CHARGE TO GOD’S REMNANT: DO GOOD, OPPOSE EVIL, GIVE GOD GLORY, PERIOD!

SCRIPTURE. “Learn to do right! Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.” – ISAIAH 1:17, AMPC

KEY TERMS. Right; Justice; Relieve; Oppressed; Correct; Defend; Fatherless; Plead; Widow

QUOTATION

GOODIER. “‘A life of integrity’ usually begins with saying no to compromise, facing the truth and doing what is right, even when it is difficult. It’s been said that if you have integrity, nothing else matters. But it’s also true that if you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.” ― Steve Goodier, One Minute Can Change Your Life, 1999; edited

I. FIRST THOUGHTS

INTEGRITY. “1. Wholeness; entireness; unbroken state. 2. The entire, unimpaired state of any thing, particularly of the mind; moral soundness or purity; incorruptness; uprightness; honesty. Integrity comprehends the whole moral character, but has a special reference to uprightness in mutual dealings, transfers of property, and agencies for others. 3. Purity; genuine, unadulterated, unimpaired state; as the integrity of language.” – NOAH WEBSTER, American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828; edited

As with many if not most of you, I confess that I have become skeptical if not outright cynical about the historic presumption of ‘The Goodness of America.’ Beloved, I just don’t believe it anymore, since I don’t see evidence of it in our Nation’s most essential repository of our Moral Core:

The Church.

Now to clarify, that doesn’t mean I hate Americans as a rule, but it does mean that I hate what we are fast becoming. And that, in turn, because I love what God has told us over and over again for 120 years and more what to become – ‘but we would not’(cf. Isaiah 30:15).

When French political scientist and social philosopher ALEXIS DE TOQUEVILLE set out from France to spend ten months journeying and taking notes about The American Soul in the early 1800s, he had no real idea of what he would discover. And scholars still debate what he ultimately concluded about America, both good and bad.

Was America good, or was she evil?

THREE MAJOR THEMES that stand out for me about this Great American Enterprise that he so carefully and accurately recorded for posterity. All quotes are taken from various sections of his magnum opus, Democracy in America (1835, 1840; edited).

1. OUR FAITH. “Upon my arrival in the United States the Religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things … Religion in America … must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it.”

• OUR RACIALISM. “In the midst of this American Society, so well policed, so sententious, so charitable, a cold selfishness and complete insensibility prevails when it is a question of the Natives of the country. The Americans of the United States do not let their dogs hunt the Indians as do the Spaniards in Mexico, but at the bottom it is the same pitiless feeling which here, as everywhere else, animates the European race. This world here belongs to us, they tell themselves every day: the Indian race is destined for final destruction which one cannot prevent and which it is not desirable to delay. Heaven has not made them to become civilised; it is necessary that they die.”

• OUR DESTINY. “Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul. The master no longer says: ‘You will think as I do or die.’ He says: ‘You are free not to think as I do. You may keep your life, your property, and everything else. But from this day forth you shall be as a stranger among us. You will retain your civic privileges, but they will be of no use to you.’ For if you seek the votes of your fellow citizens, they will withhold them, and if you seek only their esteem, they will feign to refuse even that. You will remain among men, but you will forfeit your rights to humanity. When you approach your fellow creatures, they will shun you as one who is impure. And even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they, too, be shunned in turn. ‘Go in peace, I will not take your life, but the life I leave you with is worse than death.’”

Well now boys and girls, that’s a bit different take than we’ve been fed for 50 years, with many of our leaders misquoting and misattributing Tocqueville by claiming he wrote this: “America is great because America is good. America will cease to be great when America ceases to be good.”

He never wrote it, beloved! This according to JOHN J. PITNEY JR., associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in 1995. This ‘Revisionist Americanization of History,’ as I choose to call it, has reached into the very Soul of our Nation – and recently, THE CHURCH, with devastating consequences since 2016.

