Cowards Be Warned

 

This is true and false.

Here is how it is true: Christianity can and has been made effectively extinct in large parts of the world it where it was once dominant. It's not true that the blood of the martyrs always grows the Church. It often does, but sometimes churches bow out in fear.  

Here's how it is false: God always has new branches elsewhere, and Christianity can reclaim those lost places over time.

God cuts off dead branches of Israel and he grafts new branches back on, he always has. He has never stopped replenishing his tree, the Church, the Israel of God. We see examples of this from the generation cut off in the wilderness wanderings, to the generations cut off from the Assyrian invasion, to the majority of Judeans being cut out who rejected their Messiah while he was present among them, Jesus, to some of the churches from Revelation being cut off and no longer existing, and more. 

God cuts off dead branches from the tree, he always has and always will. This especially applies to cowardly, fruitless branches.

The tree, God's people, the Church, will flourish till the end. The question is: will you, your family, your church, your community, your state, your nation, or a subset within, be represented in the tree on the final day? If you are represented it can only be by faith that doesn't capitulate.

“8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Revelation 21:8

Why Do Christians Bow To Equality So Much?

 

I have here an excerpt from a confession statement from my own denomination regarding marriage. The way that my denomination works is that Baptist Churches are independent in how they determine their doctrine and run their churches, but must agree on some basic essentials of the faith. This doctrinal statement therefore is not binding but churches can adopt it. Here is what it says,

“Our Authority

 According to the 2001 Queensland Baptists Guidelines for Belief and Practice, we hold “The Bible, as the true record of God’s revelation, [and affirm that it] is the supreme written authority for our faith and practice”.  With this in view, we are not compelled by the changing social and moral views of Australian society to relinquish our commitment to the biblical teaching on subjects such as sexuality, marriage, and the family, though we strongly desire to remain in constructive and compassionate conversation with our society. 

 Our Convictions

 While some within the wider Christian community have felt compelled by the Christian imperative of love to revise their biblical and theological convictions about sexuality and marriage by the application of a variety of hermeneutical principles which allow them to accommodate changing cultural norms, we affirm our convictions on the biblical teachings about sexuality and marriage. These biblical teachings concerning sexuality and marriage are focused around five normative principles:

1.            Monogamy – God’s original intention was that marriage was to be consummated between one man and one woman (Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5, Ephesians 5:31)

2.            Commitment – God’s intention is that marriage involves a voluntary and lifelong commitment between a man and a woman (Matthew 19:4-6; cf Mark 10:6-9, Malachi 2:14)

3.            Equality – God’s intention is for equality and mutuality between a husband and his wife (1 Corinthians 7:4)

4.            Fidelity – God’s intention is that the only legitimate place for sexuality intimacy is within the commitment of marriage (Hebrews 13:4; 1 Corinthians 6:18-20)

5.            Gender Identity – a person’s gender is biologically determined and assigned by God (Genesis 1:27)

 In addition, we believe that, according to God’s pattern, children are best raised and nurtured in the secure environs of the marriage relationship where they have input of both a mother and a father (Ephesians 6:1-4).  Thus, we hold to the position set forth in the Marriage Rites of the Baptist Union of Australia (2011) which affirms that “The Baptist Union of Australia defines marriage as being the union between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.”

There is much to commend in this affirmation, and a lot to challenge. The Union states its refusal to capitulate to the winds of change in the culture. This is good. They affirm that the supreme authority in the Church is the word of God, the Scriptures. This is good. And 4 out of 5 of the convictions they have about marriage are excellent. Marriage should be monogamous, life long, the only place for sexual expression and you cannot separate sexuality from gender, it is an objective reality not a subjective one. But after all this they then bow to the culture anyway.

First, under the title "Convictions", they bend over backwards to not offend professing Christians who have bowed to the culture, but rather seek to more than give them the benefit of the doubt that they are compromising on these biblical gender standards out some "imperative of love." But why assume that? It is just as likely, even more likely, that professing Christians who have compromised on gender do it from a place of self-love rather than love for the other. In other words they want to be liked, accepted, or respected by the culture so they have bowed to the culture. After all how can you say they have acted in love when they have done something incredibly unloving: lied about God's will on the matter. Love is judged by its fruit not sentiment or assertion of the feeling. 

Also, though they cannot see it, because most people do not realize this, the egalitarianism of our modern Australian culture has come to dominate the thinking of many Christians and cloud how they think about gender issues. The scriptures never teach equality between men and women, nor between a husband and wife, and yet egalitarian church leaders feel the need to add this in, because most people cannot think otherwise in our culture. But if men and women are equal, then how can a wife be told to obey her husband (1 Peter 3:6)? How is it possible for a man to think of his wife as the “weaker vessel” if she is his equal (1 Peter 3:7)?

So here is my adjustment of this statement just based on some preliminary thoughts (the changes are in bold type):

1.     Monogamy – God’s original intention was that marriage was to be consummated between one man and one woman (Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5, Ephesians 5:31). 

2.     Commitment – God’s intention is that marriage involves a voluntary and lifelong union between a man and a woman (Matthew 19:4-6; cf Mark 10:6-9, Malachi 2:14). With only Jesus’ very limited reasons for divorce being permitted. 

