The Disney World of Modern Apologetics
By Joel McDurmon
Once upon a visit to Disney World and Epcot Center in Orlando, my best friend and I tried to concoct a photograph of him standing with arms upheld and the great Epcot “Spaceship Earth” (the big silver ball) in the background in such a way as it appeared that he was carrying the massive ball by his own strength. We never quite got the angle right, but the idea entertained us enough to try several times.
I always think of this story when I hear of Christian apologists mounting evidences together in order to prove the truth of the Bible. Such an endeavor involves a man trying to do something that lies beyond the capacity of man to begin with: guarantee supernatural truth. It’s a bit like trying to stop a train with a bird net, or catch an airplane with a kite string. Our tools for the task fall vastly short of adequate for the job. The exception is that when considering God and man, that vastness is an infinite vastness, bridgeable only by the infinite God Himself, not man’s perceptions, arguments, or reasons.
I generally tolerate books on “Christian” or “Biblical Evidences, ” as they usually offer interesting historical vignettes into our faith. I tolerate them, that is, until I begin to read very far through them. One example (chosen not to chastise any particular authors or ministries, but only because this particular one found its way across my desk) will suffice to illustrate my objections. In a chapter titled “Resurrection on Trial, ” this popular book stands by the evidence for the resurrection and raises the bar upon itself (a great rhetorical strategy): “But is the evidence so good it could stand cross-examination in a modern court of law?”[1] They continue: “Our purpose is to cite sufficient documentation and examples to prove that even those expertly trained to evaluate and sift evidence declare that Christ’s resurrection would stand under legal cross examination.”[2] They go on to cite dozens of lawyers and legal experts who support their conclusion.
Among the many examples they quote, the following struck me as a particularly egregious instance of legal and bombastic nonsense:
Sir Lionell Luckhoo is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s “most successful lawyer, ” with 245 successive murder acquittals. He was knighted twice by the queen of England and appointed high commissioner for Guyana. He declares, “I have spent more than forty-two years as a defense trial lawyer appearing in many parts of the world … I say unequivocally the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no doubt.”[3]
I find this statement utterly incredible coming from a trained lawyer. The “evidence” for the resurrection resides within the texts of the Bible (aside from a minor and debated reference in Josephus), written by men whom we Christians believe to have been inspired by God to write the truth. But no law court in the world will admit divine inspiration as evidence. To do so would be to decide the case already. If it’s inspired, then it’s self-authoritative, and there’s no sense in trying the matter in a court of law. But if the court undertakes to judge the matter, then it sets itself up as the ultimate authority of the matter, and thus replaces God as the ultimate judge. So, a court of law would only examine the texts of the Bible in an allegedly “neutral” fashion, disallowing any testimonial recourse to their divine origin.
But at this point we run into a major problem. If we look at the Bible as merely one more historical record, it fails a fundamental test of evidence in a modern law court: The Hearsay Rule. The Federal Rules of Evidence state, “‘Hearsay’ is a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted.”[4] No such statement, with several but in our case irrelevant exceptions, shall be admitted into court.[5] Since the Scriptures — when stripped of divine authority and subsumed below human scrutiny — consist of little more than stories passed from person to person and copied many times over throughout history, they constitute hearsay as defined by a modern law court. No lawful judge would admit them for cross-examination to begin with. Mr. Luckhoo doesn’t luck-out on this one; he just lost his 246th murder trial: this one for the murder of honesty. As a trained lawyer, he should have acknowledged the long-acknowledged and obvious issue of hearsay. To go so far as to state to the contrary that the proof “leaves absolutely no doubt” is nothing short of Christian propaganda aimed at reassuring na�ve and uncritical pew-warmers.
If I were an unbeliever, I would parade this point to anyone who tried to use anything like this “many lawyers” fallacy promoted by our evidentialists. In fact, classic unbelievers have done so. This simple acknowledgment fueled the deistic-agnostic skepticism of Thomas Paine ages ago. He argued, �
Revelation when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man.… No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of the case, that something has been revealed to a certain person [say, Matthew, John, or Paul], and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other.…[6]�
Such a point should get our attention enough when pertaining to ordinary facts, but should press us all the more when involving miraculous claims. Paine complains about the facts of the virgin birth of Christ resting only upon the claims of Mary and Joseph (this, of course, leaves God out of the picture, but I shall return to this). Paine explains his right to deny the virgin birth:
such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we have not even this; for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves. It is only reported by others that they said so. It is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not chuse [sic] to rest my belief upon such evidence.[7]
Now, we can easily poke holes in Paine’s arguments, but his main point suffices to call out the extravagances of our evidence-minded apologists. No lawyer, no army of lawyers, could change this simple fact. Unless God exists to begin with, we have no authority on which to believe the certainty of the miraculous, or any other claim in the Bible.
Now, I admit that I am no lawyer, and so I would certainly defer to these greatly decorated men of law in their area of expertise. There may be some loophole in the rules of evidence which I have missed. The Federal Rules of Evidence allow for several exceptions to the Hearsay Rule, including “ancient documents” (at least 20 years old, though the exceptions generally appear mostly intended for wills and other documents that pertain to property, and which nevertheless have to be accepted as “authentic” to begin with), as well as a “catchall rule” which leaves a door open to individual special cases. Even these, I strongly doubt, would allow the testimony of the New Testament into a court of law. Besides, even if they did, would you really want to base your faith on a narrow loophole in American federal law?
So it appears to me that if we wish to appeal to the authority of “evidences, ” tribes of lawyers, and modern law courts, then we have little alternative than to follow the skepticism of Paine. All the boasts of all the great believing lawyers aside, the method of legal evidence at this point in the game fails the tests of man’s courts, let alone God’s.
