Principles of science such as cause and effect may war against the private spiritualities of orthodox secularlists and greedy politicians (who pretend to create money out of nothing), but they are right at home in the reality-oriented information given in the events of Christmas No. 1.

That is to say: 

Cause and effect has little to do with modern-day religion, private spiritualities, personal ethics, Eric Hoffer’s “true believer,” varieties of religious experience, or with assorted “people of faith.”

Let us also not discriminate against orthodox secularists and naturalistic scientists who create their own private truths and valued feelings in an effort to cope as humans with an otherwise unbearable life.

The standard line these days is that questions directed to these private realms are considered impolite, out of bounds, and over the line.

Presidential candidates get to pass “Go” and collect votes if they promise their faith really is just theirs -- that is, something merely private and inward, not public and not applicable to policy.

The Creator, and the information he communicates about life in the world, is permitted to inspire during devotions inside closets or during limited times of public tragedy, but he shall have no substantive impact on public life, foreign policy, and so on.  

In contrast to a retreat into subjectivity, the Biblical mentality, including the world-altering events that launched Christmas in the first place, has much to do with the natural order.

The Bible knows that messages and songs and other intellectual and aesthetic content come not out of nothing.

Roman edicts are the creations of Roman Caesars, inns too full are the effects of a finite number of rooms plus many travelers hitting the road at the same time.

First-century people did not have electricity, but they knew night skies are not illuminated to reveal familiar daytime geography without a cause of light.

What is given in the Bible is a framework for distinguishing between campfires and angels, both of which are natural phenomena in a cosmos that is the product of a living Creator.

But both of which are also supernatural in a cosmos that is reduced, as some theorize, to particles cold and unaccounted for, arranged without reason in greater or lesser degrees of complexity. 

Joseph and Mary knew where baby humans come from, how they are conceived, and how they arrive.

“There is one thing often said about our ancestors which we must not say,” C.S. Lewis writes in his essay “Miracles,” in God in the Dock.

“We must not say ‘They believed in miracles because they did not know the Laws of Nature.’ This is nonsense.”

Why? Because “when St. Joseph discovered that his bride was pregnant, he was ‘minded to put her away’. He knew enough biology for that. Otherwise, of course, he would not have regarded pregnancy as a proof of infidelity.”

Mary and Joseph had questions that speak to this issue of cause and effect.

How could she be pregnant without physical relations with a man? Should Joseph reconsider marriage since knowledge of the natural order indicates Mary is not the virgin she claims to be?

They received answers that are reasonable in light of information from a Creator who has within himself the power of being and is free to act into history, just as human beings are empowered to act as well.

In effect, the God of Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and David says he will again act into human history, into what after all is his cosmos, to bring about a physical change in the living, physical environment he created in the first place.

Though she is not married, and although people will talk, Mary is asked by God whether she would like to be the virgin mother of the Messiah (see Luke 1:26ff).

For his part Joseph is asked, in effect: “Do you take this virgin with child as your lawfully wedded wife, seeing as I have used my power to create to conceive a baby in her womb?”

Joseph also knew eyebrows would be raised, but he agreed to move forward (see Matt. 1:18ff). Mary showed herself to be a woman of strength who by her choices maintained her dignity.

The above is excerpted from my "Christmas Spirit in Space and Time." Additional excerpts are forthcoming during this Christmas season. If you'd like to read ahead, go here.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 02:14 PM | Permalink

Have you considered that one of the charming things about Christmas is the way it confronts cults of faith, secularism, religion, and politics? Thus:

In contrast to pagan, religious, media, and secular stereotypes, Christmas is about real people living and working in a real world.

The inaugurating events of Christmas occur in and around Bethlehem of Judea. They concern watchful shepherds, pregnant women, and surprised husbands.

All are flesh-and-blood people. All are individuals who think, act, wonder, emote, and make choices in situations of life that are less than ideal.

In the foreground of Luke 2:20 are shepherds. They are persons who work, can be frightened by sudden events, are curious, and are willing to check out things for themselves.

They are not identified as “believers.”

Rather, they are choosing beings who process information and labor outdoors in the fields day and night in all sorts of weather. They do not live six feet off the ground, tip-toeing through life on a cushion of holy air, protected by a nice God from the ups and downs of existence in a broken world.

They face predators and thieves, living and dying. They search for stray lambs, and they respond appropriately to unexpected beings who go bump in the night.

Critical Distance
In their work, the shepherds keep a protective physical distance between flock and predator, whether man or animal.

In their humanity as creatures made in the image of God, they keep a protective critical distance between well-grounded information about God and new but untested messages from angelic beings who show up without so much as a knock at the door.

The events of the Nativity concern God, man, angels, and words of salvation, but it is a mistake to conceive of them as “religious.”

Quite unlike “faith” in a progressively fragmented world today, the data about the birth of Christ in the Christmas of history is about a tangible world and knowable events in an objective universe of space and time, cause and effect.

It is about hopes and dreams connected to geography, dirt, history, and fields, not private imaginations and imperishable souls being released from the dark confines of matter in an escape to Mt. Olympus and the comforting arms of gods made in the image of Greek mortals.

Identifiable places matter when you’re talking about a living God who has decided to act into human history.

The Creator of matter respects the space located between the ears of human beings and knows the human brain is more than so many pounds of meat atop a set of shoulders.

Rejected here are politically correct beliefs about the brain as a product mysteriously organized by chance (or by unaccounted-for “law”) to achieve a savage but temporary survival of the strong over the weak in a meaningless, dying universe.

Instead, we have in the Biblical data a regard for persons as thinking individuals of great intrinsic dignity; they are not regarded as easily unpluggable though complex machines that process bits of information.

The Creator expects shepherds and carpenters, students and rabbis, prostitutes and tax collectors to concentrate their minds and to think freely about facts and evidence in a search for wisdom that may challenge current understandings.

The shepherds occupy an external, orderly world that provides a stable context in which ideas can be communicated and truth-claims checked for their veracity.

In contrast to mythology about warfare between science and the Creator, the Biblical worldview affirms matter as good and orderly and provides a foundation for the scientific enterprise, as Nancy Pearcey discusses in her article "Christianity Is a Science-Starter, Not a Science-Stopper."

The Biblical framework also gives a basis to resist cults of religion, politics, or holiday sales. It challenges the imposition of any pious imagination, activist agenda, or news broadcast that refuses to subject theory to fact.

The Christmas of history operates in this kind of earthy framework. It is good, wholistic news for a splintered, fragmented world that can no longer complete the circle.

That good news doesn’t make life easy, as a pregnant woman who traveled by donkey some 90 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem might be able to tell you.

The events of Luke 2 show a respect for time. The action occurs at night, those hours of the 24-hour day between the setting and the rising of the sun. At a particular moment in the history of a particular night, darkness was pushed back by light.

The content delivered by angels required a quantifiable number of moments to communicate, as did the shepherds’ trip into Bethlehem, as did their return, as did the trip of a mom to Bethlehem, as well as the passage of a baby through a birth canal.

The long-promised flesh-and-blood child was placed in a manger at a particular moment of world history.

Quirinius was governing in Syria, Caesar Augustus was emperor of Rome. He had been the leading power in the empire since 31 B.C. when he defeated Antony and Cleopatra at Actium. All was made official in 27 B.C. when Augustus became Rome’s first emperor.

The above is excerpted from my "Christmas Spirit in Space and Time." Additional excerpts will be forthcoming during this Christmas season, but if you want to read and think ahead, go here.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 12:02 PM | Permalink

Having become aware of Nancy Pearcey's response to Ryan Lizza's New Yorker hit piece on Michele Bachmann, Red State editor Erick Erickson asks, "Is Ryan Lizza an Idiot or Willfully Distorting Christian Theology?"

Related
Bachmann, Schaeffer, Pearcey, & Dominionism Paranoia 
Cal State Prof: Michele Bachmann a Scary Dominionist?

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 08:58 AM | Permalink

The following guest column is from Richard Weikart, professor of history at California State University, Stanislau. He is the author of four books.

In his recent New Yorker article and NPR interview, Ryan Lizza tries to evoke fear of Michele Bachmann by alleging that she has been heavily influenced by “dominionism.”  The two chief culprits allegedly spreading this pernicious “dominionism” to Bachmann and others are the prominent Christian intellectuals Francis Schaeffer and Nancy Pearcey.

Accusing Schaeffer and Pearcey of peddling dominionism -- and associating Bachmann with it -- is a serious charge, since Lizza defines it as those who believe: “Christians, and Christians alone, are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns.”  Sounds like theocracy to me.

Aside from the fact that Lizza never produces any quotations from Bachmann showing that she endorses dominionism, does his guilt-by-association argument hold any water?  Were Schaeffer and Pearcey tainted by dominionism?

As an undergraduate in the late 1970s I read just about everything that Schaeffer wrote.  I read Schaeffer’s Christian Manifesto (1981), his most political book, as soon as it was published. 

Even though I do not agree with Schaeffer’s position on political activism therein, it is hard to see how he could have stated his opposition to theocracy more plainly.  He stated, “First, we must make definite that we are in no way talking about any kind of theocracy.  Let me say that with great emphasis.”

In the next paragraph he argued, “There is no New Testament basis for a linking of church and state until Christ, the King returns.”  He then criticized the Roman emperors Constantine and Theodosius for merging church and state, calling it a mistake causing “great confusion.”  Schaeffer was a strong opponent of theocracy (and thus dominionism), Lizza’s revisionist history notwithstanding.

Casting Nancy Pearcey as an evil dominionist influence on Bachmann, as Lizza does, is even more bizarre.  By way of full disclosure, I have met and corresponded with Pearcey, and she even sent me her manuscript Total Truth -- the one that Bachmann mentioned as important -- before it was published. 

Though I don’t agree with all of Pearcey’s political views, nowhere have I seen even a hint that she thinks Christians should shoulder everyone else aside to take sole control of the government, economy, or culture.

Indeed Pearcey believes that Christians should apply their worldview to every facet of their lives, including politics, but one of these Christian insights she insists on is that Christians should be servants to others.  As with Schaeffer, love, not domination, is the driving force in her worldview.

That such a savvy political correspondent as Lizza could get things so wrong is disheartening.  This is especially so, because one of his main gripes about Bachmann is that she doesn’t always get her facts straight. 

I suppose Lizza is just illustrating the truth of that Biblical adage that those who judge others condemn themselves, because they do the same things.

Disclaimer: This article should not be misconstrued as an endorsement of Bachmann’s candidacy.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 08:42 AM | Permalink

"Extremism on the left infects the entire Democratic Party," writes James M. Thunder at American Spectator.

For more, see "What Is 'Mainstream' America?" and "How the New Resistance Can Win the Culture War."

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 07:45 AM | Permalink

"A day after discussions of religious diversity led officials to remove the word 'Christmas' from signs at the Christmas Village merchant fair outside City Hall, the event's organizers decided Tuesday to take down the signs -- only to have the mayor reverse that decision," AP reports.

"Mayor Michael Nutter jumped into the fray by announcing yesterday that the 'Christmas Village' signs would be back up today," states AP.

The mayor reportedly "told the Philadelphia Daily News, 'The Christmas Village is not a religious service. It's an outdoor fair. It's a very commercial enterprise.'"

Someone should inform the mayor that the Christmas signs would be fine, would pass Constitutional muster, and be entirely consistent with the Declaration of Independence even if the "Christmas Village" was a religious service with Santa and the elves rolling in the aisles.

The nation is founded upon a verifiable Creator, not upon that secularist nothingness currently termed "diversity" -- which all too often is code language for getting rid of the enduring and defining mainstream of the American experiment under the Creator and replacing that mainstream with the state, group, skin color, gender, nature, or some other inadequate extremist passion that lacks a sufficient basis for unalienable rights, human dignity, and individual liberty.

Mayor Nutter made the right move but for the wrong reason, for there is more at stake here than mere commerce. "Man shall not live by bread alone," as Someone once famously said.

It is good that the Christmas signs have been restored. Far better, however, to restore respect for the Founding worldview that makes freedom possible in the first place -- not just freedom of speech or even political freedom, but also the right and responsiblity to live in liberating community with God and man across the whole of life.

"Diversity," religious or otherwise, is no match for the emancipatory power and glory and humanity of the historic Christmas. This is true not just for a "Christmas Village" in Philadelphia today but also for a Christmas birth in Bethlehem yesterday, a mere 2,000 years or so ago. Some events are like that. They never quit.

Related
Christmas Spirit in the Dirt: Good News for New Year

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 10:19 AM | Permalink

Or if knowing it, he rejects it?

What is "the center"? There is only one known "center" that yields freedom for the individual without leading to anarchy, and yet order in society without leading to tyranny.