3.     Complementary – God’s intention is for the husband to lead his wife lovingly, and for the wife to obey her husband (Eph. 5:22-33). The husband must consider that his wife is the weaker vessel and treat her accordingly (1 Pet. 3:7), not considering himself more significant than her but leading as Jesus would (Phil. 2:1-5), and not expecting too much of his wife as he would another man. The wife in her turn is to look up to her husband, respect him as her chief authority under Christ (Eph. 5:22, 1 Peter 3:6), and follow his lead.

4.     Fidelity – God’s intention is that the only legitimate place for sexual intimacy is within the commitment of marriage (Hebrews 13:4; 1 Corinthians 6:18-20).

5.     Gender Identity – a person’s gender is biologically determined and assigned by God (Genesis 1:27).

As you can see point three now has a much stronger biblical basis than it did previously. 1 Corinthians 7:4 is not about equality of role, or value, it is simply a passage saying that married couples should not deny each other sexual expression. That their bodies belong to each other is a statement of union, not of equality. It is a passage rejecting selfishness, not promoting equality. It is actually rather grievous to take it out of context like they did to make it about equality.

In fact, a man who treats his wife as his equal is sinning terribly. Peter is at pains to remind men that women are not as strong as their constitution is not as stout. To expect of your wife as much as yourself, which is what equality means, is to push her too hard. Many modern men do this and wonder why their wives collapse in an heap of anxiety, depression, or pressure. Just look up the topic of women struggling online and you'll see there is a plague of women voicing their struggles in this area. They are largely crying out from a burden pushed on them by equalitarians. Even if they would not admit it, or do not realize it, or contribute to it themselves from their advocacy for equality. 

So why does something like this end up in a Christian statement when the Bible says no such thing? Simple: equality is the chief god of our age, just as the Baals and Asherahs were in the days of Elijah. Just as the people of Israel felt compelled to line up their thinking with the ideologies of their age, so too do modern Christians feel the same drive and the same pull. Equality is the catch cry everywhere in our modern age, it's a clarion call that is hard for many to reject. But marriage is not a union based on equality, no such human institution exists, nor could without creating anarchy. Marriage is an inherently patriarchal unit wherein a woman is led and protected by the man, and the woman fulfils her role as the man's helpmate.

The Church needs to stop caring what the society says about marriage and simply assert what Jesus, Peter and Paul said about it. And none of them ever taught equality on the issue.   

 

Criticism Of Capitalism Must Come From The Right

 

I have been reading a Russian Philosopher in the last week, and something becomes quite clear while reading Russian critics of Russia and Soviet communism from the post Bolshevik era: those to the right of politics who generally agree with the basic principles of capitalism and lean towards establishment bias should be the most vocal critics of the establishment and the abuses of capitalists. Otherwise, people will gravitate towards the more radical arguments of the socialists, anarchists and others.

The flaws and abuses of our "free" trade and free movement of people system are becoming so clear to many. To deny them, or support the system holistically that is perpetuating them, is silly and in fact dangerous. And yet I see many figures on the right who are not willing to criticize these things.

When you consider what capitalism is, basically survival of the fittest applied to economics, then it does not take much imagination to realize that such a system will tend towards monopolization of the oligarchs, corruption of the political system to serve those oligarchs, and predatory behaviours towards those who do not have the same kinds of money or influence. Biblically, God has not designed society to flourish under a survival of the fittest kind of system, but under a system with sound economic boundaries in place that has regular resets. For instance he ordained that it was lawful to charge interest to foreign businessmen working in Israel, but not for their fellow countrymen, and he ordained the Jubilee so that every generation or so debts were cancelled and reset. These kinds of policies put restraints on the Hebrew economy which protected the interests of the nation, and limited the power that the wealthy could achieve. Our modern system has not done this anywhere near as effectively and hence our society is captured by the Oligarchs, particularly the United States, which then dominates its satellite nations.

When you read the Christian Russian philosophers you see that it was not just the radical leftists who saw the problems of the system, but obviously their voices were not pronounced enough. Russia would have been far better off if the Romanovs were more successfully criticized and called to change things from the right, rather than allowing the left to become the voice of the people and therefore incredibly powerful.

Right-wing commentators on the culture wars should be aware of this. A survival of the fittest mentality towards the economy is just the application of Satanic libertarian principles under different terms. Nature, red in tooth and claw, is an ungodly way to look at this world, there is far more to it, and it is an even less godly way to look at the economy. The economy should be a servant of the people, not their overlord, and you will find that the more unbalanced the economy becomes the more people are willing to look towards radical voices.

One should not advocate for equality of opportunity or equality of outcomes, because both are impossibilities. But nor should we be content with the inequities becoming too large. Because then you will find yourself living in a society given to anarchy, and prone to revolution.

Never Give Up, Never Surrender

 

A good friend of mine, and a Christian brother, someone who’s Christian wisdom and tenacity I have seen in many different ways over the last few years is facing the fight of his life.

