Monumental mistakes, understandable motives

So Kirk Cameron's film Monumental, is out now, and you can find a lot of positive reviews through Google. I first heard about it, however, through Brannon Howse and Chris Pinto and Ed Decker who see some important problems with it. For one thing the movie apparently treats Glenn Beck as a Christian, and accepts David Barton's view of American history, both serious problems for a movie that is supposed to be Christian in inspiration. For a second thing, apparently Cameron chose as a symbol for his message a statue known as "Monument to the Forefathers" which celebrates the Pilgrim settlers of America, but does it with Masonic pagan imagery, which in fact negates the Pilgrim mentality it purports to represent. That's a pretty big error too.

But in defense of Kirk Cameron's take on the monument, I have to wonder why anyone would expect him to have thought of doing research on a monument which so clearly expresses the values that a Christian would hope to see celebrated as foundational to America. Very few Americans would have any idea that this monument was anything but the celebration of the original Pilgrim settlers it purports to be.

Wikipedia has:

On the main pedestal stands the heroic figure of "Faith" with her right hand pointing toward heaven and her left hand clutching the Bible. Upon the four buttresses also are seated figures emblematical of the principles upon which the Pilgrims founded their Commonwealth, each having a symbol referring to the Bible that "Faith" possesses; counter-clockwise from the east are Freedom, Morality, Law and Education.

Who is going to argue with Faith, Freedom, Morality, Law and Education? Justice and Mercy? Who is going to recognize these as PAGAN ideals rather than Christian ideals? Who is going to recognize these as MASONIC ideals rather than Christian ideals? Who is going to recognize the design of the monument itself as "Greco-Roman" and pagan and Masonic?

Answer: Only those who have as carefully studied these things as have Chris Pinto and Ed Decker and Brannon Howse. NOT the average American Christian.

I understand that those in the know want to head off a bad mistake, an embarrassing mistake, for Kirk Cameron, but also a mistake on the order of choosing a representative of the exact opposite of what he wants to celebrate, in fact the very mistake that most of us have been making for decades about the supposed Christian foundations of America. If there's one thing I have learned from both Pinto and Howse over the last month or two it's that Americans have been deceived by a Masonic conspiracy into mistaking their pagan values for Christian values. The discovery of the depth of this deception has been for me, as I've said, breathtaking, or more graphically, like a punch in the stomach.

I can hardly look at anything American any more -- pictures of the Founders, pictures of national architecture, the American flag, the dollar bill, without a sick feeling that I am looking at something alien, representative not of the nation I once loved but of an enemy. That's how I must now also look at the monument to the Pilgrim forefathers that Kirk Cameron makes the emblem of his film. Not what he found in it and hoped to give to his audiences, something they could embrace as representing the Christian beginnings of America, but instead a chilling reminder that America was stolen from the Christians by evil conspirators.

Something in me wishes I didn't know what I now know about all these things. But of course that is simply a momentary irrational feeling, and truly I am grateful that I know it. But again, I remember Charles Thomson (did I get that right?) at the beginning of Hidden Faith of the Founding Fathers and I understand his decision to allow the American people to believe in the heroic qualities of the generation of the Revolutionary War, instead of burdening them with the truth about their character as he knew them, and I wonder if maybe that isn't the nobler concern, the better and more generous mindset. I can't wonder too long, though, before coming to my senses again. We need this knowledge and we need it particularly now as all the secret undercurrents that I've been learning about are right on the verge of exploding over the world, and if we remain in ignorance about them we will only be the victims of exactly what the plotters have been designing for us down the centuries.

But perhaps simply by having that wish I may understand something of the power of Kirk Cameron's naive take on that monument, such that he is not going to be easily persuaded to see it according to its true historical significance. When he first discovered it he fully embraced it as the embodiment of the Christian nation he desires to see restored. It sounds like he fell in love with it in some sense. Faith as its crowning figure, pointing to God, holding the Bible. Why would it occur to him at all that it has a "real" meaning that utterly opposes what he first saw in it? Why would he want to consider giving up its first impact on him since it makes the point he wants to make in his film, and since 99% of his film's audience isn't going to have any more of a clue about its meaning than he had anyway?

It's even possible that the explanations given by those in the know couldn't quite penetrate his mind because his initial impression was so strong and so interwoven with the message of his film. You can explain to him that the figure of Faith is *really* the embodiment of a Masonic notion, or that they could just as well have put a Koran in her hand as a Bible -- but he reads the word "faith" in a Christian context and sees the Bible in her hand and your words are just going to sound too hypothetical to take seriously.

