The menace of Moral Therapeutic Deism

What is it and why should it concern us?

Our leaders have a veil over their eyes.

Up to 50,000 people attempted to break through the border between Gaza and Israel this week according to press reports. Their use of smoke and mirrors, petrol bombs, incendiary kites and other weapons must have been a terrifying experience for the tiny detachment of Israeli part-time soldiers guarding the border to protect Israeli citizens from slaughter.

But far from giving a factual picture of events, the BBC, The Guardian and others¹ poured out their anti-Semitic invective against Israel.

The BBC had been preparing for this event for a long time and sent some of their senior reporters to give maximum cover to criticise Israel. In the event there was no breakthrough and no massacre.

Though each life lost is a heart-rending matter, it is to the credit of those defending the border that relatively few died, and most casualties were known terrorists. Hamas called off the protest the next day after Egyptian intervention; but not before they achieved their objective of getting anti-Israel propaganda into the Western media and calling for a UN enquiry - even at the expense of lives of their own people.

The Creation of the Gazan Refugees

The whole Gaza issue is tragic, both for the people who live there and for Israel. But it has been deliberately created as the front line in the drive to destroy Israel. The Palestinians themselves are despised by the Arab nations. Before they were brought together in the 1960s, there never was a Palestinian nation.

Historically, before the Jewish resettlement began in the early 20^th Century, Palestine was a largely barren land. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica 1900, there were less than 100 trees in the whole of Palestine with a sparse population of nomadic Arabs living in tents, whose goats ate every bit of vegetation. The absentee land-owning Arabs were only too willing to sell land to the Jews in those days.

The whole Gaza issue is tragic, but it has been deliberately created as the front line in the drive to destroy Israel.

When the state of Israel was created in 1948 the neighbouring states of Jordan, Egypt and Syria combined their armies, ordered any non-Jewish residents to leave their homes and go to two newly created refugee camps at Jericho and Gaza so that their forces could clear the land and drive the Jews into the Mediterranean. What they now call their ‘catastrophe’ was the failure of their armies to defeat the tiny group of Holocaust survivors who, in successive conflicts, went on to retake Jerusalem and to clear the whole land of foreign fighters.

With 70 years and a high birthrate the dreadful conditions in Gaza have been created by the Arab nations, who could easily have solved the situation by taking in the Palestinians. But even the small groups who succeeded in crossing the River Jordan and settling in Jordan and Syria were never accepted and today live in separate enclaves, denied citizenship. This is the measure of hypocrisy among the Arab nations who simply use the West Bank and Gaza situations for political purposes – in their drive to destroy Israel.

Leaders Without Knowledge

The Gaza issue was debated in the House of Commons this week with the usual mixture of anti-Israel and friendly comments. I was particularly disappointed to hear Alistair Burt, Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East, whom I’ve counted among my friends for the past 25 years, making a politically-correct bland statement.

The UN Security Council has strongly condemned Israel's activity at the Gaza border. See Photo Credits.As a Bible-believing evangelical brother I was hoping that he would put some backbone into the Foreign Office and declare that the time has come for Britain to implement the policy it advocated 100 years ago in the Balfour Declaration and move the British Embassy up to Jerusalem, alongside that of the USA.

But postmodernism, with its Darwinian and Marxist roots, has not only driven radical change to the social and personal values of the nation, but has spread a veil over the eyes of the leaders of both Church and state, so that they are unable to perceive the truth. They are like the leaders whom the Prophet Isaiah referred to as ‘blind watchmen’ who “all lack knowledge” (Isa 56:10). They cannot see the big picture because they do not understand the purposes of God and what is happening in the world today.

Postmodernism has spread a veil over the eyes of the leaders of both Church and state, so they are unable to perceive the truth.

Our leaders are part of a generation of biblical eunuchs: they have no understanding of the ways of God because they have turned their backs upon the word of God. For years we have been living upon the spiritual capital of our 19^th Century Victorian Bible-believing forefathers; but it is not enough to support us today, as the world moves onto the cusp of the most incredible period of turmoil since the creation of the world. There is a desperate need for people to hear the word of God before it is too late.

