Soup McGee http://spectator.org/archives/2010/11/30/tea-timing- republicans
spectator.org
The Tea Party is the latest wave of new energy and activism and voters into the Republican Party.
6 hours ago · ·
Jared Reeves So, Need your help in interpretation of your message: is this bad for Republicans? If so, the Democrats need to encourage more weird teabagger stuff?
about an hour ago ·
Soup McGee
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May 02, 2005, 9:44 a.m.
Dominionist Domination
The Left runs with a wild theory.
What is the real agenda of the religious far Right? I’ll tell you what it is. These nuts want to take over the federal government and suppress other religions through genocide and mass murder, rather than through proselytizing. They want to reestablish slavery. They want to reduce women to near-slavery by making them property, first of their fathers, and then of their husbands. They want to execute anyone found guilty of pre-martial, extramaritial, or homosexual sex. They want to bring back the death penalty for witchcraft.
But aren’t extremists like this far from political power? On the contrary, the political and religious movement called "Dominionism" has gained control of the Republican party, and taken over Congress and the White House as well. Once they take over the judiciary, the conversion of America to a theocracy will be sealed. The Dominionists are very close to achieving their goal. Once they have the courts in their hands, a willing Dominionist Republican-controlled Congress can simply extend the death penalty to witchcraft, adultery, homosexuality, and heresy. The courts will uphold all this once conservatives are in control, since Scalia himself appears to be a Dominionist.
Shocking as it seems, Dominionists have gained extensive control of the Republican party, and the apparatus of government throughout the United States. Yet Dominionists continue to operate in secrecy. It is estimated that 35 million Americans who call themselves Christian adhere to Dominionism, although most of them are unaware of the true nature of their own beliefs and goals. Dominionism has met its timetable for the complete takeover of the American government. It would be a mistake, by the way, to think of Dominionists as fundamentalist Protestants alone. Dominionism has stealthily swept over America, incorporating conservative Roman Catholics and Episcopalians within its ranks. And of course, Dominionists are allied with the neoconservative followers of the political philosopher, Leo Strauss. The quest of these neoconservatives for power and world domination is a self-conscious program of pure, unmitigated evil.
You don’t believe me? Well, consider the fact that on December 24, 2001, Pat Robertson resigned his position as president of the Christian Coalition. Religious conservatives understood very well that Robertson had stepped aside to allow the new president of the United States to take his rightful place as the head of the true American Holy Christian Church. Robertson openly revealed at least a portion of his Dominionist plans on The 700 Club on May 13, 1986, when he clearly stated: “We can change the government, we can change the court systems, we can change the poverty problem, we can change education...We can make a difference.”
For Dominionists, possibly the single-most-important event of the last half of the 20th century occurred when Jim Jones proved that religious people would follow a leader, even to their deaths. Lest we all end up like the followers of Jim Jones, it’s time for Americans to take a leaf from those rare, brave souls, like George Soros. Following Soros, we’ve got to stand up to the Dominionist menace. There is an infection, a religious and political pathology that has corrupted our churches. Those we have trusted have embraced evil. Let us pray that Americans will go to the voting booth and finally free this country from the Republican Dominionist menace.
-cont.......
25 minutes ago ·
Soup McGee
But They're Serious
O.K., it’s me again. I’m back from the fever swamps of the Left, which I’ve been exploring ever since I discovered a wild conspiracy theory about conservative Christians in the latest cover story of Harper’s Magazine. You want political paranoia? You want guilt by association? You want flat-out looniness? Well, Joe McCarthy’s got nothing on the good liberal folks who are warning us about a takeover by “Dominionist” Christians. What you've just read is a composite I've created (often word for word) by drawing on a couple of web-sites I'll link you to in a moment. The disturbing thing is that this sort of conspiratorial nonsense is being taken seriously by real media and political players.
There is, in fact, a fringe Christian group of “Dominionists” or “Reconstructionists,” who really would like to see an American theocracy, and a return to the death penalty for blasphemy, adultery, sodomy, and witchcraft. The dystopian political program of this utterly marginal, extremist sect has absolutely no traction with anyone of significance. But that hasn’t stopped conspiracy mongers on the Left from imagining a murderous Christian plot to destroy America. I’ve found a number of Lefty sites that link to the following description of Dominionism at religioustolerance.org. This description includes the claim that Dominionists “advocate genocide for followers of minority groups and non-conforming members of their own religion.” I’m not sure this is accurate, even for the minuscule number of actual Dominionists. But the disturbing thing is the way this and other Left-leaning sites use logical sleight-of-hand to tar ordinary evangelicals with the madcap musings of a few fevered “Dominionists.”