Dr Jereth Kok is a doctor in Melbourne who is facing deregistration and the loss of his ability to ever practice medicine again because of his vocal opposition to abortion, transgender surgery and other evils. He has boldly spoken out against evil in our society and is paying the price for it at the moment. The Give Send Go website shares a bit of his story,

“Please support Jereth in a disciplinary case in a Victorian Tribunal where he could be stripped of his licence to practice medicine because of social media posts. Jereth has been suspended for almost 5 years awaiting trial. In July, Jereth will finally face a 5-day hearing to defend his (and all Australian medical professionals’) freedom of speech and religious liberty.

Victorian General Practitioner, Jereth Kok, a well-respected and competent medical professional with 15 years’ experience, was suspended by the Victorian Medical Board in 2019 after being targeted by an anonymous complainant. Jereth had never received a single complaint from any of his thousands of patients he had treated during his career. Yet, the Medical Board pursued selective complaints about Jereth’s social media posts discussing his personal beliefs on religious and political matters like abortion, marriage, Covid lockdowns and transgender ideology.

In August 2019, the Medical Board used its emergency powers to suspend Jereth in the “public interest” while the Medical Board completed its investigation. For almost 5 years, Jereth has been unable to practice medicine and support his family while he has awaited his day in Court.

After five years, Dr Kok will finally have his case heard at a five-day hearing in July. We must ensure that Jereth’s medical license is not cancelled. Jereth is being represented by the Human Rights Law Alliance, and an exceptional barrister team of Jim Peters AM KC assisted by Owen Wolahan, with expert evidence being provided by top experts on theology, clinical practice in gender medicine and Covid science. 

Your support is urgently needed to help Jereth and his team with the expenses of a 5-day trial.

Andrew Thorburn, Israel Folau, Margaret Court, J.K. Rowling and many other wonderful people have all been targeted and lost their jobs for expressing their beliefs on contentious social issues.

For Jereth personally, the last five years have been a trying ordeal. Notwithstanding the fact that as the sole provider for his young family, he was forced to retrain into a new career in order to support them, but he was devastated to be barred from work that he performed diligently and isolated from his patients and colleagues.

“The greatest difficulty at first was the sudden dislocation and uncertainty. Suddenly I had no job, no income, and was cut off from my patients and workplace. I experienced tremendous grief on many occasions, thinking about my many patients who I’d gotten to know so well over many years.”

Jereth has engaged the help of the Human Rights Law Alliance, a not-for-profit law firm specialising in religious freedom cases. HRLA will be working for Jereth on a heavily discounted basis. However experienced barristers and expert witnesses for Jereth’s case are expensive, and essential to run the best defence possible for himself and other medical practitioners.

Legal challenges are expensive. The Medical Board has Government funding behind it. Jereth can’t defend himself alone – He needs your help.

Please prayerfully consider this need.

All money raised will be put into a legal trust account to run Jereth’s case. Any leftover funds will be donated to the general work of HRLA.

Thank you.

 "Hi, this is Jereth! Thank you for reading my story, and for your prayers and support. It’s important that my story is shared widely, so please share this page with others who can add their support.”[1]

As I said I have known Jereth for a few years now and talked with him about many issues, including this ordeal he is going through. He is a true man of God, with a clarity of vision about what the word of God says, and he has not shied back from speaking the truth of the scriptures publicly.

Many people have said over the years that if this or that is wrong with the medical industry why don’t more medical professionals speak out? Well, here is your answer, because if they do they risk losing everything. It is such a hard qualification to get, those who speak out risk the loss of a level of investment many people cannot fathom. Supporting Jereth is important because not only does it protect him from losing his medical license, it will give further support to other medical professionals who feel their conscience driving them to speak out against evils done in the name of health. Medicine is a science, to have speech about medicine restricted for ideological reasons is to effectively kill the ability for true science to happen.

If you can donate to his legal fund that would be great. If you can’t please pray. This is truly a spiritual battle. Jereth's conduct trial essentially breaks down to the idea that Christians will only be allowed to practice medicine if they don’t publicly bring their faith into certain aspects of medicine, aspects which desperately need a Christian voice. So Jereth’s fight is not just against an unjust disciplinary process, but against principalities and powers over this present darkness, but as powerful as they are, Christians praying in unison are more powerful. Please pray for this man, and please consider donating.

List of References

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[1] https://www.givesendgo.com/GT59

Don’t Fear The Globalists

The Daily Mail Reports,

“The 'most serious IT outage the world has ever seen' sparked global chaos today - with planes and trains halted, the NHS disrupted, shops closed, football teams unable to sell tickets and banks and TV channels knocked offline.

Officials have held an emergency COBRA meeting after a devastating technical fault caused Microsoft's Windows software to suddenly shut down, prompting departure boards to immediately turn off at airports including Heathrow, Gatwick and Edinburgh on the busiest day for British airports since Covid.

NHS England said patients should attend GP appointments unless informed otherwise due to problems with the system used to schedule appointments, while train passengers have been told to expect delays due to 'widespread IT issues across the entire network'.

With more than a thousand flights cancelled globally, passengers were seen sleeping in passageways at Los Angeles International Airport, huge queues formed at terminals across Spain, and in Delhi staff set up a makeshift whiteboard to record departures.

