Posted on 08/10/2006 12:22:56 PM PDT by OrthodoxPresbyterian
A Young Fool encounters Foolishness
Once upon a time, I was but a wee child in Reformed Theology, taking my first baby-steps into the beautiful Cathedral of Calvinism as a young Debater for Jerry Falwell's world-beating Liberty Debate Team (Our Creed: "Defeat Harvard. Defeat Navy. Defeat American Catholic. Defeat everyone. Crush them all, every time, no exceptions. Win every single National Championship, every year.... because as long as we Calvinists keep winning, Jerry won't excommunicate us for being Calvinists!!".)
Since a Debater is always expected to be able to immediately argue either side of any given question, I spent a lot of time in the local used book-store picking up various books on philosophy and theology and politics and economics... anything I could get my dirt-poor hands on for $2 or $3 dollars a copy. Anything to familiarize myself with multiple intellectual perspectives and multiple modes of argumentation.
Now, in the course of my researches, I happened across a little book entitled War Cycles, Peace Cycles by Richard Kelly Hoskins of Lynchburg, Virginia, regarding the short and long-term economic effects of Monetary Expansions and Contractions in the context of fractional-reserve lending. Hoskins was by no means an uneducated fellow (a capable Financial Advisor and Econometricist, some of his works are still occasionally cited today), but I was singularly disturbed by several passages in which he seemed to suggest a Racial component to Fractional-Reserve Lending (which he called "the Babylon System") versus his contrary suggestions for Joint-Venture Lending.
One passage which stood out in my mind read as follows:
The further I read, the more it was apparent to me that Hoskins regarded "Israel" as The White Race, the Adamic Race descended through Abraham, and that all Non-Whites were considered to him to be zuwr "strangers": Pagans at worst, "Samaritan" Christians at best... but never "Israel".
And so, being the young fool that I was, I did what any young fool would do... I looked Dick Hoskins up in the Lynchburg, Virginia phone book, and called him at his house.
I asked him what he would make of my spiritual position -- a Confessing Christian by Faith, mostly Prussian German by Ethnicity, but with a little 1/16 smidgen of Sioux Nation mixed in 3 or 4 generations back on my mother's side.
Hoskins informed me, quite cordially and without any rancor whatsoever, that God considered me to be a mixed-breed Bastard and that "A Bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD." (Deuteronomy 23:2) He advised me to marry "one of my own kind".
Well, I decided at that point (even before I knew him to be the godfather of the "Phinehas Priesthood", the most violent expression of the Christian Identity movement) that even if he was a good money-runner, Dick Hoskins' theology was a barrel full of wet, smelly, foolish Scheißdreck, with which I would have no truck whatsoever. The Christian Creed is this: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28, KJV).
Unfortunately, however, "Christian Identity" (derived not from pagan Nazism but rather from its bastard godfather, British Israelism) is not the only theology which Racially divides the Body of Christ into Jew and Gentile, "Israel" and "Not-Israel", Blood and Blood-lines.
Dispensational Zionist Foolishness
The future dispensational kingdom involves a racial prejudice favoring the Jews above even saved Gentiles during the millennium. As such it re-introduces the distinction between Jew and Gentile and replaces Faith with Race as a basis for divine favor. Consider the following citations from leading dispensationalists: (DISPENSATIONAL DISTORTIONS PART TWO, Redemptive History Distortions ~~ Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., Th.D.)
However, with the establishment of the New Testament phase of the Church, the distinction between Jew and Gentile has been abolished. This was the whole point of Peter's vision of the sheet filled with unclean animals in Acts 10: "What God has called clean, let no man call unclean." Thus, there is no separate Jewish program exalting them over saved Gentiles. THE CHURCH, which includes Jew and Gentile in one body, is the fruition and culmination of God's promises to the Jews. In evidence of this, we should note that Christians are called by distinctively Jewish names in the New Testament. "He is a Jew, which is one inwardly" (Rom. 2:29). Christians are called "the circumcision" (Phil. 3:3), "the children" and "the seed of Abraham" (Gal. 3:7, 29), the "Jerusalem which is above" and the "children of the promise" (Gal. 4:24-29). In fact, Christians compose "the Israel of God" for we are a "new creature" regarding which "circumcision availeth nothing" (Gal. 6:16).
