The History of Western Philosophy and Its Societal Impact on the Church – Part 8
The following is the final part of an eight-part series.
Taken from John Immel’s third session
at the 2013 Conference on Gospel Discernment and Spiritual Tyranny
~ Edited by Andy Young
| Click here for part one Click here for part two Click here for part three Click here for part four |
Click here for part five Click here for part six Click here for part seven |
The Concept of the “Common Good”
The “common good” is a collectivist myth designed to achieve the outcome of subordinating the individual to the majority. The collective well-being is the supreme measure of ethics. The phrase implies that if the individual acts for the “good” of the group, the individual is taking moral action. Notice the equation; action for the group = morality. However, there are three primary problems with the concept of the “common good”
1. It is deception.
By definition, “common” is a synonym for a generalization, and by definition a generalization does not have a specific definition. So when a person speaks of the “common good”, they are appointing themselves the spokesman for some loosely defined group. In conversation, the “common good” is used to refer to the good of the public or the community or society or the tribe. However, each of these words is merely a poor label for the intangible sum of individual interaction. The point is, such “groups” do not really exist.
- “The public”: an adjective describing individual conduct exposed to general view.
- “The community”: little more that the interaction of individual people in close proximity.
- “Society”: The aggregate actions of many “sub-groups” within a geographic location.
- “The Tribe”: A “group” based on genetic similarities. A religious denomination is merely a tribal preoccupation shifted from genetic pedigree to doctrinal pedigree.
So the thing that is “common” is not really common at all. There is no “thing” that is the direct recipient of good, because there is no specific object to receive the “good”. The work you do doesn’t benefit the good of the group, it benefits the good of individuals within the group.
The purpose of the deception is to conceal the root presumption that the collective stands supreme to its individual members, for the “common good” is really the good of the group at the expense of the individual members. Or said another way, the individual is a sacrificial animal to the will of the collective. Any individual who is perceived as a threat to the survival of the group must be sacrificed.
Every time I hear somebody talk about altruism and the “common good”, the conceit in this means that if my life is to be sacrificed to you, the necessary presumption is that your life in turn should be sacrificed to me. I own your life by default, and you think that’s morality? You think that’s just and good? So we’re reduced to moral cannibalism?
2. It poses as morality
The “common good” is really a moral subterfuge because it is an indefinable, elastic concept that can be shaped to apply to any outcome for any political whim. Since the group is elastic based on momentary standards of inclusion, the definition of “good” constantly changes. There is really no constant “yardstick” of measurement but rather a thick syrup that clouds the eyes and ears of its victims and makes them abandon morality rather than cling to it.
The “common good” inspires people to lay down values in service to a select few who claim to be spokesmen for the majority. We see this in political conversation all the time. The outcome is that the spokesmen have a moral blank check that every individual is obligated to cash.
You wonder why you hear stories of molestation coming out of church groups and Christian universities and missionary organizations, where the leadership and authority specifically tried to conceal the crimes against the children and members and students. This is the moral blank check that parents are supposed to cash in behalf of the child who was molested. This is EVIL, fundamental evil!
3. It masquerades as good.
If taken literally, the error within the expression “common good” itself becomes glaringly obvious. When people advocate for the “common good”, they think they are saying the “good” of all individuals admitted to the group. Or maybe if they paused to consider more deeply, they are saying the “good” of the majority. This doesn’t yet sound too scandalous because “good” is what is done numerically for the greatest amount of individuals. People do a loose moral calculus and decide that the greater the sum, the more moral the action.
But here is the result of that rationale: moral action is quantifiable by statistical outcome. If morality is nothing more than statistics then it is a trivial exercise to justify the Holocost. Stalin created a famine and killed 7 million people, but by the standard of the “common good” his actions are “moral” because the mathematical formula benefits 100 million faithful communists. The “common good” is used to justify taking enormous sums of money from individuals in order to pay for other people’s medical care, or whatever your favorite government program happens to be.
Having identified the three problems with the notion of “common” good, let us examine how this is all used at the root of tyranny.
We now know that the “common good” does not exist because the concepts of group do not exist, and they are never the recipient of any action. Only individuals receive good. Only individuals receive value. It is a false morality designed to subordinate all people to the collective, but who defines the collective?
At the root of all collectivist organizations there is usually only one person holding the yardstick of group inclusion. This person surrounds himself with a gang to defend against any interloper. He is the voice of the people, the voice of community, the voice of society, the voice of the tribe, the voice of the church.
What people fail to grasp is the “good” of the people is really subterfuge to justify the violation of individual rights. The function of this expression is designed to violate individual rights, and when you violate individual rights you are really abolishing all rights. Groups do not have rights. When you tell me I must subordinate my rights to the group, the group does not gain them by proxy. They have been forfeited.
If there is no such thing as “rights”, the thug, surrounded by his gang, is free to use force (government) to achieve whatever outcome they fancy.The collectivist thug is at once empowered to force people to conform to the collective and shielded against all outcomes. It doesn’t matter what happens next.
This is why you have the brutal absurdity of Soviet Russia. The USSR was built in service to the “common good”, yet the only people who prospered were the tiny gang who surrounded the bloodiest despot in history, Joseph Stalin. The rest of the population lived in sub-human misery for almost three generations.
This is why you have the mystical tyranny of the medieval Catholic church. The Catholic church portrayed itself as the greatest proponent of human good on the planet, yet from effectively 600AD to almost 1500 AD the church leadership lived a comparatively lavish lifestyle, and the serfs existed generation after generation in squalor.
In the modern age, think of any social program that is said and done for “the people,” for “the society,” for “the community”. Now define exactly what the program does; give money for college, pay for medicine, feed the hungry. If you look at the actual event, only a select number of individuals actually receive the benefit, and all of the authority (force) is invested in a bureaucrat whose sole function is to weed out those who never receive the “good”.
