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Hey everyone. My name is Alejandro and I believe in ideas. Together we are going to change the world. We are going to begin with one idea and we are going to build from there. 

I begin by saying that God exists. There is a really simple proof and it goes like this: existence, therefore, God. If we trace any theory of origin, either evolution or aliens or God, we have to conclude that any origin of existence must be eternal. Nothing can come from nothing so all things must have an origin that has always existed. If anything ever came into being, it cannot have come from nothing. If we travel far enough backwards we can only stop at something that did not have an origin. That is to say, only an eternal something can be the origin of existence. That origin must be eternal and it must be powerful enough to be the origin of everything that is not eternal. Combine eternality and power and we have God. First truth: God exists. Deny it all you want, but you exist and the universe is not eternal so you and the universe must have an origin that is eternal and outside of nature, since nature cannot create itself. 

Second truth: God sovereignly rules over his universe. He created all so he rules over all: events, disasters, coincidences, tragedies, victories, and glories. He commands the worlds, the nations, armies, kings, presidents, men and women great and small rich and poor good and evil. He rules the thoughts intentions desires passions and wills of every man and woman. Nothing surprises him. Nothing dissuades, discourages or frightens him. Nothing gets in his way. Nothing stops him from doing his will. Nothing can for he rules over all and we have been created by him for his pleasure and his purposes and not for ours.

The World is Mad

The world has gone mad and the Church is to blame. The world has gone mad because we refuse to speak the truth and the first truth is that God rules over all. The second truth is that men are depraved and wicked to their core.

God rules over all of Creation.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

If God created, then God can destroy. If God created all then God owns and rules over all. He comprehends all. He rules over all events, over good and evil, over the thoughts, intentions, and desires of men. Nothing comes to pass that he is not aware of and either commands or allows. All is from His mighty hand.

None are saved apart from His will. None can be saved apart from His desire for we are hostile towards him by nature. He saves who he wills and allows to perish who he wills. If we are left to our natural desires, we will gladly choose eternal destruction. By His grace and intent alone are any delivered.

Men are wicked and unrepentant without his grace. We murder, cheat, lie and steal from each other. We destroy all we touch. Only by his grace do any survive a single day in his creation.

If we deny his sovereignty, we will necessarily deny man's depravity. If we deny man's depravity, we deny his sovereignty. These two run together. Today our works destroys itself because we have accepted the lie that men are not depraved but good. We believe that men have "evolved" and in this evolution we have reached a state of morality that does not require a Creator. We believe that men can live together without the influence or rule of an absolute moral standard Bearer, and despite the onslaught of overwhelming evidence, we cling to our lie because we prefer it to the truth that we are all beyond any redemption of it own making.

The Church builds on this lie. We prefer our righteousness to God's when we say that men are "free" to believe in God. We grasp small meaningless remnants of our dignity when we deny that God rules the heart, but we have no dignity. We are slaves to our sin. We wallow in our filth but we call it "choice" because that is how we define love. God does not define love this way. God loves and only God. Only God can love. When we claim that we chose God, we claim a false goodness that does not exist and we refuse to submit ourselves to God's sovereignty.

Our God is in the heavens; he does what he pleases.

He does not do what we please. He does not respond to us. He does not wait for us. He does not relinquish his rule and place us on the Creator's throne. That is madness. The world has gone mad because the Church believes that men are good and God is weak, but we can save the world if we submit to God and speak the truth.

Religion and Politics

My class on Dietrich Bonhoeffer assigned an essay on "worldview". The first part of the essay was to focus on what a worldview is, and the second part of the essay focused on my worldview. I don't think I need to define worldview. I didn't think so when I wrote the paper, but I did it anyway. In the paper, I stated that my worldview is that of the Westminster Confession. Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever by trusting God and obeying his word. I have not included the first two parts here. What follows is the last part of the essay: how my worldview impacts my interaction with the world.

