Please see the attached instructions and readings for assignment.
Sire, J. W. (2020). The Universe Next Door. InterVarsity Press. https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9780830849390
Must be at least 400 words (2) scholarly citation in APA format.
America’s legacy on freedom, justice, and religious liberties as an advocate and lobbyist for policies have created the reordering of a new society not established under one God, but under the perspective of the human being.
1. How has “human” history changed since its creation, the image of God, scriptural recording of redemption and glorification?
2. Do you agree on the perspective of Christian theism (theology) and its practice in understanding the history and nature of God?
3. What is your perspective on the current climate of the world today and God’s active role in the world today?
Your thread must reveal an in-depth exploration of the question in a comprehensive answer reflecting specific concepts and principles. Refer to the Discussion Thread Grading Rubric for grading details.
Module 1
Christian Theism in Human History: Must be at least 400 words (2) scholarly citation in APA format.
America’s legacy on freedom, justice, and religious liberties as an advocate and lobbyist for policies have created the reordering of a new society not established under one God, but under the perspective of the human being.
1. How has “human” history changed since its creation, the image of God, scriptural recording of redemption and glorification?
2. Do you agree on the perspective of Christian theism (theology) and its practice in understanding the history and nature of God?
3. What is your perspective on the current climate of the world today and God’s active role in the world today?
Your thread must reveal an in-depth exploration of the question in a comprehensive answer reflecting specific concepts and principles. Refer to the Discussion Thread Grading Rubric for grading details.
,
Listen (Transcript) : America’s Birthday: The Real Story
Ryan, a few weeks ago, we heard a
profound message from pastor tommy Nelson. You remember that I was called America,
the great idea. And basically what he was saying was that
America is not a piece of land
or a group of people. It’s an idea. It’s about liberty
and freedom and those inalienable
rights that we enjoy here in
this country. Yeah, you know
what he had to say reminded me of a quote from Benjamin Franklin. It says Where
liberty dwells, there is my country. And I love America. I love the
freedoms we enjoy, but I know that even I sometimes take those
freedoms for granted. Well, he really isn’t every day that we
pause to think about the enormity of what
led to the birth of this country and how incredible it
is that well, over 200 years later, we’re still enjoying the majority of
those freedoms. I don’t think that has occurred anywhere
in world history. And there’s a
reason for it. Now, the fourth of
July is Sunday, and it will be celebrated, of course, on Monday. And I think it’s very appropriate that we take some time today to
reflect on the glorious, the history of the
American Revolution to help us do
that is one of the foremost Christian
American historians, David Barton. David is the founder and president of
wall builders, which is passionately
dedicated to educating the public on America’s
forgotten history. And he rose, especially
when it comes to our moral and
spiritual heritage. David has written many
bestselling books on the topic and
was named by Time Magazine as one of America’s 25 most
influential evangelicals. So I’m excited
about David Barton allowing us to share his message with our
listeners today. Well, Im2 doctor,
I know as a mom, I have got to be very intentional in
making sure that my son’s really understand the truth about the
nation’s history. I mean, another broadcasts
that comes to mind. I remember Dennis
Prager recently admonishing us to almost commemorate the
4th of July, much like the
Jewish people did when their ancestors were
let out of Egypt. And I really think
today’s program could be the basis for
something like that for families this weekend. I agree, Luann,
I love history. I can’t wait for
this broadcast. And he highlights the
Christian faith of our founding fathers and how their knowledge of the scriptures
directly lead our desire to secede from Great Britain here now as David Barton on this
family taught broadcast, specifically talking about this holiday we’re
going to celebrate. We approach another
birthday in America. And each year is again, another record setting
year where the longest ongoing constitutional
republic in the history of the world. And if we rolled around at the 4th of July
every year, we do like to celebrate
it and we do have the the fireworks and the other festivities
that go with that day, but it’s become
today with us so many people don’t understand the roots
of American history, the roots of the
