LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF LIGHTHOUSE TRAILS RESEARCH: “MY CHURCH-HEADING INTO TROUBLED WATERS WITH ONE DECEPTIVE TEACHER AFTER THE NEXT”
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Rather Expose Them Christian News Blog
A WordPress Blog-THE CHURCH MILITANT Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse. ALL CONTENT FROM HTTPS://RATHEREXPOSETHEM.BLOGSPOT.COM MOVED TO THIS NEW BLOG, MAY 2020
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Infowars Action Alert
Are you upset about Tuesday’s election? Think Republicans should have not only held the House but also increased their majority?
Today, the censorship of conservatives, libertarians, Republicans, and disaffected Democrats is worse than ever.
Donald Trump was able to win in 2016 only because there was a vibrant, robust, and fully accessible new media on the Internet.
Together We Ignited The Trump Revolution
Now, the Democrats and their giant contributors in Silicon Valley
and Big Tech want to systematically snuff out our ability to
communicate our pro-Trump views. They hope to use this censorship to
throttle Donald Trump in an impeachment battle. We saw this in the
recent Kavanaugh fight, where he prevailed, despite duplicitous attacks
from the mainstream media.
This is why we lost the House and many important governorships,
despite solid gains in the Senate with two Democrats who voted against
Kavanaugh going down.
It is clear that Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and
YouTube colluded in the coordinated use of various techniques to limit
the reach of conservatives, Republicans, and Trump supporters. This is
coupled with outright deception, bans on Twitter, de-platforming
millions on Facebook, as well as mass censorship on Reddit and
demonetization on Youtube.
These acts violate federal anti-competitive and anti-trust laws.
They are using these monopolistic and illegal tactics to snuff
out our First Amendment rights and compete in any future election.
The very future of the Trump presidency, the future of the
president’s reform agenda, and indeed Donald Trump’s legacy are entirely
contingent to a level playing field on the internet.
You Can Take Action Now
We plan to send one million letters to direct Trump’s new acting
Attorney General to move aggressively against the anti-competitive and
illegal racketeering by these tech giants to restore a free and
unfettered internet where all opinions can be heard.
Sign The Letter Now
We pay the postage! We will deliver your letter to the post
office along with hundreds of thousands of others. You also have the
option of printing out and mailing your letter directly to the
president.
Please act today! America’s future depends on it.
Go to writetrump.com now.
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LifeNews
Alabama voters proved once again that when people get a chance to go
to the polls they generally vote for unborn children. And they did just
that tonight by approving an amendment saying unborn babies have a right
to life.
The proposed constitutional amendment asked voters to “affirm that it
is the public policy of this state to recognize and support the
sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, most
importantly the right to life in all manners and measures appropriate
and lawful.” The amendment also would guarantee that “the constitution
of this state does not protect the right to abortion or require the
funding of abortion.”
Voters said yes by a 60-40 margin.
The vote came despite the Planned Parenthood abortion business spending $1.5 million to defeat it.
Yellowhammer News reports the out-of-state, dark money came from the
abortion giant Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups. These
groups spent about $1.5 million to attack Amendment 2, which would
affirm unborn babies’ right to life in the Alabama constitution,
according to the report.
To continue reading, click here
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In reality, there’s no such thing as being “transgender.” No one in
the history of mankind has ever “trans” their gender. This is, of
course, because gender is the same as sex and sex is molecular; it can’t
be changed by chopping off one thing or adding another. However, there
are some who pretend as though their gender is something it’s not and it
is commonly known as “transgenderism,” an unscientific term if ever
there was one. Mark Wingfield, the associate pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church, recently claimed in an Op-Ed in Baptist News Global that it’s not a sin to lie about your gender.
Wingfield has served Wilshire Baptist Church as associate pastor
since 2004 and from1998 to 2003, he served as managing editor of the
Baptist Standard, the newspaper for Texas Baptists. He also wrote for
the Western Recorder, a newspaper of Kentucky Baptists. Wingfield has
also served as associate director of news and information for the
Southern Baptist Home Mission Board and director of news and information
for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He’s a product of the
Southern Baptist Convention, through and through.
Wingfield wrote in Baptist News Global, a publication for which he’s a columnist, “Even
among Christians who appear kind or progressive, too often the
existence of someone who identifies as transgender gets chalked up to
‘sin.’ No doubt that’s the root reason so many Christians happily pile
on against transgender persons and their family members about bathrooms and schools
because in their heart of hearts, they don’t understand transgender
identity and simply default to thinking it is a sinful lifestyle choice.”
Of course, Wingfield’s claim is highly reductionist. Right-thinking
Christians don’t argue that sin is a “choice” definitionally. Because of
the doctrine of Original Sin (which anyone with more than an ounce of
Christian theological training embraces), sin is not merely a matter of what we do, but who we are. We are not sinners because we sin, but through Biblical lenses, we sin because we are sinners. He continues:
Even among Christians who appear kind or progressive, too
often the existence of someone who identifies as transgender gets
chalked up to ‘sin.’
Transgenderism is a sin because God gets to make and identify people as either male or female (Genesis 5:2),
not the individual. Transgenderism is also a sin because it’s a
violation of the 9th Commandment, a lie. Lying about one’s gender is as sinful as lying about anything else.
