Patricia, I commiserate with religion that is a social club. That’s what happened in the Massachusetts Bay Colony before the first Great Awakening. The church had become a social club. We’re returned to that in many places. The answer was a return to scriptural practice. Government, according to God, is an instrument for good. Good is not an egalitarian relationship between men and women that destroys the roles God designed for each. That abuses both men and women, and then children. It breaks down the family.

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. The answer for you and others would be to come to the only solution for all of society’s problems, the Lord Jesus Christ. Sin degrades all of our relationships. But we can have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. When we have peace with God, then we can have peace with others.

Paragraph 1 exposes several basic beliefs. One is that religion is the evolutionary product of people trying to ideologically control people. He thinks that religion has evolved from a hierarchy of control, to a government controlled form of religion, and now to the social club of religion. This view of “religion” shows one thing. Pat has rejected the notion of God or at least the God of Scripture, and now turns to materialistic philosophy (in this case feminism) in order to interpret what he sees. So here is the hierarchy: 1. Rejection of God => 2. Rejection of Scripture => 3. False view of the world, of government, of religion and of people.

But why the rejection of God. You can see this in paragraph 2, first sentence: “perceived ideological rules that religion offers as morality.” The answer? Lusts. God’s absolute standards imposed on his lusting, and one of them had to go. God got the cut, and then the philosophy came along later to justify the expulsion. It rears its head again further down in the second paragraph with this statement: “and therefore have equal choice of their conduct and behavior which is accepted and valued.” The desire is to fulfill one’s lusts, and then have their conscience salved by having the sin accepted and valued by society.

The follow sentence again reveals the mindset that all religion is about is social control. With God out of the picture, now this is all about mankind and what he can see with his eyes. His philosophy (feminism) is a Godless philosophy of power and control, and so the adherent describes and interprets everything in the exact same terms – power and control.

Notice the final sentence in paragraph 2: “Government was the necessary response to not penalizing men to make society more equitable.”

This is where Godless power and control feminism takes you: the need to use the might of Government to enforce your view of fairness. Power and control is the natural language of their philosophy, so it is only natural that they wish to seize it and use it. Jesus warned us to beware of the leaven of the Pharisee’s (false religion) and of Herod (government might). Men try and use both to achieve what they, having rejected the revelation of God’s true plan for mankind on Earth, think will be “best for us all”.

The warning for believers is found in Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

Government became the preference for fairness, and for its police power to regulate apart from the perceived ideological rules that religion offers as morality. That legislation of morality shows that religion was not effective in its ability to control society. While it doesn’t make religion useless, it does create a hierarchy of sorts in how religion became extraneous to governmental authority. Culture decay is inevitable in a society where equal opportunity exists because both men and women are free to participate, and therefore have equal choice of their conduct and behavior which is accepted and valued. That places the privilege of women in parity with that of men. Religion is notorious for penalizing women but not men. Government was the necessary response to not penalizing men to make society more equitable.

It may not therefore be calculated that culture decay is present, only that is operates outside of religion in a more fair society where women have the same entitlements as men.

I would disagree with Bloom’s characterisation of Locke, however.

BAC

In other words, you have to chant the mantras. Every Saturday, when we go out to evangelize as a church, we hear the mantras – “God is one, therefore we all worship the same God.” “I don’t judge any religion, they are all good.” “Judge not lest ye be judged.” I am in Chile, South America, and the mantras are the same ecumenical mantras of the States. The dumbing down is world-wide in preparation for the Anti-christ.