And that center is what the Declaration of Independence says it is:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Obama may or may not "move" to the relativistic "center" of a particular moment in history.

But if for political reasons he does move, apart from a conversion to Constitutionalist and Declarationalist thoughtforms, this will be a tactical "adjustment" only.

It will be a move primarily in rhetoric, perhaps with a few policy adjustments. A move that appears to respect -- but actually continues to reject -- what is the true and defining mainstream of the American experiment.

The loyal opposition must oppose Obamaism root and branch. The loyal opposition must articulate and apply with consistency and courage the comprehensive vision that lays out the DNA of liberty -- from worldview to principles to strategies to tactics -- so that in community with God and man, America can once again become a "shining city on a hill."

Related
How the New Resistance Can Win the Culture War

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 07:12 AM | Permalink

"For the second time in little over a month, President Barack Obama stripped the word "Creator" from the Declaration of Independence when giving a speech," reports Penny Starr at CNSNews.com.

Here is the text of the speech Barack Hussein Obama gave at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee dinner October 19 in Rockville, Maryland.

Words matter. The midterm election of November 2 is days away. I would suggest that a political party or president that cannot utter, affirm, defend, explain, and apply to government and policy that is at the very center of the American experiment should not hold power in the United States.

For such a person and such a party are not the friends of liberty.

Freedom should always have a friend, not an enemy, in the White House. And freedom should always have in the White House someone who understands from Whom and upon Whom that freedom rests -- and apart from Whom it goes away. Every office on Capitol Hill should understand this.

The defining center of the American experiment rests upon exactly that point where the Declaration places it: The Creator. To the degree that a president or a political party rejects that defining mainstream of the enduring American center, to that degree a president or a political party occupies the extreme. 

If you are a politician of any party who would strip the Creator from your political or governmental practice or philosophy, a free people under God has an eminently healthy course of action to pursue: If you strip the Creator from the Declaration, you shall be stripped from office. You are a danger to the republic and have no business anywhere near the levers of power.

You shall be repealed and replaced by lovers of freedom who understand the true source of the "blessings of liberty."

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 07:29 AM | Permalink

Michelle Malkin writes:

Shhhhhhh, we're told. Don't protest the Ground Zero mosque. Don't burn a Koran. It'll imperil the troops. It'll inflame tensions. The "Muslim world" will "explode" if it does not get its way, warns sharia-peddling imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Pardon my national security-threatening impudence, but when is the "Muslim world" not ready to "explode"?

Comment: Violence, even if couched in appeals to tolerance, is the logical endgame of any "faith" (religious, political, scientific, or philosophical) that has carved out for itself an enclave that is untouchable by reason, evidence, and the need to correspond to life in the real world.

Such "faith" is the application of coercion, up to and including physical violence, by other means. Such "faith," as a mere "value statement," is anti-mind, anti-freedom, anti-Man, and anti-God.

It is either the self-inflicted violence of irrational commitment or the other-inflicted violence of hand-grenades and jets into skyscrapers. And politicians, including U.S. presidents, who buy into such a faith will find themselves setting up a machinery of oppression to protect their power from facts, questions, checks and balances, and other legitimate protections against abuse.

In contrast is the openness to verification, and therefore the humanity, of the Founding vision as expressed in the Declaration and safeguarded in the Constitution.  It is a vision of human beings as individuals called to think and act on the basis of that which is true to reality, not as a blind leap, but as a commitment of the whole person on the basis sufficient, verifiable information.

This provides an adequate philosophic basis for both intellectual and political freedom. Apart from it is the kind of personal, intellectual, and cultural fragmentation, and therefore, weakness, Nancy Pearcey has written about in the just-published Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning.

Consistent with the Declaration worldview, this humane vision is rooted ultimately not in "religious" "values," blind matter, impersonal nature, nor in an absolute eternal nothingness that burps alien human beings into existence by chance, but in a knowable Creator who thinks, acts, and feels, and who acts into verifiable history so that free-thinking individuals can evaluate competing truth-claims (in religion, politics, science, or philosophy) for their fidelity to reason and fact and for their ability to explain the phenomena under question.

Tolerance apart from truth is slavery.

Related
How the New Resistance Can Win the Culture War
Christmas Spirit in the Dirt

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 09:01 AM | Permalink

"Republican Sharron Angle says her campaign to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada is 'a calling' from God and that her faith is helping her endure a fiercely competitive race in which Democrats have depicted her as a conservative extremist," reports AP.

The extremists here, of course, are those who reject the mainstream American concept that our polity is based on a Creator who a) has made each us of equal worth and significance (ontological equality) and b) has endowed humanity with "certain unalienable rights," among them "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" (please see the Declaration of Independence).

Nothing could be more mainstream American, therefore, than that public servants live in community with their Creator and with our fellow man, and then appreciate public service as a particular calling within that overarching, liberating, and humane vision.

America would be much improved if people we sent to Washington understood they are creatures of God and not of a materialistic secular state, or of impersonal nature, social classes, victim groups, or any other of the various divisive splinterings that seem so at home in certain political circles -- and yet so alien to who we are in our enduring national identity. 

Sharron Angle appears to be a person who embraces that general humane calling to live in community with our Creator and then to respond with specifity to her particular life situation. Therefore, she campaigns to unseat Harry Reid, a man who seems significantly alienated from the American experiment.  

That, and not ahistorical allegations of "conservative extremism," perhaps goes far in explaining the ire her work raises among secularized elites rather accustomed to imposing their extreme ideological agenda upon America unopposed. That Angle has a real shot at defeating the incumbent Reid only adds fuel to the ire. 

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 11:18 PM | Permalink

"All men are created equal" is a statement of vision, not hypocrisy, argues Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe. He explains:

The Founders chose those words not to describe the nation in which they lived, but a better, more just nation; the nation America could become. Their words became the American creed, the taproot of the American dream -- as worthy of celebrating today as they were in 1776.

Hat tip: Conservatives4Palin

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 09:03 AM | Permalink

Clueless in Washington: "The problem with the Tea Party," says Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, "I think it’s just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country. It will die out."

Mr. Graham couldn't be more wrong. And if he wants to reconnect with the Declarational and Constitutional mainstream of American thought and liberty -- which is what the Tea Party is reaching for -- he might want to avail himself of "How the New Resistance Can Win the Culture War."

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 11:26 PM | Permalink

"I'm not going to pretend to a faith I don't feel," says Julia Gillard. But she has "great respect for religion," according to the UK Telegraph.

Three quick points:

1) Faith, at least "trust" placed in our Creator, is a matter of facts, not of feeling. The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, for example, is not a feeling. It is either a fact of history or it is not. If it is a fact of history, a reasonable person acts in accordance with that fact; an unreasonable person does not.

2) If the prime minister does not "believe in God," why does she "respect religion"? If a particular "religious" truth claim is false (for example, an assertion that the Easter Bunny is God), why respect it? If a relgious assertion is false, one might hold respect for the misinformed "believer," but "religious" truth claims are the same as any other truth claim. Those which are true ought to be affirmed, and those which are not true ought not to be affirmed. 

3) Finally, the epistemology of the Creator as set forth in the information given in the Biblical data rejects the concept that "faith" is merely a private experience in which people can pretty much "believe" whatever they want and feel good about it. That's not faith, it's nonsense. Biblical "faith" is not about a privatized a way of knowing but rather a fact-based way of trusting -- it's a decision of the whole person based on good and sufficient evidence (as Francis Schaeffer often said) that certain propositions about God, man, and the universe are true.

Gillard gets high marks for her lack of pretense. But based on what we have in this report in the Telegraph, what she rejects has little to do with real Christianity, for what she thinks she rejects is already equally rejected, and even more profoundly rejected, by Christianity itself. 

The real thing -- holistic commitment based on knowable truth -- so that people might live lives of community with their Creator and fellow man -- has always been much more rigorous and reality oriented that what sometimes passes for "faith" these days.

As for me and my house of free-thinkers, we too have great respect -- for truth.

Related
"Religion Very Harmful to People," by Udo Middelmann

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 08:36 AM | Permalink

Alex Pappas at The Daily Caller:

Is Nikki Haley’s primary run-off opponent in the South Carolina gubernatorial race subtly using her religious background to try to alienate the Indian-American candidate born with the name “Nimrata Randhawa” from conservative voters?

Her opponent, Rep. Gresham Barrett, has been vocal about his deep Christian faith. Haley -- although a baptized Methodist -- was raised by Sikh parents, but converted to Christianity when she was 24.

One well-known Republican in the state thinks so, noting that Barrett’s last campaign commercial was about his faith. “You’re running for governor, not pastor,” the Republican said dismissively of Barrett.

Phillip Bowers, co-chairman of Barrett’s campaign, circulated an e-mail Friday afternoon suggesting Haley has lied about her religion. “There are lots of contradictions to her story. It’s not my place to question her faith, but I do question her honesty. If anyone finds the truth, please let me know,” said Bowers, in an email obtained by The Daily Caller.

A few quick points:

1. There is nothing untoward in evaluating a person's religion. If religion is important to a candidate for office, and if religion influences a candidate, then it seems proper to ask questions about the religion of a candidate. Of course, the questions ought to be relevant and not just a matter of: "Oh, my, she has a different religion."

2. Saying someone is "running for governor, not pastor" is no excuse for not having to answer questions about one's religion. Presumably, one's religious views are held in good faith because one thinks them true and applicable to the real world. Otherwise, why bother? But if this is so, go ahead and answer questions that are relevant to the job for which your are applying, whether it be governor or dog catcher.

3. Not your place to "question her faith"? Nonsense. All "faiths" should be open to question and possible falsification, if you wish their application to the real world. These faiths include faith in science, government, education, various ideologies, political passions, wooly activism, and so on. And, of course, religion.

If you are a human being, you therefore question, for questioning is part of the equipment the Creator has endowed upon each of us to protect us from nonsense masquerading as true science, healthy politics, sound religion, and "I'm from Washington and I'm here to help."
 

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 11:54 AM | Permalink

Why is secularizing America essential for the left? "Because socialism will be possible only with the suppression of the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation 'we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights'," Newt Gingrich told Newsmax. 

The Founders' approach, which is the enduring and defining American mainstream, "means no judge, no bureaucrat, no politician can take away your God-given rights," Gingrich said. "Unless you secularize this country, you can’t take away from the American people the rights that God gave them, and so there is an inherent tension between a creator-endowed model and a socialist model."

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 08:11 AM | Permalink

Wesleyans, Nazarenes, and Southern Baptists were among those who gathered Sunday for the "Oil Spill Day of Prayer." 

The biblical information encourages both human action and Godly action in bringing about substantial healing in a broken world. Both the creature and the Creator are respected.

Unlike atheistic materialism, the Biblical data avoid smashing man on the altar of the machine (be it cosmic or governmental). Human beings are respected and described for what we know ourselves to be: Significant. First causes. Choosing beings able to affect the course of history. The wonder of being created in the image of God. Yes, even the "sinner" is a level of being higher than that of complex, organic space junk coughed up by an impersonal universe, as materialism would seem to require. 

And yet humanity is not God. And therefore we are saved from having to destroy ourselves by giving into that old temptation to deify humanity and set ourselves on high -- as if we were the Creator. Because we then would destroy ourselves, having reached for what we cannot ever be in our finitude and createdness, stretching beyond ourselves to escape the wonder and goodness of who we truly are, in exhange for a false hope, a false promise, and a pie-in-the-sky secularism of an anthroprocentric  heaven on earth. Which no socialistic paradise that I have ever heard of has come close to fulfilling.

Will God act supernaturally to stop the flow or oil? Or will man act supernaturally as a first cause into the cosmic machine to restore balance in the sea and on the land? Whatever the particulars of this moment in history, the theme is everlasting: God and man, significant in work and community, co-working as Creator and creature together for goodness and justice unto the ends of the earth and in the depths of the sea. 

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 04:24 PM | Permalink

"Ignoring the facts is one of the liberals' favorite tactics, because their agenda is not motivated by any facts at all," writes Herman Cain at WorldNetDaily. "Their agenda is totally politically motivated for the purpose of concentrating more power to government rather than the people."

Or put it this way: Operationally speaking, liberalism has "escaped from reason," to borrow a phrase made famous by thinker Francis Schaeffer (see his book Escape From Reason; for a fuller treatment, see Nancy Pearcey's Total Truth).

That is to say, liberalism in both its tactics and philosophical approach has become a political "faith" in the poor sense (and unbiblical sense) of the word faith (for a corrective, go here).

Instead of liberating people to "test everything" -- which is part of the Creator's inbuilt protection against religious, scientific, and political snakeoil -- liberalism instead pushes its "religious" agenda against fact per se and pounds the pulpit with greater ferocity when inconvenient facts raise their challenging heads.

