Category Archives: Culture

A Conversation About God

Jordan Peterson with Dr. John Lennox

Video here. (1 h 28 min.)

Dr. Jordan B Peterson sits down with mathematician, author, and theologian Dr. John Lennox. They discuss the axioms and dangerous aims of transhumanism, the interplay between ethical faith, reason, and the empirical world that makes up the scientific endeavor, and the line between luciferian intellectual presumption and wise courageous exploration.

Dr. John Carson Lennox is a Northern Irish mathematician, bioethicist, and Christian apologist. He has written several books, and was a professor at Oxford and Green Templeton College (Now retired) where he specialized in group theory. Lennox appeared in numerous debates with questions ranging from “Is God Good” to “Is There a God,” and faced off with academic titans such as Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, and Christopher Hitchens, among others. Lennox speaks four languages – English, German, French, and Russian, has written 70 peer-reviewed articles on mathematics, co-authored two Oxford Mathematical Monographs, and was noted for his role in translating Russian mathematics while working as a professor.

Legal Foundations of a Free Society

Excerpt from Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s foreword to Stephan Kinsella’s new book, “Legal Foundations of a Free Society”.

The objective for a human ethic or a theory of justice, then, is the discovery of such rules of human conduct that make it possible for a—indeed, any—bodily person to act—indeed, to live his entire active life—in a world made up of different people, a “given” external, material environment, and various scarce—rivalrous, contestable or conflict-able—material objects useable as means toward a person’s ends, without ever running into physical clashes with anybody else.

Essentially, these rules have been known and recognized since eternity. They consist of three principal components. First, personhood and self-ownership: Each person owns—exclusively controls—his physical body that only he and no one else can control directly (any control over another person’s body, by contrast, is invariably an in-direct control, presupposing the prior direct control of one’s own body). Otherwise, if body-ownership were assigned to some indirect body-controller, conflict would become unavoidable as the direct body-controller cannot give up the direct control over his body as long as he is alive. Accordingly, any physical interference with another person’s body must be consensual, invited and agreed to by such a person, and any non-consensual interference with his body constitutes an unjust and prohibited invasion.

Second, private property and original appropriation: Logically, what is required to avoid all conflict regarding external material objects used or usable as means of action, i.e. as goods, is clear: every good must always and at all times be owned privately, i.e. controlled exclusively by some specified person. The purposes of different actors then may be as different as can be, and yet no conflict will arise so long as their respective actions involve exclusively the use of their own private property. And how can external objects become private property in the first place without leading to conflict? To avoid conflict from the very start, it is necessary that private property be founded through acts of original appropriation, because only through actions, taking place in time and space, can an objective—intersubjectively ascertainable—link be established between a particular person and a particular object. And only the first appropriator of a previously unappropriated thing can acquire this thing as his property without conflict. For, by definition, as the first appropriator he cannot have run into conflict with anyone else in appropriating the good in question, as everyone else appeared on the scene only later. Otherwise, if exclusive control is assigned instead to some late-comers, conflict is not avoided but contrary to the very purpose of reason made unavoidable and permanent.

Third, exchange and contract: Other than per original appropriation, property can only be acquired by means of a voluntary—mutually agreed upon—exchange of property from some previous owner to some later owner. This transfer of property from a prior to a later owner can either take the form of a direct or “spot” exchange, which may be bi- or multi-lateral as when someone’s apples are exchanged for another’s oranges, or it may be unilateral as when a person makes a gift to someone else or when someone pays another person with his property now, on the spot, in the expectation of some future services on the part of the recipient. Or else the transfer of property can take the form of contracts concerning not just present but in particular also prospective, future-dated transfers of property titles. These contractual transfers of property titles can be unconditional or conditional transfers, and they too can involve bi- or multi-lateral as well as unilateral property transfers. Any acquisition of property other than through original appropriation or voluntary or contractual exchange and transfer from a previous to a later owner is unjust and prohibited by reason. (Of course, in addition to these normal property acquisition rules, property can also be transferred from an aggressor to his victim as rectification for a previous trespass committed.)

Drawing on the long, but in today’s world largely forgotten or neglected intellectual tradition of natural law and natural rights theory with its three just briefly sketched principal components, then, the most elaborate, systematic, rigorous and lucid presentation of a theory of justice up until then had been developed in the course of the second half of the 20^th century by economist-philosopher Murray N. Rothbard, culminating in his Ethics of Liberty, originally published in 1982. Unfortunately, but not entirely surprisingly, however, his work was typically either completely ignored or else dismissed out of hand by the gatekeepers and high priests of academia. The anarchist conclusions ultimately arrived at by Rothbard in his works appeared simply outlandish in an ideological environment molded overwhelmingly by tax-funded intellectuals and steeped to the hip in statism or étatisme. Among academic big-shots, only Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick in his Anarchy, State and Utopia acknowledged his intellectual debt to Rothbard and seriously tried to refute his anarchist conclusions—but miserably failed.

