Category Archives: Government

The Bonhoeffer Vector: The Deep Church, Wheat and Tares, Medical Experimentation

06 Wednesday Jul 2022

Posted by in Church Leadership, despotism, Government

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What is missing in the present resistance to the government bio-medical tyranny is a sustained theological attack on it and a theologian driven admonishment to conservative or evangelical churches. In many cases, including at my own evangelical church, the church has become complicit in advancing the government bio-medical tyranny. John MacAuthor’s church in California refused to shut down; this is a great example of what we want to see. Consequently, MacAuthor’s church just won in court to the tune of $800,000, not a bad pull for standing your just and theologically sound ground. What are the indicators of tyranny?

John MacArthur and Grace Community Church win $800,000 settlement from California and L.A. County

Forcing face masks, letting the government shut down the church, advancing or peddling the mRNA vaccines, or advising congregates to “submit to government,” are all examples of tyranny. Has your church been involved in these agendi? We could expand this out and ask if your church supports the BLM movement, which is as much a solidifier of racial tensions as it is a facilitator of destabilization via “identity-class warfare.”

In respect to the church advocating for submission to government outright because the bible says things like “honor the emperor (1Peter 2:17),” or “submit to authorities because they have been put there by God (Romans 13:1, paraphrased),” or “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s (Mark 12:17),” we need to know if these church leaders understand where governing authority resides and issues from in the American constitutional Republic. “We The People” form the Constitution by which all government officials are governed; all government authorities have their “just powers” by “the consent of the governed.” The buck stops with the individual as the base layer of government authority. It may not feel like that since our government officials here in the U.S. are running rampant violating the Constitution recently, but the behavior of a ruling class criminal syndicate does not dissolve the Constitution or church leaders’ responsibility to understand, as a minimum, the supreme law of the land, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The gift the founding fathers left America is the marvel of “we the people” being the governing authority, being compelled only by morality and our relationship with God with no need to submit to a government since we the people ourselves are the government. We do not have an emperor or a Caesar who is some autocrat that “is the government.”

To apply the Scriptures I cited above, a church leader must understand how governing authority is constituted in the nation in which he or she resides. If you are not in America, that early Christians were civilly disobedient in their meeting, in their taking of communion, and in their denial of the imperial truth, that Caesar was the son of god, provide you a way forward and a basis for civil disobedience. The claim, after all, that Jesus was the Son of God, was directly violating one of Rome’s most ardent claims about Caesar (that Caesar was the son of god). The ethos of early Christians’ relation to the government is one of largely non-violent civil disobedience and suffering the consequences. For Americans, the 1st amendment creates the sacred ground of following government directives so far as they do not violate your religious convictions because our government officials are not the State, to which we must submit to follow the Scriptures mentioned earlier. Citizens, in the American system, constitute the ruling class because the citizens constitute the supreme law of the land, the Constitution. For people elsewhere, not even the Romans 13 text requires unconditional submission. That text goes on to note that the government is there to punish evil and so there is nothing to fear if you do good (Rom. 13:3). Arguably, if your government advances evil practices, it should be vigorously resisted. The famous saying, “the only thing it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing” might be rephrased for the church: “the only thing it takes for utter despotism to destroy humanity is for church leaders to advise submission to despotism.”

To cite Archbishop Vigano: “It is not surprising that these mercenaries are allies of the children of darkness and hate the children of light: just as there is a deep state, there is also a deep church that betrays its duties and forswears its proper commitments before God. Thus the Invisible Enemy, whom good rulers fight against in public affairs, is also fought against by good shepherds in the ecclesiastical sphere. It is a spiritual battle . . ..”

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/archbishop-viganos-powerful-letter-to-president-trump-eternal-struggle-between-good-and-evil-playing-out-right-now/

The biblical idea, as stated by Jesus, is that there are wheat and tares or wolves in sheep’s clothing. We are faced with a deep church, and the influence of the deep church is not just in the catholic and liberal protestant churches. However “gospel-centric” an evangelical claims to be, if such a leader advances utter bodily despotism (this bio-medical tyranny I have been discussing) contributing to the loss of freedom of speech and/or freedom of religion, how can they be true to their claimed “gospel-centricity?” Is not freedom of religion and freedom of speech both necessary for communicating the Gospel? To adapt a quote from St. Paul, how will they hear when you are not free to speak?