Some of you are squirming because I have placed “community” in the same pot of condemnation. You long for community. You conceptualize your local church as a community. You think this is a social ideal. You think that the community does good. And you like the fact that you vicariously participate in the moral reputation, the prestige, of the group. You want the prestige plus you long for an inter-personal connection, and you yearn to find friends and have “relationships.” You pine for an indescribable thing that is a cross between a Norman Rockwell painting and the television sitcom, “Cheers”, where everybody knows your name. For the life of you, you struggle to see how this is the same seedbed of evil that I have been talking about.
Unfortunately, I am about to tell you that Santa Clause does not exist.
Look closely at the real social dynamic of your community. The connectedness, the relationships that you seek is really the exchange of individual value on an inter-personal level. You long to live in Mayberry R.F.D., filled with “Aunt Beas” baking apple pies waiting on the porch, never once realizing that the safety and security and fraternity that you want cannot happen if the highest moral standard is sacrifice of personal desires and personal values for the “common good.”
The price of admission to the community is the very self that you must surrender for public consumption. Think about that. To participate in community means that you must get rid of the very thing that makes you unique. This is why most communities (read “churches”) are petty, and gossipy, and back-stabbing, and cliquey. Everyone in the community is constantly vying for some piece of the “common good.” In the end, you realize that the mindless hoards sitting in the pews are there to graze over you like a buffet table.
Now let’s back up to the 10,000-foot view. Now you can see why metaphysics and epistemology are so important. Now you can see how everything revolves around a specific body of ideas that begins with Thales and evolves all the way down to the Cynics and the Stoics, formalized and systematized by Plato, and eventually shape Augustine, Calvin, and Luther. Inasmuch as you continue to accept their premises, you will continue to achieve the same outcome.
If you think the Neo Calvinists are ugly now, you wait and see what happens when you give them just an ounce of civil authority. There will be bloodshed. I know you think that’s scandalous, I get that. It may not even be the guys in the pulpits right this minute. But if you let this construct get hold of civil government, if you have the marriage of faith and force, they will make John Calvin look like a choir boy and Geneva look like a day at the beach. Make no mistake, at the root of this doctrine lie death and destruction.
When you separate man from his mind and his mind from reality, the only thing he has left to deal with another man is a club. The moment we have a club in our hands we are no longer offering an argument. And these guys don’t offer arguments. They have to bail on the conversation every single time they are pressed on the points of their doctrine. They must punt into the grand “mystery” of God. They don’t have a choice.
Once they are finally confronted with the dead end of their logic, all they can do next is attack and posture and threaten. Inasmuch as you fear that retaliation and extortion, you will willingly shut your mouth. This is why you see such enormous fear coming out of the pews. The discernment blogs and survivor blogs start discussing how they were treated. Everybody online is anonymous, not because they are trying to be deceitful, but because they are terrified!
They have accepted the premise.
What made me specifically so dangerous to them is that I rejected the premise. And that will make you dangerous. When you reject the premise, they will become terrified of you. They do not have the power, and if they ever get close to civil government, resist them with all of your might!
All collectivist cultures are tyrannies.
The philosophy of collectivism claims that there is a mystical, supernatural, social organism that embodies the highest moral values. Of course, only a few elite people with special insight can fully grasp this truth. Somehow they have access to special source knowledge that transcends the average man’s mind. Average men are incompetent, helpless, mindless creatures, depraved and unworthy of social interactions. So they must be purified to serve the collective organism.
Men cannot deal with other men voluntarily because they have no peaceful means to settle disputes. They have no means to act as contractual beings because they are metaphysically incapable of doing good. Human salvation always boils down to an elite clique endowed with some mystical insight, and that insight qualifies them to rule men. They are dictators of an omnipotent, benevolent state, doing what is best for the “common good.”
All collectivist ideologies hold the same political assumption. All collectivist doctrines seek the exact same end – subjugation of the individual. Man must be chained to the collective. Man is property of the state. Statism is always implemented by force.
The measure of social slavery is directly proportional to how much the slogan of “common good” is embraced. Conversely, the measure of civil liberty is directly proportional to how much the same slogan is overtly rejected. Our Founding Fathers rejected this notion of “common good”. They recognized that the legitimate role of government was specifically to defend the individual and his life, his liberty, and his pursuit of happiness. These are notions contrary to “common good.”
It is an easy slogan to reject because there is no such thing as a generalized good, because only individuals receive values. As soon as you realize it is a hoax it becomes a matter of course to refuse to pay homage to the fraud. Good is not being done. The reality is that people are enslaved to the fancies of others. No man has a moral obligation to subjugation to another man.
The Longing for Revival
We erroneously believe that a return to God will naturally be a return to morality. A return to morality is really a return to a belief in divine extortion. When morality is the product of divine command, the fight becomes about which divine we follow. What the Platonist/Augustian/Calvinsit version of Christianity has shown is that it has nothing to offer as a counter to militant ideologies.
Their first test was Islam. The eastern church showed itself impotent to stop the ideological tide of Islam. Christianity had so gutted the intellectual rigor of intellectual thought, that when confronted with a totally irrational ideology based on war, it could offer no counter.
Of course, Protestants like to push these things off as “those dastardly Catholics.” But Protestants have not fared any better. The Southern Presbyterian Church was in the forefront of slavery within the United States. Of course, Presbyterianism has a direct pedigree line with ties to the reformed tradition.
The reformed tradition’s next test would be National Socialist Germany. It failed miserably. Lutheran churches, with almost no exception, joined “the party” and remained committed to National Socialism until the collapse of the Third Reich.
Christianity has shown itself impotent to offer any intellectual defense against Marxism, National Socialism, and Islam, and that’s just in the modern day.
But they cannot lay claim to mere impotence. It isn’t “God’s will.” Christianity has with far too much consistency been connected to the tyranny. This is not a new observation.
“7. Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical 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.”
~ James Madison, “A Memorial in Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments”, 1786
“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own.”
~ Thomas Jefferson
“Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth”
~ Thomas Jefferson
“I could never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an atheist, which I can never be, or rather his religion was demonism. If ever a man worshipped a false god!”
~ Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Adams, April 1823
Here is the absolute conclusion of all we have studied in this series. For anyone with intellectual integrity, these things should be fully and entirely unacceptable. This should compel you to evaluate the content of Christianity for what it has said for the whole of its history. It is not an accident that the same tyranny abetted by the church has occurred over and over and over.