While Rothbard’s work largely fell on deaf ears within academia, then, it exerted considerable influence outside of it, in the public at large. Indeed, through his work Rothbard became the founder of the modern libertarian movement, attracting a sizable popular following far exceeding that of any mainstream academic in numbers. As for the further development of a natural-law and -rights based theory of justice, however, this very success turned out to be a rather mixed blessing. On the one hand, the movement inspired by Rothbard likely helped dampen and slow down the popularity and growth of statism, but it manifestly failed in halting or even reversing the long-run historical trend toward ever increasing state-power. On the other hand (and that may well be one of the reasons for this failure), the larger the movement grew in numbers, the greater also the confusion and the number of intellectual errors spread and committed by its followers. The pure theory of justice as presented by Rothbard was increasingly watered down, misunderstood, misinterpreted or downright falsified, whether for short-run tactical gains, out of ignorance or plain cowardice. As well, all too often sight was lost of the fundamentally important distinction between the core, the foundational principles of a theory on the one hand and its application to various peripheral—often far-fetched or merely fictional—practical problems on the other; and far too much effort and time, then, has been spent on debating peripheral issues the solution of which may well be arguable, but which is of minor importance in the larger scheme of things and helps distract public attention and concentration away from those questions and issues that truly matter and count.

In this situation, then, more than 40 years after the first publication of Rothbard’s Ethics of Liberty and characterized by much practical disappointment and increasing theoretical confusion, the publication of Stephan Kinsella’s present work must be considered a most welcome sign of renewed hope and new, refreshing intellectual inspiration. Indeed, with this work, that has been in the making for more than two decades, Kinsella has produced no less than an intellectual landmark, establishing himself as the leading legal theorist and the foremost libertarian thinker of his generation. While following in Rothbard’s footsteps, Kinsella’s work does not merely rehash what has been said or written before. Rather, having absorbed as well all of the relevant literature that has appeared during the last few decades since Rothbard’s passing, Kinsella in the following offers some fresh perspectives and an innovative approach to the age-old quest for justice, and he adds several highly significant refinements and improvements and some centrally important new insights to the theories of personhood, property and contract, most famously some radical criticism and rejection of the idea of “intellectual property” and “intellectual property rights.”

Henceforth, then, all essential studies in the philosophy of law and the field of legal theory will have to take full account of the theories and criticisms expounded by Kinsella.

PANEL DISCUSSION | Jordan Peterson, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, John Anderson, Os Guinness

Part of the ongoing ARC Conference. Video here.

The ARC Inaugural Conference

From 30th October - 1st November 2023, in London

Press releases:

DAY 1

The Better Story: The Liberal Democratic Ideal

NEW: Niall Ferguson, Andrew Hastie, and Rebeccah Heinrichs warn against the decline of liberal democracy and the rise of threats to the West | ARC Conference

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Historian Niall Ferguson criticises Western leaders’ failure to defend liberal democratic values.
Australian Shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie calls for West to improve preparedness against adversaries.
Academic Rebeccah Heinrichs says the West has been slow to react to threats

Historian Niall Ferguson warns of decline in liberal democracy

Historian Niall Ferguson has cautioned that liberal democracies are in decline around the world, with the number falling to just 32; or 13% of the world’s population.

Addressing the ARC conference, Ferguson called upon leaders across the political spectrum to come together to promote liberal democracies. “We must organise much better to uphold the values of individual freedom. Civilisation is too precious an achievement to become a conservative project only.”

“Liberal democracy in the US, the greatest of all the liberal democracies, seems to be threatened from within. The Axis of ill-will has fallen,” he warned. “These axes present much more of a strategic threat than any of the axes of the 1930s… This is true not just of the US, but also true of Anglosphere countries too.”

Ferguson took aim at the current lack of belief amongst Western leaders as insufficient in pushing back against autocracies around the world. “The current leadership don’t have a great level of conviction in their own institutions. They don’t have the same sense of passionate conviction that their enemies have. They cannot comprehend that Xi Jinping’s thought is Marxist–Leninist.”

Australian Shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie calls for West to improve preparedness against adversaries

During a panel discussion at the ARC conference, Australian Shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie said that there are “serious questions to answer in terms of our defence preparedness”, in light of the challenges posed to Western nations by adversaries.