Shops in Australia shut down or went cashless after digital checkouts stopped working, while in the US emergency services lines went down in Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Ohio.

Cyber security company CrowdStrike has admitted to being responsible for the error that hit Microsoft 365 apps and operating systems and said a 'fix has been deployed'. The American firm said it was caused by a 'defect found in a single content update' and insisted the issue 'was not a security incident or cyberattack'.[1]

This is why I don't fear a digital currency, Agenda 2030, the full radical green revolution, the technocratic state and more, like so many other people. Because the globalist enterprise is all dependent on an increasingly unreliable infrastructure.

Diversity initiatives, regulations that actually retard reliable technologies (look what is happening to diesel engines in Australia for instance), off shoring of industry and tech to foreign countries, just plain degradation that results from evil ideologies and more are causing the world to head more towards a breakdown of centralisation, not the increase of it (we already see this with BRICS and other things).

I know the WEF, Cabal, globalists, elites, or whatever you want to call them, have their plans, but evil has a way of undermining itself. Stupid, fool, and evil are often synonymous in scriptures for a reason. Also, as the Proverbs say, "Many are the plans of a man's heart, but it's the will of the Lord that prevails." The globalists might even have their fingers in BRICS and many other responses to western hegemony, this is not inconceivable, but still they are not all powerful, and the overly complex nature of modern technology is becoming a problem for diversified workforces that are both less capable and less unified to workforces of past eras.

Also, it is clear that some powerful nations are not on the same trajectory as other nations. For instance, China was barely affected by the outage,

“Although Microsoft Windows' "blue screen of death" hit millions of users worldwide, including banks, airlines, hospitals and hotels, China was largely unaffected as the country's technology independence and self-sufficiency efforts have provided a protective shield.

Chinese industrial players and experts said on Sunday that the Windows outage caused by a third-party cloud software faulty update left millions computers inoperable triggering chaos across many economic sectors, and the incident has prompted global cybersecurity concerns, highlighting the importance of tech independence.

Analysts also noted that given a mistake by one company can paralyze half the planet, countries cannot count on others for their national and economic security. They urged other countries to do their own research and development or diversify their suppliers to reduce dependence on US tech firms.”[2]

Chins has elements of a technological autocracy itself with its computerized social credit system, and other aspects of how their society works. But it is clear that they are not simply submitting to the power of the Western nations, because they have been building their own platforms in various ways. The aspiring technocratic dictators are powerful, but they clearly don’t have full control, and their competence leaves something to be questioned.

Don't ascribe omnipotence to evil conspirators. This is one of the most important teachings in Scriptures that the Lord foils their plans often by the work of their own hands. The Lord looks from heaven and laughs...remember, he had to come down a long way to see their original puny tower to heaven.

List of References

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[1] Rory Tingle et. al. 2024, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13651137/The-outage-world-seen-Microsoft-breakdown-sparks-chaos-planes-trains-grounded-GPs-NHS-mayhem-shops-closed-Premier-League-tickets-cancelled-banks-TV-channels-knocked-offline-massive-global-crisis.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1r_pfSLmTbKiDjW7HwHiDuVBHwAFou4JONnbz-N39SFEI7z63e56X2F6c_aem_VPnGU3sjCU1P305Sg8uOdA

[2] Global Times, 2024,  https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202407/1316441.shtml

The West’s Drug Induced Nightmare Is Building

 

Mental illness is a massive problem in the modern West, and it is only going to get worse. Those who have been reading my blog recently will see how I have been challenging the legitimacy of the psychological profession, and especially whether it has any synergy with Christianity (spoiler alert is has almost none). But this does not mean that I deny that mental illness is a serious problem in our society, and that ill people need help, I simply question whether the various branches of the psychological industry are capable of providing that help.

But the fact remains people do need help because people are severely struggling all over the place, and this is only going to get worse because of the prevalence of medical marijuana, among already a host of other over prescribed mind altering drugs. The early damaging effects of medical marijuana are already being observed by health professionals,

“Doctors warn of significant increase in people hospitalised with psychosis after being prescribed medicinal cannabis.

Medicinal cannabis is causing harm to some patients, with doctors warning of a significant increase of people ending up in hospital with psychosis after being prescribed the drug.

Their concerns come amid a proliferation of ‘single-issue’ cannabis clinics setting up in Australia, some of them willing to prescribe via telehealth consultations with few checks.

Brett Emmerson, Queensland chair of the Royal Australian and New Zealand's College of Psychiatrists, says the college wants stronger regulations of medicinal cannabis products and prescribing practices.

‘We're seeing a lot of people getting medicinal cannabis who end up with their first psychotic episode, or we're seeing it dispensed to people who have psychotic conditions, and these people are relapsing,’ Professor Emmerson says.

‘Part of the issue … are these single-issue clinics which, if you ring up, it doesn't matter what you say you want.

‘They'll provide it for you even though there is probably no indication that it will work, and the prescribers never contact the person's treating doctor.