And now, having heard where all this is rooted, you are without excuse. Now you have seen where the core of Protestant doctrine comes from. The intellectual pedigree goes as far back as Heraclitus and the Pythagoreans. It finds its full philosophic formation in Plato, it is welded into Christian thinking by Augustine, and it is put into practice by Luther and Calvin – from Augustine to Luther to Calvin to the Synod of Dort to the Westminster Confessions to the Puritans to the local pastor pounding the pulpit.
The dots are all connected, and now it rests on you to resist the disaster.
~ John
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The Philosophy of the Reformation and Its Historical Impact, by John Immel – Part 4
Taken from John Immel’s third session at the 2012 Conference on Gospel Discernment and Spiritual Tyranny
Published with permission
~ Edited by Andy Young
Click here for Part 1
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(Continued from part 3)
Now I want to make a series of contrasts.
The Enlightenment begins around 1650, give or take. The Enlightenment thinkers included men such as John Locke, David Hume, and Adam Smith. From these men comes a large amount of the foundational thought of human freedom, human competence, and human liberty. Enlightenment thought influence our Founding Fathers – Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson to name a few.
Recall that the three English civil wars were religious wars. The American Civil War was not a religious war. It was a war specifically fought in pursuit of liberty and freedom.
In an article written in 1786 by James Madison, “A Memorial in Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” Madison weighs in against the establishment of civil government, civil patronage, and religion. I want you to notice the Founding Fathers’ clarity on the arguments against merging the state, no matter how small, with ecclesiastical establishments.
Madison begins:
“We, the subscribers, citizens of the said Commonwealth, have taken into serious consideration [that] a bill establishing provision for teachers of the Christian religion and conceiving of the same if finally armed with sanctions of law, will be a dangerous abuse of power.”
There was no illusion here. The nature of Christianity, as our Founding Fathers understood, was that it was a dangerous force to be contended with when it was merged with the power of the state. Madison then goes on to detail several reasons for this understanding.
“1. Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth that religion or the duty which we owe our Creator and the manner of discharging it can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force and violence.”
This was revolutionary. While this idea had circulated amongst any number of different sects and any number of different intellectual ties, for the first time, there was a formal effort to challenge at the root that religion could not ever be merged with the force of the state. But rather the force of government was to be tempered by intellect and reason.
This is a central Enlightenment idea.
Madison Continues:
“2. Because the rulers who are guilty of such encroachment exceed their commission from which they derive their authority and are tyrants. The people who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves.”
“3. Because the free men of America did not wait till usurped power had stricken itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle.”
Hold that thought. I will come back to that in a moment.
“We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it. Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians in exclusion of all other sects?”
This is why the historic fight between Calvinists and Arminians gained some attraction, because we fail to identify the principle that Madison is arguing here. The issue is not necessarily the Arminian perspective versus the Calvinist perspective. The issue at central root is man’s fundamental competence to master his own life, however that may be accomplished. The reason all other doctrinal fights are useless in this instance is because, at the root, until you defend man’s right for moral existence, you have lost. Madison makes this observation in point seven.
“7. Because experience witnesses that ecclesiastical 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, and in both, superstition, bigotry and persecutions.”
It is important to understand that our Founding Fathers had no illusions about the nature of what Christianity was and was not. They understood its broad history. They understood what Puritanism did. They understood what the Massachusetts colony theocracy did. For many of them, it was close enough to their lifetime that it would not have been lore as if we were learning it out of the book. They certainly would have been within striking distance of the religious wars in England and the tides of warfare that swept across the face of the earth.
James Madison goes on to say in Point 8.
“8. Because…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 civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; and in no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people.”
This is one of the most scathing denunciations ever! Until Christians are guardians of the liberties of the people, all we are doing is perpetuating spiritual tyrants.
Madison wrote this a mere ten years from the Declaration of Independence and the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. I want you to notice that this memorial and remonstrance takes place dead square between two events: from the specific overthrow of tyranny in 1776, within ten years’ time we already have a religious movement trying to use civil authority to create patronage. In other words, you have a specific group of people seeking to create a means by which others pay taxes to support a religious organization. They were trying to use taxation to advance sectarian orthodoxy.
Madison is arguing for the supremacy of human reason, and he is denouncing the use of civil authority – the merging of religious faith and the power of the state. He is saying it is a menace. Christianity is a menace because Calvinism demands war for all who refuse to bow to its edicts. The current Calvinist defenders can pooh-pooh my point all they like, but I win this argument only because all I have to do is educate people on the public record. This is not complicated.
The Founding Fathers had no illusion about the destructive force of Christian religion, and it is the most virulent forms of Christian thought that the Founding Fathers put absolute barriers in place to curtail this acquisition of civil power. 
For the first time in human history, men sat down and they finally said, “No, man is entitled to the sum and substance of his own life,” and they penned these words:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable 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 abolish it, and to institute new governments laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers.”
Let’s do a contrast.
Puritan theology:
- Man is incompetent.
- Man is morally guilty.
- Man needs the force of government to compel him to good action.
- Government is an unquestionable manifestation of God’s appointment.
- God is wrathful and offers man no rights of existence.
- God appoints man to a predetermined existence of suffering and bondage.
- God’s sovereignty appoints man to slavery.
This is the Puritan construct. This is Reformation theology. This is Calvinism. This is the most virulent form of Reformation thought.
Contrast this with what comes out of the Declaration of Independence:
- That man is competent to understand.
- That man can understand the world in which he lives.
- That his epistemology is fully intact.
- That by virtue of that ability, truth is self-evident.
The equality of human creation endows all with the same right. There is no election to specific privilege, yet in the Calvinist construct, the men standing in the pulpits today are claiming a special privilege.
Man has a right to life, liberty, and happiness, yet the Calvinist construct says there is no such thing; that any effort towards right or life or liberty or the claim to any happiness is a self-deception and a manifestation of your depraved nature. Just government is a product of human consent.
