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The culture that counts^*1 is not one that you can reach by counting. It is an expression of multiple spirits, in varieties of people, in poses, self-portraits for life, ostentation, rumination, glamour, retardation, acceleration, rampant self-exploitation, oppression or providing it for others, in conflagration of spirit, in anaesthesia of mind, with rapier wit, with sporting instincts, abortive of life - their own, culminating in concept, collaborative in teams, preening, peering, enduring, masquerading, being religious or irreligious as if on contract; and ever so much more.

It has a cohesion of sort, to enable it to be CALLED a culture, and this is because

1) the people in it all have to a large extent, the same type of DNA for their fixtures of flesh.

2) most of the persons in it have minds able to be self-critical, critical of others, to consider God, to make decisions, to erect standards of values, to ponder reality and to be confused, dismissive, abrupt, outrageous and reasonable.

4) the bulk of them have spirits by which to choose, abuse, dream, hope, have vision, concept, artistry,
or delight in folly, madness, crazed loons without knowing it, brilliant thinkers, minimal thankers or whatever else takes their fancy, imbues their thought, catches their attention or arises from the depths within, pours from the heights above, or is found to make friends, enemies if so desired,money or hay.

Sometimes, in fact quite often, a culture has an increasingly self-conscious air, important, imposing in its own mind (or in the general approbation), aware of its nature, with this or that warping, so that some desire to found another, like it as a mirror image in bad glass mirrors, contrary, like a contradiction of its major ideas, a mirror-image as in like things, that have a little rearrangement; and this may be sought in force, tantrums, the media, art, literature or philosophy, government or religion.

This will seek to oppose, re-compose, edit, restrict, re-emphasise in this or that, denude, render derelict things sacred or secular, glorify man or a race, a philosophy or a religion, arms or peace, or whatever else appeals to one, to many, in followers like rivulets after rain, in streams of aggregation, tentatively or dynamically, with shouting directions or subtle hints, with long work leading to complete change in vital elements, upward to meaning and creation of what endures, or downward to disaster and even national defeat.

Then their are subsidiary cultures which may struggle to express themselves, by special languages, ideas, nerve-centres within society, and may succeed in gaining support or even hegemony, be they good, indifferent or horrendous, murderous or military-minded, devout or deadly.

The value of these things is as great as the value of man, with reductions when it misinterprets him, misaligns him with what is fatal to his nature, ruinous to his abilities or warping to the clarity and reasonableness of his mind. Those things lead readily to devastation, and have value only for the enemies of man.

The diversities in world cultures are almost as great as the difference between human culture, and insect colonies. This follows from the spirit of man which is made both inventive and creative, can be captious and disarming, slithery and seductive, deceitful and devious, dynamic and mesmeric, so that the residues, as in Europe for instance, can even in the midst of an attempt to fashion, formulate or found a culture for all, can be startling different, difficult to integrate.

Yet as the dynamic, the insidious, the invidious, the ingenious and the counter-cultures and cultures all jostle and mingle, there is a thrust this way or that, as the people consider their joint relationships and possible unified progress (in whatever direction is deemed to be 'good', which without the only rational source of such a concept, the One who knows the point and place of man, and so what is good for him, is a marvellous place to confuse and manipulate). They may be taken, as under a Hitler or a Petain, to clamorous victory over real or imaginary foes, and be seduced into folly with vast zeal, or be moved into weakness, their ideals becoming idle idols of indolence, suppression, or concoction of ideas to justify themselves in what they do.

All these things are as valuable as murder, suicide, oppression, understanding, depth, wisdom, viciousness, preciousness, self-indulgence or blindness can make man. It all depends. Culture as such may have vast counter-value, and become a countervailing slide to seductions from all that man can be, when deployed with dynamic, equipped with understanding, aided by mutual concern, perceiving what is forward and backward aright: that is by knowing God. The British Empire, for all its very many faults, had some aspects of this right, with a national religion, wrongly instituted to be sure, since as noted earlier, a nation not being Christians, is no site for a national Church, though Christian traditions may be honoured, principles applied and liberty ensured, this still leaving people free to think and write as they will, though surrounding them with standards of value and vision which they may dislike, like furniture in a room.

