On not blogging and blogging again (Wazzup?)

It is fair to say, "I told you so."

On July 29th I said I was probably going to be "out of it" or take a "hiatus" for a bit. Of course the characterizations of that post began immediately. In some quarters it was said I "quit." Other people simply didn't read down the page. In the latter case I realize I'm not the beginning and end of their day, so I get it. Pretty much outside my immediate family, I'm not the beginning or end of anyone's day. In the former case, all I will say is "you wish."

As far as months go to take a dive into the idle side of the pool in blogging, August is a good one. Government never illustrates how important it is in our lives than in August when those bums decide to take time off. Having injected themselves into every aspect of our lives, when they take a vacation (no one can interrupt their plans, you see both how annoying they have become (that's the importance part) and how useless they are.

If you're moldering in Jail, you're going to keep doing that, if you need a Government agency which has made themselves a Machiavellian necessity, you're out of luck. In short it's clear in August how much Government dominates our lives and the news, and in some ways it reveals tragically how little they are really necessary. It's a great time to not be blogging and I wasn't.

Your Modern Pharisee will (God willing) successfully transition from an Automotive Finance Manager to "Something Else" by about the third week of this month. The end date for my training is a little murky. It sorta depends on my progress and the availability of work which my employer really doesn't want to discuss in detail with me. That's ok.

Once again to the great disappointment of my detractors, I have cleared the hurdles of background checks that were in this case the most extensive I have ever endured and come out smelling like a rose. No my dear opponents, there's nothing criminal in my past lurking around waiting to be found. It was kinda fun in retrospect to deal with the one issue of "my arrest" in Ocala Florida back in the 90's. It ended up with Florida saying "what arrest, there ain't no stinking arrest." Someone had listed a bogus arrest in a database by a company that has it's headquarters in....

....wait for it....

Dallas Texas.

Hmmmmm.... Maybe I didn't remember "my arrest" because it never happened.

Ya think?

You think, I'll wonder.

I keep warning that the focus of the Modern Pharisee will be shifting, and then I kinda don't shift. There are reasons.

For one, I love politics but it's so futile. I've promised to write on the topic, so I guess I should, but again, it's so futile.

For another, the pickings in the FLDS cases are now slim. The phase of appeal in Texas will begin soon as some of the plea bargains facilitated appeal, since they preserved the right of appeal. Men "convicted" of their crimes in those cases plead "no contest" and essentially agreed with the state that if the state were allowed to present certain evidence a jury would convict them and it was useless to fight that inevitability. They did however state that they'd like the benefit of appeals, and since the transcript of a plea bargain is short, those cases have gone straight to appeal. As with the cases of the children where one favorable ruling sent all the children back, one successful appeal of the warrant in any FLDS case will void every conviction obtained so far.

That brings me to the nascent status of Warren Jeffs as a victim or martyr or even hero. He could go either way at this point. Essentially a martyr is a victim of a particular narrow variety. Warren could just be another wave tossed victim drowning in his oppression, or he could be a martyr for his cause. I hope at least for the latter. Increasingly Warren S. Jeffs whose trail of dismissed charges and overturned convictions is looking like a man wronged.

Without meaning to insult his legal help, he doesn't have what is generally recognized as the best legal minds in the country helping him. They are good lawyers to be sure, and they may even be great lawyers. His religion's pilfered coffers don't offer the image of a man with unlimited funds hiring the best attorneys money can buy who in turn would produce an OJ/Johnnie Cochran type verdict. His attorneys' track records are poor in his case in the first few rounds. They lose, and then they fight back. Then they start winning.

The bottom line is that Warren can be portrayed, if portrayed skillfully, as being downtrodden, victimized, persevering and being willing to suffer martyrdom for a cause. That cause can be extended in it's relevance to all of us, again, if the portrayal of Warren and his travails are accurate and if they are sold to the media in terms of what he does for all of us. Warren Jeffs can be everyman fighting the limitless power of the state to bend laws and processes for the purposes of destroying both a man and the faith he represents. If this can be done, he is at least a martyr. If he can live through this, and win, he can be a hero. Ultimately most of us need heroes, not martyrs. Martyrs die for a cause, Heroes win and allow us to believe we can "fight the power/the man/city hall" and live to tell about it. Really, that's what most of us want to do. If forced to fight for a good cause we want to win or have our champion win and live so that we can go back to living our anonymous lives. Anonymous lives of personal freedom. That in a nutshell is what Warren and the FLDS represent at this time. A focal point for personal and religious freedom in a free country.