American Revolution. If you ask them what the revolution was
about, they say, Well, it was taxation
without representation. That answer really
goes back to something that
happened in the 1920s. In the 1920s, some
revisionist historians called Charles
and Mary Beard, came up with what
they called the economic view of the
American Revolution. And a day that’s
what we teach. We don’t teach the
spiritual side, we don’t teach that the
constitutional side, all the other issues
that were there, even the biblical side. We used to in
previous generations, to understand the
American Revolution. To understand what we celebrate on the
4th of July, you really have
to go back a 150 years before the
American Revolution. You have to go
back to the time of the Pilgrims
and the Puritans, settlers that
arrived in America. Now, if you ever get to
go to Washington DC, you’ll see there
in the capital a picture of the embarkation
of the pilgrim’s. It shows them gathered
around a Geneva Bible. It was a popular
Bible with the group called
the dissenters. Those are the people who didn’t really think that everything centered
around one person at the top of every
organization, whether it was
church or state. They really were quite
anti autocratic. And the people that had started that group go
back to people like Luther and Calvin and Zwingli and knocks
and the reformers. And so the significant
thing about the Geneva Bible was its marginal
commentaries. Those commentaries
were written by the reformers and
they point out that God had so many
different ways of governing divine right of kings says all monarchies, the only way we do this, god has a single leader at the top of the state, a single leader at the
top of the church. But here came these
reformers say No, there’s the priesthood
of believers. Each of us can
go to God on our own through what Jesus
Christ has done. Each of us can self-govern ourself as citizens. They were persecuted
for having those views, those anti
autocratic views. And finally, the
pilgrims said, we’re out of here. We’re going to
America where we can read and study the Word of God
for our self without being
persecuted for it. And so they arrived
here in America. Now when they arrived
here, the Bible is a very significant
book to them. There are so many aspects
of American culture today that came from the Puritans and
the Pilgrims, and that came
specifically from the Geneva Bible,
what we call The free enterprise system that came out of
1st Timothy 5, 8, according to
the pilgrims, that’s a system
they found. You’ll, you’ll find
that they were in the habit of
finding things in the scriptures
and trying to literally apply them in a civil government
into education and alive and a
family into church. It’s a matter of
fact, that’s where the first education
laws came, were out of New
England is 642. They pass that law
in Massachusetts. That was, if you
will, a public school law that day, that the purpose of public education was
to teach kids to know the scriptures
so that they can judge both the church
and the state. But what God has said
in the Scriptures. Well, five years
later, Connecticut pass that same law. It says because if
you can’t read, you can’t read
the Word of God, and you therefore
can’t judge the loss of the state against the Word of God, which means that we in
the General Assembly might pass a bad law and you folks
wouldn’t stop us because you can’t
read the Bible. We judged everything that went on against
the Word of God. And this is the
real backdrop to the American
Revolution. Now, let me go
through those, some of those
sermons and show you the type of things that
we preached about. Because this does give you a good indication
of how that, no matter what went on, we went to the Bible to see what the Word of God
had to say about it. I, for example, you’ll
see here a sermon. This is a sermon
preached 1804. This is a sermon on
a solar eclipse, which had just happened
in Connecticut. Here’s a sermon from 799, and this happened
in Massachusetts. And it was a hail
storm and a tornado happened on the
second of August. It says here
on the sermon. And so the next
Sunday the pulpits were filled with
sermons on hailstorms, tornados, and here’s
what’s called an execution sermon at
the sermon from 796. It was priced at Salem, January the 14th, 796. It’s occasioned by
the execution of Henry Blackburn
on that day for the murder of
George Wilkinson. Here’s someone
being put to death by civil government. And there’s a sermon
on that execution. Absolutely. You say, we went
back and said, what does the scripture
say about this? Is this something civil government
can really do? What is Romans
13 mean when it says that the
government doesn’t bear the sword in vain, one is a government
even have the sword. What does it use
the sword? Is this a justified use of the sword by
the government? And we just went back and looked at the Scriptures. No matter what went on, we went to the scriptures. Here’s a sermon,