True believers and stubborn sceptics are therefore supposed to click their heels and salute "settled science," turn tail and run in fear from unsubstantiated charges of "racism!," and genuflect before the new and improved manmade "civil right" consensus of the week, so that transgendered lesbian ablinoes can visit their inter-species canine spouses while sick in a San Fran hospital for kitty kats.

In contrast stands the reasonableness, wholeness, facticity, and humanity of the Founding worldview, rooted in verifiable information from a real and knowable Creator who gives the blessings of liberty and inalienable rights so that any person and nation who acts upon that information can experience excellence and exceptionalism even in this less than perfect world.

It's amazing what human beings can accomplish when they read the directions.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 01:26 PM | Permalink

"The left pretends to be the biggest champion of free speech," writes Bruce Walker at American Thinker.

In fact, the "left is utterly wedded to thought control," Walker argues. "Like all sibling totalitarianisms, the left in America is addicted to power and repelled by truth."

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 09:27 AM | Permalink

Obama's moral relativism, says Star Parker, places him at odds with the "whole unique idea of American government." And it leads to a "political arbitrariness in which our lives and property are up for grabs."

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 09:00 AM | Permalink

OneNewsNow reports:

Traditional marriage proponents are warning that homosexual activists and the Obama administration are once again working in concert to "manipulate" federal law.

The Associated Press reports that the Census Bureau plans to count same-sex couples who say they are married, regardless of whether they have a marriage license (see AP article). Even though only five states and the District of Columbia have legalized same-sex "marriages," the Census Bureau says same-sex couples should feel free to check the "husband" or "wife" boxes on the census form, rather than "unmarried partner."

According to OneNewsNow, Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality "believes homosexual activists are using the census as their latest 'gimmick' to seek affirmation of their lifestyle, and he challenges Congress to 'step up' and prevent the Obama administration from promoting the 'gay' agenda by dictate."

A concern here, among many, is that we see yet another example of the rogue federal state using an arm of government (the Census Bureau) to justify the imposition upon Americans of an extremist and regressive agenda not only estranged from the enduring American mainstream but also in opposition to "nature and nature's God."

The homosexual agenda is not a "civil right" based on "equality." Rather, it is an uncivil wrong based on extremism.

And now the Census Bureau appears to be acting at the behest of propaganda aims that are both laughable and cruel, a machine of state oppression tearing away at the flesh of the American family and body politic. 

A country that violates the rules for freedom, rooted in unalienable rights as blessings from the Creator, should not be surprized that it thereby places those freedoms at risk in a dangerous world where unfreedom is the abormal norm, not the liberating exception. 

On the other hand, neither should extremists who despise the mission statement of the United States -- freedom under God -- be surprised that a free, dignifed, and creative "We the People" would just as soon stay that way.

In the face of such disrepect for the enduring American mainstream of freedom, resistance is the humane order of the day.

As tyrants at home and abroad have learned before, Americans are a friendly people. But don't mistake the politeness for the whole story. We are lions in sheep's clothing. And yet you attack.

Related
How the New Resistance Can Win the Culture War

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 10:19 AM | Permalink

Easter Sunday marks the "day Christians believe Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead, and 78 percent of Americans share that belief," according to a new Rasmussen poll, as reported by Newsmax yesterday.

This is positive news, but perhaps not entirely so. Because "belief" today is a very weak sister of the concrete and wholistic spiritual strength required of the human being at all times, but especially so in a day such as ours, so harmed by the impact of secularism upon the modern world.   

Note: The information we have from eyewitnesses is that the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is not a matter of private faith but of public fact. It is based on empirical evidence, not on private hopes and dreams. And it is part of a public orientation that has positive and humane implications for all of life, including media, science, politics, creativity, and fulfilling personal relationships.

Merely private hopes and dreams belong to pie-in-the-sky secularists such as Barack Obama, who is running around the country using emotionalism and sales gimmicks to sell (or otherwise impose) the old-time religion of socialist political mythology to the American people. Free-thinkers "red and yellow, black and white" -- all of them created in the image of God -- demand evidence and are willing to follow the evidence wherever it might lead. Even if Marx, Engels, Rev. Wright, and Preacher Obama are offended.

In stark contrast to cults of politics is the realism of the information we have from eyewitnesses of the empirically empty tomb and the empiricaly available Man from Nazareth who was alive at point A, dead as a doornail at point B, and alive again at point C. None of this is a matter of the privatized, nonbiblical, and inhumane concept of "faith" expected so much in politics, in extremist religion, and in other expressions of the secular kneejerk believism so prevalent in big city anti-existence today. 

The fact of the empirical resurrection in space and time challenges every mere belief system, no matter how large its mailing list -- or how mighty the star power of its A-List celebrity lineup. That kind of fact is superior to groundless religiousity which neverthess is an effective tool politicians employ to win friends, manipulate enemies, "heal" nations, and overthrow governments.

If 78% of Americans ever affirm and live by the resurrection as the fact of history that it is, the various regimes of pretend messiahs setting up shop in Washington, D.C., will be done with. There is but one fact-based risen Messiah, and despite what extremist fundraising letters and formerly mainstream media outlets tell you, he does not live in the White House. A manger in Bethlehem is more his style, and besides, the White House is too small in spirit.

Life lived in community with God and neighbor has little use for the merely religious, for the hardshell secularist afraid to let the faithful think for themselves outside the peer-approved political box, or for other pretenders walking to and fro, seeking whom they might devour in our moment of history.

That's what the real Resurrection is all about: The space-time facticity of life after death. Something physically shocking yet biologically reasonable as an effect the Creator and originator of life would be able to pull off because he has the power of animating being within himself. 

This scandalizes the dogma of the secularist, who when not imposing his private religion upon society is counting the number of atoms dancing atop the tip of meaninglessness. Better to grab ahold of the empirically verifiable Nazarene alive from the dead, if you too would live free and think whole.

Related
Christmas Spirit in the Dirt
How the New Resistance Can Win the Culture War

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 07:40 PM | Permalink

In a column titled, "Doing the Socialists' Bidding," Henry Lamb writes at WorldNetDaily:

People who follow the teaching of Buddha are called Buddhists. People who follow the teaching of Christ are called Christians. People who follow the teaching of Karl Marx are called Marxists, except in the United States, where they prefer to be called Democrats.

Lamb supports his case by noting how the policies of Obama & Co. line up with the platform of the Socialist Party USA -- on matters such as healthcare, energy, natural resources, climate change, financial institutions, unions, etc., all purposely jammed down the throats of America's future by means of the public "education" system.

"Marxism in a free society is like a cancer," Lamb warns. "It grows and spreads and infiltrates every facet of society, always demanding more taxes to provide universal health care, a living wage, adequate housing, education and other entitlements, until eventually, there are no more taxes to take."

How shall we break free of Marx and Obama? "The only cure for Marxist cancer is radical surgery," Lamb concludes. "The first of two necessary operations is scheduled for Nov. 2, 2010."

Obama and Marx must be repealed -- and then replaced by the Declaration, the Constitution, and "We the People," under God, just as the Founders understood. The Creator's rules for freedom are intellectualy, morally, and politically superior to the rules for radicals and the resulting unfreedom. Thereby we toss the horse and rider of unfreedom into the sea. 

Related
How the New Resistance Can Win the Culture War

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 09:48 AM | Permalink

Chuck Norris writes:

Our founders had a far better solution than government.

And it's probably a good time, during this peak of citizens' frustration (and also being Christendom's Holy Week), to remind Americans that, though our founders initiated our government, they didn't expect it to usher in any form of utopia.

As proud as they were about their republic, their hope was not in government, but in God.

For what? Most of the things that people today often look to government for: life, liberty, happiness, salvation, decency, civility, morality, honesty, restraint, equity of power and future hope, to name a few.

Tragically, government has usurped God's role in our republic and Americans' lives.

But this too will pass. For tyranny under bad, oppressive government is not the birthright of human beings nor the birthright of American citizens.

Reject the slavish rules of Obama and his radicals. Embrace the liberating rules of freedom by which the Founders lived, died, and birthed a republic under God. With the living and verifiable Creator, all things are possible, including resurrections.  

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 09:21 AM | Permalink

"A new survey shows a political 'maelstrom' brewing in the U.S. that threatens not only Democrats in power but Republicans who have the tag 'incumbent' attached to their name," reports WorldNetDaily.

Not only must the "bums" be thrown out of office, but more importantly, the unconstitutional and anti-Declarational philosophy of the bums must be thrown out with them as well.

These must be replaced by people of tested character who do not just reject the "rules for radicals" but who also self-consciously affirm the rules of freedom and the liberating "vision-for-freedom" that grounds the American Experiment, as set forth in the founding documents and in the founding worldview.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 08:49 AM | Permalink

If you live in the Washington, D.C, area and are interested in participating in a Schaefferian study group -- for mutual encouragement, cultural engagement, and true spirituality -- please email Rick or Nancy Pearcey of The Pearcey Report at pearcey@thepearceyreport.com.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 02:10 PM | Permalink

If in the last 20 years evangelicals who say they are Bible-believing Christians had applied Scriptural teachings on not "aping the world" (a Schaefferian phrase) in regard to celebrityism, questionable marketing techniques, the bigger-is-better mentality, a despising of the individual, pretend "big name" authors, etc., and instead had demonstrated a high regard for truth in practice, the Lordship of Christ over both content and methodologies, and so on, how might the current cultural and political climate of deepening decline and even oppression from the federal government and its power blocs in Hollywood, media, and the campus have been avoided, resisted, and overcome?

And what might this suggest -- for individuals, churches, schools, publishers, and para-church organizations -- for future authentic Christian and humane engagement to be salt and light in this world?

Related
What Can We Learn From Francis Schaeffer?
Francis Schaeffer -- "The Central Problem of Our Age"
Oxford, Cambridge, Plagiarism, and Christian Worldview
Francis Schaeffer: A Student's Appreciation of a Distinct Approach
I'll Take Sartre
How the New Resistance Can Win the Culture War

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 01:28 PM | Permalink

The following is from a column published today at WorldNetDaily: 

Despite what has been reported in the formerly mainstream media, the New Resistance in America – the tea parties, the town halls, protests on Capitol Hill and so on – is to be welcomed and not cast aside as "extreme." The "angry mobs" and "unruly crowds" are actually signs of health, sanity and hope.

What these uppity folk are telling us is that, despite years of miseducation and inattention, millions of ordinary people have not forgotten who they are as Americans. Even more, this resistance suggests that significant numbers of Americans may be on a path to rediscovering something rather exceptional.

By "exceptional" is meant not just who they are in their national identity, but who they are as creatures of resistance, hardwired that way by the Creator himself. And to the degree that this New Resistance succeeds, to that degree prospects are increased for victory in the cultural and political war for human freedom and human dignity.

This column is based on a presentation I gave near Charleston, S.C., at Awakening 2010 earlier this year, edited here for publication.

* March 27, 2010, Update: For related content from November 2009, please see "What Is Mainstream America?"

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 02:00 AM | Permalink

"Liberty Counsel is representing Christian Educators Association International (CEAI) in a lawsuit against the Santa Rosa County School District after a federal judge denied CEAI's request to overturn a consent decree requiring faculty and staff to stop expressing their faith in public schools," reports Bill Bumpas at OneNewsNow.

This federal judge apparently understands neither the U.S. Constitution nor the concrete, public nature of Christian "faith."

Nothing in the Constitution, Declaration, or Bill of Rights gives a local school the power or authority to tell teachers and students to shut up and sit down when it comes to matters of the free exercise of the Christian faith. The 1st Amendment places limits on the Congress, not on the people. It's high time Congress, courts, and schools listen to not just "we the people" but to "we the people" endowed by our Creator with "certain unalienable rights," etc., etc.

Moreover, nothing in the data of the verifiable information we have in the Bible reduces "faith" to subjective feelings and private prayer closets from which there is no escape. What we have instead is a logically coherent worldview rooted in history, verified in space and time, and able to be practiced in the real world. The God of the Bible is very much a public figure, and those who affirm living in liberating community with our Creator get to do that everywhere, even in the schools.

Biblical "faith" is a matter of wholistic trust based on good and sufficient reasons, not a matter of private epistemology pushed aside and hidden away in some corner. We as individuals and communities ought to resist and reject this regressive pie-in-the-sky secularism imposed by judges foisting their private agendas upon the clear meaning of the texts of the founding documents.

Related
Michele Bachmann on Jesus and Public Policy
What Is "Mainstream" America?

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 10:36 AM | Permalink

Herbert London writes at Human Events:

I’ve said this before but no matter how many times it is said, it bears repeating: the threats that the United States face from a fanatical Islamic foe are made possible by our devotion to positions that undermine our heritage, accomplishments and founding. . . .

