asking Randy if he could make out the artwork on the whiteboard. I'm sure it's not very easy to see. But, I mean, we're almost halfway through the class. I see a Duchamp on the... Oh, you do? Well, I guess in the spirit of post-modernism it can be whatever you want it to be. and the observer. I'm really fascinated by this concept that Schaefer talks about so frequently called the form-freedom balance. And fascinated enough that I'm trying to draw a picture of it. So I've started out like this with just an x-y axis and on the x-axis on the far left I've put freedom, on the far right I've put form. in the middle is somewhere that Form and Freedom will balance out. And then I've drawn an inverted curve over the top of that, where on the far left-hand side I've written Anarchy, and on the far right-hand side I've written Tyranny. And so we're trying to find how do we balance Form and Freedom We end up with anarchy if we have too much form and not enough freedom. We end up with tyranny. What's on the y-axis? Well, that's an interesting question. I don't have a good answer for that. But the inverted curve is intended to convey the idea that the balance of form and freedom is not a stable system. So if we were to put a marble on top of this curve, it's going to want to either roll or roll towards anarchy. So I'm kind of puzzling through this process myself and thinking that if we have somewhere in the middle, that sweet spot, that balance between form and freedom, the kind of form and freedom that we had when the country was founded, what we could call The closest thing we have to that now is libertarianism. Yeah, and that takes us in which direction? The lack of form. Towards more freedom and less form, right? Right. So if we started out somewhere in here, that we're throwing away virtue in the pursuit of an autonomous freedom, or radical autonomy as I call it, where there are no constraints at all. But then we get down here to this radical autonomy, and frankly we discover it has some bad effects. I don't necessarily like the results that I get with that. government where I would take responsibility for my choices. So this is my current hypothesis, you can tell me whether you like it or not, that we start throwing away virtue on our way to total freedom, we get to this point and realize that we don't want to be responsible for what that freedom brings us in terms of bad consequences, so we throw away personal responsibility, and we end up with tyranny. And we are somewhere on this path as we speak. Attempting to abandon individual responsibility and self-restraint in exchange for absolute freedom that we think will give us the meaning that we're looking for, finding out that it creates a very bad social environment, and then saying to the government, come in and fix it. And the government's only solution is what? Fix it entirely. Force. That's right. Just brute force. And of course, they don't want to impugn the elements of society that really foster the problem, they tend to impugn the elements of society that are undergirding forces. Just like recently we see in Canada, a high school boy is arrested for maintaining there are only two genders. Yeah, how could he do such a thing? And that brings up another avenue of thinking, and it is in your notes somewhere in these next eight or ten pages, and that is the idea that as we're moving from anarchy to tyranny, there's going to be, first of all, a loss of free speech, which is what you're just describing, but is that where it stops? Is it enough just to put a piece of tape over your mouth and tell you, you may have an opinion, but you don't get to say anything? No, I think it ends in ethnic... You might want to say another adjective than ethnic, but I think it ends in some kind of purge. Genocide, yeah. Well, here's where I think it goes. And if we think in terms of the First Amendment protection to free speech, what is it really protecting? What's behind that? I'll just write here. Whoops. Free speech. We have protections against limitations on speech. Oh, so freedom of speech, the antecedent to freedom of speech is freedom of thought. And then there's one more layer here that I want you to have in mind. Close belief. What we hold to be true and self-evident. I see he seems to be frozen there. So are you. He's not, I can't see any movement. Uh oh. Uh oh. It's having to reconnect. It lost the connection. Recording in progress. Okay. We lost the connection momentarily. You're muted. end up having the free speech in those circumstances are the elite. Well, the ones who make the rules can say what they want, right? comment. We didn't hear you. All right, what did you say? What did you say, Raymond? I was thinking in terms of creed and belief that people are allowed to hold a body of truth as independently sacred of Think about campus speeches where they can be shouted down or canceled. Or physically abused. Here's what I want to say. The opposite of conscience is death. Is that what you're trying to say? No, what I'm saying is conscience is the seat of individual authority. Conscience that is in in alignment with the Word of God. So it's the Word of God that informs conscience. What's right and wrong. That seems like thought to me. Well and that leads to makes it clear that there is, while it affirms freedom of conscience, it's also saying that conscience is under another authority. So when we think about in terms of the relationship of authorities, the way that I would describe it is that the highest authority is individual conscience. and then we place that individual conscience under the authorities that are established by God, such as the family, such as the state, such as the church, but that when there's a conflict, what is going to carry the day? Is it the authority structure? Or is it the authority of individual conscience under the higher authority of the Word of God. And that's why the founders said we're endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. So, that speaks to that, but the state that is rogue and ungodly doesn't adhere to that. So, here's the way that I'm wanting to put this. that the tyrannical state is not just