He noted that he was “concerned about our resilience in the smallest organising group in society — the family”, and relayed an account from his own combat experiences where an Afghan family had suffered an IED explosion, and had returned home. He asked, “if the shoe was on the other foot, would we be as resilient as that family?”

Concluding, Hastie iterated that “bad government is the problem”, saying that “what people are crying out for is good government”. He ended by saying that “what people want is order”, and “moral leaders”.

Academic Rebeccah Heinrichs says the West has been slow to react to threats

At the ARC conference, in front of a crowd of 1,500 delegates, academic Rebeccah Heinrichs outlined the systemic challenges facing the West, with regimes that are “ideologically very committed”, in contrast to the West, where we have been “slow to realise what is upon us”.

She argued that the challenge for the West had come after the end of the Cold War, with the assumption that “commercialism” would “make the Chinese … liberal”, and that instead, they had become “happy and communist”.

Heinrichs warned that the West has to “believe that is worth doing” in order to succeed against adversaries like Russia, and that it “requires enormous amounts of statecraft and motivation to rebuild the defence industrial base to do that”. She said that a great distinction among the West was that we “value life”.

ENDS

ABOUT ARC

ARC is an international community that is building a vision for a better world where every citizen can prosper, contribute, and flourish, and where solutions to the challenges we face can be found. The inaugural conference will be held between October 30–November 1, in London, convening international leaders from the UK, US, and Australia, who will be contributing to discuss and debate these challenges to find practical solutions.

DAY 1 Capitalism and ESG

NEW: Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy sets out case against ‘woke capitalism’ | ARC Conference

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hedge fund boss Sir Paul Marshall criticises market dominance of firms including Google, Meta in speech railing against the effects of crony capitalism.
Republican hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy denounces spread of ‘woke capitalism’ and Environmental, Social and Governance initiatives.

Investor Sir Paul Marshall calls for an end to crony capitalism

Speaking to 1,500 delegates at the ARC conference, Sir Paul Marshall introduced a discussion around capitalism by criticising “crony capitalism” and ‘corporatism’, and arguing that “the managerial classes… take control, and manage the system in their own best interests”.

He called for society to “‘rejoice in the abundance that true free enterprise and free markets create”, noting that “extreme poverty has fallen from 90% to 10% [and] … it has halved in the last twenty years alone”. He stated that “free market capitalism is the greatest instrument of poverty relief that the world has ever seen”.

Arguing that capitalism needed to be free in order to achieve its goals, Sir Paul declared that “predatory behaviour” was “rife” in the US, and challenged the market dominance of firms such as Google and Meta. Attacking extensive lobbying practices in the U.S. and EU markets, Marshall outlined that “corrupt societies practise tribalism and cronyism”, and develop monopolies in their markets.

Addressing the challenges posed by markets developing, Sir Paul noted that “‘advocates of free markets … need to explain how they can deal with the disruption to our communities”, and argued that “what we have seen since the 2008 crisis to the present day may be the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich since the Norman conquest”.

Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy denounces ‘woke capitalism’

In an address to the ARC conference, presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy criticised corporate adoption of ESG values as “a threat not just to capitalism, but also to democratic self-governance… that a small group of corporate actors have the right to decide through the back door what citizens could not do through the front door.”

Speaking to an audience of 1,500 from the campaign trail in Iowa, Ramaswamy argued that “good governance means the corporation is true to its own purpose, without diluting that missive with environmental or social objectives.”

The Republican hopeful was critical of Government’s role in bringing about existing ESG policies, identifying public vehicles such as pension funds as “trying to accomplish a political agenda” rather than deliver value.

The speeches preceded a panel featuring financier Helena Morrissey, free market think tank CEO Derek Kreifels, and industry veteran Terrence Keeley, who discussed whether capital has been misallocated to ESG initiatives, and how better corporate governance can be achieved.

ENDS

DAY 1 OUR SOCIAL FABRIC

NEW: Miriam Cates MP warns of fraying Western social fabric

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Miriam Cates MP and psychologist Jonathan Haidt address the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London.
Cates warns against the fraying social fabric in the West, as fertility rates decline and family structures break down.
Haidt calls for a ban on children under 16 accessing social media and backs phone-free schools, to fix the mental health crisis in young people.

Miriam Cates MP declares that our social fabric is under strain

Cates, addressing over 1,500 delegates at the ARC Conference, argued that the “triplet trophies of freedom, prosperity, and happiness are more fragile than any time since the war”. Commenting on the decline in fertility rates, she said that our “covenant…is under strain”, and that the “social fabric of our neighbourhoods is unravelling”.

Addressing the challenges of integration, she stated that “the last few weeks have shattered any remaining illusions that our communities are united”, and that “a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand”. Cates further warned against the risks posed by “destabilising immigration” in a time of “declining economic prosperity”.

