Moral Seduction

Sunday November 8, 2009 • 2 Comments 

By John Immel (Click here for MP3 audio)

The original publication of Moral Seduction was my first effort to show how the seeds of tyranny are sown with precise ideas beyond the narrow confines of church and Christianity.  

My first months of blogging stardom were spent highlighting tyranny’s philosophical elements as displayed in the Charismatic Reformed denomination called Sovereign Grace Ministries. My familiarity with their doctrine and practices made it an effective stepping off point. Plus, other voices needed to rise up to join the existing blog commentary concerning their blight on the vineyard. I was happy to take up in 2007 where I left off in 1998 before the blogging world took notice.  

People tend to think that this blog revolves around the very narrow criticism of Sovereign Grace Ministries. This is understandable but not true. No matter how much I enjoy poking those specific intellectual and spiritual thugs in the eye, they are hardly the bulk of my concern.

In the ongoing effort to unearth the correlation between the foundational IDEAS, and the tyranny they breed, Spiritualtyranny.com has been branded into the minds of many as just another anti-SGM site. Well, it is, but only in as much as the “leadership” perpetrate spiritual thuggishness on individuals. But in the broader sense, they are but anecdote to the cause and effect of how historic ideas always progress to specific ends.

SGM is a very, very, small player in the trend towards indoctrinating American Piety into the European collectivist tyranny that dominated that continent for the better part of 1800 years. I know of other movements, with other acronyms in American Piety advocating many of the same concepts, perpetrating the same fundamental oppression of individuals in the name of God and the greater good. I just haven’t talked about them… yet. But whatever, tyranny is tyranny, no matter who advocates the governmental outcome.

My goal for the original Moral Seduction had mixed success. People sort of caught on to the “they who shall not be named,” riff understanding that I was deliberately NOT speaking the SGM name, but didn’t quite get why a speech at Notre Dame by the President of the United States had anything to do with a Reformed Charismatic bunch out of Gaithersburg Maryland specifically, or the Spiritual Tyranny theme in general. And most importantly, people really didn’t get the specific seduction I was trying to highlight.

This might be a shocker to some, but SGM leadership is in fact a victim of the very seduction this article discusses. Way back when, they were charmed down this path like so many well meaning semi-intellectuals looking for a cohesive “Biblical” world view.

SGM is filled with what I call Unfocused Passive Minded Pseudo Thinkers; people who are aware of their ideas… sort of… but choose a hazy, foggy, indistinct intellectual existence. Their intellectual opinions revolve around an appeal to authority. Their arguments are stock variations of: “Well, umpty ump master thinker said this … and I agree with them.”

They are offended by any challenge of their ideas because they claim solidarity with “authority” and how dare you challenge authority. They have long since decided they have done enough work to know what they know. New information is irrelevant at best and intellectually seditious at worst. When discussion threatens their entitlement to stagnation, they refute with this intellectual gem: “I’m old enough to be your father, Sonny. I’ve been studying these ideas for 150 years, up hill, in the snow, crawling on my knees.”

Unfocused Passive Minded Pseudo Thinkers are profoundly easy to influence with the right social and emotional levers. Because of their implicit passivity and intellectual obstinacy, these people tend to be at the forefront of most tyrannical social, political, and religious movements.

So it is no surprise that SGM trotted down the heady path of Historical solidarity, pursuing the mythological creature called Orthodoxy. They were looking for the ultimate: “Well, umpty ump master thinker said this…and aren’t we cool for agreeing with them.”

Oh, they tried small measures of independent thinking in the beginning, flirting with rejecting elements of the seduction. But by millimeters, one assumption led them to another and another and another, until now they are perpetrating, with striking consistency, the ideas and oppression of historical Mystic Despots.

Whatever they were before now they are sold out to the ideals. And since none of the primary players within SGM do anything by half, they have appointed themselves pipers playing for the church masses, merrily dancing down this path. As you will read/hear the ideological intellectual power undergirding the doctrines of tyranny is formidable. These are time tested tyrannies, with the bulk of human thinking focused on their defense.

Conversely, the names of those who have resisted the ideas can be numbered with fingers and toes: many names that stand out in history are famous for dying in defense of liberty. Most people do not have the intellectual or spiritual fortitude to muster such effort, and if they faint from the thought of pain… fugeddaboutit.

While that makes Sovereign Grace Ministries’ acceptance of the ideas understandable, that at no point absolves them of their unwillingness to apply critical review to the historic “fruit” of the doctrine. Contrary to the “we’re all just sinners,” moral relativism lofted as absolution to any governmental wrong committed, Universal Guilt and Mass Incompetence are not excuses for recalcitrant blindness.

The historic fruit has been displayed for all to see, but no one has the nerve to say out loud that the Emperor wears no clothes and carries a guillotine to cut the head off anyone who thinks the thought. Which, interestingly enough, is how SGM metaphorically acts when confronted with objections to their governing authority.

They make dissent with them a moral sedition.

And notice the emerging characteristic of America’s political climate: Private Citizens are being targeted by governmental organizations for expressing dissent. And the governmental justification for targeting private citizens is a moral argument. Pay attention folks, this similarity, is no accident.

The first publication of Moral Seduction was an effort to illustrate the tyrannical phenomena, driven by a specific seduction of “moral” ideas. Unfortunately, I was too oblique by half and people really didn’t get what I was trying to say specifically, nor did I do a good job of connecting the dots. After re-reading, and re-thinking, I knew I needed to do my job better. It is my job to make sure people GET what is being said. You never have to agree but I need to be clear and creative so that the great readership of www.Spiritualtyranny.com can fully grasp what I am saying, and why I am saying it.

Furthermore, the political climate in the US has taken fuller shape over the last few months. I suspect that my prescient warnings mere weeks after the election seemed out of place at best, but I am confident that the nature of tyrannical collectivism is becoming increasingly more obvious. Moral seduction is being perpetrated on the American public. All the same arguments, with all the same moral assumptions are pressing individuals down the very path I set out to highlight. It is an ominous time in American history. We are duplicating the very philosophical and intellectual foundations of the 1930’s Weimar Republic, and the 1920’s Czarist Russia. Barack Obama is a collectivist of the historic stripe. He is executing the Marx, Tse Tung, Alinsky play book from front to back. Tyranny, is tyranny, is tyranny. It is a well-trod path.

