The Humanist Religion, Part 3 (A Christian Manifesto Today #22)

This podcast is aimed at showing Christian pastors, leaders, and individuals the devastating consequences of sitting quietly by and letting society continue to go against God and His Word. This podcast also aims to encourage Christians to be courageous, to speak up, and to resist this present day evil by standing up for God and His truth in an age when truth is fast fading away from the public square. As Peter and the apostles declared in Acts 5:29, "We must obey God rather than man.”

Our Christian Manifesto Today Passage from the Word of God today is Matthew 5:13 which reads: "Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."

Our Christian Manifesto Today quote today is from Ken Ham. He said: "Anti-Christian ideology has permeated much of the secular news media, and so often Biblical Christians are mocked, misrepresented or attacked for what they believe by anti-Christian agenda driven reporters."

In this podcast, we are using as our text: "A Christian Manifesto" by Francis A. Schaeffer. Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer writes on "The Humanist Religion" (Part 3):

Most fundamentally, our culture, society, government, and law are in the condition they are in, not because of a conspiracy, but because the church has forsaken its duty to be the salt of the culture. It is the church’s duty (as well as its privilege) to do now what it should have been doing all the time – to use the freedom we do have to be that salt of the culture. If the slide toward authoritarianism is to be reversed we need a committed Christian church that is dedicated to what John W. Whitehead calls “total revolution in the reformative sense.”

Some of us may perhaps have some questions about the Moral Majority and some of the things they have said. But I would say one thing we certainly must do is get our information about anything like the Moral Majority not from the secular media, which so largely have the same humanistic perspective as the rest of culture has today. If we are going to make judgments on any such subject we must not get our final judgments uncritically from media that see things from this perspective and see it that way honestly. Most of the media do not have to be dishonest to slide things in their own direction because they see through the spectacles of a finally relativistic set of ethical personal and social standards.

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The Humanist Religion, Part 2 (A Christian Manifesto Today #21)

This podcast is aimed at showing Christian pastors, leaders, and individuals the devastating consequences of sitting quietly by and letting society continue to go against God and His Word. This podcast also aims to encourage Christians to be courageous, to speak up, and to resist this present day evil by standing up for God and His truth in an age when truth is fast fading away from the public square. As Peter and the apostles declared in Acts 5:29, "We must obey God rather than man.”

Our Christian Manifesto Today Passage from the Word of God today is Psalm 33:12 which reads: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance."

Our Christian Manifesto Today quote today is from Billy Graham. He said: "The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion."

In this podcast, we are using as our text: "A Christian Manifesto" by Francis A. Schaeffer. Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer writes on "The Humanist Religion" (Part 2):

The ruling of the Supreme Court in the Torcaso v. Watkins case in 1961 is instructive in another way. It shows that within the span of 28 years the Supreme Court turned radically from a Christian memory to the humanistic consensus. In 1933 in the United States v. MacIntosh case about conscientious objection, Justice Hughes stated in his dissent:

"The essence of religion is belief in a relation to God involving duties superior to those arising from any human relation….One cannot speak of religious liberty, with proper appreciation of its essential and historical significance, without assuming the existence of a belief in supreme allegiance to the will of God."

In 1965 in United States v. Seeger, also about conscientious objection, the Court held that the test of religious belief is a “sincere and meaningful belief which occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to that filled by the God of those admittedly qualifying for the exemption.” This, of course, is a drastic change away from the position of 1933.

The Humanist Religion, Part 1 (A Christian Manifesto Today #20)

This podcast is aimed at showing Christian pastors, leaders, and individuals the devastating consequences of sitting quietly by and letting society continue to go against God and His Word. This podcast also aims to encourage Christians to be courageous, to speak up, and to resist this present day evil by standing up for God and His truth in an age when truth is fast fading away from the public square. As Peter and the apostles declared in Acts 5:29, "We must obey God rather than man.”

Our Christian Manifesto Today Passage from the Word of God today is Matthew 5:13 which reads: "Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."

Our Christian Manifesto Today quote today is from Shelton Smith. He said: "The secularists, the humanists, the liberals — those who have no use for God–continue to do what they want to do, not realizing that their philosophy is flawed and will fail. One day it will be too late for many of them."

