Author: Daniel Juster

Marshall Mcluhan and a Warning on Media

I first heard the name Marshall McLuhan from the lectures of Francis Schaeffer in the fall of 1967 at Wheaton College.  The late Francis Schaeffer was the greatest popular philosopher/apologist in the Evangelical world of that time.  I wonder how many today have even heard of him.  He taught with great power and authority. Schaeffer quoted the famous Mcluhan phrase, “The media is the message.”   In his summary, the media has the power to create what people see as reality, though it is not really reality.  Schaeffer gave many examples of films and pictures that were total distortions, but by selective editing, were able to create a false narrative. For Schaeffer, this could lead to terrible totalitarian control by the government.  I think of the picture from a few years ago of a Palestinian who was holding his child that had just been shot in the terrible conflict of the Palestinians and Israelis.   The narrative was that though he was protecting his son, an Israeli soldier just shot him in cold blood.  It became a media sensation, especially in France, and produced an intense anti-Israel reaction.  It never happened and was proven to be a death from Palestinian fire.  Over the years, I would read many paragraphs from others of what McLuhan said and how it could be applied, but I did not read McLuhan.  Sometimes I quoted the quotes. 

With the internet today creating narratives so easily, gaining traction for these narratives and gullible ascent from so many, I wondered if McLuhan, writing in the 1960s, could have anything to say to our age.  Finally, I decided to read him directly and downloaded his book, Understanding Media, the Extension of Man.  I also read some reviews.  

McLuhan’s writings are complex and not a simple warning about the dangers of media when not responsibly handled.  Actually, it seems after reading McLuhan, there is little chance of responsibly handling media.  Media takes over man, is an extension of man, and recreates human beings.  How that recreation takes place and what it means is the unspoken message of the media.  Some have said that McLuhan was a media determinist.  His teaching was that media will just remake us for good or evil, and there is nothing we can do about it.  Humans never seem to be able to adequately anticipate or to control the reforming of human beings and society.  McLuhan does not just speak of modern electronic media but traces the effect of the alphabet and literacy in the ancient world, how roads in Rome followed literacy and made empire possible, how movable type and the printing press completely reformed Europe and led to more homogenous arrangements of human life, how the telegraph, telephone, radio and T.V. and the computer (still in an early stage in his day) re-make human existence in very total ways.  McLuhan’s book is mostly descriptive and not prescriptive.  I found it to be brilliant in intuitive insight, ranging over many areas of art and culture.  However, it was at times tedious, redundant, and without the kind of scholarly support that would establish his assertions. Sometimes I did not agree and found myself saying that we can transcend media.  We are in the image of God.  However, the assertions often seemed correct according to my intuitive sense. 

Coming back to Schaeffer, if film and pictures can so distort and do not produce the questioning response of print, what can we say of the internet age (where are the footnotes for assertions?)?  Surely the concerns of Schaeffer and the media shaping us are not unjustified.  McLuhan was prophetic in his descriptions of electronic media being an extension of the human nervous system and being more pervasive and dominant than any media to date.  McLuhan would sometimes revel in the media changes and was not a defender of print or older ways as the better way to truth.  I don’t know that  McLuhan concerned himself with the best way to find the truth.  The theory of knowledge issues (Epistemology) are absent. 

Speaking on the dangers of radio and its monopolistic control of information if taken over, he quotes Hitler, “I go my way with the assurance of a somnambulist (sleep walker).”  Then he says, His victims and his critics have been equally somnambulistic  McLuhan says, “They danced entranced to the tribal drum of radio that extended their central nervous system to create depth involvement for everybody. “I live right inside radio when I listen.”   The power of radio to involve people in depth is manifested in its use during homework by youngsters and many other people who carry transistor sets in order to provide a private  world for themselves amidst crowds.”     (Kindle, Loc. 4236-4260)

How much more would this fit the computer phone devices?  I go to the gym and people are always hooked up.  Music, telephoning, and pop up news from the internet and media form opinions.  Narratives gain traction and acceptance even when they are not rooted at all. This media is shaping people. The effect on the brain has been studied. The withdrawal of some of our youth from normal person to person interaction is stunning. What kind of people will this produce?

In speaking about how media dominates us and takes us over, he says, “Not even the most lucid understanding of the particular form of a medium can head off ordinary closure of the senses that causes us to conform to the pattern to the experience presented.  Purity of mind is no defense against bacteria!”  (Loc. 4280)  

Well, this does not seem too hopeful.  Is there any way to transcend the media flood?  In a time of protest fueled by social media, how can we find a way to truth and to transcend being totally conditioned?  The only answer I have is by immersion in the Word of God and praying in the Spirit.  Then it is to have a level of discernment in the Spirit that was never before so required of God’s people.  We need to disconnect from media for large chunks of time and ask the Holy Spirit to lead us to the source of information and truth.  Time in nature with beauty, time spent with great music, and great biographical stories can help. Then we need to create communities of the people who do the same.  Perhaps the Chinese Church whose society is so controlled by State-controlled media can help lead the way for us.

 

Why Does it Seem Charismatics Have Such Integrity Struggles

I have been recently involved with leaders from around the world to produce a statement on integrity for five-fold and charismatic ministry leaders.  It is gaining great traction.  We have great hope, but it raises a large question for me.  Why does it seem that charismatic leaders are so lacking in integrity, including prophetic statements that do not come true with no repentance, financial mismanagement, supporting power ministers who are not sufficiently vetted, and then fall into sin, bizarre practices and amazingly weak approaches to interpreting the Bible?  What goes on under the name of spiritual warfare sometimes seems more like wishful thinking and magic than biblical faith. 