The last matter of housekeeping is the progress of the "new denomination." I am beginning to transition into a "pastoral" role but the denomination is not formed yet. The small group of people I am involved with want urgently to remain in the places we were planted and seek and pray to God that this be so. This involves submitting to the existing authorities in the churches we are attending if we are still in them. The process that a month ago could have taken a week or two weeks has stretched out into a much longer period of time, but seems to be entering an end game that will have a nucleus of persons in those churches, "unchurched." That will be when we start.

As a consequence the new denomination will begin, again, God willing. It will begin as essentially a cloned version of the Orthodox Presbyterian denomination with a rewrite of the Westminster Confession of Faith's chapter 24 and a sort of WCF convention call to address other perceived deficiencies of the Confession. The proposed new wording of point one in Chapter 24 will be: "Marriage is to be between one man and one woman. It is it lawful before the LORD for a man to have more than one wife, but not for woman to have more than one husband, at the same time." The old wording was: "Marriage is to be between one man and one woman: neither is it lawful for any man to have more than one wife, nor for any woman to have more than one husband, at the same time." Other unisexed language with regard to divorce will be changed and screeds against "Papists" will be deleted. Other than that the WCF will remain intact and the Book of Church order used by the OPC will be adopted. Everything will be examined ultimately, but that is the first order of business and the basis of our separation from existing denominations. As soon as the denomination is large enough, the "Convention" to examine the WCF and book of church order will be held.

This will become my primary task. My job will become for funds, not personal fulfillment (though I do like my new job) much as Paul was a tentmaker. I will follow and comment avidly with interest and commitment when it comes to FLDS cause. It think it has widespread impact in preserving and restoring our liberty if the cases go their way. I have committed to the FLDS to be in prayer for Warren's release and the overturning of the convictions of the men in Texas. I will offer them up in prayer to God that this be done, if it be his will. I think if it is not his will to do so, the days will be dark for all of us.

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The Failure of Church Discipline and the Failure of the Reformation

It occurs to me that the reformation is failing, because church discipline, isn't working.

In my chosen denomination, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, it is viewed that "the church" in Christ's description of church disciplinary procedure is the leadership. In a Presbyterian church, conservative or liberal, that body is the session. Ok, let's go with that. First though, let's look at the text of Matthew 18:

"If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church (ἐκκλησία-ekklēsia): but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

The Greek word for church (ἐκκλησία ekklēsia), really doesn't lend itself to a leadership gathering but more towards the whole church. That's the first point. The second is this procedure does not lend itself to tight control over the congregation by the leadership. Anything decided in private can be appealed to the most public configuration of the church and it's leadership, if it is indeed meant as it would seem here, that when you lose the one on one, the two or three on one, you take it to everyone. Since the word can mean the ENTIRE Church, such as the "Church Universal," it can mean a decision can be appealed to the whole of a denomination. This can only be undertaken when individual bodies are responsible to one another, hence, in part I would think, Presbyterian governance, and why I prefer it.

Taking the narrow interpretation favored by church and denominational leadership, that "the church" Christ refers to in disciplinary matters, is THEM, the leadership, there is still this uncomfortable reality. What if the session, who is the church in this formulation is held by someone, either in the session, or being accused before the session, to be wrong. It could be the accused, the accuser, a minority member of the session. Let us go to 1st Timothy 5:

"Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses. Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear. I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality."

The problem would be, that you could conceive of the session as of a Presbyterian church as a constituted court, as described in 1st Corinthians 6, but when that court behaves badly, who is the judge? The court? In the case of session misbehavior, either by one or all of them, the only place for such judgment is the church, because in misbehaving, one would expect that most of the time, they would cover their own misbehavior. 1st Timothy 5 then becomes a "never use" procedure, which I constantly refer to as the "emergency stop" of the movie "Spaceballs." (If you ever saw it, you remember that the "emergency stop" was labeled with a tag that said "never use.")