She reaffirmed the role of the family as “the building block of society…the unit that ensures children…are raised in the virtues they need”, and noted that “the support of extended family has weakened and loneliness has increased”.

Cates went on to criticise the inclination of parents to “shield their child from any discomfort”, and in so doing leave them ill-prepared for life. She argued that our “addiction to debt” had “robbed” them of their economic inheritance, and said that our “GDP-obsessed system demands that mothers of small children leave their child in daycare”, regardless of the best interests of the child.

She concluded by affirming that “freedom, prosperity, and happiness are not values…they may be the fruits of a successful society, but they are not its roots” and that “the true roots of Western civilisation are the pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful”.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls for ban on social media for under-16s, backs phone-free schools

Speaking to Spectator Editor Fraser Nelson at the ARC conference, author and psychologist Jonathan Haidt argued for urgent action to address the rise in children’s mental health issues as a result of social media. “‘The Great Rewiring of Childhood happened between 2010 and 2015,” he told the conference. “But you can’t grow up in networks, you have to grow up in communities… Nobody defends this phone-based childhood. Everyone sees the problems.”

Haidt went on to propose a set of norms to curb the negative effects of social media on children including restrictions on smartphones for children before high school, a ban on social media for those under-16, and for the global expansion of phone-free schools. Haidt’s proposals come as Department for Education guidance on phone-free schools was announced by the UK Government earlier this month.

He also warned of the dangers arising from social media for Western society: “TikTok and Twitter are dangerous for our democracy, and incompatible with the kind of liberal democracy we have developed over the last 150 years.”

ENDS

DAY 1 A BETTER STORY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Leaders set out vision for a renewed future as three-day conference opens
Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy channels Reagan, calls on West to stand up against threats from China, North Korea, Russia and Hamas
Australia’s former Deputy PM seeks to restore trust following the ‘Voice’ referendum

ARC leaders open conference

Addressing over 1,500 delegates from 71 countries, ARC’s CEO Baroness Philippa Stroud and Board member Jordan Peterson set out their vision for a better future at a landmark gathering of international leaders.

Opening the conference, Baroness Stroud said: “We’re going to debate what needs to be renewed, and identify a path forward full of strength, hope and vision… to build a community filled with people of courage and strength, that sees the opportunity of abundance, not scarcity and decline”.

Peterson outlined his vision of distributive responsibility, saying that “ARC is our movement into the future… We have the responsibility to face an uncertain future with faith and courage.” He called on international leaders to “define reality and set out the choices that people must make.”

Current and former US House Speakers address threats to the West

Speaking at ARC’s opening session, Kevin McCarthy delivered his first overseas speech since his departure as Speaker of the House, saying that “there is no alternative to western civilisation” and warning that the West needs to “stand up to Communist China, North Korea, Russia and Hamas” in reasserting its values.

The former Speaker went on to echo President Ronald Reagan’s 1982 speech to the UK Parliament: “The ultimate deterrent in the struggle that now is going on in the world will not be bombs or rockets, but a test of wills. The values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated.”

The conference also heard prerecorded remarks from McCarthy’s successor, Speaker Mike Johnson, in his first public address since winning the speakership. “Democracy can be messy, and I believe US Congress and our entire nation has emerged better… the House is back in session” he told the conference, urging the “return [of] responsibility from the Government to the citizenry.”

Former Australian Deputy PM calls for restoration of trust following referendum

The opening session was followed by a panel on a better story for the West chaired by Peterson, and hearing from former Australian Deputy PM John Anderson, historian Os Guinness and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Anderson called for the restoration of trust in the Australian democratic process following the contentious Voice referendum earlier this month: “We want to reinvigorate a citizenship that feels alienated and patronised because they are being alienated and patronised. We can draw out the better angels of our nature, and try and ensure that our democracy works again properly on the basis of restored trust.”

On the need to reiterate a shared democratic story for the West, Anderson commented: “We do not tell our own story anymore. It has left us in a state of confusion… We leave our young people today without a sense of purpose or place or direction.”

The session featured calls from each of the panellists for a return to traditional values of equality of opportunity and faith following a period of directionlessness. “The West is in considerable confusion and uncertainty,” Guinness warned. “People don’t have a sense of meaning as they don’t feel part of a great story or tradition.”

ENDS

DAY 2

NEW: Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove slams housing financialisation | ARC conference

Speaking on the second day of the ARC conference, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove discussed the state of the property market, criticising recent fiancialisation as “[seeing] housing being used increasingly as a tradeable asset”, and lambasting homeowners for “pulling up the drawbridge” in order to preserve the value of their properties.