Comparing Foolishness with Foolishness
In closing, I ask only (according to the Hebrew logical-interpretive method of "how much the more?")... if the heretical British-Israel/Christian-Identity Racialists pervert True Christianity by dividing the People of God along Racial lines, then how much the more do Dispensationalists also pervert the Word of God and divide the People of God along equally Racialist lines?
Consider the following:
Those aren't Quotations from Richard Kelly Hoskins... granted, they may sound like Christian Identity quotations, but they aren't.
These are nothing less than direct quotations from the leading lights of Dispensationalism in America -- Ryrie, Pentecost, Walvoord, Hoyt, Hunt, Thomas Ice. (I could've quoted Hagee, I suppose, but the man is absolutely freakin' nutbar).
All that I did was to replace "Israel" with "The White Race", and replace "Gentiles" with "Non-Whites".
Does Dispensationalist "theology" destroy the Racial equality of the Body of Christ? What you see is what you get.
God Damn all Racial Theology.
In general, I'd agree with you that no one group should be singled out based on genetics. But in this case, it's because that same group is already singled out by the opposition and granted a "free pass", redemptively and eschatologically (or at least given a reduced/commuted sentence), for offenses which would rightly incur God's wrath when committed by other groups.
Not sure I follow you... No, I am sure I don't follow you,
See my post #34, above.
BOOM! Right on the Money. You are exactly right.
See, I do believe that ALL people who are Not Christians, DO HATE GOD.
However, Buggman is holding me to the following account: "You can start by publicly apologizing for calling the Jews 'God-hating' in the previous thread, and swearing to abandon such rhetoric in all future discussions"
I'll Apologize, when Buggman can prove to me (from Scripture) that Christ-Rejecting Jews DO NOT Hate God.
Until that time, I'm sticking with Galatians 3:28 -- we're all up a creek without Jesus, and GOD DAMN any and all Racially-Divisive Theologies -Amen!
Afterward shall the children of Israel return, {{WE ARE RIGHT HERE TODAY}} and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.
Hosea 3:4-5
Jesus is the King, we are His Israel, He is our Perfect David, and He has already fully fulfilled all sacrifices (Hebrews 10:14 "For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified")... and, really, when you look at it, there's not much more to say.
According to the Apostles, THE CHURCH is "God's Israel" -- not some Socialist Nation-State of Christ-Rejectors who persecute the Jews for Jesus, for crying out loud!
They AREN'T "God's Israel", and thinking otherwise detracts from their True spiritual needs -- they're a bunch of God-Hating, Christ-Rejecting Jews who need to be Prayed For and Converted!!
And what Institution is equal to the task of converting even the God-Haters and the Christ-Blasphemers? Only the Institution ordained and sanctified by Jesus Christ himself -- GOD'S ISRAEL, the Christian Church, marching forth with Word and Sacrament.
Best, OP
Interesting. I'll hope for the best for this thread. Or maybe just go for beer and popcorn and watch the show.
I hope that you will enjoy either education or amusement.
I feel that, given the volatility of the topic, I can promise you at least one. ;-)
Afterward shall the children of Israel return, {{WE ARE RIGHT HERE TODAY}} and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.
Hosea 3:4-5 =====
OP, is the Church the "children of Israel" in this passage? Sure sounds like ethnic Jews since they had a king, prince, etc. at one time and then were without it.
What's the "many days" reference between the children of Israel (the Church in your eschatology). When did the Church ever lose their King, prince, priesthood, etc. Sure seems to me the children of Israel speaks of the physical seed of Abraham.
-- your "God-Damned dispensationalism" believing pal
I gotta love ya OP! Sometimes you write way over my blondness, but I still gotta love ya! :-)
So we must take Galatians 3:28 as ABSOLUTE LAW?
Why don't we read the whole verse?
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28 KJV)
Oops.
No male and no female? Wow. Imagine that!
If that is ABSOLUTE LAW of Biblical interpretation, then clearly you can't keep women out of the pulpit, can you? A person's sex can have nothing to do with her standing in the Church since there are neither male nor female. That would be "sexually divisive."
Additionally if there is neither male nor female, then how can you prohibit homosexual marriage? You are just marrying two Christians who are "neither male nor female". That distinction has been biblically erased!