I first want to say is that I don’t think it is true that most charismatics, and I include Pentecostals, lack integrity.  We get this impression due to some people who have large platforms, either a large church from which they become famous, or have a large traveling ministry and platform with today’s great media presence.  Many pastors of large churches are not well known nationally or internationally.  However, I know many leaders in church streams and denominations with great integrity and who have built very good structures for integrity. When such people show a lack of integrity, we get the impression that they are the charismatic world.  Here are some reasons as to why this integrity gap takes place.  

  1. The rejection of denominational structures often came without a commitment to learn from the integrity standards and processes of the denominations.  There was disrespect or dishonoring.  This is one reason why Pentecostal leaders tend to do better than their fellow charismatic leaders, but again, I can name many such leaders of very good streams. 
  2. There is a lack of leadership discipleship into the best practices for integrity.  This includes being very clear on maintaining biblical standards for leadership as in I Tim. 3 and Titus 1. 
  3. There is a lack of education in biblical hermeneutics (interpretation) and how the whole Bible is our authority and is to be applied.  There is an amazing level of interpretive error on the issue of the authority of the Hebrew Bible.  Preachers and teachers speak of Jesus as their key to understanding, and then from this understanding, the parts of the Bible that do not fit are canceled out.   Of course, this is not really Jesus but their idea of a very indulgent Jesus.  The second issue is that leaders are not trained on how to build doctrine on a contextual interpretation that gives authority to the whole Bible.  Craig Keener’s book Spirit Hermeneutics could be a great answer.  Keener shows how the Holy Spirit can speak all kinds of things from biblical texts, but that the meaning of the text is contextual meaning and we can only build doctrine on that basis. 
  4. One of the biggest issues is the desire of charismatics to see the power of God. Many will say that the fruit of the Spirit is more important than the gifts, and that character is more important than power.  However, the desire for revival and power is so great that when a minister who shows something of the power falls morally or ethically, there is an unwillingness to deal with it due to a fear of undercutting the power of God.  I think this was a big part of the Todd Bentley phenomena.  Yet, deal with it we must, or great ruin will follow.  We need to remember that the great revivals were revivals of holiness, characterized by deep repentance form sin.  Power and holiness must come together for deep revival. Let us not be take away from integrity due to miracles or suspend our judgment.  The miracle may be due to the faith receptivity of the recipient and the mercy of God and not the power minister who is in sin. Discipline must never suspened due to manifestations of power.  My book Due Process, A Plea for Biblical Justice Among God’s People, deals with these issues. 

 

The Righteous King: Lessons from Psalm 72

Psalm 72 is attributed to David and is written for Solomon.  The Psalm is called an Enthronement Psalm, one that would be recited at the enthronement of the King according to some scholars.   In Christian interpretation, the Psalm is all about Jesus.  In classical Judaism, it is ultimately about the Messiah.   There are things in the Psalm that cannot be true of a mere human King no matter how great.  At least we can say that some of the hopes have never been fulfilled by any King of Israel no matter how great, not even David and Solomon.    It can be hyperbole, but of the Messiah, it is literally true. There are some things in the Psalm that do not fit the Divine Messiah King.  

Here are things that cannot be true of mere human King or at least have not nearly been fulfilled by any King of Israel no matter how great, even David and Solomon.  

Let them fear You while the sun endures and while the moon lasts, throughout all generations. (v. 5) 

Let Shalom abound till the moon is no more.” (v. 7)

May he have dominion from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. (v. 8)

Let all kings bow down before him and all nations serve him. (v.10)

On the other hand, it does not say he will be everlasting in the following verse. 

Long may he live. (v. 15) 

Also, “Give to the king Your judgments, O God, and Your righteousness to the King’s son.” This is showing his human dependence on God.  

Solomon foreshadows the Messiah, and this Psalm as others (Ps. 2, 22, 45, 69) take us beyond the reality of the Israelite human King directs our hope to an everlasting Divine King.  The hyperbole points us to Yeshua.  

However, what is really remarkable to me is the description of the heart of the ideal King, his identification, and care for the needy, poor, and marginalized.  This produced a tradition in England that the King was to defend the weak over against the dukes and barons who would take advantage of them.  This Psalm as well as the prophets and the teaching of Yeshua tell us that though God loves all, his first priority is the poor. This is the heart of Yeshua, and we are called to share this heart.

May he vindicate the people, 

Save the children of the needy and crush the oppressor. (v. 4)

For he rescues the needy crying for help

Also the poor and the one with no helper, 

He will take pity on the poor and needy,

And the souls of the needy, he will save. 

From oppression and violence, he redeems their soul,

For precious is their blood in his sight. 

The Bible gives us this vision of the Messiah.  It shows itself to be the greatest social justice literature in the world, especially as applied in the teaching of Yeshua.   It is social justice based on the Biblical world view of God and his redemption through Yeshua.  That is why I wrote a book on Social Justice. 

Corona Thoughts at Mid-July

Back in April, I sought to wade through the many prophetic words being given on the Coronavirus.  If you remember, the prophetic words about what would happen were of three kinds.  One was that it would be an unmitigated disaster that could be the beginning of the plagues of the book of Revelation.  The second was that it would amount to nothing and would fade away quickly after Passover. The third was that there would be a turnaround at Passover, and we would be getting to the other side of it after Pentecost.  One prophet friend had a very vivid vision of the virus and China in early January and said that it would be serious.  As I write this up, I remind you that I was more in agreement with the second view.  I repent of that aspect of my support for this position that indicated that there would not be serious issues after Pentecost, and I ask your forgiveness.  I am not a prophet but have had dramatic prophecies from time to time that have come true.  In this case, I did not any prophecy of my own.  As for the prophets in the second group, I did not read of  them saying, “Thus says the Lord” with confirming signs like, “you will know that this word is true when you see x,y, and z.”  

