Muriel Newman has a valuable petition running designed to thwart the Ambitions of the Racists whom have hijacked the Discussion Regarding a New Constitution for New Zealand.
The Objectives of the petition:
We, New Zealanders, having founded our society in the equality of comradeship, and living here at home in the land we have made, utterly oppose any laws which establish or promote racial distinction or division.
There shall be one law for all:
The Declaration…
We refuse to accept any reference to the Treaty of Waitangi or its principles in any constitutional document.
We require that such references be removed from all existing legislation.
We require that race-based Parliamentary seats be abolished.
We require that race-based representation on local bodies be abolished.
We require that the Waitangi Tribunal, which has outlived any usefulness it may have had, be abolished.
And we pledge ourselves to oppose and resist all those of whatever rank or degree who, whether by force or the devious processes of the law, attempt to impose the fetters of racial inequality on the free citizens of New Zealand.
THE VILLARS STATEMENT ON RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT
PREAMBLE
In the spring of 1987, a group of forty evangelical Christians from around the world gathered in Villars, Switzerland, to examine the topic of “Biblical Mandates for Relief and Development.” For five days, we engaged in intense discussion, debate, and private reflection, our energies focused by a number of prepared study papers. As a result of our consultation, we who gathered at Villars have the concerns enumerated below. We encourage other believers to consider these issues in light of the Scriptures and their relevance for implementing Biblical relief and development.
A WORLD IN NEED
The extent of hunger and deprivation around the world is a reality haunting modern times. Confronted with disaster, disease, and chronic poverty, relief and development agencies have provided massive material assistance. Yet for all the resources expended, hunger and deprivation appear to be increasing. The sad reality is that so much effort has produced little in long-term results.
This reality calls us as Christians to reassess the work of relief and development in light of God’s Holy Word. It is our conclusion that the consistent application of Biblical teaching will require a reorientation of relief and development practices, and that this may involve a change in our understanding of human need and in strategies to relieve suffering.
“Relief and development” is an expression that recognizes two Biblical principles. Relief refers to the insistence in both Testaments that the people of God must help the hungry and oppressed. Development stems from the Biblical vision of a people exercising their proper stewardship of God’s gifts—of societies that are productive, healthy, and governed justly. Together, relief and development envision substantial improvement in economic and human well being.
We acknowledge our own sinfulness and fallibility, and we recognize that other committed Christians may not agree with all our convictions. Nevertheless, we are compelled by God’s Word and by the reality of human suffering to share our convictions with Christians and others. We do not claim to have spoken the final word. Thus, we offer the following conclusions of the Villars consultation for the research, dialogue, and open debate among all who claim Christ as Lord.
ISSUES OF CONCERN
With this as our goal, we raise our concerns over the following issues:
1. The failure to operate from a distinctively Biblical perspective in both methods and goals.
2. The tendency to focus on meeting material needs without sufficient emphasis on spiritual needs.
3. The attempt to synthesize Marxist categories and Christian concepts, to equate economic liberation with salvation, and to use the Marxist critique, without recognizing the basic conflict between these views and the Biblical perspective.
4. The emphasis on redistribution of wealth as the answer to poverty and deprivation without recognizing the value of incentive, opportunity, creativity, and economic and political freedom.
5. The attraction to centrally controlled economics and coercive solutions despite the failures of such economies and their consistent violation of the rights of the poor.
6. A disproportionate emphasis on changing structures without recognizing the frequency with which this only exchanges one oppressive structure for another.
7. The danger of utopian and ideological entrapment, whether from the left or the right.
8. Neglecting to denounce oppression when it comes from one end or the other of the political spectrum.
9. Focusing on external causes of poverty in exploitation and oppression without confronting those internal causes that are rooted in patterns of belief and behavior within a given culture.
10. The need to make conversion and discipleship an essential component of Christian relief and development work, and to carry this out in conjunction with the local church.
11. The need to apply the teaching of the Bible as a whole in the areas of personal life, family, and work, but equally in the shaping of the culture and social life.
12. The need to reaffirm the Biblical support for the family as the basic social and economic unit and its right to own and control property, and to stand against any ideology that would diminish the family’s proper role in any of these areas.
13. The need to oppose a false understanding of poverty which makes poverty itself a virtue, or which sanctifies those who are poor on the basis of their poverty.
BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE
In response to these issues we draw attention to the following Biblical teaching and its implications for relief and development:
1. God created mankind in His own image, endowing man with freedom, creativity, significance, and moral discernment. Moreover, prior to the Fall, man lived in harmony with all of God’s creation, free from pain, suffering, and death.
2. The devastating reality of sin and evil, hunger, oppression, deprivation, disease, death, and separation from God is the result of man’s rebellion against God, which began at the Fall and continues through history.
3. The causes of hunger and deprivation, therefore, are spiritual as well as material and can only be dealt with adequately insofar as the spiritual dimension is taken into account.
4. Man’s rebellion against God affects every aspect of human existence. The Fall resulted in God’s curse on creation and in destructive patterns of thought, culture, and relationships, which keep men and women in bondage to poverty and deprivation.
5. The work of Christian relief and development, therefore, must involve spiritual transformation, setting people free from destructive attitudes, beliefs, values, and patterns of culture. The proclamation of the gospel and the making of disciples, then, is an unavoidable dimension of relief and development work—not only for eternal salvation, but also for the transformation of culture and economic life.
6. When people were held in bondage to hunger and deprivation by unjust social structures, the Bible consistently denounced those who perpetuated such oppression and demanded obedience to God’s law. The Biblical emphasis, then, is not on “sinful structures,” but rather on sinful human choices that perpetuate suffering and injustice.
7. God’s ultimate answer for suffering and deprivation is the gift of His only Son, Jesus Christ, who broke the power of sin and death by His own death and resurrection. The decisive victory was won on the cross in the atoning death of Christ for all who would believe Him. The final victory will be accomplished when Christ returns in power and glory to reign with His people. Until that time, all who claim Jesus as their Lord are called to care for those in need as the Holy Spirit enables them, and to share the only message of true hope for a broken world.
CONCLUSION
Therefore, in light of the issues raised and the Biblical perspective outlined here, we encourage research, dialogue, and debate among all who claim Christ as Lord, so that we may serve Him more faithfully and work together more effectively.
We encourage you to send your response and your concerns to:
Villars Continuing Committee
P.O. Box 26253
Santa Ana, CA 92799-6253
The Villars Statement was signed by the following Villars consultation participants:
David M. Adams
Trans World Radio
Howard F. Ahmanson
Fieldstead & Company
Roberta Green Ahmanson
Fieldstead & Company
Theodore Baehr
Good News Communications
Clarence Bass
Bethel Theological Seminary
Charles Bennett
Food for the Hungry, International
VILLARS STATEMENT ON RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT, 4
Pierre Berthoud
Faculte Libre de Theologie Reformee
Spencer Bower
Christian Service Fellowship
Otto de Bruijne
Association of Evangelicals in Africa and Madagascar
Phillip Butler
Interdev
David Chilton
Church of the Redeemer
Placerville, CA
Michael Cromartie
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Lane T. Dennis
Good News Publishers/ Crossway Books
Gene Dewey
United Nations, Geneva
Homer E. Dowdy
International Institute for Relief and Development
George Grant
President, H.E.L.P. Services
Carrie Hawkins
Herbert Hawkins, Inc.
Preston Hawkins
Herbert Hawkins, Inc.
Evon Hedley
World Vision
Alan Jensen
Biblical Institute for Leadership Development, International
Henry Jones
Spiritual Overseers Service
Stephen Paul Kennedy
Patricia D. Lipscomb
Fieldstead & Company
Ranald Macaulay
L’Abri Fellowship
Vishal Mangalwadi
Traci Community and ACRA
Rob Martin
Fieldstead & Company
Don McNally
University of Toronto
Udo W. Middelmann
International Institute for Relief and Development
Darrow L. Miller
Food for the Hungry, International
Gareth B. Miller
Farms International
Ken Myers
Berea Publications
Ronald H. Nash
Western Kentucky University
Brian P. Newman
Marvin Olasky
University of Texas at Austin
Marvin Padgett
Logos of Nashville
Clark Pinnock
McMaster Divinity College
VILLARS STATEMENT ON RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT, 5
Herbert Schlossberg
Allen R. Seeland
AGW Group, International
Susumu Uda
Kyoritsu Christian Institute for Theological Studies and Mission
Tetsunao Yamamori
Food for the Hungry, International
Names of organizations are for identification only and are not meant to imply organizational
commitment to the statement.
Olasky, Marvin, Herbert Schlossenberg, and Clark H. Pinnock. Freedom, Justice, and Hope: Toward a Strategy for the Poor and the Oppressed. Crossway Books, 1988. 141-48.