On top of that, transgenderism is usually closely associated with
other kinds of more overt sexual perversions (which are also sins by
Biblical definition). Wingfield claims, however, that sin is only sin if there’s a volitional choice (which is flawed theology). He then assumes that lying about one’s gender somehow isn’t a choice.
I think we all can agree that a “sin” is something we do
that we shouldn’t do, something we have a choice about. If I eat an
entire half-gallon of ice cream, I am likely guilty of the sin of
gluttony.* I didn’t have to eat the ice cream. If I fixate on why other
people are more athletic and agile than me in my mid-life body, I
probably am guilty of the sin of envy. There is a way for me to redirect
my thoughts to avoid envy.
[Editor’s Note: “Over-eating” is not the sin of gluttony. Gluttony is selfish eating when others go hungry or snobby eating, which could bring insult to others. God invented feasting, after all]
The same is not true of transgender identity.
Emphatically and conclusively, this is not a choice. It is who a person
is. Did you choose to have red hair? Did you choose to be tall or short?
Did you choose to have the genetic markers you have? Of course not.
Transgender persons are simply acknowledging that the gender identity
assigned to them at birth because of physical anatomy does not match the
brain, biochemical and genetic gender identity they know inside.
Notice the cognitive dissonance of Wingfield’s argument. He asks,
“Did you choose to have red hair? Your height? Your genetic markers?”
What do all of these things have in common? Your hair color, height, and
genetic markers are like your penis or vagina; they are given by God.
Wingfield says flippantly, as though it were somehow a matter of
science, that their “physical anatomy does not match the brain,”
whatever that means.
Where are all the red-haired people who claim that it doesn’t match
their brain and they are, in fact, blonde? Where are all the tall people
who claim that doesn’t match their brain and they are, in fact, short?
Of course, those people might be called mentally ill. And if they
actually demanded to be identified by the wrong hair color or height,
they would be guilty of lying and encouraging others to lie.
I could quote chapter and verse for study after study,
and that would not change the minds of some people who are determined to
label as sinful anything they do not understand, usually because “the
Bible says so.” In these cases, I ask people to tell me where in the
Bible being transgender is condemned as sinful. The only answer usually
offered is Deuteronomy 22:5,
which says: “A woman shall not wear a man’s apparel, nor shall a man
put on a woman’s garment; for whoever does such things is abhorrent to
the Lord your God.”Here’s the problem with even a literal reading of that passage:
Transgender persons will tell you they are not “men” putting on
“women’s” clothing or “women” putting on “men’s” clothing.
We understand transgenderism, of course. God has given them over to a
debased and depraved mind, and men think they’re women and women think
they’re men. Instead of repenting of this depraved insanity, they insist
people reinforce their delusions. Those who don’t love them do reinforce their delusions. We get it.
Of course, Wingfield implies there’s a non-literal reading of Deuteronomy 22:5
(I’d be curious to hear what a metaphorical reading would entail),
before claiming matter-of-factly that they’re not a man putting on a
woman’s clothing because they’re actually a woman on the inside. Of course, they’re a man on the inside also
in every scientific way that can be measured. They’re only a woman
subjectively, in unquantified ways, and only presuming the existence of
soul or spirit.
The problem with arguing that transgenderism exists at all is that it
requires a belief in the supernatural and metaphysical. Scientifically
and from a naturalist worldview, it is absolutely impossible to claim
that someone is a different gender “on the inside” from “on the
outside.” That argument requires a belief in the soul or spirit, that
someone is metaphysically different from who they are physically. But once they acknowledge the metaphysic and supernatural, we’re on to the realm of God. And God says he
makes you male or female. So whether from a naturalist or
supernaturalist perspective, transgenderism ranks up there as one of the
dumbest ideas ever thought of, like New Coke or spray-on hair for bald
men.
Occasionally, people will point to Genesis 1:27
as a condemnation of transgender identity: “male and female he created
them.” Most transgender persons will tell you they believe God has, in
fact, created them as either male or female; the problem is how they
have been labeled by others who are not God.
God did not “label them” by placing a subtle whisper in their heart
about what gender they are. He labeled them when he slapped their
genitalia on.
Wingfield’s post is an adventure in Scripture-twisting, even going so
far as to argue that Genesis demonstrates someone can be “gender fluid”
because God made “night and day” and “land and sea,” and therefore one
person can be two things. Seriously. That’s his argument. You can read it here.
“Centering Prayer” exercise, Catalyst Dallas |
Posted by Christine Pack
Writer
Jim Fletcher is reporting from the Catalyst Dallas conference that a
Centering Prayer exercise was recently led by mystic and contemplative
spiritualist Phileena Heuertz at Catalyst conference, which is a
Christian conference that moves from city to city. The current Catalyst
is being held April 30-May 2, 2014 in Dallas, TX. Heuertz, who is the
author of Pilgrimage of the Soul,
was listed as a “lab speaker,” which means that her session was
probably a breakout session in which not all of the conference attendees
were participants. Some of the other Catalyst Dallas speakers includeTullian Tchividjian, Dave Ramsey, Louie Giglio, Mark Batterson, Jen Hatmaker, Craig Groeschel, and Francis Chan.