American Intelligentsia and many Christian denominational leaders are working toward the same collectivist ends. Some of this working is done unwittingly—at least for now. For reasons to be discussed, Christians tend to think they hear bible style charity in the governmental proclamations of collectivism. They tend to think they hear bible doctrines in the collectivist moral denunciations and advocacies: anti-greed, anti- avarice, pro-depravity and pro-sacrifice. As a result, many will dance down this path almost giddy as the pipers continue to play the gay melodies of tyranny and despotism. And for those people who will not dance, the force of moral condemnation will be used as a spiritual battering ram to compel their minds and hearts into docility. This road has been paved with the good intentions of endless tyrants.

The pavement has been laid to the paths of old to speed the masses passed their natural resistance to assimilation. The methods work because people get caught unequipped to respond or resist to the seductive progression and then one day they look around from the cocoon to see the spider ready to feast and wonder: “How in the world did I get here?”

I am going to tell you how you get there.

Since I can never just leave well enough alone: since blogging is a license to shout Mulligan to my writerly heart’s content: since the first Moral Seduction was akin to drawing the picture with crayons on 20 bond papers, I set out to make this version of Moral Seduction much closer to Auto Cad and laser printer. And of course, for you auditory learners, the MP3 version gives the opportunity to listen. Get your popcorn and blanket and snuggle up by the fire, because I over-deliver with an hour of audio.

Tyranny’s web is woven with five leading concepts: Incompetent Masses, Universal Guilt, Dictated Good, Abolition of Ambition, and Collective Conformity. But these five concepts are secured behind the walls of two assumptions.

“Come into my parlor,” said the spider to the fly. The invitation to the web is just the beginning of the seduction. And for those of you who want to know what the rest looks like ….

 

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First Introduction

For months I have been advocating that “They Who Shall Not Be Named,” are bit players in the unfolding historical drama, resurrecting ideas that have always led to corruption, destruction and death. I submit that the political and religious arenas are inseparable, inevitable extensions of specific philosophical assumptions. I have been pointing out that we are hearing moral and spiritual ideals advocated in the public arena from our political leaders: moral and spiritual ideals that ultimately reduce men to slavery.

How can morality and spirituality be used to shackle humanity? Christians like to say that such things are the means to freedom and liberty. Are you sure? President Obama gave a speech on May 17, 2009 to the graduating class at Notre Dame. This speech is not policy statement, or economic tutorial, or social state of the union. It is something very else.

Read the whole speech. I am not, and never will be, a filter for the minds of people. To the utter contrary, I am advocating the tools of effective thinking so that individuals can think and find the truth for themselves. To that end, I am providing two links. One from the New York Times.  (Transcript)

The second is a page from www.Spiritualtyranny.com for when the NY Times sees fit to eliminate this speech from its active web pages.  (Transcript)

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Moral Seduction

Seduction is fun when done with the right person at the right time and at the right place, when the swirling intoxicating heady tonic sweeps you into heights of implied pleasure. But disaster when one is beguiled into eating sweetbreads in secret. The morning after, lying in the sheets, sobriety returns; the cost of abandon, the price of indulgence blooms hard in the soul.

Most people are not familiar with the process of seduction. The infrequency is what catches them unaware. It is a dreadful personal moment to realize how each glance, each implied familiarity, and indirect closeness had a goal. The goal was to move you to intimacy when there was no real relationship.

The illusion of seduction is fun. And as an adult you can travel the path with eyes open and weigh the costs. But when you have been caught unaware because you didn’t know that you are being seduced, oh, that is an ugly, ugly, ugly betrayal.

So, for those of you who don’t know what seduction looks like…

President Obama: “Your generation must decide how to save God’s creation from a changing climate that threatens to destroy it. Your generation must seek peace at a time when there are those who will stop at nothing to do us harm, and when weapons in the hands of a few can destroy the many. And we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity – diversity of thought, diversity of culture, and diversity of belief.”

The seduction begins with the suggestive flash of the eyes…

The first look is oblique, gentle, encouraging but conveying the message: come hither. Every glance leads you to believe that interaction is inevitable. See how much we have in common, notice the possible destiny.

Seduction trivializes differences by eliminating standards. That is why it is essential for us to embrace all, accept all. Differences, Disparity, Dissimilarity: that is the mantra of the global brotherhood.

Beliefs are sacrosanct because they are…beliefs. Anyone can believe whatever they want. No judgment can exist because no standard measure exists. Cultures can define themselves however they choose, and everyone must accept their definitions. Why? Because culture is code for race, and to criticize race is to be unenlightened. Race is the Collectivist Holy of Holies: sacred and unassailable. The ideas that drive a culture are irrelevant. No matter what stands out, no matter what deviates, no matter what bankrupt thoughts, ideas and actions may exist, we must embrace…in the name of Diversity.

Right and wrong are antiquated definitions of morality. The only good is embracing all things multicultural. The only bad are those people who choose to disparage the failures of Diversity. Collective harmony is the definition of enlightenment. Come, let us link arms. Our fraternity, our strength, is in our unity, at all costs.

President Obama: Moreover, no one person, or religion, or nation can meet these challenges alone. Our very survival has never required greater cooperation and greater understanding among all people from all places than at this moment in history.

See how serious it is that you concede? And see how crucial that we all link arms? How can anyone possibly survive? The only way to LIVE is to understand that we are all incapable, all outmatched for the challenge. No person, religion, or nation can face the challenge of survival alone. We are incompetent to prevail against the temptations, and the rigors of life. So let us unite, as friends in common bond.

Seduction proceeds with a tender touch…

Physical seduction progresses from the casual to the intimate. Personal boundaries get moved by inches, by touches and grazes. Friends can touch, because well, it is platonic: the clasp of the hand, the casual brush of a stray hair. It is familiar and warm and welcome. We visit the common ground of our lives by visiting the common places on our bodies.