this is from 1803. It’s called an
artillery sermon. What happened
was once a year, they get that the military together and brought
ministers and to preach these artillery
sermons that his sermons on what
the Word of God says about the military. See nothing went on
that we couldn’t find a biblical
precept with. So for a 150 years before the American
Revolution, we had been trained in
our culture to look at every single thing
from the Word of God. And that is literally
how we approached it. Now, it was
because of that training that
we were able to recognize when King George the Third came along, that he was transgressing
those loss. Not only was he
transgressing biblical laws, he was transgressing the British constitution
at that time. And the founding
fathers to saying, these are things
that have been in Great Britain
for 4500 years. They’d been worked
out, they’d been set down in law. Constitutions
work this way. Rights work this way. These are sovereign, inalienable rights
that God has given man and King George the Third,
you’re violating that. You can’t do this. So it’s striking
that is you look at the first
reactions of the Americans against
the policies that King George the Third was imposing on America. You will find
that it takes a very strong biblical tone. Probably the first
person to write about these violation of rights was James Otis. And James Otis is really
that the man who, who mentored Samuel Adams, the father the
American Revolution, james Otis is the philosophical
underpinnings. And in a book that
he has right here, it’s from 1766 is called the rots,
the colonist. And then this
came out because of the Stamp Act of 1765. Now the Stamp Act for
taxes, and of course, the Americans objected these taxes and the way
that they were being imposed on the
Americans and for the purpose that they
were being imposed. And the Americans
had no voice in determining their
own policies and, and so it was taxation without representation. But notice how
they go back to the Bible and I
say that king st, look, I’m the King,
I’m the authority. I am the top here. This is the
divine right of kings when I speak the same as if God
speaks to you. And James Otis
says, No, no, no. He says timeout,
let’s back off here. And so in this running,
which is really the first objection raised in what became the
American Revolution. James Otis says this. He said the power of God, Almighty is the only
power that can properly and strictly be called
Supreme, an absolute. He said You’re
not infallible. He said, only God is infallible and we don’t obey you as if you’re God, which is the same
thing that you’ll find with the Apostles
and x4 and five, when the civil authorities
told them Don’t do this and the
apostles said, No, wait a
minute, timeout. God, Jesus told
us to do this. Now do we obey God
or do we’ll pay you? And of course,
the apostles chose to obey God and that put them in direct conflict with
civil authority. And this aspect of, if you will, civil
disobedience. If you even look through Hebrews 11 at
what we call the faith Hall of
Fame and look at all of those individuals
who are in there. It’s striking how
many are there simply because of
civil disobedience? The Hebrew midwives. And why did they make
it into that chapter? Because they
disobey the order of Pharaoh to let them know when a
young child was born so that young
child could be killed. They protected Moses. Chad rack, may
shack and unbidden ago there are heroes, they’re in that chapter. Why? Because they disobeyed a
civil authority. They would not bout a man. They were going to stand
firm, forgot Daniel. He works his way
into that chapter. Why? Because he said, I’m not going to obey
a civil law that causes me to
violate God’s laws. Another person who
spoke out about this very strongly man
named John Dickinson. John Dickinson
was a sign or the constitution
after the revolution. And he declared a
similar sentiment. This is from his writings on the rocks,
the Americans, he says kings
or parliaments cannot give us the rights essential to happiness. He says, We
claim our rights from a higher source. We claim them from
the King of Kings, lord of all the earth. But at this point people say Now
wait a minute, this is called the
American Revolution. Romans 13 says Your to
submit to authority. How can you say
that God bless this nation if it was
birth in revolution, that is rebellion
against God. God can’t blessed
nation that does that. Well, you have to
understand first off that the founding
fathers did not call it the American
Revolution. It was called that
in later years. At that point
in time it was called a civil war. And as they point out,
they didn’t start it. Matter of fact, we
took great pride in the fact that we never
fired the first shot. We never sent troops to
attack Great Britain. The Americans, they
did not have an army. They did not have a navy, but they did have