(HT: Jules LaPierre, Jim Fletcher)
Phileena Heuertz |
Some background information on Phileena Heuertz: Heuertz and her husband teach contemplative mysticism at their websitegravity, as well as other mystical/pagan practices:
– Yoga
On her Centering Prayer page,
Heuertz talks about having been taught Centering Prayer by Roman
Catholic mystic monk Thomas Keating himself, with whom the practice of
mystical centering prayer originated. (Learn more about Thomas Keating here on a show by Chris Rosebrough of Fighting For The Faith.) According to Heuertz’s bio on the Sojourners website,
Heuertz is “a member of the New Friar movement,” teaches and writes on
contemplative spirituality and facilitates contemplative retreats.
SEE: http://phileena.com/
AND OUR PREVIOUS POST:
https://ratherexposethem.org/2014/05/catalyst-contemplative-lab-led-by-csm.html
JONATHAN MERRITT, GAY CHRISTIAN JOURNALIST, PROMOTES CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER
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Watching Queer as Folk.
Kissing Oscar Wilde’s grave.
Earrings only in the right ear.
A grown man at a Madonna concert.
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Harvest Bible Church members were reportedly sent a mass email on
October 23, 2018, alerting them to several controversies. Included in
that letter, aside from notifying them a staff member was credibly
accused of sexual assault and a brief mention of their frivolous
lawsuits, the church explained that 270 thousand dollars was embezzled
from the church. Never fear, however…that’s less than one percent of the church’s overall giving.
The church email is as follows…
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Carl Trueman laughably claimed
Tim Keller couldn’t be a Marxist on one single and solitary ground;
Keller is a theist. Apparently, Trueman was unaware that Liberation
Theology (to which Keller explicitly subscribes), a tenet of
Marxism, was invented by Roman Catholics…who are theists. Keller, of
course, is a Marxist by every discernible standard. Furthermore, he
repeatedly proves it by his discourse.
Earlier, Keller tweeted this comment, apparently emboldened (and no
doubt pleased) by the blue trickle that dominated Tuesday’s election…
Extracting “the Bible’s vision” (whatever that means) for an “interdependent community” (that means communism)
aside, Keller’s claim that private property is not an absolute right is
as fallacious as it is Marxist. It’s also a claim that no serious
Reformed theologian should make. They should not make such a claim
because Reformed and Covenant theologians are supposed to believe in the
abiding validity of God’s Moral Law. All concepts of private property
rights are derived from the Eighth Commandment, which is definitely an
“absolute.”
The Journal of Markets and Morality explains that – contrary to Keller’s suggestion – private property rights were indeed absolute under Old Testament law.
They write…
It was at creation that God the Creator committed the world and its resources to humanity (Gen. 1:28–29).
It was because the man and the woman were made in the image of God that
they were commanded to subdue the created order and to exercise
dominion over the whole of it. As a result, God granted dominion to this first human pair under his law, but he did not grant his sovereignty to them, for God alone is Lord and the only sovereign over all.
Along with creation, this dominion was reinforced in the Decalogue’s eighth commandment, “You shall not steal” (Ex. 20:15),
which provided for property rights as well. With this command, not only
was the principle of individual ownership recognized, but it also
thereby regarded as criminal all attempts to take that property from a
person in a fraudulent way and to then regard it as one’s own.
However, in an ultimate sense, in Israel all property belonged to the Lord, as Leviticus 25:23
(NIV, 1984) made clear: “the land is mine and you are but aliens and my
tenants.” Because Yahweh is the one and only Lord and ultimate king
over Israel, he was also Lord of the soil and its products. Accordingly,
the Holy Land was God’s domain (Josh. 22:19) and that land was the land of Yahweh (Hos. 9:3; Ps. 85:1 [2]; Jer. 16:18). Indeed, this was the very land that had been promised to the Patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 15:18; 26:4; Ex. 32:13; Deut. 1:35–36).
In this article, we will examine the case some have made for a duality
of the material and the spiritual realms—a duality that was counter to
biblical thought. Then we will examine scriptural themes related to
property, theft, land, and Jubilee. We will find that the biblical
picture is one in which absolute sovereignty is attributed to God alone,
while stewardship responsibilities are attributed to human beings who
are accountable to God for the fulfillment of these responsibilities.
In the past, a strong vein of Manichaeanism in the early church led
to a disregard of the material world in favor of the realm of the
Spirit. Manichaeanism was a system of religious and philosophical
thought that originated in the teachings of an Iranian prophet Mani.
Therefore, its adherents renounced the material and physical aspects of
life in order to maintain a purity that was required to pass on into the
realm of light. This dualism was not biblically derived. Because this
world must perish in the eschaton, it therefore must be renounced, this
group argued. The world and the flesh were just too hostile to be linked
to the spiritual realm. Thus all calls to subdue the earth or the
promise of a restored nature and of a resurrected body were usually
disregarded by a Manichaean philosophy, or were just left untreated.
There is little or no reality to history; history is completely
irrelevant to time and eternity, or so this position claimed.
Today’s modernists, however, tend to espouse the exact opposite. They
choose the material order of creation rather than the spiritual
aspects. Thus, for example, they turn the birth narratives of Jesus into
a myth, for (they claim) we must be able to see physical evidences for
such happenings and not assert divine intervention as the basis for what
takes place. The reality that Jesus will come to claim his realm, his
property, and his rule as sovereign over all in heaven and on earth is
missed by both the Manichaeans and the modernists for opposite reasons.
