Catholicism—Christian? Or Cultic? by Dave Hunt

Posted on April 11, 2013 by ccpastormike

The evangelical church today is being seduced as never in its history. It faces a danger so grave that, although we have discussed this problem before, it must be addressed again with new insight and vigor. If evangelicals succumb to the seduction, as they increasingly are doing, then their gospel witness will be submerged in confusion and could eventually be lost—a tragic and new dimension to the apostasy from which the church and the world will never recover. Most astonishing and alarming is the fact that (with few exceptions) evangelical leaders and even the major cult watchers refuse to acknowledge this threat. We are therefore compelled to address the subject once again with renewed concern.

For decades evangelicals have diligently and faithfully attempted to identify, analyze and warn the church against cults . Included in the standard list are Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Unity School of Christianity, Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, etc. Yet the most seductive, dangerous, and largest cult (many times larger than all of the rest combined) is not included in the list! Most cult experts refuse to identify this horrendous cult as such! Instead, they accept it as “Christian.”

Worst of all, this cult (which preaches a false gospel that is sending hundreds of millions into a Christless eternity) is now embraced as a partner in “evangelizing the world” by many groups that preach the biblical gospel. Major denominations, such as the Anglican and the Episcopalian church, are involved in merger talks with this cult. The Assemblies of God hierarchy has been engaged in “fruitful dialogue” with this cult, whose members are now widely perceived as born-again Christians. As a consequence, the evangelical church faces an unprecedented crisis that threatens its very survival.

The above is a severe, solemn, and devastating charge to make—a charge that we have documented in the past and in support of which additional evidence will now be given. We challenge any church leader to a public debate who declares that this assertion is false. If proven wrong, we will publicly repent. But if this accusation is true, then a major shake-up in the evangelical church is required, including repentance by many of its most highly regarded leaders. We solicit your help in providing church leaders with the facts they need to identify this cult—facts of which I [Dave] was ignorant years ago when I, too, failed to identify the Roman Catholic Church as the cult that it is.

What is a “cult?” In his book, Rise of the Cults , Walter Martin defined cultism as “…any major deviation from orthodox Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith.” Though unmentioned by Martin, Roman Catholicism is undeniably a “major deviation from orthodox Christianity” on many “cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith,” and thus, by his own definition, a cult. Recognition of this fact ignited the Reformation! To deny that Roman Catholicism is a cult is to repudiate the Reformation and mock the millions of martyrs who died at Rome’s hands, as though they gave their lives in vain.

But, says someone, since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), the Roman Catholic Church no longer teaches and practices what it did at the time of the Reformation. That popular idea is false. To counter the Reformation, Rome’s foremost theologians met from 1545-63 in the Council of Trent. Its Canons and Decrees , which rejected every Reformation doctrine, remain the standard authoritative statement of Roman Catholicism, and adherence thereto is required by Catholic catechisms. Opening Vatican II, Pope John XXIII declared, “I do accept entirely all that has been decided and declared at the Council of Trent.” Vatican II went on to reaffirm Trent’s Canons and Decrees . No, Rome has notchanged since the Reformation—except superficially.

Were Luther, Calvin, and the other Reformers alive today, they would denounce Roman Catholicism as the largest and most dangerous cult on earth! Yet the Christian Research Institute and other counter-cult groups refuse to classify it as a cult. In the above book, Martin emphasized that the five major cults at that time had “a following exceeding 8.5 million persons ….” Yet he overlooked Roman Catholicism’s hundreds of millions!

Answers to Cultists at Your Door presents another example. Its authors, Bob and Gretchen Passantino, are described as “experts in cult research [who] have spent years in countercult ministry” (outside back cover of Witch Hunt ). They include such marks of a cult as the claim that it “is the only organization on earth that is following God’s will” and that its leader is “uniquely chosen by God to lead God’s people” and that it alone “offer[s] the Bible’s ‘true’ interpretation on all matters.” Again, the Roman Catholic Church fully fits all of the criteria. It claims to be the only true church, says that its pope is uniquely chosen to lead all of God’s people, and explains that only its hierarchy can interpret Scripture. Yet the Passantinos, like most other “cult experts,” fail to include Roman Catholicism as a cult, though it meets all their own tests!

