$15.00 an Hour Minimum Wage: Not Just a Question of Money, But Life Itself, and Even Marriage
For the most part, Americans, and American Christians in particular, suffer from TDD. ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) is a mere symptom of TDD (Thinking Deficit Disorder). This disorder is most prevalent among Christians because they think reason is antithetical to faith; after all, if we knew everything we wouldn’t need faith, right? “Gee, I don’t know, I have never asked myself that question before.” Right. Ignorance is a banner of love over us; we know nothing so we cannot judge ourselves or others, and stupidity is a sure proof of our humbleness.
America is a historical anomaly because the biggest sword always ruled until the American experiment put “We the people” in charge. We have now experienced the results of the American experiment for over 200 years, and unless those who want to destroy America move slowly and carefully, the American dream will not go away quietly. For the first time in world history, freedom can’t be taken away by killing more people than those who disagree with you, so another angle has to be taken.
It all boils down to the competence of the individual: is government for the purpose of expediting human potential? Or is government for the purpose of controlling the incompetence of mankind? Until the American experiment, the latter was the dominate ideology of history; viz, the mindless following of the masses is critical for social justice and the collective wellbeing.
Hence, public schools stopped teaching us how to think critically. The church stopped doing that well before the public schools did. Christian parents continually boast that their children “at least know the Bible well” even though they have little knowledge of the liberal arts. After all, the word, “liberal” is in there. The next step is to offer us free things that pose as life improvement, and for a while may serve that purpose, but are designed to lead us back into the same bondage that has always dominated world history.
“Don’t worry we will feed you if you are out of work” eventually ends up as, “There isn’t anybody who can create jobs, we gave all their money to you, there is no more money, so if you want to eat you must work, and oh, by the way, it will be the job that we give you whether you like it or not.” Ever heard of a place called, “China.”
So, as a country, the push to raise minimum wage to $15.00 an hour exemplifies the fact that inability to think below the surface of initial brain chemical reactions is well in place. Entry level workers see this as a good thing; why? Well, because they will be making more money. And initially that is true in the same way that cheese on a mousetrap is initially good for the mouse if he can get a couple of bites.
A $15.00 an hour minimum wage will make the rich richer and the poor poorer while the poor think the opposite is true. This same satanic gig just keeps working over and over and over again throughout history. As a longtime small business owner, I am not speaking completely out of school here; if it’s back in the day and I still own a business, what am I thinking?
“Ok, $15.00 an hour is good money, so I am going to get my money’s worth. Bye, bye inexperience; bye, bye immaturity that you can live with at $7.00 an hour; bye, bye to anyone with tattoos or piercings, pretty much bye, bye to anything I don’t like at all because I am not being compensated for putting up with it.”
Hence, this will be good for older, experienced workers. High school students looking for work during the summer? They can forget about it. Not happening. And with the job market already in the tank, there is an abundance of older experienced workers waiting in the wings after their long journey in the desert of age and price discrimination. Bottom line: entry level employees are going to be all but totally out of luck. Businesses in general are going to want bang for their buck.
The first step towards an enslaved populous is the lost art of thinking. And in this case, the thinking doesn’t penetrate any deeper than that of a mouse running for the cheese on that funny-looking table with a large metal bar above it. More and more as one who counsels people from time to time, I find myself teaching them how to think for themselves and then sending them away to “take on the day.”
We live in the age of the expert because a thinking serf is like handing a child a loaded gun in our minds—that has always been the mentality that precedes tyranny. “Do they think we are stupid?” Yes, in fact, that’s exactly what they think, and we think anything more is faithless humanism. That’s why I am not much for marriage counseling anymore. All any marriage needs is what Ephesians chapter 5 states: Christ and two thinking people. Conspicuously missing is the pastor and expert. Good marriage counselors teach couples HOW to think, not WHAT to think, and that’s probably true of life counseling in general.
paul
Why the Institutional Church Cannot Stop Rape in its Midst: The Wrong Gospel
Many years now has the outcry come forth for a stop to spiritual/physical abuse in the church. The institutional church will neither stop it nor bring justice to the victims. Why?
First, let’s establish the fact that abuse in the church could be stopped. If a handful of notable leaders would come together and say, “Enough is enough,” it could be stopped. Right now, the only hint that a dent is being made in the problem is via civil authorities. What is more obvious? the church is helpless in doing anything about this problem.
Penn State dealt with it; Steubenville, Ohio dealt with it; what’s up with the church?
