Be Unafraid of the Unprincipled
by Craig Smith
When Protestant Christians came to this country they possessed and subdued the land. They worshipped God, and his Son Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world, and acknowledged the Scriptures to be the rule of their faith and practice. They introduced their religion into their families, their schools, and their colleges. They abstained from all ordinary business on the Lord’s Day, and devoted it to religion. They built churches, erected school-houses, and taught their children to read the Bible and to receive and obey it as the word of God. They formed themselves as Christians into municipal and state organizations. They acknowledged God in their legislative assemblies. They prescribed oaths to be taken in His name. They closed their courts, their places of business, their legislatures, and all places under the public control, on the Lord’s Day. They declared Christianity to be part of the common law of the land.
In the process of time thousands have come among us who are not Christians. Some are Jews, some infidels, and some atheists. All are welcomed; all are admitted to equal rights and privileges. All are allowed to acquire property, and to vote in every election, made eligible to all offices, and invested with equal influences in all public affairs. All are allowed to worship as they please, or not to worship at all, if they see fit. No man is molested for his religion or for his want of religion. No man is required to profess any form of faith, or to join any religious association. More than this cannot reasonably be demanded.
More, however, is demanded. The infidel demands that the Government should be conducted on the principles that Christianity is false. The atheist demands that it should be conducted on the assumption that there is no God. The sufficient answer to all this is that it cannot possibly he done. The demands of those who require that religion, and especially Christianity, should be ignored in our national, state, and municipal laws, are not only unreasonable but they are in the highest degree unjust and tyrannical.
— Charles Hodge, in Systematic Theology (1871-1873), vol. 3, pp. 345-346.
Gentlemen, although Mr Hodge wrote this 130 years ago about the USA, he makes valid points applicable to NZ. But if he had written this last week, then I would say he understated the case by quite a margin.
We are being flooded by all manner of pagan, wickedly evil, anti-Christian influences. This is not simply reflected in the numbers of immigrants from nonChristian lands. The Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Shinto, animist, communist, secularist adherents who come to stay here occasionally offer the Christian an ally in regards to traditional family values and a desire for advancement through hard work and thrift. Occasionally. However, we must not be surprised if we should find that a Muslim’s two sisters are actually his second and third wives; that the Hindu uses this country’s virtual abortion on demand industry to eliminate unborn – and unwanted – daughters; that the Buddhists’ disregard for the physical realm contributes to the rise in prostitution and infanticide; and that the ultimacy of pragmatism over unchanging spiritual values in them all sees the graft and corruption endemic to the non-Western world becoming common place here as well. Sadly it is the rising tide of native-born apostates who are leading these trends.
The real issue we Christian men need to address, as emphasised by Mr Hodge, is not the bad influences around, but the way in which nonChristians want to institutionalise their freedom to publicly express nonChristian thought and morality, and in fact to see both legal and social sanctions favouring such things, while at the same time inhibiting the Christian’s freedom to express Christian thought and morality in the public arena.
Isn’t it odd how Christian standards of morality, right and wrong, are turned around 180 degrees, stood on their heads by legislation, yet Chrisitans have been convinced we cannot and should not ram our morality down other people’s throats? Those who will not work are guaranteed food, clothing and shelter, whereas the Bible says to let them not eat. If the thief is deemed too poor to ever pay back what he stole, he is not required by the judge to make restitution, but instead has access to legal aid, community services card, unemployment benefits, sickness benefits or complete care in prison, meaning the victim ultimately pays for his robber’s upkeep. Those guilty of capital crimes are not executed but given by the state 24-hour-a-day care and protection, access to recreation, crafts and education as well as retaining the right to vote. Rather than keeping the marriage bed undefiled, sexual activity of all kinds is viewed as a form of recreation, subsidised by one-stop-shops which give advice, medical checks and condoms for free. Perversions such as homosexuality are raised to a state of honour equalling marriage. Things that are wrong, such as murdering unborn babies, are considered right and compassionate. Things that are right, such as a teacher of history pointing to the redemption in Jesus Christ as the pinnacle and whole point of history, are illegal. And the parent spanking his own child for disobedience, is now seen as wrong and may soon have legal moves made against him.