So where are we now in this Corona fight?  It has been very hard to sort the information.  I am an avid reader of the Jewish English newspapers here.  They report a lot of news from America.  I do get CNN, Fox, and Channel  I24 (a wonderful more objective English news source in Israel). CNN here is the international version and is not quite as partisan as in the U. S. but it is partisan enough.  Fox commentary shows are very partisan, but the news programs are quite good in my view.   From all this, I believe we can make a pretty good summary of where we are at.  In some ways, we have turned the corner, and in some ways, the problem persists.  The economy is opening up and the death rates are down.  Some U. S. states are seeing quite a spike in numbers, but most European nations are not seeing a great spike and are opening up as well.  Their children will go back to school.  However, the partisan divide is affecting how this virus is perceived, what the response should be, and then even allowing the scientific evidence to be publicized. In Israel, the numbers are greatly increasing and there are calls to lockdown again, but this is still resisted by the government committee in charge. 

We know a lot more about this virus but still not enough.  I was amazed to see the report that the stats say that the Corona overall rate of death to infected people in the last CDC report is only 0.5 percent.  As reported by Dr. John Ioannidis, epidemiologist of Stanford University School of Medicine, the rate for healthy people with no-comorbidities under 70 years old is 0.04 percent.  Dr. Scott Atlas of Hoover Institution also quotes the statistics. Reason Magazine summarizes the CDC and its variables. The CDC estimates that the CFR for COVID-19 falls to 0.05 percent among people younger than 50 and rises to 1.3 percent among people 65 and older.  We know that seasonal flu is much more dangerous to children and young people. The number of serious cases in children, though existent, approaches zero statistically.  The stats in general show a much lower percentage than was feared in the lockdown period due to the number of asymptomatic cases now included.  The serious cases in older people are much worse than the flu. Here are good articles to read for more detail. 

https://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2020/07/09/a-conversation-with-john-ioannidis/

 

reason.com/2020/05/24/the-cdcs-new-best-estimate…

What is the problem with this virus?  It is that it is so easy to catch.  If a hundred million get the virus very many will die, though the percentage is small. It is now believed that it is not generally caught from children or surfaces but from droplets in the air.  The problem is also how very dangerous this virus is to the elderly and those with co-morbidities, much more dangerous than the flu.  Yes, some will die from every age group, but this is also true of the flu every year, and we do not shut down the economy. 

My view, therefore, is that we would be on the other side of this if we overcame fear and made reasonable decisions.  Here are some key points on this. 

  1. Since children are hardly affected, schools should be open.  Healthy teachers are at very little risk.  The national pediatrician society of the U. S. strongly supports this position. The teacher’s unions in the  U. S. are resisting this. 
  2. To slow the rate of infections, continued masks and physical distancing are important. 
  3. We should fully open up the economy with the proviso of #2 above. 
  4. We have to work very hard to protect those over 70 and those with co-morbidities.  Many who have died would have died within the same year, but many would not have so died.  I have fanaticized that all older folks like me would be sent to gorgeous resorts with all non-affected people and staff and totally isolated from the rest of the population until the virus is past or until there are highly effective treatments for this age group. We would eat well, go to gyms, swim, and play golf and tennis. I can dream but in reality, it will be a matter of being very careful. 

We should note some other good news.  First, the press has way underplayed the advances in non-vaccine treatment.  The J. Post front page yesterday had a very promising one from a researcher at Hebrew University which he thought could be a cure.  Other treatments and there are several, depend on steroids that suppress the overreaction of the immune system and the cytokine storm in the lungs. In addition, given early on, Hydroxychloroquine does work and cut the death rate in half in recent studies at Yale University Hospital and the Henry Ford Medical Center.  In addition, Vaccine research is going forward, and some promising vaccines are not based on the traditional method of vaccines but are new types of vaccines that produce the anti-bodies needed.  

But clearly, shutting down the economy should not be done.  That is a disaster and the government spending could be headed for an inflationary disaster. In some ways, we are on the other side of this with the new understandings of how to go forward. I am heartened by some of the scientists who agree with what I am saying here such as the ones quoted herein.  

My biggest concern is how followers in Yeshua handle this.  I have connected to some who are quaking in fear. We need to believe that God is our protector and if we walk in the Spirit, He will check us form going where it is unsafe and give us a sense of release otherwise.  He is our protector. We should be a light of courage and confidence to those around us and use this to share the Good News. 

 

Following Lives of People Now for 60 Years

I have been a follower of Yeshua since April of 1960, 60 years. I have also kept up with some who were in High School and those who were in my Church Youth Group.  For two years in my last two years of high school, I served as the Vice President of the high school group. The four officers were given a lot of responsibility to develop and implement the program with the supervision of the Youth Director.  Some of the youth from that era have left the faith but most have remained committed.  In my secular High School, most of those I knew did not follow Yeshua, but then some of them, in their adult years, came to Yeshua.  Then there were the college and graduate school years and 48 years in pastoral ministry, 28 years as a congregational leader, and then also as an overseer of congregations for a partially overlapping 42  years now.  I have come to a conclusion about life.   

My basic conclusion is that those who live as radically sold out to Yeshua live a much more successful and fulfilled life than those who do not.  I am not speaking about merely nominal believers, even those that attend congregational services.  I am not speaking about every individual.  I am speaking about what I have observed in the lives of people over the last 50 years.  Of course, there are agnostics and atheists who live in loyalty and fidelity and have been relationally successful.  Their success might be better than nominal believers.  However, the percentages of successful living, in my experience, is greatly in favor of those who have given their whole lives to God and are committed to obedience to His commandment through the power of the Spirit at work in them.