the Biblical right to defend themselves. And that was one of the inalienable
rights by the way, that the founding
fathers put in the Second
Amendment the right to keep and bear arms. They pointed that in
the scriptures and you can see that
throughout Nehemiah. Nehemiah, what do
you do when he was rebuilding that the, the, the city of Jerusalem, he’s Station them
with a sword in one hand and a
trail on the other. You have the right to defend yourself
if your attack. For 11 years, we’ve been negotiating over
these principles. And finally,
King George the Third says, I
don’t negotiate. You are going to bow your knee and he
sent these troops. So it was not a
revolution in that sense. As a matter of fact, there’s some great
statements here. Here’s one by Sam Adams. Sam Adams wrote this to the British government,
and Sam Adams, signer of the Declaration, a member of
Congress, he wrote this to the
British officials. He said, you know, that the cause of
America is just, he said the blood of the innocent is upon
your hands. We again make our
solemn appeal to the God of heaven to decide between you and us. And we pray that in
the doubtful scale, a battle, we may be successful as we have
justice on our side. And that the
merciful savior of the world may forgive
our oppressors. And that’s not an or heat, that’s
not rebellion. I mean, they are sincerely submitting to
God and saying, we gotta stand
for what’s right. And we ask God to
judge between us. Ethan Allen, his
Green Mountain Boys. He was approached
by citizens and the legislature
of Connecticut. Connecticut was
really scared. They said, man,
here we are between Virginia
and Massachusetts. British troops have gone into Williamsburg,
Virginia. British troops are
going through Lexington and Concord,
Charleston, boston, Bunker Hill, were
scared to death, are going to come
in to Connecticut next and we don’t know
what we’re gonna do. Ethan, would you take your Green Mountain Boys and go over here
to New York, way inland, go
to Ticonderoga and capture Fort
Ticonderoga. So Ethan took Green
Mountain Boys, they surrounded that
Ford in May of 1775. It was late at
night. Poor British didn’t know anything
was coming. I mean, this is a long way from any scene of action. So they knocked
out the guards. There were two guards. They knocked them out,
they tied him up. They got the rest
of the barracks. This was late at night,
coming up toward midnight and they get the rest
of the barracks. And then Ethan Allen, after having secured
the whole four, it went and banged on the door of the
common dot. Captain de Laplace. And Captain de
Laplace be in the proper British
soldier that he was didn’t like being awakened in the
middle of the night. So he came storm into
the door and he says, Who is this? What
do you to demand? And Ethan Allen says, I order you to
surrender your four. And Captain de Laplace became indignant,
and he says, by whose authority do you order me to
give up my forte? Ethan Allen in his
own autobiography, he took a step back. He raised his
sword in the air. Ethan Allen said,
in the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental
Congress. And it was that
declaration, the great Jehovah in the
Continental Congress and got the attention of the British commander. He promptly gave him
the fort on the spot. Not a single
shot fired they captured for without
any loss of life. You see nobody hears that about Ethan Allen anymore, but that was the
declaration made then 776, one of the members of the Virginia
legislature. Now remember, Virginia
has been under attack. One of the members
of the Virginia legislature was
a minister. He was the Reverend John Peter Gabriel
and Mulan Berg. In January of that year, he had just heard
the report, a Patrick Henry and have
that he had to rally 5000 Virginia troops to push back the British. And, and so as pasture me Lundberg
heads home, he gets to this remote, secluded part of
the state where his churches are long
way across the state. And he preached
on January 21st, that Sunday, what became
his farewell sermon. And he stood there in his clerical robes
that morning and he preached out of
Ecclesiastes 3 verses 1 through rate, which is the
passage about, though there’s a time
and a season purpose to everything tied to be
born, time to die. Well, they went
through all this and you get down to verse 8. And verse eight
says there’s a time of peace and a time of war. Any
closest Bible. And he put his finger out and he said brethren, he said this is not
the time of peace. He said this is
the time of war. He stood right in front
of the congregation, started this roaming in front of the congregation. When he jerked off,
there’s clerical robes. Underneath those
robes, he was wearing the full uniform of an officer and
the Continental Army sword and everything. He started marching down the out of that church. There was one aisle
down the middle the church, he
marched on an island. He preached as he went. He said brethren.