Consider this, that for almost 1,800 years, the Church had said that it was the divine right of kings to dictate government, and that government was in fact divinely appointed. Man had no right to question, for the most part. Whatever happened was in fact the product of God’s will.
The American Declaration of Independence was the first time in human existence that men articulated that just government must be the product of human consent. I am only governed in as much as I choose to let you govern me. Truth is not the property of the state. The state is in fact the servant of man’s defense. This was revolutionary.
The advances of man, the things that have eradicated human suffering across the board, are directly tied to human liberty, because when man is free, man is free to think. Thinking men are free 
to create, and creating men are free to exchange value with whomever they chooses to associate. Man can better his life as he sees fit, and he can solve the problems of the beggarly elements of this earth.
I am able to do in the 21st century what a paltry number of human beings had ever been able to do, and it is directly related to the legacy of human competence, human freedom, and human liberty. You do not get this level of prosperity with the ideology of the Dark Ages. Every place this ideology has manifested itself, it has driven man back to the Dark Ages.
These exact same metaphysical assumptions that are in Calvin are in Augustine. These exact same metaphysical assumptions that are in Augustine are in Islam. Notice that if you go to any place in this world where there is a purely Islamic state you will see the dark ages in modern times: you will see the same paltry human condition from over a millennia ago in western civilization. This is true because the ideas are the same.
Liberty, freedom, thought; they are absolutely tied together. Human competence and human liberty are essential for the benefit of man.
I have now come full circle in my argument. The cohesive structure of ideas from the metaphysical premise to the epistemological ability to the ethical understanding to the political action; all of them run in a progressive line of thought. This is the answer to my original observation:
The Gospel According to John Immel, chapter 3:1-3
1. All people act logically from their assumptions.
2. It does not matter how inconsistent the ideas or insane the rationale. They will act until that logic is fulfilled.
3. Therefore, when you see masses of people taking the same destructive actions, if you find the assumptions, you will find the cause.
Christians love to thump their ESV while laying claim to the Declaration of Independence and the Founding Fathers. They hold freedom of religion as a certainty. They love the prosperity that rational thought, logic, and industry produce. But they do not even blush at the hypocrisy when they pound that same ESV to claim solidarity with Reformation orthodoxy. They will then rate John Calvin as the great reformer of Geneva. They will speak sagely, calling Jonathan Edwards their homeboy, not once realizing the philosophical schizophrenia. These are mutually exclusive worldviews.
In the world of election and limited atonement, there is no such thing as self-appointment and self-determination. There is no such thing as self-governance, because you do not own you.
In a world of irresistible grace, there is no such thing as private property, private possessions, or even personal boundaries, because whatever good you have is a manifestation of God’s grace, and all grace is administered by His stewards of grace.
And in a world of predestination, there is no right to inquire. In a world of predestination, there is no human sensibilities to be conservative. Your pain and your suffering is irrelevant. Who are you, O man, to challenge God, to inquire the things of God, the mysteries of God! Your pain is what you should have.
In the metaphysical world of T.U.L.I.P., there is no real justice. Everything is one great big fat sin before God, because the nature of man is utterly offensive to God. If you happen to be a part of the group that gets picked, it’s all good. And if you don’t, then it sucks to be you. The threat of damnation hangs over your head like the Sword of Damocles. Your sin violates God. So, who are you to demand recompense for a violation of sins against you? How dare you speak justice? You don’t own you.
Or do you?
This is the first choice. This is the fight within the ages. Who owns man?
Father, in the name of Jesus, we must live in understanding. Never before has man been defended. We’ve defended you and we’ve swatted our own. But never have we defended man’s right to live, right to exist, right to live, right to prosperity; never have we done this successfully. To throw off the tyranny of the ages, Father, we need your wisdom and understanding. We need to have the eyes of our understanding opened, that our insides will be filled with light. We ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
~ John Immel
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The Philosophy of the Reformation and Its Historical Impact, by John Immel – Part 3
Taken from John Immel’s third session at the 2012 Conference on Gospel Discernment and Spiritual Tyranny
Published with permission
~ Edited by Andy Young
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In part two, I addressed the concepts of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics. Then I explained how the progression of those concepts produces specific outcomes. The principle I highlighted was that all metaphysical premises determine epistemological qualification. Epistemological qualification defines ethical standards, and ethical standards prescribe political culture. Said another way, foundational assumptions determine how effective man is to understand his world. This defines man’s moral value, and his moral values prescribe the government use of force.
Christians say polity when they talk about church government. My goal is to tie the spiritualized word polity to the reality: polity = force. Most people fail to understand that government is nothing more than a monopoly of force. Likewise, church polity is nothing more than a monopoly of force. The reason force becomes the primary crux of these metaphysical issues is because the central fight for the whole of human existence has been the question of “who owns man?”
Historically the predominant assumption has been that man is the property of the state. Government owns man. It doesn’t really matter what government. It doesn’t matter what age that government is in, whether we are talking about Sparta, or Rome, or the Holy Roman Empire and Charlemagne, the conclusion was that the state owned man. Man’s specific function was to lead his life at the behest of the state.
Some historical background:
From AD 350 to roughly AD 450, there was a massive evolution in Christian thought. Up until about AD 300, Christianity was a marginal religion in a much broader intellectual and religious world. Then a series of events brought Christianity to the forefront, and Christianity emerged as the state religion. This merged the quest for truth with the power of the state, forever changing the face of Christianity. Follow the logic: the moment government is the arbiter of religious orthodoxy (read doctrine) the government must be in charge of reality. And if the government is in charge of reality then government is in charge of compelling people to believe specific things. Always remember government is force.
We know what is best for you!
So when Christians talk about polity aka government they are trying to take the sting off what they really mean. When a man insists that he has Biblical polity, what he is ostensibly advocating is the moral right to compel everyone else there to conform to what he says.
In the unfolding drama in modern American Christianity, one of the leading doctrines is the issue of submission to authority. When truth is placed in the hands of “authority” they are claiming for themselves the right to force people to believe what they believe. The loose logic reasoning goes like this: if right ideas were enforced all the bad things would go away.