Addressing 1,500 delegates from 71 countries at ARC’s inaugural conference, Gove addressed issues with capitalism, arguing that market inequalities have been exacerbated by the Bank of England’s Quantitative Easing regime inflating asset values following the Global Financial Crisis, and corporations concentrating gains “in the hands of the few” through an abuse of market power and extensive lobbying efforts.

Gove singled out big business for co-opting individuals from the ‘resentment industry’ — those who profit from manufactured grievances — to advise on ESG and DEI issues. “The DEI industry doesn’t go for diversity of thought, or genuine diversity of background,” he told the conference.

In his speech Gove broadened his critique of contemporary capitalism beyond economics, emphasising the importance of social policy. “Economics and culture are inextricably interlinked,” he said, advocating for a society which is “free of cancellation” and economically just, alongside promoting entrepreneurship.

“What we need is the Promethean spirit which grabs fire from the gods” – pursuing opportunity, & the “rabbinical spirit – in particular, that we must take inequality seriously”.

ENDS

NEW: Erica Komisar calls for flexible working, family tax incentives to combat mental health epidemic | ARC Conference

Speaking in front of 1,500 delegates at the ARC conference, academic Erica Komisar described the child mental health epidemic, and examined the underlying causes driving the issue forward.
Komisar called for flexible working from employers, family tax incentives, and concerted action from parents to build stable environments for children to grow up in, to help to tackle the problem.

Childcare expert calls for flexible working, family tax incentives to combat mental health epidemic.

“‘Our children are under the worst academic pressure that we have ever heard in history” according to psychoanalyst and parental expert Erica Komisar, who warned of a mental health epidemic in children arising from an absence in parental presence due to contemporary labour market pressures and childcare costs.

Komisar, addressing 1,500 delegates from 71 countries on the second day of the ARC conference in Greenwich, called for a series of reforms to government childcare policies as a necessary step in alleviating the mental health crisis around the world.

“Governments need to give all mothers the option to stay home for a full year, and support them with resources so they can work part-time for another two years,” she told the conference. Komisar also called for school to start later for teenagers, tax incentives for married parents, and a tax credit system incentivising parents to invest in mental health care.

The author of two books on parenting, Komisar also called on the private sector to enable new parents to spend more time with their new children: “employers have a role to play in allowing parents the space and time to be present for their children, providing options of flexible hours and hybrid working hours, encouraging career pauses to parents raising their children…as well as providing re-entry points for women.”

ENDS

NEW: Former Bank of England Chief Economist Andy Haldane calls on UK Government to address low growth, regional inequalities | ARC Conference

Royal Society of Arts boss calls for local decision making and increased private financing to solve UK’s regional malaise

Speaking on the second day of the ARC conference, Haldane called for the UK to localise decision-making and increase the level of private financing in a bid to address twin blights of “low growth and large regional inequalities.”

“Currently in the UK [decision-making] is both centralised and single,” Haldane told an audience of 1,500 delegates. “It needs to become localised and plural.” On the need to unlock private funding, Haldane commented that easing the pathways for private investment is needed, as “too little [money] is finding its home where it can be.”

Haldane spoke alongside Australian Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor and Blue Labour founder Lord Maurice Glasman, in a panel discussion on the communities economically left behind hosted by academic and pollster Matt Goodwin.

Glasman advocated for increased access to capital through regional banks in order to address local inequalities.”[We need to] restore place, restore access to capital, and restore the dignity of labour,” the Labour peer said. Glasman also called for largescale education reforms to reduce income divides, advocating for half of all universities to be converted into vocational colleges.

The session featured a discussion with siblings Korie and Willie Robertson, the stars of U.S. reality show Duck Dynasty, discussing their experience growing up in a ‘flyover state’ and the importance of local relationships. “When you live in a community you truly live in community. We can have different opinions and different views and we can come around the table and love and respect one another,” Korie said.

ENDS

NEW: Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians Jacinta Nampijinpa Price heralds referendum as “turning point” for Australia | ARC Conference

Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians Jacinta Nampijinpa Price addresses the ARC conference, declares the Voice referendum a “turning point” for Australia.
Price calls for “no more separatism”, and criticises a Yes campaign that “sought to divide us along the lines of race”.

In a speech to the ARC Conference in London in the wake of the Voice referendum result earlier this month, Price called the vote “a turning point in our nation, in Australia.”

Addressing 1,500 delegates Price said that the vote “has emboldened everyday Australians to believe that it is perfectly OK to be who you are. To be proud of who you are as an individual.”