Social seduction proceeds by moving individualistic boundaries with enforced collective expectation. By obtaining unearned intimacy, the seducers can imply social morality and demand a common world view. See how close we are? See how much we share? Our values are really the same. How could this relationship be any other way?

But notice they never let the answer to this question be given. To answer this question is to destroy the seduction.

President Obama: And part of the problem, of course, lies in the imperfections of man – our selfishness, our pride, our stubbornness, our acquisitiveness, our insecurities, our egos; all the cruelties large and small that those of us in the Christian tradition understand to be rooted in original sin.

Irenaeus, a Bishop in Lyons, coined the phrase “Original Sin” in the 2nd century. His theory said that the “Fall” of Adam was not rebellion against God, or a squandering of a created perfect state, but rather humanity’s failure to rise to greater things. For Irenaeus, evil comes from God, serving a good purpose. Things that seem evil to us – death et al. – are divine intentions and without such things, we would never repent.

Augustine, some 250 years later, (circa 450 AD) would advance what has become the “Orthodox” creed. Humanity was literally present at Adam’s eating of the forbidden fruit. This sin is transmitted by the act of sex from parent to child: hence an “Original Sin.”

The result, everyone is infected with depravity. Or said another way, man sufferers a genetic weakening or enfeebling of faculties and will. The consequence of this state is the inability to do Good or act towards God. Man is a moral, physical, spiritual cripple unable to will or to do any Good.

This is the definition with which most of you are familiar. This familiarity is why it never occurs to you that you are being seduced. The common is friendly, platonic, and harmless. This is the philosophical casual brush of a stray hair. This is the energizing touch of the hand. This is the social seductive equivalent of: “How could it be any other way?”

Seduction implies much…and defines little…

But if you pause and ask for clarification: “What does this all mean?” the seducer looks shocked: how could you have so misunderstood my motive? My motives are pure. Surely you can see that. Surely you can tell that I have nothing but the highest intentions. What can I possibly gain by being here, with you, enjoying your company? How can I help? What can I do for you? How may I serve?

And if that doesn’t guilt you into complicity, the seducer will take the intimacy away, turning the interaction on you. The implication is always: “Are you seeking to take advantage of me? I give freely, but what have you given freely?”

The intoxication is growing, the heady rush of inclusion and warmth, and friendship is dulling the mind. So the Seduced doesn’t notice that the giving was NOT done freely. If the service were free, there would be no expected reciprocation.

Besides who wants a conflict when someone is giving so much? Pushing for clarification seems like very poor form, very ungrateful. So the Seduced lowers their personal boundaries and abandons their standards. What is the harm in going along to get along?

President Obama: We too often seek advantage over others. We cling to outworn prejudice and fear those who are unfamiliar. Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism; in which the world is necessarily a zero-sum game. The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice.

Altruism is the moral assertion that sacrifice is man’s highest ethical action. He must help, serve, or benefit others by actions necessarily at the expense of self-interest. Applied to its logical conclusion, individuals can never have a vested interest in an action or outcome. So to determine if an action is moral, ask this simple question: Who benefits? As long as there is no self-interest, man is executing ethical action.

President Obama: And it was quite an eclectic crew – Catholic and Protestant churches, Jewish and African American organizers, working-class black, white, and Hispanic residents – all of us with different experiences, all of us with different beliefs. But all of us learned to work side by side because all of us saw in these neighborhoods other human beings who needed our help – to find jobs and improve schools. We were bound together in the service of others.

What could be nobler than working in the service of others?

Let us talk more about Altruism. We might read the Dictionary definition and occasionally some blogger in his underwear will pound out the word to the Ethernet. The content, the practice of the word isn’t really discussed; yet many of you know its substance because the moral claim is advocated from many, many fronts. Most people are quick to say: “Hey, I have no vested interest here. Therefore, blah blah blah blah!” What comes after the therefore is irrelevant because the important part of the sentence is the moral qualifier. The speaker is vetting his words via the moral standard of selflessness, as if personal benefit is immediately disqualifying. So imbedded in our cultural and philosophical assumptions is Altruism that it never occurs to us to challenge the moral ideal.

I want you to notice this juxtaposition. The assumption of Original Sin and the assumption of Altruism create an unassailable moral and ethical barrier.

Here is the progression: Original Sin disqualifies the sum of man’s faculties by asserting that depravity warps his every ability to grasp the world around him. Man cannot choose Good because he cannot KNOW Good. His every want and desire is contrary to Good. Man is a fish on dry land utterly unequipped to navigate the world of Good. Or for the spiritualists among us, Man is tied to a horse led around by the devil. Man is Insane. Whatever the metaphor, the outcome is the same. Absent some form of intervention, some kind of outside force, all of man’s choices are evil driven by lusts that he cannot overcome.

Altruism piggybacks its moral power off of Original Sin by insisting that self-action is corrupt. Any self deed is suspect because its source, its root, is deep in the blackest pervasive depraved soil. Because self is evil, morality demands that the highest human aspiration be self-destruction. Good choices are imposed on Man. These choices are, of necessity, defined by pain. Therefore, man’s true state of existence is suffering, and an implicit validation of Altruism’s superior moral standard.

Here is the bulwark that I have been pointing out. To argue for self: any expression of self is to be condemned as immoral. To argue against the doctrine of Original Sin…oh, never mind, let’s not be silly.

While many of you would openly argue with Ireneaus’ definition of Original sin, very few of you would have the nerve to argue with Augustine’s doctrine. That would open a whole wormy can that no one wants to pick through with fish hooks.

Who is going to raise their hand and suggest that Augustine got it wrong? Who is going to suffer the threat of heresy and the subsequent bonfires kindled in their honor? Who is going to argue with 1600 years of Church “orthodoxy”?

Even if a person did make the argument, who would have the nerve to actually listen? Wouldn’t that make the listeners enter the line to become honorary S’mores?