Obedience will reveal itself as we interact with the world. We live in a country that allows its citizens to vote and participate in establishing policy together. Obedience to God’s word and Christ’s example will shine in our support and opposition to various issues and political parties. God’s word tells us what he expects, what he values, what he loves and what he hates. We have clear direction to aid us in evaluating most if not all of the controversial issues that we face. God has spoken to us about personal responsibility and morality, yet many in America openly defy God’s direction.

The freedom that we enjoy in the United States requires each individual to exercise responsibility in every area of life. Each of us depend on each other to respect the law, to work hard, to be honest, and to raise our children to do the same. If this expectation were ever to generally fail, our nation would crumble. When we drive in our vehicles, we obey the law and we trust that the vast majority of the people will also obey the law. When we shop at the mall, we trust that the vast majority of the people will respect each other’s persons. We depend on each other when we engage in business, when we go to work, when we drop our children off at school or send them on a plane to their grandparents. Benjamin Franklin said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” Without virtue, the nation will descend into lawlessness and chaos. The authorities will then need greater and more severe forms of force to maintain order, and then the country forfeits its freedom.

Personal responsibility manifests in public policy. When government happily provides for many basic needs, men ignore the duty they have to provide for themselves and their families and rely on government. God has commanded us to be diligent workers. Bonhoeffer writes, “It is God’s will that there shall be labour, marriage, government, and church in the world.”[1] Solomon says in Proverbs, “Poor is he who works with negligent hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich” (10.4). Welfare benefits and other entitlement programs contribute to an increase in crime.[2] Welfare benefits enable fathers to abdicate their familial responsibilities and surrender them to the state. Children without fathers are twice as likely to commit crime.[3] Out-of-wedlock births are also linked to welfare. Michael Tanner writes, “By removing the economic consequences of an out-of-wedlock birth, welfare has removed a major incentive to avoid such pregnancies.”[4] Welfare discourages out-of-wedlock mothers from marrying in the future.[5] When fathers do not participate in the rearing of their children, the children lack direction, instruction, and moral guidance. Many believers contend that welfare is “compassionate” and “Christian”, while they fail to realize that Christ did not command the state to care for the poor, but the individual believer (Matthew 25.31-46; Luke 18.22). He commands us to visit the prisoner, and feed and clothe the poor. Compassion does not involve surrendering our taxes to a wasteful state to distribute without wisdom to whoever holds out their hand or refuses to work.

Compassion also requires a measure of wealth that surpasses meeting our basic needs. Christ says that we will always have the poor (Matthew 26.11), but we cannot show compassion if government assumes responsibility for meeting the needs of all its citizens. Currently, two economic systems battle for dominance between the two political parties. In socialism, the ideal of the Democrat Party, the citizen gives the majority of his wealth and income to the state, and the state redistributes this wealth as it sees fit. In capitalism, men earn according to their ability and diligence and keep the majority of their wealth. Socialism destroys both diligence and compassion by destroying incentive. We are selfish by nature, but if we keep little that we earn, we have no reason to work nor do we have anything to give. Paul says, “If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat” (2 Thessalonians 3.10), and “he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9.6).

Emotionalism substitutes for compassion in modern politics. The left side of American politics weeps and wails over the plight of citizens of other countries, and supports their illegal entry into this one. Christians who oppose illegal immigration for being an illegal and illegitimate way of solving a problem are condemned as “unchristian” and “not compassionate”, but if anyone challenges these accusers to travel to other countries and feed the poor or clothe the naked, they sit in silence. Weeping and wailing, while causing no discernible change in the world, pacifies the lazy conscience of the leftist. In the household where Bonhoeffer grew up, “Emotionalism, like sloppy communication, was thought to be self-indulgent.”[6] Indeed, emotionalism contributes nothing to the current discourse. Emotionalism complains, and complaints without solutions only serve to anger and frustrate. In our case, emotionalism drives one side to the voting booths so that others will pretend to solve the problem, when in reality the elected authorities have no interest in solving problems, but only in maintaining power. Lazy emotionalism continues.