So of necessity then, the court of last resort in the immediate area of the church, is the church body itself, at the very least, because the issue of Elder misconduct is the province of the church as a whole. The discipline of the Elder, is to be public, for the specific reason that it serves as a warning to all. The church will publicly deal with it's highest leaders, and punish them publicly which is a statement that no man's power exceeds the rules of the church. The rules of the church as both Christ and Paul laid them out.

It may be that "going before the church" is going before the session, but if the session is questioned, as it is in my recent encounter with them, the battle goes before the church. Herein is the problem, because the denomination (and most of them for that matter) teach THEY are the court of last resort, not the congregation, and the congregation, eager to be uninvolved in the matter, assent to that. In trying to take the issue to the congregation, the congregation viscerally rejects hearing the case, and becomes angry, and the session becomes indignant, and then starts massively bending rules, such as deciding in private, receiving anonymous accusations and then employing the sword of civil authority, to enforce their views. How can this be the public process of Matthew 18 where accusers go in person, the courts of 1st Corinthians 6, which are to be used instead of the shame of public ones and the center ring keel-hauling of the elders? It's not. But that's the way things have gone.

The result of this is moral failings are not aired out in public, which is consistent with "confessing your sins one to another" and doctrinal questions don't get dealt with. Doctrinal failing on the part of an individual is "heresy." The session Polices membership, assigns the name heresy to doctrine, the member cannot be a member, or is thrown out of membership in private tribunals, and there can be no questioning of doctrine. We get then Westminster Confessions of Faith thrown in our faces, and while the Bible is supposed to be the final word, the real final word is the WCF vision of what the Bible says, and it can never be questioned, or you sin, and you're thrown out and the congregation doesn't want to hear it.

Why then haven't we reformed anything lately (Semper Reformanda)? Because you can't get anything past the guard dogs of the denomination, and the denominations as a whole, would prefer to sleep. The snarling reaction of my congregation this week which essentially was "I don't want to be involved," proving why we, as conservative reformed people, are dying out. Some estimates are that there are less that 700,000 in the United States and some of the larger denominations in this country are actually comprised of ethnic Koreans, evangelized and convinced, who have moved to this country. That's about 10% of conservative reformed Presbyterian membership all by itself. We stay perpetually stuck in the confessional mode, swearing to authorities like the WCF. Functionally speaking though, if anything is wrong with the WCF or various other reformation era catechisms or confessions, there is no way to change them unless what we do is destroy our faith, as theologically liberal denominations have done.

None of what happened this week was really a surprise. The minor details of exact procedure and speed of action could be said to be mildly surprising. I knew for instance, that the church would "Go G" on me, I just didn't know exactly how. I was fully expecting to be served, at work, with a restraining order. It just worked out a little differently than that.

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Notice

Concerning future operations.

Read it here.

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Jay's Thoughts on Stuff. Polygyny

A fellow traveler, and a book.

"By the time I had accumulated more than one hundred pages of Bible passages (paraphrased to aid my own understanding) and typed notes, I was convinced: Stivers was correct. Not only is most of today’s church incorrect about polygyny, but they are dead wrong about a whole host of issues related to marriage and family."

Check out his blog, I know I am.

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Further discussion of the uncomfortable subject of Old Men and Young Girls.

A lot is said about the primary function of marriage as being for the purpose of raising a family and of having children. The elephant in the room is the reality of declining fertility and rising rates of birth defects. First the birth defect angle, quoting from Wikipedia.

"Birth defects, especially those involving chromosome number and arrangement, also increase with the age of the mother. According to the March of Dimes, 'At age 25, a woman has about a 1-in-1,250 chance of having a baby with Down syndrome; at age 30, a 1-in-1,000 chance; at age 35, a 1-in-400 chance; at age 40, a 1-in-100 chance; and at 45, a 1-in-30 chance.'"

No one wants to whelp a monster. I would love a child of mine that was so burdened, but no one wishes for such an occurrence. As a man seeking a wife with whom one of my primary functions would be to reproduce and form a family, who would I select? Society tells me to pick a professional woman who has unfortunately passed her fertility prime. Who has unfortunately fallen in all likelihood from the ranks of the chaste. All these things fly in the face of what God tells us and his apparent design. "Be fruitful, and multiply" saith the LORD, not "find a professional wife and postpone fertility."