‘You find out two or three months down the track that one of your patients has been on medicinal cannabis — not prescribed by you but by some other prescriber — usually a doctor who hasn't had the professional courtesy of contacting you and letting you know…

…’Medicinal cannabis is causing harm. The medication is unregulated, and it's being used widely for a whole range of conditions for which there is no evidence.’…

‘The use of unregistered medicinal cannabis products has spiralled in recent years, from around 18,000 Australian patients using products in 2019 to more than one million patients using medicinal cannabis up to January 2024,’ a communique from the forum says…"[1]

I am all for seeking to find alternative medicines for different conditions that people have. Medicalized marijuana has been found to help with certain forms of epilepsy and a range of other illnesses, but the wholesale use of medical marijuana in our society is going to cause incredible damage. The article notes that it is mainly being prescribed for people who are anxious or who cannot sleep, neither of which are things for which medication should be the solution. Internal mental health issues like anxiety or lack of sleep are generally caused by underlying health reasons, or environmental/behavioural reasons that should be addressed first. Our society is too quick to use drugs as a quick fix for many issues. This is irresponsible, especially with the side effects that marijuana can produce. 

Marijuana, despite what many people assume, is not a safe drug, especially when it is used consistently for long periods, or when it is used at high doses. It addles the mind, it demotivates, and it comes with a host of other issues. 

Yes, this plant has been smoked for centuries across civilisations, they even find it in the tombs of Mongol warriors, and in other cultures as well, but often what is smoked or used today is far different than the wild herb found in nature. Still, even the natural variety alters the mind.

Yes, I know that not everyone is being given this to smoke, it is being taken in a variety of forms, but still, you saw the results, doctors are observing more and more people presenting with psychosis. This is because Marijuana, particularly THC, messes with people's heads. 

One of the things you can observe throughout history is that when Christianity increases, drug use is proscribed and often largely suppressed by society, whereas where Christianity decreases, or does not exist, drug use increases or is simply already prevalent. Christian societies are aware of the damaging effects of mind-altering drugs, how they enslave the mind and the body, how they mask over issues rather than solving them, and how they also open up people’s mind to dark spiritual influences. A society given to increasing drug use will reap a whirlwind of destruction in its wake.   

I know the war on drugs has been a failure. Fighting the drug war with guns and prison sentences could only fail, because many of those who become addicted, or bonded, to drugs, do so because of issues in their life that are usually relational or emotional. Solving these issues for people is necessary if you want to give them a way out of drug use, and criminalizing them simply exacerbates those issues. Of course drug dealers should be hit with the whole book of the law as they are depraved wretches who exploit the broken and spiritually needy for profit, but drug users more often than not, are simply people who need to be plugged into a healthy community to help solve their issues. So, I am not saying we should not fight the war on drugs, we should, but we should use the right kinds of strategies, mass prescribing these things under the guise of medicine is not a solution, it is and will be an increasing disaster. 

Mark my words.

List of References

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[1] https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/markets/doctors-warn-of-significant-increase-in-people-hospitalised-with-psychosis-after-being-prescribed-medicinal-cannabis/ar-BB1qkV1h?ocid=msedgntp&pc=NMTS&cvid=8321caac4cb24a5e85c93da7cc1c907d&ei=12

You Become What You Worship

 

Why is the Church so much like the world today? Well, because you become like what you worship, or that which you idolize and much of the Church today idolizes respectability and acceptance from the world. You see this all over the place in so many ways and the way that Church has taken on, absorbed, and been transformed by modern psychology is just one example of this phenomenon.  

“Christian psychologists and psychiatrists, the new infallible authorities on spiritual problems affecting individuals and families, follow new extra-biblical sources of “God’s truth” (Freud, Jung, Maslow, Rogers, Adler, Milton H. Erickson [founding president, American Society of Clinical Hypnosis], R. D. Laing, Adolph Meyer [past president of APA], Philippe Pinel [father of modern psychiatry], Robert Spitzer [chair of DSM-III, 1980], Viktor Frankl, William James, et al.).

With their new gospel, Christian psychiatrists and psychologists are the most sought-after conference speakers, while the growing budget to advertise their expanding and lucrative empires of clinics and counseling centers has sparked an explosion in Christian radio. One of the top-rated Christian radio programs, airing on two thousand stations, is not hosted by a Bible teacher, but by James Dobson, a psychologist. Known as “America’s foremost authority on the family,” Dobson is the most trusted advisor in the church. Yet, according to his office, Dobson deliberately avoids an emphasis upon God’s Word and bases his counsel upon humanistic psychology, especially the theory of self-esteem.

 Moreover, those giving phone counsel in Dobson’s ministry are required to be licensed. It is quite clear that he has more confidence in psychology than in Scripture and in psychologists than in biblical prophets and apostles.

The new gospel and its psychologized view of Scripture have become the standard belief in evangelical churches, seminaries, and universities. Those who oppose it as unbiblical are dismissed as ignorant, narrowminded, and unscholarly.