II. FRESH PERSPECTIVES OF AMERICAN DECLINE

On two different occasions, I have written of FOUR FRACTURES in the Founding of the American Republic. I will not detail them again here except to name them: (1) Protection of Slavery; (2) Slaughter of Native Americans; (3) Stealing of Mexico; (4) Sacrilege of Freemasonry.

Published originally as “A Reckoning on Christopher Columbus and the End of Days: Truths, Myths, and Entering the Land of Promise” (October 22, 2022; refer there for details and documentation).

One cannot miss the Central Theme in the first three of these Foundational Fractures that clearly have to do with Anglo-Ethnic matters. I have not allowed myself to see this until recently, believing now that this is part of America’s Third Great Awakening – but not of the general populace this time, but of what I continue to propose is, simultaneous with what we can call:

The Remnant Church. The Confessing Church. The True Body of Christ for these Last Days.

FIRST LIGHT DIMMED. The extension of my argument here will be that our Nation was indeed founded on the most brilliant political ideas that existed in the intellectual richness of the theologically blessed 17^th-18^th Century West. Rosseau. Voltaire. Locke. Montesquieu. Hobbes. Blackstone. Paine. Sidney. Smith. Jefferson. Franklin. Hamilton. Marshall. Adams. Madison. And so many more!

Yet in all that Illumination, that was also Darkness. Writing for The Bulwark (love that name for a journal), GEORGE THOMAS, Wohlford Professor of American Political Institutions at Claremont McKenna College, penned a deeply thoughtful essay on these vital matters. Title: “America’s Imperfect Founding” (July 21, 2021; edited).

“The American Founding was imperfect. America’s Founders weren’t just aware of the point, they insisted on it: ‘I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man.’ This bit of wisdom was central to the Founding. In contrast, today, Republicans, continuing their departure from any serious understanding of American ideas and history, have taken to insisting that teaching about a flawed founding threatens the very foundations of the republic.

That would be news to the Founders, who were often the Constitution’s most perceptive critics … This is no small thing, but inherent in the political philosophy of leading Founders. To insist on a perfect Founding is to misapprehend the thought of the Founders themselves. The Founders rejected the notion of a perfect political order. They built from low but solid ground by insisting on imperfection as an inescapable feature of political institutions crafted by human beings. And they built from experience, learning from the past, but knowing full well that the future was likely to require adjustments and improvements to our political institutions.

NOTE. Of special importance here are THREE IDEAS that drastically separate the Founders from our current Republican “Patriots.”

• Humility – our Forefathers understood the deeply flawed and sinful nature of Man and conceived our origins accordingly.

• Wisdom – They were overwhelmingly steeped in Biblical perspective and advanced theological grasp, thereby enriching their formulations exponentially.

• Realism – Growing out of these requisite abilities, the Founders recognized that there would be progress in history toward new challenges for the Constitution and the Republic, and they wisely remained (a) fixed on eternal principles while (b) anticipating the need for flexible adaptations to those new events.

SLAVERY. One cannot escape how these three ‘Foundations of the Founders,’ if you will, severely impact the strength of our origins. Lose these, lose the Republic. Better stated: Lose the God from whom they received them, lose everything! Which is precisely what we are seeing, beloved, more and more every single day as our “New Conservatives” depart from and frankly trash our most precious First Ideas.

Mr. Thomas continues.

“‘The struggle over slavery’ has been at the root of American Constitutionalism from the beginning. Slavery presented a constitutional disharmony between the idea of equality and the reality of slavery. As the Princeton historian SEAN WILENTZ frames it in ‘No Property in Man’ [2018], ‘The Paradox—of a Constitution that strengthened and protected slavery yet refused to validate it—created what have been perceived as the Constitution’s confounding ambiguities over slavery.’ If American ideas pointed to equality and anti-slavery—at the Constitutional Convention Madison called American slavery ‘the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man’—American political institutions empowered slavery and thereby perpetuated a brutal and violent inequality.”