We now have more expansive definitions of abuse. Suppose that I take a fertile woman nearer my own age, if she is 45 I forgo the greater number of children, the greater number of chances to have them and I increase the chances that they will be sickly. If I have four children with a woman over 40, I keep her pregnant most of her fifth decade and the chances are greater than even that I will produce at least one child with downs syndrome. That's a one in six chance of that defect, 4 kids. Statistics say if I have six kids at that age for a mother, one will be downs, so if I have three or four, I've got a better than 50/50 chance. Am I not abusive by some measure to seek to bring defective children into the world? Abusive to them, abusive to future generations and so on? That's one way of looking at it.

Next, let's address the fertility curve itself;

"Women's fertility peaks around the age of 19-24, and often declines after 30."

If I want children, as a man, (and God knows and tells us I SHOULD) who do I pick? From a functional standpoint, again wishing to pick the chaste girl, not the "experienced" one, I pick someone on the upswing. Frankly without the clucking of society factored in I pick a girl BEFORE she's 19, that way I enjoy the most fertile years of her life with her healthiest children. Unless you go to the wife store and pick one off the shelf as she's approaching peak freshness, where do I find this 19-24 with which to have the largest number of healthy children? Um, that would be 18 or under.

If we pursue a goal involving some compatibility for the emotional welfare of that girl whom we intend to take as wife, plans are getting in gear a little sooner than the wedding day. I'm sure Dad wants to get to know ME, I'm sure SHE wants to get to know me, and so on.

This all goes to the question of where does a man find a WIFE? A wife in the TRADITIONAL sense, for after all, the Apostle Paul says;

"Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."

That does PRIORITIZE having children, doesn't it? It does so not as a detriment to women, but as a BENEFIT to them. Don't I help my wife in a general sense by causing her to have children?

Men and women are so very much different. If you look at the curve for men's fertility it does not go into the steep decline that women experience.

"Sperm count declines with age, with men aged 50-80 years producing sperm at an average rate of 75% compared with men aged 20-50 years. However, an even larger difference is seen in how many of the seminiferous tubules in the testes contain mature sperm;

* In males 20-39 years old, 90% of the seminiferous tubules contain mature sperm.
* In males 40-69 years old, 50% of the seminiferous tubules contain mature sperm.
* In males 80 years old and older, 10% of the seminiferous tubules contain mature sperm.

This does not directly correlate with any absolute decline in fertility, since there are still many sperm cells left for fertilization."

To put it another way, the only swimmers that win the race are the healthy ones. I drop my odds a little by being older, but I still have mature seed that can run the race and achieve the goal. Furthermore, they're young in relative terms. My 20 year old wife in this hypothetical has older seed than I do.

Thank you Captain Obvious, what we have just reiterated here is that men can go on having children successfully into their 90's. Women hit the top of the baby roller coaster while still teens and peak while very young, most quitting altogether shortly after they turn 40. We knew that you say. But I say you're in denial. This is the Elephant in the room no one wants to talk about.

Those of us who believe the Bible is historic truth have no choice but to understand the implication of design. Women are meant to marry YOUNG. They mature physically faster than boys do. Generally in grade school we notice the girls get taller, start getting interested in boys sooner than we did. The first girl I was romantically serious about when I was 13 was eye level with me at that age. Years later when I saw her again, she was SHORT. In the sex sweepstakes she blew past me at warp speed and got where she was going a long time before I did.

This also shows up in promiscuity statistics that I mentioned earlier in the blog. When girls and boys fornicate, it's shown that at least in these days and times, girls start earlier than boys do and get a jump on them in that category. That's not an endorsement, just an observation. Boys catch up later, but it's just another one of those reality markers about how we were designed. The vocation of women is child bearing. God tells us that, design bears this out. There are exceptions, but that's the general reality. They get there in a hurry as well. They're best for it for a rather narrow window.

Men get there later, and have a longer window of opportunity. Now, those of you who sign on to intelligent design (as I do), what does that tell you?

Are we conforming to the world or are we informing it? By consenting to the idea that we should raise ages of marriage/consent in the law, and by inserting an age differential factor, are we not saying no to God's plan, and yes to a worldly one? More →

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Daniel's Vision VS Idealism. Restoring what we can, preserving that which is not lost.