Does this mean that the New Testament accounts are untrustworthy, or that skeptics have a valid reason to disbelieve them? Hardly. The same rule applies to the skeptic: he cannot admit the Gospels to the court of law in order to attempt to disprove them. Rather, this issue must get resolved in a higher court. Additionally, to prosecute his thesis the skeptic bears the burden of proof in demonstrating contradictions, errors, etc., in the Bible, and simply put, the more such attempts get made, the more convincingly they get overturned. (See the enormous output in historical studies involving guys like N. T. Wright, Larry Hurtado, and the masterful work by Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, just to name a few among increasing hundreds.) This is the great value of historical scholarship and evidence-gathering: it continually rebuts the unbeliever as it scrutinizes his many anti-biblical claims. As Christians we expect this: since the God of the Bible exists, every fact of history must and will confirm His will. But this means we pursue such scholarship in the light of His revelation (in nature and Scripture), not to establish it.
The lack of evidence beyond the Gospels leaves the work of persuasion to the Holy Spirit. Upon God’s power the Gospel advances, as Paul says: my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God (1 Cor. 2:4–5). More to my point the apostle writes, The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Rom. 8:16). The Spirit is the ultimate witness, the ultimate testimony of our faith. God gives us the faith as a gift (Eph. 2:8), and gives us the Spirit as a seal of assurance (Eph. 1:13–14). To try to add external evidences as proofs besides these divine proofs is to pretend we carry Spaceship Earth on our own backs, all the while God upholds the created world and us at the same time.
Besides, what would we really gain if every judge, jury, and court in the world said “Yes!” and “Amen!” to the facts of the Gospels? What would we really have established? I assert to you that we would not have established any truth, but rather mere consent among men. And it remains just as likely that all of these exemplars of evidence-sifters joining together in unanimity could still be wrong. Likewise, they could just as easily decide in the opposite direction, in which case the devout believer—whose heart the Holy Spirit has hold of—would remain disinclined to believe them all. In fact, I suspect that for every one lawyer willing to make extravagant claims like Luckhoo above, there stand several waiting to deny them. These guys rarely make into the “evidences” books. Nevertheless, in any of these cases, the jury only represents the opinions and contrivances of man, not the truth of God. And as the Psalmist prophetically reminds us, even though the kings of the earth take their stand, And the rulers take counsel together Against the Lord and against His Anointed.… He who sits in the heavens laughs, The Lord scoffs at them (Psa. 2:2, 4). The greatest of men joining their utmost powers cannot establish or overturn any truth.
What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, “That Thou mightest be justified in Thy words, And mightest prevail when Thou art judged” (Rom. 3:3–4).
This is why I think the evidence-based methods of defending our faith are fundamentally misguided. They attempt to erect all sorts of permutations of human authority as confirmations of divine authority—a fundamentally backwards, and in fact, downright idolatrous practice. Yet it is this idea that permeates the vast majority of the most popular apologetics books: “we can rest assured in our faith because so many evidences support it.” Hogwash. Unbelievers can and do poke major holes in such arguments all the time, and the strong faith so many place in such “Christian evidences” is the great albatross around the neck of Christian apologetics. (Fittingly, the source for the Luckhoo quotation above was published by Albatross Books, Claremont, CA).[8] We simply must disabuse ourselves of the desire to confirm divine authority through human means: God upholds us, we do not uphold Him. God’s word judges us, we do not judge God’s word.
Only the divine can attest for Himself; man can guarantee the truth of nothing. This is why Jesus offered only His own divine word as the ultimate authority for Himself: He who rejects Me, and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day (John 12:48). And this is not an issue that we can enter in to man’s courts, or which deals on the level of man’s authority. It pertains only to God’s court which expands throughout all eternity, space, and time, in which only God can guarantee the truth of any statement.
Ultimately it is this fact—that God alone guarantees and persuades His people of His truth—that undergirds our faith. If we set “evidences, ” or any man’s testimony, or any lawyer’s or judge’s confirmation as the test by which we verify the Scriptures, then we have removed God as the ultimate authority, and placed man’s word in place of His. And to that I surely say with the skeptic Paine, “I do not choose to rest my belief upon such evidence.” For did I so choose upon that standard, I would be denying the very God I wish to affirm. I’d be as well off to pack up my faith and head to Disney World.
Endnotes�[1] John Ankerberg and John Weldon, Handbook of Biblical Evidences (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1997), 99.�
[2] Ankerberg and Weldon, Handbook of Biblical Evidences, 99.�
[3] Quoted in Ankerberg and Weldon, Handbook of Biblical Evidences, 106.�
[4] http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rules.htm#Rule801 (accessed June 23, 2009).�
[5] http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rules.htm#Rule802 (accessed June 23, 2009).�
[6] Thomas Paine, “The Age of Reason, ” Selection from the Writings of Thomas Paine (New York: Carlton House, no date), 188.�
[7] Paine, “The Age of Reason, ” 189.
[8] See Ankerberg and Weldon, Handbook of Biblical Evidences, 387n25.
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Investment in Gold and Real Estate
Investment in gold and in real estate both has their fair share of pros and cons. Following are some of the advantages and disadvantages of investing in gold and real estate.
Gold: Gold is best suited for a long time investment. The demand for gold has always been robust. The process of buying and selling with gold is quite quick. It offers near zero risk of value depreciation.
One can even invest in gold online, nowadays. Investors can now buy, sell and virtually trade in gold commodity just like any other stock or equities. This has been a driving factor for many to invest in gold because investing online reduces the risk of actually owning the metal.
Gold prices are generally not affected by the fluctuation in the currency. The gold price does not rely on potency of the currency. Also, the price of gold is not influenced by any kind of political instabilities or crisis.
However, gold doesn't provide any immediate appreciable income. The value of the income has to be seen over the long term.
Real Estate: There are multiple ways of earnings in real estate. Investment in real estate can be long term and short term. It also ensures regular inflows by way of rentals. It can be used as collateral to secure a loan and to counterbalance taxable incomes. The profits earned from property resale are apparent.