DK. And here I may well lose some of my readers as I propose that the deep gaping wound of Slavery and our other Racial Divides have never been fully addressed and repaired in the heart and soul of America. They have not, beloved.

As dark testimony of this Thesis of mine of is explosive appearance of DONALD TRUMP and his New Nationalists, once more rushing toward supreme political power for a second time. Should he and his Echelon win the White House again, the words of HEATHER COX RICHARDSON, historian and professor at Boston College, speak for me.

“‘If Trump, or someone like him, wins the election in 2024, I would expect to see the end of American Democracy.’ If that sounds apocalyptic, it’s worth remembering that we have had just such a scenario in the United States before. In the American South between 1880 and 1965. In those decades, although there were always elections, state legislatures had rigged the electoral system so that White Democrats would always win. Essentially, the region was a One-Party State that had abandoned the rule of law.” – “What if Trump Wins in 2024?” New Republic, Apr. 19, 2022; edited

Multiply that exponentially in a Trump America with “No rule of law” (except for “Trump Law”) for four full years, along very probably with a dysfunctional Legislature and accommodating Judiciary. Just imagine.

Which brings to mind the hapless words of JOHN LENNON’s epic musical paen, “Can you imagine?” (1971; edited).

“Imagine there’s no heaven. It’s easy if you try. No hell below us. Above us, only sky. Imagine all the people. Livin’ for today. Ah, Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion, too.”

The Beatles of course remain the unrivaled musical giant that also proclaimed they were famous than Jesus Christ, and that “Love is all you need” – the Postmodern Narrative of the current iteration of the Hyper-grace American Church. Selah.

III. THE TEACHING

SCRIPTURE. “Learn to do right! Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.” – ISAIAH 1:17, AMPC

KEY TERMS. As is our protocol then, we now turn to the Defining Ideas of this powerful passage under review today.

• LEARN. ‘Lamad’ [לָמַד]: “From a primitive route meaning ‘to goad,’ to teach with a rod of instruction; to diligently learn expertise and skill; a verb meaning to be taught; describes especially the learning of war, training for war; also, learning the ways of the nations, to know of their corrupt and false practices and standards and to avoid them at every cost.”

• DO RIGHT! ‘Yatab’ [יָטַב]: “To be [or do] good, well, glad, or that which is pleasing; also, to be well placed; to be of benefit to someone; to make a thing good or right [that was formerly not well or right]; holds a special moral implication for being pleasing to God [to make Him ‘happy’ or show Him we are doing our best].”

• SEEK JUSTICE. ‘Mishpat’ [מִשְׁפָט]: “The act of deciding a case or handing down a (Divine) judgment or verdict; offered in support of certain rights or privileges [that are to be protected by God and righteousness]; it also refers to Divine plans or instructions to mankind; it is always based in God’s Law and all His ordinances for that which is proper and fitting.”

• RELIEVE. ‘Ashar’ [אָשַׁר]: “To go or be straight, esp. to be level, honest, right, happy; to advance [one’s cause for good]; to guide or lead [another out of difficulty]; to offer understanding [where there was confusion or deception]; to put more simply, ‘to bless,’ as with the removal of anything oppressive or evil that afflicts the body of mind; the alleviation of pain, grief, want, care, anxiety, toil or distress, or burdensome.”

• THE OPPRESSED. ‘Chamots’ [חָמוֹץ]: “From a root word meaning to be sour, cruel or aggrieved; to be afflicted by ‘a robber’ or those who are ruthless; alludes to ‘the leaven’ [or that which despoils]; burdened with unreasonable impositions; overpowered; overburdened; depressed; governed in an unfair and cruel way and prevented from having opportunities and freedom; suffering from unfair and cruel treatment by a more powerful person or government.”

• CORRECT. ‘Shaphat’ [שָׁפַט]: “To judge, govern; to execute a sentence against [an evildoer]; to vindicate or avenge [for a wrong done]; to make right; to rectify; to bring to the standard of truth, justice, or propriety; as, to correct manners or principles; to amend; to remove or retrench faults or errors; to set right; to rebuke; to chide; to reprove; to reprehend for a fault; to check by reproof.”