The Atom. Monists say that Each Individual, All Humanity, All Life, Love, Artistic expression, Every Moral crusade, Politics, Religion, Every Conscious thought, Every moment of Ecstasy and wonder are nothing more than the interaction of Atoms.
Its been one of those days…Reading the Waikato Times pg 7.
So much Atheist Bullshit… So little time to Rub their noses in it!
One of the favorite Atheist ‘Group hugs’ is their Self delusion that their beliefs are planted in ‘superior soil’ to Balmy Religious ‘Hocus pocus’.
They claim to dwell at the pinnacle of the evolutionary advance, having Superior Intelligence and Superior Education to their Lesser Religious cousins, and having escaped the primitive mindset which is religiously prone, they claim *Reason* as the mighty Rock upon which they stand.
Now if the stench of vanity is not enough to make you question the validity of these claims, The Exploits of one of their Sects ought to.
I refer to that sect of atheists known as ‘Evolutionary psychologists’ whose primary ambition is to take the mind of mankind and using scientific jargon make up a rationale to vindicate their faith that everything in the universe conforms to their Atheist Naturalistic Cosmology.
That is their brief, their duty, their delight.
What is important to realize about this process is that insodoing they De-Humanize Mankind from being a Freewill/ reasoning/ Moral Agent into a mere Automation… a robot.
This can be clearly seen in such declarations as this….
How Flocking Ridiculous!
They want you to believe your little Tot has a Pre-disposition to vote Left! (Or Right, or Whateva)
What more via this notion that Genes make our political decisions for us, they have negated your power of reason and freewill …which is what the very purpose of their conclusions are aimed at achieving… forcing the Mind to comply with materialistic determinism, and just as importantly undermining the Moral culpability which underpins The Christian Argument in respect to freewill and Divine judgment.
Many Atheists will get warm fuzzies from this announcement and say to themselves…”Yes! Freewill is a myth! Everything in the Universe has a purely Naturalistic explanation… There is no God and Man is not a Moral Agent.”
“Everything that is… from the Moon, to Leonardo’s Mona Lisa was Pre-ordained in the Big Bang”
Ie they will accept these findings simply because they conveniently integrate with their Materialistic faith…. Ha ha…. Think about that! Blind leading the Blind…
I ask you this…Why would anyone believe any such research produced by such a partisan lobby to be objective and valid?
To think this sect is capable of Real Scientific Objectivity is as Nieve as believing the Waitangi Tribunal’s Ruling that Maori own the Water rights of New Zealand was an objective and impartial judgment in respect to 1840 British Law, and the treaty!
To expect the Evolutionary psychologists to present findings that were contrary to their personal Materialist delusions would be as Naive as expecting Anti-slavery Abolitionist John Brown to have been found ‘Not Guilty’ of treason and insurrection by the Slave State Virginia court!
John Brown did not receive justice, and like shambolic rulings of The Waitangi Tribunal, in declaring Politics to be a Genetic trait, the Priests of Materialism have simply dictated their own prejudices.
This is not Science!
It’s a scam!
And these ‘findings’ fly in the face of Common experience!
Materialism is absurd!
(I had the option of saying Materialism is Ridiculous!… ie we exercise freewill every day!)
We change our political opinions based upon convincing enough Rationale.
*If The Atheists apply their own arguments upon themselves and their Atheism… they must concede that their atheism is not based upon Reason at all but that their rejection of the Idea of a God is simply a Genetic Predisposition!
They ought to conclude that they are not more intelligent…. Not more rationale…. Their education counts for Naught…. They are simply Genetic Atheists… and no amount of reason will convince them God exists.
Thus their own arguments render them stupid.
In the light of this ramification by what act of self delusion do they continue to insist that they are guided by reason, or that Reason is the preserve of atheism?
They have utterly destroyed Reason and enshrined Chemistry!
Our thoughts have been reduced down to chemical actions.
This is where Monism leads to.
The annihilation of the Human being.
Reason is a Theistic/ spiritual concept. Understandable in the Idea of God *THE CONSCIOUS REASONING SPIRITUAL BEING*.
It involves Liberty, and Choice.
Things which are completely alien to Materialistic determinism, and random chaos.
Computers don’t Reason.
Humans Reason. We are not computers… We are like God. We are Free, and we can make real choices. We are Moral Agents.