You can see the basic technique of the conspiracy mongers in this 1994 report on the Dominionists for Public Eye Magazine. All you have to do is quote a fringe Dominionist desperate to prove that his radical ideas are catching on. Dominionists have a long-term political strategy to establish a full-blown American theocracy based on Old Testament law. And look! Some other Christians want to participate in the political process, too. They even believe in developing a long-term political strategy! Ah ha! That must mean that, even though they are “unaware of the original source of their ideas,” conservative Christians are in fact under the influence of authentic Dominionists. Voila. By quoting a pathetic Dominionist extremist’s desperate efforts to prove his own influence, clever liberals can now argue that the ultimate goal of all conservative Christians is the re-institution of slavery, and execution for blasphemers and witches.
This theory reminds me of the poor kid who thought he’d caused the great New York City blackout of 1965 because he happened to throw a rock at a transformer the moment the lights went out. Conservative Christians didn’t turn to politics because they were egged on by wild-eyed Dominionists. They were goaded into defensive action by the post-sixties secularist challenge to their way of life. Christians would have taken up politics whether a silly Dominionist fringe existed or not. In fact, Dominionism itself is nothing but a hapless and hopeless response to the secular social changes of the past forty years. But the Left has decided that it’s in their interest to buy into the Dominionists’ own bogus and pathetic claims of influence — and to exaggerate even those bogus claims beyond recognition.
The champion of this approach appears to be Kathryn Yurica, whose piece, “The Despoiling of America,” was the source for much of the account at the beginning of this piece. (Unlike religoustolerance.org, Yurica does not use the word "genocide" and does not talk about re-instituting slavery. She speaks only of extending the death penalty to things like adultery, rebelliousness, homosexuality, witchcraft, effeminateness, and heresy.) Yurica’s article is so wild-eyed and strange that it would barely be worth mentioning, were Yurica not a featured speaker at a recent conference called, “Examining the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Right.” That conference, held this past weekend, was supported by the National Council of Churches, People for the American Way, The Nation, The Village Voice, and United Americans for Separation of Church and State. (You can read a Washington Times report on the conference here.)
I noted last week that Dominionist conspiracy theory broke into the mainstream with the latest cover story of Harper’s Magazine. (Yurica herself now supplements her own account of the Dominionist conspiracy with a link to one of those Harper’s articles.)
The notion that conservative Christians want to reinstitute slavery and rule by genocide is not just crazy, it’s downright dangerous. The most disturbing part of the Harper’s cover story (the one by Chris Hedges) was the attempt to link Christian conservatives with Hitler and fascism. Once we acknowledge the similarity between conservative Christians and fascists, Hedges appears to suggest, we can confront Christian evil by setting aside “the old polite rules of democracy.” So wild conspiracy theories and visions of genocide are really excuses for the Left to disregard the rules of democracy and defeat conservative Christians — by any means necessary.
In the wake of their big New York City conference, we’ll see what, if anything, The Nation, The Village Voice, and People for the American Way actually do with this newly fashionable Dominionist conspiracy theory. I hope a little sunlight suffices to put a stop to these ill-advised attack on conservative Christians. I guess we’ll soon enough learn what the real agenda of the irreligious far Left actually is.
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25 minutes ago ·
Soup McGee
Rushdoony made thinking an explicitly religious activity, a shift in focus with political implications: thinking becomes a matter of kingship, power, rebellion, and, in the final analysis, warfare. Either human thought recognizes God's sovereignty, or it doesn't. There is no middle ground, no compromise. It is a war between those who, like Rushdoony, think God's thoughts after Him and those who do not.
If thinking and education are a matter of God's disputed sovereignty, then Rushdoony believed that Christians who turned their children over to public schools were in open rebellion against God. In Rushdoony's view, court orders forcing public schools to cease prayer and bible readings actually removed the only possible foundation for viable knowledge. Following such earlier Presbyterian luminaries as A.A. Hodge (1823-1886) and J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937), Rushdoony's solution was to remove one's children from public schools and to educate them in an explicitly Christian environment. Such an action brings both child and parent into accord with the "fundamental task of Christian education," which, Rushdoony summarized, is to exercise dominion, "subduing the earth agriculturally, scientifically, culturally, artistically, in every way asserting the crown rights of King Jesus in every realm of life."