• PLEAD. ‘Rib’ [רִיב]: “To strive or contend; to grapple, wrangle or hold forth in a controversy; to defend against an adversary; to complain, debate, chide; to lay wait, rebuke; to shout, clamour or disquiet; to discuss, defend and attempt to maintain by arguments or reasons offered to the tribunal or person who has the power of determining; o allege or adduce in proof, support or vindication.”

• THE WIDOW. ‘Almanah’ [אַלְמָנָה]: “From a root word meaning ‘a desolate place or house; can also refer more broadly to a devastated city [or condition of anyone]; technically a woman who has lost her husband to death; by implication, bereavement from having been stripped of everything.”

COMMENTARY. “‘Relieve the oppressed.’ — More accurately, ‘Correct the oppressor.’ The Prophet calls on the rulers not merely to acts of benevolence, but to the courageous exercise of their authority to ‘restrain’ the wrong-doing of the men of their own order. We are reminded of what SHAKESPEARE says of Time, that it is his work —

“To wrong the wronger till he render right.” – The Rape of Lucrece, 1594

‘Judge the fatherless.’ — The words are still primarily addressed to men in office. They are told that they must be true to their calling, and that the “fatherless” and the “widow,” as the typical instances of the defenceless, ought to find an advocate in the judge.” – CHARLES ELLICOTT, An Old and New Testament Commentary for English Readers, 1878, 1897; edited

LESSER MAGISTRATES. It is of critical importance to note that in our Founding Ideology, the “Doctrine of Lower Magistrates” that mandates a “lesser or lower authority” to resist a higher magistrate or authority when that governor seriously abuses his or her power. – cf. Faith Beyond Belief, Feb. 2, 2021

For reasons that we have identified in past Commentaries yet still baffle the very soul of us, this is the part of the Canon that has been nearly totally cut away from the preaching of today’s Evangelical Church. It is simply not there any longer. Thereby, we have no longer been called to any duty to help the oppressed, or to rescue the forlorn and the lost, to defend the defenseless. And most crucially:

 “To correct the oppressor!”

The price paid for this treachery against God and Scripture has been nothing less than the ‘Death of the Christian witness in America in our time.’ Thus do we have tyrants and criminals and murderers, thieves and robbers and deceivers and all manner of wickedness and lawlessness in our land in unprecedented measure today. Just as Jesus Christ warned we would literally inherit should we ever dare to abandon Him.

In the desperately hopeless words of FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE:

“‘God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed Him.’ How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? – The Gay Science, Section 125, tr. Walter Kaufmann, 1882; edited

Of course, beloved, God is not dead nor is there anything or being in all the Universe that could accomplish it. Rather, America has assassinated a worthy love and fear of God – this is the Great Death that has taken place in our midst. My severe point here is nearly unthinkable, but true nonetheless.

IV. TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES

Let me say it straight and tall: For all those Christian leaders and pastors and priests and evangelists and the elders and mentors and influencers who have participated in this would-be ‘Deicide,’ there can only be unremitting, eternal, fiery torment and punishment.

“But as for the cowards and unbelieving and abominable [who are devoid of character and personal integrity and practice or tolerate immorality], and murderers, and sorcerers [with intoxicating drugs], and idolaters and occultists [who practice and teach false religions], and all the liars [who knowingly deceive and twist truth], their part will be in the lake that blazes with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”– REVELATION 21:8, AMP

Our Only Remedy. At least for those whose hearts have not become the hardened heart of Pharaoh, there is this last Final Hope: “For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: ‘In returning [to Me] and resting [in Me] you shall be saved; in quietness and in [trusting] confidence shall be your strength.’” – ISAIAH 30:15, AMPC

Its last line is crushing – “But you would not!” Yet I offer it here in all its finality and, yes, severity, to awaken those in the American Church who would change their course – and run to the Refuge of the Faithful Remnant, the last hope of Truth on a dying earth.