Scripture, however, affirms the reality of both the material and the
spiritual realms. It is a true spirituality that also has a high regard
for property and the whole of created order.
Scripture teaches that possessions and property may be acquired, for
example, under certain conditions by way of reward. Thus even the ox is
to remain unmuzzled as it tramps out the grain (Deut. 25:4) and mortals are similarly entitled to appropriate rewards for their labors (1 Cor. 9:9–11). Moreover, all deliberate withholding of wages that are due workers are roundly condemned (Lev. 19:13),
because fairness and justice demands the proper pay for honest labor.
On the other hand, any gains made through dishonesty must not be given
any place in a believer’s life (Eph. 4:28; Prov. 11:1; 21:6; Hos. 12:7; Mic. 6:10–11). That is exactly how stealing is defined.
Possessions and property may also be acquired through inheritance (Deut. 21:16; Prov. 19:14), but even here there is a warning against discrimination (Deut. 21:16).
Later on in Israel, only the eldest son received a double portion
according to the Mosaic legislation, but this seems to be roughly
equivalent to our laws that allow for the executor of the will (in
addition to being an heir) to receive a larger portion than the other
heirs who are required to pay the executor for the work of distributing
the contents of the parents’ will.
Finally, possessions or property could be gained by industriousness (Prov. 10:4; 13:4; 14:23), wisdom (Prov. 3:16; 24:3), or by the development of insight (Prov. 14:15). The book of Proverbs, in particular, stressed the merits of doing a job with pride, satisfaction, and excellence (Prov. 12:24).
Theft is both a shortcut to obtaining possessions and property by
means of avoiding any work to gain such, as well as by an outright
denial of God’s law. Wealth, if it comes to a person, will come either
as a result of labor, inheritance, or a gift, but it is easy for either
the rich or the poor to violate God’s law, because humans are sinners as
well.
The eighth commandment, while one of the two shortest in the Decalogue (Ex. 20:15; Deut. 5:19),
taught that stealing was not only taking another person’s property, but
it also included all forms of coercion, fraud, or taking another
person’s possessions or property without consent, along with all forms
of cheating or harming property by destroying its value in one way or
another. Thus theft involved the following: robbing victims directly;
using indirect and legal means of gaining benefits not deserved; or by
being part of a corporate group that steals, even though you are not a
knowing party of all that is going on.
Some have tried to argue on the basis of Proverbs 6:30–31 that thievery in times of necessity is not morally wrong.1 That,
however, is to misunderstand this text in Proverbs, for while it
compares the sin of adultery over against that of thievery, it argues
that the sin of stealing to satisfy one’s hunger brings less dishonor
and public shame than one who commits adultery receives—even though both
are violations of the law of God. The thief in this case is to be
pitied, but the adulterer earns scorn and contempt; his acts of disgrace
violate both the law of God and his own marriage vows.
Private property is both a gift and a certain type of power God has entrusted to humanity as stewards.
It was God’s intention that mortals should be equipped with this gift
and power and that under God they should exercise dominion over the
earth. An attack on the rights to private property in recent centuries
has denied God’s law and design by weakening those same property rights.
Some people, known as “robber barons,” used their power as corporate
bosses to trample the law of God underfoot and appealed instead to
evolution with its “struggle for the survival of the fittest,” in what
became known as “the law of competition.” Oftentimes, the theory of
evolution became an excuse for justifying massive theft in all too many
instances where the weak or the poor were the victims. Sensing that
property was a form of power, the totalitarian state sought to gain more
and more power over private property to be able to subjugate the
people. Therefore, private property understood as a gift, given to
mortals by God to be used for his honor and glory, was often confiscated
in increasing portions to ensure the power of the state or of the
corporation. This, too, received criticism and judgment from heaven
because God did not intend for his gift to be abused in this manner.
This can be seen especially in what the state calls “the right of
eminent domain.”
The right of eminent domain is the claim of sovereignty by the state
over all property within the state. This right is appropriately used
when, in the view of the state, a part or a whole of that property was
necessary for public, state, or federal use, such as in obtaining the
right of way to build a highway through one’s property or to erect some
state building on what had been one’s private property. Usually some
type of compensation is given to the original property owner, but this
was not regarded as a binding limitation on the state.2 Moreover,
it is an assertion of sovereignty by the state or the legislative body,
which Scripture has declared to exist solely in and for God alone.
It is for this reason that God brings judgment on the land; he is the only one with the right of eminent domain (e.g., Ex. 9:29: “so you may know that the earth is the LORD’s”). In fact, God claimed that “the whole earth is mine” (Ex. 19:5), which Deuteronomy 10:12 repeated: “To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.”
R. J. Rushdoony observed that the concept of eminent domain
originated in the idea of pagan kingship, even though the term was not
generally known and utilized in modern times until the time of Grotius
in 1625.3 Eminent domain is located in the concept of natural
law, which attributes ultimate law to nature—not to God. As a result,
sovereignty is then granted to a temporal power of ruling officials,
such as a king or the state. However, the American colonies and states
did not at first claim or use this power, but it came about as
natural-law concepts grew and English law affected American law. Thus
Americans adopted and began to use the concept of the right of eminent
domain as natural-law thinking tended to take over in the United States.