-----publiceye libertarian Christian
Thinking distortion critical thinking
The Austrian School of Economics: Key Principles
The Austrian School has emerged during the financial crisis as the main free-market opposition to the economic theories and policies of the prevailing Neoclassical-Keynesian paradigm. Its theory of the business cycle, a theory focused on the destructive capacity of credit inflation and the dangers of central banking, has led many businessmen and academics to endorse Austrian economics and what is now called the “Second Austrian Revival” is currently underway. Although not all Austrian economists are libertarians there is a strong tendency for both groups to overlap due to the conclusions one may draw from an understanding of economics. In this article I intend to introduce the reader to some of the key principles of the Austrian School and to contrast it with the reigning Neoclassical school of economics.
The Austrian Theory of Action Vs The Neoclassical Theory of Decision
What distinguishes the Austrian School and will lend it immortal fame is precisely the fact that it created a theory of economic action and not of economic equilibrium or non-action.[i] (Ludwig von Mises) agriculturally, scientifically, culturally, artistically
Austrian theorists conceive economic science as a theory of action (that men act by choosing between limited means to achieve their unlimited ends) rather than a theory of decision as presented by the Neoclassical school. For the Austrian School, the vital concept of action incorporates not only the hypothetical process of decision in a context of “given” knowledge about ends and means, but also and especially, “the very perception of the ends-means framework within which allocation and economising (which Neoclassicals tend to exclusively focus on) is to take place.”[ii] (Israel Kirzner)-----------------------------
23 minutes ago ·
Soup McGee
This battle was continued by Billy Graham who was handpicked by William Bell Riley to lead his fundamentalist empire after Riley's death.
"In the 1920's a loosely united band of militant conservatives launched a crusade to capture control of the major Protestant denominations," in the words of historian William Vance Trollinger, Jr. These fundamentalists were viewed after the Scopes trial as "uneducated, intolerant rustics."
Graham rehabilitated and modernized fundamentalism, making it more inclusive. However, he retained much of fundamentalist doctrine as well as the fundamentalist determination to combat progressive and liberal churches. Recently released Nixon tapes include conversations in which Graham discussed his plans to developing an alternative to the World Council of Churches, which Nixon and Graham described as friendly to communists. In relating his plans for the Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization (LCWE), Graham states "just as you have changed the political picture, we hope to change the religious picture." The LCWE convened in 1974 and Graham, who remained remarkably nonpartisan, was dramatically successful in "changing the religious picture." You can hear the tape and read the transcript here and here. This is the same segment of tape in which Graham refers to Doug Coe, head of "The Family" and describes some Jews as the "synagogue of satan."
The Institute on Religion and Democracy has been dedicated to continuing the task left undone by Riley and the fundamentalist in the 1920s, of taking over or dismantling churches they view as progressive. The IRD has served as the umbrellas organization for the "renewal" groups whose hot button issue is the participation of homosexuals and gay leadership. However, the funding for the organization has come from Richard Mellon Scaife and some of the same foundations that support laissez-faire and anti-union economic policies, seen in the introduction of the presentation.
Ayn Rand, author of The Fountainhead,, and Atlas Shrugged popularized the "free market gospel," the idea that unregulated capitalism was the ideal economic system. However, Rand was fiercely anti-religious, believing that capitalism worked because of self-interest. As Phillips-Fein explains, Rand believed that a moral code which taught that "everybody was responsible for everybody else's welfare" was the real danger to capitalism. Rand described herself as a "radical for capitalism" and her books have sold over 25 million copies but, due to her disdain for religion, Rand's views did not appeal to religious fundamentalists.
The person who brought together all the components for biblical capitalism is not a household name but one of the most important thinkers behind today's Religious Right - the late Rousas John Rushdoony, founder of Christian Reconstructionism.
It was only with the publications written by R.. J. Rushdoony, beginning in the early 1960's that any theologian began to make a serious, systematic, exegetical attempt to link the Bible to the principles of limited civil government and free market economics.