While there is still a little time.

A CONSERVATIVE REMNANT.  I rather love this opening salvo penned by JAMES E. PERSON JR., a Senior Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal. The title of his incisive piece: “Hope for a Conservative Remnant,” Kirk Center, May 24, 2016; edited.

“One of the more common definitions of conservatism as stated by its critics is that it is a philosophy enthralled with preserving the status quo. This definition is as false as it is tiresome. For a better description it is useful to consult one of modern conservatism’s founders. In 1961, Russell Kirk wrote, ‘Integral Conservatism does not consist in dull contentment. If the time is out of joint, if norms are ignored or violated, then the conservative becomes, in some sense, a Rebel.’ This is a far cry from a love of things as they are.

Conservatives, adds political theorist RICHARD BISHIRJIAN in this slim volume, are rebels, not revolutionaries. That is, they do not seek to overthrow all established norms and values, but instead seek to constructively stand in the gap to redress wrongs ‘when time is out of joint.’

That time may well be now …

Just as it is possible to trace the Roots of American Order [as Kirk did in 1974] so is it possible to trace the Roots of American Disorder, and this is what Bishirjian attempts in The Conservative Rebellion (2015), a work that is equal parts Jeremiad, memoir, and history. In a nutshell, the author argues that a Principal Cause of our present civil disunity is ‘a civil religion of natural right that morphed into a dangerous, redemptive, immanentist, political religion that committed the United States to redeem the world for democracy.’” 

The fact that this was published in the epochal year of 2016 when America was about to radically reverse course from its 200-year history of roughly Judeo-Christian practice once and for all is remarkable on its face. And prophetic.

When JERRY FALWELL JR. in January of that year shouted from the media rooftops that Trump was a “breath of fresh air, and followed by this: “In my opinion, Mr. Trump lives a life of loving and helping others … as Jesus taught in the New Testament.”

The second devastating blow to American Christianity followed in New York that June, when such figures as James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Mike Huckabee, Gary Bauer, E.W. Jackson, and a host of other Evangelical luminaries essentially bartered away our Christian Witness in a Faustian Bargain that went something like this:

“[TRUMP] If you promise to support me and overlook my, well, improprieties, then in return I will protect the Christian Church in every way imaginable.”

After initial skirmishes within the Evangelical community nationwide, by the end of 2016 the overwhelming, vast majority of Christian leadership was in the hip pocket of Donald John trump. And we have never been the same since that year, nor do I believe we shall ever be again.

Except for “a rebellious conservative remnant!” Mr. Person thus concludes his 2016 shot across the American Bow with this:

“Bishirjian believes that ‘The future survival of the United States lies in learning from the generation of conservatives who joined the Conservative Rebellion in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s and to those Americans living the Rebellion in the twenty-first century.’ Exactly what form this ‘Rebellion’ should take is not made entirely clear, though Bishirjian implies that it involves ‘staying true to the eternal verities, the mores, and the ways that have guided American thought and behavior in decades past.’”

A CONFESSING REMNANT. Here I intend to do something again I have not attempted before: To congeal or combine or synthesize the important Biblical Conceptualizations of: (1) The Confessing Church and (2) The Remnant Church. The more I have studied these two ideas, I now propose them as essentially synonymous or rather isomorphic to one another. So here we go.

A superb but somewhat obscure article by the EDITORS of cs media 1 entitled, “Characteristics of a Faithful Remnant” (Sep. 22, 2019; edited) offers rich fodder for our company of “Rebels” against the pervasive collapse of orthodoxy in most American churches today.

• BIG IDEA: “God’s Remnant people have a distinct confidence in God’s presence, hope in hardships, source of authority, and optimism about the future.”

• STRANGERS. “Those who follow Christ often find themselves as strangers within their own lands. Peter spoke to this when he told his readers (1 Peter 2:11): ‘Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.’”