I will just give one example but can give many. One is the issue of lasting marriage and the problem of divorce.  There are several surveys that say the divorce rate among believers in Yeshua is the same or worse than the world.  Maybe so.  However, the divorce rate in our congregations that I oversee is minuscule.  It is due to the radical commitment that has been embraced by the members.  What happens where there is such a radical commitment?  The focus is on pleasing the Lord, not the self, and not on fulfillment in this life.  When that is solidly established, then the parties in the marriage grow more and more into His likeness. They thus learn patience, forgiveness, mutual servanthood, compassion, empathy and so much more. The fruit of the Spirit is more and more evident.  The parties to the marriage grow more and more into the likeness of Yeshua.  If both marriage partners grow more and more into the likeness of Yeshua, they will have His view of the other and His love for their partners.  Two people who are becoming more like Yeshua will love each other more and more.  This also includes accessing the promises of God to enable fidelity.  The Bible calls this to “reign in life” in Yeshua.   Life is better in the Kingdom and in community with radically committed fellow followers of the King.  The key is to access his presence and power to live in his ways. 

 

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The Two Most Attractive Eschatologies (Views of the End of the Age) Both Are Wrong

The most popular view of the last days before Yeshua returns is the pre-tribulation rapture theology.  It dominated most of the Evangelical and Pentecostal world in the 20th Century.  My view is that it is now in significant decline, but I would like to have a scientific survey to verify this.  Though my pastor in the Reformed Church in my teenage years did not hold to this view, many of the members did and I embraced it through a Bible club and Christian camp.  This view takes note of the terrible situation of tribulation and judgments on the earth just before the return of Yeshua as described in the prophets and the book of Revelation.  However, wonder of wonders, Christians will not have to go through this time.  Just before it begins, seven years before the return of Yeshua to earth, they will be taken off the earth (raptured) and meet the resurrected saints in the air.  They will be with Yeshua in heaven for the seven years of this terrible time of plague, death, and the Antichrist.  This is really attractive, isn’t it?  It is argued in John Walvoord, The Rapture Question, and Hal Lindsay’s Late Great Planet Earth. 

The second most attractive view and I would like it to be true.  It is that Christians will take over the whole world and all its institutions and will rule in righteousness without the second coming.  He will come later.  In its classic form, this righteous rule was said to be 1000 years, whether symbolic or literal and was called Post Millennial. Why is this view so attractive?  It is because it gives us a very optimistic focus on the advance of the Church, evangelism, and total social transformation effected by the faith and faithfulness of the disciples of Yeshua in the power of the Spirit.  There no psychological ambivalence to engaging the world and all its culture formation institutions for we are destined to win in every sphere.  However, if Yeshua comes soon, then all these efforts will be for naught and instead of taking over, the worst period of darkness will come first. This optimistic view is very motivating.  We are building for our children, grandchildren, and beyond.  This was the dominant Evangelical view in the second half of the 19th Century.  It was held by the great anti-slavery founder of Wheaton College, Jonathan Blanchard, who adopted the motto, “For Christ and his Kingdom” as a motto whereby His Kingdom is gaining and will rule overall. It was the view of Charles Finney, the great revivalist.  There were some who even believed in the importance of the Jewish people in all this.  They would return to their land, embrace Yeshua, and Jerusalem would become the world capital.  Most people lost confidence in this view due to World War I.  Things did not seem to be getting better.  Today there is a growing number, though still a small minority worldwide, that espouse this view.  Marcelus Kik, in his Eschatology of Victory, defends it.  The Theonomist movement that seeks to make God’s law the law of societies promotes it. This was fostered by Gary North, Rousas Rushdoony, and  David Chilton in Paradise Restored. 

The problem with both of these views is that they do not measure up to the Bible interpreted in context.  The Pre-Tribulation escape view is based on such tests as II Thes. 2 where we read that the great day of trial will not come until the Anti-Christ is first revealed.  Somehow, they reverse the meaning and say that if the rapture had come, you would see the Antichrist, so it has not come.  (II Thes. 3)  Rev. 3:10 is a key proof text where the Church of Philadelphia is told that God would keep them from the hour of trial.  This letter to this historic church is hardly a strong proof.  Also, the text is used where the Antichrist is restrained until the restrainer is taken out of the way.  This must be the taking away of the Church it is said, but there are other convincing interpretations. (II Thes. 2:6)   The second coming with the rapture is always presented in clear texts as one event that comes at the end of this age, after the Tribulation.  For this, see Mike Brown and Craig Keeners great book, Not Afraid of the Antichrist. 

The optimistic take over the world philosophy is built on extending the optimism predicted on the spread of the Gospel into believers taking over the whole world.  For example, in the parable of the leaven in Matthew 13:33, the leaven permeates the whole of the dough.  It is taught that the dough is the world and therefore the whole world is taken over.  So also, in the parable of the mustard seed, it grows into the largest tree in the garden (13:31-33.)    The Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness (Matthew 24:14).  Surely must mean total take over. Yet other parables in Matthew 13 speak quite differently. The events of the Olivet discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13,  and Luke 21, are seen as past and about the destruction of Jerusalem in the first century. The book of Revelation is seen as the past as well, the first century.  However, this is hard to see since Revelation was written after the fall of Jerusalem and looked toward what will happen before the final destruction of the Babylon system then represented by Rome, but which speaks of the events just before the Second Coming and a turning of Jerusalem to Yeshua in chapter 11.  I would love to believe this most optimistic position, but it does not square with the facts.   By historical norms, it is not heresy to believe this.  Some say it was the view of the great Jonathan Edwards, but that is disputed.  