I feel for him. I hope he does eventually open his mind to the truth, but for now I understand why he prefers the message of his film that holds out hope that America could possibly be brought back to a Christian perspective. Let's not get too down on him for having a moralistic perspective. Being salt and light in the world does allow for an emphasis on morality. It isn't going to work in the present context, we're too far gone, but I don't see anything in principle opposed to a Christian mindset in that emphasis. True, it's the gospel, or really, it's the Holy Spirit empowering the gospel, or in other words revival, that is the only way the changes he wants could be brought about, but there's nothing wrong with his desire to see the nation turned around. Perhaps he should change his focus to praying for revival.

He's wrong about the monument but it takes a sophistication to see what's wrong in it that we can't expect him to have had, or even now to want to acquire. As I said, this knowledge is a punch in the stomach, an icy hand gripping the heart. Some take longer than others to accept such a jolt to the system. Meanwhile I don't see anything terribly wrong with allowing him to imagine Christian meanings into those words on that statue. But maybe I'm going too far trying to see things from his point of view.

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Update: Listening to Chris Pinto today the 29th in which he's responding to some emails he received on this film, it becomes clear that the problems with the film are way beyond the meaning of the monument itself. I would still argue that Cameron should be given some slack about his take on the monument at least for now, but there's no way his apparent endorsement of the Mormon Glenn Beck's religious opinions can be accepted.

It is positively scary how many formerly apparently solid Christians have been either turning in the direction of apostasy or simply showing their true colors as their apostate views are coming out. Some formerly trustworthy Christian's allowing a false gospel to be blurred with the true as in the case of Glenn Beck's Mormon religiosity, or embracing Catholicism, is becoming all too common. It's startling.

THAT's the big problem with Kirk Cameron's film from what I know about it. Even his wrongheaded endorsement of David Barton's false history of the founders as Christians is somewhat tolerable because we could assume he could be educated out of that, just as he could be educated out of his rapture over this monument he misinterprets. But you don't align with a Mormon as if his religious views are the equivalent of the Christian gospel.

Glenn Beck has got to be one of the devil's most ingenious creations.

The pagan underworld revealed

UPDATE: Hey, go listen to Chris Pinto's radio broadcast for today 3/12/12, Who Are They Hiding It From? This is the third part of a series he's doing to answer a critic of his analysis of the American founders as not Christian, all of which is worth listening to, but the reason I'm saying this here is that after the halfway point he gets into how he believes that the Constitution was cleverly designed to accomplish just what we are facing in this country -- the disenfranchisement of Christianity. That has certainly seemed possible to me, either that or the founders stupidly didn't anticipate that effect, didn't know that's what they were doing. But now I'm convinced they did, they sold out the Christian foundations of this country and we are now suffering the consequences of their ANTI-Christian machinations. And I have to add that if the secularists and atheists think that's a good thing THEY need to learn something about the BASIS on which they did this because it was far more occultic than secularist, and we're also now getting all the satanic occultic religions demanding rights. Wait till they finally experience what that REALLY means.

March 13th broadcast continues the same subject. In this one he focuses on an article by David Barton about how Obama is the most anti-Biblical President we've ever had. The evidence against Obama is certainly enormous, but Pinto objects to the fact that Barton has fed us seriously out-of-context quotes that ignore the outrageous blasphemies of the most prominent Founding Fathers, making the focus on Obama well, perhaps a tad hypocritical. Jefferson and Adams were both American Presidents who aggressively and blasphemously denied the foundations of the Christian faith. Obama is if anything following in their footsteps at least by his actions if not his actual statements which he tries to keep vague enough not to step too hard on Christian toes.

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March 11:
Gotta say, the revelations coming out about the pagan origins of America are breathtaking, and not just America but we're talking worldwide influence. Stuff you've heard about all your life that's been off on the fringes of experience, that you didn't understand and didn't have much curiosity about either, are suddenly coming into acute focus for me (AMORC?). All the pagan symbolism connected with America, gods and goddesses, characters placed alongside Moses on the Supreme Court building frieze as if equal to the great Biblical lawgiver -- Mohammed? -- even the architecture, Greek, Egyptian, the symbolism on our money.

Then when you do get a glimmer of the implications you still don't really get it because you think it's ancient and dead and now has ONLY symbolic value. But recently it has all been coming into focus as this huge REAL expression of what the Fall was all about -- the ownership of the human race by Satan, the worship of Satan, the attempt to make the world in Satan's image. Historical figures you had come to believe were Christian, based on solid Biblical quotations from them, turn out to be something else, people who combined Biblical knowledge with ancient pagan lore and were basically committed followers of Satan.