Therefore, the deep church’s influence is infiltrating even evangelical and conservative circles of churches in insidious ways. To be clear, a church supporting corporations or government through corporations (fascism) in violating bodily autonomy is a church deeply committed to tyranny; if you do not have authority to decide what goes into your body, how much less authority do you have over the words that leave your body? The point is that submission to a government’s claim over what goes into your body is such a violation that it is virtually giving up all authority and rights. If the government has such a dominion over your body, your tongue, what you say, will likewise be in that dominion. In some sense, this is the sacred cow of despotism, an autocracy that claims a right to your insides. This is not hyperbole friends, Yuval Harari, the WEF’s prophet, is advancing and advocating for internal biological surveillance. Lastly, a big indicator of the Deep Church’s ascendency in the walls of your evangelical/conservative church would be a commitment to being “a-political,” usually justified by claiming to be wholly “gospel-centric” while tolerating or accepting one feature or another of this bio-medical government despotism. It is patently false to imagine anyone can be “a-political” and remain human. This too is a deception. Behaviors declares political affiliations and all persons in society contribute to the order of that society (order is government, FYI). Commitment to being politically disinterested (really many of these churches are serving their masters at the IRS and their sacrosanct 501(c)3 status) while enacting tyrannical government agendi is radically unself-aware. The battle is real, and it flexes along the lines of corruption common to humankind: money and power. The churches claiming to be conservative must reform their thinking to oppose all government behavior that violates freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and, by extension, bodily autonomy, or freedom of my body. There is only one Lord and Master over all creation, and it is not some government despots, using computers in some strange bunker to monitors my insides. We will not trade the God for these false gods, and the World Economic Forum does think themselves as ascending to godhood in their own terms. God’s provision of significant freewill over each man’s, woman’s, and child’s body entails a denial that any human or group of humans have any right or claim over those bodies. The theology of 1776 that framed the Declaration of Independence must be returned to by the churches. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” endowed into each human by the Creator, as the Imago Dei (image of God), is sure ground for declaring that “liberty” maintains the freedom of my body from governments of any type. After all, if God did not want humanity to have bodily autonomy from Him, God did not have to frame the world and humanity as He did. If God prescribes bodily autonomy, let no government rob any piece of that prescription.

Transhumanism, Near Death Documented Consciousness, and the Afterlife (Part 2)

03 Friday Jun 2022

Posted by in Apologetics, Comparative Religion, Elitism, Fear, God, Government, Hebrews, Human Experience and Theology, Incarnation, Jesus, Transhumanism

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The World Economic Forum’s Eugenics and Ramifications

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The WEF’s infatuation with transhumanism partly lies in its deep eugenicist ideological matrix. They recently claimed that their elitist group will be the ones intelligently designing humanity, advancing humanity’s evolution. They go so far as to directly dismiss the Divine as the Intelligent Designer, naming themselves as sovereigns in His place. Yuval Harari, much the prophet for the World Economic Forum, clearly articulated this in his January 25th, 2018, presentation at the WEF annual meeting, in a speech called “Will the Future be Human.” Perhaps one of the challenges of discussing this prophet’s narrative (Harari is a bit infamous for a work he put out called New Religions of the 21st Century) is the vast domains of knowledge needed to interact with this thought. These domains include eugenics, A.I., transhumanism, evolution, naturalism, Darwinism, economics, resource management, the nature of life (or better, bio-ontology), nature of humanity, metaphysics, God-world relationship, and, in some respect, cosmology. We cannot discuss everything here, but we can go through them one at a time. Eugenics typically involves a racial focus, a desire to “purify” the human species of undesirable traits. The World Economic Forum evidently thinks that humanity itself is problematic, of whatever race or sort. This is novel eugenics, one that we should call anti-life eugenics: for my DC comics fan, this is a kind of anti-life equation (Darkseid is obsessed with eliminating freewill, which in that DC universe equates to being “anti-life.”). There is a certain cynicism that may think, “well humanity will kill itself anyway, the WEF is just advancing that eventuality,” especially in light of the wars, genocides, and weapons of mass destruction the 20th century produced.  This thought provides no illumination of the good humanity does and is capable of, and such a thought would belong to a person who would be among the ranks of the WEF’s eugenicist ideology. There is an opaque connection here with nihilism, which is the subtle, indirect, direct, or tendency towards destruction or facilitating it.