I am not an idealist. Not in the ultimate sense. I think we can know what the ideals are. I think in some ways we can attain them, at least for a time, at least some of them. The idea that we can go back to the way it was in the Garden, or that the people of Israel could rescind their reaction to the first bad report of the spies, or could revoke their request for a King, all of these are not ideals I ascribe to. There are some events in human history, once done, that cannot be gone back on. Sin, for instance, is one of them. The effect of Eden is permanent, at least before Christ comes again. With that in mind, let us look at Nebuchadnezzar's dream, as it is revealed to him by God. The Book of Daniel, NASB.

"However, there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the latter days. This was your dream and the visions in your mind while on your bed. As for you, O king, while on your bed your thoughts turned to what would take place in the future; and He who reveals mysteries has made known to you what will take place. But as for me, this mystery has not been revealed to me for any wisdom residing in me more than in any other living man, but for the purpose of making the interpretation known to the king, and that you may understand the thoughts of your mind."

Daniel certifies the King's dream as real and prophetic. It foretells the future. It is from God.

"You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was awesome. The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This was the dream; now we will tell its interpretation before the king. You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength and the glory; and wherever the sons of men dwell, or the beasts of the field, or the birds of the sky, He has given them into your hand and has caused you to rule over them all. You are the head of gold. After you there will arise another kingdom inferior to you, then another third kingdom of bronze, which will rule over all the earth. Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron; inasmuch as iron crushes and shatters all things, so, like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these in pieces. In that you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but it will have in it the toughness of iron, inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with common clay. As the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery, so some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle. And in that you saw the iron mixed with common clay, they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery."

The kingdoms deteriorate in Glory over time. The head of Gold comes FIRST, then kingdoms of lesser Glory come after it. There is no greater earthly kingdom than that of Nebuchadnezzar. This is the prophecy. The kings of Israel are past (at least for the time being) and the Kingdoms of Men are here. They become less and less glorious, over time. This is radically different that what we are taught, that we are becoming greater. We build computers. We can strike men dead from thousands of miles away. We can photograph the planets up close and land on them. We have a government of, for, and by the people. We are indeed great because of how we define progress, but God says no, we are not.

"In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever. Inasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what will take place in the future; so the dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy."

Clearly the stone that will endure for ever is the Son of David, the Son of Man, the Son of God, Jesus Christ. His kingdom grows, and fills the earth, while lesser kingdoms rule and are smashed by him. But unless we think his kingdom is established, on earth, NOW, we deteriorate in all forms of human endeavor.

We thus lose things over time, not gain them. In Eden we were lied to and told that it was good to take from the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, and we did, and were clothed for the shame of our nakedness, cast out of the garden, barred from life without death and many other curses were imposed on us which we endure to this day.

The earth is destroyed in it's then current form and reborn after a flood and mankind steadily loses lifespan, descending eventually to no more than 120 years. God though, talks with man, speaks with man and bargains with man. Jacob wrestles with God and extracts blessings from him. God gives his people his LAW and an inheritance on the earth, and rules DIRECTLY over them. Men are given land and livelihood from the LORD from birth. They have no ruler other than God.

Men ask for a KING, and get one, and are told by God through Samuel;

"The LORD said to Samuel, 'Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them. Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt even to this day--in that they have forsaken Me and served other gods--so they are doing to you also. Now then, listen to their voice; however, you shall solemnly warn them and tell them of the procedure of the king who will reign over them.'"

The King would Tax and enslave them, cause them hardships and in addition, Israel was punished for asking for a King, nevertheless, they could not go back after asking for one.

The bottom line is we lose our birthright progressively over the generations, submitting to lower and lower forms of government, lesser and lesser men. Proverbs 19:10;

"Luxury is not fitting for a fool; Much less for a slave to rule over princes."

I do not know what form Polygyny would take if we embraced it again, as we should. The best possible scenarios in times gone by rarely occur or are not possible at all. Ideally, in the sense of what was best in the past, what was possible in the past, even after sin came into the world, a man should not employ his wives outside the home. But times have changed. We have little in the way of inheritance. We have less to offer our wives, they come with less of a dowry. Thus the LORD says through Isaiah the prophet;

"For seven women will take hold of one man in that day, saying, 'We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach!'"

