US Treasury Bonds,The Godfather Of All Bubbles

Synopsis Charles E Carlson The 30-plus-year-old bull market in US bonds, notes and bills may well be the most destructive man-made “Bubble” in all of recorded history.  It will sooner or later implode because it is unsound to the core.  A puncturing of the bubble may start when any of several huge holders sells.  Its implosion will trigger the sale of other overpriced corporate, municipal and foreign bonds, and the dollar itself may well be replaced as the world reserve currency.  The US bond bubble is the Godfather because it is so large that no other investment market can absorb the mass exodus which will come from it.  It is logical that those who have worked so deliberately to create this debt bubble will fight even harder to prevent its collapse.  When it implodes, it will probably bring down lesser bubbles and excesses, including the function of the dollar as a world exchange currency.  A true “Bubble” must result from a successful, planned deception The handling of US Treasury bonds, notes and bills, (“US debt” hereafter) has all the elements that make it a once-in-a-lifetime bubble.  It is much more than an overvalued investment or an idea that has become an exaggerated fad, like the “Dot Com Bubble”.   We have seen many of these come and go and we have survived each one.  A bubble must have the element of planned deception in order to reach proportions monstrous enough to draw in the money of a large body of public to it.  US debt floats on the unreasonable assumption of inflated value.  It deliberately and falsely promotes itself in the face of reality.  Charles Mackey, a Scottish journalist, first published Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1) in 1841, a study of ancient bubbles.  HIs most famous quote is, “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”  The slow regaining of senses is why the bubble takes so long to burst, far beyond what seems reasonable. The eventual loss suffered by Bernie Madoff’s investors was at least $18 billion. “Bubbles” are always recognized by some (one by one) before they finally pop.  This was the case with the scheme of Bernard Madoff, now in prison for life.  Madoff started his famous Ponzi scheme, once called Ascot Partners, which, like the US debt bubble, lasted over 30 years. Several discovered it much earlier and tried to expose Madoff, but no one would listen because of the deep deception Madoff had surrounded himself with.  Madoff even held volunteer positions in regulatory agencies that should have policed him but did not.  He was also designing computer programs to backdate imaginary trades in order to achieve desired results for his customers’ accounts.  He made imaginary investments in real securities, but only on paper, and instead deposited the clients’ funds in his own discretionary account at Chase Bank. [Mechanics of the Madoff Bubble – (2)] Madoff’s reported results exceeded all investment expectations, but investors were too satisfied to worry about it being too good to be true.  Hedge funds, pension plans and mutual funds all invested with Madoff.  His deception was simple: his fund always moved higher and never had a bad year!  This was a sure sign something was wrong, and one by one a few tried to expose him.  The eventual loss suffered by Madoff’s investors was at least $18 billion, although those who got out early reaped gains at the expense of those who stayed in to the end!  Madoff admitted during his March 2009 guilty plea that the essence of his scheme was to deposit client money into a Chase account, rather than invest it.  When clients wanted their money, “I used the money in the Chase Manhattan bank account that belonged to them or other clients to pay the requested funds,” he told the court. A True Bubble requires mass public participation  On April 19, 2015, Bloomberg News reported that public investors, seeking safety, “may sink $350 billion into debt funds globally this year, adding to the $3 trillion they’ve already poured into bonds since 2008.” (3-A) This influx is mostly through banks, mutual finds and managed IRAs. Per a 2015 article, “In U.S.debt auctions this year, bond mutual funds have bought a record 43 percent of newly issued Treasuries, allotment data compiled by Bloomberg show.” (3-A) A bubble-creating deception may be an illegal one, like Madoff’s, or it may be a legitimized deception, such as the Federal Reserve System (FED), enacted by Congress 102 years ago.   The measure of a bubble is not legality, but successful deception.   The modern mutual fund business has learned how to prosper on US debt investments, considered in a previous era to be a dull and prosaic investment.  Mutual funds have added excitement to it by an implied promise of perpetual capital gains on top of meager income.  No word of capital loss potential is every mentioned.  We will detail one such example by fund manager, J P Morgan Chase Bank in this paper. Bloomberg News further points out (3-A), “There are plenty of reasons to be bearish on U.S. government bonds. They pay almost nothing, the Federal Reserve wants to raise interest rates and money managers are largely convinced they’re [bonds] too expensive …[A] record 84 percent of professional investors in a Bank of America Corp. survey released this month said bonds were overvalued.” (3-B) This writer agrees.  Treasury bonds are near the end of a 30 plus year bull market, a “Bubble” based on an unrealistic and  manipulated assumption that US Treasury bonds do or can be made to always sell higher and higher in the market place, translating into ever lower interest payments.  The Treasury keeps its hands clean by looking to the FED to manage the deception that keeps a line of willing lenders ready to loan money to the Treasury at higher and higher prices, (lower interest rates). Three Deceptions that fire the US Debt Bubble The Federal Reserve Bank of NY has its own style of deception, which varies slightly from Madoff’s and is about 1000 times larger.  It is the super-bank franchise dealer for US debt and claims to be the largest single holder of US debt.  