God commands his people to love him from the heart, but also with the mind. He has given us a mind and also his spirit to discern right from wrong and know how to act. God commands all believers to love each other and to clothe and feed the poor. God does not command us to support illegal activity as a means of compassion, as some people confuse illegal immigration to be. God does not command us to murder our unborn children or our sick, in order to improve our quality of life or prevent a low quality of life.

The Democrat party supports abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage, transgenderism, open borders, and government entitlement programs, among many others. Every single one of these positions openly defies God’s commands. Abortion destroys a person, when God commands to not murder (Exodus 20.13). David said, “In sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51.5). Every person has a soul from conception, and the Democrat party relishes the power that abortion gives them over life and death. They find the same power in euthanizing the sick and elderly. Doctors in Belgium euthanize children with cystic fibrosis, a treatable disease.[7] Doctors are allowed to terminate the life of any child who makes the request. God alone has the authority to give and end life. He says to Israel, “There is no God besides me; it is I who put to death and give life” (Deuteronomy 32.39). When we usurp his authority and take a life, we declare ourselves independent of his authority and we return to the Garden of Eden to eat again of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

God has defined marriage as the union between one man and one woman (Genesis 2.18-24). He has defined gender as male and female (Genesis 1.27). Paul says that as believers, our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6.19) and he exhorts us to glorify God in our body (1 Corinthians 6.20). Liberals defy God by supporting gay marriage, homosexuality, and other forms of sexual perversion. I do not even oppose the legal unions of men to men and women to women, but to call that “marriage” is open defiance to God’s word. Certain groups advocate men having sexual relationships with boys.[8] Transgenderism, formerly known as gender dysphoria, has gained traction as an acceptable state of being, rather than a mental illness. Paul condemns these distortions of sexual identity (Romans 1.24-27). God created man for a purpose, and his biological sex defines his purpose as much as his relationship to God. We relate to God as men and as women. God has defined our responsibilities to each other in terms of our gender. God commands men to sacrifice (Ephesians 5.23, 25) and women to submit and trust (Ephesians 5.22; 1 Peter 3.1). When we confuse our masculinity or femininity, we confuse our duties as believers to God and each other. Elisabeth Elliot writes of the “glorious distinction” of sexuality. She says, “I dare to call it even a glorious inequality, so that we may understand how important it is and how utterly noninterchangeable men and women are. If we understand it, we will rejoice in it.”[9]

Many of our nation’s founders believed in God. Many Americans do today also. Most settlers came to America searching for the freedom to practice their religion.[10] Historians Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen write that “America … operated on an understanding that the nation would adopt an unofficial, generic Christianity that fit hand in glove with republicanism.”[11] As Benjamin Franklin said, a free nation requires virtue. True virtue requires faith in God, yet if America opens its borders indiscriminately, we weaken our national beliefs because not everyone believes as we do. Democrats support open borders as a means of maintaining power without regard to preserving a culture that largely values law and order, personal responsibility, or respect for life and property. Though illegal immigrants are not allowed to vote, many do[12], and of those who do, 54% identify with the Democrat, party, as opposed to 19% who identify with the Republican Party.[13] Europe has largely adopted a policy of allowing the entrance of thousands of immigrants who do not share the values of the permitting country. Dramatic increases in riots[14], rape[15], and various other forms of crime[16] have resulted. If America pursues the same policy of indiscriminate immigration, we will face a similar future. Illegal immigrants break the law by definition. If they have no respect for the law when they enter the country, how can we expect them to respect the law after they have entered it?

Scripture asserts the need for borders. When the Israelites entered the land of Canaan, God commanded them to “utterly destroy” all the inhabitants (Deuteronomy 7.2). The Canaanites worshipped other gods, they sacrificed their children to their idols (2 Kings 16.3), and God knew they would turn the hearts of the Israelites away from him (7.4). When King Solomon married foreign wives and took foreign concubines, he began to turn away from God and the nation followed with him (1 Kings 11). Countries have borders to preserve their values and customs. If there are no borders, there are no countries and no people. A government protects its people by protecting its values and its borders.