Thus in Britain there was a very significant degree of unity of understanding, at least for a considerable time; and while persecution even then did not depart, not least because of the State religion aspect, and the confusion or attempted fusion of religious principles and governmental power. It also had some sense of what was its responsibility, though of course various self-interested parts and approaches for the nation, spoiled much of it. At the least, it gave some sense, not entirely absent in World War II, of what is right and wrong, what is to be secured and what may be lost.

To attempt to set a value on a culture depends for success on having access to the standard, the truth, the nature of man, which the Christian religion alone provides, since only God CAN know, various interpretations otherwise being as near as grease and dryness, fat and water. Since God does know and has said as is readily demonstrable (cf. SMR, TMR and the other sets in Search), declaring in the relevant work for this exercise, the Bible, what is the nature of creation and of expectation, this can be done.

In general, it becomes rather like art judging, however, where what many regard as atrocity, is called by some cultural or counter-cultural enclave, a veritable wonder; and some ludicrous simplicity, like a colour for a picture, for a slight oddity here or there, for philosophic reasons without logical ground, may be attested as a work of genius. To seek to CONSERVE CULTURE, or give it AUTOMATIC VALUE, put it on the SACRED HERITAGE list, as if neglect were to let a beautiful endangered species die, is thus a foolish pre-occupation. Preserve a gallows ? a circuit of guillotines ? a posse of power ? a weak-willed profusion of self-indulgence ? On what ground ? It is simply MAN-WORSHIP AS A CULTURE which would do this.

If man per se IS divine, then what a dreadful thing to omit whatever culture he may have indulged in, engaged in or given birth to, though it roasted its children (as some did, at various times), boasted its powers (as many did), deployed its forces for imperial prowess as a people-crusher, or whatever else may have entered the ideational flow, and gained an ascendency long enough to destroy or ruin much.

To be sure, some cultures have great architecture in terms of beauty, creativeness, grandeur; and some great literature in expressing, compressing or surveying scenes with what may be deemed insight; and the Elizabethan era in Great Britain, for all its State pollution in the field of religion, through a degree of intolerance (which looks very relaxed compared with some Islamic States now), had much to offer in this mode.

However, some prefer the amorphous, the less visionary, the less creative, the more debased, unaligned, the slackness of just letting things flow (except when debt gets so great that at least a new election is indicated), and count this value in a culture.

Without God, it is impossible to say. Once you find Him, then and then only do you find yourself and the way to estimate a culture; for then you have a ruler to measure, a spirit to assign, a value model apt for man in terms of what is the purpose of his construction, and the God of his life to provide insight and oversight, so that you know where the airport lies for landing on what is really ground, and where the vision is, for seeing without inveterate if hidden astigmatism.

Futility is rightly the name for the other options, as Solomon in Ecclesiastes is moved to write. Indeed, when it comes to culture, and to God, there is one place to read as noted above, the Bible, and one Person to find, as in it shown, Jesus Christ, and one vision to have, that of truth, provided by the Holy Spirit in terms of what is given in the Bible, and given by Jesus Christ.

Then alas it is found that our cultures and counter-cultures are a set of adventurers approaching their fraying, braying, non-staying ultimates and ultimata. Long has liberty been a dower; long has power misused it; lust misdeployed it, oppression suppressed it, viciousness defiled it, and courage sought to restore it, while confusion has moved to derail even this.

So far from being glorious sacred objects, these become attempts, efforts, or straight disasters, to come to some understanding, some power, some creation, some endurance, some point about things, with this or that clue or pointer used, and others indices ignored.

Efforts to enshrine in this or that race, including the human race, some special value in itself, are as rash and counter-productive in this field as deploring and denouncing it. It is the WORKS of each culture which are up for assessment, in the end by God, but with principles which He has already provided. It is the WORDS which are equally assessible, for their measure of revolt, rebellion, assiduous conscientiousness to follow Him, dutifulness and responsibility, and whatever love is shown - if indeed it is even known for something more than amorous adventures or personal affection.