The Liberal Party politician criticised a Yes campaign that has “sought to divide us along the lines of race”, and had attempted to remove agency for indigenous Australians, sending the message that “it was the responsibility of white Australia to empower [indigenous Australians] through our constitution.”

Setting out a vision for the party’s approach to social policy ahead of a likely 2025 General Election, Price said that “the way forward from here is no more separatism, no more dividing us along the lines of race, no more political correctness, no more identity politics… recognising that we don’t need another to empower us. We can do that ourselves, and we can do it very well.”

Price said the result has created “hope and unity”, and “emboldened everyday Australians to understand that it is perfectly okay to be who you are.”

ENDS

Censorship and culture wars

The 25 final minutes of a conversation between Jordan Peterson and Glenn Greenwald

“Safe and effective”

Esther McVey MP speaks in Parliament

The Unholy Alliance Between George Soros and Pope Francis

Article by George Neumayr

“I will build my church: The missio ecclesiae”

Review of Joseph Boot's "The Mission of God" (Chapter 15)

The following is just a collection of (not necessarily verbatim) quotes from the chapter with the above title from the book “The Mission of God” by Joseph Boot (see his Ezra Institute).

15.1 The Mission of the Church

Definition of the church . . . Greek ekklesia, simply meaning assembly. A compound of the preposition ek (out from ) and verb kaleo (to call).

Thayer’s Greek Lexicon: “a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place”.

So the church is a universal and organic (living and growing) body of regenerate believers (a new humanity or citizenry) who have been reconciled to God through the death and resurrection of Christ, called out to serve their king, finding regional expression in local assemblies (or embassies) of God’s kingdom people.

God’s people are sent out into all the earth to declare the good news of Christ’s reign and salvation and assert his crown rights in every area of life and thought.

This is a distinctly reformed and Puritan perspective, and a world-changing one.

This vision of the church’s mission in the Western European context took decisive shape during the Calvinistic movements of the Second Reformation in Holland and the Puritan era in England, Scotland and the American colonies.

Richard Marius writes: Luther never tried to make much of the present world, and a worldly age cannot make much of him. The Calvinists expected the world to endure, and they believed themselves to be instruments of God to convert it . . . Calvinism has implanted . . . a perpetual dissatisfaction with our successes and a restlessness with the way things are. [523]

In a truly Reformed theology of mission, the church as God’s kingdom people must not only be concerned with personal salvation, or institutional church affairs, but with the reign of Christ over all things.

Cromwell and many other Puritans were working toward a nation under God’s law and gospel in which there would be a harmony between church and state, both submitted in their spheres to God.

It was simply assumed that people would live a better life once God’s rule was established over thier respective societies.

Because of its theocratic features the Calvinist branch of the Reformation put a greater emphasis than Lutheranism on the rule of Christ in society at large; this distinction also manifested itself in Calvinist missionary practice. [524]

Bosch: “The Enlightenment would shatter the theocratic ideal. Religion would be banished into the private sphere, leaving the public sphere to reason.”

Enlightenment relativized the absolute and exclusive claims of Christianity, thereby steadily pushing it from the public to the private realm. Furthermore, in this rebirth of human autonomy the “self-sufficiency of the individual over social responsibilities was exalted to a sacred creed.”

In our present cultural moment, the Enlightenment, having run its course and exiled transcendence, has left us the meagre crumbs of relativism, subjectivism, political pluralism and a concomitant return to esoteric pagan spirituality that is successfully merging itself with humanistic ‘science’.

The main responses of the churches to this predicament vary from a kind of retrenchment in a ‘reason-based’ Christianity, to religious privatisation, and theological flight and retreat.

The first common response, mostly among Catholics and evangelical rationalists, essentially adopts the Enlightenment paradigm, wedding the ‘age of reason’ to Christianity, claiming that theology is a kind of natural science, the science of God, and that reason, through identifying natural law, can restore man to a truly moral and rational idea of himself, the world and God.

A second reaction . . . divorces faith and reason, seeking to locate the faith essentially in human feelings and experience alone . . . the goal of the Christian life and faith then becomes simply advancing one’s personal spiritual growth. . . . tied to an eschatology of escape and flight from the world as the ultimate hope of the church.

A third and most popular response amongst Protestants has been the radical privatisation of the faith. . . . like to think they can carve out a small domain in public affairs, having a ‘seat at the table,’ whilst leaving the rest of life to be considered a purely personal and individual realm, and allowing most of the public square to go its own way.

A more sophisticated variation on this response has been the development of a ‘Christian’ political pluralism, which essentially embraces the globalist multi-cultural project of the modern left, and baptizes it as the church’s mission in serving the common good – this presupposes the privatisation and relativisation of biblical truth.

