Fw: It's impossible for a Christian to become Pres. of the U.S.?

From: Don Winterstein

> Thank God for all these willfully evil conspirators foisting their X-files-like conspiracies on the world. The result has been greater personal freedom and personal wealth for a larger percentage of citizens than at any other time. --Just proves that God works in strange ways and makes good things flow from evil intentions, wouldn't you say?

Hey Don,

I disagree that we are better off because of, rather than despite, the machinations of the conspiring wicked in high places. We are better off because of the past history of righteousness and upholding of Jesus as Lord in America, as for instance observed by Alexis de Tocqueville. I would have hoped that the somewhat numerous quotes from non-obscure people would have suggested that.

I do not intend any general lambasting of the unprecedented blessing that America has been to the world and especially to us Americans. But where have you been the last century? The trends since the centrists took over the colonies and created the U.S. (federal govt) hit the steep knee of the curve last century. America has steadily been losing its freedom, or haven't you noticed? Try to find one area of life where govt is not involved, requiring permits, licenses, reporting, and controls. There aren't any I can find. Most Americans have attitudes like the guy who jumped off the 100-story building and was heard passing the 50th floor saying: "So far, so good." Look at the trends; only they tell us, as best as anyone can predict, where America is headed. As Madison said,
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." James Madison

Tocqueville described well the current state of freedom in America (then, in contrast to other places) when he said long ago:

"The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided, men are seldom forced to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Americans are responding like frogs boiled in slowly heated water. But a few of us are jumping out.

As for your conclusion/question, I have to disagree. I see it as God's judgment coming upon a now-apostate people, a people who clearly show many of the attitudes of apostate Israel. Should we not expect the same response from God?

Dennis Feucht

----- Original Message -----
  From: Innovatia
  To: ASA Listserver
  Cc: Mark Ludwig
  Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2004 7:02 PM
  Subject: Fw: It's impossible for a Christian to become Pres. of the U.S.?

  From: "Michael Roberts" <michael.andrea.r@ukonlineco.uk>

> I think you suffer from a form of Perfectionism and overlook the view that
  we
> are simul peccator et justus and that applies whether we are president,
> prime minister or husband or wife.

  Okay, but I am dubious about how you might have reached that conclusion. I
  suspect you don't believe that people in power are as willfully evil as I am
  saying. That is the great credibility barrier to be overcome by present-day
  Christians in the developed world in understanding how the world is run.
  Look what some people in circles of power have said:
  "The picture is terrifying because such power, whatever the goals at which
  it is being directed, is too much to be entrusted to any group... No country
  that values its safety should allow what [the Rhodes-Milner] group
  accomplished - that is, that a small number of men would be able to wield
  such a power in administration and politics, should be given almost complete
  control over the publication of documents relating to their actions, should
  be able to exercise such influence over the avenues of information that
  create public opinion, and should be able to monopolize so completely the
  writing and the teaching of the history of their own period." Carroll
  Quigley, in his posthumously published exposé, The Anglo-American
  Establishment

  "The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so
  monstrous he cannot believe it exists." J. Edgar Hoover, former head of the
  FBI

  "I am concerned for the security of our nation, not so much because of any
  threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from
  within." General Douglas MacArthur

  "Some of the biggest men in the U.S. in the fields of commerce and
  manufacturing know that there is a power so organized, so subtle, so
  complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath
  when they speak in condemnation of it." Woodrow Wilson

  "The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial
  element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the
  days of Andrew Jackson." Franklin D. Roosevelt, Nov. 21, 1933, in a letter
  to Colonel Edward Mandell House, Wilson's handler for the New World Order

  "Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded
  not only in producing a more efficient and dedicated administration, but
  also in fostering high morale and community of purpose. ... The social
  experiment in China under Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most
  important and successful in human history." David Rockefeller, 1973

  "The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power." Oliver Wendell
  Holmes, Jr., 1913

  "Today Americans would be outraged if UN troops entered Los Angeles to
  restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if
  they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or
  promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples
  of the world will pledge with world leaders to deliver them from this evil.
  The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this
  scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee
  of their well-being granted to them by their world government." Henry
  Kissinger addressing the May 21, 1992 Bilderberger meeting in Evian, France.