Our vulnerability does not stem from a lack of resources or even inept leadership, but rather from a void that emanates from not knowing what we believe. Our real enemy is a lack of confidence, of not believing in our own national achievements.

Arnold Toynbee argued that civilizations die as a result of suicide, not murder. I am not yet willing to concede death, but there isn’t any doubt that America is at risk because of a loss of self-confidence. What ails us internally is at least as threatening as the forces found externally.

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O'Reilly, Letterman, and the Culture War

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 08:04 AM | Permalink

Speaker, author, and former atheist Udo Middelmann, president of the Francis A. Schaeffer Foundation, writes:

The assumption that God is behind all things happening, behind the earthquake in Haiti, Katrina’s destruction in New Orleans, and catastrophes as large as the Tsunami or as little as a household accident, is built on the view of a closed system universe.

There is an effect: therefore there must be a cause. True, but who or what is the cause?

If there is a single cause, there is no distinction between good and evil. If there are many possible causes, we do well to discern and oppose the destructive ones.

To blame historic Christianity’s God is not justified in light of Scripture and the person and life of Jesus. The Bible speaks of a world which now gives God grief, where people and nature are not "at peace," and where God interferes precisely because, as the Lord’s Prayer tells us, His will is not yet being done "on earth as it is in heaven." God sent prophets because what people did was in opposition to the will of God, not in concurrence with it. 

Likewise, Jesus, who is God in the flesh and the exact image of the Father, does not walk about holding people’s hands in their misfortunes and accompany them through misery. Instead he aggressively opposes sickness, false teaching, vile government, and death itself.

Where other religions and secular philosophies start with the assumption of the normality of things and events, as sad as they are, God describes a sickening abnormality in his creation and acts, speaks, protests, and encourages us to do likewise.

There is no fatalism in Jewish and Christian teaching, though many times it seems to be in the language and explanations believers use to erroneously comfort themselves. There is the sound of false piety from what is in fact a total contradiction to what Jesus taught and did.

The faith and hope that God’s sovereignty is expressed in every event is something for the future.

For the time being, Haiti, Tsunami, Katrina, and your child falling out of a swing are things you should be upset about. We should not settle into acceptance, but rise for energetic and healing intervention to prevent each and recurrent tragedies.

For a more thorough development of these ideas you may want to consult my book The Innocence of God.

In addition to his work at the Francis A. Schaeffer Foundation, Middelmann is also visiting professor of philosophy at The King's College in New York City. For more information, please contact Middelmann at The Francis A. Schaeffer Foundation, CH – 1882 Gryon, Switzerland.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 10:44 AM | Permalink

Dave Welch writes at WorldNetDaily:

I would like to take a point of personal privilege (to use parliamentary terms) and address the pastors of Houston, of Texas and of the nation on what happened last Saturday in our runoff election for mayor and several city council positions. . . . I will let the victor speak for herself on the nature of the outcome:

"This election has changed the world for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community. . . . just as it is about transforming the lives of all Houstonians for the better."

So stated Annise Parker, lesbian mayor-elect of Houston, Texas, after 54 percent of the 16 percent of voters who cared enough to show up declared that her private moral life and radical agenda to redefine family was irrelevant. Eighty-four percent didn't care enough.

Here's part of the problem, as Welch sees it: "Liberals have mastered the art of building a farm team and winning by starting at the bottom and running to the top. Conservatives notoriously have the 'King Complex' that municipal districts, school boards and city councils are below us, and start at the top without either experience or political capital."

Do we see a "King Complex" among Christians? That this may be the case, to some degree, seems evident if we simply replace the word King with the word Celebrity.

If I were the Devil, I could think of few better strategies than to get Christians to put just about all of their eggs into a few celebrity baskets. A few big names, a few big organizations, with lots of well-meaning people sending in their checks because:

* Big Name so and so has access to the White House -- But maybe that explains why we heard little to nothing about the growth of un-Constitutional government, spending, etc., from the "spiritual" giant of the hour, during that President's administration. You see, that kind of Biblical critique on behalf of limited government might cut down on White House access and hurt a PR fundraising machine that really needs "I was talking with the President the other day . . ." Sometimes, it seems, "speaking truth to power" works best when directed toward targets of great fundraising opportunity.

* Big Name so and so is a great worldview thinker/writer -- But then, it turns out, he, she, or the machine is rather dependent upon ghostwriters, researchers, radio script writers, column writers -- "authoring" work that becomes "his" after the "name" inserts a few well-placed phrases into the text or simply asserts ownership of other people's ideas (You're On Staff!). In such a system it is often imperative to keep staff harried and busy -- and well-paid, if at all possible -- lest they begin to think about the deceptiveness of what they're doing and consider how the Lordship of Christ might apply even to methods of ministry.

* Big Name says, "It's not about me" -- This is the He's-So-Smart-and-Humble Factor, which as Karl Rove and Vince Flynn in one of his Mitch Rapp novels note means it precisely is about the person in question. The energy, the PR, the image, the fundraising, the website, the biography, the praise from others, etc., etc., in some organizations seem absolutely to be "all about" the Big Name. A name sometimes created through ghosted columns and books, etc., creating alliances aka fiefdoms to mutually support and guard eachothers' backs, and so on. But behind the scenes running over people who truly speak against a secularism that all too often has co-opted much of the good that many well-meaning regular people hope to accomplish.

These are just a few observations based on our experience before and during our time here in the Washington, D.C., area.

My hope: Help protect those who follow -- many of whom care deeply about worldview and political engagement -- from being fed into a religious machine. And maybe to save you 10 or 20 years of energy poured into an activism of questionable strategic and spiritual value, if verifiable Scripture is your guide and if you appreciate the centrality of applying the liberating Lordship of Christ across the whole of life, including political life and including one's methods of ministry in the midst of cultural engagement.

This seems key: Just as politics is downstream from culture, culture in general is downstream from Chrisitan culture in particular. And to the degree that Christian culture or ministry might be darkened by "aping the world" (as Francis Schaeffer so emphasized), to that degree we perhaps should not be surprised at the darkness around us. Perhaps we -- you and I and our methods of  ministry -- are part of the darkness.

But if that is true, there is hope. We know where to begin in the humanity of truly loving our neighbor. We begin by looking in the mirror. If we can deal honestly with that, then maybe the culture and the politics will begin to line up as well.

That may seem like a long way to fix Houston, but it's the shortest route I know of.

Related
Francis Schaeffer: A Student's Appreciation of a Distinctive Approach
Francis Schaeffer: "The Central Problem of Our Age"

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 08:49 AM | Permalink

"The New York Times recently revealed that, before abandoning the idea, Barack and Michelle Obama had considered eliminating the White House’s traditional nativity scene as part of an effort to celebrate a 'non-religious' Christmas," writes attorney and commentator Carol Platt Liebau.

"In light of that story," she continues, "it wasn’t entirely surprising to learn that this year, for the first time, the President’s Christmas card contains neither any mention of Christmas itself nor a quote from the New Testament. Obviously, the Obamas aren’t fans of overt displays of Christian religiosity."

Related
Christmas Spirit in the Dirt

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 06:04 AM | Permalink

A Review of a Reviewer: One wonders, on the basis of this article, if it's OK with famed film reviewer Roger Ebert to affirm that human beings possess "unalienable rights" because they are endowed as such by the Creator (see the Declaration of Independence).

Especially if such an affirmation is rooted in history, reason, and empirical data and answers the basic philosophic questions of life in ways far superior -- including ways far politically superior for those who think human freedom and dignity are good things -- to materialism, atheism, pantheism, existentialism, Hollywoodism, and various other kinds of secularist mysticisms (such as New Ageism) in vogue now and again.

I am no doubt among the millions of Americans who have enjoyed Ebert's film reviews. But on the question of the relation of Judeo-Christian thoughtforms to politics and government, I as a free-thinking human being suggest Ebert may be sincere but sincerely wrong.

Related
Christianity Is a Science-Starter, Not a Science-Stopper
Christmas Spirit in the Dirt 
Fireproof: Reel Rebel Upsets Tinseltown Stereotypes 
Secularist Washington-Centrism Un-American

Hat tip: Big Hollywood

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 07:33 AM | Permalink

The first National Tea Party Convention in Nashville next February, with Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann among the speakers, has the makings of being a huge event -- and that may be a gross understatement.

For if the American people dig down deep to the Declarational and Constitutional bedrock of this country -- down to unalienable rights and the living, knowable, and verifiable Creator who is the basis and energizer of those rights -- we may well be on the edge of a cultural-political earthquake of freedom and liberty not seen since the Founding Era and the days of 1776.

But here's one of my primary concerns: That a political machine (either "left" or "right," with its attendant "leadership") or a religious machine (either "left" or "right," with its attendant celebrity "leadership") may find a way to co-opt what up to now appears to be a genuine cultural movement animated by a return to Declaration foundations.

That would be a tragedy, with another generation lost and another 20-30 years of Big Activism and Big Namism but so little effectiveness against the secularist usurpation. An America tipping toward tyranny may not be able to afford much more of that.

Update, Feb. 8, 2010: Please note that Michele Bachmann did not speak at the event. Here is a January 20 statement announcing that Palin will join Bachmann on the campaign trail.

Related
From Going Rogue to Going Constitutional
What Is "Mainstream" America? 
Francis Schaeffer: "The Central Problem of Our Age"

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 12:03 PM | Permalink

Cal Thomas writes:

Great horrors don't begin in gas chambers, killing fields, or forced famines. They begin when there is a philosophical shift in a nation's leadership about the value of human life. Novelist Walker Percy examined the underlying philosophy that led to the Holocaust and wrote: "In a word, certain consequences, perhaps unforeseen, follow upon the acceptance of the principle of the destruction of human life for what may appear to be the most admirable social reasons."

In our day, the consequences of government seizure of one-sixth of our economy and government's ability to decide how we run our lives (it won't stop with health care) are foreseen. They are just being ignored in our continued pursuit of personal peace, affluence and political power.

Opinion polls show a majority of Americans reject this health care "reform" bill. They think haste may waste them in the end. It doesn't matter. Like members of a cult, whatever the leader says, goes. The facts be damned. The crowd from the '60s will "seize the time," in the words of Black Panther radical Bobby Seale, thus sealing our doom as a unique and wonderful nation.

Welcome to the U.S.S.A., the United Socialist States of America.

Two comments:

1) This column deserves a broad readership. It would be super if Rush, Hannity, Levin, Laura, and others were to feature it and comment upon it on their radio shows. If you agree, contact them via Facebook, Twitter, etc., etc.

2) The day is late, but not over. And the battle for freedom is far from over. We can push back against the U.S.S.A. There is no reason a nation of intelligent, creative, and noble Americans created in the image of God has to sit by and watch barbarians impose tyranny upon this "sweet land of liberty." It's all in the Declaration of Independence, folks. Read it, pray it, act it.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 10:11 AM | Permalink

"The Nazi Party tried their best to remove Christ from Christmas by paganising carols, producing glittering swastika, iron cross and toy grenade baubles for the fir tree, research for a new exhibition has found," reports the UK Telegraph.

"Many of the changes made under Hitler, put in place to remove the influence of the Jewish-born baby Jesus, are still in use today, much to the alarm of modern Germans."

Go here for a remedy to this kind of state-sponsored manipulation of Christmas.

Related
Fascism Is Back

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 07:21 AM | Permalink

"The global warming fraud is a lesson in the self-censorship of liberals," writes James Lewis at American Thinker, "their fear of finding out the truth."

Sometimes, thinking freely can scare the horses. But it is essential to our humanity as creatures endowed by a Creator with "certain unalienable rights."

As an alternative to the regressive self-censorship James Lewis exposes, here is "Christmas Spirit in the Dirt," an essay that unfolds from this-world biblical data a liberating worldview that encourages freedom of thought, sales resistance to political messiahs, and a healthy skepticism to all future winners of Nobel Peace Prizes.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 12:29 PM | Permalink

Dave Welch, founder of the U.S. Pastor Council, writes at WorldNetDaily:

One of the country's most articulate and credible voices on the threat of radical Islam within our borders stated last week that it is the greatest threat to our nation today beyond any other domestic issues we are addressing. In the strictly national security and geopolitical contexts, this person was right. As she stated, government takeover of health care and other industries are not a concern to those who are dead.

I'll have to admit, however, that my spirit rejected the notion that radical Islam is THE greatest threat to America any more than it was when Muhammad's hordes were sweeping on horseback through northern Africa, the Middle East and into western Europe a millennia ago. Imperialist Islam has been defeated and contained before and certainly can be again.