But like any other investment option this too comes with a tag of risk. The real estate market is unpredictable and comes with no guarantee. Although a large number of investors have been successful and earned huge profits with real estate investing, there is no guarantee that it is going to be same for everyone. However, one can be and should be careful and aware. Take time to familiarize yourself with the real estate market, the market terminology and investment options and processes.
Investing is a crucial decision, it has money on stake. The risk factor is common. But knowledge, awareness and clarity of your own requirements are the keys to decide upon which investment to opt for. Both of the stated investments can offer lucrative returns. Choosing one of them as an investment option requires assessment of the money one can outlay and the objective of the investment. Understanding of the market is very important.
For buying, selling or renting Property and Real Estate in India, visit Magicbricks. Also find Real Estate Agents in India at Magicbricks.
Source: emagicbricks.blogspot.com
The 10th Amendment and Ratification of the Constitution
By Dr. Archie P. Jones
Humanly speaking, the authority of our Constitution is not based on the authority of the people of the nation or the Union but upon the authority of the people of the respective states. Sen. Daniel Webster to the contrary not withstanding, the Constitution’s Preamble’s opening phrase, “We the people of the United States, ” did not mean, and was not intended to mean, the people of the United States as a united whole—as Federalist advocates of ratification of the Constitution had to admit again and again during the various states’ debates on ratification of the Constitution.
The evidence on this is quite clear despite the fact that it is seldom taught in our schools and colleges. Our War for Independence was fought to achieve the independence of the thirteen colonies—not of “a new nation, ” as Lincoln, who sought to re-found our nation based on a particular reading of the Declaration, claimed. Our Declaration of Independence manifestly proclaimed the independence not of “a new nation” but of those thirteen “free and independent” states. The Articles of Confederation, our first constitution, was framed by representatives of those thirteen states then ratified by the legislatures of those same states. The Articles united those states under a national legislature but in a confederation which, by definition and design left each state free to govern itself. Our Constitution was framed by representatives of those thirteen independent states—who voted as states, not as individual representatives, nor as a national majority constituted of the majority of the representatives present in the Philadelphia Convention. The finished Constitution was sent not to an election of the people of the whole United States but to the individual states for ratification. Without being ratified, of course, the Constitution could not have had the authority to function as law, much less as our fundamental law.
The Constitution was ratified by those states as states. In each state a special session of the state’s legislature or a special state ratification convention with delegates chosen by the people the various districts of the state discussed and debated the document and its various provisions, voted, and determined whether or not to ratify the Constitution. As Madison said in Federalist No. 39, “ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong.” And, “Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act.”
So our Constitution was framed by representatives of the states who voted as states, and was ratified by representative bodies chosen by the people of each state. The people of the nation, as such, had no part in either of these legal activities.
The process of ratification by the states made each state which ratified the Constitution the party to a covenant or compact. That compact was a covenant among the respective states and their peoples, not between the peoples of the several states tand the people of the whole nation.
In that compact the people of the several states delegated a small part of the authority of their respective states to the new central government established by the Constitution. In that compact the people of the states also forbade the states to exercise certain specific powers. But that was all. They neither delegated more authority and powers to the central government nor denied their states the authority to exercise additional powers.
The fundamental law established by the Constitution did not obliterate authority of the civil governments of the states which formed the Union. Nor did the Constitution give the central/national government established by that document the authority to meddle with the corporate identities of the peoples of the states. The Constitution was plainly not intended to do either. As Madison said in Federalist No. 39, although the operation of the powers which the central government does have is national, the extent of its powers are not. In the extent of its powers “the proposed government cannot be deemed a national one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.”
The states’ documents stating their ratification of the Constitution provide powerful testimony to their intention to keep the central government within its constitutional bounds, retain their own non-delegated powers, and reserve their right to defend their people’s inherited ways and liberty against central government injustice or tyranny. At least three of the states—Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island—in their ratification documents made it clear that they had the right to take back the powers which they had delegated to the central government whenever those powers were perverted by the central government or whenever it should become “necessary to their happiness.” Those states ratification documents also guarded against self-interested misconstruction of the Constitution’s wording to imply that Congress is entitled to any powers not stated in the Constitution.
These states’ intention was to protect the reserved powers of the states—each state’s authority to govern itself—as much as to limit the powers of the central government. New York’s ratification instrument stated it plainly: “that every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the departments of the Government thereof, remains to the People of the several States, or to their respective State Governments to whom they may have granted the same…”
This, of course, is the essential idea of the Tenth Amendment: protection of the powers which the states had neither delegated to the national government nor forbidden to themselves in the Constitution; prevention of both the usurpation of these powers by the central government and the denial of these powers to the states by the central government. The power of this concept explains why what became the Tenth Amendment was added to the Constitution. The people of the states whose representatives framed and ratified the Constitution insisted that the authority of their states to govern their own internal affairs, and the powers necessary to accomplish that end, remain in the hands of their respective state governments.
Thus the ratification of the Constitution clarifies both the principles of what became our Tenth Amendment and the intensity with which Americans embraced the principles of that great amendment.
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Selective Condemnation
By Gary DeMar
Paul Hill, convicted of murdering abortionist John Britton and his bodyguard in 1994, considered himself to be a twentieth-century John Brown. Brown, if you recall, was the self-appointed avenger of God who was fond of quoting Hebrews 9:22: “All things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission” (KJV). If it took the blood of Americans to purge the sin of slavery from the land, so be it, Brown argued. For his actions, Brown was regarded as a hero by many in the anti-slavery movement of his time.