The Bible is very consistent in the clear texts including the prophets, the teaching of Yeshua, and the book of Revelation.  The time just before the coming of the Lord is a time of great victory for God’s people but also a time of the battle of good and evil at its height.  What is true of Israel at the end is applicable to the whole Church, “Darkness will cover the earth, deep darkness the peoples, but ADONAI will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you.  Nations will come to your light, kings to the brilliance of your rising. (60:2, 3)  I am not a Roman Catholic, but Roman Catholic biblical scholars can do amazing work.  Here is their summary of this issue in the standard Catechism for today, “The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.  The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through progressive ascendancy, but by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven.  (Paragraph 677)   I was amazed when I read this.  It as after I wrote the book, Passover, Key to the Book of Revelation.  

So we do not take over the world or escape the tribulation if we are still living at that time, but we have victory in going through the final battle of good and evil.  The aforementioned book and our book, Israel, the Church, and the Last Days give a good summary of our views of the last days, eschatology.  The danger of the wrong views is that we do not prepare the people of God for their possible involvement in the final battle. 

 

Torah in Messiah and the Present Crisis

Michael Rudolph and I wrote a book on applying Torah entitled Torah in Messiah.   It is our view that Torah is practical but must be applied according to New Covenant fulfillment, primarily through the teaching of Yeshua.  Messianic Jews and Gentiles should have something to say to the difficult social justice issues of our day.  And it must be based on a Biblical definition of justice, not Marxist or socialist which come from a wrong worldview.  This is why I wrote a book on Social Justice.  

I do not have much hope for attaining progress in society without the influence and believers and the transforming power of the Gospel.  So, if you are putting trust in mere human efforts you will fail. Many books have been written on the history of progress in social justice since the first century.  Progress has come from the influence of believers and the Bible, first of all, due to the unheard-of idea that every person is created in the image of God and is due love, respect, and justice on that basis.  

What is love and what is justice?  If you study the whole Bible, you can conclude the following.  Love is the passionate identification with others that seeks their good guided by Law.  Their good is defined by God’s intended good destiny for them. This must always be our motive.  Then justice is seeking an order of righteousness that maximizes the potential of people to fulfill their God-given destinies or that maximizes the fulfillment of love for all people.   We seek an ordering of society that maximizes love and justice.  However, unless there is a great influence of the Gospel by a significant number of committed disciples of Yeshua, history does not give much hope that much can be attained.   I want to now apply this to the life and teaching of Yeshua and what he has to say about the issues of racism and the violent riots.  Richmond is a historic center for the pain of these matters and the Confederate monuments are controversial. Z how do we bring healing?  I approach this message assuming the definitions.  

  1. Love and Justice begin with a call for repentance.  Mark 1:15.  Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, or available to you.  What does this mean? God’s Kingdom order of love, justice, and miracles is breaking into this world and you are called to repent and enter into it.  Repudiate selfishness and hatred, and vengeance and give yourself to the power of the Kingdom.  The Kingdom influences all of life.  Note the ending of slavery largely came from Evangelicals.  Many books on progress in history show this. Rodney Stark’s The Victory of Reason and British historian Tom Holland, Dominion, How the Christian Revolution remade the World.
  2.  Yeshua calls for submission to the Torah teaching of Yeshua.  This is most clear in the Sermon on the  Mount near the beginning,   Matthew 5:16, 17, and the end Matthew 7, were we are told to build on the rock of his teaching.   
    1. The context of Luke 4 is important.  Yeshua said that “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim liberty.”  To whom?  The Gospels is first to the outcast, marginalized, and oppressed.  The year of Jubilee is the context of Luke 4.  It is the year when the slaves go free.   Mennonite J. Howard Yoder in The Politics of Jesus is brilliant on this. 
    2. The Sermon on the Mount’s Beatitudes proclaims the end of victim status. You cannot claim victim status and know the power of God and your life is now in his hands.   Matthew is about the great reversal because the kingdom has now invaded earth. 
  3. Our approach to change must include the rejection of violence:  The Zealot movement and its attempts to overthrow the Roman government by violence was the context of Yeshua’s teaching against violence.  The Romans did practice terrible oppression and racism.  I am not saying that there is no place for just war, but this is far secondary to the way we seek change. 
    1. Yeshua councils turning the other cheek and volunteering to carry a load a second mile when a Jewish person was conscripted by a Roman soldier to carry his load.  This response to Roman oppression and shaming was unprecedented.  It is the way of love.  The oppressed shows love to the oppressor, the enemy. 
    2. Satan comes not but to rob, steal, and destroy.  The false shepherds of  John 10:7,  10:10 were the ones seeking violent revolution.  
    3. When Yeshua wept over Jerusalem and predicted its destruction it was because he knew the zealots would gain control and ultimately go to war.  The chose the false  shepherds instead of the Prince of  Peace  
    4. Romans 13 speaks of submitting to authority during the days of Nero!   Now there are limits to submission and the Apostles made it clear that this did not include obeying sinful commands or shutting down the spread of the Gospel.  
  4. Our approach calls for reconciliation and forgiveness based on the Gospel.  We are to attain a heart of love for the enemy:  Matthew 19:21 councils us to forgive 70 X 7 and teaches this forgiveness on the basis that the debt we owe to God far outstrips any debt another might have to us.  He has given us the ministry of reconciliation to God and one and other.  II Corr. 5:18 
  5. A successful movement that pursues justice has to be driven by reconciled believers.  Jonathan Blanchard (founder of Wheaton College), revivalist Charles Finney, EvangelicalHarriet Beacher Stowe, The Pastors Beachers, William Ward and Henry, and Wilbur Wilburforce show this witness.  A Marxist humanistic movement of violence will lead to destruction and greater suffering.   A true movement begins with reconciliation, with the Body of Believers with the repentance, reconciliation, and unity of all races and ethnicities.  In this time of anti-police rhetoric and black offense, the best way forward would be a movement led by Christian Policemen and Black Christians, pastors, and members. These kinds of people can lead a non-violent movement of justice.  Martin Luther King led just such a movement with Christians and Jews, blacks, and whites.  His themes were Christian or biblical. 
  6. The history of 20th century white churches is one of the saddest chapters. I am not speaking about southern Christians who had a racist or segregationist theology which was terrible. I am speaking about the non-racists who would sing with their children,  “Red  and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.” The sin was in neglect of their responsibility to first focus their efforts of the Gospel and their works of love to the poorest communities.  An escapist theology as fostered and they, therefore, did not see pursuing justice as a central part of the Gospel.  
  7. You can know that the violence, destroying, and killing is not from God and is like unto the zealots and will set back the cause of justice.  
  8. However, pursuing justice and reconciliation has to be based on finding the truth and not based on lies. The claim of systemic racism is not helpful.  Being guilty on the basis of being born white is anti-biblical.  Rather we need to pursue the issue of specific areas of racism.  In education, housing, family, business, and policing.  The black experience is not that so many are killed unjustly, but that so many are mistreated.  Why does the government allow 7,500 black on black murders per year?  Where was the Church on mass?  The Church should be there, preach the gospel and its members should be willing to lay down lives?   Just where does racism show itself?  It is in the heart.  Is it in corporations?  Which?  Real discrimination has to be proven. I note public school disaster and the black underclass and the need to escape this system. Anecdotal evidence is not going to help solve this.  There has to be objective social science studies by people without a Marxist agenda.   A vague broad claim will just be denied.  I know that only a Gospel effort for the poor and massive investment of our lives will turn around the poor of the cities.  This is why we support every month the Richmond Ministry CHAT and its high school.  It is one example of the Gospel in action.  There should be thousands of examples.  I am not thinking the government will solve it.  By some measures, 22 Trillion has been spent since Johnson’s great society legislation.  Much was squandered and did not work. But If we identify with and support violent revolutionaries or sympathize with it, we have abandoned the Gospel way and the power of God. 