The question is whether there are as many Christians left in America willing to live and die for our faith, families and freedom as there are orthodox Muslims willing to kill and die for theirs.

The pathetic preaching that has created a generation of shallow, self-focused professing followers of Jesus Christ has done far more damage to our national security than any conspiracies of men of any religion or no religion, any race and any creed could do.

More . . .

Related
Francis Schaeffer: The Central Problem of Our Age
Francis Schaeffer: A Student's Appreciation of a Distinct Voice

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 08:50 PM | Permalink

"A Christian advocacy group says about 80 pastors have preached partisan political sermons -- daring the Internal Revenue Service to revoke their churches' tax exempt status," reports AP.

Few actions seem more timely, more humane, more liberating, more biblical -- and more patriotic today -- than Americans questioning authority and defying government when it violates the Constitution, shreds the Declaration, and sets itself up as the Creator and source of human rights, including the right of free speech. 

And later on -- O Defiant Ones -- when your educated, free, creative, and responsible kids and grandkids full of life and humanity under God ask what you did in the war, you'll have something to say. The blessings of the fathers will be visited upon the children.   

Related
Politics From the Pulpit

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 11:18 AM | Permalink

From OneNewsNow:

Sunday services may be a bit different this weekend in some churches across the U.S.

September 27 is "Pulpit Freedom Sunday." According to senior counsel Erik Stanley of the Alliance Defense Fund, it is a time when pastors can stand in their pulpits and proclaim the entire truth of the gospel -- even as it applies to candidates in elections.
 
"It really flows from the fact that pastors have a right to speak freely from their pulpits without fearing government censorship or intimidation -- and that no one should be able to intimidate pastors into giving up their constitutional rights," the attorney explains.

The Creator is, of course, a public figure. He is not stuck somewhere inside a "religious" closet, in obedience to the ACLU or MSNBC. 

And He cares about liberating the whole person from sin, death, and decay, as expressed in our relationships as persons across the coherence of our private and public lives -- as fathers and mothers, teachers and students, pastors and politicians, artists and scientists, and all the rest.

The Leader of the Resistance himself could not have been more clear: "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation" (Mark 16:15). That includes pulpits. Even in America. Even on Sundays. And the rest of the week, too. Across the whole of our lives.

Living as a free, dignified, and whole people in community with our Creator has consequences. Among them are what our Founders called "The Blessings of Liberty." This is one reason freethinkers rejoice. And why tyrants with all their god-talk tremble.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 10:39 AM | Permalink

Jack Cashill writes at American Thinker:

In his new book, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage, best-selling celebrity journalist Christopher Andersen has blown a huge hole in the Obama genius myth without intending to do so.

Relying on inside sources, quite possibly Michelle Obama herself, Andersen describes how Dreams came to be published -- just as I had envisioned in my articles on the authorship of Dreams. With the deadline pressing, Michelle recommended that Barack seek advice from "his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers." . . .

Andersen continues, "In the end, Ayers's contribution to Barack's Dreams From My Father would be significant -- so much so that the book's language, oddly specific references, literary devices, and themes would bear a jarring similarity to Ayers' own writing." 

One wonders how any self-respecting, truthful person can allow his or her reputation for smarts, much less genius, to be constructed upon the work of others (whether the others are willing or otherwise). And yet there are such people, known people -- here in the Washington area and beyond -- including, to be fair, both Christians and non-Christians.

It's all part of the deception that occurs all too routinely in "authorship," "worldview thinking," column-"writing," radio "commentary," and all the rest.

What, you think these folks so often marked by a culture that doesn't have time to read legislation before they vote somehow have time, energy, and space to write books, columns, etc., etc?

And yet, if these "gods" are to maintain the pretense of having the necessary smarts to save the world from their Washington offices or Washington "ministries," they must create and maintain an image of genius, compassion, humility, "spirituality," and so on.

Hence the necessity of the unseen people doing unseen work, often well-compensated, down in the basement or on contract out in the hinterlands somewhere. Hence ghosted work is parlayed into speeches, retreaded into devotionals, sublimated into training programs, and upgraded in the latest greatest book "written" by Mister Big. And it all goes on the website (bio: "author of 34 books!"), as a humble service for the readers (i.e., potential donors), of course.

If you wonder why secularists laugh at and scorn Christians in Washington, it's partly because the veterans know the score, know the pretense, and are more than happy for ammunition handed to them by which to ridicule, distract, and attack. This pretense, these phonies, and these pretenders hurt many people.

Fundraising machines fueled by Big Names created by PR teams, researchers, and ghostwriters are no way to redeem the culture, folks.

Especially if out of the other side of his mouth Mr. Worldview Expert is telling sinners they need to shape up and accept He who is the Truth. A corrupt political culture is downstream from many things, including a corrupt, secularized, Madison Avenue "Christian" culture.

Fortunately, we can do better and have models available in the likes of a C.S. Lewis and a Francis Schaeffer who demonstrate the authenticity, efficacy, and spirituality of real work by real people.

Until the pretender model of "ministry" is cast aside -- and truth is practiced and not just preached -- it is difficult to see how the God of Truth can bless those who dissemble even while proclaiming on street corners that they move forward under his banner. Claiming the blessing of God -- and having the blessing of God -- are, of course, two different things.

For more on this, you might consult chapter 13 ("Substantial Healing in the Church") of True Sprituality by Francis Schaeffer and chapter 13 ("True Spirituality and Christian Worldview") of Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey.

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Francis Schaeffer: "The Central Problem of Our Age"
Francis Schaeffer: A Student's Appreciation of a Distinct Approach
What Can We Learn From Francis Schaeffer?

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 01:58 PM | Permalink

"America is in need of a new 'Great Awakening' -- an awakening that some Christian leaders say can only come about if Christians get on their knees," reports CNSNews.com.

That's the view of Rev. William Wilson, who is executive director of the International Center for Spiritual Renewal (ICSR), quoted by CNSNews: 

America right now is facing great complexities. We have a financial struggle that we’re in, we’re facing health-care issues that have us scratching our heads. Our place in the world has shifted. We’re a nation that really needs help from beyond ourselves. We feel like God is the help.

ICSR is a member of the Awakening America Alliance, which CNSNews reports is sponsoring "Cry Out America," a September 11 event challenging thousands to "gather at noon [Friday] at county courthouses across the nation in repentance, to pray for the lost, to cry out for God to send another 'Great Awakening.'"

While free-thinking Americans watch, pray, and rebuild, here are three resources we think provide timely and essential content for national renewal:

* Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, by Mark Levin

* A Christian Manifesto (DVD), by Francis Schaeffer

* Total Truth: Liberating Christianity From Its Cultural Captivity, by Nancy Pearcey

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 02:11 PM | Permalink

A policeman can be fired for calling a black man a "banana-eating jungle monkey."

But a scientist can be fired for not calling Man a "banana-eating jungle monkey."

The former penalizes people for their racism; the latter penalizes people for their lack of evolutionism. 

A bit odd, don't you think?

After all, if the evolutionary picture is the whole show, is not Mankind per se a "banana-eating jungle monkey"? Or at least a close cousin?

Racism is evil.

But we learn that from our true Creator. Not from nature.

Not from an impersonal, indifferent cosmos.

And not from the monkeys, from the bananas, from the jungle, or from those who believe in them. 

Surely, you understand the difference.

Our Founders did: "Endowed by our Creator . . ."

It takes a Creator to start a country. Well, at least a country worth living in.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, 

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In case you missed it, WND recently linked (scroll down) to "Beauty and the Beast: Now This Is Extremism," with the following kicker: "Rick Pearcey: Miss California Has Upheld Founders' 'Humane and Liberating Worldview.'"

Here's the article at Pro-Existence.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 04:28 PM | Permalink

Americans today storm the beaches to liberate a once-free land now under the heel of statist tyranny emanating from a foreign city in a land far, far away.

There will be casualities, ebbs and flows, and setbacks in the struggle against an oppressive empire. But we've seen this before, and, under God -- the living and verifiable Creator who endows every mother's son and daughter with "certain unalienable rights" -- we will win. There is no alternative.

Slavery in exchange for the forbidden fruit of Washington-centric "security" and "fairness" dolled out by a regime of secularist "values," political greed, and unquenchable thirst for power is no option for any self-respecting human being or his neighbor. We are better than this. We are created for higher things. And we will overcome.

Here's an offshore pre-invasion report from WND, noting that a "patriotic rocker, thousands more planning to 'take America back.'"

There goes a rocket even now. See the red glare?

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 09:41 AM | Permalink

Rev. J. Curtis Lovelace writes:

On April 15, citizens around the nation will gather in "Tea Parties" to protest profligate spending of taxpayer money, by the elected "representatives" of the people. I will be among them. Let me first state that I am not against taxes. When they are used to meet the constitutionally-intended purposes for taxation, I am willing to put up my share. I am not willing to pay for unconstitutional activities. Nor am I willing to pay your share.

Many in the "movement" of tax protesters have stated that their complaint is not against taxation without representation as was the first Tea Party in Boston Harbor. That may be the case with those individuals. It is not my situation. I am unrepresented in Congress. Millions of others who wish to protect the Constitution of this country are also feeling disenfranchised.

More from Rev. Curt . . .

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 10:54 AM | Permalink

In his handbook for living as a human being in a broken world with manipulative politicians, preachers, scientists, and used-car salesmen, the Creator liberates his fellow rebels against evil by exhorting them to "test everything" (1 Thess. 5:21).

Thus, Sandy Rios questions "America's Pastor" Rick Warren vis-a-vis his Larry Kingish running for the hills on the question of standing up for the Biblical, Gospel, and life-enhancing circle of life called marriage -- as between a man and a woman in community under God.

One might add, however, this to the Rios column: Let's refrain from calling Mr. Warren "America's Pastor." You can be his friend, his seminary classmate, etc., etc. I have never met Warren personally, and he may be a swell guy. But, please, "America's Pastor"? That's ridiculous.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

David Limbaugh corrects the record.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 08:38 AM | Permalink

The Discovery Institute, where Pearcey Report editor at large Nancy Pearcey is a fellow of the Center for Science and Culture, announces an advance in educational and scientific freedom:

Austin, TX -- Today [March 27], the Texas Board of Education chose science over dogma and adopted science standards improving on the old "strengths and weaknesses" language by requiring students to “critique” and examine “all sides of scientific evidence.” In addition, the Board -- for the first time -- specifically required high school students to “analyze and evaluate” the evidence for major evolutionary concepts such as common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations. 

The new science standards mark a significant victory for scientists and educators in favor of teaching the scientific evidence for and against evolution.

“Texas now has the most progressive science standards on evolution in the entire nation,” said Dr. John West, Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute.  “Contrary to the claims of the evolution lobby, absolutely nothing the Board did promotes ‘creationism’ or religion in the classroom. Groups that assert otherwise are lying, plain and simple. Like the boy who cried ‘Wolf,’ the Darwin only lobby always screams ‘creationism!’ anytime educators or policymakers try to ensure a fair presentation of the scientific evidence both for and against evolution. Let’s be absolutely clear: Under the new standards, students will be expected to analyze and evaluate the scientific evidence for evolution, not religion. Period.” 

Regarding teaching creationism or religion in the public school classroom, a couple of points are worth noting.

First, this is a terrific win for academic freedom, but it should be remarked that nothing in the Declaration of Independence or U.S. Constitution forbids teaching creationism or religion in the classroom. Entrenched secularist dogma on this matter is less than convincing.

In fact, progress in the American experiment in liberty advances from the fixed point of a knowable and objectively existing Creator who endows humanity with unalienable rights. The Constitution is a legal contract designed to protect those rights so that what Mark Levin in Liberty and Tyranny calls a "civil society" might come to actuality, which is what happened in the course of human events that we call the American Revolution.

The 1st Amendment forbids Congress from sticking its Federal Nose into our business, educational or otherwise -- something those who embrace a secularist tryanny over the minds of free human beings seem to disapprove. The 1st Amendment does not forbid Texicans or the rest of us from exercising our freedom and our sovereignity in education.

Here's the 1st Amendment in its entirety:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.  [emphasis added]

The question therefore is not whether creationism or religion can be taught in the classroom. Of course they can. The real question is this: What's the evidence? If the evidence for or against a particular theory of origins is scientific, then present the case for and against, let the students think for themselves, and let them make up their own minds. Even in biology class.

The second point is that the Creator acknowledged in the Declaration, and against whom Congress is prohibited from passing laws against, is not a matter of "religious" belief or "faith" in the poor sense of the word bandied about inside and outside of secularist circles today.

The more rigorous, concrete, humane, and Biblical concept of faith has to do with the commitment of the whole person to that which is rationally, empirically, and existentially knowable as true. It is a worldview commitment rooted in truth about God, man, and the cosmos -- that same worldview, by the way, which provided the critical intellectual mass needed to launch modern science in the first place.