It is Christ and not culture who is valuable objectively, without limit, as if fitting for the eternal God (John 8:58), and understanding from this source is fitting, as from the One who went so far as not merely to empathise, but to instal Himself within man's format, through the staggering mode of birth, to SHOW so that we might KNOW, what is what and not, and where to go and what to reject, and find the path for life as it is meant to be lived, and to follow it; and with all this, to become a child of God. It is this potential function in man which makes of him such a puzzle to the atheist, an enigma to the agnostic, an enemy to the false religionist, propagating in His name ideas from other sources, and a blessing to those who receive Him as Father, through the offering of the sacrificial Christ, who made the entry to that delightful post of child of God, both free and sure.

But what does the Bible say of CULTURE ? It is well to look at some examples, which follow.

Here in outline is what might be called the prognosis of departure from God over time; and the civilisation of man as he has done just this, is especially obviously seen in those nations which once having drawn near to God in substantial, principial or cultural mode and resultant, then move as is now the predicted rage, into dismemberment from His body, departure from His principles. There is what is almost like a graph of the personal, social, emotional, psychic and moral results. You can almost plot it, despite the many variables that move in, as times of some reformation or restoration come and go, and the finale forms itself for its irreparable ruin in such cases.

Above are cited some biblical examples of cultural assessment in different modes, respects, dimensions, and all carry the code of God concerning man. There are supervening principles, there are requirements of being sensitive, sensible, securing conscientiously the value of life from God, and applying it sedulously. This involves, quite naturally, things to delight in, to depart from: the admonition and the encouragement alike, as fitting before the face and in the mind of the Creator of man.

The cultivated cultures of men tend to use this or that diversion, distortion of what God has declared, and hence, while highly diverting if it were sport, since it is not, but literally involves life and death, this is like taking lessons in nebulosity. It is like learning for a degree course, how to proceed undisciplined, uneducated and ignorant concerning God. It is rather like being forgetful that you have lungs, and hence breathing only occasionally, till of course you die.

Cultures die, and many lie dead within them.

Sometimes it takes a time.

The end is rarely pretty.

The more is the pity.

Ultra-culture is needed, even the truth, from Him who is it, Himself declaring:

"I am the way, the life and the truth."

The options are numerous; their destinies are not.

AUSTRALIA and THE FALL-DOWN MODEL OF DECLINE

Australia currently, like the USA, is in the process of having an enormous change in culture. It is BECAUSE there is a slowly accumulating change from the ultra-culture of Christ, who as the truth is not born of culture, but was born into it, and did not yield to it, whether it was ecclesiastical culture (that is the conformity of ultra-culture to culture by priestly errors and evils as in Ch. 6 above, dealing with Malachi's message, and popular following), or political culture (as in the procrastinations of righteousness in anguished Pilate, representing Rome), or social culture (as in Christ's rebukes to the splendidly religious and utterly ungodly Pharisaic movement).

He told the truth because HE IS the truth, since as God incarnate, His eternal Word Express (Hebrews 1), leaving nothing to the mind of man to invent, but providing the mind and heart of God direct, He not only embraced but more aptly put, He constituted that Truth. The same today, yesterday and forever, He remains when all else falls, the only exhibit ever on this planet, in human form, to provide in the very face of brilliantly pursued, murderously mordant criticism, the astonishing reality of His claim to be without sin (John 8), even challenging those who rejected Him to show otherwise. He further fulfilled all relevant prophecy, in the face of highly educated, sophisticated, professionals with envy and hatred to motivate them, who had abundant opportunity to show otherwise.

It is idle to speak as if this was unimportant: when a nation is so moved by religion and its law and has its professionals versed with deadly precision, as to aim, to apply it, and a man moves in their midst as the Messiah, the crucial determinant of history, the acme of desire, it is ludicrous to imagine any possible discrepancy would be ignored! Indeed, in Matthew you find numerous examples of this inveterate desire to show Him wrong, shown in principle in Luke 11. Since after much trial, success in such sallies eventually being shown impossible (cf. Matthew 22:46), there remained on other way: death by criminal proceedings, and rejection made into murderous fraud. If HE WERE wrong, why not prove it instead of simply acting on that basis and killing by begging the question, which in any case, had no other answer since, be sure, they would have found it (cf. Ch. 4 above).