Coming Judgment

In the spring of 1986 there was a gathering of men and women with prophetic insight who met in Israel for a time of prayer and seeking God, to understand what is happening in the world today. One day I was standing alone with Lance Lambert on the top of Mt Carmel looking up at a remarkable sight I’d never seen before, of a complete rainbow encircling the sun; although Lance said it’s not unusual in Israel. We both received words which we shared with others in the evening meeting.

I was led to the prophecy in Haggai 2:6:

This is what the Lord Almighty says: in a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord Almighty.

I said that the USSR, the mighty communist empire that appeared all-powerful in 1986, would very soon collapse. Three weeks later the Chernobyl nuclear power station blew up which began the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

That same evening Lance Lambert gave one of the most remarkable prophecies of our time. He said:

It will not be long before there will come upon the world a time of unparalleled upheaval and turmoil. Do not fear for it is I the Lord who am shaking all things. I began this shaking with the First World War and I greatly increased it through the Second World War. Since 1973 I have given it an even greater impetus. In the last stage, I plan to complete it with the shaking of the universe itself, with signs in the sun and moon and stars. But before that point is reached, I will judge the nations, and the time is near.

It will not only be by war and civil war, by anarchy and terrorism, and by monetary collapses that I will judge the nations, but also by natural disasters: by earthquakes, by shortages and famines, and by old and new plague diseases. I will also judge them by giving them over to their own ways, to lawlessness, to loveless selfishness, to delusion and to believing a lie, to false religion and an apostate church, even to a Christianity without me.

Our leaders are part of a generation of biblical eunuchs: they have no understanding of the ways of God because they have turned their backs upon the word of God.

Need for the Word of God

This next stage in the history of the world has now been reached. Most of the nations of the world are conspiring to hate Israel, as foretold in the word of God: “Come, they say, let us destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more” (Ps 83:4).

The Prophet Zechariah received a revelation that the day would come when the focus of the world would be upon Jerusalem. He said:

This is the word of the Lord concerning Israel…I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure [rupture] themselves.

Never has there been a greater need for biblical truth to be brought into the affairs of the nations than today, with the nations armed with weapons capable of destroying the world and driven by a spirit of hatred and destruction.

Jeremiah foresaw the fall of the mighty Babylonian Empire and that Babylon would become “a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals” (Jer 51:37), as it is today. So, in our lifetime, unless the nations of the world study the word of God and bring their policies in line with his truth, they will create a catastrophe that will engulf the world.

The great question is: – Will the Bible-believing faithful remnant in the Western nations break their silence and declare the word of the Lord to bring life and light to this generation, and hope for our children and grandchildren?

Notes

1 For further information on this, we recommend UK Media Watch, a watchdog seeking to hold the British media to account for their biased treatment of Israel.

The future of the Church in Britain.

This is a question that was fiercely debated by members, clergy and bishops in the Church of England following the consecration of David Jenkins as Bishop of Durham in York Minster on 6 July 1984. Some hours later a bolt of lightning struck the Minster and burned the south transept where the consecration had taken place.

It was particularly remarkable because weather maps showed clear skies over the whole of the UK and northern Europe except for this one tiny cloud no bigger than a man’s hand crossing Yorkshire and delivering an electrical strike of such magnitude that it overrode a newly installed lightning conductor at the Minster.

Even the secular media saw this as an ‘act of God’ but not so the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, who declared that God does not do such things. It later emerged that he was faced by a ‘God or Mammon’ dilemma as the Minster’s insurance might not have covered ‘acts of God’!

Liberal Theology

Jenkins had some unorthodox views on central tenets of Christian doctrine including casting doubt on the resurrection of Jesus. Although the Archbishop did not publicly support the views of Jenkins, he nevertheless continued to promote non-Bible-believing clerics to senior posts in the Church of England which brought liberal postmodernist teaching into the leadership of the Church that still has an influence today.

In last week’s editorial we were examining the influence of ‘postmodernism’ in the nation and noting its objective of destroying the family in its war against Christianity. We said:

The central tragedy of recent history over the past half-century is that neither Church leaders nor politicians have understood the philosophy of postmodernism, with its objectives of destroying Judeo-Christian civilisation.