I have maintained no man should take a wife he cannot support. Perhaps I was wrong, perhaps we have fallen so low they will come to us and say "I will work outside the home, only keep me as your wife." We CAN rebuild and restore. The question is how much will we be able to retrieve that was good in times that have past.

I also offer this analysis to those who say "but we have progressed." I reply, no, we have not. Times past were more moral than times present. We are not better, though we have a better deal in Christ, a greater revelation of God's grace. We are worse in fact than our forebears, not better. Perhaps all of us are greater in faith, as none of us have seen. More →

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How Francis A. Schaeffer relates to Polygamy

I still find among my truly Bible Believing friends, that there is a lack of knowledge as to how we got here. That is, how did we get to a place where people claim to be Evangelicals, to believe the Bible, to accept Jesus Christ as savior and when you appeal to scripture they glance away, make a dismissive hand gesture and come up with the equivalent of "that was then, this is now" or "that doesn't matter." It goes deep. Our bad doctrines have created centuries of psychic struggle in Christianity and the result is a collective denial of the truth of the Old Testament. Embarrassed "intellectual" believers want to brush aside the theological content of those passages. Inconvenienced contemporary cultural Christians want to continue life as they know it, without asking as Schaeffer did, "How should we then live?"

"There is only one way to describe those who no longer hold to a full view of Scripture. Although many of these would like to retain the evangelical name for themselves, the only accurate way to describe this view is that it is a form of neo-orthodox existential theology. The heart of neo-orthodox existential theology is that the Bible gives us a quarry out of which to have religious experience, but that the Bible contains mistakes where it touches that which is verifiable — namely history and science. But unhappily we must say that in some circles this concept now has come into some of that which is called evangelicalism. In short, in these circles the neo-orthodox existential theology is being taught under the name of evangelicalism.

The issue is whether the Bible gives propositional truth (that is, truth which may be stated in propositions) where it touches history and the cosmos, and this all the way back to pre-Abrahamic history, all the way back to the first eleven chapters of Genesis; or whether instead of that, it is only meaningful where it touches that which is considered religious. T. H. Huxley, the biologist friend of Darwin, the grandfather of Aldous and Julian Huxley, wrote in 1890 that he visualized the day not far hence in which faith would be separated from all fact, and especially all pre-Abrahamic history, and that faith would then go on triumphant forever. This is an amazing statement for 1890, before the birth of existential philosophy or existential theology. Huxley indeed foresaw something clearly. I am sure that he and his friends considered this some kind of a joke, because they would have understood well that if faith is separated from fact and specifically pre-Abrahamic space-time history, it is only another form of what we today call a trip.

But unhappily, it is not only the avowedly neo-orthodox existential theologians who now hold that which T. H. Huxley foresaw, but some who call themselves evangelicals as well. This may come from the theological side in saying that not all the Bible is revelational. Or it may come from the scientific side in saying that the Bible teaches little or nothing when it speaks of the cosmos. Or it may come from the cultural side in saying that the moral teachings of the Bible were merely expressions of the culturally determined and relative situation in which the Bible was written and therefore not authoritative today."

And thus I accuse all of Reformation Christianity, probably Shaeffer himself, of not realizing the extent to which this pervasive error has gone. Shaeffer would probably agree that in principle, he too did not "get" the extent and depth of the error. We would probably disagree on what portions of doctrine represented that error. I am certain that Shaeffer was from the "Monogamy Only" side of the theologic path.

Let us look though at his last statement in this quoted passage again though. "The Bible (is seen) as merely expressions of the culturally determined and relative situation in which the Bible was written and therefore not authoritative today." I cannot count the times that truly Bible believing Christians have thrown this at me. This calls into question my terming them "truly Bible Believing." Are they really? The answer is they are not. They are Bible Believer wannabees.

Christianity is hard. The progression of history is not towards cultural progress, but towards cultural destruction. We are curiously asked by God to work towards cultural progress, revealing his light to the world, being salt or leaven, but the world is slouching towards Babylon, not the New Jerusalem. It is only the apocalyptic intervention of God in the end that will restore things. I'll get to more of that in a future post in which I will examine the prophetic image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

"Cults" often spring up when Christians or offshoots of Christianity such as the FLDS try to start living as they should. They take the Bible literally or they "restore" it in some way and then they try to live the life. Mainstream Christian denominations, even the most conservative ones seemed doomed to slouch towards theological and cultural decline. They take Shaeffer's last enunciated position, that the Bible is "cultural" and "not relevant for today." Christianity becomes a self expression, a religious "experience" and not hard truth about our lives.