This wholistic approach has nothing to do with subjectivist "values," privatized "faith," emotional crutches, blind believism, or other characteristics swimming about in congressional waters, "religious" meetings, secular baptisms, and marketing strategies of the ACLU. 

The wonder and dignity of humanity male and female created in the image of a knowable God who endows each of us with unalienable rights cannot be squeezed into such limiting, dehumanizing, and regressive nonsense. It's time we all broke free of those chains. Bravo, Texas!

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 01:52 PM | Permalink

Matthew Vadum at AmSpec on the firing of the GM CEO:

This aggressive assault on American capitalism is unprecedented and should give all Americans who care about freedom pause.  

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National Obama Socialism
Regarding "Change" -- Liberals Drink Deeply From Fascist Well
Fascism Is Back
The Evil Religious Presidents Do

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 07:30 AM | Permalink

A hard-copy prepublication version of Nancy's new book arrived in the mail today. This edition is also being sent to expert readers who have requested such a copy. More about this later, but comments already coming in are quite positive, for which we are thankful.

Remembering that politics follows culture -- especially during these days of an oppressive secularism, governmental and otherwise -- I can honestly say that this next volume offers a mighty blow against the forces of manipulation, fragmentation, and inhumanity at large in so many areas of contemporary life, thought, and society.  

Nancy and I are thrilled with how this project has developed, and we appreciate the vision and support of Philadelphia Biblical University in producing this hard copy and in supporting Nancy's writing and thinking. Great job all!

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

David Noebel of Summit Ministries writes:

Who is the president's latest adviser? The Rev. Jim Wallis. Frontpage Magazine (March 17, 2009) reports, "The most notable of [Obama's] spiritual advisers today is his friend of many years, Rev. Jim Wallis." Rev. Wallis admits that he and Obama have "been talking faith and politics for a long time." He was picked by Obama to draft the faith-based policies of his campaign at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last year. Why should this alarm us?

First, Jim Wallis has had relationships with the communist Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES).

Second, his "Witness for Peace" was an attempt to defend the Nicaraguan Sandinistas! Wallis, together with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright (Obama's former pastor of 20 years) "rallied support for the communist Nicaraguan regime and protested actions by the United States which supported the anti-communist Contra rebels" (Family World News, February 2009, p. 7).

Third, Wallis and his Sojourners Community of fellow-travelers believe Fidel Castro's Cuba, Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua and the other revolutionary forces "restructuring socialist societies" are the communist paradises the United States needs to emulate in order to establish "social justice." Writing in the November 1983 issue of Sojourners, Jacob Laksin notes, "Jim Wallis and Jim Rice drafted what would become the charter of leftist activists committed to the proliferation of communist revolutions in Central America" (Laksin, "Sojourners: History, Activities and Agendas" in Discoverthenetworks.org., 2005).

The ugly truth is Wallis wishes to see the destruction of the United States as a nation and in its place "a radical nonconformist community" patterned after the progressive, socialist commune he established in Washington, D.C., in 1971 (Laksin, Ibid.).

More from Noebel at WorldNetDaily.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 10:36 AM | Permalink

"Opposition is mounting to the University of Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama to be a commencement speaker in May," reports OneNewsNow.

This is a sign of spiritual health. Inviting him to speak and conferring a degree upon him is a sign of spiritual weakness. Worldview confusion. Sellout.

By his language and actions, Obama inhabits a post-Catholic, post-Protestant, post-Christian, post-Declaration, post-Constitution, post-American, post-humane universe. Other than that, no problem.

Notre Dame would do well to disinvite the President with extreme unction. Just as the great and free people of the United States of America should show him and his Statist, Washington-centric worldview the door at the first opportunity. Exit stage left. Now, April 15, and forevermore. 

If asked to serve humanity in such a fashion, I'll be happy to stand in for the President at Notre Dame to explain the matter in further detail. You don't even have to confer a degree.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 10:23 AM | Permalink

Please stay tuned for program announcements as I am happy to join San Francisco KDIA 1640 AM radio talk how host Karen Hughes for occasional "Worldview Correspondent" (scroll down to "Special Correspondents") comment and analysis on news, trends, people, and events.

The name of the program is "Changing Worldviews." Here's a link to our interview on "Revenue, Rush, and Revolt?"

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"Texas students will continue to have the right to pray at the beginning of each school day," reports OneNewsNow.

"We just got a three-to-zero ruling in favor of the Moment of Silence law preserving the rights of kids to be able to pray silently at the beginning of the school day and be able to do that without government interference," explains Hiram Sasser of the Liberty Legal Institute.

Sasser says the lawsuit was brought by atheists offended that school children might pray silently in school. 

Speaking of Texas and freedom, one wonders: Do you think defenders of the Alamo prayed, silently or otherwise? Do you think they would have waited for a judge to OK such prayer? Do you think the likes of a Davy Crockett or Jim Bowie would have cared one Tequila whether Santa Anna or Karl Marx might be offended?

Which do you think more likely -- that the Alamo heroes saw their rights as human beings rooted in a secular, atheistic state or, rather, in our true Creator, as set forth in the Declaration of Independence?

Do you think the Creator, who is a public and knowable figure by the way, is upset when people created in His image and endowed by Him with "certain unalienable rights" honestly exercise those rights in public spaces such as schools, even the local government school?

Finally, who is more in line with the American mission statement as set forth in the Declaration and protected by the Constitution, atheists who want to shut prayer down in public places -- or citizens, including kids, who want to live wholistically in community with their true Creator?

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 04:23 PM | Permalink

We received an inquiry today asking whether the June 2009 "worldview conference on wheels" tour of Rome-Florence-Paris is still open.

Answer: Yes!

A reminder: We sent the manuscript of Nancy's new book (which is related to theme of the tour) to our agent, and now a publisher is talking a look.

Those who attend the tour will get an exclusive preview of what Nancy has been working on.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 04:53 PM | Permalink

Great news!

As of today, Nancy's next best-selling book is in the hands of our great agents (Yates & Yates). Pre-publication readers are already taking a look.

It's not yet time to release details. But let me just say: If you liked Total Truth: Liberating Christianity From Its Cultural Captivity, well, get ready to celebrate again. We'll keep you informed with further updates.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 03:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

From OneNewsNow:

A former chaplain [Rex Carter] with the Virginia State Police says he had no choice but to step down after a new policy took effect requiring generic prayers at department events.

Stepping down does not mean giving up.

“Why be silent on an issue that I have felt strongly about enough to resign from a program that I feel is so important,“ Carter said. He believes the prayer bill will eventually be re-introduced. In the meantime, he’s encouraging people everywhere to stand up for their religious rights. 

Consistent with the mission statement of the United States, the Founders stood up for their human right to publicly speak and publicly behave in ways consistent with their having been made in the image of God and endowed by our true, public, and nongeneric Creator with "certain unalienable rights," among them "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Officer Carter seems to understand and respect this humane and liberating vision that defines American progress. May his efforts to re-establish the "blessings of liberty" enjoy the support of the One from whom those blessings derive. That approach seemed to work well for George Washington and company.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 09:46 AM | Permalink

We appreciate the way pastors and churches continue to find Total Truth a helpful book. Here's a recent recommendation.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 07:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

My radio interview with "Changing Worldviews" host Sharon Hughes of KDIA 1640 AM in San Francisco aired yesterday.

We are also adding the Center for Changing Worldviews to our list of resources under "Groups" on the main page of The Pearcey Report.

To listen to "Revenue, Rush, and Revolt?," click here.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 03:30 PM | Permalink

The great Renaissance painter and sculptor Michelangelo was born March 6, 1475, 534 years ago yesterday. He began work on his famed statue the David in 1501 and completed it in 1504. Michelangelo was 29 years old. 

Let's consider this man and his art and its relevance for our day, interacting with comments from Francis Schaeffer in his work How Should We Then Live? (Crossway: Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, Vol. 5, pp. 114-115).

Schaeffer begins inside the Accademia in Florence, where the David is located:

Here we see on either side Michelangelo's statues of men "tearing themselves out of the rock." These were sculpted between 1519 and 1536. They make a real humanistic statement: Man will make himself great. Man as Man is tearing himself out of the rock. Man by himself will tear himself out of nature and free himself from it. Man will be victorious. . . ."

I saw and touched (winning the polite attention of security) one of these statues during my first and only (thus far!) visit to Florence. I had hitched a ride from L'Abri in Switzerland and carried with me a copy of Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy. Having that book in your mind was a tremendous way to see Florence.

"At the focal point of the room," Schaeffer continues, is the "magnificent statue of David (1504)."

As a work of art it has few equals in the world. Michelangelo took a piece of marble so flawed that no one thought it could be used, and out of it he carved this overwhelming statue. But let us notice that the David was not the Jewish David of the Bible. David was simply a title. Michelangelo knew his Judaism, and in the statue the figure is not circumcised. We are not to think of this as the biblical David but as the humanistic ideal. Man is great!

Man, human beings -- you and me, our neighbors, all of us red and yellow, black and white -- in fact are great. But not, as the unfinished statues of Michelangelo may suggest, because we have to tear ourselves out of nature. 

Rather, consistent with what the Declaration of Independence avows (which is the "Vision Statement" or "Mission Statement" of the United States), what makes humanity great is that we are the magnificent work of a Divine Sculptor, who happens to be the Creator by virtue of whom every single human being is endowed with "certain unalienable rights." And, by the way, Nature is also great and not a meaningless piece of particulate junk, because she too is a gift from the Creator and therefore ought to be cared for and respected, just like Genesis 1:28 liberates humanity to do.

As Schaeffer describes it, the political situation of Michelangelo's day bears some resemblance to our our own: 

The statue was originally planned to stand forty feet above the street on one of the buttresses of the cathedral, but was placed outside the city hall in Florence, where a copy now stands. The Medicis, the great banking family which had dominated Florence since 1434, had run the city by manipulating its republican constitution. A few years before David was made, the Medicis had been thrown down by the people and a more genuine republic restored (1494). Thus, as the statue was raised outside the city hall, though Michelangelo himself had been a friend of the Medicis, his David was seen as the slayer of tyrants. Florence was looking with confidence toward a great future. (Emphasis added.)

We see in our own day a manipulating of a "republican constitution" (think: "living" Constitution). Central to the truly living Mission Statement of United States (in the Declaration of Independence) is that a republic under the Creator would respect unalienable rights from that Creator, resulting in a balance of "form and freedom" (a phrase often used by Schaeffer). This amazing and unique balance maximized individual liberty among the people and states but without chaos, and it also established a unity of purpose nationally but without overweening control out of Washington.

To put this in contemporary parlance, it wasn't "unity is our strength" or "diversity is our strength," but rather "unity and diversity under God is our strength." All the difference in world.

To the degree that secular elites have imposed an alien agenda that casts away the founding Mission Statement of the United States (or keeps the form but denies the meaning), to that degree we have seen a corresponding loss of individual freedom, including direct attacks on the unalienable rights hardwired into humanity by the verifiable and knowable Creator. Not unrelated to this, the economic crisis we see today emerges in no small degree from a secularist, power-minded Washington-centrism and is the natural outworking of uprooting the American experiment in liberty from what the Founders knew is the soil of liberty as gifted to humanity by the Creator.

"Hope springs eternal," says the poet. And in the David is a "statement of what the humanistic man saw himself as being tomorrow!," says Schaeffer.

In this statue we have man waiting with confidence in his own strength for the future. Even the disproportionate size of the hands says that man is powerful. This statue is idealistic and romantic. There was and is no man like the David. If a girl fell in love with the statue and waited until she found such a man, she would never marry. Humanism was standing in its proud self and the David stood as a representation of that.

The challenge for humanism is not its ideals per se, but that it lacks an adequate intellectual basis to sustain those ideals, so that when crisis comes, we see breakdown instead of recovery. And we do see the breakdown, despite the concerted efforts of political, PR, and marketing types working overtime to simultaneously distract (e.g., attack Rush Limbaugh) and overlay a comfortable but Orwellian spin upon the breakdown (e.g., the president not concerned about market "gyrations").

However, in the world beyond the teleprompter, the press release, and the attack dog, what we are witnessing today is not just the loss of economic power and freedom, but also assaults on freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religious exercise, and so on. Man is great, but man is not God. You could put all the smartest people in the world in Washington and still the federal government is not God, as the original Vision Statement of the United States clearly understands. Secularist Washington-centrism must decrease if a humane American liberty is to increase. Read the directions.  

Our Founders understood this, but many of today's elites seem to reject it. It's not that the secularists are too smart for their own good, but that they are operating out of an inadequate philosophic framework. We'll recover as a nation if we return to the original Mission Statement and mark progress from that point forward. 