In this podcast, we are using as our text: "A Christian Manifesto" by Francis A. Schaeffer. Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer writes on "The Humanist Religion" (Part 1):

The humanists have openly told us their views of final reality. The Humanist Manifesto I (1933), page 8 says

Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.
Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any super-natural or cosmic guarantees of human values.

And Carl Sagan indoctrinated millions of unsuspecting viewers with this humanistic final view of reality in the public television show Cosmos: “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” The humanist view has infiltrated every level of society.

If we are going to join the battle in a way that has any hope of effectiveness – with Christians truly being salt and the light in our culture and our society – then we must do battle on the entire front. We must not finally even battle on the front for freedom, and specifically not only our freedom. It must be on the basis of Truth. Not just religious truths, but the Truth of what the final reality is. It is impersonal material or is it the living God?

The Destruction of Faith and Freedom, Part 6 (A Christian Manifesto Today #19)

This podcast is aimed at showing Christian pastors, leaders, and individuals the devastating consequences of sitting quietly by and letting society continue to go against God and His Word. This podcast also aims to encourage Christians to be courageous, to speak up, and to resist this present day evil by standing up for God and His truth in an age when truth is fast fading away from the public square. As Peter and the apostles declared in Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than man.”

Our Christian Manifesto Today passage from the Word of God today is Romans 3:12 which reads: "They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one."

Our Christian Manifesto Today quote today is from A.W. Tozer. He said: "’Let God be true but every man a liar’ is the language of true faith."

In this podcast, we are using as our text: "A Christian Manifesto" by Francis A. Schaeffer. Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer writes on "The Destruction of Faith and Freedom" (Part 6):

The law, and especially the courts, is the vehicle to force this total humanistic way of thinking upon the entire population. This is what has happened. The abortion law is a perfect example. The Supreme Court abortion ruling invalidated abortion laws in all fifty states, even though it seems clear that in 1973 the majority of Americans were against abortion. It did not matter. The Supreme Court arbitrarily ruled that abortion was legal, and overnight they overthrew the state laws and forced onto American thinking not only that abortion was legal, but that it was ethical. They, as an elite, thus forced their will on the majority, even though their ruling was arbitrarily both legally and medically. Thus law and the courts became the vehicle for forcing a totally secular concept on the population.

The Destruction of Faith and Freedom, Part 5 (A Christian Manifesto Today #18)

Our Christian Manifesto Today passage from the Word of God today is John 14:6 which reads: "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

Our Christian Manifesto Today quote today is from J.C. Ryle. He said: "Never let us be guilty of sacrificing any portion of truth on the altar of peace."

In this podcast, we are using as our text: "A Christian Manifesto" by Francis A. Schaeffer. If you enjoy this podcast, please feel free to purchase a copy of this book from our website at: http://www.TorchLeadershipFoundation.com.

Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer writes on "The Destruction of Faith and Freedom" (Part 5):

In the book and film series How Should We Then Live? I used the Supreme Court abortion case as the clearest illustration of arbitrary sociological law. But it was only the clearest illustration. The law is shot through with this kind of ruling. It is similar to choosing Fletcher’s situational ethics and pointing to it as the clearest illustration of how our society now functions with no fixed ethics. This is only the clearest illustration, because in many ways our society functions on unfixed, situational ethics.

The abortion case in law is exactly the same. It is only the clearest case. Law in this country has become situational law, using the term Fletcher used for his ethics. That is, a small group of people decide arbitrarily what, from their viewpoint, is for the good of society at that precise moment and they make it law, binding the whole society by their personal arbitrary decisions.

But of course! What would we expect? These things are the natural, inevitable results of the material-energy, humanistic concept of the final basic reality. From the material-energy, chance concept of final reality, final reality is, and must be by its nature, silent as to values, principles, or any basis for law. There is no way to ascertain “the ought” from “the is”. Not only should we have known what this would have produced, but on the basis of this viewpoint of reality, we should have recognized that there are no other conclusions that this view could produce. It is a natural result of really believing that the basic reality of all things is merely material-energy, shaped into its present form by impersonal chance.

No, we must say that the Christians in the legal profession did not ring the bell, and we are indeed very, very far down the road toward a totally humanistic culture. At this moment we are in a humanistic culture, but we are happily not in a totally humanistic culture. But what we must realize is that the drift has been all in this direction. If it is not turned around we will move very rapidly into a totally humanistic culture.