In accepting polygyny, it is not the first eleven chapters of Genesis, or "pre-Abrahamic" writings that I talk about, but ALL of the Old Testament. All of God's law. All of God's prophecy and even some of the discussions about marriage and law Jesus had. If you stop telling yourself the noxious lie that the "Bible was written by men" or that it was "cultural" and coming up with the excuse to discard large portions of it based on their inconvenience, you're going to start living quite differently, and you DON'T want to do that. They'll come for you, just as they did in Waco, just as they did at Yearning For Zion. I embrace neither group as living the life of Christianity though I sometimes think I should research David Koresh a bit more, but I do say that if you start LIVING a life that even REMOTELY looks like what scripture said you should lead, the world will come to get you. With tanks, with sharpshooters, with APC's and they will try to burn your house down and destroy it utterly. They want NO PART of God.

If you are a Christian, if you say you believe the Bible, then it really is time to see how much of it you really believe.

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Issuing the Polygyny Challenge AGAIN. Anybody, Anytime, ANYWHERE.

With the small qualification that they be Bible Believing Fundamentalist Christians I will debate anyone anytime anywhere on the truth of Polygyny. LIVE. PUBLICLY.

Want some smack? I still think I am the foremost proponent of the practice in terms of debate experience and debate ability.

You think Monogamy is the stuff? The God Ordained Original Pattern for Marriage?

Bring it, I can whup you five ways from Sunday.

I say all this in the context of Psalm 119:97-104: MEM.

"O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word. I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me. How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way."

It's coming. The legal climate I have predicted would probably come to pass in five years stands a good chance of coming in that time frame. Legalized "marriage" of any sort. Gays, Lesbians, whatever. Society believes they can bestow the benefits of marriage on anyone so it's coming. Any group of adults or persons of legal age to marry will at some point in the very near future be able to "marry" in the eyes of the law.

So what marriage is, is of paramount importance now. No longer will you be able to count on the law preventing anything other than heterosexual couples being bestowed with the legitimacy of marriage. Before you have neglected your mandate and sat back on the comfortable notion that Polygyny was ILLEGAL (even though it has not been for a while).

Debate ME. I will take you on. I am wiser than my enemies because HIS commandments are ever with me, I UNDERSTAND more than YOU DO because I keep HIS precepts and through them I GET UNDERSTANDING and HATE EVERY FALSE WAY.

Monogamy as marriage is a false way, a crooked path and YOU, the collective cowards of "Reformed Wisdom" teach it as Holy Writ. God indeed is not pleased, for this is the God that stares balefully at any who ADD to his word, and you ADD to it. You have in your laziness and cowardice DISARMED the flock and made them ready for wolves. 550 plus years of the Reformation and you sit on your hands and congratulate yourselves that you need do no more.

How can I swagger and do so righteously? Because I indeed do not swagger, but boast of the power of God's wisdom which I have submitted to. I preach nothing new. I invent no new doctrine. I merely look at God's will like Abraham did with Isaac and I submit to it. It's time. Get in FRONT of the question that was long overdue for review. Do it before you are forced. Debate me. Lose. Then Change. Or is God's truth TOO MUCH FOR YOU? More →

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Why I choose THAT name.

Ok, ok, it's partly an attention getting device. Here's the logic behind it. In their day it was the Pharisees that believed in the Resurrection. They were the most "Theologically Correct" adherents to the faith of the Hebrews commonly known today as Judaism.

Most don't know it but the only sect that is mentioned as carrying over into early "Christianity" (which wasn't known as Christianity until it spread to the gentiles) were the Pharisees. Paul continued to claim long after his conversion not that he used to be a Pharisee, but that he was a Pharisee.

With that in mind it would make sense that if we truly reformed, we'd end up being most like the Pharisees theologically. Obviously there were excesses and hypocrisies among them. I most certainly don't advocate returning to their micro managing interpretive rules.

I've started this Blog in part to promote my own forum. Expect to find what is discussed here, also discussed there.

Hugh McBryde

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