But notice that the bad things never go away.
Notice this logic played out in Islam. Islam calls itself a religion of peace because it believes that as long as Islam rules the world, it will enforce peace. The world will be at peace because Islam will brook no dissent.
Now notice the same logic from Marxists. “The reason there’s bloodshed is because those dang bourgeoisie won’t give up all their money to the proletariat. If we compel evil rich people to do what is “right” there would be no more bloodshed.” And this is the trap that this always produces. The presumption is that the utopia will occur if everybody would just get their ideas right.
But it never happens because it cannot happen. The moment you decide that one person, even a group of people, are somehow uniquely qualified to use force to defend truth, what you have is religious orthodoxy. Religious orthodoxy and political correctness are nothing more than two heads of the same beast: one is secular orthodoxy and one is a religious orthodoxy. It is the use of government force to tyrannize people to believe the same thing.
Through marketing and packaging, religious orthodoxy tries to portray itself as being done on behalf of God. And who can argue with things that are done on behalf of God? Since God isn’t standing here to say otherwise, it is a pretty easy thing to get away with.
So where is the plumb line? How do you know who is in charge of what?
Some insist the answer is in the “bible”. They pound the book and say, “See, it’s all said right here.” But the moment anybody stands up and says, “Well, I don’t happen to agree with what that says. I don’t happen to agree with your conclusion on that scriptural “interpretation.”…
…Then what do you do?
The dirty little secret is that nothing gets resolved until somebody points a gun. The epistemological standard requires force.
Baghdad Bob…Mediator Extraordinaire!
Notice that those who govern “For the glory of God” call their form of government theocracy, when in actual fact, theocracy is always oligarchy. Since God is not personally dictating what happens next, dictating his will defaults to men who have – somehow – magically transformed themselves into the recipients of divine mandate. That means you have a very, very small group of men who believe they are uniquely qualified to define truth for everyone. This is oligarchy.
So this means that there are a few men who monopolize force to define God’s existence. It is a simple matter for them to say they are doing whatever they are doing on behalf of God. They get to define God on their terms. God’s will is the subjective whim of those using force. This is why faith and force are the destroyers of the world.
By contrast when we are discussing reason, we are discussing the whole of human understanding, rationality, and logic. We are actually having the only exchange that cannot be resolved with violence. We are arguing the elements that are measurable and identifiable by anybody who chooses to enter into the conversation. So there is a right answer. There is a right conclusion. There is something out there whereby we can all arrive at the same plumb line.
The appeal to faith on the other hand is really an appeal to subjectivity. In fact the appeal to faith has become a license to subjectivity. The moment the world is subjective, force becomes the only means to compel other minds to enter in to like minded subjectivity. This is the real source of all religious wars. This is the background history that confronted our Founding Fathers. They were the first men to successfully challenge at the root the substantive cause of tyranny. For the first time in the world, these key elements were articulated:
- Man owns himself.
- The state is subordinated to the will of the individuals.
- Truth can never be the property of the state.
This revolution of thought is directly tied to the Enlightenment. Remember the progression: Foundational assumptions determine how effective man is to understand his world, which defines moral value, which proscribes government force. The Founding Fathers believed in man’s competence. That was the central theme of everything for which they argued, that man was specifically competent to self-govern. This collides head-on with the Calvinist-Puritan construct: man equals incompetence.
Calvin believed this:
– Pervasive depravity has fully corrupted the whole of human existence.
– This determines that all good is a product of God’s specific sovereign action.
– This defines that man’s life is predetermined in action and outcome.
– This prescribes an elect few who are divinely appointed to shepherd the flock in God’s behalf.
The Puritans brought that mindset into the colonies. Puritanism was the most virulent strain of Christianity to come out of Europe and to land on these shores. It has always collided with the Enlightenment thought. Here is a summarization of some articles of religion from Puritan thinkers.
Puritan Leaders’ Impact On Colonial Religious Life
- “Sinners in the hands of an angry God” is the lingering metaphysical worldview etched in the minds of men declaring God as a vindictive sovereign.
- Whatever God’s benevolence might theoretically represent, ultimately, this worldview may seem wrathful and damning; terror is the only appropriate reaction to divine awareness.
- Man’s depravity requires authoritarian government to stand between yourself and his lascivious impulses.
- Pride in human ability is man’s leading vice and the outworking of wretched deception.
- Salvation is the miracle of being approved access to heaven that this otherworldly utopia is granted or denied according to God’s mysterious plan.
- The unintelligible nature of God’s intention in the feeble minds of men makes it capricious and malicious to every failing of human existence.
- Men are pilgrims through this worldly realm, a hostile empire fraught with all manner of evil. Man is a depraved creature, entirely ill-suited in the bewildering environments, specifically prone to sinful self-destruction.
- The boons of wealth and health are gifts. Therefore, man is merely the steward charged with a divine trust. The elect are then qualified to dispose of their brothers as the collective sees fit. Stewards in God’s appointment rule those siblings granted to their control.
#religioushashtagsforcalvinists
This is why I point out the ultimate full philosophical power from metaphysics to politics. This is Calvin’s role. Very few human beings on the face of the planet have ever successfully integrated an entire philosophical statement – from metaphysics through epistemology, through ethics, all the way to politics – into something that can be digested for human consumption. While it is the single-most disastrous body of ideas ever perpetrated on man, he was still a genius. The power of his ideas is fact that he parsed it in such a way that it was easily understandable from start to finish. Its power is its full statement.
What are the results of his ideas?
Civil War: Eventually, this body of thought becomes centered in England. Between the time of Calvin’s Institutes of Christian Religion in 1536, and the beginning of the Enlightenment period, England experiences three civil wars: the first from 1642-1646, the second from 1648-1649, and the third from 1649-1651. It will take a trivial amount of research for you to find the causes of the English Civil Wars: They were religious wars based on a fight over religious orthodoxy e.g. Calvin’s doctrine.