But, unlike other buyers, the FED is allowed to purchase without investing capital, which explains why it is the biggest lender. The US debt bubble has been produced by three contrived deceptions.  First, dollars are electronically printed on the books of the FED whenever the Treasury sells US debt directly to the Federal Reserve Bank for its own account. The Treasury then spends these dollars by writing checks on its bank account at the FED.  The deception is that the FED does not put up anything of value to acquire this new US debt, rather it uses electronically created dollars that recently have been conceded to be, and are referred to as “printed” dollars.  Thus the illusion is created whenever needed, that demand is outstripping supply, and that there is a constant shortage of US bonds and notes.  Chase Manhattan Bank and Morgan Guarantee Bank were original major stockholders of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank (4), before they merged into the present J P Morgan Chase Bank.  Its money management division helps keep the US debt market creeping upward, as will be discussed later. Second, after issuance, the market price for the newly issued US debt is manipulated, always upwardly, by the Open Market Committee of the FED.  It accomplishes this by making additional purchases in the open market, again with electronically printed dollars. The impact of all this new money on the US debt market produces smooth, little-controlled rises in the US debt’s market value year after year.   Because the interest rate paid on US debt and each instrument’s market price are inversely related, Treasury bond interest is currently at a record low, meaning the market price of the debt is at a near all-time record high.  This happens in spite of the clear fact that new debt is constantly being sold into the market, which should make the market go down, not up.  As with Bernie Madoff’s hedge fund, the illusion is created that the market for US debt can go only one way: UP.  Gradually this bubble becomes accepted as reality!  The madness of Charles Mackey’s crowd is achieved. During the course of this manipulation, according to its own report, the FED has accumulated $2.4 trillion in US debt, for which it paid nothing at all. Third, value in US debt comes from “professional” managers of other people’s money (OPMM), who sell the specious notion that the open market value of US debt always rises enough to make up for the minuscule interest rate bonds and notes pay to the investor.  OPMM keep on buying and trading US debt and are the largest holders by far!  We must examine how this is accomplished in a real world of declining purchasing power for these bonds.  We will use as our example, the J P Morgan Chase Bank, whose two predecessor banks were original owners of the FED (4), and probably still are.  [Because the FED is unaudited, its present ownership is unknown to this author.] As in the Madoff Ponzi bubble, manipulating parties, including the self-serving Congress, have contrived an UP, UP, and ever higher market for US debt that is hanging the least suspecting citizens out to dry.  Consider that the Social Security Trust Fund is invested almost entirely in US debt and that, with similar US agency funds, such as the military pension plan, they hold about 1/3 of all federal debt issued.  What would happen to Social Security checks and health care payments if, say, 25% of their assets evaporated in just a few months? The military-banking complex continues to provide the need for vast sales of US debt with its serial wars in the Middle East, which started in 1991.  US debt expansion also destroys the underpinnings of the US Dollar as the world reserve currency because there is no limit as to how much dollar currency there will be in circulation.  This practice of making war, then printing or borrowing the money to pay for it, is surprisingly similar to the British course of action that broke the back of its economy by 1914 and which forced it off the gold standard for good, and in 1931, the world turned away from the Pound Sterling  as a world reserve currency and opted instead for the Dollar. The British Empire destroyed itself by borrowing for foreign wars it never lost England set the standard for brutality in war in the 1895-1910 era when it invaded and destroyed two far away and very different lands.  They moved into Sudan in 1898, followed closely by their invasion of South Africa in 1902.  Both campaigns were covered by youthful reporter/adventurer Winston Churchill. The war to conquer Sudan was unpopular in England, but the British War Department overcame public objections by fashioning a publicity campaign for revenge on Mahdi Muhammad Ahman  because a year earlier he had led an independence movement that captured the garrison at Khartoum and killed a popular British war hero, Charles Gordon.  The war faction in Britain managed to sub-humanize the black Muslim Sudanese.  English gentlemen have long been conditioned to accept the necessity for killing “wogs” going beck to Rudyard Kipling’s India.   In the slaughter at Khartoum, it was British modern military supremacy against a primitively armed Sudanese independence movement. Propaganda-wise, the Sudanese had two ethnic strikes against them: they were both black and Muslim. The British Empire’s bloody success at Omdurman was recorded in a classic book by British author Alan Moorhead, The Blue Nile (1962). England’s next war adventure was the invasion of South Africa in 1902, which in England turned out to be a very unpopular and expensive war. The Boer War was fought for control of South African gold mines.  It became the straw that broke the Empire.   The Boers were white Europeans, and their casualties included some 40,000 Dutch wives and children of the Boer farmer-soldiers.  Under command of Herbert Kitchener first Earl, the wives and kids were gathered into British concentration camps and starved to death, to force the Boer farmers to yield to a treaty.  It worked.  Back home The British heard about this and could not stomach the facts. The detailed and painful account of this last British war for assets is told by Englishman Thomas Pakengham, in his classic, The Boer War (1979). READ MORE View article...