Israel moved from this direct declaration of His deity (John 14:6, 8:58,Mark 62), so often made, by killing Him. Other nations did not have this opportunity, except for Rome in its participation in the road to Calvary.

They have used other methods.

Some nations began at times to move towards Him by lauding Him, at times with a swelling thrust, as happened to a considerable extent in the USA, and sometimes with a national zeal, as happened to no small extent in Great Britain. This may occur, as there, with a combination of Church and State, which, the State not being Christian but composite, if one including the Church under government, is unworkable, since Christ is the Head of the Church body (Romans 12, Ephesians 2, 4), and additions of another kind contradict this biblical and spiritual fact.

Thus a national Church with such ultra-Christian input, as from a composite spiritual body of various kinds and proportions, compromised the sole rule of His body, the Church, by its Head, Jesus Christ. That was a matter dear to the heart of many of the Scottish Covenanters, and rightly so, though as shown in Ch. 5 above (cf. SMR pp. 50ff., 65ff.) , no use of force in the Church in Christ's name is tolerated by Him (John 18:36ff., Matthew 26:52ff.).

Some nations as time went on, and this respect, as history regressed, then grew weary, often in some subversive section, as in Germany in Hitler's day; and in one manner of another, these tended to either to use Christ as a desired influence without real subjection to His yoke, or with a shrug of the socially cultured shoulders, distanced themselves from Him by changing their laws, forbidding any eminence to His public testimony or by publicly allying themselves, through a leader or leaders, with what is antithetical to Christ.

This the USA has been doing for some years, and in the last named aspect, President Bush gave some honour to Islam, in practice and word, thus vastly complicating the war in Afghanistan, with obvious openings for double-dealing and treachery from people drawn two ways and yielding to the one they knew, probably extending the war enormously, by these means, as well as dishonouring Christ by such observations and alliances. President Obama has gone further yet.

In his famous Cairo speech, his praise of Islam ignored its force elements in the Koran^*1Aand history, at least to such an extent as to represent a hideous propaganda, one more element in the synthesis of the world-wide movement in this way to join together utterly contrary religions, and of his nation to move at official levels further and further toward what is wholly and directly contradictory of Christ. His observation in due course that the Koran was a holy book, in terms of praise, meant that it is holy to deny the deity and redemption of Jesus Christ, which is the opposite of faith, the degradation of rationality in religion^*2, the elevation of spiritual assault forces to the podium, as in the end platform appearance in the Tour de France.

Indeed, it represents a daring if indirect ditching of the objective realities of Christ^*2Aat the national level. It IS possible to BE what the Christian Church was founded to show, FAITHFUL to Christ as a person, and to make this clear as every Christ MUST (Luke 9:26), and yet to represent one's nation as a leader, in making such policy utterances as are authorised by its form of government, so defining them.

There is no law that you have to sell your soul to take a public role. If you do, that is a private matter.

If therefore a leader gives voice to statements which are NOT distinguished from the personal, so that the two are permitted to have all the appearance of a merger, then this is a purely personal choice, and represents a personal testimony. To say no more, the USA public might have expected one whose church-going represented so vast a part of his pre-presidential self-portrait, to have done otherwise. More importantly, the personal character of the President's revelations about past elements in the Muslim areas of his earlier life, and his estimates of the religious history of that faith, left no doubt that not only was this a personal statement, but IF supposed to relate to some form of 'Christianity', it could only be to some other Christ than the one of the Bible^*3.

Paul has words on this topic which it is necessary to remember, for he warns of the religious chameleon-christ phenomenon^*4.

As to

presenting

"another Jesus whom we have not preached"

or proceeding to receive

"a different spirit which you have not received," or

"a different gospel which you have not accepted,"

he attributes such works (II Corinthians 11) to a very different source

than the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In fact, of such, he declares that they are both "deceitful workers" and "false apostles."

