The Politics of God and the Politics of Man

ISBN: 978-1-909145-02-3According to Augustine of Hippo, “True justice has no existence save in that republic whose founder and ruler is Christ.” Augustine went on to spell out in no uncertain terms what this means for a proper understanding of the nature and authority of governments: “Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, ‘What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor’ ” (City of God, Bk. II.21, IV.4).

According to Christopher Dawson “The drastic realism of this definition has proved shocking to several modern writers on Augustine. Indeed, so distinguished a student of political thought as Dr. A. J. Carlyle is unwilling to admit that St. Augustine really meant what he said . . . In reality there is nothing inconsistent or morally discreditable about St. Augustine’s views. They follow necessarily from his doctrine of original sin; indeed, they are implicit in the whole Christian social tradition and they frequently find expression in later Christian literature” (Enquiries into Religion and Culture, p. 243f.). Unfortunately, this historically orthodox Christian understanding of the nature and authority of governments has largely been rejected by the Churches of the modern Western world. As a result the Church has become a mere ghetto and the Christian faith has been reduced to little more than a mystery cult. This book seeks to correct this error by setting forth a Christian political theology for the twenty-first century.

Author: Stephen C. Perks

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Have You Ever Thought? Conversations with a Christian Worldview

ISBN 978-1-909145-01-6Everyone has a worldview, a set of presuppositions by means of which they interpret and understand the world. Worldviews are like spectacles through which we view the facts. If we have the wrong spectacles all the facts will be out of alignment. All the facts in the world are evidence for the truth of Christianity, but evidence only makes sense if you have the right framework. Unless we deal with a person's anti-Christian presuppositions, all the evidence in the world will not convince him of his error, because whatever evidence we present to him, he will interpret according to his unbelieving presuppositions. Christians in many Churches are constantly told from the pulpit that it is their responsibility to evangelise. More often than not this results in either guilt or frustration or both. The truth is, not every Christian is an evangelist. However, every Christian ought to be an apologist. Peter commands all believers to be "always ready to give an answer [an apologia, a reasoned defence] to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:1). My purpose on writing these dialogues is to encourage Christians to be ready to engage in such apologetics. All these dialogues relate some of my own experiences with unbelievers and some with believers. I have presented them in a conversational style because I believe this makes the subject more interesting and easier for the reader who is not used to studying.

Author: Fred R. Swarbrick

Paperback | 90 pages | £5.95 | ISBN: 978-1-909145-01-6

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Christianity and Law

ISBN: 978-1-909145-00-9The English legal system was formed and developed over centuries under the dominating influence of the Christian religion. The ideals and standards of justice that informed our law were derived largely either from the Bible directly or from ancient pre-Christian customs that have been so completely transformed under the influence of the Church that the original pre-Christian practices from which they originate are no longer discernible in the Christianised forms in which we know them. Our very concepts of justice, due process and the rule of law are Christian ideals that we should never have known had the Christian faith not taken root in England and transformed the nation from a pagan into a Christian society. This  book traces the growth of Christian law in England from the conversion of King Æthelberht, through the reigns of the Anglo-Saxon kings up to the Norman conquest, and examines the influence of Christianity on the development of English common law during its early formative period in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The author claims that English common law is today being overturned by legislation passed in Parliament that is based on presuppositions fundamentally alien to our Christian common-law tradition, and that our society is now in transition from a society based on the rule of law, as this has traditionally been understood, to a society ruled by politicians—i.e. a totalitarian society. 

Author: Stephen Perks

Paperback | 98 pages | £5.95 | Second Edition | ISBN: 978-1-909145-00-9

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The Christian Passover: Agape Feast or Ritual Abuse?