For the Church to play a significant part in guarding the nation against destructive philosophies that undermine basic truth, its leadership must have an unshakeable grasp of truth that is derived from its source in God, the Creator of the universe.

For the Church to be able to guard the nation against destructive philosophies, its leadership must have an unshakeable grasp of truth.

When church leaders lack understanding of the truth - as revealed in Scripture, through the prophets of Israel and through Jesus the Messiah - and promote obscurity, distortions and lies instead, they come under the judgment of God. Paul makes this clear in Romans 1:18:

York Minster's south transept after the lightning strike, 1984. See Photo Credits.The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.

This particularly applies to Church leaders who claim to be men of God but are not faithful in declaring the truth. In the same passage Paul continues:

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.

This is similar to Jeremiah’s complaint about the leaders of the nation in his day: “The shepherds are senseless and do not enquire of the Lord” (Jer 10:21). They were relying upon human wisdom; in 23:1 he elaborates this: “‘Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!’ declares the Lord.”

Undermining Truth

This exactly describes many church leaders and professors of theology in our seminaries and universities today, most of which are steeped in liberal theology and driven by its spirit of postmodernism, which has roots in anti-Semitism, atheism and Marxism.

I can speak from personal experience because I did a doctorate in liberal theology. I went up to university with a strong faith in God and a conviction that my life was to be devoted to preaching and living in accordance with biblical truth. Most of my faith was destroyed by the time I left university and it took me some years and a personal experience of spiritual renewal to regain my faith.

I went up to university with a strong faith in God and came away with most of my faith destroyed – having studied liberal theology.

Please do not misunderstand me – I am not despising biblical scholarship; indeed, we need good, sound, biblical scholarship to guard against deception in the Church and in the nation! But the postmodernist heresies that began in Germany in the late 19^th Century have penetrated deeply into our academic institutions, such that biblical scepticism undermining truth has been taught in many of our theological colleges and universities for the past century and more.

What is ‘the Church’?

In the light of this statement we can now return to the question at the beginning of this article: Can the Church come under God’s judgment? Here we must define our terms: what do we mean by ‘Church’?

If we mean the Church founded by Jesus on the Day of Pentecost when he fulfilled his promise to send the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, enabling and empowering them to take the Gospel to the nations beginning in Jerusalem, then to Judea, Samaria and out to all the world – if we mean the true Church that is the ‘Body of Christ’, then we must conclude that such a Church can never come under the judgment of God!

But are the institutions that we call ‘churches’ the true Body of Christ? I was recently discussing this with my wife who has for many years been studying church history. She told me about an incident of which I was not aware. When King James I became King of England (having previously been King James VI of Scotland), he brought with him a strong Christian faith although, like his father Charles I, he had Catholic sympathies. James wanted to make the Bible available in English to all his subjects.

At that time most Bibles were in Latin which many people, even among the clergy, could not read. He called together a group of Protestant scholars, some of whom were Church of England clergy while others were Dissenters (Nonconformist ministers). They allocated different parts of the Bible to individual scholars and collectively set about the task of translating the Bible into what became known as the ‘Authorised Version’ or the ‘King James Version’.

The group of scholars worked well together but there was one word upon which they could not agree, so they all came together to consult the King. It was the word ecclesia which in the original Greek of the New Testament means ‘a gathering’– or ‘congregation’ – ‘a gathering of people committed to a particular purpose’. The Dissenters wanted to translate ecclesia as ‘congregation’, whereas the Church of England clergy wanted to translate it as ‘church’, as in the Roman Catholic Bible.

The King agreed with the CofE clergy and the word ‘church’ came into the Authorised Version of the Bible and in most English translations since then.

The true Body of Christ can never come under the judgment of God!

What an amazing difference it would have made if our Bibles had all read ‘congregation’ instead of ‘church’. We might have been saved from the mess that we have today where ‘church’ can mean a building, a denomination, an organisation, a congregation, or a small group of believers in Jesus. We might even have been saved from the disgrace of whole denominations becoming infected by unbelief: becoming ‘a broad church’ tolerant of everyone’s beliefs (or unbelief).