Thus, clarifying, the WEF’s transhumanism is recreative, at least I believe they would see it that way; it is a eugenicist cleansing to bring forth, as Harari puts it, “non-biological life.” Cast down human life; raise up cyborg or A.I. life from the ashes.

Nevertheless, this sort of eugenics is also genocidal, even if the WEF and its advocates opine that what they want is to move humanity into its next evolutionary step, akin to how Neanderthals were eliminated so that more advanced forms of Homo Sapiens could thrive.

We have now branched neatly into the domain of ethics or morality, and we will discuss that in the future. Big questions about God, humanity, humanity’s role in the cosmos, what it means to be human, the morality of eugenicide even if done with the best of intentions, and how this vision of the future contrasts with God’s metanarrative for humanity. A few closing points that will extend and summarize what I have discussed herein.

  • WEF transhumanism takes, extends, but modifies the Darwinian principle of natural selection, which is itself a kind of “naturally embedded eugenics.” The WEF believes in the notion of survival of the fittest, but they want to take the reigns from nature in order to make themselves the architects of eugenicized humanity, of digitalized or cyborged Sapiens.
  • WEF transhumanism believes in a modified “Intelligent Design,” which typically means that God designed humanity and the world in remarkably precise ways to fit, operate, and create a plentitude of unities among diversities. The WEF modified form means that “enlightened humans,” those sufficiently illuminated, will be the futurist intelligent designers of this renewed humanity, of cyborgian/digitalized humanity. Who are these humans? The cohort that is the World Economic Forum’s true believers; they will be the little “g” gods who will play the role of intelligent designers, crafting a digitalized, futurist destiny for humanity.
  • This anti-life eugenics entails destruction of old humanity, of that normal biological sort that claims it is made in the Imago Deī (Image of God). I should be more careful here: it is unclear if the WEF wants all humanity’s biological restrictions removed. It might be better to call their futurist vision for humanity “anti-standard-humanity.”

The WEF has a eugenicide agenda, but it entails the destruction of old humanity to bring on this new futurist humanity. This genocide is more likely of the omissive kind; either adapt with humanity’s futurist, non-biological destiny or be excluded from all means of livelihood. Genocides are often thought of as brutal campaigns of death and slaughter for the unworthy, for the unbeliever, blood spilling everywhere. What we have learned since the Great Bioweapon Undertaking of 2020 (the Covid-19 pandemic) is that the globalist elites desire to structure disasters, then be the ones who offer the solutions, so that humanity will willingly accept their guidance. With sufficient fear, many humans will give up everything for security. Of course, you might think, “I would not,” and that is well and good, but the trouble is that these “crafters of disaster” only need a majority to advance their agenda. Once the majority agrees to ever greater degrees of surveillance and compliance, the globalists only need to bind that compliance/surveillance to someone’s ability to buy or sell. Once this is done, it will be ever more difficult to survive without submission to that system. Ergo, those who will not comply will be marginalized, and they will have to decide (and convince their loved ones) whether to accept the WEF’s futurist cyborgian destiny for themselves and their family or to descend into obscurity in some apocalyptic, likely pre-industrial, very discomfortable, living situation.

The other big “God” questions have to do with the divinization, at least in their own minds, of the WEF cohort, albeit in the little “g” gods sense. Is the removal of “the biological (body)” from humans a discontinuing of the human species? If so, and I will speak from my orthodox Christian position here, would the sacrifice of Jesus the Christ “count” for “non-biological” humans, if we can even still call them humans? The Book of Hebrews offers this:

“Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. Therefore, he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because He Himself was tested by what he suffered, He is able to help those who are being tested.”