Do Heroes Go to Heaven?

By Ellen Finnigan

April 4, 2015

Over the past decade or so I have witnessed some disturbing trends at church. One would have thought that our Lord Jesus Christ had, himself, worn a government-issued uniform, given how much reverence, gratitude, and appreciation we are led to collectively express for these folks during Mass. At first, it was a weekly prayer “for the troops,” which is fine. There is no human being, alive or dead, who doesn’t need prayers.

However, we never prayed for the innocent civilians in the countries Americans had invaded, who were killed, maimed, and tortured in far greater numbers than Americans.

We never prayed for the loved ones they left behind, the widows, the orphans.

We never prayed for the refugees.

We never prayed for our enemies.

The secular state holidays have become occasion for military remembrance and honorary tribute. On Memorial Day and Veterans Day, the church bulletin includes a message of thanks to veterans for protecting Americans’ freedom, which sends the message to churchgoers that American “wars” abroad have something to do with the Bill of Rights here at home, and the wars are therefore necessary and just (a dubious notion at best). At some point, militarism began to invade Christmas with camouflaged Christmas ornaments and patriotic displays upstaging the Eucharist.

In the last year, the Catholic Church has expanded its prayers to allow more folks in uniforms to get in on the prayer action. In addition to (or in lieu of) praying for military servicemen and women, Catholic Churches are now offering weekly prayers on Sundays for all “first responders.” One wonders how this became a national “thing.” (I have heard it in several states). It seems to mesh nicely with the overall message in the mass media that we are all on the brink of ruin all the time, threatened by an inexhaustible number of enemies and looming crises, and should live in fear and trembling awaiting the next crash, attack, disaster, or pandemic; thus we owe an infinite debt of gratitude to those who offer us safety, order, and protection in such a precarious and nefarious world. (Hm. Who benefits when we have a nation of nervous Nellie’s?)

Things seem to have reached a new threshold with American Sniper. We now have American priests coming right out and saying things in the media like: “Chris Kyle was an American hero.”

The primary concern of the Church is the salvation of souls. 

Christians are concerned with holiness, not heroism. Whether Chris Kyle was an American hero is a secular idea and a moot point, and a strange pronouncement for a priest to make, unless that priest is willing to ask the questions that naturally follow: Does heroism lead to holiness? Do heroes go to heaven? Before you write me an email vilifying me as a “liberal” who “hates” soldiers for asking these questions, let me say: I do not know if “heroes” go to heaven. Nobody knows. Only God can judge the human heart. What I’m saying is: it is dangerous to pretend that they automatically do. It’s also dangerous to pretend that the question I am asking is, itself, a moot point.

When churches and religious leaders constantly adore, praise and worship those who wear uniforms, carry guns, and embody secular ideas of heroism, it leads to misunderstanding and moral confusion among the faithful. People begin to equate this image of heroism with holiness, especially children. If you don’t believe me, all you have to do is take a look at www.nogreaterloveart.com, where uniformed government agents are depicted with angels’ wings, angels of course being spiritual beings who are known for their ability to guard and protect. All you have to do is look at the “Soldier’s Stairway to Heaven,” very popular on Pinterest, or license plates and t-shirts that quote John 15:13 and hold up the service of the soldier as being second only to the “service” of Jesus. 

There is an idea that if you have fought in a war, you have “served your time in hell”; soldiers therefore go straight to heaven. But is such an idea spiritually and theologically acceptable? Does God offer bypasses?

Heroism and holiness have many things in common: They both require strength, courage, devotion, fortitude, self-sacrifice. But all of those qualities could be attributed to people fighting for ISIS just as well, even faith. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle.”  There is no holiness without renunciation; that does not mean that every act of renunciation leads to holiness. The way of perfection requires hardship; not all hardship helps us on our way to perfection. In short, not all suffering is redemptive. Finish reading article

Resistance to Tyranny is Obedience to God

Posted on April 3, 2015 by WashingtonsBlog

Should We Obey Authority … No Matter What?

