The Wonder Springs Chronicle

The Christian Redux

12 May 2010

Volume 12, Issue 19

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Anymore every time I hear the word “change,” I cringe. Still I find it amazing that most of the time the user of the change slogan is trying to paint change in a positive light. Like they want me rush to their simplistic point of view and acknowledge the enlightenment they are peddling.

The problem is that the world is to such a point that the status quo is just as unacceptable. The old saying, “Stuck between a rock and a hard place.” seems to apply. Except for the reality that “between” only encompasses two real directions, it’s more like being ground to dust in the interface of a glacier and a mountain, except that also is terribly abstract and impersonal.

In all this, we long for the good old days, but back then we also had problems. When you come right down to it however, if we could use those nostalgic times and make them better, perhaps that will help us design the future in a positive way, for wandering into a chaotic future makes no sense either. Hence the concept of redux. Redux comes to us from the Latin and literally means lead from the past, or more commonly brought back or revived.

The whole world needs a lot of redux, for the alternative is anarchy or chaos. It is also true that those who don’t learn from the past are destined to repeat those mistakes. So how far back do we go, on which to begin the building process?

Last week in the Christian Diaspora we basically developed the context that construction or creation-wise, God works from the universal to the individual. From the solely human perspective we find the Babylonian model that builds from the individual to the collective. That clash of those two creative constructs has brought us to the place in which change is only something we reluctantly accept.

The United States is still the only remaining superpower and for most of our history our republic has embraced the concept of the inalienable rights of the individual. Therefore if things haven’t been working out all that well recently, perhaps we need to let the past lead us to the future. Once we get headed in the right direction we can again become a positive model for the world. The problem is there are competing forces that want to set that direction, we can only choose one path, and we are told that we live in a world in which there are no absolutes, only relativity.

However in a world in which there are no absolutes, leadership is truly an undefined profundity (abstraction implied). But reality is full of absolutes in the form of natural laws and even though we collectively hate to admit it, those natural absolutes that come from God govern our community actions as well. Therefore building upon the absolutes that provided the basis of the codified Constitutional formation of the United States, we must again allow God to become the Sovereign that essentially is will be the basis for the American Redux.

Building upon the reality that we hoped to establish last week of a Christian Diaspora, it logically follows that to be the prime force behind the redux of America, you definitely need a Christian Redux to survey the path, build it, and lead others forward.

There are those who will metaphorically decide to remain in the old country, but the genes of those immigrants that formed and built the United States, whether they came from Africa, Asia, Europe, or Latin America, have allowed us to become a melting pot, or better defined, has created a nation of hybrids. Out of many — one!

The concept of the United States as a Christian nation, or more precisely a secular nation founded upon Judeo-Christian principles, really began with European leadership, essentially from, or through England and English speaking countries. Let us begin there.

Early American continental immigrants were misfits within the European system of governance (We probably still are). Most of them were Protestant non-conformers to established state churches, some were economically poor, and many were various combinations of the two. In colonial America, Roman Catholicism was just another church competing with other denominations, sects, and cults. Except for the French prison colony of New Orleans, they were generally good people in search of a better life. The very diversity of religious thought and theology of these settlers however forced you to get along with your brother even though you were not too keen on their Christian departures from your correct scriptural interpretations.

The failure of the contemporary Religious Right was a faulty assumption that a collective amorphous Christianity could not only become a state church in the best tradition of the European roots, but also thereby find acceptance as a strong advocate for personal prosperity. So the Religious Right was designed essentially as a Federal Confederacy of the Protestant elite. The Christian Redux as it implements its reality will be the antithesis of collectivism and also a champion of individual religious, financial, and personal liberty, while at the same time understand that God is the author of good governance.

Looking historically behind the Religious Right antithesis we see a transcendent inferred belief that essentially everyone needed to hear the gospel and come to Jesus, but it was pretty much up to God to work out the details. Those details essentially became revivalism, which has basically become the standard of American evangelism up to this day. Our now forming Christian Redux will understand those revivalist roots, but pick up what frontier religion left behind, and that is the consistent application of discipleship. Discipleship coming from the root of discipline, and discipline coming from the teaching of historic Christian catechesis.

As revivalism developed, first in Britain, and transferring to America, it became essentially the fusion of frontier entertainment and enlightenment. To use a twentieth century expression the revivalist preachers were the rock stars of that era. That enlightenment was the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but the power of revivalism was to get together, meet other people, and have a good time. In that rock star status the king, or Elvis if you will, was Calvinist George Whitefield. The Everly Brothers were John and Charles Wesley, John singing lead and Charles singing harmony and writing the music.

This week’s Glenn Beck’s Founders Friday program will feature George Whitefield as the historic guest. Considering that Beck’s program uses the concept of “The Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment,” we see a twenty-first century rock star, taking the stage without a musical instrument. Some might question the source of the grand design of basically a Mormon preaching to modern Christian evangelicals, but really if you take away the Book of Mormon many evangelicals are theological Mormons without the LDS Seminary training.

Whitefield and the Wesleys were significant contributors to the foundation of the rise of methodist discipleship within the Church of England. As with other nonconformists to state sponsored religion, they eventually found their opportunity in the colonies. As Methodism began it was essentially Calvinist and became known for the systematic methods they used to study the Bible. Over time the Wesleys moved away from orthodox Calvinism toward an emphasis on personal piety and essentially became the standard bearers for not only Arminian theology, as well as the fathers of what could be best described as the American Religion, which not only included true Christianity, but also a lot of religious and cultural moral activism.