Although initially shocked by Brown’s exploits, many Northerners began to speak favorably of the militant abolitionist. “He did not recognize unjust human laws, but resisted them as he was bid. . . ., ” said Henry David Thoreau in an address to the citizens of Concord, Massachusetts. “No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature. . . .”[1]
Ralph Waldo Emerson used religious imagery by putting the “slavery issue into moral relief and made ‘the gallows glorious like the cross.’” What were the exploits that “initially shocked” Brown’s supporters but later were overshadowed by his “righteous” intention to rid the land of slavery? “On the evening of 23 May 1856, he and 6 followers, including 4 of his sons, visited the homes of pro-slavery men along Pottawatomie Creek [in Franklin County, Kansas], dragged their unarmed inhabitants into the night, and hacked them to death with long-edged swords.”[2] He and his men were acting as vigilantes. The Pottawatomie Massacre was the first act of savagery that caught the attention of the anti-slavery movement and instilled fear in supporters of slavery. “God is my judge, ” Brown said.� “It was absolutely necessary as a measure of self-defense, and for the defense of others.”[3]
In 1859, Brown hoped to start an armed slave revolt by seizing a United States Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. After arriving at the arsenal he began training a small group of men for military action. Northern abolitionist groups sent 198 rifles and nearly 1000 pikes in preparation for the raid. The arsenal contained 100, 000 muskets and rifles. Brown’s plan was to use these weapons to arm rebellious slaves who would then strike terror in the slaveholders in Virginia. The first person killed by Brown’s men was Hayward Shepherd, an African-American baggage handler on a train that had passed through the area. Two slaves were killed as well as two people from the town, including the mayor. Federal troops eventually arrived under the command of Col. Robert E. Lee. Brown was later tried, convicted, and executed for his act of terrorism.
How has history treated John Brown? William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879), editor of the anti-slavery The Liberator, had a lot to say about Brown’s exploits on the day of his execution. Although he was still “an ‘ultra’ peace man, ” he thanked God “when men who believe in the right and duty of wielding carnal weapons are so far advanced that they will take those weapons out of the scale of despotism, and thrown them into the scale of freedom.” Such righteous violence was “an indication of progress, and a positive moral growth; it is one way to get up to the sublime platform of non-resistance.” Brown’s violence was “God’s method of dealing retribution upon the head of the tyrant.”[4] In 1863, businessman George L. Stearns held a “John Brown Party” where he unveiled a “marble bust of John Brown, the antislavery martyr who had died on a scaffold three years earlier after his doomed, heroic effort to free the slaves by leading a twenty-two-man raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia.”[5] The comments by Richard Ellis offer a helpful commentary on the adulation given to John Brown:
The radical abolitionists’ response to John Brown and General Benjamin Butler also attests to the primacy of the hypocrisy within radical abolitionist political thought. Brown was canonized by abolitionists precisely because he embodied the idea of putting hypocrisy first. Brown’s moral zeal and uprightness exposed the hypocrisy of the shuffling and timid compromises made by politicians. Brown’s own acts of cruelty were forgiven, excused, or denied on account of his authenticity and candor.[6]
Brown remains a sainted figure. On Bowdoin College’s website under “Abolitionism” you will find the following:� “John Brown led a righteous crusade against slavery, born of religious conviction—and carried out with shocking violence.” Notice the words “righteous crusade” and “born of religious conviction.” Can you imagine such words being used to describe someone who killed an abortionist? Of course not, even though the arguments used for justification by Brown for his antislavery views and actions and Paul Hill for his antiabortion views and actions are nearly identical.
John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry, written by Brendan January and published in 2000 by Children’s Press, is in the “Cornerstones of Freedom Paperback” series. Do the actions of John Brown merit inclusion in a series on “freedom”? The following is on the “Ask Kids” website: “Harboring a fury that was fueled by profound religious devotion, John Brown carried his hatred of slavery into action, creating a legacy of bloodshed and violence that remains at once inspiring and appalling to this day.” Brown had “profound religious devotion” to his cause that was “inspiring” even if it was “appalling.” He was a murderer and a terrorist whose actions led to national bloodshed in a civil war that two world wars did not equal in the number of American deaths—more than 600, 000![7] The “Ask Kids” site includes Brown’s final words to the court with no commentary added:
“I believe to have interfered as I have done, . . . in behalf of His [God’s] despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it be deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be done.”
Then there’s David S. Reynolds’ biography John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights. Reynolds points out “that not only was Brown ‘right’ on slavery and other racial issues of his day, but that his conduct—in causing the Civil War to begin in 1861 rather than, say, 1881—potentially saved hundreds of thousands of lives that could have been lost in a war fought in a time of much greater population and more deadly weaponry and, at the same time, might well have spared an entire generation of African-Americans the humiliating experience of human bondage.”[8] No one could know this. Maybe the issue of slavery could have been resolved without a war similar to the way England abolished the slave trade. Again Paul Hill and the killer of George Tiller could make similar arguments to justify their actions.
The mural “The Settlement of Kansas” by John Steuart Curry includes a larger-than-life depiction of John Brown holding a Bible in one hand and a rifle in the other and hangs in the Kansas Statehouse. The Civil War dead and wounded are symbolized by the depictions of lifeless soldiers at his feet. There’s even a 500-piece jig-saw puzzle of the painting. Can you imagine the hue and outcry if similar accolades and commemorations were showered on those who killed abortionists for reasons remarkably similar to those of Brown? There are many on the left who extol the revolutionary exploits of Che Guevara and wear “the most famous photograph in the world” proudly on their clothing.
By the time Brown’s body lay “a-mouldering in the grave, ” the reverberations of his fanatic actions had shaken North and South, slave and free. Brown got what he wanted: the shed blood of hundreds of thousands of young men in a protracted civil war that led to the expansion of the federal government, continued racial conflict, segregation, and racial quotas. John Brown allowed poor theology to direct his actions, and there are people today who consider him to be a secular saint.