ISBN 978-0-9522058-4-5It has been accepted by virtually all Christian traditions that the Last Supper was a Passover meal. It has also been accepted by virtually all Christian traditions that in the early Church the Lord’s Supper, for which the Last Supper is the model and pattern, was celebrated as part of a common fellowship meal, the agape feast. Yet by the second half of the first millennium the Lord’s Supper had been separated from the Agape and the Church had banned the celebration of the latter in church buildings with the result that it fell into complete disuse. Why did this happen? The reason is to be found in the fact that it was difficult to transform the Agape into a clergy-controlled and regulated ritual, whereas the Eucharist, separated from the Agape and accompanied by an expanding liturgy, was easily transformed into a rite that could be sacralised and subjected to clerical domination. The life of the Church was then redefined and its most important communal expressions were transformed into rituals performed by the priesthood (sacerdotalism). The ability of the Christian community, the Christian society, to achieve the potential of its life as the true social order was restricted as an inevitable consequence. If the Church is to fulfil the task entrusted to her by her Lord in the Great Commission Christians must reclaim their citizenship of the Kingdom of God from those who have sought to dispossess them of it for so long. Centralised bureaucratic control of the Church by clergymen has vitiated the life of the Church as a social order and wrecked the mission of the Church. The life of the Church as the true society, the true social order, must be restored if the Great Commission is to be accomplished, and the combined Eucharist and Agape is an important element of that life, since it is the central ritual of the Christian Church and therefore vital to the well-being of the Christian community. 

Author: Stephen Perks

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The Nature, Government and Function of the Church: A Reassessment

ISBN: 978-0-9522058-1-5There is perhaps no subject that Christrians have discussed, debated and argued over more fiercely than that of the nature, government and function of the Church. In this book the author attempts to set out biblical principles that can, in the main, be acted upon and applied in all Christian Churches, regardless of denomination. In this way the author seeks to apply the Reformation dictum Ecclesia reformata semper reformanda—"the church reformed is always fit to be reformed"—to the modern Church in order to encourage a more faithful practice of the Church's Great Commission in our day. 

Author: Stephen Perks

Paperback | 116 pages | £8.95 | ISBN: 978-0-9522058-1-5

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Baal Worship Ancient and Modern

ISBN: 978-0-9522058-6-9

In the period following the death of King David the people of Israel became deeply entrenched in a syncretistic form of religion that fused elements of the worship of Yahweh with the ancient fertility cults of Canaan, identifying Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with the pagan god Baal. This corrupt form of worship, which predated the monarchy but had again become ingrained in the religious practices of the people following Solomon’s own example of idolatry, lasted up until the exile. Reforms instituted by good kings barely touched the religion of the people, whose cultic practices operated at the syncretistic folk-religion level, not in terms of the religious practices of the temple and the priesthood established in the Mosaic law, which was frequently forgotten, at times even completely lost. In large part it was this corruption of the worship of Yahweh that precipitated the Babylonian captivity. What lesson can twenty-first century Christians learn from this period of biblical history? Are there any similarities, at any level, between the mind-set of the ancient Hebrews of this period and the world-view of modern Western society that can help us to understand the spiritual blindness that overwhelmingly dominates modern Western Churches? This essay seeks to provide answers to these questions and thereby provide some guidance for the way out of the present spiritual and moral failure that is leading to the ruin of contemporary Western society.

Author: Stephen Perks

Paperback | 37 pages | £3.50 plus postage | ISBN: 978-0-9522058-6-9

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Post-Hippocratic Medicine: The Problem And The Solution—How The Christian Ethic Has Influenced Health Care

ISBN: 978-0-9522058-9-0

The “Golden Age of Medicine” was built upon the foundation of the Judeo-Christian ethic and the Hippocratic tradition. It flourished because of this foundation. Whenever and wherever this foundation has been abandoned, medicine has given way to barbarism and superstition. The modern age is no different. You can read all about babies being treated like a crop of potatoes in the new science of fetal harvesting; you can read all about women serving as breeders in surrogate motherhood programmes; you can read all about the “new growth industry” of genetic manipulation in test tube baby experiments; you can read all about how the poor serve as guinea pigs in bizarre particle bombardments; or read about handicapped patients facing compulsory sterilisation; or the latest in genetic engineering; or—probably the most frightening of all—the revival of the racially motivated eugenic programmes; and finally, how two Wall Street Journal reporters revealed a tale of deceit and manipulation by the government, the media, and the Centre for Disease Control in order to gain political support for the billions being spent on AIDS research and prevention. The “Golden Age of Medicine” may be coming to an end. The medical profession is gradually abandoning its Hippocratic tradition and its Judeo-Christian ethical foundation. It is vital that this foundation should be restored.