After all, making a harmoniously synthetic christ, who may with the words of a holy book be characterised as neither deity nor redeemer, is making what is not God into what bears His name. This is precisely the error of ancient Israel for which God excoriated them as seen in Deuteronomy 32:13-21).

You may endorse such a religious attitude as thereby exhibited, but then if a man can characterise a religion as he will, God has ALREADY characterised such actions, as here in II Corinthians 11, as also in Galatians 1. As to Paul, IF, he said, he himself should preach any other Gospel HE himself would be accursed. The room for change by synthesis with what is biblically characterised as false prophecy is zero, and represents a spiritual BROADWAY, where the highway of holiness is of a different character (Matthew 7:15), involving not some but ALL the words of the Lord (Matthew 5:17ff., John 14:26, I Corinthians 2:9ff.) and not some imagination of latter-day man.

This then represents to an increasing degree in the USA, at the political level, a move to match that which has proceeded for one dramatic century in high gear. In this mode and mood, many of the churches themselves, have committed spiritual adultery with liberalism, neo-orthodoxy, the World Council of Churches^*5, itsmembership including a vast swath^*5A of them, paralleled by neo-evangelicism with its increasing use of orthodox phrases with delinquent phases in doctrinal statements, as if to deceive if it were possible the very elect.

Meanwhile, the United Nations^*5Bspouts its phrases and delivers its dicta, pronounces its pronunciamentos, a quasi-Moses without the mouth of God, or even His name, its morals based on preference, irrationally exempt^*5C from basis, loud in mouth, anti-God in trend as it seeks to augur in the brotherhood of man, whether he serve devil or Christ. Thus verbal fuzz leads only to confusion, delusion and deception, as befits this pantheon of gods, zealously held, none mentioned, all dismissed in outward appearance, as a writhing agnosticism meets the practicalities undifferentiated from atheism. And what is this but an anti-Christ, a mouthy messiah, exempt from verification, vindication or even indication, while He whose right it is has all of these in superabundance.

So moves man by many means where only distress of nations, international anxieties, and conflict with God, as over Jerusalem, mounts to absurd proportions, just as foretold in Revelation 19:19! It is a pity to seek to disaster ...

What of Australia ? Firstly, there is much movement as in the above, both relative to the World Council of Churches and the United Nations, as in some of their feeder sources, to our vast detriment.

It is to be noted that the choice of leaders in the 2010 federal election is between a Roman Catholic^*6, another openly endorsing homosexuality as leading in the field, and an unmarried atheist living with one who is not her husband. In each case^*6A, there is confrontation with the Bible, and with the declarations of deity. Not only so, but the land itself, as in the USA, has long suffered a vast movement amid many of its churches, from the Bible to the World Council of Churches, to massive violations of the biblical commandments on tongues^*7, to moral innovation, violating biblical declarations on the design and purpose of man and his body, and social follies, built on wants instead of wisdom, desire instead of divine directions, and wholesale importation from no good place, of new look commandments and permissions.

The thrust of the move acts blindly, as if God being dead, it is only fair to keep talking. God however is doing precisely what He said He would do, and all of this is precisely one of His forecasts, before the judgment to come (as considered in Ch. 8 above cf. II Timothy 3-4, II Peter 2, Acts 20).

It is not enough now that the schools increasingly, even private ones^*8, must teach with dictatorial exclusion of what scientific method actually indicates clearly, a naturalism in process for creation, a ludicrous myth that is NEVER given visible substantiation, logical basis or confirmatory predictive power; but now there is an 'education revolution', one part of which becomes an even more intrusive machination on new-look morals and philosophic dictation. Halls have been built, which might well serve for further inculcations of the new religious base, now being built as the nation moves further and further from its once very considerable Christian base, as being founded by what was formally at least, a nation of Christian testimony, to that amorphous national posture which should be ideal when fear comes, and invasion threatens, when cleanness of heart gains access to God and purity of thought clears the way for communication, where the living God alone can help, as He has helped so mightily in the past.