ISSUES: THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY: On Sources of News, Social Media, and Education 

Where are we to get News and Views?

Some of my dear Facebook friends are saying that the BLM protests are mostly peaceful and my alarm about Marxists and Anarchists is overblown.  Recently a report mentioned that over 1 billion in property damage occurred.  People have lost small businesses, some have been killed including police who were targeted.  In New York, Portland, Minneapolis, Seattle, and more the mob demands that the police be defunded.  They say they will not go away until their demands are met.   Do we really believe that people want less policing?  In black neighborhoods where crime is high, they do not want less police, but some want more and better-trained police.  That will cost more.   The pictures of the mob are frightening.  So why do some of my friends say that these are peaceful protests with a few who have taken advantage of the situation and are fostering destruction?  Then I realized it relates to media. The media they watch does not show the pictures of the destruction or of the mob when it is violent.  The mainstream media plus CNN and MSNBC want to foster a narrative.  It is that the problem is Donald Trump, that there is systematic racism in the police and other sectors in our society, and that the protestors are peaceful.  Removing all statues of people who believed in slavery or racism is seen as legitimate as well (I am not desirous of arguing against that except for founders that moved us toward human rights which would lead to an outcome they did not anticipate!).  

Then I realized that my friends who are influenced by the group think much of the media.  If you do not watch alternative conservative media, you never even see large slices of what is happening.  I could give example after example.  The terrible treatment of the police and preventing their emergency responses.  Not on the mainstream media.  The pictures of the destruction in the cities, terrible destruction.  Not on the mainstream media.  Do my friends have empathy for the police right now?  Some of them do not.  Is racism systemic? In what sectors of our society?  What is the proof?  I am reasonably sure that there is a disproportionate poor treatment of blacks, but not murder as a big issue.  I want to see racism rooted out. But why the selective empathy?  Why not empathy for those who have lost their small businesses, including blacks.   Where is the empathy for the black children recently killed by violence in the cities?  I am reasonably in touch with mainstream media when I am in the U. S. but here I only have CNN and Fox.  I do watch both. Right now, though policing has improved, you would not know this. The black community is being given an anti-policing narrative which I think many know is not true.  It is producing anger and violence through enough to be a huge problem.   It will lead to more death and crime in the most vulnerable communities. 

When I speak about alternative conservative media sources, including a balanced news program like Bret Baier, my mainstream news friends vilify Fox as biased.  They are not kidding.   They don’t see the incredible bias in the mainstream news?  Both Papers and broadcast?  I would have my friends watch two programs regularly to get another side, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham.  I know that Sean Hannity is sometimes over the top partisan; like the opposite of Rachael Maddow.  Carlson is a libertarian and sometimes takes President Trump to task.  I sometimes disagree with the level of his anti-war isolationism.  I do want to give one example on Carlson and the mainstream media.  (By the way, the cancel culture and the media matter folks are trying to get him removed from the air by pressuring his sponsors.  Carlson last night reported on a couple in St. Louis. Protestors broke down the gate to their community and were threatening them. They called for police help and protection; it was to no avail.  When it looked like they were in danger, he went into his house and got his legal semi-automatic and they dispersed.  What happened? The mainstream media portrayed him as a white racist.  His address was posted on social media.  The prosecutor wants to charge him.  Yet he was defending his life and property.  Some threatened to kill him, his wife and his dog. It is recorded, but not on the media.  The man is a lawyer who right now is in a case pursuing a case of police brutality against a black client.  If you only knew mainstream media you would get a totally wrong and biased report.  (One matter that is quite crazy is the idea to tear down the statue of the medieval King Louis and to change the name of the city.  St. Louis was founded by France.  There was a violent attack on Catholics protecting and praying at the statue, saying the rosary, etc.  A Muslim led the effort to tear down his statue since he supported the Crusades.  This violent attack was unreported.  An older man with a cane ended up with a concussion.)  I can tell you that the media just does not, over and over again, report important stories accurately.   Trump meets with 100 black leaders.  They report on how he embraced them and listened to their concerns and was responsive.  The mainstream media don’t report it.  It is as if it never happened. It is reported on Fox. This happens over and over and over. Will my friends ever wake up?  