So if Galatians 3:28 is Absolute Law in regard to biblical interpretation, then how dare you condemn the homosexual movement within the church? You should be "celebrating" it.
Now, are you willing to say:
"May GOD DAMN all Racially Sexually-Divisive "Christian" theologies."?
I'm sure Vicky Gene Robinson will back you up.
* I know you think you speak for God but the Jews, qua Jews, did not all hate His Son. It's in all the Bibles.
And Jesus said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do
Yours is a God of hate. You are welcome to Hm. And He will judge you as you judge others
Meaning no disrespect, does Romans 9 mean nothing to you? Howzabout all the other Verses in the New Testament which establish the Church as "God's Israel"?
You must remember -- the Church has always been Israel. Israel has always been the Church.
I must confess my curiosity -- if you don't care to interpret the Old Testament Prophecies in the Light of the New Testament Exposition, then why aren't you Jewish? I'm not following you...
Anyway...
As far as the Verses themselves:
For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and [without] teraphim: Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.
Hosea was written in about 750 BC. In other words, this passage may very well refer to the restoration of Jerusalem after the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity, not any imaginary apocalyptic application.
In this question (as in many others), are Dispensationalists in the business of denying that God has fulfilled His Prophecy?
Oh, right... they are.
BOOM! Right on the Money. You are exactly right.
Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. (Rom. 10:1-2)Your words, OP, serve absolutely no purpose but to puff yourself up and to put a barrier between the Jewish people and the Cross--and there is not a greater act of hatred than to do anything which might keep a man from Y'shua. You are putting stumbling blocks in the path of the blind (Lev. 19:14) in violation of the command not to do anything "whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak" (Rom. 14:21).
In short, you are not doing the deeds or speaking the words of Christ.
Alex, with all respect, how do you figure that?
Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. (Romans 10:1-2 KJV)
Might be saved? Might be saved? By definition everyone who is a part of the "Church" is saved. And thus he is distinguishing between those who are saved and those members of "Israel" who might be (might be) [might be] {might be} saved.
There is no doubt but that Paul is distinguishing between Israel and the Church. He is not equating them.
Carry on.
Thank for interacting with the passage a little bit even. But you did not answer the questions I asked. Questions that deal with the exegesis of the text in question..
If this speaks of the restoration under Zerrubabel, Ezra and Nehemiah... were those the latter days as Hosea says is the time frame? Wow, the "latter days" centuries before Christ was born! Now that takes imagination!
Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.
If this speaks of the restoration under Zerrubabel, Ezra and Nehemiah... how can they seek David their king? He's dead. And if you take this as a figurative reference to Christ as Messiah I will not argue, but I will ask: When at the time of the restoration did the children of Israel seek the Messiah and fear the Lord and His goodness?
I await your exegesis of these two Bible verses.
A case can be made for Aramaic. It's my understanding that the Aramaic New Testament is filled with word-plays and rhymes (including the Lord's prayer) that don't translate into the Greek or anything else. "Jesus the Rapper"?
I am defending the traditional Catholic Christian doctrine of Supersecessionism. Supersessionism was traditionally considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be its EX CATHEDRA irreformable position on the relationship with post-Messianic Judaism. The Council of Florence of the 15th century solemnly defined, that "Jews are damned to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" if they consciously and obstinately refuse to embrace the Catholic Christian Faith.
If the so-called "Roman" Catholics want to condemn me for standing up for the traditional Catholic Christian Faith... well, I guess that's to be expected.
"Romans" can be counted on to sack Constantinople, or burn Protestants at the stake; but when it comes to the defense of the traditional Catholic Christian Faith... you tell me I worship a "God of Hate".
Hey, that's okay. If Roman Catholicism no longer wishes to defend traditional Christian Orthodoxy, we Calvinists are happy to take over the job.
I must offer you my thanks. You have not cursed me; you have blessed me.
Thank you, and good night.
Best, OP
the most consistent element that differentiated Dispensationalism from all other eschatological systems was that in Dispensationalism, God has a different redemptive plan for racial Jews - unique, separate and even superior to any other redemptive plan offered to any other racial group (Greeks, gentiles, etc).
Is this two peoples of God scheme a given (an axiom, unproven), or do they get it from somewhere?
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