When Paul Hill was working through the logic of finding justification for executing abortionists, there were many who attempted to reason him out of his position. Prominent Christian leaders took public stands against Hill’s actions. Hill believed, like Brown, that he had a divine mandate to be God’s avenger:
“I believe that the Lord has used and will use what I did in a marvelous way. I’m standing for a principal. I’m willing to die for the principal. I consider it a great honor to die, possibly die, for having defended innocent human beings.”[9]
He crossed jurisdictional boundaries. His methods, not his views on abortion, were almost universally condemned by Christians. Of course, there were those who felt the same about John Brown.[10] In 1993, Hill was excommunicated from the church where he was a member, and he was routinely and regularly counseled not to kill in “the name of the Lord.”[11] In fact, I was one of those who told him that he did not have biblical grounds to assassinate abortionists. The excommunication came after appearances on The Phil Donahue Show, Larry King Live, CNN’s Sonya Live, and ABC’s Nightline where Hill made his John Brown-like views known. On March 15, 1993, Hill appeared on the Donahue show where he offered this analogy as justification for killing abortionists: If someone were killing children on a playground, “if you were to come up behind that man and shoot him in the back three times, you would have protected and saved innocent life from undue harm.” Killing an abortionist is no different from killing Hitler, Hill maintained, and John Brown would have agreed. And I suspect that there are many pro-abortionists who might support the actions of Brown and the resultant “Civil War” because they believe in the greater good of such actions. George Tiller believed in the greater good of Roe v. Wade, but where did he and his accommodating church find moral justification for such a belief?
Abortion is legal, a constitutionally protected right. So was slavery, but this did not stop people from denouncing the practice as evil with harshest rhetoric. The terrorist actions of Brown did not delegitimize the antislavery movement. Pro-abortionists want anti-abortionists to change their rhetoric. They want pro-lifers to stop describing abortion as legalized killing. The essence of the debate is the status of the pre-born child. If abortion is not the killing of pre-born babies, then there’s nothing to protest. Pro-abortionists want the exclusive use of the English language and the right to define terms their way.
When a woman enters a “healthcare center, ” she does so to kill her pre-born baby. Calling the facility a “healthcare center” does not change that fact. Defending the institution of slavery by describing slaves as “happy and content” does not change the fact that they were still slaves. Describing the gas chambers in the Nazi death camps as “delousing facilities” did nothing to protect the Jews who entered them. Killing took place there. People were murdered by the hundreds of thousands in these “facilities.”
In the January 3, 1995, issue of USA Today, an article appeared with this headline: “In abortion battle, toll mounts.” Toll as in death-toll. Pro-lifers want the world to know that the death toll is nearly 50 million pre-born babies killed in America since 1973. Killing 50 million pre-born babies is wrong and so is killing those who work at abortion mills. There are many legal ways to stop abortion in America. Killing abortionists is not one of them. George Tiller was a member in good standing in a Lutheran church. This is America’s real problem. If the church of Jesus Christ with one voice will not condemn abortion and vote out of office those who defend the bloody practice, then we deserve the leadership that is wrecking our nation. Keep in mind that millions of so-called evangelical Christians voted for this present pro-abortion administration.
Endnotes1 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1550.html
2 http://www.civilwarhome.com/johnbrownbio.htm. “Though this act was purportedly a retaliation for the burning of Lawrence [Kansas], most of the settlers killed by Brown’s party had not been involved in any attacks on free–soil settlers.” (Richard J. Ellis, The Dark Side of the Left: Illiberal Egalitarianism in America [Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998], 36).
3 http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTRIALS/johnbrown/brownaccount.html
4 William Lloyd Garrison, “John Brown and the Principle of Nonresistance, ” The Liberator (December 16, 1859). Quoted in Ellis, The Dark Side of the Left, 36
5 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4633323
6 Ellis, The Dark Side of the Left, 42.
7 You can add the deaths from the Korean and Vietnam wars, and you still would not equal the deaths in the civil war.
8 Douglas O. Linder, “The Trial of John Brown: A Commentary” (2005).
9 “Excerpts From Condemned Abortion Doctor Killer Paul Hill” (September 2, 2003).
10 Ellis, The Dark Side of the Left, 40.
11 Tom Hess, “Murderer of Florida abortionist executed, ” Citizen (November 2003), 6.
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Information That NRIs Need For Buying Real Estate Property in India
In the case of NRIs there is a general permission to acquire any immovable property (other than agricultural land, plantation or farm-house property) by way of purchase, provided the payment is made out of foreign exchange inward remittance or any Non Resident bank account in India, i.e. Non Resident External Account - NR (E), Foreign Currency Non Resident Account - FCNR or Non Resident Ordinary Account - NRO account. Although immovable property is not defined, the same will include:
- Residential property being house property, bungalow, apartment, villas and all other kinds of residential properties
- Commercial property being shops, offices and show rooms
- Industrial property being factory premises and godowns
- Land for construction of any of the above properties
Acquisition can be made by way of
- purchase
- receiving the property as a gift
- inheritance, and
- share of joint property received upon partition of family or property.
Transfer: Although transfer is not defined under the Regulations, but the definition of FEMA, 99 [Sec. 2(ze) of F.E.M.A. 1999] will apply & include:
- sale for consideration
- exchange of property
- gift of property
- relinquishment of right in a joint property.
Repatriation of Sale proceeds: An NRI being an Indian citizen or a foreign citizen of Indian origin is allowed to repatriate the sale proceeds of an immovable property subject to the following conditions:
- the acquisition should be in accordance with the existing Foreign Exchange Laws (i.e. FERA, '73 or FEMA '99).
- the purchase price was met out of Foreign Exchange Inward Remittance or NRE / FCNR (B) account, and
- in case of residential properties, repatriation is restricted to a maximum of two properties.
The NRIs who are staying abroad may enter into an agreement through their relatives by executing the Power of Attorney in their favour if it is not possible for them to be present for completing the formalities of purchase (negotiating with the builder or developer, drafting and signing of agreements and taking possession). Rental income cannot be remitted abroad and will have to be credited to the ordinary non-resident rupee account of the owner of the property.
George Gonigal provides you the best and latest info on India Property and Real Estate India. He would also let you know about Real Estate in Gurgaon for NRIs.