 

Hi-Tech and Social Media

Then I want to speak about the enormous problem of social media and hi-tech control from Facebook, Google-YouTube, and Twitter.  If my friend Mike Brown has had problems being removed and even the brilliant Dennis Praeger, then we know we have a big problem.  I know other friends who have been shadowbanned.  These big media companies are monopolies and are given a free pass as supposedly neutral platforms.  To get our views across on traditional morality, social justice, a more biblically based order of righteousness, we need to have media access.  Regulating the big media will not be adequate and will be hard to do. They should lose their protection as neutral platforms.  They make editorial choices and that should end their protections. My greatest hope is for media that will not shut anyone out except for those who explicitly call for violence against others or who put forth racial views that some races are genetically inferior and pornography. I know that there will be false information and false news.  The answer to that is not policing by the tech company and the removal of what they deem to be false.  They really are not capable of doing this.  Rather, the answer is that people will need to do their own research and come to recognize good sources of information and people who have good qualifications.  People will have to choose whom to trust and not be treated as children who need the media company to act like a parent who prevents his children from accessing information they do not deem good.  The biggest issue now for those with a biblical world view perspective is that the culture formation levers of society are in the control of the left; education, media, news, entertainment, etc.  To break out of the massive efforts of creating media platforms that enable the promotion of the alternative views will be needed.  Great amounts of money will be needed to launch this.   I actually think that if we can see a decentralization of social media there is great hope that alternative views can break through the monolithic leftist control.  The Gospel itself is spreading on the internet and can do so to even greater levels.  Media may be a great answer.  

The present control of education and the media by the left is a huge problem.   However, I do see opportunity in the media too if we can only see the break out I am speaking of.   Use the older media and create alternatives!!  Through media, we can report credible miracles and wonderful winsome presentations of the Gospel.  Great teaching can be presented.   

Lastly, I want to speak about the power of the Gospel in the communities of the marginalized. The story of the ministry of Robbie Dawkins is a great example. No, it is not the big city like Chicago, but the smaller city of Aurora, Illinois where crime, gangs, and killings were over the top. Through the power of the Gospel, leading gang leaders to Jesus, and the power of miracles, the crime rate was cut to an amazing level.  The Church was awarded for its work.  We need scores or hundreds of such churches.  Guess what?  Then we can reduce funding for the police!!  I would love to see such stories widely promoted in media. 

 

COVID/CORONA AND REMOVING THE VEIL OF DECEPTION IN EDUCATION

The domination of leftist ideology on the campuses of America has really destroyed much of the traditional liberal arts in philosophy, literature, etc. (See Victor David Hanson).  The social sciences are also very compromised.  The hard sciences seem to have the greatest ability to transcend ideology, but ideology still has influence.  The question then is why should families spend 20 30 or 40 thousand dollars per year for leftist indoctrination.  I have a 17-year-old grandson who thinks much of formal education is stupid and that he can access what he needs to learn on anything from the internet.  I greatly appreciated my Wheaton College and then Graduate school education.  The education was serious and gave access to many viewpoints that were well presented.   Indoctrination was not the orientation.  Costs and ideology today bring the bricks and mortar centers for education into great question.  COVID-19 has emptied the campus and many switched to online education.  I am wondering if we will see God’s judgment on the expensive, anti-God, anti-Bible education that prevails on many campuses.  Will many not want to return to the old model campuses.  Would it be good for the Kingdom to see many of these schools go under?   And should we be developing higher education ourselves that does not depend on bricks and mortar, but educates from a biblical world view perspective?  Some Christian Universities such as Liberty University have very large internet school programs.  As my experience at Wheaton, I would imagine that Professors fairly present alternative perspectives.  Can we hope that this is a time to break out of the ideological straightjacket of leftist ideology being fostered by the campuses?  

 

 

 

Biblical Repentance and White Repentance

The leftist radicals in the Black Lives Movement (by no means the majority in the movement) have hijacked the movement for radical post-modernist ideas that are Marxist and anarchist.  (The two are not coherent, but what can you do?  I have not found consistency and coherence to be part of this movement).  There is now an attempt to get all who have white skin to repent for their privilege and whiteness and to go through a re-education process to reject such white values as enablement (ability), perfectionism, objectivity as a standard, and more.  You get the idea of a cult here and of communist re-education.   The perversion of the true meaning of repentance and of discipleship (their re-education substitute) is of the spirit of the Antichrist.  However, let’s look at true repentance.  

The New Testament emphasizes individual repentance, not repentance for race, color, ethnicity, or political groupings.  The only emphasis of repentance for corporate sin is focused on Israel, whose repentance and acceptance will lead to the return of Yeshua.  Biblical repentance focuses on the fact that all people are equally created in the image of God but have sinned and are deserving of eternal death in Hell.  That is a pretty bracing idea!  There is no emphasis on changing the society, but the society was radically changed for the good from Christianity. There are too many books that well prove this.  There is no emphasis on white Italians as a group repenting for the Roman Empire. The centurion who received his healing miracle from Yeshua was not asked to repent of his being a Roman soldier (note the anti-police movement now and the fact that Romans were very brutal in Israel-Yeshua’s council was to turn the cheek and to walk a second mile).  Nor was the centurion who form the preaching of Peter received the Spirit told to repent of being a Roman soldier.  When the seculars seek repentance from a group as they define it, it will probably lead to no good, but only eventually to resentment, backlash and retaliation since reconciliation requires all to repent and forgive.  Secular movements for shaming and repentance will certainly fail.