Author: Hugh Flemming

Paperback | 45 pages | £3.95 plus postage | ISBN: 978-0-9522058-9-0

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The Problem of the Gifted Speaker

ISBN: 978-0-9522058-5-2

One of the problems facing the Church in the Western world today is the problem posed by the “ministry” of those who are considered “gifted speakers” and consequently idolised by the Church. Stated in its most simple form this is the problem posed by the prioritising of the personality, charisma, “profile,” popularity, stage presence and ability of the speaker as an orator and entertainer over the content of the message being delivered—in short, the triumph of style over content, the consequence of which has been the creation of an intellectually feeble-minded and theologically malnourished generation of churchgoers who are over stimulated by sentimental and mindless entertainment worship masquerading as spiritual edification.  The problem has a long history, but it is made particularly problematic today by the intellectual dumbing down process that currently afflicts British culture generally and has produced a semiliterate society. That the Church should also have fallen into this ditch is particularly problematic because her role in providing spiritual, moral and intellectual leadership for society is vital to the health of the nation. Without the leadership of the Church the nation cannot recover from its present descent into cultural degeneration and the neo-paganism that is its inevitably accompaniment. While the Church is obsessed with the mindless prioritising of style over content that is vitiating the cultural life of the nation as a whole she will remain useless and irrelevant to society, and therefore unable to provide the leadership that the nation so desperately needs.

Author: Stephen Perks

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The Great Decommission

ISBN: 978-0-9522058-8-3The dominant contemporary view of the Christian faith as a subjective, private, devotional faith has led to the overturning of the Great Commission, i.e. the de-commissioning of the nations as Christian nations. This modern understanding of the faith is in stark contrast to view of the faith presented in Scripture and accepted as orthodox by previous generations. Until modern times the Church has always proclaimed, and Christians have believed, that the Christian faith is public truth; and public truth is religion. Very many Christians today, however, deny that Christianity is a religion. And it has to be recognised that for these people it is not a religion. It is merely a worship hobby. But in denying that Christianity is a religion Christians have unwittingly denied it the status of public truth, with dire consequences for the life of the nation as a result. The Bible does not see the faith in terms of a personal worship hobby, but rather as a religion that overcomes and transforms the world. The purpose of the Christian faith is not merely to transform the believer’s personal life and make him more holy. It is to glorify God by transforming the world, by bringing the world under the discipline of Jesus Christ and his word. The Christian faith is a political and social faith as well as a personal faith; its mission does not terminate on the individual but on the whole world, which is to be brought into subjection to the will of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we are to win the world for Christ we must take the Great Commission seriously as a commission to bring the nations of the earth under the discipline of Jesus Christ not only by preaching the gospel of personal salvation through faith in Christ but also by baptising the nations and teaching the law of God to the nations.

Author: Stephen Perks

Paperback | 40 pages | £3.50 plus postage | ISBN: 978-0-9522058-8-3

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The Christian Philosophy of Education Explained