Nevertheless, there is no express delegation of eminent domain in the
United States Constitution. It is only by assuming with Grotius, as a
prior right found in the law of nature, that such authority can be
identified and used. In fact, nowhere in the Constitution of the United
States is the word sovereignty found, for it deliberately avoided the use of the term sovereignty.
In the Puritan tradition, that word was reserved for exclusive use by
God, therefore, it was not shared with mortals, even if they were kings,
presidents, and the like.
George Mason, drafter of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, singled
out that the right of eminent domain was to be excluded from the
authority of the state of Virginia. The declaration states: “That no
part of a man’s property can be taken from him, or applied to public
uses, without his consent, or that of his legal representatives.”4 It
was this very same principle that the Fifth Amendment to the US
Constitution was attempting to introduce. However, the amendment is
worded so poorly that it is ineffectual in controlling this concept.
Rushdoony goes on to note that it was not surprising, therefore, that
the humanistic concept of the sovereignty of the state was later
rivaled by a counterassertion of the sovereignty of the individual, also
on humanistic grounds.5 Against such natural-law
philosophies, the Bible announces the unique sovereignty of the triune
God who alone had the sole right to eminent domain over property and
persons. If it is asked, “Then how can roads and buildings be built by
the state without the tool of eminent domain?” the answer is to use
procedures that come from other areas of authority rather than from a
statist doctrine of sovereignty.
There is little doubt that the promise of the land was one of the three major elements in the Abrahamic promise (Gen. 12:7; 15:7; 18–21; 17:8; the other two being the seed and the gospel).
Christopher Wright showed how this concept of the centrality of the
land was so in pure statistical terms. Out of forty-six references to
the promise-plan of God from Genesis to Judges, only seven of the
forty-six references do not mention the land. Moreover, twenty-nine have it as the sole feature of its content (cf. Gen. 28:4).6
In the days after Solomon, especially, the land of Canaan becomes the
focus of an ongoing struggle between the forces of greed, land
grabbing, and exploitation. As such it became one of the constant issues
mentioned by the prophets as they warned against “add[ing] house to
house and join[ing] field to field” (Isa. 5:8)7 or other forms of abuse, such as tearing the land away from those who were weak, poor, or disadvantaged in their rights.
One of the best-known cases in Scripture was the case where the
prophet Elijah confronted King Ahab and Queen Jezebel over their
treatment of poor landowner Naboth. King Ahab coveted Naboth’s land,
adjacent to the summer palace in Jezreel, for his own garden. Naboth,
however, stood his ground and argued that this was impossible: “The LORD
forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my ancestors.” (1 Kings 21:3). His appeal was to the Lord himself who in Leviticus 25:23 had said, “The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine.”
When King Ahab was rebuffed by Naboth, he went into a sulk until his
wife promised to fix everything and get the land for him. This she did
by arranging for damaging false testimony against Naboth, which resulted
in his being falsely accused, tried, and then executed. Thus Ahab
grabbed the land that had formerly belonged to Naboth and his family. In
the estimation of Scripture, “There was never anyone like Ahab, who
sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, urged on by Jezebel his
wife” (1 Kings 21:25). No wonder, then, that Harry Orlinsky noted that the land was “the cornerstone of the covenant between God and Israel.”8
In at least five major passages, there was a divine
injunction against moving or shifting the ancient boundary markers on
any land. For example, it was clearly stated in Deuteronomy 19:14:
“Do not move your neighbor’s boundary stone set up by your predecessors
in the inheritance you receive in the land the LORD your God is giving
you to possess.”
This warning was also repeated in Deuteronomy 27:17: “Cursed is the man who removes his neighbor’s boundary stone”; in Job 24:2: “Men move boundary stones; they pasture flocks they have stolen”; in Proverbs 22:28: “Do not move an ancient boundary stone set up by your ancestors”; and in Proverbs 23:10: “Do not move an ancient boundary stone or encroach on the fields of the fatherless.”
Rome made this crime one that was punishable by death, so seriously
did they view such an action. John Calvin found removing the boundary
stone to be an act of double deceit, for it was both an act of theft and
one of false witness.9 Likewise, the Talmud commented on land laws at length, for in the view of the Rabbis, the land was sacred to the Lord.10
So sacred was property that there is a complete absence of any land
or property taxes in biblical law. God clearly intended that these land
laws should give stability to society, thus he protected the land from
any, and all, taxation. Taxation on property later became a means for
ultimately destroying property, and, therefore, it became a form of
civil robbery. For example, often beautiful areas of residential living
became so heavily taxed that many of those homes and estates, because of
their enormously increased taxation, had to be torn down or be sold to a
nonprofit organization to escape paying the taxes.
The problem with taxation on the land is that it provides
opportunities for the speculative use of land, which often upsets the
stability of a community. Thus, in our day, new forms of community or
governmental objections, and even hostility, have been raised against
religious groups by those wanting to extend property taxes to places of
worship. In the end, this form of taxation by the community downgrades
the community and its properties as one of the chief anchors in society.
The church, then, is blocked from being a part of that community and of
being able to insert the needed civility and respect for God, persons,
and property among those same people.
