If you want more information on the above persons, type their names in Google search).