Yes, destroying as far as may be, foundations of the path by miseducation and disinformation, dictatorially determined, whether or not by delusion, is a far cry from the time when the cry to God may be as necessary for life, as the air now is for the lungs. Is this to be one more nation which follows that path, with which history is littered! It will not be for lack of warning (cf. Ezekiel 18 and 33).

Thus meta-culture is being quickly removed from political sight, and doubtless, in further moves to a new Constitution in Australia, there will be mighty forces seeking the removal of our being under God Almighty, as now in the preamble, in favour of further researches into the recesses of recidivism. It is not just that when it might rain, an umbrella helps, but that when you are unthankful for extraordinary blessings, as happened also with England, and THEN veer from the Christian elements of your national past with increasing aplomb, assurance and directional finesse, there is a pattern in history, as a warning in the Bible. You cannot have it both ways. Mock God with your tongue or your deeds, invent new ones, new christs, new look morals, very well.

What do you think was happening before ? If the land had many faults, yet this is a more fundamental one. This attacks God from the standpoint of having shared in blessings and restraints and helps and godly actions by many which made this land a very different one from those merely following idols, whether in the form of their own publications or preferences as THE FINAL WORD, or in this, that they just invented these or followed other inventors who made this mental idols, idols in their hearts (as Ezekiel 14 calls them). Both Germany and Russia have paid in heavy coin for their flirtations with philosophic fantasy, never logically viable, mere illusions. If others do the same, then in the end there is judgment; and it is precisely this scenario which is predicted in the Bible, now coming true like a train moving to its pre-appointed stations.

You say, If then the Bible so accurately always determines what is to be, why worry ? Not so, for it is God who foreknew that you would ask this question, and so indicate the lie of your heart, and give grist for the mill of judgment; and He has likewise known the will of all the rest of mankind, and the nations, and is party to no surprise. Human will is known to Him, as plan to an author, and in His splendid case, He who made freedom knows its resolutions, and His own; and He has thus and then foretold them freely, just as man acts freely. With freedom, however, for those who are not gods, you need to consider its parameters, limits, responsibly.

If you are not gods, but are born, given disease and death with no warrant from your own plan and wisdom, it is well to consider your Creator, preferably when young. If as is the case, His love and mercy are more profound than any you could imagine - it is not merciful to further corruption for desire - then ignoring Him is inexcusable. Judgment alone remains. It is for the individual, the nation and this world, of which Christ said this, that its prince has no part in Him.

There is no other Rock (Psalm 18:31, II Samuel 22:32-33, Psalm 62:1-3, Isaiah 44:8). God says of other Rock, "I know not any" ... so if you seek one elsewhere, in Church or State or organisation or understanding, you are telling the God of the Bible that you are the ultimate know-all, for as to Him, HE does not know any! Yes there is none as His word continually asserts. Collision with that Rock is like a row-boat meeting head-on, the Queen Elizabeth II going at full speed, or a meringue meeting a metallic stamping machine. Christ indicated the result in the end: Crushed to powder (Matthew 21:44)! It is one thing to suffer FOR Jesus Christ, an honour indeed as it helps through faithfulness to show His love to the present generation (as in principle seen in Colossians 1:24); it is quite another to suffer because you left His wisdom, ways, declarations, as a nation, or flung away what you had, in the flux and fashion of your exaltation because of His goodness through so many who in so many ways laid the foundations of this nation.

The nation is warned. Its choices now are beginning to bite deep into the structures of its walls, like a child who files away at the girders of support, smiling the while at how cute he is. The biblical passages just cited in this section, give the direction for building. If not, as in Proverbs 1, then liberty is indeed still alive, and so is the God who alone made it, without whom its death has onset; for as the only way for knowing the truth is cut away, God Himself, from the foundations, like supporting girders, then the lost are resolving to enter the very domain of lostness. When a people seeks itself in itself, measures itself by itself (II Corinthians 10:13), as if knowing all truth while increasingly denying it in its very model of itself as immersed in the machineries of events, free from any absolute truth, while being absolutely sure that this is the truth, what do we then find ? It is this: its antinomial madness marks it, like trees painted red for removal.