In the Bible, the basic tax laws were head taxes or poll taxes, as they were known (Ex. 30:11–16),
which was a uniform tax for all. All men over the age of twenty (and
only men) paid this tax, which was collected by the civil authority. The
cry then arose that the rich should be taxed more heavily, and a more
intricate tax code was developed to the point where most were not able
to decipher it with any level of equanimity.
The year of “Jubilee” (Hebrew, yobel, Lev. 25)
is deeply rooted in the theology and practice of Israel’s concept of
land tenure. The Jubilee year occurred at the end of seven sabbatical
years (Lev. 25:8–10),
which may have coincided with the forty-ninth year. Some contend that
it was the year following the seventh seven-year cycle, that is, the
fiftieth year, which would mean that the land would lay fallow and the
Israelites would have planted nothing for two years. However, this does
not seem to be realistic and practical, for Pentecost, another
fifty-sequence (although it was fifty days and not years), came on the
Sunday that was fifty days after the resurrection Sunday.
One of the central affirmations of the faith of Israel was that the
land they occupied belonged exclusively to the Lord; it did not belong
to Israel even after they occupied it (Ex. 15:13, 17).
Therefore, the land could not be sold permanently, for it belonged to
the Lord, and the people of Israel were only residents or “guests” and
“tenants” (Hebrew, gerim and toshabim) there (Lev. 25:23). The chief landlord was Yahweh.
Leviticus 25:1–7 opens with an expansion of the fallow-year law (stated also in Ex. 23:10–11). This concept is enlarged in Deuteronomy 15:1–2 into a year in which debts (pledges given for loans) were to be released or redeemed. In Leviticus 25:8–12, the Jubilee is introduced. Two concepts mentioned in 25:10 were at the heart of the whole institution of the Jubilee year: liberty (from the burden of debt and the bondage it had embodied) as well as the return of all ancestral property that had been mortgaged to a creditor.
Verses 13–17 of Leviticus 25 go on to spell out the financial
implications of this transaction, for what appeared to have been the
sale of the land was in fact only the sale of the use of the
land. Therefore, as the year of Jubilee approached, and the years were
few, it diminished the value and the cost of the land to the purchaser,
depending on the number of harvests the land could produce until the
Jubilee.
A theological note is introduced in Leviticus 25:18–22
that encouraged the observance of the Sabbath law. The implication was
that obedience would mean that the users of the land trusted the Lord,
who could not only control nature but also history. God would reward
faithfulness to the Sabbath requirements. This, then, sets us up well
for the central verses in this chapter, verses 23–24: “The land must not
be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens
and my tenants. Throughout the country that you hold as a possession,
you must provide for the redemption of the land.”
Chapter 25 closes in verses 25–55 with practical details connected
with the Jubilee year. They treat three types of situations: (1) those
who have come onto hard times (25–28); (2) a brother whose lot worsens
despite several such sales and who needs to be rescued by a kinsman with
interest-free loans (35–38); and (3) where there is a total economic
collapse of a man so that he and his whole family have had to enter into
bonded service to a wealthier family member (39–40). These rules do not
apply to houses in a walled city (29–31), nor did they apply to the
Levites as a tribe because they did not have an inherited share in the
land but were allotted towns and dwellings in Israel (32–34). It is also
noted that these rules of redemption and Jubilee provisions applied
only to Israelites and not to foreign slaves or resident aliens (44–46).
The Jubilee became the main instrument that preserved the
socioeconomic fabric of both the multiple-household land tenure as well
as the smallest family land units. Of course, a relative could have
redeemed the land at any time, depending on the action of one’s
kinsfolk, but the Jubilee occurred only twice a century as a national
event. If redemption functioned by itself, without the stabilizing
effect of the Jubilee, it could have meant that the land could have
fallen into the hands of few wealthy families and the rest of the
families in the clan were bound by debt-servitude. The year of Jubilee
erased all of that and purposely returned everything back to where it
had been before the poorer families got into debt.
The year of Jubilee is very interesting theologically. First, to
observe the fallowyear principle required strong faith in God’s care and
providence. Second, Jubilee pronounced God’s sovereignty over time,
nature, and all the earth. Finally, to remember that the year of Jubilee
was proclaimed on the Day of Atonement meant that Israel, with its
significance of redemption, and with the remission of all debt and
bondage, was not indebted to anyone else but to God himself.
Just as the anticipation of the Jubilee affected all economic values
and set a limit on unjust social relationships, so these economic terms
became terms of hope for the future, for with the blast of the “trumpet”
(yobel), God’s decisive act at the conclusion of time and history would be announced once more (Isa. 27:13; 1 Cor. 15:52). In that day, liberty and release and return and restoration would be offered to God’s people worldwide.
Yet, sovereignty belonged to God alone; mortals and governing
officials were merely given dominion over the earth for which they
answered to God as steward.
[Editor’s Note: The section from The Journal of Markets and Morality
was written by Dr. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., the President Emeritus and
Distinguished Professor of Old Testament and Ethics at Gordon-Conwell
Theological Seminary]
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republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Fox News host Tucker Carlson says he did not assault a man
suing him, but claims he nearly did after the man called his 19-year-old
daughter a “whore” and a “cunt.”
In a statement posted to Twitter Sunday, Carlson revealed details of
the October 13 encounter with gay Latino Juan Granados at the Farmington
Country Club in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Carlson says he was having dinner with his two children when his
daughter, on the way back to the table from the bathroom, was approached
by Granados and asked how she knew Carlson.