Lord willing, we will continue looking at the topic of The Destruction of Faith and Freedom in our next episode.

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Dear friend, if you are listening today, and you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, allow me to show you how:

First, accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God’s law. The Bible says in Romans 3:23: "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

Second, accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death…”

Third, accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10:28: "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Also, the Bible states in Revelation 21:8: "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Now this is bad news, but here’s the good news. Jesus Christ said in John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Just believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead by the power of God for you so that you can live eternally with Him. Pray and ask Him to come into your heart today, and He will.

Romans 10:9-13 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Until next time, my friend, continue to stand for the Lord and his Word. God bless you!

The Destruction of Faith and Freedom, Part 4 (A Christian Manifesto Today #17)

Our Christian Manifesto Today passage from the Word of God today is John 17:17 which reads: "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth."

Our Christian Manifesto Today quote today is from Martin Luther’s Reply to the Diet of Worms. He said: "Since then your sere Majesty and your Lordships seek a simple answer, I will give it in this manner, neither horned nor toothed. Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen."

In this podcast, we are using as our text: "A Christian Manifesto" by Francis A. Schaeffer.Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer writes on "The Destruction of Faith and Freedom" (Part 4):

This greater mixture in the United States, however, is now used as an excuse for the new meaning and connotation of pluralism. It now is used to mean that all types of situations are spread out before us, and that it really is up to each individual to grab one or the other on the way past, according to the whim of personal preference. What you take is only a matter of personal choice, with one choice as valid as another. Pluralism has come to mean that everything is acceptable. This new concept of pluralism suddenly is everywhere. There is no right or wrong; it is just a matter of your personal preference. On a recent Sixty Minutes program on television, for example, the questions of euthanasia of the old and the growing of marijuana as California’s largest paying crop were presented this way. One choice is as valid as another. It is just a matter of personal preference. This new definition and connotation of pluralism is presented in many forms, not only in personal ethics, but in society’s ethics and in choices concerning law.

The Destruction of Faith and Freedom, Part 3 (A Christian Manifesto Today #16)

Our Christian Manifesto Today passage from the Word of God today is 2 Corinthians 10:5 which reads: "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;"

Our Christian Manifesto Today quote today is from C.S. Lewis. He said: "A Christian society is not going to arrive until most of us really want it: and we are not going to want it until we become fully Christian. I may repeat "Do as you would be done by" till I am black in the face, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbour as myself: and I cannot learn to love my neighbour as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him. And so, as I warned you, we are driven on to something more inward – driven on from social matters to religious matters."

In this podcast, we are using as our text: "A Christian Manifesto" by Francis A. Schaeffer.Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer writes on "The Destruction of Faith and Freedom" (Part 3):

Will Durant and his wife Ariel together wrote The Story of Civilization. The Durants received the 1976 Humanist Pioneer Award. In The Humanist magazine of February 1977, Will Durant summed up the humanist problem with regard to personal ethics and social order: “Moreover, we shall find it no easy task to mold a natural ethic strong enough to maintain moral restraint and social order without the support of supernatural consolations, hopes, and fears.”

Poor Will Durant! It is not just difficult, it is impossible. He should have remembered the quotation he and Ariel Durant gave from the agnostic Renan in their book The Lessons of History. According to the Durants, Renan said in 1866: “If Rationalism wishes to govern the world without regard to the religious needs of the soul, the experience of the French Revolution is there to teach us the consequences of such a blunder.” And the Durants themselves say in the same context: “There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.”

The Destruction of Faith and Freedom, Part 2 (A Christian Manifesto Today #15)

Daniel Whyte III Daniel Whyte III</

Pastor and Christian philosopher, Francis A. Schaeffer, warned us and created the war plan that we as Christians need today to deal with a society that is increasingly moving away from God, the Bible, and moral principles. He wrote “A Christian Manifesto” 33 years ago and its words are just as relevant today as they were back then. Dr. Schaeffer shows how the United States began as a nation built on biblical principles, but slowly became more pluralistic and humanistic in its ways. Since humanism places man above God, this thought pattern pushed society into a downward spiral that we have not begun to recover from. He further warned that the decline of preaching objective, biblical truth to every aspect of society would be the result of the church of Jesus Christ forsaking its responsibility to be the salt and light in the world. This podcast is aimed at showing Christian pastors, leaders, and individuals the devastating consequences of sitting quietly by and letting society continue to go against God and His Word. This podcast also aims to encourage Christians to be courageous, to speak up, and to resist this present day evil by standing up for God and His truth in an age when truth is fast fading away from the public square. As Peter and the apostles declared in Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than man.”

