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"Worldview training for all the World" ........ Psalm 50:12 Premier Worldview® Center 800-948-3101 |
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"Worldview training for all the World" ........ Psalm 50:12 Premier Worldview® Center 800-948-3101 |
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A Six-Step Plan for VictoryBy: Don Schanzenbach 07/05/2002 A Six-Step Plan for Victory By: Don Schanzenbach 07/05/2002 A Six-Step Plan For Victory Don Schanzenbach Mission to Restore America (MTRA) http://www.mcg.net/mtra 1. Take Back Our Children: From 1620 when the Pilgrims landed until 1820 education in our nation was the exclusive work of the family and church. Minimal government involvement was to promote the rightful work of these institutions. This Biblically based system produced a nation that was the wonder of the world at that time. The American people were grudgingly recognized by Europeans as being universally literate and well educated. A Godly America prospered and quickly became a world power, successfully competing with nations hundreds of years older. In 1820, an American atheist, Mr. Robert Owens started a "commune" which later became the model for Karl Marx. After one year his commune failed. Mr. Owens determined that the only way his ideas could succeed in this nation would be to undermine Christian thought on a broad level. This fomented the beginning of his and others' efforts to establish a system of government schools across the land. Protestant churchmen often supported the movement believing their worldview could be implanted at the center of the new system thus displacing the excellent Catholic schools available. Now, one hundred eighty years later we are harvesting the crop sprung from that rebellious seed. The Scriptures clearly assign the task of education first to the family. Moses instructed saying, "teach them (God's wisdom and knowledge) diligently to your sons and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up." Proverbs 22:6 promises the parents that if they (not the government) "raise up a child in the way he should go he will not depart from it." In fact the entire book of Proverbs is given as instruction from a father to his son (Proverbs 1:1-9, 4:1-13, 6:20). The Apostle Paul also commands fathers to bring up their children "in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" in effect setting a parent over education since all knowledge belongs first to God and is only being discovered and distributed by mankind. Now, many sincere Christian parents are deceived in believing their children belong in those government schools in direct contradiction to God's commands. Psalm 1:1 instructs us saying that a man is blessed "who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked...nor sit in the seat of scoffers." Yet, we regularly send our children to sit in that scoffers seat for six hours a day, five days a week, four weeks a month, nine months a year, for twelve years. We then are amazed when our grown children become scoffers themselves and leave the faith we failed to teach them. Paul tells us that "Bad company corrupts good morals" (1 Corinthians 15:33). We need to consider his words. A system that is built from its inception on rebellion and structured such that the Creator's name cannot be affirmed is not the place God intends our children to inhabit. We do not condemn the Christian teachers who have stepped into the pagan arena to be a light and fragrance to lost people. God surely calls His laborers to plow difficult soil. However, the time has come and in fact is long past when we need to begin obeying the Biblical mandate to educate our children. We have searched in vain for a single Biblical command for the civil government to involve itself in education. We have asked the defenders of government education to provide the Biblical basis for that belief. The silence is universal. There is no Biblical basis for it. Therefore, we call families to repentance and change. 2. Take Back Our Churches: Two hundred years ago Christian patriots threw British tea into Boston harbor. Americans lived out their moral view that even a small tax should not be paid if it was unrighteously laid. The training and courage for that action came from a people who had been regularly taught by the clergy to challenge unrighteous authority. During that period the British called the uprising the "Presbyterian rebellion." The clergy were known at home and abroad as "The black regiment" because of their fiery preaching against unrighteous government (while wearing black clerical robes). Those sermons were published widely and became the grist for a popular uprising, which launched a mighty constitutional republic. Some of us have read those sermons. We have asked, "What has become of the fiery preachers?" On January 21, 1776, John Muellenberg, a Lutheran pastor, stood before his congregation. After an eloquent sermon on Ecclesiastes 3- "a time for peace and a time for war", he announced to his congregation, "This gentlemen is a time for war." That very day he led over two hundred men to join the continental army. We live in a time considerably more wicked then theirs. And so we ask again, "what has become of the fiery preachers?" We believe a large part of the answer is found first in the 501(c)3, corporate, status of our churches. In 1858 the civil government offered churches the chance to obtain "limited liability" by becoming 501(c)3 corporations. However, in return for this privilege the churches had to agree to new rules which strictly limit the entry of the church into the public arena. The churches contracted to remain silent regarding political and "public policy" issues as the documents state. This unholy agreement along with special tax breaks for clergy and the tax write off for donations to charitable institutions, have worked together to mute not only the clergy but the church at large. Within this system it is to all of our benefits to remain silent. In contrast God commands His people to teach His truth to avoid judgment. In 2 Chronicles 19:10 