Hebrews Chapter 2

Specifically, the WEF wants to remove the “flesh and blood” of humanity, either more or less, although we should lean to the “more” side since “uploading” is part of their emphasis (= fully digitized human consciousness). The consequence of Jesus’ appropriation of “flesh and blood,” the purpose for which He did it, was the freeing of humans from death and the devil. Jesus “had to become like” humanity “in every respect.” The biological composition of humanity is integral to its essence (or ontology); would disembodied digital “ex-humans’” consciousnesses still be salvageable by Jesus, the Christ? This text is famous in Church History, the Church Fathers creating this maxim from it:

that which is not assumed is not saved”

St. Gregory Nazianzen’s Letter to Cledonius

What does this mean? That the sacrifice of the Christ only applies to the form of humanity that He took up through the incarnation: which is, normal, biological humanity. It might escape out notice, it nearly did mine, but it is not unimportant that the “removal of life” historically means the onsetting of death, life-less-ness. The Hebrews text above notes the mission of this Christ was to remove the power of death. Is the digitalization, the removal of “biology,” of “life,” from humanity the codification of a near immortal reigning of death? Is Harari’s phrase, “non-biological life,” a euphemism for “life-less” or “death-ful.” If this too sloppily put? Certainly, prolonging consciousness would entail a major, or even dominate, feature of what it means to be alive. Has anyone seen the Matrix? Has anyone been in the Warhammer 40k lore? In almost all cases where the “machinification” of humanity is imagined, it is centered on images that are instinctually repugnant to our aesthetic faculty (P.s., I have an objective, historical, view of beauty, where it is not in the “eye of the beholder”). Why should this be the case? These questions set the stage for our next article. I have much to consider as I hope you do as well.

Prime Theologian

Establishing Libertarian Governance with Christian Trinitarianism

30 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by in Christ and Culture, Government, Libertarianism, Trinity

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Given the formative role Christianity has had on Western civilization, we should ask the question of how much a Christian view of God played in the ideals that characterize Western governments. I intend to stay clear of philosophical libertarianism and theological austerity, instead focusing my attention on what the Trinity offers us as a theological foundation for government. I have developed a robust, complex, and what I consider to be a faithful view of the Trinity elsewhere: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OGSAX2W if anyone wants more data. The Trinity is a difficult idea, but it is rationally intelligible: God is one nature, Three Persons. Simply, one divine nature (what) expressed in Three distinct Persons mutually related (how). I will not unpack this now, but feel free to ask in the comments. The key to what I want to say in this post is that God is truly distinct Persons who are in communal loving relationships. Where love is, so also is freedom. Because all Three Persons are one in nature, there is no inequality among them. Because all Three Persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, are equal in nature, so must their relationships be loving and free. This is not to say that there cannot be genuine obedience in such love and freedom, but it is to say that such obedience is not forced in the Trinity. Probably the best text for making this point is John 10:17 – 18, where Jesus says that “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” We see a clear order to the Persons of the Trinity, that is, the Father gives the “charge,” but clearly the Father doesn’t force the charge on the Son: ” . . . because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me.” This part of the verse doesn’t demand that we remove Jesus’ obedience or the Father’s commanding to protect freedom. Instead, we have to modify our understanding of obedience and commanding to match this heavenly reality; the Father’s commanding is not domineering, and the Son’s obedience is not fearfully or forcefully compelled. This is what we would expect love to do in situations where there is a commander and the commanded. The one who commands is no longer a tyrant, but lovingly, that is, non-coercisely, commands. The one commanded acts from love, affection, and trust, not from the instinct to survive or being forced. Love, then, is on both sides of this heavenly exchange because the Father commands without force or fear and the Son obeys without being compelled or intimidated into obeisance. What does this offer human governance? Can we set up libertarian policies in government that uphold the individual’s and community’s ability to say yes or no while similarly establishing policies that engender trust and lead to trustworthiness between government and the public? Such policies, informed from the points made about the Trinity above, could be structured to incentivize the public’s willing adoption and practice of them. These laws would offer some positive effects — fiscal, communal, moral, familial, et al. — but would leave it to individuals and communities to decide if they wanted to “trust” such policies. Such policies require certain embedded cultural values in order to entrust the public with responsible freedom and the public to entrust the government with certain powers to responsibly guide the nation. The current situation in the US, where little confidence in government competency is increasingly common, says that mutual trust is a distant cry. When there are two equal partners in a governing-governed relationship, it seems the test of leadership which reflects God the Trinity best is one that makes intentional room for freedom, not limitation to it. I have more to say on this, but this must suffice for now, drawing a summary principle in close: when both partners of a governing-governed relationship are sufficiently trustworthy or “mature,” there should be no force — other than that persuasiveness that is neither frightful or domineering — because such force is suggestive of distrust. A similar principle is that trust enables freedom; distrust is hostile to it.  I want to be clear in close, the Father isn’t “governing” the Son of God like the human government situation; indeed, it hardly seems accurate to use the word “government” at all among the Persons of the Trinity. I see Them as in covenantally relationships, lovingly related, intimately communal, and distinctly living in the tasks proper to them: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