Our Christian Manifesto Today passage from the Word of God today is Isaiah 59:19 which reads: "When the enemy comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him."

Our Christian Manifesto Today quote today is from Craig Groeschel. He said: "Don’t worry when you meet opposition for obeying God. Worry when you don’t have opposition, because you’re probably not obeying God."

In this podcast, we are using as our text: "A Christian Manifesto" by Francis A. Schaeffer.

Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer writes on "The Destruction of Faith and Freedom" (Part 2):

Naturally, this shift from the Judeo-Christian basis for law and the shift away from the restraints of the Constitution automatically militates against religious liberty. Mr. Ball closes his paper with the following:

"Fundamentally, in relation to personal liberty, the Constitution was aimed at restraint of the State. Today, in case after case relating to religious liberty, we encounter the bizarre presumption that it is the other way around; that the State is justified in whatever action, and that religion bears a great burden of proof to overcome that presumption. It is our job, as Christian lawyers, to destroy that presumption at every turn."

As lawyers discuss the changes in law in the United States, often they speak of the influence of the laws passed in relationship to the Mormons and to the laws involved in the reentrance of the southern states into the national government after the Civil War. These indeed must be considered. But they were not the reason for the drastic change in law in our country. The reason was the takeover by the totally other worldview which would never have given the form and freedom in government we have had in Northern Europe (including the United States). That is the central factor in the change.

The Destruction of Faith and Freedom, Part 1 (A Christian Manifesto Today #14)

Daniel Whyte III Daniel Whyte III</

Our Christian Manifesto Today passage from the Word of God today is 1 Samuel 12:14 which reads: "If ye will fear the LORD, and serve him, and obey his voice, and not rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then shall both ye and also the king that reigneth over you continue following the LORD your God:".

Our Christian Manifesto Today quote today is from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He said: "If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws".

In this podcast, we are using as our text: "A Christian Manifesto" by Francis A. Schaeffer.

Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer writes on "The Destruction of Faith and Freedom" (Part 1):

In most law schools today almost no one studies William Blackstone unless he or she is taking a course in the history of law. We live in a secularized society and in secularized, sociological law. By sociological law we mean law that has no fixed base but law in which a group of people decides what is sociologically good for society at the given moment; and what they arbitrarily decide becomes law. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935) made totally clear that this was his position. Frederick Moore Vinson (1890-1953), former Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, said, “Nothing is more certain in modern society than the principle that there are no absolutes.” Those who hold this position themselves call it sociological law.

Foundations for Freedom and Faith, Part 6 (A Christian Manifesto Today #13)

Our Christian Manifesto Today passage from the Word of God today is Exodus 20:3-7 which reads: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”

Our Christian Manifesto Today quote today is from Thomas Jefferson. He said: “I am a Christian, that is to say a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator and, I hope, to the pure doctrine of Jesus also.”

In this podcast, we are using as our text: “A Christian Manifesto” by Francis A. Schaeffer. Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer writes on “Foundations for Faith and Freedom” (Part 6):

To William Blackstone there were only two foundations for law, nature and revelation, and he stated clearly that he was speaking of the “holy Scripture.” That was William Blackstone. And up to the recent past not to have been a master of William Blackstone’s Commentaries would have meant that you would not have graduated from law school. There were other well-known lawyers who spelled these things out with total
clarity. Joseph Story in his 1829 inaugural address as Dane Professor of Law at Harvard University said, “There never has been a period in which Common Law did not recognize Christianity as laying at its foundation.”

Concerning John Adams (1735-1826) Terry Eastland says:

“….most people agreed that our law was rooted, as John Adams had said, in a common moral and religious tradition, one that stretched back to the time Moses went up on Mount Sinai. Similarly almost everyone agreed that our liberties were God-given and should be exercised responsibly. There was a distinction between liberty and license.”

What we find then as we look back is that the men who founded the United States of America really understood that upon which they were building their concepts of law and the concepts of government. And until the takeover of our government and law by this other entity, the materialistic, humanistic, chance worldview, these things remained the base of government and law.