The Puritans: In modern American lore, the Puritans are everybody’s favorite Thanksgiving story. We like the Puritans because we think they are like us, but in actual fact there was a reason the Puritans were persecuted. They were militant ideologues who were determined to create a theocracy . . . somewhere. The closest they got in Europe was when Oliver Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector from 1653 to 1658. He called himself the Protestant Moses. The closest they got was to a theocracy was the Massachusetts colony.
The Act of Uniformity: The Church of England decided, after a series of wars, to dictate a specific form of public prayer, the sacraments, ordination, and church rights. The Puritans thought the Church of England was far too permissive, and when they couldn’t establish their doctrinal “purity” by force they left England because of “persecution”. They were not looking for religious freedom. They were looking for a place where they would be unopposed in setting up a religious tyranny.
The Salem Witch Trials: These occurred between 1692 and 1693. Again, a trivial amount of research will reveal these were specific religious persecutions, the merging of civil force with religious orthodoxy to create a culture of death. I know that is not popular and I’m sure that will make you nervous. That’s fine. I want you nervous. I want you to see the trend of social destruction.
Jonathan Edwards: To the Neo Reformed crowd, Jonathan Edwards is their homeboy. However, if you have ever read “Sinners in the Hands of a Angry God” you know it is a vicious piece, and you know that Jonathan Edwards was an evil little man.
Click here to read Part 1
Click here to read Part 2
Click here to read Part 4
John Immel on Liberty as an Achievement
This clip is from John Immel’s 2nd session at the 2016 Conference on Gospel Discernment and Spiritual Tyranny. John is commenting on the uniqueness of liberty as an achievement and what separates western thought from the rest of the world.
Guest Writer John Immel: An Open Letter to Infidels
In light of last night’s terror attack in Nice, France, I think we all need to be reminded once again of just who exactly we’re dealing with.
Originally Posted June 21, 2016
By John Immel; edited by Paul M. Dohse, TANC Publishing.
“No society can hope to survive collective psychosis. No nation can endure when the political powers seek to compel the people to join a break with reality. Western civilization cannot survive with this ongoing campaign of collective treason against the central premise of Enlightenment ideas: A is A. Without this foundation rational man, civilized man, is doomed.”
Dear Infidel, there is no such thing as Islamic “Extremism.”
Full stop.
Dear Infidel, remove every –ism from the proper noun and that will bring clarity to what is affecting the whole world.
Full stop.
Dear Infidel, there is no such thing as a “Moderate” Muslim.
Full stop.
Dear Infidel, the Quran divides the world between three classes of people—the faithful, apostates, and infidels. This existential divide might be marginally benign but for this fact: The faithful have a singular standing order—do heinous things to the apostates and the infidels. So for all practical purposes, in the world according to Islam, everything is metaphysically divided between the faithful and their 100% commitment to the edicts, commands, and dictates of Allah as bestowed upon the world by the Prophet Mohamed–May peace be upon Him–and everyone else.
How do I know this is true? Oh . . . because I can read. And if there is any confusion about what I read, I am willing to let the experts on the Quran speak for themselves and if I am tempted to dismiss their judgment for my own, I can temper my credulity by observing the historical themes played out generation after generation after generation after generation.
More on this historical observation in a minute . . .
Of course committing these words to print puts me in societal crosshairs. No one is allowed to be so direct about Islam and anyone who is this direct must be an intolerant, bigoted, racist, homophobic, angry white male who doesn’t like women and puppies and wants all old people to die eating cat food, because he will take away their social security. Only Donald Trump class bigots dare point out the reality of Islamic supremacy and its Jihad against Western culture in general and America in particular.
Dear Infidel, let’s think about this accusation . . . that those who understand Islam as stated above are little more than fearful little haters. Let us think about who is painting infidels, like myself, with the disqualifying brush of intolerance.
Western cultural intelligentsia, entertainment moguls, political pundits, heads of news agencies and government representatives have all decided that Islamic Clerics and Muslim Dr’s of theology, Imams, and mullahs can’t possibly know what the Quran says and are epistemologically incapable of understanding the Hadith. And therefore anyone committing an act of “terrorism” must, without equivocation, caveat or addendum; MUST be perverting a great religion.
So let’s watch how the smartest people in the room put this worldview into action. If a Jihadist, slaughters 49 gays in a Florida night club, calls 911 while committing his act of war and declares his commitment to ISIS, the motive cannot possibly be that he was a Muslim committed to the enforcement of Sharia law, but rather his violence is the byproduct of Republicans refusing to abolish the Second Amendment, or his violence is because “assault rifles” exist, or because American culture is a culture of “toxic masculinity,” or because he is “radicalized” by exposure to the “internet” or because America is mean and this poor young man just couldn’t take the meanness anymore, or he was (whispering) a closet homosexual who struggled to come out of the closet because America is homophobic.
Of course, the anti-American bigotry laced throughout these rationalizations is perfectly fine, perfectly reasonable, perfectly acceptable forms of political dissent and social commentary.
America (and white privileged Americans) are the villains and everyone else including the Jihadist dujour are the victims. And the only correct political action is to abolish the Second Amendment, prosecute Americans for “hate” crimes because Muslims are “offended,” lecture free people that they have no business expecting liberty, conduct endless warrantless searches on Americans traveling by airplane, immediately establish Sharia courts within the United States and—in the name of peace and compassion—throw our borders wide open to Muslim “immigrants” because anyone who knows anything knows that there is NO direct relationship between Islam, Muslims, Jihad, and the scattered few aberrations of Work Place Violence in Fort Hood and San Bernardino and the World Trade Center.
Oh no, no, no. Shame, shame, shame (stroking my index finger like Catholic School Nun) Islam is a great religion. It is a religion of peace. How dare you think otherwise?
This might be a quaint trip into political posturing if it weren’t for the fact that the leadership of the whole Western world, from Germany to France to Belgium to Great Britton seems to have arrived at the same fundamental conclusion. The whole western world has decided that Muslim leaders, renowned throughout the globe for their doctrinal mastery, are really just a few scattered crazy men that have “perverted” a “great religion.”