A number of Christian leaders say that Christians must obey the government … no matter what.   For example, Robert Deffinbaugh – pastor at Community Bible Chapel in Richardson, Texas – says:

Whether the government be totalitarian or democratic, the Christian’s obligation to submit to it is the same.

Many ministers tell us we should act like slaves, blindly submitting to the government:
Some even allege that the U.S. government is coordinating with Christian ministers nationwide so that – if the government imposes martial – the ministers will urge their flocks to obey the government. See this and this.

This is not an unrealistic or abstract concept. After all, most churches in Nazi-era Germany supported the Nazis.    The German clergy used the same rationale to support Hitler that many American churches are using today to demand obedience to authority … Romans 13:

The German Christians were strongly nationalistic, and adopted … respect for state authority. This passage in Romans 13 was often cited as proof of a correlation between the Church and State:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists the what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

German church leaders even criticized Christians for disobeying their “governing authorities” … by protecting Jewish refugees by hiding them in their homes.

 

1.  

And Hitler shows how tyrannical rulers view those who obey a demand for obedience … he ridiculed German Christians behind their backs for being so submissive in obeying the Nazis:

The Protestants haven’t the faintest conception of a church. You can do anything you like with them– they will submit. These pastors are used to cares and worries… they learnt them from their squires…. They are insignificant little people, submissive as dogs, and they sweat with embarrassment when you talk to them.

The Bible Urges Us to CHALLENGE – Not Obey – Bad Government

In reality, Christian (and Jewish) leaders throughout history have explained that we must disobey tyrannical governments.

The Book of Maccabees – an ancient Jewish book purporting to document the events which Chanukah celebrates - apparently says:

Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.

(Thomas Jefferson agreed.)

Gordan Runyan – pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church – points out numerous instances in the Bible of men and women who disobeyed their government rulers, and were rewarded by God and praised as holy.

Indeed, the Bible mentions “justice” more than almost any other topic. The Bible demands that we do justice and to stand up to ANYONE — including the rich or powerful — who do injustice or oppress the people.

Baptist minister Chuck Baldwin writes:

Did John the Baptist violate God’s principle of submission to authority when he publicly scolded King Herod for his infidelity? Did Simon Peter and the other Apostles violate God’s principle of submission to authority when they refused to stop preaching on the streets of Jerusalem? Did Paul violate God’s principle of submission to authority when he refused to obey those authorities who demanded that he abandon his missionary work? In fact, Paul spent almost as much time in jail as he did out of jail.

Remember that every apostle of Christ (except John) was killed by hostile civil authorities opposed to their endeavors. Christians throughout church history were imprisoned, tortured, or killed by civil authorities of all stripes for refusing to submit to their various laws and prohibitions. Did all of these Christian martyrs violate God’s principle of submission to authority?

So, even the great prophets, apostles, and writers of the Bible (including the writer of Romans Chapter 13) understood that human authority – even civil authority – is limited.

Plus, Paul makes it clear that our submission to civil authority must be predicated on more than fear of governmental retaliation. Notice, he said, “Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.” Meaning, our obedience to civil authority is more than just “because they said so.” It is also a matter of conscience. This means we must think and reason for ourselves regarding the justness and rightness of our government’s laws. Obedience is not automatic or robotic. It is a result of both rational deliberation and moral approbation.
***
Therefore, there are times when civil authority may need to be resisted. Either governmental abuse of power or the violation of conscience (or both) could precipitate civil disobedience.”

(Baldwin also notes that Romans 13 teaches that any government that is a “terror to good works” is acting beyond its authority and must be resisted. Therefore, Romans 13 compels us to resist and remove from power all elements of government which are corrupt.)
Reverend Howard Bess writes:

As modern New Testament scholars have reconstructed the context in which Jesus lived and taught, they have realized that Jesus was not simply a religious figure. He was a severe critic of those who controlled the temple, those who controlled the empire, and those who controlled the economic systems that starved and robbed the poor and left the orphan and the widow to fend for themselves. To Jesus, these issues were all tied together.
***
He advocated overthrow of a corrupt system. He believed the days of the oppressors were numbered. But he believed the overthrow could be accomplished by love, mercy and kindness.