0-9518899-0-7 The deterioration of academic standards and discipline in state schools in the last twenty-five years has finally forced the issue of education upon the consciences of many Christians who would not otherwise have considered it. There is both good and bad in this. The crisis in education has led some to reconsider the whole issue of education and the place of Christian children in a state system that promotes secular humanism and multi-culturalism as a virtue, and discourages the traditional Christian world- view and its code of morality. This is surely good. Yet the fact that it has taken such a crisis to awaken Christian parents to their responsibilities as Christians in this areas is indicative of serious failure in the church's understanding of its calling in this world. It is a sad indictment upon the church's ministry, in particular, that this issue needed to be forced upon the consciences of Christians at all, but especially by a crisis in the practice of an alien religion, with which the church has compromised itself. In this situation there are many voices offering many different solutions to the problem. Some Christian pressure groups and parliamentary lobbying groups have tried to introduce measures into the law aimed at Christianising the state education system, others at securing state funding for so-called independent Christian schools. A few advocate the withdrawal of all education, Christian or otherwise, from the orbit of state authority and funding. In this situation it is important that all the relevant issues should be considered carefully in the light of biblical teaching. Only when this has been done are we in a position to make an intelligent decision about the correct Christian response. The aim of this book is to explain the Christian philosophy of education and thereby help those who read it to make that Christian response. 

"One of the most thorough and biblical discussions of this topic available. Perks develops a clear Christian theory of knowledge, while repudiating subtle idolatries. It comes all the way from England, though no one appears to appreciate it there much yet." (Canon Press)

Author: Stephen Perks

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A Defence of the Christian State

0-9522058-2-3 Principled Pluralism is the belief that the State should be a religiously neutral institution and that all religions should enjoy civil liberty and equality. In recent years this belief has gained much ground among Christians in both America and the United Kingdom. This book provides a detailed critique of the principled pluralist position. The author sets out to show that religious neutrality in the political sphere is impossible, that all States are, including so-called secular States, are religious institutions. The author argues that the evangelical case for principled pluralism fundamentally misunderstands the issues at stake and consequently misconceives the proper Christian attitude to the political sphere. He then provides an exposition of the Christian doctrine of the State.

Author: Stephen Perks

Paperback | 240 pages | £12.95 plus postage | ISBN: 0-9522058-2-3

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Common-Law Wives and Concubines

Essays on Covenantal Christianity and Contemporary Western Culture

0-9522058-7-4What is the nature of Christianity? Is it a religion or a cult, i.e. a personal worship hobby? This question goes to the heart of the modern Church's failure to exercise a world-transforming faith. The antidote to this failure is the rediscovery of Christianity as the true religion, i.e. as an overarching structure to human life that anchors both the individual and the society of which he is a part in God's will for man in Christ. This religious structure the Bible calls the covenant, and it embraces the whole of human life including politics, education, science, art, welfare, health care, marriage, family life, Church, business, economy.

Author: Stephen Perks

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Political Economy of a Christian Society

0-9522058-3-1

Contrary to much popular opinion, economics is not a subject that is religiously neutral. The way the economy works is intimately bound up with fundamental issues of right and wrong, and what one judges to be right or wrong is itself intimately bound up with one's religious perspective. Furthermore, the Christian Scriptures give specific and abiding rules about how men are to behave economically. It is the calling and duty of the church to address all areas in which God has revealed ethical norms for human behaviour. God has given laws to mankind governing both realms of activity. It is necessary therefore that the church should bring the moral teaching of the Bible to bear on the economic issues that face modern society. If Christians are to do this effectively, however, they must be informed. Ignorance of the economic realities upon which so much of life depends will vitiate the church's ability to speak prophetically in this area and call the present generation back to gaithfulness to God's word.

The purpose of this book is to introduce the reader to the subject of Christian economics. Its aim is twofold: first, to give a general overview of the field of economics; to elucidate the general principles of economic concepts and the basic structures of economic institutions, and to provide a perspective that will enable the reader to assimilate the details of our modern economic system into an overall understanding of how the economy has developed and currently functions. Secondly, the book aims to indicate in what respects the economy needs to be reformed if it is to conform to Christian standards and so point the way to what the political economy of a Christian society should be like.

Author: Stephen Perks

Paperback | 420 pages | £14.95, plus postage | ISBN: 0-9522058-3-1

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