Never mind that in 630 AD Mohamed—May peace be upon Him—inspired Bedouin tribes to roar out of the backwater Arabian dessert with a singular goal—world domination in the name of Allah. Never mind that the whole of Islam has continued to act on this objective from the 7th century to the present day. Never mind that 95% of all modern military conflicts have Muslims on (at least) one side. Never mind that it is only because the Sunni and the Shia can’t stop slaughtering each other (because they can’t agree on who is the greater tribe of apostates) long enough for Islam to conquer the world. Never mind that the top Islamic minds, in every century since the 7th have repeatedly reaffirmed the declarations of war against the infidels over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and . . .
Never mind the obvious. The Western intelligentsia, with their superior grasp of reality, their pure hearts and broad minds and inclusive souls . . . oh no . . . they will not be duped by “extremists.” They know better—their understanding of the Religion of Peace is far better than the ayatollahs, mullahs and Imams issuing fatwas. They understand religious freedom better than the whole world.
So who are the crazy people in this scenario?
Dear Infidel, answer this question: Who is educating the West on the “Religion of Peace?”
Can you name one Billy Graham equivalent Muslim evangelist explaining the vagaries of Quranic doctrine? Where is the cavalcade of “moderate” Muslim’s instructing America on the Hadith’s central doctrines of benevolence?
Anyone have a name?
If Moderate Muslims are the dominant force within Islam’s 2 billion followers why don’t those names fly off your tongue like their Christian counterparts: Falwell and Swaggart and Molher and Copeland and Dever?
How come the names that do fly off your tongue—Bin Laden, Zarqawi, Khamenei, Badie—advocate anything but “moderation”?
So now let’s answer the question. Who is educating America on the “Religion of Peace?” The answer: A Who’s Who of pop culture personalities, politicians, and corporate media talking heads.
For example; Ben Affleck, who makes pretty good movies, regularly doubles as a Muslim apologist on sundry talk show panels. John Kasich insists on defending “moderate” Muslims as if his Catholic catechism gives him unique insights to the Hadith. And Paul Ryan who seems to get his boxers in a twist anytime anyone suggests there might be a problem with Muslim immigration. Or tune into pretty much any cable news program and you will be treated to an anchorette, smiling brightly into the camera, denigrating anyone who dares suggest that Islam had anything to do with the San Bernardino shooters or the Orlando Jihadist. Such intolerance, such Islamaphobia, she will insist is the height of bigotry.
Isn’t it curious that I’m impolitic for pointing out that our current theological educators should more properly be seen (and not heard) on an episode of Entertainment Tonight?
What are their credentials as Islamic spokesmen?
Because Ben Affleck produces and stars in the movie Argo, a film about the Iranian hostage crisis during Jimmy Carter’s presidency, he is an Islamic theologian? He knows a few “moderate” Muslims?
What to say about John Kasich? He is the (current) governor of Ohio and (was) a presidential candidate. So these are sufficient credentials to quote the Quran, Surah and Ayat?
Really?
Uh . . . remember, Dear Infidel, that this is the same man, who in a Presidential debate manufactured a conversation with Saint Peter to justify his Presidential policy to seize your private property in the name of “godly” compassion. I defy anyone to find a “biblical” reference to discussions with Saint Peter at the Pearly gates. And the reason I defy you to find it is because John Kasich made it up! So if John Kasich can manufacture Christian doctrines out of whole cloth what do you think he actually knows about Islam?
Paul Ryan, the current speaker of the House, often lectures the American people on the need for open immigration policy and refuses to heed the warnings of the FBI and CIA director in sworn congressional testimony that the flood of ISIS Jihadists coming across the US borders are at a historic high point. Paul Ryan has apparently forgotten that he is a representative of American citizens NOT foreign nationals. (As an aside I suggest that we encourage Speaker Ryan to go find another occupation—greeter at Wal-Mart or maybe an employee of CAIR or a field reporter for Al Jazeera—by supporting whoever challenges him in the upcoming election.)
And let’s not leave out the ubiquitous cable news anchorette sitting, shaved legs crossed at
the knee, cleavage imprinted behind her blouse, hair flowing free, defending Islam with her mega-watt smile. Never forget, as she blathers on sagely about religious freedom and the plight of Syrian refugees, that if she were seen, dressed as she is on TV, on the streets of Iran, Saudi Arabia or ANY other country where Sharia law is enforced she would be killed to wash her Western whore dishonor from her family name: burned alive or stoned, or beheaded or have her face whipped for her immodesty. Somehow American news anchorettes and college educated coeds seem to be the only ones who don’t know the open secret that the Islamic world knows: Under Sharia law a woman’s opinion is irrelevant.
(The definition of absurdity is American women, whose political and religious freedoms are the byproduct of Enlightenment thought, pontificating sagely about the benevolence of Islamic doctrine. But I digress.)
Dear Infidel here is the point: We are taking Islamic theology lessons from people who have no clue what they are talking about and at their request, in a fit of catastrophic delusion, defiantly rejecting the outward, overt, unhidden words of theological professionals. We are pretending that people who have (very likely) never touched a Quran—let alone read its words—insist they have a keener insight to Muslim doctrine than those who have dedicated their lives to its study. Men who have graduated from the world’s top Islamic universities, men who choose to abandon enormous wealth to live in huts and hovels and caves and blow themselves up to wage war in the name of Allah.
Arrogance is its own despicable vice but arrogance and delusion are the seedbed of disaster. No society can hope to survive collective psychosis. No nation can endure when the political powers seek to compel the people to join a break with reality. Western civilization cannot survive with this ongoing campaign of collective treason against the central premise of Enlightenment ideas: A is A. Without this foundation rational man, civilized man, is doomed.
Here is a novel idea. How about if we accept the word of Islamic professionals? How about if we take their declarations seriously? How about if rational men quit trying to put words in the mouth of mystics and quit making excuses for savages? How about if we judge reality and see exactly what Islam says of itself. How about if we identify the A of Islam.
What do the professionals say the Quran and the Hadith teaches?