“My daughter had never seen the man before. She answered: ‘That’s
my dad,’ and pointed to me,” reads Carlson’s statement. “The man
responded, ‘Are you Tucker’s whore?’ He then called her a ‘fucking
cunt.’”
Carlson next describes he and his son confronted Granados over the remarks.
“My son asked the man if he’d called his sister a ‘whore’ and a
‘cunt.’ The man admitted he had, and again [became] profane. My son
threw a glass of red wine in the man’s face and told him to leave the
bar, which he soon did.”
While Carlson denies assaulting the man, he admits he felt like beating Granados with a chair.
“I think any father can understand the overwhelming rage and
shock that I felt seeing my teenage daughter attacked by a stranger. But
I restrained myself,” Carlson notes. “I did not assault this man, and
neither did my son. That is a lie. Nor did I know the man was gay or
Latino, not that it would have mattered.”
He added, “What happened on October 13 has nothing to do with
identity politics. It was a grotesque violation of decency. I’ve never
seen anything like it in my life.”
On Saturday, Granados’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, released grainy
cell phone footage of the alleged incident asking for additional
witnesses and seeking help with identifying people in the video.
Carlson’s home was targeted by the Smash Racism D.C. Antifa group
last week, some of whom chanted, “Tucker Carlson, we will fight!” and
“We know where you sleep at night!”
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/adan.salazar.735
____________________________________________________________
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
I have an extremely low opinion of attorney Michael Avenatti – especially when it comes to how he is treating Tucker Carlson. He’s the lowest of bottom feeders and a true scumbag. Leave it to that dirtbag to pounce on Carlson when he is targeted by the communist left. Just recently, violent Antifa thugs descended on Tucker’s DC home and mobbed it. They chanted outside and threatened Carlson and his family. One of them spoke of a pipe bomb and they cracked his front door while Tucker’s wife hid in a pantry until police could get there. They defaced his driveway and car as well. Thankfully, none of Tucker’s four children were there at the time. The police are treating it as a hate crime but I don’t think anyone has been arrested over it. I doubt they will be. It is DC after all. Antifa chanted, “Tucker Carlson, we will fight. We know where you sleep at night.” “No borders! No walls! No USA at all!” the protesters chanted in another video posted to Twitter. “Tucker Carlson, you cannot hide from the people you hurt with your rhetoric, your lies, and your hate,” the group wrote on Twitter, adding the hashtag “#KnockKnockTucker.” Antifa also doxxed Carlson and his family on Twitter. Now, it’s coming to light that last month Tucker Carlson went to a Virginia restaurant with his wife, son, and daughter. His daughter went to the bathroom with a friend and returned sobbing. She left the restaurant. Her brother went and confronted a man who called her a ‘whore’ and a ‘c*nt’. The brother threw a glass of red wine on the guy. The sleaze just happened to be Latino and gay, which should have been beside the point, but that’s what Avenatti and the left focused on. They twisted the awful confrontation into somehow being Carlson’s fault and falsely accused him of assault. I’m beyond disgusted by this. This is the full statement by Tucker Carlson in response to Michael Avenatti:On October 13, I had dinner with two of my children and some family friends at the Farmington Country Club in Charlottesville, Virginia. Toward the end of the meal, my 19-year-old daughter went to the bathroom with a friend. On their way back through the bar, a middle-aged man stopped my daughter and asked if she was sitting with Tucker Carlson. My daughter had never seen the man before. She answered: “That’s my dad,” and pointed to me. The man responded, “Are you Tucker’s whore?’ He then called her a ‘f**king c**t.”Tucker Carlson is letting Avenatti have it with both barrels after heaccused his son and himself of assaulting the guy. The media is shamelessly running with it and spinning it as a smear against Tucker. It’s deplorable and deeply evil. What father out there wouldn’t want to clean the clock of some jerk who says something like that to his daughter? What brother wouldn’t confront a slug like this? I’m a woman and if that had been my daughter, that guy would have regretted his words and fast. Avenatti, the celebrity attorney of porn star Stormy Daniels, posted a video on Saturday showing Carlson appearing to say “get the f**k out of here” to another man in a heated exchange. So freaking what? Then the sharky attorney accused Carlson of “assault on a gay Latino immigrant” named Juan in the heated exchange. Throwing wine on someone in my book is not assault… it’s a dry cleaning bill. Regardless, Avenatti was not there and has no idea what really transpired. He just has the word of this reprobate. Tucker did not do anything to the guy… it was his son who threw the wine… and the guy deserved it. Tucker’s daughter was viciously attacked like this simply because he’s her father and this guy does not agree with him politically. There is no excuse for this kind of behavior. But Avenatti doubled down with his dirty lies… he posted anonymous statements that he claims were written by witnesses to the event. One friend of the instigator ‘Juan’ stated that after Carlson’s son had splashed wine in Juan’s face: “I saw Juan retaliate to the assault by the same means (throwing a glass of wine at him). Immediately after that, I saw Mr. Tucker Carlson get very close to Juan’s face and say, “Get the f**k out of here” multiple times.” I repeat, so what? “Throughout this exchange, I heard Juan respond repeatedly, “I’m not going to get out of here, I live here.'” Another so-called witness statement provided by Avenatti denied that Juan had called Carlson’s 19-year-old daughter a ‘whore’ or a ‘c*nt’, or that he spoke with her at all prior to being accused of doing so. You know that is a flat out lie. Avenatti also accused Tucker of being drunk. Neat trick considering Tucker quit drinking 16 years ago. I’d sue this guy for defamation of character if I were Carlson. The celebrity lawyer also accused Carlson of letting his 19-year-old daughter drink wine at the country club. Carlson’s only son is 21. Tucker Carlson wanted to keep the confrontation quiet for his family’s sake. But Avenatti just had to air it and spread lies over it. Let this bottom feeder investigate all he wants… there’s nothing to find on the incident except it was harassment against the Carlsons and should never have happened. The country club revoked the membership of the man accused of verbally accosting Tucker Carlson’s teenage daughter last month. That at least is good news. Leftists are madly defending not only Antifa but the gay Latino thug who attacked Tucker Carlson as well. I don’t always agree with Carlson, but he’s not a homophobe or a racist. He does not deserve to be treated this way simply because he has a different political view than the communists do.