The very idea that biblical faith creates Christian culture or civilisation is denied, and the Reformed view of biblical revelation effecting legislation is rejected as totalitarian.

There is no such thing as a neutral culture. ‘Multiculturalism’ is therefore just a contemporary term for polytheism (many gods). But no society can be governed by more than one ultimate source of authority without provoking civil conflict and social chaos.

The Roman world … sponsored cultural pluralism politically, but ensured that ultimate allegiance was to the emperor (the state). … This was true of all the polytheistic empires; ultimate power and authority lay with the king, emperor or ruler, i.e. the state. This pagan idea is the actual hegemonic reality that exists today in the West.

This ‘modified’ privatisation of biblical faith and truth, calling for active support and promotion of political pluralism (public idolatry) in the name of Christianity, is fast becoming the dominant ‘evangelical’ perspective. Its cousin is the right-leaning two-kingdoms theology … that supports the privatisation of the faith with the notion that the public or secular sphere outside the institutional church is a realm of ‘common grace’ where specifically Christian revelation is not necessary to define and shape the common good.

This is largely an attempt to both cope with the Enlightenment’s shattering of the theocratic ideal in Protestant mission theology, and to broker a deal with the crocodile of statism in the hope of being eaten last.

Turning this around is not done by revolution, but by regeneration, and multi-generational faithfulness to preach, teach, serve and obey in terms of the whole council of God. Faithful Christians are called to live godly, peaceable, honourable lives, seeking to live at peace with all as far as it depends upon them without compromising God’s word whilst dwelling in non-Christian social orders.

15.2 The New Puritanism and the Church

The answer to the shattering of the Protestant theocratic ideal by the Enlightenment lies not in the popular responses highlighted previously, but in a simple return to the whole council of God in Scripture and a revival of a Puritan theology of mission detailed throughout the book.

We must neither romanticise the past, nor accept the status quo as normative. “The Church must in every generation be ready to bring its tradition afresh under the light of the Word of God.”

A pocket of theocratic Christianity that survived the Enlightenment was Dutch Calvinism. This movement greatly influenced the new Puritanism (the theonomists)

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), who served as Prime Minister in the Netherlands summarized his Reformed missiological thrust this way:

“One desire has been the ruling passion of my life. One high motive has acted like a spur upon my mind and soul . . . It is this: That in spite of all worldly opposition, God’s holy ordinances shall be established again in the home, in the school and in the state for the good of the people; to carve as it were, into the conscience of the nation, the ordinances of the Lord, to which the Bible and creation bear witness, until the nation pays homage again to God.”

The layman does not leave the church when he walks out of the building.

Although this is unlikely to happen overnight, I believe that a recovery of a missional theology of hope, dominion and victory, centred upon the kingdom of God and our priestly service to the king, would lead to a progressive renewal of the church’s mission.

[Rushdoony:] Today, as the world more openly embraces humanism, our religious institutions, schools, families, and callings must see themselves as outposts of Christ’s Kingdom, local gatherings of the citizens of the new creation. In the building for worship, the true church in a local community gathers to hear the word of God, whereby they are to go forth and exercise dominion.

15.3 No Compromise

John Stott: “I now see more clearly that not only the consequences of the commission but the actual commission itself must be understood to include social as well as evangelistic responsibility, unless we are to be guilty of distorting the words of Jesus.”

Why does this kingdom manifesto appear to be revolutionary or even threatening to many in today’s church?

Rejecting compromising the faith. The implications of the Puritan thesis have become clear – uncompromising biblical faithfulness to the Lord, whatever the cost.

The Bible was read, not as God’s law-word, but as a devotional book for pietists. The state (and most of life) was thus freed from God to follow a humanistic course.

However,

“by forcing Christians to grapple with the Old Testament’s contribution to Christian ethics and a just society, and by offering insightful biblical solutions to the problems of the modern world, the Reconstructionists have enriched the church” (J. G. Child)

The quiet and progressive influence of Puritan missiology is also no doubt due to the weakness and evident inadequacy of current Reformed and evangelical missiological thought.

15.4 Idolatry – The Root of Resistance

The modern church is tempted to blame the humanists, pagans and Muslims, Marxists or other groups for the state of our culture and its idolatrous turn, but God calls his people to first take a long hard look at themselves in accounting for the decline of our social order. (See Jeremiah 3:1-23)

In the midst of the people’s rebellion, there is hope. This hope is found in the invitation to return to the Lord. God calls his people to repent and turn to him.

15.5 Divine Jealousy

The word jealous is related to zealous and denotes exclusivity – another word our age has a distaste for!

Love and jealousy are inseparably related and they are intimately involved in one another in the unchanging character of God.

