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.
Excellent article, brother. Will weigh in when I have opportunity.
It is explained by Romans 9-11 - that all Israel, being defined as those elected to be "children of the promise," will be saved. Ethnicity ain't got nothing to do with it, since God can raise up from these stones children for Abraham.
Which is why the idea that the Jews get their own special dispensation is offensive.
(Would it kill you to lay off the Hebraisms? They're pretentious.)
OP was so sure of his interpretive method that he was willing to call down damnation from God against any who disagreed with his interpretive method. Well is he ready to call down damnation from God against anyone who opposes gay marriage between same sex Christians?
Somehow I think not. But these days nothing surprises me. I would have thought that saying G-- D--- was out of bounds on the religion forum. But it seems that is quickly becoming an acceptable fad. Maybe it will replace "Purpose Driven" as the new universal Christian adjective. Instead of people going to a PD Church, they can go to a GD Church.
We are not "right here today," according to your definitions. The State of Israel has far from returned to God - they reject him, embracing secularism instead.
Only way we could be here today is if, as we amillenialists hold, the Kingdom is here now and it is a spiritual reality.
I take it you don't want to deal with the text of Hosea 3:4-5 and respond directly to my questions either. I think the legal term for your post is "non responsive."
The answer is stricken.
The jury is admonished to disregard the answer.
The witness is admonished to answer the question.
Note I did not say...
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 {{WE ARE RIGHT HERE TODAY}} .
I did say...
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.
They have returned they have yet to seek. The scattered dry bones are re-assembled but as of yet they do not live (Ezek 37).
oops, I left off the 24. Ping to 88.
I can live with this. Unfortunately, your position is not that of all dispensationalists.
whether rejecting a false, anti-semetic image of Jesus is the same as rejecting the real Messiah--suffice to say I don't think so.
I'm not going to let that slide, however. (It's relevant to this post, so let's talk about it.) The Scriptures are clear that even those who reject a false parody of what they think Christ was are still responsible. Ghandi rejected Christianity because of what Christians did - that no more justifies his decision than it does any Jew or Gentile.
So because "some" Dispys hold to a form of dual-covenantism, you're going to claim that the system as a whole teaches that? .... Or do you agree that we should not judge a theological system by its abuses?
This is no abuse. When I was investigating Dallas Theological Seminary, I sat in on a class where the professor was arguing that we are not now in the New Covenant, since that's reserved to a future dispensation. Nope, we are in some grand parenthesis. This is rank-and-file dispensationalism.
Take it up with all the authors of Scripture, then. Sha'ul was the one who said that "all Israel"--defined as those who were then enemies of the Gospel and who yet were still beloved of God for the sake of the patriarchs, both of which rule out that "Israel" here really means "the Church"--would be saved "when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in."
(Would it kill you to lay off the Hebraisms? They're pretentious.)
It wouldn't kill me, but since it apparently hasn't been driven home with everyone here that the Bible is a fundamentally Jewish document (even those parts written in Greek), I'm going to continue to use Hebraisms until it has.
Just because you don't like the answer doesn't make it non-responsive.
True.
It was non responsive because it did not address Hosea 3:4-5 or any on the questions I asked about that text. Yours was a fine answer to a question that was not asked.
But I'll let you try again.
My objection would be the same if you were utilizing superfluous Greek too. It's pretentious. Everyone has heard of the Apostle Paul. Only because of the novelty of faux-Hebraisms does anyone refer to him as Sha'ul.
defined as those who were then enemies of the Gospel and who yet were still beloved of God for the sake of the patriarchs, both of which rule out that "Israel" here really means "the Church"
Not necessarily. They've been broken off, we've been ingrafted, those elected will be grafted in again - to the same tree - the church.
The fact that you didn't like the answer doesn't change the fact that it is true.
What did British-Israelism ascend from?
Are you going to object again?
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