Perhaps the later Michelangelo can help lead the way forward:

[T]here are signs that by the end of his life Michelangelo saw the humanism was not enough. Michelangelo in his later years was in close touch with Vittoria Colonna (1490-1547), a woman who had been influenced by Reformation thought. Some people feel they see some of that influence in Michelangelo's life and work. However that may be, it is true that his later work did change. Many of his early works show his humanism, as does his David. In contrast stand his later Pietas (statues of Mary holding the dead Christ in her arms) in the cathedral in Florence and in the castle in Milan, which was probably his last. In the Pieta in the cathedral in Florence, Michelangelo put his own face on Nicodemus (or Joseph of Arimathea -- whichever the man is), and in both of the Pietas humanistic pride seems lessened, if not absent.

I began this post this morning simply as an effort to show an appreciation for one of my favorite artists, a person that I and a host of others would surely have liked to have known. He, like all of us, had his struggles. But even the Great Michelangelo of the Pietas was willing to place himself at the feet of a flesh and blood rebel condemned as a common criminal who happened to be the Savior and Son of God. That's right: A resurrected guy from the Middle East outback whose love and truth challenged and overturns the hopeful but inadequate humanism of then and now. 

The Founders understood the centrality and necessity of the Creator, and they rejected the idolatry of the federal state and the Kingdom of Washington. Many of us today get it. Hope and freedom never die. They are unalienable. They are hardwired into humane and human existence. Yes, we get it. Let's hope Washington hears before it's too late.  

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 01:01 PM | Permalink

Dave Miller writes at Facebook:

Rick, Have you noticed how all of these liberals and pseudo-conservatives are coming out of the woodwork and proclaiming shock that Obama is actually a radical leftist, possibly even a card-carrying socialist and outright Marxist? After all the stuff with Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground and Rev Wrong and Black Liberation Theology, you have to wonder exactly what they were thinking.

Of course we know what they were thinking. They were letting their liberal notion of "white guilt" lead them to vote for the first black president despite his views and positions, simply on account of his race. If anyone is a racial coward (sensu AG Holder) it's the cowardly left who blindly voted for Lord Obama.

And this is the best case scenario. The worst case scenario is that they all knew exactly what they were getting and are now having second thoughts. Their leftist "bed-time story" is a heck of a lot scarier in person than in the text books and leftist think-tanks.

Comment: It is important to analyze the presuppositions and worldviews of those seeking office, because office-seekers always actualize them, or try to. This will help protect people from superficial, politically correct, and reactionary analysis of trends and current events.

Obama may employ the term Christian to describe himself and may throw in a Bible verse for good measure. But to the degree that he presupposes and works within Marxist categories (class struggle, class warfare, spread the wealth, blame and therefore tax "the rich"), those presuppositions will seek incarnation in Obama's policies. A Christian label -- often just political god-talk -- is no match for the actual thoughtforms that inhabit and move a person. (This analysis, by the way, holds for any politician or public figure, including Republicans.)

This worldview dynamic is how a "Christian" can advocate that which does not line up with real-world information we have from the verifiable and knowable Creator, creating a seedbed for hypocrisy, manipulation, distrust, inhumanity, and revolt.

This is one reason resistance is a civilized option to a "Christian" president who accepts the ugly fascist barbarism of abortion. To wave the bloody banner of "choice" contradicts reason, advances oppression, and constitutes a pathetic loss of dignity. Legalized theft to redistribute wealth and property is also inhumane and sinful, even if you throw a Bible verse on top of it and get a preacher to say a prayer. 

Journalists and observers of the political scene would do all a favor if their work addressed politicians at a more insightful level. Added benefit: Fewer unpleasant surprises and a more humane country.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Live From Detroit -- Tomorrow WLQV am 1500 talk show host Paul Edwards and I are scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

He tags his show "The Center for Study of God and Culture," and I look forward to joining Paul and his on-air academy again.

To call in, phone: 866-423-WLQV. Listen online here. 

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 02:52 PM | Permalink

From Broadwayworld.com:

The production is the biggest hit ever to play at The Mercury Theater, having entertained over 25,000 theatergoers during its Chicago run. THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS, which originally opened in October, has since extended on multiple occasions from its original six-week run and will continue an open run due to overwhelming popularity. The play also enjoyed sold-out runs in New York and Washington, D.C.

Bravo!

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 01:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Homosexuals complained, the Constitution reigned.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 11:10 AM | Permalink

What poses a greater threat to the American Dream of freedom and dignity under God -- predatory lending or predatory government?

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Rochester, Minn., branch of L’Abri Fellowship, founded by Francis and Edith Schaeffer, held a conference in town last weekend (February 13-14).

Bob Osburn, Executive Director of the MacLaurin Institute, was there:

"The annual Rochester L’Abri conference, an annual respite from winter’s bitter chill, is a combination family reunion and Chautauqua festival for Christians who have and are cutting their intellectual eye-teeth on Francis Schaeffer.  This year’s conference lived up to its sterling reputation, albeit with a slightly small crowd of 550 as compared with the usual 700.

"First, there are the L’Abri workers themselves.  Schaeffer was an evangelist with a deep feel for the human being in front of him, and his successors carry on that tradition of Christian humanism. They serve and serve and serve, all with good cheer and unusually sensitive attention to the person in front of them.

"Second, of course, there are the registrants, who vary in age from middle school all the way up to their 80s, with a large slab of Baby Boomers and an increasing contingent of 20-somethings. They are a combination of home-schoolers, thoughtful middle-aged professionals, college-aged students, and assorted others -- all questing for answers to deep questions, and finding them. This is no cult, just a community questing honestly for answers.

"Speaking of the content, over 40 different workshop and plenary sessions on topics ranging from gardening to Pascal to music were led by seasoned L’Abri veterans who are universally alarmed by facile answers and eager to get below surface issues to presuppositions.  

"This year’s thematic focus on creation provided needed compensation for those eager to hear -- but not hearing -- in their churches about the profound implications of the first two and the last two chapters of the Bible. Suffice to say, God loves His creation enough to redeem it, and we should too."

Here’s the website for Rochester L’Abri. More on Edith Schaeffer here.

By the way, Osburn tells Pro-Existence that as of March 31, he’s embarking on a “new venture with the Wilberforce Academy, an educational initiative aimed at training students to be redemptive change agents in their home societies.” We look forward to hearing more about this new work.    

Related: Francis Schaeffer: “The Central Problem of Our Age.”

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 12:25 PM | Permalink

If politics is "downstream from culture" (as former Capitol Hill staffer Bill Wichterman has observed) and culture in general is downstream from Christian culture in particular ("You are the salt of the earth," Matt. 5:13), these guys -- Rick Ianniello, Ray Ortlund, Mike of On Coffee -- may be on to something regarding the "central problem of our age."

They quote from Francis Schaeffer:

The central problem of our age is not liberalism or modernism, nor the old Roman Catholicism or the new Roman Catholicism [yes, Schaeffer was a Protestant!], nor the threat of communism, nor even the threat of rationalism and the monolithic consensus which surrounds us. All these are dangerous but not the primary threat. The real problem is this: the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, individually or corporately, tending to do the Lord’s work in the power of the flesh rather than of the Spirit. The central problem is always in the midst of the people of God, not in the circumstances surrounding them. [bold added] 

You can find this quote on page 66 of No Little People, a book of sermons that are absolute must-reading for any person who prefers not to have his life's work "eaten up" by the secularism of our age.

Not just the secularism in society at large, mind you, but also, very sadly, by the "real problem," by the secular "power of the flesh" we sometimes observe in the methods and mentality embraced in certain circles of big-time, hard-charging Christian ministry.

Nancy and I agree with Schaeffer and Scripture that this is not a secondary matter. Fortunately, we have been able to witness some of this first-hand, so that we might post a "warning label" to help protect others from going down splashy but spirit-eroding dead-ends. This is an issue we do well to focus on, simply as a matter of spiritual balance and humane vitality.

You may have seen and experienced something of this "in house" secularism yourself. In fact, it is very likely you have. If so, we know you are hurting. This is true no matter what the PR says, or what a politician might say while handing out an award or medal to the latest and greatest hero of the ga-ga crowd (ever-so-humbly accepted, of course). You can read all about it in next month's machine-cranked fundraising letter on a mission from God.

But running over people in an effort to "change the world for Christ" or "engage the culture" does not glorify God or evince love of neighbor. Quite the opposite. It's a practical expression of taking the Lord's name in vain.

In my view, what Schaeffer is helping to awaken us to (I know, it's hard to wake up at times) is central to the real crisis behind the crisis of our age. Moreover, it's an analysis that may help explain much that is retrograde, dehumanizing, undignified, and ineffective as a strategy of cultural engagement.

Look: We have had massive organizations at work for decades. Millions and millions of dollars. Years of blood and sweat and pounds of flesh. No one is saying we have nothing to show for this. And yet things seem to be getting worse on a weekly if not daily basis. Just turn on the TV. You begin to wonder if the current strategy is a cultural and spiritual loser.

Maybe Schaeffer was on to something. Maybe there's a reason the Lord had to get him out of this mess and over into Switzerland just so he could get his head together. Just maybe.

Secularism both cultural and religious is taking huge bites and chunks out of the freedom and dignity of humanity. As a way forward, as a way to begin crafting and living an authentic Biblical alternative, you might want to consider chapter 13 of Schaeffer's True Spirituality together with chapter 13 of Nancy Pearcey's Total Truth. These chapters make the central and humanizing case that the Lordship of Christ applies across the whole of life. Boards of big organizations might be shocked, but this Lordship applies even to the nuts and bolts and nitty gritty of ministries CEOed by really famous people whose big names sell lots of books authored or "co-authored" by other people.

Call me a romantic, but I think we can do better than ape the phonies of this world. It's a lot more fun and humane to be a real person doing real work. True enough -- Your hyped name may not be slapped on the covers of as many books, magazine articles, commentaries, radio broadcasts, Larry King's guest list, or White House appointment calendars. So what?!

As the Leader of this revolution pointedly says, those folks "have their reward" (Matt. 6). You can read about that too in No Little People.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Official brochures for our summer 2009 worldview tour of Rome, Florence, and Paris -- titled From Plato to Picasso to You -- are now yours for the viewing.

Included is information on the following: A tour overview, your tour directors, the itinerary, plus details about accommodations, meals, transport (including a night train to Paris), registration, whom to contact for follow-up, and so on.

"We expect this to be a tremendous time of fellowship, on-site examination of significant venues in Western cultural history, and discussion of the relationship of humane and Biblical living across the whole of thought and life."

To see The Pearcey Report on-line version of the brochure, click here. I hope you find the place links and map links of special interest.

Here is a pdf of the official brochure, provided by Philadelphia Biblical University, where Nancy is a professor of worldview studies. We greatly appreciate the university's support for creative worldview initiatives.

As a warm-up, you might brew a cup of coffee and sit down with "Pizza With Michelangelo," in which I discuss a terrific book titled Florence: Art & Architecture.

There's more Pro-Existence tour information here and here.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 06:46 PM | Permalink

La Shawn Barber wonders on Facebook "how one can follow Christ and support the slaughter of the unborn."

She was responding to "Christian Obama-Voters," the Ultimate Oxymoron at Breitbart's "Big Hollywood."

I replied: "There is no logical or worldview connection between following the Lord of Life and embracing the culture of death.

"Philosophical chop suey, cognitive incoherence -- a seedbed of hypocrisy and inhumanity -- is the unconscious mental menu of many people."

Any thoughts?

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It's Casey up to bat in U.S. New & World Report. Hits home run.

Posted by at 08:28 AM | Permalink

This CNSNews video features editor Terry Jeffrey interviewing Ann Coulter, two colleagues from my Human Events days.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 07:25 AM | Permalink

A council in northern England says the woman "failed to respect and preserve" the faith of the teen.

This call for respect rings a bit hollow. After all, the girl "made her own decision," according to the Telegraph.

The mom should resist and take captive this aggressive secularism, rather than deny her calling to live as a whole person in humane community, even in her professional life, with our true Creator.

And according to this report, that is what she's doing. Viva resistance.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 07:15 AM | Permalink

Is a Sarah Palin a fascist? That might fit the template in certain political circles today, but additional information may require second thoughts among nuanced observers.

For one thing, it is progressive champion H.G. Wells who had more than a little to do with letting the phrase liberal fascism out of its cage, writes Prof. Angus Menuge in a just-published review of Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg.

Here are a few points from the Menuge review, which appears in The Pearcey Report. Among others, fans of Obama, Hillary, Gore, and big government conservatism may want to take note.