Jealousy, like God, is personal (as is love). Electricity is not personal. The murderer and the saint alike will both get electric shocks if they touch an electric fence because current is impersonal or non-discriminating in action. Thus, when people fail to discriminate in life between good and evil character and actions, right and wrong, truth and falsehood, they are depersonalising and dehumanising persons and life itself.

C. S. Lewis points out that to deny jealousy and wrath to God is misleading and destructive: “All the liberalising and civilising analogies only lead us astray. Turn God’s wrath into mere enlightened disapproval and you also turn his love into mere humanitarianism. The consuming fire and the perfect beauty both vanish.” God’s love is exclusive which means his love for his covenant people demands the eschewing of all idolatry.

15.6 The nature of Idolatry

The essence of all sin is idolatry and it was so from the first.

Man’s favourite idol is himself and his own will.

The two key forms of idolatry found amongst God’s people in the time of Jeremiah were (and remain in today’s church) syncretism [the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought] and false prophesy in the name of the God of Scripture – and they usually come together.

In the modern church, we have people and movements who claim to want and and worship a God of love; not a God whose nature includes law, jealousy, exacting justice, judgement and wrath. This pretence has always been the cry of those who would liberalize, sanitize, and domesticate the divine. But the love of which they speak is an abstraction, and their god an idol; an idea; a universalistic, and promiscuous god; an antinomian image without law, and therefore without grace: without justice and therefore without mercy. This ‘progressive’ god is evolving and changing as the spirit of the age appoints the creed of time. This is a god of man’s making whose being and ways must conform to the shifting sands of popular culture. This god speaks no infallible word, for that word is now spoken by man for the moment. This profane image is a useless idol. The actual god in this theosophy is man. However much cloaked in theological or missiological verbiage, this evolving god is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God and father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

15.7 Going the Way of Balaam

What leads God’s people into idolatry? According to Scripture, the main culprit is false preaching and teaching.

It is not usually the loud humanist and open spokesman for Baal (sexual perversion, homosexual marriage, abortion, abolition of the family, queer culture etc…) who is the greatest danger to the church, but the audacious churchmen, masking their idolatry as faithfulness. Often gifted, eloquent, full of plausible-sounding argument and popular appeal, with media reach and glossy books and even an ostensibly ‘evangelical’ pedigree, such people can spin a new faith with words from the old.

The triune God of Scripture is a faithful, exclusive, loving, inexorable and jealous husband, and it is these very qualities that make him a God of real love.

In recent decades, confidence and hope have been gradually sapped in the western church by a general failure to faithfully preach and apply the whole counsel of God in our churches.

15.8 The Hopeless World

Without the sovereign God in their world, and outside of the covenant, men desperately plan their utopias, dream of creating cybernetic life and downloading their consciousness into a machine to escape death, and wonder how man will avoid the consequences of the evil in his own heart.

It is harder to hope and believe that the mission God has given his church can be fulfilled. It is easier to dress up faithlessness as realism, disobedience as a higher spirituality, or to succumb to hopelessness.

15.9 The Covenant of Hope

We must again in the Western world recover the vital mission of the church that sees its calling as applying the reign of Jesus Christ in all creation. We must revive the spirit and vision of salvation victory that characterised the apostle John and inspired the great hymn writer who penned those potent words “All hail the power of Jesus name let angels prostrate fall, bring forth the royal diadem and crown him Lord of all . . . Let every kindred, every tribe on this terrestrial ball, to him all majesty ascribe and crown him Lord of all.”

It will require courage, fortitude and unwavering biblical faithfulness to rouse the church again to her mission in a generation that has lost its way in idolatry, and where many a prophet and and priest have said ‘peace, peace, when there is no peace”.(Jer. 6:14). Yet in spite of all opposition, wherever a faithful kingdom people are found; wherever the church of Jesus Christ gathers as his embassy to serve as his ambassadors; wherever a willing and humble church will hear and obey, the rule and kingdom of God is present.

Is Atheism Dead?

Featuring Bestselling Author Eric J. Metaxas, Interviewed by Graham H. Walker

Here’s a comment underneath the video:

Wait, what? Jean Paul Sartre changes his beliefs? Sartre died in 1980. I took philosophy in 1998 and Sartre was used as a foundation for atheism. Doing an internet search on Sartre’s conversion was actually difficult to find. Pierre Victor was one who revealed Sartre’s conversion. Sartre’ long-term companion, Simone de Beauvoir, critisizes Sartre after his death and called him a senile turncoat. Having to do a deep search on this in 2022, 42 years after Sartre’s death, is pretty indicative of the university system pushing anti-Christian religion. Thank you for revealing this.