Hope for Reformation

The prophecy in Hebrews 12:26-29 that all man-made institutions will be shaken and will crumble, appears to be happening: not only to banks, finance houses, business institutions and politicians, but also to the man-made denominational institutions that we call ‘churches’. This is surely the judgment of God falling upon corrupt institutions! `

The good news is that many Christians are recognising these institutional failings and are meeting in small groups for prayer, Bible study and fellowship similar to the first Christians. Luke describes this in Acts 2:42: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

Maybe what we are seeing today is the beginning of a new Reformation rediscovering the spiritual dynamic of the Early Church.

Further Response from Clifford Hill

Susan and Randall have asked me to explain why I believe that the true church as the Body of Christ cannot come under judgment. Let me say straightaway that I am not infallible and I’m open to correction from brothers and sisters in Christ – in this way we all learn from each other: so I really appreciate comments which I always read carefully.

I found the comments on this subject particularly helpful and I am happy to explain a little more of what I was trying to say. I was distinguishing between the true ‘ecclesia’ of God and the man-made institutions that we call ‘churches’. John is perfectly right in saying that of the 115 references to ecclesia in the New Testament only two are correctly translated in most English Bibles. They both refer to the riot in Ephesus where the whole town came together to oppose Paul’s teaching, chanting “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” This gathering [ecclesia] is referred to as “an assembly”.

All the other references are to ‘gatherings of believers in Jesus the Messiah’ and in each case ecclesia should similarly be translated ‘congregation’, or ‘assembly’ (of believers). It is entirely wrong to translate ‘ecclesia’ as ‘church’, as in most English Bibles.

Confusion can arise over the concept of God’s judgment because the word is so often used to mean his wrath and punishment. In fact, the word used for judgment in the New Testament (krima) can mean these things, but is also broader, simply meaning a verdict or decision. In this respect, we will all be judged – for we will all one day stand before the judgment seat of God, as Paul says in Romans 14:10.

It is true that a church can go off track and come under condemnation like the church at Laodicea. But if we are part of the true ecclesia of Christ, it is his intention to present us spotless before his Father – it was for this that he shed his blood. Paul says this in Ephesians 5:25-27:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the ecclesia and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word to present her to himself as a radiant ecclesia, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

The New Testament teaching is that the true ‘ecclesia of Christ’ can never come under condemnation, for “God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess 5:9). True believers still undergo trials, but these are appointed for God’s paideia - his discipline - so our faith can be refined (1 Pet 1:7; Heb 12:4-11).

As such, the reference to “judgment beginning at the household of God” (1 Peter 4:17) most certainly does not refer to God’s wrath! It is referring to the persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire. It is the wrath of human beings upon God’s people – not the wrath of God upon his own people. That is made very clear in the context of the passage beginning 1 Peter 4:12: “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering…But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ.”

Jesus himself said “Remain in me, and I will remain in you…if you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love” (John 15:4 and 10). Provided we remain in Christ we cannot come under his wrathful judgment: we are bound to Him in love.

Cliff

The Ashers Bakery case goes to the Supreme Court.

This week, the Supreme Court left its usual place in London and has been sitting in Belfast to hear a case that has fundamental significance for the future of free speech in Britain. The Ashers Bakery case dates back to 2014 when an LGBT activist ordered a cake from the bakery with a message in the icing stating "Support Gay Marriage".

The owners of the bakery, Daniel and Amy MacArthur, who are committed Christians, refused to do this on the ground that it was against their beliefs. The initial judgment found that they were guilty of ‘discrimination’ and this was affirmed by the Court of Appeal. The case has now gone to the Supreme Court, but the Northern Ireland Attorney General, John Larkin QC, has already expressed his own opinion that the Court of Appeal was wrong in their judgment.

The case has attracted an enormous amount of interest because of its significance for our cherished freedom of speech. The central question is whether the law can force someone to make a statement that they do not believe.

The Law vs. Freedom of Speech

Does the law have the power to force a Catholic to make a statement criticising the Pope? Does the law have the power to force a Muslim to make a statement that is insulting to Mohammed? Does the law have the power to force any citizen to make a statement that is directly against his or her personal convictions?