So, let us just accept the fates and not speak such absurdities. Let us ignore the doctrinal “fruit” displayed in for two millennia. Since we are all moral, spiritual, and intellectual cripples, what we can “see” must be a vapor, a vague shadow cast upon the wall of a cave, a grand delusion of our mass incompetence. This is what Plato taught and what Augustine integrated into bible ideas. But never mind the real source of the doctrine.

Everyone who is anyone has always believed this truth even though this doctrine did not exist for the first 500 years of church history. Everyone who is anyone has always believed this truth even though its roots are imbedded in ideas wholly and entirely foreign to canonical literature.

It matters not that the words “Original Sin” do not appear in Scripture as a specifically defined teaching. It matters not that one must assemble the doctrine using unrelated passages like so many Lego’s. It matters not that without the Neo-Platonic eisegeses, the passages used as doctrinal evidence, have little or nothing to do with “disqualifying” a man’s faculties or his ability to grasp and gravitate to Good. It is a central pillar of the Christian faith. Who is going to dissent? Who is going to say that Augustine got it wrong? It matters not the answer to such a question. Place it out of your mind. No one will ask the question and fewer still will listen to the answer.

Seduction redefines…

Moral seducers are always redefining words because they want to control the ethical equation. A touch, no matter how overtly intimate, is platonic. A sweet nothing whispered in the ear is just a secret between friends. A voice against pastoral tyranny is Gossip. The effective public communication of abuse is slander. Criticizing a man’s political ends is racism.

Don’t judge, because that brings judgment. Don’t speak harshly because such method drives people away. Don’t you know that conflict is selfish sin?  We must have unity, unity, unity.

The seducers inform us how to behave by telling us that “Love” is speaking softly. They tell us “Peace” is their concern for the collective wellbeing.

But this method is designed to chaperone our emotions and actions to prevent our dissent. They guilt us into accepting their definitions and manipulate our sense of justice. Never forget, the goal is always one more step down the path of seduction.

President Obama: The question, then – the question then is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without, as Father John said, demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?

Seduction makes intimacy the most reasonable action…

President Obama: He wrote, “I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.” Fair-minded words.

And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that – when we open up our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do or believe precisely what we believe – that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.

So, now we look for the common ground of our human existence. What is that common ground? The moral seducers have told us what it is. Do you realize what they said? The oblique assumption being advocated says that Original Sin and Altruism is the place for humanity to center itself. The foundational agreement, the starting place of our philosophical ideas, is the reprobate nature of our metaphysical and epistemological state. This is a wordy way of saying: if we can agree that we are all just screwed up, then we can figure out how to live together. The best way to live together is to realize that we can’t know anything because our “knower” is broken. Right and wrong might exist, but since we are all morally bankrupt, no one can advocate a standard.

This bankruptcy should make us suspicious of our ideas, our ideals and our expectations. That suspicion should make us give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Whatever they believe, whatever they are passionate about is just their thing. The enlightened position is to embrace their belief because it is belief. And if one cannot embrace, then at the very least moderate your speech. Please, no declarations of right and wrong, good and bad. No one has the moral authority to do such speechifying. We are all sinners. The only real moral standard is to sacrifice our values, to sacrifice our selves for the greater good.

Submit yourself, therefore, under the collective mighty hand – let the community hold you accountable to the highest value, sacrifice – because your adversary, your SELF, walks about seeking to devour you.

The assumptions under discussion require a government whose purpose is to FORCE you to “Do Good.” What is good? Good is always that you sacrifice your SELF. Government forces you to part with anything that benefits you.

What must you give? Everything necessary for the “Greater Good.”

What can you keep? Nothing. You don’t own YOU, so you don’t own what you create.

Oh, you won’t object, so don’t pretend indignity. You don’t have the nerve to object because you don’t want to suffer being roasted over a campfire. And neither do you have the courage to focus on someone making the objection. So just go ahead and follow the seduction to its logical conclusion. The bloodletting will start soon enough.

Oh, you want to object to the tyranny AND keep the moral and ethical citadel of Original Sin and Altruism. You want to keep the historic doctrine of Original Sin because it is an inarguable truth. And you are utterly persuaded that Sacrifice is the highest moral aspiration. Just because some have abused the truth doesn’t mean you throw the baby out with the bathwater. There must be a balance in here somewhere. Maybe the right people just haven’t gotten into government. Maybe we are just waiting for the best and brightest to take their place.

Really? How many millennia do we have to wait before the right people believe all the right things and the right group gets it…right? These philosophical assumptions have been in the earth for a long, long time. And the truly hysterical thing is every generation of do-gooders become the very thugs the next generation insists they can be better than, which is beyond ironic considering the doctrinal predicate of Original Sin destroys the concept that any person can ever be morally better. No matter when they are born, no matter what wisdom and understanding has come before, people are always born into depravity.

But beyond the insanity of believing the same things over and over and over and expecting a different result, what does it matter who is in charge? The issue isn’t government form or content. The issue is philosophical assumption. How do you defend a millimeter of self when ANY self is utterly corrupt?

Oh great Archimedes, where is the place to stand that you might “raise the world?” What is the foundation of your resistance? You laid down your mind upon accepting depravity as the human fundamental state of existence. Is your appeal now to Reason? Will you now assert your independent “Will” to engage the debate?

Surely you jest!

Okay, let me get this straight. A “Depraved” reason and a “Bound” will are the sum and substance of your arsenal??

Aaaahahahahahhaha…

The comedy is entertaining but your hubris has shown you for an intellectual fraud. Only a “Depraved” soul with admittedly corrupt faculties cannot see the absurdity, the glaring flaw in that foundation. Your very doctrine destroys your weapon.

So try again to find the edge underneath the castle wall.

Can you find a failure in Altruism?

Now remember, by the Altruistic moral standard, any personal benefit is immoral. What did the preacher of morality say?

President Obama: We too often seek advantage over others. We cling to outworn prejudice and fear those who are unfamiliar. Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism; in which the world is necessarily a zero-sum game. The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice.

Those who defend the right to self and the substance thereof are nothing more than people seeking advantage over others; seeking justification for the implicit injustice over those who suffer lack, suffer the injustice of inequality. Keeping substance is immoral because any defense of self is immoral.