going to be happy if you keep your mouth shut. They want you to know what to think. They want to control how you think, and they also want to control conscience, which is where you determine right and wrong. Rather than conscience being under the authority of scripture, of what you say, but... Maybe morality? Maybe morality is what you meant? Yes, well that's... it's ultimately conscience informed by the Word of God that differentiates between right and wrong. Is this why Nikita Khrushchev said that they would take over the a lot of voices early on, like George Putnam, they were speaking to the issue of pornography and morality, saying this is a part of a bigger conspiracy. It's a revolution. This country. Yeah, I think yes to all of the above. And part of what we get out of the Christian Manifesto are Schaeffer's comments regarding the influence of the media. In chapter 4 he says, the ability of the communications media to change our perception of any event raises serious questions concerning the democratic processes. What does he mean by that? That's on the top of I think that the goal is to get to the children as early as possible. Because you control their thinking. Yeah, you start to shape their way of thinking from a very early age. And of course, you sear their conscience at a very early age. So what does Schaefer mean when he says that the ability of the media to manipulate perceptions raises concerns about the democratic process? How does that undermine? Oh my goodness. We saw what Facebook did. Facebook pumped in like $400 million, or am I wrong? Am I under assessing it? into controlling the election and to get people to harvest ballots and all of that kind of stuff. And I'm speaking more in terms of political, but yet it's power. It's exercised power, and it purports tyranny. Yeah, if it's the case that the media can create any perception, whether it's true or not, and it creates a particular perception so that you believe a certain thing and behave a certain way, such as voting for a certain candidate, then that's really the end of democracy as we know it. It's then just a matter of manipulation. It all becomes a show. There was an interesting quote here. Let's see. Where? Nothing is more certain in modern society than the principle that there are no absolutes. Well, that was a little alarming coming from somebody who sat on the Supreme Court. It was a comment about In Washington, the media is just part of the show. So true. Here it is. It's at the top of page 11 in the very same spot. I wasn't looking right back where I started. So Charles Peters in 1980 says the media are part of the show in Washington DC. Wow, 1980. The quote from Schaefer there at the top of that page, we must realize that things can easily be presented on television so that the perception of the thing may be quite different from the fact itself. Oh, you mean like the so-called insurrection on January 6th? That's one that just immediately came to my mind. Sure, throwing softballs to the candidate that they choose and making it more difficult for the other even to respond. Haven't you ever heard of handicap advantage? Yeah, well, and Schaefer uses the example of how Dr. Koop was treated. Surgeon General of the United States in the Reagan administration. And who was the Supreme Court? Clarence Thomas in the 1990s. Oh my gosh, that was just... Yeah, did you see the documentary on Clarence Thomas that came out a couple years ago? It's worth watching. It shows clips from process and it was a reminder that the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at that time was a senator named Joe Biden. Well all of this stuff that's happening I think in the media and journalism and those kind of things today is contributing a lot to a sense of hopelessness I think for American public because we sit there and we see all of this and we know that a lot of it is lies. And we sit there and go, what can we do? I mean, you know, it's like, where do you go? Yeah. And not only that, but I think even the things that are true If all you do is broadcast every tragedy from every corner of the earth into everyone's living rooms every day, and that's all you see, and I make this comment in the chapter on sentimentality at the end, that that has the potential to create kind of a sense of learned helplessness. You're watching all this tragedy happening all over the world and You're depressed by it and part of your frustration is that there's nothing you can do to change it. And to suggest that that's not on purpose I think is naive. I think that's part of the plan of turning us into than feeling helpless about what's happening so that there's less that we can do. Now, Schaefer... Because bad news sells while good news does not. Yes, if it bleeds, it leads. That's the rule of thumb in the media. Well, and the pandemic did a huge disservice. Well, it served the powers that be purposefully because it separated people. and left people alone. Isolation. Isolated. Yeah. And what has that done? The pandemic is that there's evidence leading to the fact that the CCP used that pandemic to disable the Western world in order to let their country get ahead. And they are considering their own people Then we talk about that particular issue last week about the problem with group identity. And that's characteristic of the Eastern religions. Adding zeros. It's the group identity. The individual only has value by virtue of being part of the group and the individual becomes expendable. Hey, minus 500 million zeros. Well, and it was also the case that the virus was the most deadly to the most vulnerable, which typically meant the eldest part of the population, those who were already probably in the category that we would call non-productive. put money into the game function of that virus to enhance it to do its dirty work. Yep. And then the question becomes, why would you do that sort of thing? Why would you go trying to make a virus that's even more deadly? And by the way, didn't we see something about that in church at the end of the 20th century? The warning about the potential to engineer deadly viruses. Schaefer said that back in 1970. He was remarkable in his ability to see where these things were taking us. So what do you think in terms of what would you say are the best takeaways from Christian Manifesto? One or two things. For those of you who had to read the book. Speak up. We have to be willing to speak in the public square to whatever degree God allows us to have that mobility into the public. Is that a basic biblical moral requirement? 