• FEAR. “They fear different things (Isaiah 8:9-12). The Assyrians were looming over the nations north of Judah, including Syria and Israel. Some of the people were wanting to place their trust in an alliance with those nations to protect them rather than trusting in God to protect them … Eventually, in the long run, the plans of these foreign nations would be thwarted even if they initially have victory. The reason for this confidence is Immanuel, God with us. (v. 10).”

• RESPONSE. “They respond to God in different ways (Isaiah 8:13-15). They regard the Lord as holy. He shall be our fear and dread. He will either be our sanctuary or a Stone that we trip over … If we regard Him as holy, we remember Him even when life is scary, life becomes less scary and we experience His peace.”

• AUTHORITY. “They have a different source of authority (Isaiah 8:16-20). This Remnant people holds to God’s Word and preserves it for a later generation (vv. 16-17). In contrast to the other people who are consulting mediums and spiritists [or conspiracy theories!] … ‘To the Law and to the Testimony!’ That’s what the Remnant people listen to, that’s where they go for their authoritative explanation of life, accessible to all!”

• HOPE. “Their hope is in the Messiah (Isaiah 8:21-9:7) … Life seemed dark, but they look ahead to the Messiah. The Messiah will be the Great Light to those in Darkness (vv. 9:1-2). He would shine a light on a dark land – applied in Mathew 4 to Jesus as He began His ministry in the northern territories that were first carried away into exile. The Messiah will be the great liberator to those who are oppressed (vv. 9:3-5).

HOW TO LIVE AS REMNANT-CONFESSORS. The Editors offer a simplified Praxis as Summary to all they wisely, courageously write: (1) Place all confidence in God, not man. (2) Prepare to be marginalized, living as “a stranger in your own land.” (3) Do not live in fear of man or circumstances, but only fear your God. (4) Always regard the Lord as holy, thereby giving Him is rightful place in your life. (5) Live by God’s Word as your final authority, not man’s customs. (6) Place all hope, both temporal and eternal, in Christ the King.

God is in the process even now of Training each of us to live this way: Not in panic or overwhelming anxiety, but in a steady advance forward, stumblings along this Divine Learning Curve notwithstanding. He will get us there, beloved, so long as we sincerely wish to go for Him. He promised!

“I am convinced and confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will [continue to] perfect and complete it until the day of Christ Jesus [the time of His return].” – PHILIPPIANS 1:6, AMP

With only this Caveat, beloved: Again, so long as we deep down ‘desire’ to make the journey with Him to the very End of Time, if necessary. That is all He requires of us. Which in another way of saying what He wants of us: Everything!

V. FINAL THOUGHTS

I haven’t much else to say beloved, except for this: I cannot think of a better way to complete this essay, briefly and sharply enough, then by quoting once more our theological, spiritual Patron: DIETRICH BONHOEFFER.

“‘When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.’ It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.” – The Cost of Discipleship, 1937; edited

“WHO WILL GO FOR ME?” So do I dare one more time to inquire of each of you, and myself: Are we willing to go for Him, beloved? As with Abram who was called to a place he knew not, or Moses who chose to suffer with his fellow Jews rather than live in luxuriant power in Egypt.

Or more to the soul-stirring point, as with our King. Even our King, who once asked that if it were possible, let His Cup be passed from Him – but then uttered through tears of agony and blood-soaked sweat:

“Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” – MATTHEW 26:39, NKJV

Journalist DAN RATHER used to end his news broadcasts with this: “Courage.” Talk show host LAURA SCHLESINGER with this: “Do the right thing.” These two knew something about life in a fallen world that we must now embrace as Christians, as never before, for what lies ahead.

THE CHARGE. This is the same Sacred Commission God gives to all kings and rulers and princes and magistrates: ‘To be morally strong’ by the Love of Justice and Fairness, rendering the Kingdom stable (Psalm 99:4).

So then, beloved: Courage! Go and do the right thing! Thereby glorifying your Father who is in Heaven – no matter the personal cost.

Ever your servant, DK

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