Simply stated, it’s the wrong gospel. The secular realm doesn’t buy into the whole total depravity of humanity routine, and is often fustigated accordingly by the church: “The world is full of human pride and arrogance—they can’t see the sin in their goodness. Their best acts are as filthy rags before the Lord.” How many of us would be rich if we received a dollar for every time we heard a notable church leader describe humanity, Christians included, as a “train wreck”? By the way, the often heard “filthy rags” mantra is from the Old Testament and the Hebrew word pertains to menstrual cloth.
Problem: justice is a good work, unless you are a Protestant; now justice is just another discarded menstrual rag on the pile of sinful good works. Do I really think it boils down to this logic? Yes I do. If you are standing before a judge for drunk driving, your best hope is that he is also a drunkard. All of us good Protestants call that “grace,” and “forgiving the way we were forgiven.” Better yet is a judge who thinks he is the “chief of all sinners” and therefore guilty of the same thing everyone is guilty of because, “for the grace of God—there go I.”
Almost every aspect of the Reformed gospel contributes to this problem, but one that I will focus on here is the fusion of justification and sanctification. Clearly, in the Bible, there are separate judgments: eternal and present for unbelievers, and present consequences for Christians who behave badly. The Bible clearly advocates present consequences for believers so that sin is discouraged. In fact, leaders are to be publically humiliated so that other church leaders will “fear.” To say that guideline is ignored in our day is a steroidal understatement. But hey, do we not constantly hear that the Bible is not a book of practical applications and a mere “book of rules”?
Then what is it? I am glad you asked. Instead of life being interpreted in a multifaceted way, Protestants see all of humanity being in the same big lump moving towards the end of God’s prewritten metaphysical novel penned for His own glory and self-love. Rape victims are merely characters written into the plot for God’s glory. This is the very premise of Redemptive Historical hermeneutics. Listen to the words of supposed defenders of the spiritually abused like Boz Tchividjian carefully; the goal is not justice and instilling fear of judgment in others, the goal is what? Right, “God’s glory.” Or, a “godly response.” Real-life commonsense application can only be found in the secular realm, but the results are for “man’s glory story,” not the “cross story.” Hence, that wouldn’t be a “godly response.”
Folks know what my answer is: come out from among them and be separate. Salvation by institutional church did not come along until the fourth century. Can abuse happen in the home fellowship movement? Certainly, but we are not at the mercy of religious bureaucrats to do something about it, and we are not paying for the privilege. Also, if there is an option for people, the institutional church will be forced to deal with the problem or go bankrupt. And that wouldn’t take much as the institutional church is VERY top heavy. So, am I saying that a rejection of salvation by institution is the answer to spiritual abuse in the church? YES
And it wouldn’t necessarily be the end of the institutional church, it would simply force them to deal with rape in the church or go bankrupt because they are not the only game in town. Notable leaders would finally come together and say, “Enough is enough,” or else go out and get real jobs.
Indeed, those who are disillusioned with the institutional church and make that synonymous with “losing their faith” are an incredibly sad testimony. This loss of hope is completely unnecessary and unbiblical.
paul
Kirsten Powers: When a Liberal is Almost Right About God and Politics
“There is an issue that is so important in American politics that frankly I don’t care who gets it whether conservative or liberal, and Powers almost got it right.”
Kirsten Powers is a political pundit and Fox News contributor who appeared on the Sean Hannity show last night. Hannity was having a group discussion with a mixture of conservatives and liberals regarding Paul Harvey’s If I Were the Devil speech.
At some point, one of the conservatives verbally bemoaned the usual “God has been taken out of the schools” mantra. I am 57 years old and have been paying attention to politics since I was 9 when my parents hosted a campaign party for Barry Goldwater, and in reply to the often repeated mantra, liberal Kristen Powers replied with one of the most significant political statements I have ever heard. The following is a paraphrase:
How was it working for us when God was in the schools?
Ultra liberal Judith Miller aped approval adding to the shock value. However, and disappointingly, Powers was only partly right. Was I disappointed because I am a liberal and I want liberals to be right all of the time? Hardly, in fact, I think Ronald Reagan was a conservative sissy compared to Barry Goldwater. There is an issue that is so important in American politics that frankly I don’t care who gets it whether conservative or liberal, and Powers almost got it right.
Her idea was spot on, but she missed the right application by 200 years. She pointed to a time in the 50’s when our public schools were segregated which opened the door for Sean Hannity to make a comparison between the challenges in public schools then versus now. How strange, a conservative such as myself with face in hands, crying out, “She almost nailed it! She almost nailed it!”