“But a totally sacrificial life is impossible to live!” you say. “The individual should have SOME moral value.”

You are correct: it is an impossible moral standard.

This is by DESIGN.

The purpose is to make you so utterly despairing that you will abandon every want, desire, ambition, motivation, drive and interest. Men die without moral clarity – a moral certainty that the actions they take are right. The goal is to make you beg someone to give you moral absolution and then force you to look for that absolution from government, because government dictates good. And at this point, they own you in the truest, fullest sense.

Point to the pain of ethical self-destruction, and mystic despots muster magnanimous compassion but dismiss the suffering as your reasonable service. Point to the impossibility of the standard, and the critics will agree – of course, it is impossible. God made it impossible so no man could ever achieve the goal. This is the function of grace. Grace provides forgiveness and Government. God supplies grace by supplying leadership to organize the collective substance. No one will have an unfair advantage if they would just submit themselves to the considered judgments of those appointed to the task. For those who will not submit, the State does not wield the sword in vain: government exists to compel GOOD action. And because you accept Augustinian depravity, what can you say?

How will you justify the value of the individual? Are you going to try a middle of the road argument? OTHERS have value and you will sacrifice on THEIR behalf. This seems like a nice compromise on truth. Some people have value, others sacrifice on their behalf. But you don’t make a claim to your own self value to fulfill the moral requirement.

Ahahahhhahahaha….

Oh, this is rich. As long as everyone is paying sacrifice forward, all is well. This is a moral Ponzi scheme and there is a reason those are illegal.

The other method of dealing with the impossible altruistic ideal since no one can live a totally “sacrificial” life, we can see that people must do SOME things for THEMSELVES. So we wink and nod at a mutual unethical conspiracy ignoring the bootlegging done to stock the SELF-gratifying Speakeasy.

Notice that both of the above arguments concede that actions for self are still immoral. And here is the problem: these are NOT counterarguments but moral equivalencies. Or maybe better said, the ethical version of don’t ask don’t tell.

By surrendering to the Altruistic premise, you cannot assert INDIVIDUAL value.  Logically, to concede the moral principle makes it impossible to argue for selective reprieve.  Any time an argument concedes the premise, that dispute is lost.

Seduction is designed to make you feel out of control…

The heady feeling of intoxication mingled with the rush of pleasure fills your mind with a voice that says let go…let go…let goooooooooo.

It would be so nice to just let the cares of this world evaporate. It would be such a relief to revel, even for a moment in the physical bliss.

Besides it is inevitable. They want good for me. They are here in fraternity and sorority. There is no judgment. Tomorrow there will be no one to condemn. How can I be good…really? Who can call me to account? We are all just wretched sinners after all.

Are you feeling trapped in a maze? Are you unable to see your way past the fortifications that are being used to harness your soul? The fortification is formidable and the reasons to succumb overwhelming!

This is by DESIGN.

When government figures begin to erect the ethical bulwark of Original Sin and Altruism, they have departed from political statement and are entering the realm of moralistic homily. When they hijack disembodied bible ideas, the Second Coming is not close, and neither is a God ordained righteous government. The political figures are laying the foundation for the very tyranny that will make the streets turn crimson.

President Obama: For if there is one law that we can be most certain of, it is the law that binds people of all faiths and no faith together. It’s no coincidence that it exists in Christianity and Judaism; in Islam and Hinduism; in Buddhism and humanism. It is, of course, the Golden Rule – the call to treat one another as we wish to be treated. The call to love. The call to serve. To do what we can to make a difference in the lives of those with whom we share the same brief moment on this Earth.

Seduction is designed to make you lose your mind…

President Obama: This generation, your generation is the one that must find a path back to prosperity and decide how we respond to a global economy that left millions behind even before the most recent crisis hit – an economy where greed and short-term thinking were too often rewarded at the expense of fairness, and diligence, and an honest day’s work.

It is no accident that the first assault is on prosperity, on economics, on fairness. All good seductions appeal to our erogenous zones: those places in our thinking that bring passionate response.

Political Seducers know many people hold the moral expectation that money is immoral and its pursuit a manifestation of selfishness and greed.

The Political Seducers also know you will be quick to agree with their altruism, faulting those who HAVE (substance) with an indulgence of their depraved nature – an excess that needs penalized.

So, the Political Seducers exploit YOUR covetousness because they know it is a philosophical erogenous zone. Your covetousness leads you to support policy initiatives that TAKE from some to GIVE to another for no other reason than an implicit resentment of those who HAVE.

And the Political Seducers use Altruism to give moral absolution to what would be theft in ANY other circumstance. You use altruism to hide from that reality by justifying “robbery” because it “serves” someone else.

You absolve yourself of envy because the rich don’t put in an “honest day’s work” but heap materialism upon their greedy selves from unfairness and exploitation. You license the government to steal and believe you have done God’s work, cheering as yet another rich person sacrifices for the greater good: as they too feel the pain of what it is to struggle in life.

What you don’t realize is eventually…

Seduction turns to denouement…

President Obama: Now, understand – understand, Class of 2009, I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it – indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory – the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.

Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.

It will never occur to you that you cut your own throat because you let others define the moral equation. You were seduced into letting them define good, and right, and ultimately truth. This let them define Government and the use of Force. This let them rule with impunity.

You accept their premise and act accordingly. You moderate your speech and in doing so undermine your passion, the energy of your resistance. You buy the notion that love requires clement speech. You buy the lie that people are justified in turning from truth merely because they don’t like the way things are said. You accept the premise that a depraved soul can be certain of nothing. This leads you to defer to government because it is somehow appointed to solve the ills of life. You become timid with leaders because they are…somehow…uniquely qualified to dictate Good.

And with this moral progression you gag YOURSELF. Your power to speak is gone. Now the face of seduction is unmasked and the political seducers have shown their true face like any wanton soul that persuades to eat sweetbreads in secret. Suddenly, Harlotry’s hard life is obvious: smeared lipstick, mascara running, wrinkles hidden by too much makeup. The morning after, you roll over in the sheets and you see what you did and the devastating reality emerges. What looked like glitter and glitz is evident, horrific, and dreadful. Sobriety returns and the price of indulgence blooms hard in the soul. “What did I pay to be intimate with that?”