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Blasphemy and Freedom
By Joel McDurmon
Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain (Ex. 20:4-6).
You’ve probably heard the question, “What’s in a name?” Remember that it comes from that famous dialogue between Romeo and Juliet? The maiden from the window above says,
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
…which was her surname. Romeo mumbles to himself, listens on; Juliet continues:
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s a Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.[1]
In Juliet’s view, names are, or should be, so meaningless that they can simply be switched whenever convenient. The problem is, society just doesn’t work that way. In fact, her own woe, you may recall, derived from the fact that her and her lover came from feuding families, and those families having detested each other for generations, could not even stand the name of the other for all that it entailed. She argues that the substance of the thing, or of the person, and not the label, should determine why we value them. But when long use establishes a certain character with a certain appellative, then to overturn that relationship will cause a great social shift. Sometimes, perhaps, that shift needs to take place, other times it necessarily should not. And nowhere is that relationship between character and name more important that at the very foundation of society—religion.
The concept of “God’s name” so closely pertains to His Being and Nature that any affront to any of God’s attributes is subsumed under the very mention of His name. Calvin writes of the Third Commandment, “It is silly and childish to restrict this to the name Jehovah, as if God’s majesty were confined to letters or syllables.… God’s name is profaned whenever any detraction is made from His supreme wisdom, infinite power, justice, clemency, and rectitude.”[2] The reference to God’s name invokes all that God is and stands for.
We have similar references in the New Testament: of Jesus Paul says, there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12). God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow (Phil. 2:9-10).
So the idea of the majesty of God as represented by God’s name confronts mankind at every turn of life. And so, the commandment against taking God’s name “in vain” fairly warns us against all forms of action, or neglect, concerning the very nature of the God we serve. It means that the Biblical doctrine of God (Who is He?, What is His nature?, What has He done in history?) must inform every act and every decision we make. If the foundations of society rest upon anything less than that God, when we act in the name of God Almighty (for example, the presidential oath including “So help me God”), we have violated the Third Commandment. Conversely, when society begins to denigrate, curse, or swear at the name or mention of God, then we have an even worse situation in which society has attacked God Himself, and has sought to replace Him with something else as the foundation.
Consider for a moment the language of the Commandment. What does it mean to “take” in this passage? We can understand the word in the sense of “carry” or “bear.” Think in this sense of the priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant, or of the Israelites pitching their tents beneath respective standards which bore their identities as children of YHWH. Think of the label “Christian, ” first given in Antioch (Acts 11:26), and which we bear today. How do we “carry” that label? How do we present that label to the world, and what justice do we do it? Do we bear it in any degree of vanity or emptiness? Implicit in this Third Commandment is a condemnation of hypocrisy—of wearing a label we don’t measure up to in substance. And in not measuring up, we prove ourselves hypocrites, and we dishonor, we can even say blaspheme, the name of the God whose name we bear.
We have such a low view of taking the Lord’s name in vain today. This results from the overall decline of the religion and the influence of the church in society. Today the idea of cursing seems to have much less to do with God’s name than with more mundane forms of vulgarity. This always happens when religion wanes in society. The Oxford scholar Christopher Hill, a renowned expert on the Puritan era, notes the phenomenon long after the end of that age of piety. Speaking of the power of swearing and oaths he writes, �
They survive in industrialized and protestant countries, but as shadows of their former selves, and often the users are unaware of the original significance of swear-words which they employ every day. Blasphemy is no longer a fine art. The live swear-words in such societies are those which offend against something which has much more social reality than God—respectability. Sex and the lavatory have replaced deity, saints and devil as the source of live expletives to-day, because their use breaks a taboo that is still worth breaking.[3]
This has always been my experience. I personally don’t remember a time when cursing didn’t refer to bodily acts, and I was always taught, of course, that these certain words are the curse words, these words are “bad” words and you don’t say them. And while all of that may be true, there was always this great disconnect between the idea of taking God’s name in vain, and what I understood as cursing. That list of bad words, of course, included instances in which the word “God” or the name “Jesus Christ” served as expletives—as we hear all over the radio and TV today—but this only caused me greater confusion. Were these instances the actual sin of taking God’s name in vain? If so, why were the other words bad? Later in life when I actually thought about these questions, and grew a little more biblically literate, I decided that the distinction didn’t matter, because St. Paul went well beyond merely the Lord’s name and said, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying” (Eph. 4:9). “No corrupt communication, ” pretty much covers it all. But this was a sort of happy state of ignorance for me, since I still really didn’t understand what it meant not to take the Lord’s name in vain.
So what was this “original significance” that Hill mentions above? He gives us a hint of it with an introductory quotation from that same chapter. The following appears in an anonymous tract written in 1614:
The safety of the King himself, … every man’s estate in particular, and the state of the realm in general, doth depend upon the truth and sincerity of men’s oaths.… The law and civil policy of England, being chiefly founded upon religion and the fear of God, doth use the religious ceremony of an oath, not only in legal proceedings but in other transactions and affairs of most importance in the commonwealth; esteeming oaths as not only the best touchstone of trust in matters of controversy, but as the safest knot of civil society, and the firmest band to tie all men to the performance of their several duties.[4]
Proper, honest, godly oath-taking, forms the mortar of healthy society. At the bottom of all, is the foundation of allegiance to God; and the commandment does not forbid swearing period, but swearing in vain. Bearing God’s name in truth—not in vain, but in truth—is the bedrock of religion and therefore of social health. In fact, the very word “religion” means “to bind” in the sense of binding allegiance. Such language fills the Bible: the whole concept of being God’s servant relates to this idea. Paul was a servant of Jesus Christ (Rom 1:1). I hear St. Patrick singing his hymn, “I bind unto my self today, the strong name of the Trinity.” With it all I hear a Scripture passage that Christians hardly ever quote: Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name (Deut. 6:13)!