It is always sad to see fallen youth, and youthfulness, whether in personal or national form; and it is worthy indeed to make exhortation to individuals in a nation, to consider what they do, and to what they must look if there is to be any goodness, any security, any spirituality, any godliness, any grace, any permanence of blessing; while reminding how easy it is to cut the national, the personal throat, with a knife sharper than any steel, more deadly than any weapon: the spiritual one. Nails were used a long time ago; because there is no further opportunity thus to assault God, there are always the Christians as in so many other lands already, and there are always the young, whom you can educate by dictation on paths equally in confrontation with scientific method^*9and spiritual truth. In this way, you steal the children and defile the name of the Lord.

Worse things than this have been done but seldom with such delusion in so dramatic and fateful an era; and the price of delusion always has this element, that it can suddenly escalate, like Australia's national debt in no small measure to a country run in the name of a form of atheism. Unwise is this, unwise the trend, and to this road, there is an end.

*3 Some other Christ, as Paul designates this sort of invention, some other Gospel, some other Spirit ... these are works of false apostles, evil workers. It is simply confusing the issue by words, and not facing the realities of who Christ declared Himself to be, what is His relationship to the truth (He IS it - John 14:6 as the direct self-declaration of God, eternal with Him - Micah 5:1-3, Isaiah 48:16, John 1, 8:58). You cannot mould these things with something else without flat contradiction. To edit Christ at this distance is simple rejection, and assumes a mentality which can declare the absolute truth without an absolute, verified and validated testimony. This is a simple contradiction in terms. Investigation reveals only one such item in the universe, both in declaration (Acts 4:11-12, John 14:6), and in testimony of reason.

Bible or Blight, Christ or Confusion:
The Comprehensive Resolution of Man's Intractable Problems
is Found Only in the Bible, the Word of God

*4 You find this in II Corinthians 11, Galatians 1, implied in II Corinthians 4. A new permissive christ, who is easy-going, far from favouring a narrow way of divinely dictated terms for a sinful race, but rather interested in accommodating every counter-design that this race can imagine, is easily modelled, an idol of the imaginative mind, a work of mental arrogance, spiritual pride and devastating dereliction of rationality. What you can make as a derivative, a creation, is only the derivative of a derivative, twice removed from what is beyond all interacting, reacting forces. If you are this, you cannot know. If you are god, where is your evidence ? When you seek God, and follow the reason He has given to each one of us, defiled though it so often be, as Paul declares in Romans 1:17ff., not only is the result of the godhead and His nature obvious, but you have to veer from the testimony within to avoid it, by suppression. SMR and TMR for example, attest this fact. Other volumes to be found in SEARCH, confirm it in still more ways, in validation and verification.

See SMR pp. 743ff., extending to further features in this spiritual motif in pp. 750Bff.

See News 19 on systems of morals and their necessary basis, not in preference, but in reality, which must first be found, that it may be applied; and which, as demonstrated, being sourced in God, must speak, that the filter of the human mind does not blot, blind or soil the truth. Mercifully these conditions are met, but in one place, duly verified and validated, in one only, the Bible as to propositions and the Lord Jesus Christ as to the Person whose word gives this light.

*7 See: A Question of Gifts, and note the actual instructions in I Corinthians 12-14, with the Old Testament background cited in the New.

	the cult of prosperity Christianity (where the Cross is an arm-chair or a means of profit),
	purpose fulfilment with variable importance to the word of God and the eccentricities and desires of directed self-centredness and fulfilment,
	the increasing loss of all inhibition to what the Bible defines as immorality, and that in the name of some sort of Christ, not even differentiated from the utterly contrary one, to such teaching,
	the adventures into social Gospel,
	treachery to biblical truth,
	hatred of biblical doctrine,

	presenting
	"another Jesus whom we have not preached"
	or proceeding to receive
	"a different spirit which you have not received," or
	"a different gospel which you have not accepted,"