There is a very good bit of satire making the rounds of the blogs at present written by a David Huntworth. It applies directly to the text for today, for it states the delusions of this age in plain English.
“At the beginning of the Twenty First century a new religion rose to great acclaim and with much fervor. Its followers worshipped an all-powerful god named Political Correctness and a host of minor deities including Diversity, Tolerance, Sensitivity and Inclusion. Its priests were called Professors and they were charged with passing on its teachings to the youth and guarding its most holy of secrets. Collectively, this priesthood was called Academia and they resided in their own communities called Universities. Sustained by the public treasury their power grew and their prestige spread like a swarm of locusts upon the earth.
The elite of the every generation would be turned over to the Professors to be indoctrinated into the new religion. It was at the Universities that the young were taught to despise the old ways and to reject the teachings of their parents. The old traditions, cultures, holidays, religious practices, and beliefs were reviled, trampled and belittled so that they could be replaced in the minds of the young with the new teachings of the new religion. After their period of indoctrination and training the new prostheletizers of Political Correctness would be sent forth to spread its doctrine far and wide.
The fearsome deities of Political Correctness were bloodthirsty and constantly demanded sacrifices to sate their Perpetual Outrage. The lives, careers, reputations and power of countless individuals were sacrificed to appease the ever angry gods and eventually all but a brave or foolish few were forced to acknowledge their supremacy. Their power and influence was everywhere and all feared to say what they truly thought or felt for fear of the great retribution of their fanatical followers. A single word uttered in carelessness or a stray thought out of context was enough for one to be summoned to judgment before those charged with satisfying the never-ending lusts of Political Correctness.
The minor deities also were a dark and foreboding force that had to be appeased. Many were followers of the feminine Right to Choose cult and untold millions of the unborn were sacrificed in an orgy of infanticide on the blood splattered altar of Convenience. The deviant and the perverse demanded, and eventually received, the sacrifice of the once sacred institution of marriage to appease the demands of Equality. And the followers of the high priest Gore and the god Gaea demanded the rejection and reversal of the evil Industrialization. No longer would the Creator be worshipped but only the Creation and isms of Political Correctness. So it was said, and so it was done.
I have always read this passage from Leviticus as describing the errors and injustices of the Cannanites: they cut themselves in grief, had prostitute priests and priestesses, cast their children into the fire — something that horrified the Romans, hence Cato’s comment that Carthage must be destroyed.
They were deeply involved in the occult. Finally, they were tribal, they oppressed any person who was not of the tribe, and did not welcome in the stranger and the alien.
And for that they were judged. My fear is, that as we move into some form of scientific occultism, as we abandon the use of logic and call reason “privilege”, as we proclaim that homosexuality is the preferred method of love and that access to terminating pregnancies is a human right (the UN has just criticised the Catholic church about not providing abortions, and the bleating about teaching that single people should be celibate has become ridiculous), we will be judges like the Caananites.
We will conquered. We will be destroyed. For God is delaying his justice because he is merciful: he is aware that many ancient tribes will damn this generation, for we were given the truth and we rejected it.
26You shall not eat anything with its blood. You shall not practice augury or witchcraft.27You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. 28You shall not make any gashes in your flesh for the dead or tattoo any marks upon you: I am the LORD.29Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, that the land not become prostituted and full of depravity. 30You shall keep my sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD. 31Do not turn to mediums or wizards; do not seek them out, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God. 32You shall rise before the aged, and defer to the old; and you shall fear your God: I am the LORD. 33When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. 34The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. 35You shall not cheat in measuring length, weight, or quantity. 36You shall have honest balances, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. 37You shall keep all my statutes and all my ordinances, and observe them: I am the LORD.
1Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
2Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing.4Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring.
5This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, and is intended to make you worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering. 6For it is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7and to give relief to the afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, 10when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marveled at on that day among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. 11To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, 12so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
It’s funny. I’m old enough to remember when New Zealand was truly a Christian nation. When most sundays most people worshipped God. When the divisions between Presbyterians and Methodists meant something, and between Pentecostal and Catholic. I care deeply for theology, and there are reasons for the differences between the Reformed and the Roman and the Orthodox.
I care now far more about the gospel being preached. When I see blogs about baptism I’m glad. I find that I’m defending the Catholic church frequently: the ultra-calvinists may mutter that the Pope is an antichrist (and some Catholics may agree with them) but the Romans are at least teaching on many of the issues of the day correctly, and they need to be supported.
Because after they have come for the Catholics, this bunch of demented leaders will turn on the reformed. Any person of faith will be shunned. We may be cast out of the universities — which will cost the universities (I’m a productive researcher, as are about half the members of my local congregation) not us.
But in the end we will see true justice, and it will be terrible. For we are all damned by our own acts, we have all broken our own standards. And without the great mercy and love of God in sending Christ to die for me, for us, we would have no ability to stand before our Lord and God.
And if the West forgets this, forgets that the unifying ideas of our civilization come from theology not philosophy, we will soon be one with Tyre and Sodom.
Where is it written that homosexuality is the preferred form of love? And where are these waves of careers being smashed and destroyed in New Zealand?
Every age has its pieties and orthodoxies. The difference with this one is that students can graduate from universities and form their own ideas and even blog their heresies without reprisal. They might even become famous and write books or get on talk radio. This was not the case in the time of Calvin, as you well know, when heretics were burned alive.
Try this, from yesterday’s paper
I should add, as Dunedin is a small town, that I’ve met both Juan and Kelvin.
In the States, the Episcopalians have fractured over this. “Anglican” signs on the church usually means the traditional view of marriage is held. And they’re in tiny little churches, as the Episcopalian church organization owns the buildings.
I am aware of that. There is the same risk here. Locally, the Anglicans have been very liberal in their governance and Kelvin has been made bishop mainly because he preaches the gospel most of the time. He had a growing congregation.
But the SJW are there and they are demanding the church evolve. And that liberal arm is much bigger than it is among the Presbyterians.
Our problem is divorce among the eldership. The session clerk of my old church in Auckland is now divorced, and has left that church. (His ex-wife is best mates with my ex-wife, and they are still members)
This is a tragedy.
Same tragedy among the nondenominational evangelicals. Elders/pastors will just skip churches when they fall into sin. One church kicks ’em out – they go down the street to somewhere more liberal and pick a new one. Happened to our old pastor. Got caught in porn, got removed. Got a divorce within the year – and was pastoring another church, in the same town. I have substantial theological problems with Catholicism – but at least if you get booted there, there’s a system in place!
Indeed, Hearthie, without a denomination, there isn’t accountability…
This is where I think about the “evil of the Amorites was not yet full” and the craziness in Judges and the pre-flood days. How evil is sooo evil that God calls a stop?
Mass infanticide, slavery, human sacrifice, ritual orgies and slavery. For 400 years. Now, we are getting up there… but we should not argue that we are not yet as bad. We should plead for mercy.