Atlantis?? Never in my wildest dreams would that ancient legend have turned out to have a reality pertinent to my own time. Actually it had occurred to me that it might reflect a memory of the pre-Flood world, and it turns out it was that in spades, way beyond anything I could have begun to think. But it also turns out there have been serious occult attempts to revive the ancient kingdom -- in America!

Well, if we already knew we were in the end times, now we ought to have no doubt whatever, as these threads of human "wisdom" are revealed to have had passionate advocates and adepts all along, involved in all of human history, right up to the present.

Seems to me this stuff did have to start being revealed on the very threshold of the revelation of the Antichrist. Hidden lore, the demonic source of the supernatural tricks the evil one will be capable of, and all packaged in high-flown rhetoric about bringing peace on earth, uniting the human race under a global ideal social structure, celebrating all the highest achievements of mankind culturally and intellectually and socially and scientifically. What a package! It will seduce many.

Unless they look to Christ for salvation from the bondage to Satan it's really all about.

I'm referring mostly to information I've been gleaning from talks and productions by Chris Pinto. He's an unusually trustworthy and thorough researcher in my experience, reading complete documents instead of just excerpts, some pretty heavy-going stuff too, checking many sources to be sure he isn't missing anything, finding out-of-the-way expert information more superficial researchers would miss, doesn't take first impressions for gospel truth as I've found too many do.

I found a lot of his work at You Tube and I did embed it here, but now realize that's illegal. He sells his material. Unfortunately I can't afford it, but I also shouldn't display it here. I'll leave a couple of the links up at least but they probably won't stay live for long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU24fJ4NQxo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zYM-unUeNY&feature=related

Is it Judgment OR Revival, or could it be Judgment AND Revival?

I keep hearing some ideas that strike me as very odd that I can't yet organize into a coherent point of view, which was also the case in my previous post. It's not getting much clearer yet. Some questions out of the incoherence occur:

Why does it matter that America isn't in the Bible as far as hopes for a revival go? Revival is God's coming down and imparting fresh spiritual life to His people This could happen in Timbuktoo as well as America and I don't think Timbuktoo is in the Bible either.

What does it have to do with the origins of America whether we have revival or not? Why should it matter whether the Founders were Enlightenment Deists or Christians for us to desire to wake up the churches and strengthen believers in the Holy Spirit? For whatever reason America as a whole HAS been historically characterized by Christian culture and if the churches get revived the whole culture will get renewed with a Christian outlook. What any of this has to do with specifics about the Founding generation completely escapes me.

Why should there be a problem with desiring and seeking revival whether or not the very last days are upon us and the Antichrist is just around the corner? Why would we need to find such a revival in the Bible in order to justify seeking it? We seek it because we need it. If it should come before the Evil Empire descends on us at least we will have had a wonderful awakening, the strengthening of God's people and the ushering in of many converts who won't be prey for that regime.

They seem to talk at times as if revival or desire for revival could interfere with the end times plan, even as if that would be working against God. Strengthening His church would be working against God? What if it did put off the timing of the coming of the final Evil Empire? God's going to object to that?

They also seem to talk as if Well fine if God brings revival well and good but if not well and good, as if revival simply drops out of the sky at God's bidding and has nothing to do with human effort. I've read quite a bit about revivals and one thing that is true of all of them is that there was deep desire and seeking for the revival and much much prayer. If that isn't happening there will not be revival.

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LATER: The people who seem to be saying these things seem to have "moralizing" in mind as the problem, attempts to "reclaim" "Christian America" with politics and moral reformation, which tends to seek alignment with nonChristian groups that share the same moral perspective, meaning Christians aligning with Mormons and Catholics and the like in an ecumenical coalition. However, this does manage to get confused with long-established hopes for revival among true Christians such as Leonard Ravenhill never ceased calling for, and sites such as Sermon Index are dedicated to.

I get the feeling that these critics aren't really aware of these revival hopes and that may be why I'm having such a hard time grasping their position. I have certainly vacillated a great deal on whether or not such a revival is even possible at this time, or could even be risky considering all the false "Christian" groups that keep springing up like poisonous mushrooms these days that would do their best to interfere with it.

And now Glenn Beck the Mormon has been calling for "revival" which is another red flag. BUT: True revival is not possible within Mormonism, true Holy Spirit revival, because it's a false religion. The best they could do IS some attempt at moralistic reformation -- or some demonic manifestations perhaps, and we ARE getting near the time when "signs and wonders" are prophesied to start appearing. Same with Catholicism and all the growing bodies of apostate "Christianity" out there as well. Rick Warren's church, Joel Osteen's, the Emergent Church etc. etc.