Simply this: Mohamed—May peace be upon Him—declared war on the whole world in the name of Allah. Chapter after chapter after chapter in the Quran affirms the objective. And, big shock, every generation of Muslims since the 7th century has worked towards that end. The whole of Islamic history is a story of conquest, war, destruction, slavery, and oppression. The history of Islam is a singular effort to wipe out the Jewish people and the enemies of Allah in the name of his prophet Mohamed—May peace be upon Him—with not so much as a blush of shame or guilt or repentance by any Muslim intellectual leader that matters.
But John even the Islamic theological big dogs say that Islam is a “Religion of Peace?” So if the big dogs say this then, shouldn’t we believe them?
Of course, you should believe them. It is true. Islam is a religion of peace. The logic is simple: the world will be at peace when it is subjected to Allah and His Sharia law as the undisputed law of the world.
The Islamic definition of Peace is they win.
Full stop.
Dear Infidel, are you willing to give up the First Amendment? The Second Amendment?
Oh wait; yeah, stupid me. American’s are obviously willing to abandon the constitution since they sit idly by while politicians and judges and law enforcement make it a mockery. After all, it was written by evil rich white men. Who would dare stand up for such a thing? Of course, people don’t give a #$#% about liberty and freedom; so of course, they will give up their rights to life and the pursuit of individual happiness for “peace” and “security.” Of course Americans will give it up because white people better never “offend” a living soul.
Uh . . . hum, what will Americans actually fight for . . .?
Twiddling my thumbs thinking . . .
Are you willing to give up bacon?
Now that thought has most of you ready to pick up your “assault” rifle.
But John, what about all the “moderate” Muslims?
Dear Infidel, you do realize that the Quran also requires the faithful to deceive the infidel, right? They are theologically mandated to do the following: lie to you. Again, just take the theological experts at their word and it makes understanding reality much simpler.
Here is the dirty little secret that isn’t a secret. There is no such thing as a “moderate” Muslim.
Dear Infidel, think a minute. On what specific issue are these mythical Muslims “moderating?”
Come on, this “moderation” should leap off your tongue. They are not “moderating” whether they eat pepperoni or bacon or have a pet dog. They are not “moderating” whether they keep Ramadan or face Mecca when they answer the call to prayer. They are not “moderating” whether they can wear a hijab and a micro bikini at the same time. They are not “moderating” whether to impose Sharia Law in every nation on earth. They are not moderating on whether Mohamed—May peace be upon him—was just a “good man” or the Prophet of Allah. They are not “moderating” which tribe—the Sunni or the Shia—is the rightful heir to the Caliphate. They are not “moderating” on the Islamic equivalence between New Calvinism of the Wade Burleson kind vs the New Calvinism of the Al Mohler kind.
They are “moderating” on the means and methods of Jihad against the western infidel. They are moderating on whether they will Kill us or not.
Hey, here is a news flash. Muslims don’t get applause for refraining from killing me. That is a baseline standard. That is the threshold of civilized men. Not killing those who hold other ideas, not killing those who reject Islamic theology, is an expectation NOT a #%$&^ favor.
But make no mistake the “moderate” Muslims that currently forgo chopping off your head to advance the Caliphate, are not moderating on establishing the Caliphate. They are still working to establish Sharia law but they use our political system to overthrow our government and impose Islamic law.* The fact that they use lawyers and ad hominem attacks instead of bullets and beheadings doesn’t change the final goal. They are still working towards Mohamed’s stated end: World domination in the name of Allah. And any Muslim not deemed dedicated to this end—deemed by those who have the guns and perpetrate the greatest savagery—are, in Islamic parlance, apostates. So every Muslim who takes full advantage of Western democratic freedoms is not participating in an alternate, “enlightened” expression of Islam. All they have done is chosen to ignore Islamic orthodoxy precisely because our culture affords them a freedom they would never have in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Iran and a list of other countries where Sharia is enforced.
This is an almost impossible distinction for Americans to grasp because we treat religion like a vast smorgasbord that we can graze over at our leisure. If we don’t like what the preacher says we start another church instead of burning him at the stake. As Americans we like it when someone compromises on principles so it sounds reasonable to hear a hard-line “religious nut” equivocate on theological absolutes. The Western world in general and America in particular has not had a religious war in generations precisely because our philosophical foundations make religion an action of individual conscience: we are free to pick and choose what we want to believe and how we want to practice those beliefs.
But there is no individual conscience in Islam because any act of “moderation” is a death sentence. There is only one God—Allah. There is only one Islam. There is only one Prophet Mohamed—May Peace be upon Him. There is only one law: Sharia. Every Muslim that says otherwise is a hypocrite and all hypocrites are apostates. And the apostate’s end is the same as the infidel: heinous death adjudicated by a Sharia court.
Full stop.
I will say it again because it bears repeating: no matter how much wailing and gnashing of teeth you hear from CAIR; no matter how many times they bluff and bully and shout you down in public; no matter how many times they call you a bigot, there is no such thing as a “moderate” Muslim.
Dear Infidel, you must understand this fundamental fact. There is no way to have Sharia and the American Constitution side by side. Your political leaders absolutely know this which is why there is such a concerted effort to undermine the American constitution. But more fundamentally the constitution recognizes that man lives for himself. Islam demands that the whole of humanity lives for Allah. The choice you face Dear Infidel is simple: Sharia or objective law, Islamic theocracy or secular liberty, tyranny or the pursuit of individual happiness.
Twiddling my thumbs again pondering closing comments . . .
Well, I’ve come to this conclusion. I don’t think Americans want liberty and freedom any longer. Most of you, Dear Infidels, are more concerned over a threat to bacon than our President’s “common sense changes” to the Second Amendment.
Tell you what, Dear Infidel, I’ll help ease your transition into Sharia. You should probably start practicing your Allahu Akbars. Women, you should immediately get fitted for a burka—a long black bag that makes New Calvinist modesty look positively indecent. And Dear Infidel, when you say the name Mohamed remember to add—May peace be upon Him.
_______________________________________
*Editor’s Note: In fact, according to several polls, while a vast majority of Muslims living in the U.S. decry “extremists,” the same vast majority endorses Sharia law.
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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