Look here, this is plain old heathen immorality being rammed down our throats; that is, someone else’s nonChristian morality being forced upon us. Why is it OK for the enemy to do this but not for us? Why do we put up with it? It is worse when you think that the state takes money from Christians (via taxation) and uses it to abort babies and subsidise immorality and irresponsibility. It is just as bad when you realise that we Christians are forced to pay for a totally nonChristian, secular schooling system and teacher training system and in addition are forced to send our children to these places for at least 10 years to be trained up in nonChristian thought, which according to Matthew 12:30, Romans 6:16-23, Colossians 2:8 and others is nothing more than anti-Christian thought. That is, Christians are not only forced to send their children, for whom Christ died, to the enemy to be trained up as atheists, but Christians are also forced to pay for this indoctrination of their own children against them! Why do we still render to Caesar the things that are God’s?
Well, praise God, He is helping us home educators to see this more clearly all the time. We are only lacking in confidence, for we listen too much to what the enemy tells us about ourselves, our Saviour and our Faith. They say that mere parents relying on God cannot train up children as Bible believing Christians and still expect them to survive in the 21st century. Listen, men: when the Rabshakeh told the officials of King Hezekiah in the hearing of those on Jerusalem’s wall that Sennacherib king of Assyria was going to wipe them out (Isaiah 36); when Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem were giving Nehemiah a hard time about rebuilding Jerusalem’s wall, saying it couldn’t be done (Nehemiah 4-6); when Peter and the other apostles were told by the high priest not to preach in the Name of Jesus (Acts 5:27-32), listen: those uncircumcised heathen and those self-righteous church council jokers (with the possible exception of Gamaliel) were simply not qualified to comment. What did they know about the faithfulness and omnipotence of God? Zippo. Accordingly, God’s people didn’t listen to God’s enemies, but instead paid attention to their Lord.
As basic as this is, we easily lose sight of it. We are creatures of this world and are often afraid of the consequences of standing up for Christ and ordering our lives according to His Word. It’s tough these days, eh? I mean, we may even have people call us names like “fanatic” or “extremist” or even “narrow minded”. And yet it is the secularist and the materialist of today whose minds only acknowledge the narrow physical aspect of life, ignoring the much wider range of understanding and variation a spiritual view of any situation imparts. In addition, these mockers of Christians are also generally only ever interested in the here and now, having no time for the hereafter.
The fact is, of course, Christians are far less narrow minded than the secularist, since we see both the spiritual and the physical sides of life; and the Christians are nowhere near as short-sighted as the secularist, for we see way beyond the here and now, out into God’s eternity. We are accused of being “old fashioned” and not “up with the times”, when in fact we have the far more superior perspective of eternity. Why let their uninformed comments intimidate us?
Mainly because we also let them define the terms. By narrow minded they mean Christians don’t embrace the full variety and diversity of thought and lifestyle out there in the modern pluralist society. That is to say, we don’t like to tolerate the intolerable. And so it is: the state agents and others can use legal force and social pressure to force Christians to accept fornication, adultery, divorce for no reason, prostitution, homosexuality, unwed parents of multiple children by multiple “partners”, non-traditional definitions of “family”, etc., as legitimate activities/lifestyles. (The only reason child prostitution and bestiality are not in this acceptable category is because their respective lobbies aren’t yet big enough.) Any of these options can be freely taught as legitimate alternatives in state schools (and remember, we Christians are paying for this garbage through our taxes), but one must be extremely careful in presenting Christian Biblical morality, for such instruction in state primary schools is against the law! (See Education Act, Section 77).
The bad guys around us are a bit late to be trying to wipe out Christianity…..about 2000 years too late! Satan did his best then; Pilate also tried to wash his hands of Jesus; but who’d want to be where those guys are today? The Scriptures say repeatedly that every knee shall bow to Him (including our Prime Minister, every member of Cabinet and on down), and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. There is no need for embarrassment, or even timidity, when you’re on the winning team. Let’s go to it! Let us live it and teach it to our children.
From Keystone Magazine
July 2002 , Vol. VIII No. 4
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