By micro steps you were led down the path of destruction. Now there is no retreat and no weapon with which to fight. The seducers talked you out of the power necessary to defend your SELF. So, like Samson beguiled before Delilah, hairless and blind, the strength left can only be used to pull the house down on everybody’s head.

Do you poo-poo my words? Do you roll your eyes at my warning? Do you shake with indignity at identifying Original Sin as the source? You want to tell me how much I don’t really understand the doctrine, how much my deception has blinded me to an inarguable truth?

Hehehe….

I told you that is what the doctrine was designed to do.

Are you inclined to say, “John, you just think too much.”? That can’t happen in America. Tyranny will never come here, to this land. We have a constitution. We have civil liberties.

Ahahahah…

This would be a cute naïveté if it wasn’t so disastrously myopic. Those civil liberties are based on individual value. Those liberties were conceived in utter deliberate contrast to European collectivism and the tyranny perpetrated via Original Sin driven assumptions. The Constitution framers advanced the moral predicate that INDVIDUALS had the right to their property and the unmolested pursuit of happiness. Those liberties were predicated on limiting government to protect the individual. Those liberties were founded on the moral assumption that the individual was sovereign. That sovereignty was given by Man’s creator.

Just over 200 years later WE are reversing those philosophical assumptions by resurrecting doctrines that demonstrate an implicit destructive nature. We are mixing the old wine in the new wineskins of our Republic. It is no accident that we are coming apart at the seams.

How could it be any other way that the modern world is trending towards tyranny and death and destruction? How could it be any other way that Church leaders sound like the 1930′s Weimar Republic Lutheran Church? How can it be any other way that fear is increasing in both social/political fronts and spiritual/congregational fronts?

How can it be any other way that Spiritual Tyranny is increasing?

By seductive steps the foundation of individualism is eroding into the murk of collective conformity. As long as people do not resist the moral and ethical assumptions, the day will come when atrocities spread far and wide.

The masses don’t resist because they have been condemned by the moral equivalency of Original Sin. Everyone is a sinner. Who can hold up a standard? Everyone’s perceptions are flawed. Who can really KNOW truth? The masses do not object because SELF-defense is disqualified by the hint of SELF-promotion.

Seduction’s path starts with the most innocuous interaction. The first steps down the path of tyranny seem harmless, friendly, a nice expression of fraternity and sorority. Every step seems like the logical next step, the appropriate continuation of people gathered together in community. A glance and a touch are followed by smooth words that redefine the definitions of intimacy and morality. The goal of all seduction is to drive you to a state of intoxication; where your mind is given over to the heady rush of implied passion.

This stupefied condition makes it all but impossible to notice that what was once a ludicrous conspiracy theory has become reality. Tyrants start by advocating the moral predicate that all men must serve. Everyone accepts the premise and applauds the implied righteousness. Moral seducers tickle your ethical outrage by pointing to those who have more substance than other people. Obviously, these people have not really sacrificed. Obviously, these people are greedy and selfish and failing to do Good. Obviously, government needs to step in and hold them accountable. This is nothing more than a blatant stroking of your covetousness erogenous zone.

The seducers work you into a sanctimonious lather and praise your moral exhibitionism every time you empower them to loot in the name of the greater good. It is here that INDIVIDUALS tear off their clothes and join the orgy of service, the greater good, the community, and the body.

The mystic despots of old wielded Original Sin like a rational guillotine giving themselves license to enforce dictated Good with bloodshed. In the modern age, government enforced bloodshed is not necessary because the people are commanded by Altruism to put a knife to their own throat.

And here is the thing that no one realizes. Tyrants are calculating the end of the path. These moralistic despots are plotting the course of accumulated power. They are foreseeing the moment when government can advocate any violation of individuality and fear no reprisal.

They are intentionally laying the foundation to say…control population. Women MUST sacrifice for the Greater Good. They must have abortions to feed those alive. It is selfish to want 4 children. It is selfish to want 3, then 2, then maybe, just maybe, the Government will let you have one child…if it serves others.

Where will you stand on that day? The bulwark of Original Sin and Altruism is even now selling you into slavery but you don’t know it. Will you rail at Governmental injustice on that day from your front door? In your house? The Government will have long since taken your stuff, told you how much to eat, when to eat, what to wear, and how much to sacrifice. On that day the gods of Original Sin and Altruism will mock you in your calamity.

American Christians love to defend the unborn, but on that day they will be powerless. (If you don’t believe me, look at China.) The only thing left to defend is the scrap of whatever someone else has deemed you can keep. The gods of Original Sin and Altruism will frolic at the self bloodletting as they revel in the endless propitiation.

Refresh yourself on the true value of the individual. It is to the individual that God’s blessing was bestowed: “Be fruitful and multiply, rule and subdue the earth…”

The Individual raises a voice to defend the unborn.

The Individual resists the tides of tyranny.

The Individual musters courage to speak words that destroy insidious, humanity-incarcerating ideas.

The Individual seeks effective knowledge and harnesses ambition and works to improve their lives. The result: industry grows, the quality of life expands, and prosperity matures.

I said this above and I need to drive this point home. It is no accident that the political seducers manipulate covetousness. They seek to discredit the acquisition of wealth so they are morally justified in looting an individual’s substance. Here is the secret that political seducers do not want you to know: property is the power to disagree. Wealth is the power to stand in the face of those who differ. Without property, you are a pawn in the game of History’s Hitlers and their partners in crime, the Mystic Despots.

If you want to champion any superior idea…

If you want to fight for any just outcome…

If you want to advocate for the lives of the unborn…

then you had better start paying attention to those who want to abort your property. Defending property is the defense of SELF. If you own you, then you MUST own what you create WITHOUT moral recrimination. The moral bulwark advocated in seductive homilies is seeking to destroy our very lives by destroying our very livelihoods.

President Obama: And so, for all our technological and scientific advances, we see here in this country and around the globe violence and want and strife that would seem sadly familiar to those in ancient times.