3310 in the King James Version, it speaks to the clarity of what we must use of speech to reach people. We have to be willing to say to people who are on their way to death, There's only remedy there, there's only healing there, and if you don't turn that way, then you're going to be lost, you're going to lose your soul, and the culture is going to be lost also. So there's truth and it matters, and there's a moral duty to speak the truth, and even more specifically, a moral prohibition of remaining silent in the face of truth. Because what message does silence give? Go right ahead. It's OK. Yeah, it becomes a form of tacit approval. Tacit approval. That's right. It's called evangelism. Yeah, that's the Great Commission. It's carrying the truth to a lost world. So that's certainly part of it. What do you think of Schaeffer's statements along the lines that America was built on what he repeatedly calls a Christian consensus, which is frankly a little fuzzy as terminology is concerned? Were we built on a Christian consensus and was that an adequate base for building a country? this idea of you know nature's God but then you also had pastors and and Christians you know in the founding of this government and some Jewish people also that believed in the eternal invisible God and so maybe we won't want to say this is The first people that came here really felt like they were establishing a Christian commonwealth, the Puritans and Jamestown. It was the closest thing to a Christian commonwealth, I think. They did their best as humanly possible to make one, though it kind of folded in on itself. It really was a city on its own. Yeah, and it was also a way of getting away from the persecution that was happening back in their native land. Randy. idea that you could, by reason, discover things. And, you know, he established that. So I think that's what he's talking about. He said a number of times they had this consensus, even though they themselves were not necessarily Christians. There was a moral base to draw from. So it could be And in terms of the solution he's suggesting for us, as we have the window open to do something, is the objective for us to get back to that Christian consensus, whatever it was. Is that the solution? How do you recapture all of the hardened hearts. Yet it would almost have to be a new generational thing, where a new generation comes up that somehow God stirs them. Well, we're seeing part of that in the new Gen Z that's coming about in the colleges that are having revivals in Though they may seem small, they're still happening right now. Right. I know people are trying to pull it off. They're intimating something like this through this Jesus revolution movie and all of that, but I have no confidence in what happened around that circle. I know some good things came out of it, but there were some things that were really off base about it too. Yeah, it's very easy for us to stick a label called revival on some spectacular thing that's going on that might not have a lot to do with the Word of God or the work of the Holy Spirit. And in any case, you know, and here's part of the thing, if it didn't bother you, it bothered me, and I'll just go ahead and say so, that I'm a little squeamish that he's quoting from Charles Finney's systematic theology. the source of Reformed teaching that I would go to. Oh gosh, I thought it was Albert Finney. I'm sorry. I would be more comfortable with Albert Finney's theology than Charles Finney's theology. He's referring to the Second Great Awakening, which was revivalism probably as much or more than it was really an awakening compared to the First Great Awakening. But I tend to agree with what you're saying there. If it's the case that if we're going to rebuild a Christian consensus, then doesn't that start with evangelism? And not trying to gain some kind of leverage in terms of government power or whatever. Part of the criticism of the Christian manifesto, and we'll look at this later in the class, is that it really doesn't give us much of a solution of how to do what Schaefer says we need to do. It tends to be very vague at that point. It seems to me that if it was a Christian consensus, so called, that was used as the basis for building this country, and that we have fallen away from that, then doesn't that call into question whether it was an adequate base to begin with? And I agree. I think I said that it was not adequate. There was a lot going on from the beginning. It didn't take the New England colonies very long to go from Reformation Christianity to Well post well after post-reformation they went from Sicilian and Unitarian and all that Spreading down through the country within a little more than a generation, right? Yes, what's hard to really? equate here with following a line of Reformed theology all the way through is that the Methodists actually are credited with taking the gospel to the country through their circuit riding preachers and people willing to brave the elements and the tribulations of taking the gospel physically notes prepared the colonies for you know the the revolution but but the taking the gospel to the nation was I think you can credit more to the Wesleyan people but again there's oh there's a chink in the armor with that synergism synergistic message yes it ends up being a If you put too much faith in human works and not enough faith in the work of God, then once again you're building on very shaky ground. In chapter five he refers to the fact that when they were doing seminars, on whatever happened to the human race, quote, the call for a public stand against abortion was not widely accepted at first. And that they weren't well attended, he says, even much of the evangelical leadership did not want