* For Obama fans: Something at work in mainstream culture “makes it easy for Barack Obama to champion a new New Deal (mentioned 9 times in his book The Audacity of Hope) as the solution to our economic woes, without anyone recalling the connections between Roosevelt’s and Hitler’s ‘new deal’ (122, 130-131) and the more sinister sides of Roosevelt’s authoritarian statism.”

* For Hillary fans suspicious of the traditional family: “While being pro-family often elicits the ‘fascist’ label today, the Nazis were opposed to the family –- and not merely because unregulated unions led to unfit offspring. The larger issue was that the ‘traditional family is the enemy of all political totalitarianisms because it is a bastion of loyalties separate from and prior to the state,’ the same reason statist progressives like Hillary Clinton ‘are constantly trying to crack its outer shell’ (377).”

* For disciples of Al Gore: "While today’s progressives are frequently pacifist, they continue the tradition of 'crises,' such as Al Gore’s global warming or European disdain for American foreign policies, which cannot be debated because the time for government action is now."

* For religious and political manipulators: “Both fascists and progressives find it expedient to be disingenuous in the propagation of their ideas. There is an outer core of ideas for popular consumption, surrounding an inner core circulated among the elect.

“For example, fascists and progressives encounter resistance when they express their true contempt for revealed religion. So the attempt is made to accommodate broadly religious themes to the agenda of the state (216-217), emasculating any specific teachings of the religion (e.g., on the sanctity of human life) that are inconvenient. This creates the external impression that progressive ideas are the outworking of faith, while in reality, religion is being co-opted by a divinized state (219).”

* For votaries of big government conservatism: “Many self-styled conservatives have also boarded the statist juggernaut, promoting an ever larger role for government as a surrogate parent.”

Read the review . . .

* Cross-posted at Examiner.com.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 02:08 PM | Permalink

William Dembski of Intelligent Design fame questions the healing ministry of Todd Bentley down in Lakeland, Fla.

Such questioning is legitimate, Biblical, humane, and necessary. Humaness, worldview, and discipleship are cut from the single cloth of truth.

We await a reply to Dembski's question: "Faith and Healing -- Where's the Evidence?"

Meanwhile, one way to test the validity of an organization is to examine its methods. Not just the PR methods evidenced on websites with glossy pictures, wondrous bios, and a Herculean list of accomplishments and books, columns, etc., "by" the latest version of "renegade-turned-modern-day-St. Paul."

No, sadly, not the methods on display for public view, but the ones kept "in the basement," as it were. That's where, so often, in the dark, the real work is done.

In this regard, and in liberating contrast, the Lord's work is meant to be done the Lord's way, across the board, and with application to the nuts and bolts of organizations put forward as "Christian ministries."

This was a central concern of Francis Schaeffer, as seen in chapter 13 of the beloved True Spirituality. It is also the concern of chapter 13 of Nancy Pearcey's book Total Truth. The Lord's work is meant to be done in the light.

To follow truth is to embrace beauty. To fake it, "nuance" it, and spin it for "the sake of the Gospel" (i.e., fundraising, etc.) is to demean people and take the Lord's name in vain.

Dances with deception set forth in the service of Celebriantity and its hard-charging gods are a disaster, no matter how much noise is made about "worldview" or "reforming manners," no matter how much access to Big Media or the White House is gained, and so on.

You know the song and dance. It's underlined in hundreds of thousands of "Dear Friend" appeal letters strategically underlined in blue and signed by machines. One might be tempted to conclude that some evangelical marketers think Christians are idiots waiting to be led around by their noses.

"Test everything," says the real Apostle Paul (1 Thess. 5:21). "Testing everything" is key to embracing love and avoiding the cruelty and ugliness of a truncated Christianity and inhumane "ministry."

One more thing: If this isn't fixed, it matters little who wins the election. Politics follows culture. Methods matter. It's a warning and a promise.

* Update: See discussion at Dembski's site, here. "Dembski Questions Famed Healing Ministry" is referenced at response No. 44.

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 08:57 AM | Permalink

My son and I often stop by McDonald's for a bite to eat after homeschool bowling on Fridays.

But not today.

I first heard about McDonald's in 1963. I was a kid. Kennedy had been shot. I heard the news on the radio in a new white Ford station wagon while crossing a D.C. bridge.

We were returning from having been stationed in Germany. The Cuban missile crisis had come and gone. I saw the howitzers in Gelnhausen, lined up and ready to roll.

Sometime later, stateside, we were in Columbus, Ohio. Twenty-five cents, I think, for a McDonald's hamburger. What fun! A great welcome home!

But not now.

Not today, in light of reports that McDonald's has decided, apparently, to declare war on my family. And to declare war on the civilization of liberty, independence, creativity, and humanity under God that my Dad fought for in World War II.

Reports such as this -- "Pink Arches? McDonald's Buys Into Homosexual Agenda."

And reports such as this: "McDonald's Gives Support to Homosexual Agenda."

And this: "McDonald's Signs Onto 'Gay' Agenda."

For Christians, this is a matter of stewardship and "loving thy neighbor" -- Why spend good money on a morally and socially corruptive business?

For families, this is a matter of child protection -- Why support a business that helps fund organizations that disrespect the heart of family life?

For human beings, this is a matter of liberty under God -- Why help finance groups that turn their backs on the Declaration of Independence, the Founding vision, and the living Creator who holds it all together?

If you say you can do without all of that, then I say we can do without McDonald's.

Why, apparently, those McDonald's people can't tell the difference between right and wrong.

Between the wrongness of discriminating against someone on the basis of his or her beautiful and God-given skin color and the correctness of rejecting trumped-up victimhood and pretend discrimination based on membership in an ethically challenged but politically powerful interest group.

Information from the Creator, not to mention simple lessons in biology, says there's a difference between diversity and perversity, between being pulled over for driving while black and being guilty of sinning while human.

A hamburger's worth giving up and giving in to all that?

Hardly.

McDonald's is now on trial.

The fries are good. Even great. But the worldview they support isn't fit for human consumption.

Maybe we'll stop by Chick-Fil-A instead. It's a little out of the way, but I hear they like families.

Real families -- not ones made up by the ACLU last Tuesday.

And what's an extra mile or two to vote with your pocketbook? One way or another, you always pay for your convictions.

* Update: Chicago radio host Sandy Rios and I are scheduled to discuss "No McDonald's Today" at 4:35 p.m. Monday afternoon, April 7, 2008. More here. Central Time.

** Update: See also, "Faggot" Easy to Defend: Surprising Help From Secular America

*** Update: See also, Rosie O'Donnell's Oppressive Coat

_______________
Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 04:00 PM | Permalink

Those who care about authentic living and the life of the mind may want to consult a report in today's Guardian. (See Pearcey Report link here.)

In a story titled "Their Dark Materials," readers will learn that the universities of Oxford and Cambridge are attacking plagiarism, ghostwriting, and "essay mills." Among other things, the universities condemn the practice of students who buy from -- or work for -- services such as Oxbridge Essays.

Sensitive people are concerned about the presence of this sort of unfortunate behavior not just on the so-called secular campus, but also in Christian circles (as has been reported on from time to time).

One might consider what would happen if one day the Bible-affirming world woke up and all the pretend authors, columnists, "thinkers," publishers, etc., and their staffs of enablers had disappeared. One wonders who in "Celebrianity" might be suddenly missing and how many real books and articles would be left on shelves if works by these "authors" departed along with them.

Imagine also that Jesus of Nazareth said, "OK, people -- from here on only real work by real people is acceptable. Anything else and you get a one-way ticket to AnaniasandSapphiraville." See the unhappy outcome of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5.

One way you know the flesh-and-blood Jesus meant business is that he applied truth to both the ends and the means of his methods of ministry. Even if that meant dying painfully and nakedly on the cross as a common criminal and apparent failure.

Nevertheless, he didn't cut corners to win influence, gain a wider audience, achieve access to power, protect his image, or enhance his resume to shape future biographies and the opinions of posterity. He practiced the truth the right way and was killed for it. It was ugly. It was right. And he won.

In contrast, how many books, essays, speeches, blurbs, magnum opuses, and so on would disappear if that same Jesus applied that principle of authentic living retroactively? "Lord, Lord, did we not 'write' wonderful, quiet-time inspired worldview books for you?," might protest the high and mighty after receiving a rejection slip from the Living God.

It's a sobering thought, but there may be some in this world who've so long succeeded at conning others that they even try it out on the Son of God. After all, the well-honed techniques of manipulation and PR have worked on just about everybody else (not really, of course, but in the tiny world of tin-horn celebrity, it may seem that way). "Dysfunctional systems are well-defended," says a book on abuse.

Perhaps the better path is to pull the plug on pretend authorship. Yes, the anti-intellectual money machine may grind to a halt, but a door necessary to a renaissance of authentic thinking (not to mention living) would be opened. The current strategy raises money in the millions, but it's misdirected and loses the spiritual-cultural battle.

What's especially interesting is that similar doors need to be opened in the face of similar challenges in so many other areas of life in this broken world. That doesn't mean we can't enjoy ourselves along the way, even if honest growth encounters big shots who resist change and try to redefine Biblical challenges and accountability as personal squabbles.

Publishing is just one area among many. In electoral politics, public policy, the arts, philanthropy, and many spheres of life and ministry, authentic Christian worldview remains in its infancy. One hopes it needn't run away from home to survive childhood. Oxford and Cambridge could be just the place for those kind of people.

Related
Francis Schaeffer: A Student's Appreciation of a Distinct Approach

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 11:19 AM | Permalink

Fascism is back," Gene Edward Veith tell us in Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Judeo-Christian Worldview.

But the daily news makes this clear as well, with among other items, reports of a Holocaust-denying conference held under the auspices of an anti-Semitic government that says Israel should cease to exist.

Fascism "refuses to go away," says Veith. "Fifty years after World War II, it keeps intruding upon our attention in odd facts and disturbing news. . . .

"The lunatic fringe, of course, is always with us, but we are also being confronted by signs of fascism as a larger social movement. . . .

"The implosion of communism was a great victory for democracy, but the vacuum has been filled by an intense, violent ethnic nationalism and the revival of overt fascist movements that had been suppressed since World War II but are still very much alive. . . .

"Unsettling cultural trends are intensifying throughout the West: cynicism about democracy; a yearning for charismatic leadership; economic disaffection; moral skepticism; a cultural irrationalism that breaks out in acts of inexplicable violence."

Fascism Back in . . .
* Academic Circles: "Fascism is back in academia. A recent biography of the existentialist sage Martin Heidegger has uncovered his extensive involvement in the Nazi party. . .

"Far more disturbing . . . is the ideology that is coalescing . . . in today's intellectual establishment. Cultural determinism; the reduction of all social relationships to issues of sheer power; the idea the one's identity is centered in one's ethnicity or race; the rejection of the concept of the individual -- such ideas have become academic commonplaces.

"The project in contemporary thought of dismantling Western civilization and critiquing 'humanistic values' (such as liberty, reason, and objective moral principles) is not new. All of the ideas are direct echoes of the fascist theories of the 1930s."

* Pop Culture: "The popular culture is the most fertile breeding ground for fascism."

* Mass Politics: "Instead of rational analysis of issues and reasoned debate, our political discourse turns on image manipulation through or mass media. . . . This was Goebbels' dream."

* Morality: "Moral issues are today almost impossible to discuss in objective terms. . . . Morality is reduced to social utility or the assertion of the will. This was precisely the Nazi ethic."

What Is Fascism?
"Only five decades ago, the world was in the nightmare of war and Holocaust. We seem to have forgotten everything. Putting aside images of goose-stepping villains from the movies, does anyone remember exactly what the fascists believed?"

"We must know what fascism is so that we can recognize it when we see it. . . . Racism alone cannot explain the virulence of Nazi anti-Semitism. . . .

"The fascists aligned themselves not only against the Jews but against what the Jews contributed to Western civilization. A transcendent God, who reveals a transcendent moral law, was anathema to fascists. . . .

"Fascism was essentially a spiritual movement. It was a revolt against the Judeo-Christian tradition, that is to say, against the Bible.

"Some fascists believe that Christianity could be purged of its Jewish elements; other believed it should be completely replaced. Some advocated a syncretistic Christianity, revising the faith to make it accord with the new culture. . . .

"The fascist rebellion against transcendence restored the ancient pagan consciousness. With it came barbarism, a barbarism armed with modern technology and intellectual sophistication.

"The liquidation of the transcendent moral law and 'Jewish' conscience allowed the resurgence of the most primitive and destructive emotions."

Veith's book is as relevant today as when it was first published, in 1993.

-- Gene Edward Veith, Preface, Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Judeo-Christian Worldview

Posted by Rick Pearcey at 10:24 AM | Permalink