Violence and want and strife would be familiar to the folk of ancient times. That is because the reasons for that violence, want, and strife are sourced in the philosophical assumptions of ancient times. The moral citadel of Original Sin was conceived in the mid 4th century AD for the express purpose of justifying compulsive collective conformity. The Three Estates – some pray, some fight some work – is the collectivist medieval political theory that grew directly from those Platonist Augustinian assumptions. The religious caste combined forces with the warrior caste to enforce “Righteousness” in the name of God for the next 1200 years. It is no accident that these years are called the Dark Ages. This millennia of western history stands as testimony to the proliferation of death, destruction, poverty, and injustice. Europe was hip deep in the blood of Dictated Good – also known as the Divine Right of Kings – until well into the 17th century.

As Monarchial slaughter fell out of vogue, the political class sought new justifications for violations to individuals and injustices done in their ravenous quest for power. They found that validation in Altruism, a philosophical conclusion just a few hundred years old. No, the moral standard of sacrifice does not have its roots in bible ideas; it has its roots in the bankrupt philosophy of the 18th century. Many people do assume that these ideas are sourced in Christian canon, but that has more to do with the academic accomplices more interested in historic solidarity than critical review of observably bad doctrines. Sacrifice of the bible kind has little to do with Altruism’s dehumanizing moral demand.

If not being for a readymade tool of despotic control, Altruism would have been dropped into the landfill of failed ideas. But combined with Original Sin, Altruism becomes an almost unassailable moral and ethical fortress. It is from this fortress that the greatest tyrants in the last 200 years have lived.

The list is long, the cultures varied, and the countries numerous. But every tyrant uses the epistemological predicates of Original Sin to disqualify any individual rights and uses the rationalization of Altruism to justify any individual destruction, also known as sacrifice. Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, Kim Jong-il: these people take the doctrine of sacrifice for the greater good to its logical conclusion – body counts in the hundreds of millions.

This is how modern History’s Hitlers joined forces with ancient Mystic Despots: they use morality as cudgel to drive the “depraved” masses into Collective Conformity. Collectivism, also known as Tribalism, also known as Sectarianism, also known as Socialism, also known as Communism, also known as the “Greater Good,” has always been the Holy of Holies in political, social, and religious, corruption, death, and destruction. No need to send in the High Priest to offer sacrifice because the people have been seduced into bloodletting themselves.

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Oligarchy of Mediocrity

Saturday November 15, 2008 • 5 Comments 

By John Immel

All tyranny requires these elements to be successful.

******************

I use Alexander Strauch–the quotes from his book–because he condenses many of the historic arguments with the embedded presumptions and filters that so many in the Church Government tub advocate. Never forget, the FORM of Government is irrelevant if the ideas driving the form are designed to oppress. I could dig around in other contemporary Church Government writing and find much of the same. Strauch just happens to have a comprehensive presentation.

Alexander Strauch wrote this in 1991 in a book called Biblical Eldership: An Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership.

Furthermore, “first among equals” provides desperately needed protection from the all-too-common pitfalls of egoism, greed, personality imbalance and unholy ambition to which highly gifted teachers may succumb. An exceptionally gifted leader or teacher can lead and teach with all his zeal and might, as the Scripture commands a leader and teacher to do (Romans 12:7,8), and yet be held accountable to fellow leaders and teachers. The Christian leader or teacher who refuses brotherly accountability is self-deceived and is headed for self-destruction. The Christian leader who really knows his Bible and has an honest view of his sinfulness and weaknesses understands his undeniable need for the checks and balances (see Fallacy of Checks and Balances at the bottom of the article) provided by fellow colleagues. Only dictators fear accountability from godly colleagues. (Strauch, pp. 48-49)

I said this in my post titled Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit.  “So many Assumptions, Presuppositions, and Filters are already in place that we read the Bible with profoundly closed eyes. Or maybe better said, we read the words but our conclusions are ingrained in the history of our tradition or driven by the substance of our fears. Since I like saying I told you so, notice the implicit appeal to fear in his paragraph.

Strauch sets the foundation of his comments at the last of this paragraph. In the second to the last sentence, we find this argumentative gem: “The Christian leader or teacher who refuses brotherly accountability is self-deceived and is headed for self-destruction.”

This non-argument is summed up by saying: “If you don’t believe exactly what I’m saying, it is because your truth knower is broken… because YOU broke it.” This illogical silliness is a Calvinist staple that gets trotted out when the perpetrator demands an intellectual pass on what he considers a self-evident truth.

What self-evident truth is Strauch trying to get past critical review?  Actually, in this paragraph, he is offering four.

1. Personal Self-Awareness is limited or nonexistent.

2. The Highly Gifted is uniquely imperiled by measure of his gift.

3. Expressing individual gifting is a function of biblical illiteracy and self-deception.

4. Moral action is the function of group pressure: “first among equals” are the only place gifted folks can prevent their implicit failings.

So, the “Highly Gifted” are somehow more susceptible to the “pitfalls of Egoism, greed, personality imbalance, and uhholy ambition.”

Hummm…where have I heard those sentiments? Never mind…I’ll get back to that later.

Strauch is an Indwelling Sin guy; he presupposes that man is insane.  Since that body of doctrine casts a jaundiced eye at any human endeavor that aspires too much of any self-fulfillment or self-expression, the intellectual assumptions would lead to placing the Highly Gifted under the greatest scrutiny. But this is really a false choice based on this progression of thought.

Isolation = failed submission to a group of “equals.”

Highly Gifted + Isolation = self-deception and therefore self-destruction.

However misplaced this logic, it has a goal. The false choice is designed to make a liability out of virtues; it is designed to make a successful, effective, gifted, man/woman fear their ability, to view it with suspicions and look for safety. The location of that safety is in the affirming judgment of “colleagues.”

In a later post, I will deal with the intellectual slight of hand Strauch uses to establish the non-hierarchy…uhhh…errr…hierarchy called the “First among equals.”

But I want to point out that his solution to self-deception is a group of men who are somehow mutually immune to deception and the “…pitfalls of egoism, greed, personality imbalance and unholy ambition…”

How? What is the magic bullet?