As a Calvinist most of Whitefield’s work took place in the northern more Calvinist colonies and the Wesleys worked more of the south. The preacher’s meetings many times attracted 10,000 people, and they preached without electronic amplifiers today we would find indispensable. Just like modern crusades, these first generation revivalists were very active in raising money to support their ministries. John Wesley was well known for only keeping the minimum required for his frugal existence and using the rest for God’s work. Compared to these rock stars, local churches suffered with very ordinary men serving as pastors, with very ascetic means of support.

While I am not aware of a book that specifically deals with the rise of revivalism as one of the cohesive forces in the unification of the thirteen colonies into the nation of United States, from the perspective of God’s sovereignty in which random coincidences do not occur, revivalism must be considered a principle informational and energetic focus of the birth of the American nation, as well as a continuing but subdued presence.

Fast forwarding to a twenty-first century Christian Redux, one could say that the Tea Parties find their roots in historic American revivalism, but instead of a religious undertaking with a specific Christian message, Tea Parties seek a national common or natural law cohesiveness not of thirteen colonies, but fifty independent states within one limited national union. With the passage of ObamaCare and Arizona’s immigration enforcement bill, you now hear discussions of the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment. That wisdom has probably not been part of any common dialogue for a very long time.

At Wonder Springs we ended 2008 with some discussions about “Leaving the Christless Church I and II” as well as Transcendent Leadership Principles. Those same articles also served as source material for last week’s Christian Diaspora. In that light, this seems to indicate that this new Christian Redux will draw heavily on those Christians who are not part of the Diaspora, but are rather, nonconformists and misfits of contemporary evangelicalism.

Now just as the American Revolutionary period, let us make the assumption that God’s purpose is to create an American Redux, let’s say without guns and bullets, but with words, ideas, and the unity in diversity of individual power. So since we are still trying to get our limited words and ideas around these stupendous changes, how might this whole thing I am calling a redux come about?

In man’s collective Babylonian (Social Darwinist) model of governance, authority, power and wealth trickle down from the elite to the individual. In God’s governance model, authority rests ultimately in the Godhead, but it is delegated to human governance through natural law use to create definable human common and codified institutional law.

We have just learned through the elections in the UK that they must rely on their common law to form a new government, because that codified linkage between natural law and institutional law has never been written in a constitutional form. That is getting off the subject but does illustrate some of the Divine transcendence in the formation of the American Republic.

Contrasted with elitism and as we pointed out last week, God’s power rests ultimately with the individual. So we see through the Christian gospel the indicative authority of God’s saving grace given to the whole world through Jesus Christ, but leaving the imperative power to make it all work through individuals working in community, both commonly and in brotherhood, to effectively bring change to the world and truly advance human civilization.

Now Ben Franklin’s famous American adoption of an ancient quote, “Heaven helps those who help themselves.” is not found in the Bible. But it does focus essentially on the common good, for today it would read something like, “I help myself, for I’m not too sure about that heaven stuff.” Franklin’s quote also suffers in theological terms in which both the indicative authority and the imperative power rests within the individual.

So a couple of word illustrations may form a contrast in the way things are headed away from the present collective emphasis and toward a visible and effective Christian Redux and the subsequent national change.

Last weekend President Obama made some inane remarks at a commencement address at Hampton University in which he took on technology he said he didn’t understand, left out his beloved Blackberry, and basically dissed as falsehoods and deception information that didn’t meet his agenda for transformational change.

As a lawyer the President understands that words have meaning, words do effect the world, and have consequences many times well beyond their intended usage. Hence in these remarks, not only did the President illustrate common ignorance of technology that allowed him to be elected in the first place, he articulated the paradigm that his words in someway combine the power and authority to create reality that his actions do not replicate.

Actions speak louder than words and does seem to edit his remarks. In a world in which real movers and shakers accomplish many feats and in our information age, people apprehend true moral Absolutes well beyond their formal education, it seems like the President of “change we can believe in” is not too comfortable with change that is really happening.

Currently in Northeastern Washington state, some fifteen miles from the cell phone tower, The Wonder Springs Chronicle reaches the world via access to the Internet and there I can research, write, and post “something brilliant and no doubt controversial every week.” Within a few seconds that article can be read by someone in the Russian Federation, United Kingdom, Jamaica, Mongolia, or Latvia, some 40 countries last month. They get insights on the USA they can obtain from no other source and somewhere in all the gobbledygook they might find something that they might use to make their own world a little better.

The only question is how to get paid for approximately 4000 words each week, when print media is in worse shape than I am, they want transient opinion, not analysis or innovative proposals, much less than 1000 words, that can be easily edited to cut from the bottom. The Internet link provides the only hope to access capital for expansion and diversification, giving new meaning and reality to the concept of a Divine miracle. However through this I have learned, that more can be accomplished with less than we expect, and the wealth that comes from doing God’s work is worth more than just money could ever compensate. It is not an easy path, but what of eternal wealth is the alternative.

Here lies the fundamental reason what this Christian Redux, and by extension America Redux, as transferred to the rest of the world, is going to be a miracle of God’s grace. The old, based upon progressive ideas in which everything social came from the government is crumbling and in decay. Those old ideas have consumed the wealth of the world while substituting only money. Now that money has become unsustainable debt. World leaders, including our own, apply band-aids, where major surgery is required. All the time boasting about their unmerited prowess.

The world is growing smaller and the problems are becoming universal. As goes the world so go the solutions. We can create new wealth by more energy efficient and informationally complex products and services, which will fuel independence and liberty enriching our lives. That is the natural model that is both environmentally friendly and also new wealth producing. The greatest problem is that old national models currently are trying to plug the holes in their sinking ships with debt money.

The miracle that will rescue us from drowning with those ships, rests on the assurance of Hebrews 11:1,2:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.