Monday, September 26, 2022

Fisking Scott Lively’s Open Letter to Andrew Torba

Recently, Andrew Torba released a book outlining his idea of the philosophy of Christian Nationalism.  While I have not read his work yet, I read an article written by Scott Lively about it and I had a few problems with it.  So, in the spirit of Larry Correia, I’m going to fisk it.  Pastor Lively’s words will be in italics and my responses will be in bold.

Dear Brother Andrew. I am a Hebraic-oriented evangelical Christian attorney, pastor and historian who has devoted my entire adult life in Christ to Christian social, cultural and political activism. I bought your book "Christian Nationalism" to support the mission of Gab Social and want to offer you some constructive criticism.

So far, he’s off to a good start, but I’m wary of the “constructive criticism” phrase.  That term doesn’t usually mean anything constructive when it comes to Internet writings, but I’ll give Pastor Lively the benefit of the doubt since I don’t think he’s delving into 4Chan or Kiwi Farms.

At the outset, I want to commend you for your courage and vision in taking on the powers and principalities of the present age by working to break the chains of censorship and suppression of free speech, particularly of the biblically informed views that so powerfully contradict the secular humanist dogma of our Marxist would-be masters. They are the true enemies of "Judeo-Christian" civilization, and of course I choose that phrase intentionally to respectfully contradict your well-intentioned but misguided representation of its meaning and purpose relative to our national identity and heritage.

I see what the aforementioned “constructive criticism” was targeting.  He’s not really happy with Torba making a distinction between Christianity and modern Judaism.  The problem that Scott Lively seems to have is that he probably doesn’t understand where the ideas of secular humanist dogma and Marxism came from.  Here’s a hint: none of these ideas originated from European Christian scholars.

I will also add that I am both a member of Gab and a vehement defender of your right to address the distinctions between Judaism and Christianity. I do not consider you an anti-Semite and in fact believe that the secularized ethnic Jews working to destroy your work are actually far more anti-Semitic than they claim you are in that they deny and/or defy the Torah, whereas you worship and revere its Author.

It is said that the Talmud permits what the Torah forbids and this is certainly true in your statement about “secularized ethnic Jews”.  However, many of these “secular Jews” claim that abortion is a sacred rite for Judaism and have problem posting this stance on Twitter and calling anyone who opposes them “anti-Semitic”.

Also, I’m sure Andrew Torba is happy to know that you don’t consider him an anti-Semite.  Governor Greg Abbott of Texas would disagree with you.

What defines a "Semite" (Shemite) if not Yahweh-worship? It certainly can't be an ethnic connection to Shem (or Abraham or even Jacob), which virtually all humanity now shares because of genetic diffusion over millennia. No, it must be the practice of true Judaism, whose terms are defined by the Torah and Tanach (Old Testament Scripture), NOT the Talmud (commentaries on the Scripture by various Hebrew scholars with widely divergent views, values and validity).

Respectfully sir, I disagree with your statement.  Very few, if any, modern Jews practice solely what we call the “Old Testament” and, in fact, many use the Talmudic text far more often than what is found in the Torah.  And while I do regard that different sects probably have different versions of the Talmud, that doesn’t matter.  Talmudic texts are their primary source of their religion these days and these texts are incompatible with Christianity and Western philosophy in general.

Indeed, Judaism itself is as factional as Christianity but on a smaller scale, only because it's so much smaller in numbers. Jews are not just doctrinally divided, but notoriously so! As the famous old joke goes, "Ask two Jews, get three opinions." Thus, to cite the view of any Talmudic "sage" as representative of all Jews or Judaism itself (as you did on page 56) is as intellectually dishonest as an anti-Christian Jew or Secular Humanist cherry-picking from the collective works of Christian scholars to define all Christianity.

Not everyone has the time or patience to sit down and go through all the various doctrinal differences between the different sects of Judaism or Christianity for that matter.  However, both religions hold very basic core values.  For Christianity, you need look no further than the Apostle’s Creed as a statement of fundamental faith.  Modern Judaism rejects the Apostle’s Creed outright.  It is literally a religion that built around the rejection of Jesus as the Christ, or Messiah.

Which is an odd thing, if you think about it.  There are sects of Islam which have reverence for Jesus, not as God’s Son, but as a prophet in the same vein as their prophet Muhammad.  Most of other religions are built around the idea of revering a spiritual or divine entity.  But Judaism seems hell-bent on flatly rejecting Jesus, along with the Satanists and the secularists.

You begin Chapter 4, "This is Not a 'Judeo-Christian' Movement," asserting that "Christianity and Judaism are totally distinct, incompatible, and irreconcilable religions." In one essential sense that is true because, as you emphasize, Judaism denies that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. BUT, unlike all the other people groups of the world that also deny Christ (including all the secular factions in our diverse MAGA and populist/conservative movements whom you rightfully seem very comfortable collaborating with), true Torah-faithful Jews believe in a Messiah who will do all that things that Christians anticipate Jesus Christ will do on His second coming. They simply "missed the bus" on Jesus/Yeshua during His first advent (by God's own plan), but remain standing in line for the next one, which Romans 11 tells us they will catch, when (as God adds in Zechariah 12:10) "I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look on Me, the One they have pierced [and] mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son."