How often do we as believers exhort each other actually to swear? Swearing, we’ve been taught, is a “no-no” across the board. And yet God commanded the Israelites to do so—to swear by His name. The point is that at the bottom of every way of life, of every religion and every society, stands an ultimate oath. You have to serve somebody. Somebody is your god and you have sworn allegiance to him (or her) already whether you know it or not. You cannot escape worship, authority, or oaths. If you zip-your-lips, and lock the door and swallow the key, and refuse to take any oath whatsoever, you just took one. The question is not “oath or no oath.” The question is Whose name did you take it under? Here we must follow the example of God Himself, “For when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, He swore by himself” (Heb. 6:13). No wonder He commands us to swear by that name, too.
Not to swear allegiance to God, is to profane His name, and put yours in place of it. The misuse or abuse of God’s name is an initiatory act of rebellion. In society, it represents revolt and revolution. “All swearing is religious, and false swearing represents a subversive drive in society.”[5] This fact manifested recently in a debate between atheists and Christians at Cape Town University on the subject of blasphemy. The atheist professor who agreed to debate backed out two hours before the event started, leaving Peter Hammond of Frontline Ministries alone to lecture from a Christian viewpoint and then field questions. One atheist young lady expressed the myopia of humanistic reasoning in trying to denigrate religion while exalting man: “To call me stupid would be hate speech and be illegal; however, to call Jesus stupid is not illegal and is a religious issue not a legal one.” Another added that hate speech “should of course be illegal, ” yet Blasphemy given free reign “because unlike hate speech against homosexuals, no one is going to get hurt.”[6] The first argument, of course, begs the question, assuming up front what it intends to conclude: that religious issues don’t count as legal issues, therefore blasphemy is not “hate speech.” Christians, rather, should argue that blasphemy is the most fundamental and most serious and subversive form of hate speech, and should carry requisite legal sanctions. The second argument simply ignores the facts, that�
every year over 200, 000 Christians are murdered worldwide for their Faith. Over 400 million Christians in 64 countries live under governments which do not allow religious freedom. Every year government sponsored hate speech in these countries leads to mob violence against Christians, the burning of churches, often with the congregation inside it, the beheading of Christians, even of young teenage girls, the stoning to death of Christians, crucifixions, mutilations, enslavements, etc.[7]
Logical and factual blunders aside, both arguments display the implicit attack on religious faith that humanism entails. When man sets a higher legal standard for speech against man than he does for speech against God, He explicitly rejects God as King and sets himself in the place of God. Legalized blasphemy represents treason to God and country. George Washington, spying the revolution of atheists, radicals, and deists in France, devoted a portion of his “farewell address” to warn our nation of the consequences of such blasphemy. In this passage—often quoted merely for its positive reference to religion—notice the emphasis on reputation (name), and oath:
Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?[8]
Atheists and humanists begin with man and wish to derive “hate speech” from that standard. This devolves into a state where individuals, culture, law, and art can curse and mock all religion, virtue, sexuality, and all transcendent standards, and seek legal protection for such acts. Thus, homosexuality for example, which incarnates a gross perversion of the sex act—indeed the ultimate mockery of it—seeks legal protection from even criticism. To even decry homosexuality as a perversion is to practice “hate speech” in such a worldview, and in some so-called liberal democracies that boast of so-called “free speech, ” a preacher who even reads the Bible’s condemnation of homosexual perversion publicly can find himself in jail. Mankind cannot escape “blasphemy” laws: the question is of who determines what constitutes blasphemy. Meanwhile, to highlight a degenerate society’s social hypocrisy, the standard interpersonal curses themselves pertain to sexuality: listen to any rap radio station and you will drown in a deluge of racial slurs interspersed with epithets of maternal incest, while any given foul-mouth on the street finds his readiest curse in willing a forcible sex act upon his annoyer: “f--- you.” Humanism wishes legally to protect its perversions while in practice admitting them to be perverse, employing them as curses.
When society displays such characteristics, it reveals the depth of its rebellion against the Creator. The proper way to protect name, reputation, and human rights in general, is not to profane God and exalt man, but just the opposite. Unless men first revere God and honor an ultimate allegiance to the divine origin of mankind, and protect these beliefs by legal consequence, they shall denigrate everything glorious that man can be, and then protect their perversions and obscenity by recourse to legal force.
And so, as with many others of the Ten Commandments, the Third presents us with something that sounds elementary and almost trivial on the surface, but in reality reaches to the most profound depths of human experience. Based on something that we take for granted every day—a name—God shakes us to the very core of our identity. “What’s in a name?” If you’re talking about God, the answer is “everything.”
Endnotes1 Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet, ” II.ii.33–49.
2 Quoted in R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law, 116.
3 Christopher Hill, Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England (New York: Schocken Books, 1967 1964]) 419.
4 Hill, 382.
5 R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Religion, 110.
6 Reported by Peter Hammond, “Blasphemy Debate at University, ” rontline Fellowship News, 2009 Ed. 2, 7.
7 Peter Hammond, “Blasphemy Debate at University, ” Frontline Fellowship News, 7.
8 Partially quoted in R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Religion, 112.
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Chennai Real Estate - Forging Ahead
India's real estate development is expected to grow at a pace of 30 per cent annually. This has a direct impact on the mega cities, especially the four metropolitans that provide real estate opportunities to grow manifold. Chennai real estate cannot be far behind.
There has been a huge demand for real estate in Chennai amongst the commercial and residential properties. In recent years, the city of Chennai has experienced a complete turnaround in its all-round infrastructure. The combined initiatives of the Government of Tamil Nadu and the Central Government are paying rich dividends in terms of approval of real estate projects related to infrastructural upgradations in Chennai.
Tata Realty and Infrastructure Ltd (TRIL) announced an agreement with Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) to jointly develop an IT special economic zone (SEZ). TRIL is a new enterprise of Tata Sons Ltd, the holding company of the Tata Group.