My daughter returned to the table in tears. She soon left the table and the club. My son, who is also a student, went into the bar to confront the man. I followed. My son asked the man if he’d called his sister a ‘wh**e’ and a ‘c**t.’ The man admitted he had, and again became profane. My son threw a glass of red wine in the man’s face and told him to leave the bar, which he soon did.
Immediately after the incident, I described these events to the management of the Farmington Country Club. The club spent more than three weeks investigating the incident. Last week, they revoked the man’s membership and threw him out of the club.
I love my children. It took enormous self-control not to beat the man with a chair, which is what I wanted to do. I think any father can understand the overwhelming rage and shock that I felt seeing my teenage daughter attacked by a stranger. But I restrained myself. I did not assault this man, and neither did my son. That is a lie. Nor did I know the man was gay or Latino, not that it would have mattered. What happened on October 13 has nothing to do with identity politics. It was a grotesque violation of decency. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
(Natural News) The
authoritarianism and tyranny of the Left, along with its disdain for
Western religion, is on display again, this time in Minnesota where a
pair of Christian filmmakers are being threatened by state officials
with incarceration if they refuse to make films featuring gays and
lesbians.
As reported by CBN News, Carl and Angel Larsen, owners of Telescope Media Group, appeared before the federal 8th Circuit
Court of Appeals in St. Paul, Minn., last week to challenge a state law
they say unconstitutionally forces them to produce content that
contradicts their core religious beliefs.
The couple, which is being represented by the Alliance Defending
Freedom legal group, said they have already been threatened by state
officials with large fines and up to three months in jail if they refuse
to comply.
As CBN News notes further:
The Larsens want to enter the wedding industry. However, the
state’s Human Rights Act stipulates that if the couple creates films
celebrating their Christian beliefs about marriage – that marriage is
between one man and one woman – they must also create films about
marriage that violate their beliefs, including films promoting same-sex
marriages.
“The government shouldn’t threaten filmmakers with fines and jail
time to force them to create films that violate their beliefs,” ADF
Senior Counsel Jeremy Tedesco said in a press release from the legal
organization. “Carl and Angel are storytellers – they script, stage,
conduct interviews, capture footage, select music, edit and more – all
to tell compelling stories through film that promote their religious
beliefs.”
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of religious rights. In the case, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the high court ruled that
the Colorado commission violated a Christian baker’s First Amendment’s
“free exercise clause” when it sanctioned him for refusing to create a
cake for a gay couple’s wedding (the fake news New York Times called this a “narrow decision”).
“The neutral and respectful consideration to which (baker-shop owner
Jack) Phillips was entitled was compromised here,” now-retired Justice
Anthony Kennedy wrote. “The Civil Rights Commission’s treatment of his
case has some elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the
sincere religious beliefs that motivated his objection.” (Related: Despite SCOTUS ‘gay wedding cake’ ruling, Colorado Leftists are going after Christian baker Jack Phillips AGAIN.)
The Times claimed that the decision was “narrow” because it appeared
to apply specifically to Phillips’ case. The paper noted that Kennedy
authored a ruling in 2015 that recognized a constitutional right to
same-sex marriage.
But in regards to the Larsen’s case, they’re not trying to argue
against the right to same-sex marriage. They, like Phillips, are trying
to defend their religious expression rights under the First Amendment.
And they simply do not believe that two men or two women should be
“married” because their faith does not ascribe to it.
The Supreme Court’s Masterpiece decision found “that the
government must respect the belief – held by countless Americans from
all walks of life – that marriage is between one man and one woman,”
Tedesco said. “The 8th Circuit should reinstate the Larsen’s
lawsuit and order the state to stop forcing the Larsens to speak
messages about marriage that violate their beliefs.”
As a decision is pending, what’s troublesome is that American
citizens are increasingly being forced to defend their constitutional
rights by tyrannical Left-wing state governments that are passing laws
designed to strip them of those rights under the guise of conveying
rights on others.
The First Amendment, in particular, has been abused by the Left, and
almost always in an attempt to attack Christianity – to force believers
into violating the tenets of their faith.
___________________________________________________________
SEE ALSO:
https://www.adflegal.org/detailspages/client-stories-details/carl-and-angel-larsen