But is it possible to have a true revival among true Christians without all the rest of that interfering? Again, I vacillate. I might not have worried about it except that I remember A W Tozer warning that there are times, and his own time was one, when revival would not be a good idea because of the backslidden or watered-down condition of the churches -- and he wasn't even talking about all the FALSE churches, just weak true churches. So the question about true revival really is: Is there enough of a true church now that God COULD revive us in true supernatural power and convert some of the apostates as well? Or not?

Is there a Christian America at all that could be reclaimed and even if so what methods are God-honoring?

As I say in my last post I have come around from the popular view of America's Founders as Christians to recognizing that they were often outright anti-Christian. Nevertheless I continue to see America as having been highly blessed by God over its two plus centuries of existence, and predominantly Christian in its population, and Christian also from its original settling by true Christians. How all this works together is open to discussion but I haven't yet come to the conclusion that America should simply be abandoned because the Founders weren't Christians.

I get the impression that something along those lines may be the opinion of Brannon Howse if not also Chris Pinto -- but maybe him too. As if there is no point in hoping to "reclaim" the lost Christian worldview of America because it never was Christian. Well, but it was and it wasn't. We are under God's judgment now because we've fallen from the Christian worldview the nation really did mostly live by until the last few decades. Nations must live by the Law of God to be protected. When they abandon that Law God brings judgment against them. And as Jonathan Cahn's study reveals, America really was dedicated to God in a very real sense despite all these new revelations about the anti-Christian beliefs of the Founders.

Toward the end of yesterday's Worldview Weekend broadcast, Part 3 of the discussion about Kirk Cameron's soon to be released film, Monumental, there is an exchange I find puzzling and still need to think more about. Howse and Pinto see Cameron as pursuing what is essentially an ecumenical approach to reclaiming the "Christian foundations" of America, which they don't agree existed anyway, by joining hands with nonChristians on political and moral issues that Christians share with them. Cameron's side of the argument is presented as desiring to save the nation for his children and future generations. They accuse Howse of sitting around waiting for the Antichrist in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Howse responds that this is is to be a God-fulfilled prophecy if so, not self-fulfilling. A caller chimes in that it seems that Cameron is rejecting God's own revelation. See, I do have trouble keeping this issue clear in my mind. I'm going to have to listen to that part of the discussion again to see if I can sort it out better.

But something like this appears to be the way the two sides fall out. I certainly can't agree with the ecumenical approach to "reclaiming" anything, even if the nation WERE clearly Christian from its founding. I do believe, however, that there is a sense in which the nation WAS essentially Christian despite the views of the Founders. I may have to modify this. Perhaps we were more "Judeo-Christian" in that there was a basic respect to God's Laws even in the Founding generation, as they warned that the nation needed to adhere to God's laws to prosper. That's not quite Christianity but it is compatible with Christianity, which must be part of the confusion here.

I've been vacillating a great deal myself about "reclaiming the nation" in the sense of yearning for a great revival to turn us back to Christ. Versus thinking we've gone beyond any point where we could hope for such a revival, or that it would be too risky considering the state of apostasy of the churches. I go back and forth on this a great deal. True revival can make inroads in apostasy, can bring liberal Christians to recognize the truth of the Bible. God CAN turn things completely around in revival. I know that is so. The Great Awakening just before the American Revolution did revitalize the Christian mentality of the nation. However, that was also followed by the generation of the Deists and Enlightenment-influenced anti-Christians which is the subject here.

It COULD happen but the churches would need to be praying in huge numbers with huge intensity and without ecumenical interference. That's not happening.

Although I believe we're right at the threshold of the coming of the Antichrist myself I don't see that in itself as a reason to give up hope that God might yet give us a temporary reprieve. We don't KNOW the Antichrist is right around the corner after all, although it certainly does seem imminent. But while we are to believe that prophecy is certainly going to be fulfilled I don't see that we are to cease all efforts to revive the churches and the nation, especially since we don't know for sure when it's going to happen anyway.

I certainly agree that we can't reclaim America in any way at all by ecumenical means, that's a lost cause. Politics is useless, even worldview training is probably useless. The problem is supernatural. There may also be many reasons we can't reclaim America even through a God-sent revival, however, including the imminence of the reign of the Antichrist, but all that is God's own sovereign timing. But I don't see anything in he growing apostasy or the imminence of the final evil empire as a reason to abandon the hope for revival. It COULD even be an argument FOR it. But again, we'd have to be praying our hearts out for it.

So there's my current state of rather muddled thought on this subject that I've needed to get put down in some form. It will probably be modified as I learn more and think more about it. But the main point is that I can't agree wholly with Howse and Pinto on this insofar as I understand their position -- which, again, I may not understand all that well.