The SEZ will be implemented in two phases - the first phase of 2.30 million square feet will be ready by end-2009 and the remaining 1.70 million would be completed by 2011. TRIL has embarked on several projects for real estate and infrastructure development.
Located on a 25-acre plot in Taramani, the SEZ will include a five-star hotel or service apartments, an international convention centre and help generate direct employment for 40, 000 people and indirect employment to another 15, 000. Chennai real estate most certainly contributes in boosting economy of the state.
Not only Chennai Real Estate is developing rapidly along side the government of Tamil Nadu but also foreign developers are showing valuable interest in the Chennai real estate. For instance, the Lee Kim Tah Township development in Siruseri, near Chennai, reflects the success of Singapore companies who have forged successful partnerships with their Indian real estate counterparts.
George Gonigal provides you the best and latest information on Chennai Real Estate Builders, If you want to Houses for Sale in Bangalore, he suggests you log on to magicbricks.com
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Moral Polytheism
By Gary DeMar
A number of articles have been published about the demise of the church in America. Newsweek, copying the cover design of the April 12, 1966 of Time magazine’s “Is God Dead?” cover, carried an article on The Decline and Fall of Christian America in its April 13, 2009 issue. Then there were the statements by President Obama that America is no longer a Christian nation. Former president Clinton has added to the argument with the claim that the United States is no longer “dominated by Christians and a powerful Jewish minority” since there is now a “growing numbers of Muslims, Hindus and other religious groups here.”[1] People like Obama and Clinton think this is a good thing. I disagree.
Multiculturalism is a type of ethical polytheism: many moral law-orders based on many gods.
Polytheism (all gods are equal) leads to relativism (all moral codes are equal); relativism leads to humanism (man makes his own laws); and humanism leads to statism (the State best represents mankind as the pinnacle of power). As Rushdoony remarks, [2] “because an absolute law is denied, it means that the only universal law possible is an imperialistic law, a law imposed by force and having no validity other than the coercive imposition.”[3]
We are being driven back to the Tower of Babel on the theological bus of multi-religionism in the name of multiculturalism. The multiculturalists are forcing the position, and the word is forcing, that all cultures are inherently equal, except, of course, Western culture which does not accept the view that all cultures are ethically equal. Biblical Christianity is their ultimate target.
The menace of multiculturalism is not new. God warned the Israelites from mixing with the surrounding nations because of the potential for ethical, not ethnic, pollution. Their separation from the nations was not, as Hal Lindsey suggests, based on racial patterns. “If the Law of Moses were still in force today, ” Lindsey writes, “there would be no Church, since racial segregation of Israelites from the Gentiles was an essential part of the covenant.”[4] There were no racial barriers in Israel. The Edomites, for example, had the same ancestry as Israel. Jacob and Esau (Edom) were brothers. They were of the same “race.” The Bible tells us that God “made from one, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26; cf. Gen. 3:20). There can be no racial superiority if one truly believes the Bible.
The separateness in Israel was over religious and ethical differences. Israelites were to steer clear of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Edomites, and Jebusites because of their religious and ethical practices, not because they were different ethnically or racially. A non-Israelite could become a part of the covenant community through circumcision and adherence to the covenant requirements. This would mean denouncing the worldview of paganism. A family could be incorporated into Israel by faith, as was Rahab’s family (Joshua 2:8-14).
Rahab was, from the viewpoint of the Israelites, a foreigner. She did not belong to the chosen people; but through faith she was accepted into their company and enjoyed the privileges and blessings from which formerly she had been excluded. In this she was an exemplification of the truth of the covenant promise that in the seed of Abraham all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 22:18; Gal 3:8f.). Especially interesting is the fact that, once incorporated into the people of God, she even won an honored place in the line that led to the fulfillment of the divine promises in the birth of Christ. Thus, according to the genealogy at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, Rahab married Salmon and became the mother of Boaz, who in turn also married an alien woman, Ruth the Moabitess, who became the mother of Obed, David’s grandfather (Mt. 1:5f.).[5]
Rahab, a foreigner (Heb. 11:31; James 2:25), and Abraham, an Israelite (Rom. 4:9; James 2:23), are used as examples of Old Testament faith. Rahab abandoned her pagan religion and the ethical system that was inextricably tied to it. Israel was warned “not to follow the customs of the nation which I shall drive out before you, ” God told them, “for they did all these things, and therefore I have abhorred them” (Leviticus 20:23). They were “abhorred” because of their deeds, not because they were of a certain race or nationality.
The New Testament sets up similar religious/ethical barriers. God is not the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles (Rom. 3:29; Rev. 15:3). But the Gentiles did not know God (1 Thess. 4:5). They were led astray to idols (1 Cor. 12:2). This resulted in them not knowing or keeping the law of God (Gal. 2:15). As a consequence, they lived in the futility of their minds (Acts 14:16; Eph. 4:17). These results are still in effect for those who reject the renewing gospel of Jesus and the ethical requirements of His commandments. Religion has consequences.
As Christians, we are not to be “bound together with unbelievers” (2 Cor. 6:14). Why? “For what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols?” (vv. 14b–16). There is a correlation between worship (Christ vs. Belial) and ethics (righteousness vs. lawlessness). The multiculturalists insist that Belial is as good as Christ, therefore, righteousness and lawlessness are subjective categories that only have validity within the context of one’s accepted belief system. Since we live in what is now a pluralistic society (another name for multiculturalism), claims of right and wrong are only legitimate within the limited parameters of one’s worldview. These narrow values have no place in the melting pot of multiculturalism since they would assert that other systems of morality are inherently wrong.
Endnotes[1] Christine Simmons, “Bill Clinton: United States growing more diverse” (June 14, 2009)�
[2]�Rousas J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (The Craig Press, 1973), 17.
[3]�Gary North, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989), 158.
[4]�Hal Lindsey, The Road to Holocaust (New York: Bantam Books, 1989), 265.
[5]�Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977), 504
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