Family Guardian Ministry notes:

The entire basis of the Reformation was that of disobedience to the “governing authorities” of Rome– the Pope and the Emperor, who both demanded submission to the Roman Catholic church as the religious and political establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth. When it was demanded of Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms to recant of his opposition to papal authority, his only response was as follows:

Unless I am refuted and convicted by testimonies of the Scriptures or by clear arguments… I am conquered by the Holy Scriptures quoted by me, and my conscience is bound in the word of God: I can not and will not recant any thing, since it is unsafe and dangerous to do any thing against the conscience. Here I stand. God help me! Amen.  [See Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church]

Luther’s courageous stand against tyranny literally set off the spark which would eventually ignite the Protestant Reformation. As stated by Church historian, Philip Schaff:

Luther’s testimony before the Diet is an event of world-historical importance and far-reaching effect. It opened an intellectual conflict which is still going on in the civilized world. He stood there as the fearless champion of the supremacy of the word of God over the traditions of men, and of the liberty of conscience over the tyranny of authority….
When tradition becomes a wall against freedom, when authority degenerates into tyranny, the very blessing is turned into a curse, and history is threatened with stagnation and death. At such rare junctures, Providence raises those pioneers of progress, who have the intellectual and moral courage to break through the restraints at the risk of their lives, and to open new paths for the onward march of history…. Conscience is the voice of God in man.

***
This principle of the primacy of the Scripture-bound conscience over human tradition, whether it be magisterial or ecclesiastical, resounds throughout the writings of the most prominent Protestant leaders whom God raised up to defend the faith after Luther. Not one of these great men interpreted Romans 13:1-7 in the way it is so often interpreted today, and that should be sufficient reason to at least reconsider what is so commonly taught from the modern pulpit on the subject of civil obedience and disobedience. Without succumbing to the error of traditionalism, we are nevertheless to look upon the views of godly men of times past with respect.

John Calvin, known even by many of his theological opponents as the “prince of exegetes,” advocated the same position with regards to civil disobedience previously set forth by Luther.
*** Finish reading

Jesus died in a police state

By John W. Whitehead Posted on April 3, 2015 by John W. Whitehead

“If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”―Lenny Bruce

If you buy into the version of Christianity Lite peddled by evangelical leaders such as Franklin Graham, who recently advised Americans to do as the Bible says and “submit to your leaders and those in authority,” then staying alive in the American police state depends largely on your ability to comply, submit, obey orders, respect authority and generally do whatever a cop tells you to do.

If, however, you’re one of those who prefers to model yourself after Jesus Christ himself—a radical nonconformist who challenged authority at every turn—rather than subscribe to the watered-down, corporatized, simplified, gentrified, sissified vision of a meek creature holding a lamb that most modern churches peddle, then you will understand better than most how relevant Jesus’ life and death are to those attempting to navigate the American police state.

Indeed, it is fitting, at a time when the nation is grappling with moral questions about how best to execute death row prisoners (by electric chair, lethal injection or shooting squad), whether police should be held responsible for shooting unarmed citizens (who posed no threat and complied with every order), and to what extent we allow the government to dictate, monitor and control every aspect of our lives (using Stingray devices, license plate readers, and all manner of surveillance technology), that we remember that Jesus Christ—the religious figure worshipped by Christians for his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection—died at the hands of a police state.

Those living through this present age of militarized police, SWAT team raids, police shootings of unarmed citizens, roadside strip searches, and invasive surveillance might feel as if these events are unprecedented. Yet while we in the United States may be experiencing a steady slide into a police state, we are neither the first nor the last nation to do so.

Although technology, politics and superpowers have changed over time, the characteristics of a police state and its reasons for being have remained the same: control, power and money. Indeed, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, a police state extends far beyond the actions of law enforcement. In fact, a police state “is characterized by bureaucracy, secrecy, perpetual wars, a nation of suspects, militarization, surveillance, widespread police presence, and a citizenry with little recourse against police actions.”

Just as police states have arisen throughout history, there have also been individuals or groups of individuals who have risen up to challenge the injustices of their age. Nazi Germany had its Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The gulags of the Soviet Union were challenged by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. America had its color-coded system of racial segregation and warmongering called out for what it was, blatant discrimination and profiteering, by Martin Luther King Jr.

And then there was Jesus Christ, an itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist, who not only died challenging the police state of his day—namely, the Roman Empire—but provided a blueprint for civil disobedience that would be followed by those, religious and otherwise, who came after him. Yet for all the accolades poured out upon Jesus, little is said about the harsh realities of the police state in which he lived and its similarities to modern-day America, and yet they are striking.