The greatest growth in both the world and the church (other than in drugs, which has been astronomical) has been in the numbers of those dispensing and those receiving psychological counsel. At the same time, the number of Christians involved in immorality, divorce, and the living of frustrated, unhappy lives has kept pace with the rapid growth of the same evils among the ungodly. And why not, since both largely follow the same humanistic theories not only in the creation/evolution debate but in psychology? Like the unsaved, most Christians are convinced of an urgent need to esteem and value themselves more highly––when, in reality, the real problem is that they value themselves too highly and care too little for others and God!”[1]

How can a profession that was created and designed from the ground up to replace the church in caring for the souls of people, become such a treasured part of the church itself by modern Christian leaders? The answer is really quite simple, the world respects it and lifts it up as an authority, so many Christians are drawn towards that profession.

The people of God have always been plagued by this problem. The desire to be accounted amongst the elites of the world around them. Ahab married a Phoenician princess because in his day this was how you became connected to the most successful and dominant elite of that era. In later eras of Israel kings chased after alliances with Egypt, then alliances with Assyrian, and then Babylon. In Jesus day many of the leaders of Israel had grown accustomed to seeking to be accepted in Roman and Greek circles; the Herodians are a prime example of this.

You become what you worship, and if you idolize acceptance by the world you will feel tempted and driven towards taking on the ways, thoughts and philosophies of the world. Much of the modern Church has done that with their leadership structures, by becoming like businesses, and adopting a mercantile approach to ministry. As one Christian leader has put it much of the modern evangelical church has pursued the Baals of success and power, just as did Israel in the Old Testament. And in today's world being involved in, or associating with, psychology grants you access to respect you would not otherwise get. 

This drive to incorporate Christianity with psychology has not been without effect. Things like the power of positive thinking have been melded with passages in the scriptures which appear to line up with it to some degree (mediate on what is good, noble, pure, etc) to completely overcome how Christians think about their faith. Now, those who speak out about things considered negative are shunned from platforms of any significance because they don’t have the right positive energy. But a scriptural worldview says there is a time to be positive and a time to be negative, and being locked in either one of these ways continually is to deny reality. Mourn with those who are mourning, rejoice with those who are rejoicing. This is not just about an emphasis as well.

The power of positive thinking has been melded to the idea of self-esteem and now certain Christian teachings on things like gender or sex that do not affirm people’s self-image are being attacked both inside and outside the church as dangerous because of this. Hunt notes,

“The net is tightening around those who stand uncompromisingly for the truth of God’s Word. Although not yet enforced, it is already a crime falling under the definition of “genocide” to try to convert anyone of another religion or to suggest that their beliefs are wrong. It is a serious crime to call homosexuality a sin. The day is coming when, to protect “minority rights,” we will be prohibited by law from preaching the gospel except in the most “positive” manner. Sadly, much of the evangelical church has already conformed. And here, again, we must place much of the blame squarely on Christian psychology’s shoulders for its support of the myth that “positive” is right and “negative” is wrong.”[2]

There is a smidgen of truth in the idea that if you have a positive self-belief you can achieve greater things in this life. Athletes know the danger of self-doubt and how it can cause them to pull back at the wrong moment in a game or a race, or cause them to not push themselves hsrd enough in training. But sometimes an athlete needs to also face reality about his abilities, and come to terms with this so that he can fit into the team in a way that benefits the whole group. A winger who thinks he should be a forward, and continually promotes himself in this belief, might become neither a good winger nor a good forward. These ideas need to be contained by the ability to think about oneself honestly, which is what the Bible teaches us to do.

However, a lot of psychology puts a large emphasis on expunging any negative thoughts, so as to create in your mind the positive reality you want to experience. Therefore, the negative shall be shunned! Also, because self-esteem is lauded so highly, Christian teachings that make people feel bad about their assumed identities are now being classed as dangerous. It's a more pervasively wicked idea than many people realize and it is driven by psychological philosophy. 

Because the Church has given itself over to the psychological emphasis on the power of positive thinking speaking the way the prophets often did is now considered sub-Christian. We should always have hope, but our hope should be based in the realities of God’s word, not the dreams and fancies of man.

The Church has been conformed to the image of psychology for too long, it is time to really start pushing back on this, because this is actually leading the Church and society to a dangerous place.

 List of References

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[1] Hunt, Dave; McMahon, T. A.. Psychology and the Church: Critical Questions, Crucial Answers (pp. 111-112). The Berean Call. Kindle Edition.

[2] Hunt, Dave; McMahon, T. A.. Psychology and the Church: Critical Questions, Crucial Answers (p. 76). The Berean Call. Kindle Edition.

Galatians 3:28 Is Not About That

 

Galatians 3:28 is not about gender roles, who can lead and teach in the church, or anything like that. This verse has been so used and abused to justify things like female priests and pastors, to a feminist view of marriage, and other similar errors, that people have forgotten it was a dagger to the heart of the ideology of the Pharisees who wanted to separate God's people into two separate groups, Jew and Gentile.

But there is only one people of God:

"28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" (Gal. 3:28-29).

All God's promises to Abraham are only fulfilled to those in Jesus, because only those in Jesus are actually of Abraham.

Galatians 3:28 is a death blow to any theology that wants to separate God's people into special ethnic groups. Ethnicity is the matter of nations, and how borders should be structured, it has nothing to do with coming unto to Jesus, or having access to all the promises of God. It says nothing about leadership, or who can preach and teach, or any of those things. It is about access to full membership in Israel, the people of God, and it only comes through Jesus.