to become involved. Because it was Roman Catholic, probably. We're talking about the evangelical church now. So when the message is brought to the evangelical church, the evangelical leaders are saying not really interested in getting behind this. Maybe they didn't want to enter politics? Well, maybe. If it's literally a matter of life and death, the sanctity of human life, Yeah, it makes no sense. you would think that this would be pretty close to the top of your list of things to get behind. But it turns out not so much to be the case. I used to have an elder who used to poke at me like saying, when did the Christian right cease control, you know, with this abortion message? And, you know, we don't address that here at this church. And, you know, we look at other issues that are important. This is an OPC elder saying to me that, you know, I really think issues that are going on, the racial justice and all of that are way more important than abortion. What about the living? You say the unborn. What about the born? That was positive to me. Well then what about the other end of things and the euthanasia that's starting to take place now? Yeah, Schaefer was warning us about that 40 years ago. I mean, now they want to get rid of old people just because they're not productive. You could see that coming. And especially when health care is now under the control of government, when our demographics are inverted, when it's a well-established fact that it's you old people who spend the most money in the health care system, then we have to come up with a low-cost solution for that. And morphine is a pretty low-cost solution. And I think we're even going to message that in a way that says, and this is something that's happening in Japan right now. I was just watching part of a documentary the other day that's startling. That the demographic problem in Japan is not just that there are a preponderance of old people, but they're old widows. They have no husband, they have no family to care for them and the state is beginning to lean on them and say, don't you have a duty to kill yourself for the good of society. That is not foreign to Japanese culture per se. So it is not hard to imagine a scenario where we start seeing that kind of message. And look at the craziness that is going on in Canada right now with their medical people. So that's the euphemism, medical assistance in dying. And now they even want to extend medically assisted suicide to children up to a year old. You're going to have to explain to me how a six month old baby is going to give informed consent for his suicide. I think the word for that is infanticide. So that is what we're wrestling with and that's Ben Shaffer's argument all along the way. Now I think he does make some good and necessary points in respect to tyranny and our response to tyranny that there does come a point where civil disobedience is necessary. He goes well out of his way to talk about how civil disobedience goes all the way back to the very beginning of the church, the refusal to worship Caesar, and then through the reformation of civil disobedience that was necessary really from the get-go. And, you know, one of my favorite acts of disobedience is Luther at the Diet of Warps, where he's standing in front of Prince Charles and the Pope's representatives and says, here I stand. I do not recant. You can't make me. You can burn me at the stake if you want to. And that goes back to that freedom of conscience. What did he say? My conscience is held captive by the word of God. And to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. So the combined authorities of church and state cannot compel you to violate your conscience. The only way you violate your conscience is voluntarily. And I recommend you not do that. What about the 80s phenomena of Operation Rescue? Do you think that is overstepping? Yeah, tell us about that. They blocked the driveway to abortion clinics so people couldn't go in and there were mass arrests. They gave themselves the mass arrests. And some eating and some macing. And the state responded as they did. That kind of, back to what J.R. was saying, or actually what Schaefer said, that the Evangelical Church wasn't eager to take this up early on. I think the Evangelical Church tends to lag behind most things. Well, they're doing the same thing right now with the homosexuality thing. I mean, we've done that. From the beginning, we let that go to the point where now it's just an accepted norm. And if we'd have stood up for righteousness in the very beginning, we wouldn't be where we are right now, I don't think. That's the whole thing with this Jesus Revolution movie. The chief player there was Lonnie Frisbee, and he's the one who brought all the hippies He is professed by people who knew him, that he was a homosexual on Saturday night, and he preached a sermon on Sunday. When we start abandoning virtue in favor of individual freedom, there's no limit. And we see the kind of anarchy that that has led to. And it's not just, as I've stated before, It's not just a case that you end up in hedonism and self-gratification in that scenario, but you end up in a combination of self-destruction and bringing harm to others as well. Basically, you turn yourself into a sociopath. When there is no moral standard, then there's no restriction on any behavior at the end of the day. One of the things that Schaefer touches on a little bit is the Doctrine of Lesser Magistrates. Did you notice that? Where are we? I was going to ask you what that stands for. Yeah, Doctrine of Lesser Magistrates. That's part of my shorthand, Randy. I thought you knew me better than that by now. So what's the general principle of the doctrine of the lesser magistrates? Can somebody articulate that? magistrate role. Yes, our confession affirms the service in public office for those that are called to it so it's a legitimate vocation to serve in public office. The idea behind the doctrine of lesser magistrates is that there's generally more than one layer of magistrate and if it's the case that a king is going rogue and becoming cruel then the princes under him have a duty to resist