Secrecy, surveillance and rule by the elite. As the chasm between the wealthy and poor grew wider in the Roman Empire, the ruling class and the wealthy class became synonymous, while the lower classes, increasingly deprived of their political freedoms, grew disinterested in the government and easily distracted by “bread and circuses.” Much like America today, with its lack of government transparency, overt domestic surveillance, and rule by the rich, the inner workings of the Roman Empire were shrouded in secrecy, while its leaders were constantly on the watch for any potential threats to its power. The resulting state-wide surveillance was primarily carried out by the military, which acted as investigators, enforcers, torturers, policemen, executioners and jailers. Today that role is fulfilled by increasingly militarized police forces across the country. Finish reading

Obama Told This Admiral Not To Give Out Bibles, His Response Is Glorious

It does me proud to see a Coast Guardsman make his stand for his God and country, not an unlawful fuehrer. You can, too. Stand with him, do not obey unlawful orders. Wouldn't you agree Admiral Lee is putting his career and even maybe his life in harm's way. Would you? Now be honest with yourself, isn't an Admiral Lee someone you'd vote for public office? The answer to yourself will be reflective of your own moral character. If he mysteriously pops up on the CFR Military Roster, we retract our endorsement super pronto. ~~~~

November 29, 2014

 

Obama’s agenda to keep the Bible out of the hands of our Military is in full swing. If there is only one speech you have to see that takes him down, THIS IS IT!!!

The Government is telling soldiers that if a person is in need, or even contemplating suicide to send them to a Chaplain and do nothing else.

But what if the opportunity to save a life is here and now, in the moment?

This Rear Admiral says that no matter what he is told by the Government he will share the Bible when and where it is needed.

This man of true Faith is what we need right now in this country to lead us back to greatness. He took a stand against those who wish that the Bible didn’t exist and not back down from a fight!

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POWERFUL! Coast Guard Admiral Lee Addresses Restrictive Regulations on Religious Liberty - YouTube

Civilization's Civil War

By Rev. R.J. Rushdoony – bio

For well over 500 years now, Western civilization has been in a state of civil war, with two aspects thereof in a growing conflict with one another. 

These two contending forces are humanism and Christianity. Humanism began its rise to power in the medieval era, and its strength was such that it captured the church, much of the academic world, and the state as well.

The so-called Renaissance was the victory celebration of the triumphant humanists. While preserving the form of Christendom and the church, the humanists put them to other uses. Lorenzo Valla openly turned to antichristian standards as the new yardstick, without bothering to deal with the Bible as a serious source of law. The source of all virtuous action, Lorenzo Valla held, is man’s natural bent to pleasure.

Ficino held that virtue and love were responses to beauty. However much these and other men disagreed as to the true standards for life, they were agreed that God could not be the source of standards, but, that man and man’s reason is the yardstick in terms of which all things must be judged. The standard, it was held, is man, and the moment. Ficino’s inscription in the Florentine Academy concluded thus: “Flee excesses, flee business, and rejoice in the present.”

For these men, the church was to be the instrument for a new kind of salvation, a refined Christianity informed and remade by humanism. As Cronin has pointed out, Botticelli’s painting of the Birth of Venus was an expression of this faith: the symbolism of Venus in this portrayal means that “Natural love, purified, is about to become Christian love, eros to become agape.” (Vincent Cronin: The Florentine Renaissance, p. 2ll. New York: Dutton, 1967.)

The unnatural union between Biblical faith and humanism was shattered by the Reformation. In the regrouping of forces which followed, it gradually became clear that, more basic than the division between Protestant and Catholic, was the division between Christendom and humanism. Both branches of the church were quickly infiltrated by humanism, and, with the French and Russian Revolutions, two things became clear. First, the old attempts at synthesis and union had been discarded. Humanism was now strong enough to stand on its own, to judge and condemn Biblical religion. Second, it was also clear that, however much the facade of synthesis has since been offered to Christendom, the real issue is a war to death.

In the Marxist world, the persecution of Christians (and orthodox Jews) has not diminished with the years. A very considerable number of the people in the slave labor camps are there for religious reasons, and their persecution is savage and intense. The triumph of statist humanism has been very nearly complete, in that virtually every state in the world is either dominated by or under the influence of this alien faith.

At the same time, however, the growing bankruptcy and imminent collapse of humanism has been increasingly in evidence. By replacing God with man as the new ultimate and absolute, humanism has introduced moral anarchy into the world. If every man is his own god and law, then no order is rationally possible.  

Humanism, having deified rationality, must now use the irrational and coercive power of the socialist state to hold society together.

Moreover, having denied that there is any truth beyond man, humanism has surrendered the world outside of man to total irrationality. There is no meaning, purpose or truth in the world: it is held to be mindless, meaningless, brute factuality. But man, once seen as the principle of reason in the universe, has since Freud been seen as himself irrational and meaningless, so that man no longer can find truth or meaning anywhere. The world and man are essentially pointless and meaningless. The fact that church, school, and state have all been captured by this bankrupt humanism makes the crisis all the greater.

The bankruptcy of humanism makes all the more urgent a return to a consistent and thorough commitment to Biblical faith, to Biblical law, and to a Biblically governed world and life view. It means too that the opportunity for the resurgence of such a faith has never been greater. As the crisis of the 20th century deepens, the opportunity will become more and more obvious. Men will not long cling to a humanism which cannot provide them with anything to satisfy either their mind or body.