Conservatives are completely ignorant about what really matters, and I will use public schools as the primary example. But as an aside: Dr. Ben Carson may be one of the most significant political players since our founding fathers because he states the following (again, this is a paraphrase):
We have to rediscover who we are and educate accordingly [i.e., what is America really about?].
And there you go, and Powers touched on it regarding public schools. The true history of public schools reveals the pervasive ignorance among conservatives and conservative Christians in particular.
This necessarily requires a discussion about the founders of the public school system, the Puritans. “Pilgrims” is a soft term for “Puritans” who are the ones who originally brought Europeanism over the pond and settled on the east coast of the American continent. And they were political refugees, not innocent souls braving the Atlantic to find religious freedom in a new land. Before the American Revolution, politics and religion were of the same soul. To say that the Puritans were religious refugees is not telling…as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.
And “Puritan” is a soft term for “Calvinist” as well. The first Bible to ever make landfall in America was the Geneva Bible, as in, John Calvin’s Geneva. Do you want to know what Geneva was like during Calvin’s rule there? See: American colonial history. Things like the Salem witch trials didn’t just happen; such was a European theocratic family tradition.
The American colonies were ruled by a Puritan theocracy completely intolerant of religious and political dissention. Oddly, though it is fairly well known that Puritans hanged Quakers for their beliefs, and partook in superstitious persecution that would shame cannibal witchdoctors, the Puritan as American religious hero continues to be a historical anomaly. Even Rush Limbaugh wrote a children’s book extolling the virtues of the Pilgrims. Good grief!
This brings me to my point. The Puritans founded the American public school system. Yes Kirsten, God, at least the Puritan version of Him, ruled the public schools and the government; now you may ask, “How did that work for us?” Actually, pretty good—the American Revolution, in large part, was a direct pushback to Puritan tyranny. Separation of church and state was not to protect religion from government, the working word here is, SEPERATION. The two need to be kept apart. The founding fathers grew up under the heavy hand of Puritan tyranny, and upon further evaluation of human history concluded the following:
Experience witnesseth that eccelsiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.
What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people.
James Madison: Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments; 1785
The fact of the matter is God Himself has never said that He wanted one of His representatives ruling a government because God knows mankind all too well. In case anybody hasn’t noticed, people can have some misguided ideas about what God wants. There seems to be some confusion here; Christ said His kingdom is not on earth, but many conservative Christians believe they have a mandate to take over the world, starting with the public schools, for God. Yes, the Puritans were in total control of the public schools, and were kicked out after the American Revolution because among many other reasons, the Puritan-controlled public schools were taking children away from parents and boarding them separately. Yes, those were the good ole’ days when “god” was still in the schools.
But unfortunately, liberals have something wrong as well. Unwittingly, they worship the same god as many conservative Christians. Again, Puritans came from a culture where religion and politics were the same soul, and the ideology that drove those politics was belief in the inherent inability of man. The Puritans were driven by the same spiritual, social, and political caste systems that dominated Western culture from ancient times. This is the crux of what the founding fathers rejected; the total depravity of the individual and the assertion that his sole purpose for existing is the ability to contribute to the collective. Dr. Ben Carson gets this, and that’s what makes him invaluable in our day.
If one wants to talk about the Bible, we can do that. Eventually, God is going to come back and raze the whole earth and set up His own kingdom. He hasn’t called conservative Christians to take over the world with their supposed moral superiority and then invite God back for a reunion. God is not in exile, He is simply going to clean house and move here when He chooses. Really, no need to prepare things for Him ahead of time. By the way, that’s Islam’s gig as well. Alarmingly, many political conservatives in our day are of this theological persuasion known as Dominionism.
Carson is right. The Answer is to rediscover America and educate Christians and heathen liberals alike in regard to her founding principles: individualism and separation of church and state. According to Carson, we need to forget about all of the divisions being created and focus on those two principles.
Sure, as a Christian Goldwater conservative, I would that all men be saved, but God still created a capable human race and we will stand before Him individually—no one will stand in for us. We are responsible for the sum and substance of our own lives. Read history, the clergy was not in charge of the Nuremberg trials. Man knows right from wrong as a matter of God-given conscience. When caste systems aren’t crazy enough, just add religion and superstition. That’s when history is like a movie that you could never make up in your wildest imagination.
When it gets right down to it, you can invoke “one nation under God,” but the question quickly becomes, “Which god?” And what does that God believe about man? Is man capable of governing himself, or does he need a government that controls every nuance of his life? Powers is almost right, but Carson has it right, we must reeducate Americans about who we are: a government by the people and for the people.
And how has that worked for not only us, but the world? Very-well-thank-you.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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