This is a question that, for Christians, goes back 2,000 years to the time of the Roman Emperor Domitian in the year AD 95 when all citizens were required, on a certain day, to go to the local shrine dedicated to the Emperor and say "Caesar is Lord".

The case has attracted an enormous amount of interest because of its significance for our cherished freedom of speech.

Emperor Domitian.The Apostle John was in exile on the island of Patmos when he had a remarkable spiritual experience on the very day, known as ‘Lord's day’ (Rev 1:10), when he knew that many of his Christian friends would be signing their own death warrants by refusing to make a statement which would deny the Lordship of Jesus.

For the MacArthurs, being forced to make a statement declaring support for homosexual marriage, which the Bible declares to be "detestable” to God (Lev 18:22) would be equivalent to denying their faith in the God of Creation and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It would be the modern equivalent of saying "Caesar is Lord" and denying the Lordship of Jesus.

Significance for Equality Law

But there are significant legal aspects as well as moral aspects to this case, which is no doubt the reason why the five judges are not expected to announce their decision before the autumn and it may even be delayed to the beginning of next year. Their judgment has profound significance for the future of the Equality Commission and the interpretation of equality law in Britain.

This case is creating panic, not only among LGBTQ+ supporters but across the whole left-wing postmodernist philosophical camp, which has been driving the movement for social change and social engineering in the nation since the 1960s.

Suddenly, there is fear gripping the far-left political elite that they have gone too far, too quickly. They have had enormous success in achieving their objectives since the publication of the Gay Manifesto in 1972 declaring the LGBTQ+ intention of destroying the ‘family’ as the central pillar in the Judeo-Christian structure of the nation.

The judgment will have profound significance for the future of the Equality Commission and the interpretation of equality law in Britain.

The Idol of Equality

They have succeeded, probably beyond their wildest dreams, in persuading the nation that the supreme ethical values in society are ‘equality’ and ‘tolerance’ – that all ethical judgments should be taken at the bar of ‘equality’.

Hence, postmodernists have even succeeded in changing the legal definition of marriage by framing it as an issue of ‘equality’. This worshipping of equality is a recycling of Marxism, which falsely assumes that enforced equality will lead to justice and a better world. Jordan Peterson rightly calls postmodernism the “new skin that the old Marxism now inhabits”.¹

Marxism was totally discredited through the fiasco of Communism last century, but it didn’t disappear entirely - later reappearing under the guise of postmodernism, trying yet again to force upon the population the flagship lie of ‘equality’.

But forcing a Christian baker to declare his support for gay marriage may prove to be a step too far which could cause the whole of their false edifice of society to collapse. It is like pulling out a single brick from the base of the Tower of Babel, sending a shockwave right through its structure that brings the whole lot down!

Enough is Enough

The central tragedy of recent history over the past half-century is that neither Church leaders nor politicians have understood the philosophy of postmodernism, with its objectives of destroying Judeo-Christian civilisation. The great question facing us now is: will there be a great awakening of common sense among ordinary people in the general public before it is too late?

The central tragedy of recent history is that neither Church leaders nor politicians have understood that postmodernism seeks to destroy Judeo-Christian civilisation.

Will ordinary people arise and say, "Enough is Enough! We do not want to be driven by Big Brother political correctness. We cherish our freedom of speech and we will not let our children be educated in schools that brainwash them in the false values of ‘equality and tolerance’ and ‘political correctness’.”

Is it too late to reclaim the nation from the clutches of those who wish to destroy Western civilisation?

To the Church of Sardis

The Apostle John had a message for the Christians in Sardis who were facing persecution by the Roman Empire. He warned "You have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die” (Rev 3:1-2). The alternative was that their names would be blotted out of the Book of Life.

The warning signs are there today for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. If we do not wake up soon and challenge those who are driving the nation towards self-destruction, we and our children and grandchildren will perish in the forthcoming holocaust of social destruction.

That destruction has already begun, the evidence of which can be seen all around us, in the breakdown of the family and the consequent rise in crimes of violence, lawlessness and corruption. But this is only the beginning – unless we wake up!

References

1 Jordan B Peterson, Postmodernism and Cultural Marxism. Interview, The Epoch Times, 6 July 2017.