One man, speaking of modern humanistic politics, once told me, “Sure, the system is rotten and senseless, but it still gives me a good living.” There are millions like him, feeding on the relics of humanistic civilization. Every day, however, the emptiness of humanism becomes more apparent; its money is progressively bankrupt, its politics corruption, and its education mindlessness. As a result, since nothing has any meaning, bad taste, vulgarity, profanity, and insanity are enthroned as “art” to express total contempt for all things. As one very popular modern “musician” said recently, “Sometimes I think I’m playing for the lunatic fringe. 

Luckily, it is widening. In fact, I think it is outdistancing the mainstream.” (“Kinky and Country Music,” LA Times Calendar, p. 68, Sunday, Sept. 30, 1973.) But the cultivation of insanity is the cultivation of irrelevance and death. Such people will not be with us long. The question of importance is, will we stand and move in terms of God’s word and law?

Taken from Chalcedon Report No. 99 (November, 1973).

Rev. R.J. Rushdoony  (1916-2001) was the founder of Chalcedon and a leading theologian, church/state expert, and author of numerous works on the application of Biblical Law to society.

Please Don’t Awaken the Sleeping Church

Posted on March 25, 2015

By Al Benson Jr.

Recently on http://www.thedailybeast.com I read an article entitled: A Global Slaughter of Christians, but America’s Churches Stay Silent. It was written by a Kirsten Powers. I don’t know anything about this lady but she did posit some thoughts that American Christians should be thinking about and probably haven’t a clue about.

Anyone who has read my material in recent years realizes that I have grave questions about what the Church in this country is doing (and isn’t doing). The Church today seems to be submerged in what I would call a wait for the rapture, just be nice, the Lord’s in control and so we do nothing theology. 

That’s about the briefest way I can describe it and keep it civil.
Powers states in her article: “Christians in the Middle East and Africa are being slaughtered, tortured, raped, kidnapped, beheaded, and forced to flee the birthplace of Christianity. One would think this horror might be consuming the pulpits and pews of American churches. Not so. The silence has been nearly deafening.” She noted further down in the article an event that took place in Nairobi, Kenya that killed more than 70 people. She said: “The Associated Press reported that the Somali Islamic militant group al-Shabab ‘confirmed witness accounts that gunmen separated Muslims from other people and let the Muslims go free.’ The captives were asked questions about Islam. If they couldn’t answer, they were shot…In Syria, Christians are under attack by Islamist rebels and fear extinction if Bashar al-Assad falls.” It’s interesting that weve been told what a bad guy Assad in Syria is and yet Christians, it seems, have been safe under his government and they realize that if he goes, then their safety net is gone.

It’s the same game they played in Iraq a couple decades ago. We were all told what a scumbag Saddam Hussein was, and I will agree, he was no Sunday school teacher, but yet under his regime, Christians in Iraq were left alone. You can’t say that has been the case since. Christians in Iraq now are an endangered species. I find it interesting that in these instances, regimes that have not harassed Christians are the ones that our government has targeted. Any pattern here?

Powers has observed that: “American Christians are quite able to organize around issues that concern them. Yet religious persecution appears not to have grabbed their attention, despite worldwide media coverage of the atrocities against Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East.”

So what’s the problem with America’s churches? And what “issues” do they organize around that are so important that they easily overlook what happens to their brethren in other areas? Some organize to combat abortion. That’s good. No problem there except that not enough are doing it and not enough are concerned.
I am a Reformed Christian and so I expect I will make some folks mad with my comments, but I feel I have to say what I am saying here. This is a subject I have struggled with. Many churches and Christians today, and for over a century have been caught up in what I call “the rapture cult” (there was a book written by that same name around 30 years ago). The main idea is that the Lord could come back anytime now and so why be involved in anything political, educational, or culture changing because we won’t be here anyway—so just sit back and do nothing and don’t worry about it. You have to wonder where the rapture was for those poor folks getting slaughtered in the Middle East, or for all the martyrs over the centuries that have died for their faith, some of which are still dying for it. It almost seems that this rapture concept was invented for American Christians to keep them on the couch, and therefore doing nothing. Now understand, when I question the “rapture cult” I am not questioning the Lord’s second coming. Scripture says He will return and I believe that. I just don’t think it will happen in the next ten minutes like some of these folks do. Their belief in this neutralizes them.