him. Can you think of an historical example? All I know is what Frederick did to protect Luther. Protected Martin Luther from Prince Charles, didn't he? Yeah, I think that's an interesting example historically. Now, Frederick may have done it for his own selfish purposes, but it still illustrates the idea. And of course, you see that kind of thing all the time. It usually comes from the left, unfortunately, and it shows up in terms of things like sanctuary cities, where the local city council or mayor says, we are not going to enforce federal immigration laws in our city. Is that lawful? No. Well, not really. But it does illustrate the point, doesn't it? It's civil disobedience on the left. And the argument is that there is a time and a way to do that, but it's always going to come down to the question of what is the law. And so that brings us to what will probably have to be our final point of discussion tonight. Schaeffer very adamantly distanced himself from theocracy. He doesn't want to talk about a theocracy. And the critique that I was reading this afternoon basically is somewhat sarcastically asking, if it's not a theocracy, then what is it? What is the solution? Because what is a theocracy? that brings everything under the law of God, which is where everything is supposed to be. Authorities are delegated by Romans 13. All authorities are established by He goes on to say that the civil magistrate is a servant of God. I put a sarcastic statement in here that 9 out of 10 tyrants agree that We should have the divine right of kings, that when someone becomes a civil magistrate, he can rule any way he wants to. But there's no basis for that. Because that becomes rebellion against the one who establishes those offices. That's why we have the kings in the Bible. That's what the people wanted them to. Yes. Starting with Saul. And several hundred years before Saul, the law was given to Moses. And what was part of the law given to Moses regarding the future kings of Israel? Well, there was a prophecy regarding it in Deuteronomy. Would you hand me my Bible back there, Kate? It surprises me a little bit that Schaeffer doesn't refer to this. I'm going to be looking at Deuteronomy 17 Let me start in verse 14. There's a section with a subheading here that says, Laws Concerning Israel's Kings. This is God speaking. I'm sorry, 17 what? Starting in verse 14, When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it, and then say, I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me, you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your own brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you who is not your brother, only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, you shall never return that way again. And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. and so far you're saying okay and then and when he sits on the throne of his kingdom he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law approved by the Levitical priests and it shall be with him and he shall read in it all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes and doing them that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom and his children in Israel." So this is, I think, at least 300 years before Saul. There's a law given before the kingship comes to conduct themselves. And I would say that there is not just a law for the kings of Israel, but a law for rulers to be in the Word of God and to rule according to the Word of God, not according to their own designs. And that when they start going off on their own, thinking that they have a divine right to do what they want, that they are going against God at that point. A lot to think of in this chapter. We don't have, I don't think at the end of the day, a really explicit answer to the question of when do we disobey? When do we... There are levels of disobedience, I'll put it that way. Sometimes it's just simply saying no. At other times, it's the kind of thing that, according to Schaeffer, was the reason why we had an American Revolution in response to British tyranny. So... Well, don't you think the first step would be to stand up before you disobey? I mean, we don't even stand up for righteousness to begin with. I would say so. He makes the point that we should use all the means that we have and whatever means that we individually have. Not everybody can do the same thing, but probably everyone can do something. All right, I hear footsteps. That means my time has come to an end for tonight. Remember, next week is spring break. Your book reports are due. Monday that we get back, I will devise a clever lottery system to decide who's going to go the first week and who will go the second week. I've already chosen myself to go last, so I'm simply asking the rest of you to be prepared to go the week after spring break. If you have any questions, you can feel free to contact me. I'll be catching up on some reading myself over the break. So any questions about that before we conclude for this evening? Can you tell us what people chose for book reports? What did we choose for book reports? I can tell you mine. I chose whatever happened to the human race, which is also in a book form. Let me see. It's in my notes here. I just have to turn I chose a new super spirituality. Yeah, what was... Eli took church before the watching world. Okay. Yeah, it's here somewhere. There we go. No. Never mind. All right, and the other thing is that during the break, I'll be hashing out the details for the remainder of the class, getting the reading assignments set up. You'll have plenty of time for those, but I haven't posted anything yet. So I'll work through what we need to cover in that last portion of the class. But the next big thing on your, Agenda is your book report, so put your effort into that, and we will look forward to starting those after spring break. All right, let's pray. Lord, thank you again for the time that we have tonight. We pray that you would apply these things to our hearts and minds, help us to have discernment and wisdom in times of difficulty, and to discern the times that we live in. We pray these things in Christ's name, amen.