the religious leadership is told, "...you shall warn them that they may not be guilty before the Lord, and wrath may not come on you and your brethren. Thus you shall do and not be guilty." James 4:17 tells us, "...to one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin." We are not to be silent. These "little foxes" of legal privilege are destroying the branches of Jesus' vine, the church, according to the proverb. Over the last one hundred and forty years a church culture has arisen which usually unconsciously remains silent. Most of us are pressed to remember ever once hearing a sermon which aggressively challenges the civil government on a single issue. Predictably, the corpulent bush of civil government has grown out of control, unrestrained in its encroachment into the family's and church's gardens. We call on the churches to once again recognize the Lord Christ as the lawful Head of the Church. We call on the church to disestablish the United States as preeminent over the church both in law and in practice. To awaken the sleeping giant of the church, we call forth the services of the fiery preachers. Note: The availability of a tax write off for charitable donations is for all churches not just 501(c)3 corporations according to our understanding. 3. Educate Christians About Our Godly Heritage The prophet Malachi preached to a nation like ours which had fallen away from their love and obedience to God. Due to his preaching those who feared the Lord decided to write a "Book of Remembrance" (Malachi 3:16). The purpose of the book was to help the people "...distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him" (vs. 18). This book was not Scripture. However it did please God and was a useful tool in instructing "...those who fear the Lord and who esteem His name" (Malachi 3:16). It was written for the religious community. If we are going to have any hope of understanding the times or knowing what to do we must restore in our people a foundation of historical knowledge of God's providence in America. We must bring back the lives and lessons of those who built the nation. Historical ignorance and revisionism have cut our people loose from the solid moorings of their Christian heritage. Our children do not know of the mighty works of God on America's behalf. His great works which should be an inspiration to today's leaders are purposefully omitted from most school books by those who view the works of God as a hindrance to autonomous man. Our children have not admired America's Godly heroes because the heroes have been long forgotten. It is the duty of Christians throughout the land to restore to their rightful place our nation's Godly heroes. If we are to be one nation under God we must draw common moral nutrients from the roots of our past. 4. Establish Churches Which Unashamedly Support And Advance Christian Civilization Most of us have been educated in schools that taught almost every subject area from a humanist perspective. Due to this it is almost impossible for many Christians to quickly understand what it is we are talking about when we promote "Christian civilization." Our mindset is geared towards evaluating much of life just as do the humanists of our times. Imagine this simple experiment. If you were to stand in front of your church's adult Sunday school class, let's say, thirty adults, and ask, "Who of you can name for me three Biblical principles you have learned as relates to the study of English literature?" Are you imagining blank stares in return? You should be. I have tried this with topics much easier for Christians to assess than English literature, topics addressed by loads of Biblical information like history and education which directly affect everyone's actions and worldview. Believe me when I say the silence is disquieting. The thought that God might have an interest in how we teach our children has simply not captured our collective or individual attention. We are entering a time when every foundational idea behind western (read "Christian") civilization is under attack. The moral conscience of the nation seems vacant. The courts commonly violate Constitutional principles and justice seems hard to find. We can hardly name a man we would call a Christian statesman. By the way, can any of us define the word statesman much less be one? Why is our money inflated to a point of being increasingly worthless? Why must both spouses labor for wages forty years into the "Great Society" when our grandparents could live on a single salary? Why has the rearing of godly children been handed over to day care centers? What has become of the Puritan vision to raise up extended generations of Christians who would be covenanted with God for His blessings and direction? Why are Biblically based manners disappearing from common usage? Why do we seem to be degenerating into a coarse and illiterate people? The musician Michael W. Smith calls it "Breakdown", "...break down as we learn to bite the hand that feeds us....if we say that we are free who will believe us?" A large part of the reason for this societal breakdown is that for over a century the church has abandoned its role as builder of Christian civilization. The early churchmen in America had a different perspective than most of us now have. They talked about their faith as affecting every part of society. Most evangelical churches and schools teach a narrow version of Christianity called pietism. A pietistic church will spend almost all of its time and energy teaching about the inner life and/or evangelism. The entire faith is thought to be contained in these two realms of thought. Outside of these any discussion about the larger society is thought to be unfitting. Other areas of teaching are thought to properly belong to parachurch organizations, or worse, to the humanists, not the local church. They may sometime agree to bring in a speaker for a class or two on a topic like education or government (never on taxes or liberty) but it is understood that the speaker does not necessarily represent "us" because "we" do not make pronouncements on anything pertaining to public policy. After all, we contracted not to and church culture rails against it. MTRA believes we are called to work with existing churches as possible, but especially to plant new churches that will preach the historic civilization building faith that built America; Churches that are unashamed of the broad spectrum of doctrine God has given His people. These strong congregations will be able to move forward the work of rebuilding that which many churches have chosen to abandon. 