  "Long live the Military Industrial Complex!" Pronouncement from notorious
  Iran-Contra figure Major General Richard V. Secord after draining a quart of
  Old Bushmills whiskey charged to the account of Southern Air Transport at
  the Oak Room Bar at the Miami Intercontinental Hotel in the summer of 1985 -
  Al Martin, ONI [Southern Air Transport: a CIA "cut-out"]

  "The [Council on Foreign Relations] grew out of the Inquiry, a secretive
  group of well-educated bankers and lawyers who accompanied Woodrow Wilson to
  the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The council saw [as] its mandate the
  calling of signals from the sidelines.... [T]he [elites] govern, while the
  lowly men of elective office...dirty their hands with politics... The
  international institutions conceived in 1945 - the UN, the World Bank, and
  the International Monetary Fund - were anticipated in studies done at the
  council." New York Magazine, Oct. 7, 1996.

  "Ah...America... Home of the naive. Land of the provincial...Thank God!"
  Pronouncement from a well-lubricated Senator Bob Dole at the 1985 Reagan
  Re-inauguration Dinner held at the Watergate Plaza - Al Martin, ONI

  Most American Christians simply cannot bring themselves to imagine that the
  people in power live in a motivational space nowhere near their own.

> Jimmy Carter was a Christian who made mistakes

  Again, my question is a variation on a theme. Do you know Jimmy Carter
  personally? How deeply into his background have you delved? What do you make
  of his association with Zbigniew Brzezinsky? (Even Eerdmans is duped by
  him.) And his attendance at the Bohemian Grove? (See www.infowars.com for
  this.) This isn't just a matter of sins in spite of faith. It's active,
  willful participation with evil people in power, in activities that are
  intentionally evil in purpose.

  "... This regionalization is in keeping with the Tri-Lateral Plan which
  calls for a gradual convergence of East and West, ultimately leading toward
  the goal of 'one world government.'... National sovereignty is no longer a
  viable concept ..." Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to
  President Jimmy Carter, who was instrumental in bringing him to power.

  "The evils of tyranny are rarely seen, but by him who resists it." John Hay
  1872

> One of our greatest Prime ministers Gladstone was a Christian and he got
> things wrong.

  The attitude underlying your argument is one of excusing evils by those in
  power. Why? Why not judge them by the criteria of scripture, by God's law,
  instead?

  I don't at all deny that in world history there have been some righteous
  rulers. I'm referring (to be specific) to post-WW II US Presidents, though
  one might expand that to most, if not all, 20th century presidents.
  Gladstone's predecessor said:

  "The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by
  those who are not behind the scenes." Benjamin Disraeli, first Prime
  Minister of Britain, in a novel he published in 1844 called Coningsby, the
  New Generation

  What do you think of Disraeli?

> And in my own way I get lots of things wrong
> Perhaps we should remember Luthers words "sin boldly" knowing that we try
  to
> do right but can be confident in Christ's forgiveness when we dont.

  That can be applied for Christians who understand Luthers intention well,
  but does not apply to the Devil's middle management. They sin
  matter-of-factly.
  It is a complete misreading of their actual intentions.

  "In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was
  planned that way." Franklin D. Roosevelt

> In the 70s Bill Burnett Archbishop of Cape Town said that no white
  Christian
> in South Africa could have a good conscience and was pilloried for it. I
> knew what he meant having lived in South Africa under Apartheid - my
  actions
> and words over racial matters often were not thoroughly Christian but in
  my
> mining company I was regarded as a blatant kaffir-boetie, which was an
> offensive term best expressed as nigger-lover.

  For the same general reason, I don't expect my expression, and similar
  discoveries by a minority of other Christians, of what we have found from
  some concerted study of the world-system to be popular among most American
  Christians. I would hope that scientific people would be more aware, but
  that happens to not be the case either. We don't have time to be good at
  both science/engineering and the world-system in most cases. Even in ASA,
  where wider interests are expected, I do not find it. Ex-ASAer Mark Ludwig
  (www.ameaglepubs.com ) comes closest.

> We are all fallen

  While this is true in itself, it is a faulty emphasis in dealing with the
  world-system and will mislead unless much discernment is also applied along
  with it. Excusing evil in high places dulls one's discernment of the true
  nature of the world-system.
  "As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both
  instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged,
  and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air,
  however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness." Supreme
  Court Justice William O. Douglas

  Dennis Feucht
Received on Fri Oct 8 14:55:02 2004