An ‘Educated’ friend of ours tells me he finds the notion of dualism to be incomprehensible… He’s been saturated in materialism too long!
I must remind him that the fact that we may not be able to understand something (ie Dualism) does not necessarily make it irrational or superstition to accept it and believe in it.I accept Dualism and Biblical morality because it’s explanatory power is vastly superior to Materialism Naturalism.
You cannot expect science to synthesize God, or weigh/ measure the Human soul.
That does not negate their reality. It merely sets limits to the power of science.
(The materialist Tech-myth of artificial consciousness is sooo in fashion!)
I accept spiritual Being as absolutely necessary because materialist naturalism is woefully inadequate to explain reality, and laugh at the pathetic efforts of Materialists to render everything sterile and dead… and accidental.
Scientifically speaking The Human soul is like The Higgs Boson. It’s a Theoretical spiritual particle postulated to explain Consciousness and freewill. Nobody has ever seen it. It’ cant be directly observed. Yet we can trust/ believe in it’s existance because of indirect observations …
How many Atheists feel this way?
Those of you who do feel this way are one and the same as the religious extremists who want ‘their Man’ in power, In fact you justify them by your own position. You are just as Petty.
You have no higher ground… no Better vision.
Personally I want a Leader whom respects the inalienable and equal rights of Individuals, and understands that he himself has no special privileges which put him above the same laws and morality as every one else…. and Objectively speaking Few Atheists would be fit for duty because they believe Morality is merely Culturally relative… or Genetic predisposition (So they don’t believe in any higher power to answer to for their Corrupt deeds) , and they believe Mankind are merely smart monkeys…that came from fish…. that came from germs…. that came from a gigantic cosmic accident.
These materialistic Fantasies are incompatible with the Ideals of Inalienable rights, which are only Rational within a Theistic Cosmology.
Denying the Theistic Idea of Mans Fallen Sin Nature Atheists are prone to Utopian delusions.
Utopia being part of an evolutionary progression.
The following Dictators are just a handful of Atheists whom applied ‘Scientific Materialism’ to Politics and came up with… Communism and the Absolute Sovereign State.
Vladimir Lenin. ” Whatsoever Means Serves the Party State and World revolution is Moral”
From the university days of Karl Marx to the present, official spokesmen for Marxism have been consistent about the content of their theology—that God, whether known as a Supreme Being, Creator, or Divine Ruler, does not, cannot, and must not exist.3
God is considered an impediment, even an enemy, to a scientific, materialistic, socialistic outlook. The idea of God, insists Lenin, encourages the working class (the proletariat) to drown its terrible economic plight in the “spiritual booze” of some mythical heaven (“pie in the sky by and by”). Even a single sip of this intoxicant decreases the revolutionary fervor necessary to exterminate the oppressing class (the bourgeois), causing the working class to forfeit its only chance of creating a truly human heaven on earth: global communism.
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God…”
(Psalm 14vs1)
“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:”
(Rom 1vs20)
Oh The Humanity!
Two adults wasting their own money! … Persuing their own happiness!
Isn’t Liberty Terrible!
Surely this is proof enough that we dont have enough Regulations!
Re: The Freewill vs Materialist determinism debate.
Today I found an interesting scientific study done in New Zealand vindicating skepticism in the fashionable ideas of Evolutionary psychology, which as a ‘Naturalistic Doctrine’ argues that all human morality is determined by Genetics… ie that there is no such thing as freewill moral choice.
This New Otargo research now says Babies lack morals… (Suprise!….not.) This overturns previously Reaserch submitted in 2007 by Yales Kiley Hamlin whom argured that 6-10mth old infants could already make moral choices and that these must be Innate .
We can see that Yales Kiley Hamlin was predisposed to the Evolutionary/ materialist/ genetic/ hypothesis when she presented her research which she argued that Babies are born with an original moral blueprint …
Quote: “… It also reminds us that behavior is not simply nature versus nurture; it is about the interaction of genes and their environments…”
And so we can understand why she now continues to defend her hypothesis against the critisism from New Zealand.
The new New Zealand study undermines these sorts of Evolutionary/ deterministic theories.