Maybe if so many people were not mis-applying this verse, people would realize that Paul knocked down Christian-Zionism when he wrote the book of Galatians. All the arguments made in favour of CZ today are simply rehashes of the arguments of the opponents of Jesus, Peter and Paul.

People Won’t Stop

 

People are selling at higher rates than previously, but it is not because they are going broke, the data indicates that many are doing it to upgrade. One thing that economists have been predicting for a couple of years now is that interest rate rises would cause a flurry of sales, that would have an impact on house prices. But because of record immigration into the country house prices have not only stayed up, they have continued to rise even more.

There are signs that the economy is in bad shape. Per capita we are in a recession. Debt is at incredible levels. Immigration is being used to limp the economy along. But the response of many Australians has been to use their incredible equity to sell up and buy bigger. I have seen this personally, and the data shows that this is happening across the board,

“Analysis across Australian regions suggests positive housing market conditions are enabling upgrades sooner than expected, rather than financial stress forcing owners to sell…

…This increase coincides with the increase in interest rates from May 2022, which has led some to suggest that this quick resale share reflects people reassessing the affordability of homes bought when interest rates were at record lows.

Mortgage repayments have increased by as much as 70% since 2022, on top of strong general cost-of-living pressures.

But there are other less concerning explanations…

…Many refer to the housing market as a ladder – few can buy their dream home at first. It takes years of saving and building equity for many to be able to afford the home they aspire to live in.

But if home values grow quicker than expected, this can accelerate the jump to the next rung on the ladder.

Across our cities, we can see a strong positive relationship between regions where home prices have grown significantly over the past four years, and the share of sellers in the market who are reselling their homes after a relatively short period of time…

…This relationship suggests that a key driver of resales of homes bought over the past year has been positive financial boosts from exceptionally strong home price growth enabling home upgrades.”[1]

I find this situation to be quite incredible, to be honest. Australians just do not seem interested in restraining spending. Though inflation is increasing, and interest rates are being raised in response, people are still seeking to increase their “standard of living” and choosing to live larger, rather than cut back. It is like Australians don’t know how to do otherwise.

Increasing your debt in an economy like ours, when the housing market is in a clear bubble is beyond risky, yet it also seems that many people are just keen to do so. Many have been predicting for some time now that the housing bubble cannot last, but all predictions that it would come back down keep being shown to be wrong, and this is leading to a situation where people feel invulnerable to buy up larger and larger. How could they not? Housing wealth just continues to increase for those who are in the market.

But Australia’s wealth is not invulnerable, currently we are aligned with the United States in a war against Russia and Gaza, and while on their own these conflicts are not enough to shake this nation, they are both part of a larger move of nations to starting to stand up against the American hegemony, and its allies. This is causing a change in the economic structure of the world, and the easy wealth Australians rely on is under threat from this changing economic situation.

It is almost as if God has given Australians over to a strong delusion of invulnerability, at just the same time that our place in the global economy is looking to be under serious threat. Australia could navigate this situation better if it were a neutral party willing to sell resources to both sides, but our government has picked sides and this will have a big impact on our countries economic trajectory in the near future. 

Is the golden rug about to ripped out from the feet of Australians who have indebted themselves massively? We shall see, for now, I would say if you are thinking of upgrading, don’t do it. Now is the time to pay down and prepare for hard times, because they look to be on the horizon. Our largest ally is already involved in two hots wars, and an economic war with the largest manufacturing country in the world China. There is just no way that this war is not going to have blowback on countries that are aligned with the US and trade with China. Don’t increase that debt, now is not the time.

List of References

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[1] https://www.realestate.com.au/insights/are-people-reselling-homes-they-just-bought-due-to-financial-stress/

Psychology Is Harmful

 

Not only does psychology stem from maniacs and evil sources, as I have demonstrated in a previous post, not only does it not succeed more than talking with a good friend, it is also actually quite harmful to society.

The harms are already becoming clear, and are very clear to anyone who does the work to examine the damage this profession is doing to society, but many people today still deny those harms. A future generation may find it impossible to quantify the harms, but they will also likely find it just as impossible to deny them.

Hunt explains,

"After closely studying hundreds of criminals firsthand as the assistant to Dr. Yochelson (who pioneered this new approach), Dr. Samenow confessed:

When I began this work, I believed that criminal behavior was a symptom of buried conflicts that had resulted from early traumas and deprivation of one sort or another. I thought that people who turned to crime were victims of a psychological disorder, an oppressive social environment, or both. [For] inner city youths, I saw crime as being almost a normal, if not excusable, reaction to the grinding poverty, instability, and despair that pervaded their lives … and that kids who were from more advantaged backgrounds had been scarred by bad parenting and led astray by peer pressure. …

 When it came to understanding Yochelson’s “crooks,” as he referred to them, I discovered that I had to unlearn nearly everything I had learned in graduate school. Only reluctantly did I do so, debating many points along the way. But Dr. Yochelson told me that he had had to do exactly the same. …

We found the conventional psychological and sociological formulations about crime and its causes to be erroneous and counterproductive because they provide excuses. In short, we did a 180-degree turn in our thinking about crime and its causes. From regarding criminals as victims [of past traumas and deprivations] we saw that instead they were victimizers who had freely chosen their way of life.”[1]

Notice the key issue here is that the profession of psychology produces excuses for the perpetrators of crime, and many other social ills. I have lost count of the amount of times I have heard someone offer these excuses on their own behalf or the behalf of others. And those who do so are doing themselves, or others, no favours at all.