He said We came here to practice our religious and our
civil liberties. And if we don’t
get involved, we’re going to lose
those liberties. He said, Who’s going with me to defend
those liberties? While 300 men got up and met him at the back
door, that church, those 300 man
became known as the eighth
Virginia Brigade. His brother was pasturing in, in New York City. And his brother wrote
him a scathing letter. And I mean, he just
absolutely chewed him up. And his brother was Frederick Augustus
Mulan Berg. And Frederick
tells his brother, he said you would have
asked for the best if you’d kept out of this business from
the beginning, he said, I now give you
my thoughts in brief. I think you’re wrong. That’s just about as
brief as I guess. He said, Brother, you shouldn’t
have done this. You’re supposed to
stay in the pulpit. You shouldn’t be getting involved in this
kind of stuff. Well, brother Peter
wrote back a letter. He said, Wow, we
said that was a pretty scathing letter. You wrote pretty,
pretty serious stuff and he said
you’ve accused me of getting involved and that I shouldn’t because
I’m a clergyman. This is what he said. He said, I am a clergyman. It is true, but
I’m a member of society as well as
the poorest layman. And my liberty, he says, Dear to means it
is to any man. He said Shall I had
been set still. He said, heaven forbid it. He said, I’m
convinced this my duty so to do and duty I owe to God
and my country. And then he
started metal and with his brother he
said, Oh, by the way, he said Frederick is, Do you realize you
couldn’t stand here and pulpits and
do what you’re doing. You couldn’t
stand there and preach the gospel
if it wasn’t for people like me going out to the finger, right. To preach the
gospel and Vertigo. Yeah, Yeah, right. Just kinda blew it off. While interesting thing
happened in 1777, the British invaded
New York City. They came into
New York City. They seized his
brother’s church, they desecrated
his church, and they chased him
out of the pulpit. And suddenly this minister of the
gospel, Frederick, who said you shouldn’t
be involved, has lost his church losses and ministry. It’s
been taken over. He says, you
know, maybe how to get involved after all. So he does get involved. Do you know the
Frederick Augustus mean Lundberg is
Frederick Augustus. Real number was the
original speaker of the US House of
Representatives. A matter of fact, there’s only
two signatures on the Bill of Rights. He, he and John Adams. So the only two to sign
the bill of rights. And this minister, the
gospel sign it not because it guaranteed separation church
and state. You say He got involved and make sure
that government couldn’t come in and stop those public
religious activities like they had done
to his very Church. Not because a separation
of church and state. Move through
other instance in the revolution,
for example, if you go into 778,
you may recall that year because that’s the famous Valley Forge year. You remember
Washington crossed the Delaware and after
crossing the Delaware, they went into the battles at Princeton and Trenton, and finally settled
down in Valley Forge, which was that
tough winter. And so every
day Washington would go out
and walk among the troops and try to
encourage them and keep their
confidence up and put a good face
on himself and, and try to look like
the good commander. But what he wrote
in his diary was a whole
different story. It just literally tore
his heart out to see what those soldiers
were going through. Every day. Between 12 and 20 soldiers fell over and died
in that camp. Every day at Valley Forge, died of malnutrition,
of sickness, of starvation
that they died of exposure not
having closed, being exposed to cold
weather washes that. I’ve never seen
sacrifice like that. I’ve never even
read of it, never heard of this. This is the
greatest degree of patriotism he
had ever seen. Well, it’s
interesting that when the intelligence
came to him and may, the British are
breaking camp in Philadelphia, they are
about to march out. So that night he writes
at his final order, and he’s the rats
out his final order, which was given
unmade the second 778 in Valley Forge. He said guys, he said, I’ve seen what
you’ve done. I’ve senior sacrifices. I can’t tell
you how much I appreciate what
you’ve sacrificed. Words, can express it. And then he closed
with the statement, this is right out of
his orders, he says, but while we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers with all
the sacrifice. He says, We certainly
ought not to be inattentive to the higher
duties of religion. He said to the
distinguished character, a patriot, it should be our
highest glory to add the more distinguished
character of Christian as Washington
in the middle of Valley Forge from the most sacrificial times in
American history. St guys, I love
you patriotism. I just gotta remind
just more important to be a Christian than it
is to be a patriot. See it has the aspect to the American
Revolution. We don’t hear
anymore and it’s a strong spiritual aspect. While we finally
get into 780 one, which is the final battle of the American
Revolution, the Battle of Yorktown. And so at the
Battle of Yorktown, we are able to
convince Cornwallis to surrender and he does
military actions over. But it would be</