Now is there a place for corporate repentance?  Yes, I believe so.  As Daniel said of his nation, “We have sinned.”  Through the prophet Jonah there was repentance in Assyria under their King and corporately.  Ultimately the nations will repent and turn to God, and this will then include the individuals in those nations turning to God as well. This is a persistent theme in the Psalms and very much emphasized in Isaiah.  We understand that this will be through the Gospel of the Kingdom.   We have been part of prayer journeys where Christians have repented for the sins of their nations in Spain, Italy, and Japan.  However, we never expected the unbelievers to so repent.  This was organized so that the Christians of those different groups would come to full reconciliation as with Jews and Germans and Koreans and Japanese.  This was based on the idea that there was sin in an identifiable and real corporate group and that the Christians were able to represent that group.  This is also possible only because New Testament identity makes secondary all other points of identity.  As individuals, my identity before God is that I am first created in God’s image and all are equally so created and valuable. Secondly, it is based on the fact that my primary identity now is as one who is saved by the sacrifice of the Messiah and am now a New Creation in Him.  

A legitimate corporate repentance requires a legitimate identifiable corporate group to repent.  All corporate groups have sin and need to repent!!  The problem with the Black Lives Matter radical minority is that they seek repentance for a condition that is not an offense against the Law of God and thus not subject to repentance.  Whiteness is not a category for repentance.  It is only due to defining blacks as if they were a world-wide ethnicity toward which whites must repent.  Indeed, some whites did so treat blacks as if they were one corporate identity.  So, skin color becomes in these cases a point of identification that is not based on real ethnicity and is fiction because whiteness is not a corporate identity.  I am of Norwegian descent and Jewish descent.  My ancestors were not involved in slavery or fostering racism.  My grandfather was an anti-racist and my mother wrote anti-racist poetry.  My Jewish ancestors fled the anti-Semitic programs in Rumania.  Yet, I am classed as a white that needs to repent.  I wonder about Asians who have done better than other ethnic groups in the United States.  Is this a source of oppression for which they must repent also?  If one wants to pursue corporate repentance among Christians in Christian gatherings to release greater power and humility, then it is important to note that whites are not one ethnicity.   There are Russian, Scandinavian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Slovak, French, Italian, Spanish, Latvian, Estonian, and I could go on and on.  All have tribal roots that were even more troubling in their pagan days.  Should I repent for what was done to Native American’s in the 19th century or as a white Jew to blacks for slavery and racism?  This is very counterproductive.  White as a category for automatic repentance based on skin color is reverse racism that is dangerous. 

So how do we deal with corporate repentance for the situation of the black community?  Recently there has been repentance in black African tribes who sold their enemy tribes into slavery.  I can also think that the United States as a corporate country can repent of having allowed slavery in the South, and they as a nation would embrace policies to lift the black community.  This would be from Christian influence and Christians repenting for their nation. I can imagine Christians form the nations that were in the slave trade repenting.  Each ethnic group could look at their history.  I can imagine descendants of Southern Christians whose ancestors owned slaves repenting, but this is now a smaller and smaller percentage of southerners.  Here are some more categories.  I can imagine most churches that are not black repenting for the neglect of the poor and especially blacks. (This is my #1 repentance issue).  The Church has not sufficiently brought the Gospel in power to life the black community.   I can imagine Republican Christians repenting for the Republicans ignoring the black community until more recent years since they were not voting for Republicans.  I can imagine Christian Democrats (there are fewer and fewer in this party that used to be the party of the majority of Evangelicals) for setting up a welfare structure that destroyed the incentives of black men and destroyed the black family.  There would also be repentance for supporting the education lobby to the destruction of black education and not allowing choice.  However, such a spirit of right repentance, love, and reconciliation could only come from Christians. 

So, there is plenty to repent of.  As those who are submitted to the Biblical World view, I would hope that our hope is not in pollical change, agitation, protest, and more without a Biblical world view base.  Also, I would hope that we take seriously the truth as exemplified in the Bible that social progress is primarily though the Gospel being presented with power and a revival among God’s people.  In the midst of these painful movements in America, may Christians get out of their comfort zones and be in the cities presenting the message of the Gospel and love and reconciliation.

The Great Anomaly: Russia, America and the LGBT Movement

The Times of Israel today reported on Vladimir Putin’s mocking of the LGBT pride flag hung on the U. S. Embassy in Moscow.  We are living in strange times.  The Communists of 100 plus years ago mocked the western family ideas as part of the bourgeoise structure of western capitalism.  Though anti-Christian, the Russian communists soon discovered that they needed the stability of the family.  They became famously puritan.  President Putin is not a Communist but leads a Russian nationalist fascist government of state-controlled capitalism.  He has allied himself with the Russian Orthodox Church.  He now fosters a policy that seeks to weaken the influences of LGBTQ in society.  As an adult in Russia, one can choose to be LGBTQ.  However, no propaganda is allowed, and no educational influences are allowed from them for minors.  Hence Putin mocks the Embassy and says the flag shows what kind of people who are inside.  

The other side of the anomaly is the United States flying the LGBT flag.  Is this really what supporters of Donald Trump would like to see?  Not the Evangelicals.  So why is this happening?  It reflects the position of Donald Trump.  He supports Evangelicals and their religious freedom, opposes abortion, and supports vouchers that can be used at private religious schools.  However, he also supports full civil rights, services, and accommodations for LGBTQ people.  He threads a needle.  He does not support Army regulations that support a pregnant man in the barracks or the requirements that artists in business have to create art contrary to their conscience or that religious organizations are forced to hire people contrary to their faith confession.   That is how I interpret him.  He can invite Katlin Jenner to visit and at the same time Baptist Pastor Jeffries.   

So that is the anomaly.  The U. S. embassy in Moscow flies an LGBT flag before July 4th and President Putin mocks it.