Then there are the “just be nice” folks who don’t want to offend anyone, anywhere, at anytime and to call sin by its real name they’d have to do that, and so they don’t—anytime. Now admittedly, Christians shouldn’t run around trying to be ornery, but stop and think a bit. Obviously Jesus “offended” the Jewish religious establishment or they would not have schemed to get the Romans to nail Him to the cross. If you read the Gospels, Jesus spent quite a bit of time offending the Jewish religious establishment—and He did it not only by healing and helping people, often on the Sabbath, but He did it by telling that establishment the truth about Himself. They weren’t having any of that. Three years after He started His ministry they proved it. And they continued to prove it all the way through the Book of Acts if you care to read about it. Jesus told them that their religious establishment had become apostate and revolutionary and that He had come to inaugurate God’s Kingdom and do away with their religious establishment and that really ticked them off. It ticks off some Christians today, too, who feel that Christians ought to support political Zionism no matter what. This is a complicated subject and I will try to do another article on it later.

And, last but not least, at least for me, come the folks, many of them Reformed, who say “The Lord’s in control of it all, so why worry or get upset, just let Him take care of it all.” Again, let me state that I have never said the Lord wasn’t in control of all things. I don’t doubt He is, but, again, lots of folks use this as an excuse for doing nothing. If the Lord’s in control then He will sort it all out and I don’t have to do anything except go along for the ride. 

Another great neutralizer! The Lord’s in control, therefore, I don’t gotta do nothin’. I’ve talked with some of these folks and put forth the novel concept that, while the Lord is in control, maybe, just maybe, He wants to exercise some of that control through His people. That doesn’t go over real well. They don’t like that idea anymore than the Pharisees liked the idea of Jesus healing someone on the Sabbath.

I recently heard a minister say that maybe God is allowing Islam to do what it’s doing in this country and in Europe because the church is basically asleep, or so concerned about non-essential issues that it doesn’t have any time for what’s important. That might explain the great big yawn American Christians give when they hear about horrendous atrocities being committed against their brethren in the Middle East and Africa.

Somehow, American Christians seem to have been neutralized to the point where they really think “it can’t happen here.” They don’t realize that as long as they sit and do nothing about anything it will happen here and is happening while they enjoy spiritual slumber.

Between the Scofield Bible Notes, bland evangelicalism, and unconcerned “Reformers” the Church is in serious trouble in this country and in others as well.

 https://revisedhistory.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/please-dont-awaken-the-sleeping-church/

The Great Fear and the Great Faith

1st pub by CV 10.29.12

By Rev. R.J. Rushdoony

Otto J. Scott, in Robespierre, The Voice of Virtue, calls attention to all important phenomenon of the French Revolution, The Great Fear.

Choices - R. J. Rushdoony

The nation had been led to believe that Baal was in charge of fertility and the rainfall in particular. Elijah would show that "the Lord is God".

The Lastest News & Information August 4, 2014  Choices by R. J. Rushdoony  There is an old proverb which says, "We would all be rich, if we didn't have to eat." This is simply another way of saying that we all have priorities, and we make our choices in terms of them. Some men choose to be miserly on food, clothing, and shelter, because they value money so highly. They may like their family, but they love money more, and so they sacrifice everything to accumulate money. Others sacrifice for their children, and everything else takes second place in their lives. Many other examples could be cited, but we can summarize it thus: we are always making choices, consciously or unconsciously, in terms of what we prize or love the most. Our choices reveal our faith. Joshua summoned Israel and us to decision, declaring, "[C]hoose you this day whom ye will serve," the Lord or false gods (Josh. 24:15). Later, Elijah summoned the people to decide between God and Baal (1 Kings 18:21). Over and over again, the Bible demands that we choose, and warns us that all our actions represent a choice. "Our lives continually witness for us or against us as to what we believe in, what we sacrifice for, and what we have chosen." Everything you and I did last year and yesterday, and are doing today, represents a choice, and a decision about priorities. Our lives continually witness for us or against us as to what we believe in, what we sacrifice for, and what we have chosen. But here a strange and remarkable fact enters in. The godly man recognizes that he has been called and chosen by God. He is therefore under authority. His choices have been made by God and set forth in Scripture. The Ten Commandments spell out God's choice and law. Man has no free option. One way is sin, and the other faith, obedience, and blessing. The godly man rejoices in God's Word and choice, and it is his joy that God "shall choose our inheritance for us" (Ps. 47:4). Our choices thus reveal whether or not we are chosen by God or self-chosen. The self-chosen say, "My will be done," whereas the chosen of God, as C. S. Lewis saw, will say to God, "Thy will be done." Your life reveals your choices. What are they? Taken from the soon-coming A Word in Season: Daily Messages on the Faith for All of Life, Volume 5 by R. J. Rushdoony. You can get the first four volumes here.  Chalcedon Website  More About Us