Okay, you are way off base here.  There is a lot of rationalization for what should to obvious to you, a learned man of Christ.

First of all, they didn’t simply miss the bus.  We are told in Acts that the Jews outright persecuted the Christians and even chased them down in the Gentile towns and had them persecuted there as well.  In fact, there is very little persecution from the Gentiles in the book of Acts until Paul preaches in Ephesus, but that persecution had more to do with money than religion.

They didn’t miss the bus.  They literally tried to run it off the road.

As for your reference to Romans 11, you misinterpret it completely.  Paul does not say that the Jews will come back to the fold and recognize Jesus as the Messiah sent by God, but merely relates that such a thing would be a wondrous thing to behold.  Indeed, Paul writes in verse 12, “Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!”

As for the verse you cited in Zechariah, God could very well be only referring to the disciples of Jesus.  This does not necessarily mean all the Jews everywhere.

You and I presumably share all or most of what would be considered the most fundamental tenets of the Christian faith, and many non-essential doctrines too. But we differ strongly on "supersessionism" (replacement theology) which you defend as the justification for your personal theology. Importantly, what you have laid out in "Christian Nationalism" is your personal theology, which does not represent Christianity as a whole, but only one slate of views among the constellation of denominations. That's not a problem insofar as you admit it and don't attempt to impose your interpretations on non-essentials as dogma on the rest of Christendom.

I’m not going to completely presume what Andrew Torba’s personal theology is, but I’m going to state the Christian Nationalism isn’t a theology.  It is a political movement that emphasizes Christianity and nationalism, or rather, one that honors both God and country alongside fellow countrymen.  And yes, the Captive Christians in the United States are well aware of that Christian Nationalism isn’t the overarching dogma of Christianity in the United States.  Yet.

The flaw in your analysis of supersessionism (page 57) is the appeal to tradition (one of the classic fallacies of formal logic). Whenever we justify ourselves by church tradition instead of the Bible itself, we depart from sound Holy Spirit guidance to tenuous worldly humanism – the common error behind Roman Catholicism's self-authorizing "Magisterium" theory and Talmudic Judaism's self-authorizing "Revered Sages" club. Correcting that error in Christendom was the implicit premise of the Reformation, but unfortunately, the reformers failed to reform numerous extra-biblical human-created doctrines in Protestantism, including the RCC's dramatic changes to God's holiday calendar, the presumed right of the church to enforce dogma through murder (e.g. Calvin's execution of Michael Servetus), and a severe Greco-Roman cultural bias in interpreting Scripture that differs markedly from the Hebraic cultural perspective of the Apostles and the Prophets.

The Protestant Reformation started because the Catholic Church clung to power over Truth.  Martin Luthor’s theses were written to declare that the Catholic Church was in error with regard to the salvation of Jesus where they were essentially commanding people to buy their way into heaven.  This is a very basic overview of the situation though.

In truth, you have to look at the Great Schism and the Protestant Reformation in a similar vein to the Tower of Babel and the division of Israel under Rehoboam, Solomon’s son.  In all these cases, the institutions God established became large and prideful, which resulted in God dividing them in order to humble the proud and to ensure that His Truth was firmly established.

Many of those human-created doctrines were quickly jettisoned as Protestantism splintered into numerous factions, such as Presbyterianism, which made the world-changing quantum shift from the top-down ecclesiastical power-pyramid exemplified by the papacy (and Anglicanism) to bottom-up self governance authorized by the "priesthood of all believers" and organized like the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15. THAT is the deepest foundation-stone of America and of the modern movement for constitutionalism (foreshadowed by the Magna Carta in 1215, heavily influenced by Jews).

Okay, I suspected you were stretching your reasoning with that last bit about the Magna Carta, so I went and read the article you cited.  From what I can gather, the Jews in England were inflicting heavy debts on the English people, including requiring the children of the debtors to pay.  This all parallels what we are experiencing in this day and age with student loans, mortgages, credit cards, etc.  But that’s a whole other topic.

The “heavy influence” the Jews had on the Magna Carta was really because of their greed.  The clause cited basically prevented them from collecting debts from the children of debtors.

It is fascinating to see modern Jews take credit for the Magna Carta when their greatest influence was inflicting excessive lending on the populace.  Your last statement was incredibly dishonest at best.