Since the pitfalls increase with measure of greater Gift, it follows that lacking gift, lacking ability would be the antidote. Consider the implications like this: the Highly Gifted have a desperate need of protection from…themselves (?). The measure of their gift imperils them directly proportional to their lack of GROUP accountability.   The logical progression would be: less gifting = less personal peril. Be gift-less and be immune to ego and greed. Be Highly Mediocre and suffer no personality imbalance.

Hahahah…that is too rich. Hey God, make me gift-less! Make me Mediocre! Then I won’t suffer personality imbalance!

But wait…I know plenty of mediocre people who are profoundly greedy, filled with overbearing ego and are personality basket cases.  So how do they escape the desperate need of the “first among equals?”

>big eye roll<

Strauch is the one who singled out the Highly Gifted for an increased need of governance BECAUSE of their virtue: that is the implication of his comments. What happened to all the rest of you? Why don’t the Highly Mediocre merit this profound warning to come lay their gift-less-ness down at the feet of the “First Among Equals”?

You will see in a minute.

Ambition:  This word has been transformed into a word meaning the amoral pursuit of any goal. We inherited this philosophical assumption form Nietzsche I suppose.

However, Ambition is not ruthless, unscrupulous achievement.  Synonyms for ambition are aspiration, dream, hope, and desire amongst others. If I rendered Strauch’s sentence like this “…. personality imbalance and unholy aspiration or hope….” we would all wrinkle our brow trying to decipher EXACTLY what an unholy aspiration or hope could be. We would want to identify the specific failing.

But he puts the word ambition in the sentence.  If we acknowledge the word at all, we assume that the failing the “Highly Gifted” suffers is an ambition of the unholy sort. What other kind of ambition could there be?

Ambition is merely a relentless effort to improve. Improve what?  Anything. Everything. People have an ambition to get better when they go to the doctor. People have an ambition to get smarter when they go to school. Ambition is an amoral description of determined sustained effort for self-development. The moral quality of the effort of self-development is directly attached to who pays the price for that development. Go to the doctor to get healthy: who could see a moral failing in that pursuit? But what if I told you a person shot three people in the head to get their flu shots before the supply ran out?   Now we have an unholy ambition.

Since ambition is an amoral desire to improve oneself, then the operative word in Strauch’s comment is Unholy. What then is unholy? Since he has already said that human capacity to find, arrive, and emulate ethical, moral action, he has to find another location for such guidance.

Struach’s predicate is: Highly Gifted people have a limited capacity to tell when they’ve wandered into moral pitfalls. Somehow being Highly Gifted means your moral development and self-awareness is stunted.

Since Gifting imperils, mediocrity saves. Sooo, Strauch’s necessary solution is a group of Highly MEDIOCRE “First among Equals.” They define the Unholy part of the Ambition. The UNgifted Have-Nots get to define the proper moral limits of the Highly Gifted Haves’ aspiration and expression.

I suppose that seems like a boon for the Highly Mediocre. The Highly UNgifted Have-Nots unite to bring gifting justice to the world. The evil Highly Gifted Haves are making themselves better at the expense of spiritual proletariat.

People State of Heaven Unite!

Ehem!!

This is awesome government: Oligarchy of Mediocrity. Highly Gifted souls must subordinate their gifts to a group of less…gifted. Why?   Because the gift-less are Holy? They have no ambition to corrupt? Their moral clarity is effective?

That means a group of men (or women) with the least gifting are setting the standard of personal improvement. The logical outcome of this silliness is utter enforced passivity.

I know, for those of you who don’t have anything to offer–lacking any gift of note–you just breathed a sigh of relief.

The pressure is off. You don’t have to produce with your gift, as small and insignificant as it is. The “First among Equals” will level the playing field and keep bad things from happening by keeping the Highly Gifted from excessive…success?

But wait. What if you decide you don’t like your lot in life? What if you want to develop your gifts and use them for the glory of God? You and I both know they are modest gifts, not amounting to much, but hey…we all want to make a difference.

What happens to you?

Hahaha… hahahhahaha…

The guy who has NO GIFT WHAT-SO-EVER is gonna set the limits on your holy aspirations. And if you “…. refuses brotherly accountability is (You are) self-deceived and is (you are) headed for self-destruction.” You’re stuck with your mediocre lot in life.   Your passivity is essential to avoid being deceived. Sucks to be you!

And this is what Strauch (and others like him) is really after. He is advocating passivity. The reason he doesn’t paint a broad brush over everyone’s propensity to fall into “egoism, greed, personality imbalance, and unholy ambition …” is because what makes most people “average” is their passivity. They are willing to accept the shepherd’s crook without too much fuss and feathers.

Most government structures need a docile body politic. Tame men are easy to order about, ambitious men… not so much. And since Strauch is positing a very thin distinction between the governors and the governed in his “First among Equals,” he needs a very heavy tonic to keep the body politic compliant. He needs you to fear the very gift you have been given. He needs you to utterly distrust yourself and your capacity to know and follow the truth: your ability to define, and make the choice to act on ethical (read: Holy) action.

The reality is, most people have profound gifts but never set out to exploit the content of those gifts because of the twin paralyzers: fear and passivity! It is easier to be passive. It takes courage to embrace the potential of your own life and work towards its highest and best expression. Fearlessness is the product of moral clarity–the foundational assurance that you are right to pursue your course of action. It takes ambition fueled with the moral clarity that using your gift is the RIGHT action.

And this is what Strauch (and others like him) implicitly know: the “gifted” tend to be movers and shakers. The success of their gift is usually because of their work ethic: the successful Highly Gifted is NOT passive. He tends to be self -motivated and self-appointed and self-confident.

This is Highly Gifted tendency UNLESS they are terrified into forfeiting their self-motivation.

And if I read the parable of the three men and the talents right, the two men who exploited their ability, taking actions to expand to double their stewardship were rewarded.

The man terrified of his stewardship, fearing failure and the judgments of his master, buried his talent demonstrating his utter passivity.

What was his judgment again?



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