5. Take Back Our Money Since the 1940s the tax rates and means for collecting them have grown far outside the rates and means of which Scripture accedes. 1 Samuel 8 is instructive in this regard. Here God warns His people that if they appoint a king he would tax them in excess of 10% of their income. The nation was to have been horrified at this because even God Himself only requires 10%. They are also warned that the new civil government will require of them many services and contributions which are beyond God's will for them. The Israelites ignored the prophet's plea and the people came under bondage from their own government. We also have cast off our original Godly form of government and slowly allowed humanistic ideas to supercede what was once good. We have submitted to tax rates far in excess of what God ordains. We have agreed to be ruled by so called authorities who daily usurp our liberty and Constitution. Our Constitution says we are to be "secure in our houses, papers, and effects" and that we cannot be forced to testify against ourselves. These are not just good ideas. They are ideas based on solid Scripture. The fourth and fifth amendments are rooted in Biblical thought. We should not testify against ourselves just as Jesus did not testify against Himself, "like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth" (Isaiah 53:7). Yet we are told that we are to submit to this unrighteous system year after year without effective protest. Our forefathers believed they had a moral duty to vigorously resist any sinful exercise of civil authority. Our generation has become complicit in much worse abuses than a tiny tea tax by our resounding silence. We heap on ourselves the indignities of a deeply humanist tax system due to our pietism and the silence from the pulpits of our churches. Where there should be thunder we hear platitudes about obeying man's law and authority however hard they may run against God's law and authority. That which belongs to God and His church and to the family is regularly given to Caesar in tribute and yet the Church is for the most part silent. We are often told that "this is a democracy" and we must live by the rule of the majority. Yet our founders never set up a democracy. Our government was established as a Constitutional Republic, a nation in which the God given rights (for He is the Author and Giver of rights) of the minority cannot be lawfully infringed. Yet Christians have almost to a man conceded those lawful rights in hope of avoiding all conflict -peace in our time. We do not espouse using any violent means or breaking of the law. We do call on Christian men to discern what is fiction and what is law. We are one of the few Christian organizations actively teaching Biblical thought in the area of taxation. We believe Christian men and their families need to begin understanding taxes and taxation from a Biblically sound mindset. There are important doctrines and precepts concerning taxation which need to be taught again in America. We need to reclaim the Scriptural and moral truths for which our forefathers taught and fought. We need to know what kinds of taxes and tax rates are Biblically sound. To obey God and yet regain our liberty is the challenge before us. Education about taxation is the first step towards Christian freedom in this area. Our nation has abandoned almost every Christian idea in the realm of taxes. We must turn back to God's ways if we are to rebuild Christian civilization in America. We call on the clergy to loudly and energetically denounce the abuse of the civil government's taxation authority. We call on the clergy to stand vigorously against that which enslaves us all and forces the mothers of our children to labor like oxen for the state. We call on the clergy to lead in restraining the civil government and reducing the cumulative government tax rate to 10% or less according to God's revealed will. If the clergy and the church will not lead then there is no one to hold in check the abuses of the civil authority. Liberty flees when the church abandons the role of moral arbiter in society. 6. Pray For Renewal And Victory Someone has said that the Christian church advances on its knees. This surely is the case. The battle to which we are calling people is much larger than any of us. We need prayer for courage in the face of civil and spiritual powers. Liberty is not gained without conflict. Conflict is not won without prayer. We pray that our God will raise up a body of courageous men who love liberty more than life. We pray that He will bring forth righteous women who pray and work for liberty and who encourage their husbands to do what is right. We call on our God to bless our efforts to rear a Godly generation of warriors who are not intimidated by the enemies of the church. We pray that these children will be fruitful and multiply and expand their generation even while their godless peers are aborting the few children they are given. We pray that the crown rights of Jesus Christ will be recognized in this nation. We pray for victory in education, in our churches, and in taxation. We do not wish to just get along! We are not neutral even as our Savior is not neutral. We seek victory and pray for it unashamedly. We pray for God to fill our pulpits with courageous men who will speak to the pressing issues of our time. We pray that the church will speak as one voice against the wickedness of apathy and silence in the face of great injustice. We call on our God to return righteousness to the land. We pray for the return of the fiery preachers.
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