The process of getting from Scottish Presbyterianism to the Pilgrim Separatism of the Plymouth Colony was also heavily influenced by Christian-Jewish cross-pollination. Indeed, I know from my studies of this, that there would never have been a U.S. Constitution or the populist overthrow of the Western monarchies if not for the 16th and 17th century Hebraic Movement in Holland and Great Britain. And that is why America is and has always been "Judeo-Christian." It has nothing to do with how many Jews were active in the physical founding of America, or how Christian-centric the first state constitutions were; it is simply an honest acknowledgment of the Jews' role in nudging Christians back to their first-century heritage that made America possible: a shared intellectual property right, if you will, like co-authors of a book or a scientific theory.

The US Constitution was the result of Enlightenment philosophers, none of whom were Jewish as far as I know.

And your use of the term “Judeo-Christian” tells me that you do not even know the origin of that phrase.  Look it up and know that modern Judeo-Christians are not allowed the right of return to Israel, unlike literally all other Jews, even those Jews convicted of pedophilia.

Lastly, you asserted on page 61, "It is impossible to overstate the importance of the historic cataclysm that was the Destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D." Sorry, it not only IS possible, but you have done it. If that post-millennial doctrine were true, the real proof would have been unmistakable over the next thousand years, especially the end, but of course, it didn't look at all like the Millennial Kingdom of prophecy – because Christ's earthly kingdom, while very near, has not yet begun. You would know that if you studied the Bible from the literal Hebraic perspective, but you don't, and that's your right within the bounds of Christian liberty.

The Hedraic perspective of the New Testament isn’t one that I think many Christians would agree with.  And Revelations is merely prophecy, one that cannot be interpreted until the events described in that book have happened, much like the prophecies of Isaiah and Daniel.  Stop trying to fit the prophecies into a box.

Remember, Jesus was condemned to death by the High Priest because He said, “destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days”.  All the Jewish leaders present thought He was referring to the physical temple, not the His Body.  After all, Jesus did say that His kingdom was not of this world and the end of Revelation makes it clear that God will make the Earth His kingdom again.  How He does this is something we can only speculate on, which is a futile effort at best.

My point with the prior paragraph is to illustrate that factionalism will be the death-knell to any attempt to build unity on a theological foundation, which is why the founders and subsequent Christian generations chose the broadest possible platform – Bible-based Yahweh-honoring monotheism (exemplified in our national motto, "In God We Trust") – and not any flavor of Christian sectarianism (which led to many serious conflicts among the denominations in our early days as a nation and thus a ban on establishing state "religions" – meaning "denominations" – in the "Establishment Clause" of our constitution.)

And which unity do you desire Pastor Lively?  Because the Catholics demand that all Protestants come back to their church, while ignoring the Orthodox who regard themselves as the first and true church, Catholics be damned.  Meanwhile, the various Protestant denominations bicker over minor doctrinal differences that really don’t matter.

And yet, at the end of the day, all denominations praise Him.  We all worship and pray and do good works in His Name.

So at the end of the day, do we need unity?  From my perspective, Satan demands that humanity be united.  But God divides us constantly ever since the Tower of Babel incident.  Indeed, even Jesus Himself said that he did not come to unite us but to divide us against each other.  Not necessarily in war or conflict but simply to keep us from growing too big and too proud.

I don't expect you to change your theology based on one letter from me, but I do hope you will reconsider your gratuitous exclusionary rhetoric regarding our spiritual cousins in the House of Judah, treating at least the many who share our cultural values and all-important Creationist paradigm with the same basic respect and camaraderie you show to atheists in the MAGA and conservative movements. And I offer my assistance in making this necessary course correction if you care to accept it.

The House of Judah are not our spiritual cousins.  This much can be seen in how they treat us.  They have been behind all the subversive movements in the United States, starting with communism, gay rights, pornography, abortion, women’s rights, civil rights, and so many other damaging societal ills, it is getting hard to keep track of all of them.  Their fruits are death, perversion, and subversion.

You cannot judge a group by its ideology but by its fruits, after all.

Objectively, has this nation gotten better in the past 6 decades or so?  We cannot isolate the decay of the United States to a single cause, but a multitude of causes, many of which seem to have the same racial/religious identity rearing its head just inside the shadows.  From scientific materialism, to the elevation of psychology over spiritual healing to the destruction of the family, all of these things can be traced to some prominent Jewish thinker or pundit.  We know this because they like to brag about it.  It’s how Julius Rosenberg got caught, after all.

If you don’t believe me, then look no further than the current Biden administration.  You may want to note how many Jews are Cabinet members, which I think is a first for a Presidential administration.

Christian Nationalism is not a theology or a dogma, it is a movement to try and reclaim Western civilizations back into the hands of the Christian nationals whose ancestors founded and built these lands before the parasitic money-lenders, whom Jesus Himself whipped thousands of years ago, came to us.

Let me end this fisking with a question: we all regard the Jews as God’s Chosen people, but what exactly were they chosen for?  If you cannot answer that simple question honestly and make the proper logical inference from it, then you are a fool in the Biblical sense.