- Gary North
from-Biblical Capitalism - The Sacralizing of Political and Economic Issues
Rachel Tabachnick
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Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 10:36:56 PM EST
22 minutes ago ·
Soup McGee
, "Here's some C. Peter Wagner fer ya...thanks, talk2action!:My third season of research is now focusing on the New Apostolic Reformation, the subject of this chapter. I am very excited because the new apostolic churches, better than any I have previously studied, combine, on the highest level, solid technical principles of church growth with solid spiritual principles of church growth. I will tell more about that later.
Unity + Gifts = Growth
One of the most explicit Scripture verses about church growth is Ephesians 4:16, which says that the Body of which Jesus is the head, "joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body" (italics added). A formula for growth, then, is: Unity (joined together) + Gifts (every part does its share) = Growth.
Paul tells us in verse seven that each one of us has a "measure" of grace, just as Romans 12:3 says we have a "measure" of faith, the measure being our spiritual gifts. Then Ephesians 4:8 says that Jesus, when He ascended, "gave gifts to men," and it goes on to tell us that He gave gifted people to the Church on two levels:
(1) the government level (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers) in verse 11, and
(2) the ministry of the saints in general in verse 12.
When the government is in its proper place, biblical unity of the saints emerges and "every part can do its share."
How do these biblical principles unfold in real life? For 2,000 years, the Church of Jesus Christ has grown and spread into every continent. Jesus said, "I will build My church," and He has been doing it. As we review those 2,000 years, however, it is quite obvious that Jesus does not always build His Church in the same ways. He did one way in the Roman Empire before Constantine; another way after Constantine; another way in the Middle Ages; another way following the Reformation; another way during the era of European colonization; and yet another way post-World War 2, just to name a few.
Growth: a Story of New Wineskins
Every time Jesus began building His Church in a new way throughout history, He provided new wineskins. While He was still on earth, He said that such a thing would be necessary: "Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into the new wineskins, and both are preserved" (Matt. 9:17). The growth of the Church through the ages is, in part, a story of new wineskins.
Because this is the case, a crucial question not only for professors of church growth, but also for Christians in general, is this: What are the new wineskins Jesus is providing as we move into the twenty-first century?
Four Crucial Questions
My experience as a church growth scholar has led me constantly to ask four crucial questions:
1. Why does the blessing of God rest where it does?
2. Churches are not all equal. Why is it that at certain times, some churches are more blessed than others?
3. Can any pattern of divine blessing be discerned?
4. Do those churches that seem to be unusually blessed have any common characteristics?
As I have tried to answer these questions, it is important to realize that I am a very traditional Christian. For decades I have been an ordained Congregational minister, and I still am. We Congregationalists came over on the Mayflower! I find myself in one of the oldest wineskins on record. Furthermore, I am a conservative Congregationalist (ordained in the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference). This was definitely an obstacle to my early church growth research because while I was a missionary in Bolivia I was anti-Pentecostal, and the fastest-growing churches in Latin America at the time happened to be Pentecostal churches. I finally overcame my biases, however, and, in 1973, wrote Look Out! The Pentecostals Are Coming! (Creation House). At that time, Pentecostal churches were one of the new wineskins, and their growth was showing it.
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19 minutes ago ·
Soup McGee http://soupsauntieoxymoron.blogspot.com/2011/08/hi-i m-soup-mcgee-were-related- by-blood.html
Soup's Auntie OxyMoron: Hi! I'm Soup McGee, We're Related By Blood Through Union. You May Not Know Msoupsauntieoxymoron.blogspot.com
9 minutes ago · ·
Soup McGee The Fight for Freedom
Franklin D. Roosevelt
1942 State of the Union Address
“Our own objectives are clear; the objective of smashing the militarism imposed by warlords upon their enslaved peoples the objective of liberating the subjugated nations — the objective of establishing and securing freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear everywhere in the world. We shall not stop short of these objectives — nor shall we be satisfied merely to gain them and then call it a day. I know that I speak for the American people — and I have good reason to believe that I speak also for all the other peoples who fight with us — when I say that this time we are determined not only to win the war, but also to maintain the security of the peace that will follow."
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a few seconds ago ·
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
I Really Hope That Did Clear That Up For You-Now, Wanna Do Something Patriotic and Support the President?
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