One of the key conditions for succeeding in this world is taking responsibility for yourself and ownership of your situation. One of my favourite go to leadership books is on this very issue of extreme ownership. One of my other favourite leadership books is on the same topic but from the direction of learning everything you can in your current situation before moving on to the next. Both books show that by taking full responsibility for where you are in life you will maximize what you get out of your present situation, how you can be a benefit to yourself and others, and how you can increase your chances of finishing well as a leader. But these principles apply much more widely as well.

Psychology is an entire profession designed to palm off responsibility to some other source, and exculpate yourself from being the main problem in your life. Even if all the other sources of your bad situation are real, still by taking responsibility for your situation you can change it much better than if you never take responsibility. 

Several generations of people have been raised in a psychologically driven culture where blaming external problems for internal struggles is the growing norm, and this does not help anyone.

Hunt goes on to explain,

“Even from a secular point of view, clinical psychology is dead wrong on nearly all of its conclusions and therapies. Far from being beneficial, it has proved to be harmful. Increasing numbers of disillusioned psychologists are speaking out against their own profession. As one clinical psychologist, after years of trying desperately to prove that her profession worked by showing demonstrable benefits, wrote:

Psychology presents itself as a concerned and caring profession working for the good of its clients. But in its wake lie damaged people, divided families, distorted justice, destroyed companies, and a weakened nation. Behind the benevolent façade is a voracious self-serving industry that proffers “facts” which are often unfounded, provides “therapy” which can be damaging to its recipients, and exerts influence which is having devastating effects on the social fabric.

The foundation of modern psychology, its questioning and critical thinking, if not an illusion from its inception, has at the very least been largely abandoned in favor of power and profit, leaving only the guise of integrity, a show of arrogance and a well-tuned attention to the bottom line. What seemed once a responsible profession is now a big business whose success is directly related to how many people become “users.”

No matter where one turns, one finds the effects of the psychology industry. It’s influence extends across all aspects of life, telling us how to work, how to live, how to love and, even, how to play. We are confronted by psychologists expounding their theories on the endless list of TV talk-shows … TV news journals and in the supermarket tabloids. … 

People who are mildly anxious, slightly unhappy or just plain bored are turning more and more to psychology for relief. Some do this through weekly appointments; some do it by frequenting seminars and workshops; some do it by endlessly buying books on “abuse,” “adult children,” “trauma and stress,” “recovery”; all in pursuit of an elusive experience held out, like a carrot or pot of gold, by the Psychology Industry.

It is not news to say that psychology has become an influential force or that society is becoming more and more filled with people who consider themselves victims of one sort or another. What is news is that psychology is itself manufacturing most of these victims, that it is doing this with motives based on power and profit, and that the industry turns people into dependent “users”: with no escape from their problems.[2]

In psychology we see a version of the Hegelian dialectic at work. This profession sets out to find, or redefine sin as, so-called mental health issues (some of which are genuine of course, but not all), then it presents its theories about what these illnesses are and then seeks to offer those solutions for things they themselves created the category for. From conception, to birth, to healing these illnesses are guided along by this profession. While it is true that the medical profession has uncovered certain illnesses of the mind that can be treated, many of those which are presented by psychology as such are simply sins dressed up as health conditions. Because of this psychology has unleashed havoc on this world. It has provided cover for sin. 

How many wives have been told by psychotherapists that their depression is due to their oppressive marriage structure and all they need to do is divorce so they can discover themselves to find joy? How many people have been told their narcissism is a product of some childhood trauma and therefore they are not responsible. How many people have been told that they are autistic, and therefore other people should not expect better behaviour from them? How many people have had genitals removed because a psychologist affirmed their sinful delusions? How many examples of this sort of damage can be given? This profession has unleased a lot of pain on this world.

I say this while acknowledging that not all psychologists are bad people. Many are good people, many are decent people, many want to genuinely help people, and some of them do. But this profession is overall the fruit of a rotten tree and people should be questioning it for the harm it is creating in society, like they have many other institutions in the past. Soul science (literally what psychology means) is not a real science, and therefore, your chances of getting helped by a particular psychological theory are as high as being hurt by them. Especially when the vast majority of soul issues people are dealing with are actually sin.

When sin is the problem, whether yours, or someone else’s, Christ and his word are the solution, not theories of archetypes and hierarchies of needs.

List of References

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[1] Hunt, Dave; McMahon, T. A.. Psychology and the Church: Critical Questions, Crucial Answers (pp. 107-108). The Berean Call. Kindle Edition.

[2] Hunt, Dave; McMahon, T. A.. Psychology and the Church: Critical Questions, Crucial Answers (pp. 108-109). The Berean Call. Kindle Edition.