“The cross is laid on every Christian,” says Bonhoeffer.[17] Christ commands us to seek him in his word, yet many prefer to trust the words of anyone else, rather than, with reason, diligently pursue a Christian worldview. If we don’t know what to believe, someone else will tell us what they want us to believe. In 2006, I began working at Kern County for the Engineering and Survey Services Department. I rode in an enormous survey truck with a coworker who listened to conservative talk radio. As I listened, I realized that I agreed with everything these people had to say. Previously, I agreed with the men and women who preached “compassion” through shallow emotionalism. Conservatism takes its stand largely from Scripture, though obviously conservatism does not equal Christianity, or discipleship, or the sacrifice Christ calls us to. Those ventures across Kern County greatly influenced my political mind, but God had already began work on my spiritual mind and heart years earlier. I “grew up” spiritually reading about Elisabeth Elliot on masculinity and the sacrifice of her husband Jim Elliot, reading John Piper and Thomas Watson talk about God’s passion for his glory, and reading J.I. Packer tell of theology as the grandest study of all. Bonhoeffer writes, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”[18] I choose to vote as a conservative, but I choose to live as a disciple. Glorifying God as a disciple involves trusting Christ and obeying his word. It requires the daily death of humility in acknowledging sin, of diligence in seeking Christ, of trust in God as we surrender ourselves to love other people who may not love us in return.

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[1] Bonhoeffer, Ethics, 204.

[2] Michael D. Tanner, “Relationship between the Welfare State and Crime.” Cato Institute (June 7, 1995). https://www.cato.org/publications/congressional-testimony/relationship-between-welfare-state-crime-0

[3] Tanner.

[4] Tanner.

[5] Tanner.

[6] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2010), page 15.

[7] Charles Lane, “Children are being euthanized in Beligum”, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/children-are-being-euthanized-in-belgium/2018/08/06/9473bac2-9988-11e8-b60b-1c897f17e185_story.html

[8] North American Man Boy Love Association, for example.

[9] Elisabeth Elliot, The Mark of a Man, (Tarrytown, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1981), page 30.

[10] Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, A Patriot’s History of the United States, (New York: Penguin Books, 2007), page 96.

[11] Ibid, 97.

[12] Rowan Scarborough, “Study supports Trump: 5.7 million noncitizens may have cast illegal votes”. The Washington Times, June 19, 2017. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/19/noncitizen-illegal-vote-number-higher-than-estimat/

[13] Eileen Patten and Mark Hugo Lopez, “Are unauthorized immigrants overwhelmingly Democrats?”, Pew Research Center, July 22, 2013. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/22/are-unauthorized-immigrants-overwhelmingly-democrats/

[14] Brett T., “WARZONE: Those ‘youths’ in Sweden seem to be rioting and torching cars again”. Twitchy, August 13, 2018. https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2018/08/13/warzone-those-youths-in-sweden-seem-to-be-rioting-and-torching-cars-again-video/

[15] Tom Wyke, et al, “Migrant rape fears spread across Europe: Women told not to go out at night alone after assaults carried out in Sweden, Finland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland amid warnings gangs are co-ordinating attacks”, DailyMail, August 15, 2018. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3390168/Migrant-rape-fears-spread-Europe-Women-told-not-night-assaults-carried-Sweden-Finland-Germany-Austria-Switzerland-amid-warnings-gangs-ordinating-attacks.html

[16] Grace Guarnieri, “MIGRANTS IN EUROPE LINKED TO SOARING VIOLENCE AND CRIME IN GERMANY, STUDY FINDS”. Newsweek, January 13, 2018, https://www.newsweek.com/migrants-europe-violence-crime-germany-study-770105

[17] Bonhoeffer, Cost, 89.

[18] Ibid.