To my way of thinking it ought to be Obvious that Both Nature, and Nurture play significant roles in the Morality of individuals, Yet I would add a third and most critical element… an element Naturalist/ materialists are keen to Exorcise from mankind…. The Individual ‘Soul’ or inner spiritual being unique to each individual (The real ‘US’…. indwelling our bodies like a man indwells a house), which has the capacity to make freewill choices which either endorses the amoral desires of our physical being (our lusts), which Licence may or may not be sanctioned by the culture the individual has been nurtured in, or it/we may overcome both these external factors and choose to embrace either a higher’ or ‘lower’ morality than what is ‘the norm’ for his day and age. In my view it is this inner spiritual character which will determine the quality and height of morality any particular individual will aspire to….or settle for. This is why Individuals can appear in complete contrast to the Times and customs of their Peers, and forsaking the accepted norms of the society that surrounds them, and become aliens …. on a pilgrimage of either light or darkness… depending upon the intents of their heart. This Road is steep, yet is a two way street. You can simply stay put with most of your peers… and make camp at the spot you where you feel most comfortable…Why bother going anywhere?
Or you can turn your face to the mountain and labour upwards towards Heavens light…good luck finding faithful company who will not forsake you half way along your arduous journey!
Or you can turn your back and take the direction of least resistance, downward into Darkness…
What this means is that we as individuals are responsible for the sort of human beings we become (or remain). We are not simply slaves to our biology and Environment. We each have an unique inner Being which determines our moral character as individuals. This explains why a child raised in a religious home can choose to forsake the beliefs and values they were taught, and instead choose to become an atheist adult, and why someone raised to accept atheist materialism can later choose to forsake Atheism for God… demonstrating Humanity is in constant Flux… and that Liberty/ freewill and rationality are what matters most in the moral question … not Chemical determinism.
Prior to Darwin, Christians always believed that while Children posess Adams fallen Human Nature, that they are born ‘innocent’, and later develope their moral sence, at which point in time (differeing between individuals) they become morrally responcible for their actions and accountible unto God.
And Our Society also ‘believes’ this to be true in that it does not convict children for crimes.
This rationale also underpins the Doctrine that all innocent little children whom die, Go to heaven… and this doctrine is supported by various scriptures.
I must also point out that even if it was discovered that babies had some ability to make moral choices, that this would not prove that morality stems automatically from Genes.
Heroic Faith! Shepherd Boy David faces The War Giant Goliath… In God He Trusts…
Faith In God, Faith in doing what is right in the face of Evil infuses the Spirit of a Man with Heroic courage and resolve to defy the Powers of Darkness and fear of Death!
The armies of the Israelites and the Philistines were on opposite sides of the hill, and both armies were ready for battle. Each day the Philistines sent their champion, Goliath, who was fully armed and gigantic in size, to shout across the valley “Choose a man, and if he were able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I kill him, then you shall serve us.”
The Israelites trembled as they heard the voice of Goliath. Nobody was brave or strong enough to fight with this giant Philistine. One day, David came to the Israelites’ camp to see his brothers. He heard the words of Goliath. He was amazed that the Israelites were all afraid. “I will go and fight with this Philistine” David said. When the king knew about David’s intention, he said “You are not able to fight for you are a youth, and the Philistine is a man of war”. David replied “The lord who saved me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear when I kept my father’s sheep, will deliver me.” The king said “Go, then, and the Lord shall be with you.” Unarmed, except for his staff, his shepherd’s sling and a few stones, David went to confront the giant.
Goliath was angry when he saw that the Israelites sent a shepherd boy to meet him. “Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks and stones?” Goliath shouted. “Today the Lord will deliver you into my hands and all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.”
To My Maori Family and Friends. Understand that Political equality takes nothing away from Maori except Racism and Hatred. Under Liberty and equality you can still embrace who you are to the fullest extent. Stop allowing the deluded and hypocritical Racist Radicals to poison your souls with hate mongering lies. Liberate Yourselves from being used as pawns by those Political Fat cat Maori Racists whom have Got money and Power by turning you, your families, and your friends into The brown equivalents of White supremacists… heads filled with the same kinds of distorted history and Racist delusions.
And to my Pakeha Family, and friends I ask you to snap out of your wooly headed acceptance of Waitangi Racism, and the separatist system of Government.
You are just as Bad as the Racist Maori radicals because you sanction their lies and embrace their corruption. I call upon you to stop voting for politicians and political parties which support Racist Laws and Government. Liberate yourselves and your children from being treated as second class Subjects in your own country!
Please everyone support John Ansell’s movement to End Waitangi Apartheid!
Tim Wikiriwhi.
Christian Libertarian.