Dr. Scalise

God the Trinity, Allah, Freedom, Godvernment, and Libertarianism: Part I

22 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by in Comparative Religion, Freedom, Government, Libertarianism, Trinity and Allah

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My dissertation was on a comparison between God the Trinity and lonely Allah. P.S., I have my shorthand of my dissertation available, which I use for my classes: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OGSAX2W/?tag=B00OGSAX2W . Allah is an Arabic word that means “the God” and is what Muslims call the Deity. When speaking about the traditional Judaeo-Christian view of God I will just use “God.” When speaking about the Muslim view, I will use “Allah.” During this study, it became increasing important to have a vision of God where He is related and in community for all eternity. Having something to compare such a Being (Trinity) draws this out decisively; Allah is utterly alone in “eternity past,” and rules alone presently. I don’t want to talk about this too much, but rather about the consequences these different visions of the Deity have on government (Godvernment), freedom, and libertarianism — a philosophy that states that humans truly have free choices, are not forced or made to pick one choice or another based on current circumstances or past  causes, should not be forced, and holds that any government should function to uphold and maintain a nation where free choices are possible. I will just handle the first of these (Government/Godvernment) in this blog. The pun in “Godvernment” is designed to draw out the frightful idea that a human — governor, president, congressman, et al. — can begin to function like a god and the more chilling thought that this should be so. By the way, I owe the pun to Aaron Gentles, a good friend. What I want to ask is what type of vision of the Deity more likely leads to such an idea? Is it a vision of God in community and related to equals — Father, Son, Spirit (Trinity) — or a vision of Allah utterly alone in His supremacy and rule? I hope that it is clear that it is a vision of Allah — and I am not attempting to attack Islam here, just thinking through consequences for differing views of the Deity. On the view of a lone Allah ruling, there is a model for hierarchal rule of a superior over inferior. I can’t make this point strong enough: in the Islamic view of Allah, there is no way to establish equality or community. Why? Forget about the world for a second and imagine Allah alone for all eternity. He is related to no one, distinct from no one, and has no community with anyone. When Allah creates, he creates a group or groups of inferiors. Thus, on this view, we establish in the very first relationship a model of inequality. Don’t miss that it is the very first relationship, and so acts as the pristine or primordial example of not just what is so, but what should be so. Someone might object here and say that the Christian view of God would have the same problem, but it would not. God the Trinity is a community of equals internally related and eternally existing one in the others. I know this is hard, but the Trinity is not illogical; indeed it can be rationally explained and has been many times — see chapter 4 of my dissertation when it is published for a contemporary example. The first relationship according to Christian Trinitarianism has always already existed among the Father, Son, and Spirit. This establishes equality among equals and community among equals as the very first relationship, and it should be this way.

If I am a human ruler and I view Allah as my example for life and rulership, then I place myself in the superior position over inferiors; equality is not the goal and relationships should function in terms of inequality. If I use God the Trinity as my example, then equality follows, and it should follow. If I want to establish an elitism as the ruler where others are viewed as less than me, I follow the example of Allah. If I want to establish seeing others as equal to me, then I would follow the example of the Trinity.

The command, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” is just an explanation of what is going on in the Trinity, but it makes little sense against the backdrop of Allah, the superior and supreme ruler.

If I want a Godvernment on earth run by a sole authority who is superior to me, follow Allah. If I want a government on earth run by those understanding themselves equal to me, then follow the Trinity.

Dr. Scalise

For more on the Islam, Christian comparison, see http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OGSAX2W/?tag=B00OGSAX2W