Mormons must blindly obey Joseph Smith and his successors, JWs dare not question The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, and other cultists must submit to their leaders. Such authoritarianism is the primary mark of a cult. The same blind submission is required of all Catholics. Canon 212 of Catholicism’s Code of Canon Law requires that Catholics must give absolute obedience to their “sacred pastors.” Vatican II states repeatedly that only Catholicism’s hierarchy can interpret the Bible and that papal pronouncements must be obeyed without question. Canon 333 (Sec. 3) declares, “There is neither appeal nor recourse against a decision or decree of the Roman Pontiff.” Vatican watchdog Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s recent 7,500-word “Instruction” declares that dissent about church teachings cannot be “justified as a matter of following one’s conscience.” No cult demands surrender of mind and conscience more fully or arrogantly than Roman Catholicism.

Roman Catholicism is not only left out of the list of cults by the experts, but it is explicitly approved. For example, in Scripture Twisting , James W. Sire, longtime Editor-In-Chief of InterVarsity Press, defines a cult as having “ doctrines and/or practices that contradict those of the Scriptures as interpreted by traditional Christianity as represented by the major Catholic and Protestant denominations… ” (emphasis his). Sire makes Catholicism a standard of orthodoxy against which cults are to be judged. Yet he accuses the cults of twisting Scripture, a technique of which Rome is surely the ultimate master. Sire indicts Mormonism as a cult for adding other revelations to the Bible—but Rome has added far more new revelations to the Bible than the Mormon Church. Sire declares, “There is no guru class in biblical Christianity, no illuminati, no people through whom all proper interpretation must come”—yet that is exactly the situation in the Roman Catholic Church! How, then, does he make it the standard of orthodoxy?

Consider also The Agony of Deceit published by Moody. Each chapter is written by a leading evangelical about a specific false teaching within today’s church. While Agony mostly repeats much that was found in Seduction of Christianity five years earlier, it is another voice issuing many of the same warnings, for which we are thankful. Yet it, too, whitewashes Roman Catholicism. On page 65 it states, “Traditional Roman Catholicism…hold[s] to biblical inerrancy.” In fact, Catholicism explicitly denies biblical inerrancy! The next sentence does acknowledge that the “messages [of Protestantism and Catholicism] are poles apart,” but moves right on without identifying the vital differences.

Page 111 declares, “The Catholic church resisted the mounting heresies with regard to the Person of Christ, and…Protestants would continue to affirm Catholic Christology.” Again, terribly false! Catholicism’s Christology is heretical. It denies Christ’s exclusive role as mediator between God and man, making Mary “co-mediatrix”; it denies the exclusivity of His redemptive work, making Mary “co-redemptrix” (Vatican II credits Mary with a perpetual “salvific role; she continues to obtain by her constant intercession the graces we need for eternal salvation”); and it denies the sufficiency of His redemptive work, declaring that the redeemed must, in addition to Christ’s suffering for them upon the cross, suffer for their own sins here and/or in purgatory, etc. A great deal more heresy is involved in Catholic Christology, such as presenting Him as perpetually an infant or child subject to His mother, perpetually on the cross—but lack of space prevents further detail. The “Christ” of Roman Catholicism is just as false as its “Mary”—as much “another Jesus” as that of Mormonism or any other cult. Let’s admit it!

Several times in Agony it is stated that Protestants and Catholics embrace the same apostolic creeds. This is a partially true but seriously misleading statement. The implication is that the creeds are an all-encompassing statement of biblical Christianity, which they are not. Furthermore, there is a vast difference between the meaning that Catholics and Protestants attach to what the creeds say. For example, while affirming that Christ “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” Catholicism teaches that His suffering was insufficient. In addition to Christ’s suffering, we must each suffer for our sins in order to be saved. We can even suffer for the salvation of others. (The Apostolic Constitution of Jan. 1, 1967, Indulgentarium Doctrina , #1687, urges Catholics to carry “each one his own cross in expiation of their sins and of the sins of others…assist[ing] their brothers to obtain salvation from God.”) This is rank heresy to Protestants. Yet Agony implies that Catholics mean the same thing as Protestants by the creeds—an inexcusable and deadly error in a book by eminent Christian scholars written to point out errors within the church. Though this and the other books cited above contain much that commends them, their approval of Catholicism is tragically misleading.

The deviation by Catholicism from biblical Christianity goes to the heart of the faith, to salvation itself, and thus affects the eternal destiny of those who are deceived thereby. Roman Catholicism rejects salvation by faith and preaches a false gospel of works that cannot save—salvation is not in Christ but in the Church through submission to its edicts and sacraments. The Basic Catechism of Christian Doctrine calls the sacraments “the chief means of our salvation.”

The first of the seven sacraments is baptism, which is performed upon 98 percent of Catholics as infants. It is declared in Canon 849 to be the means “by which men and women are freed from their sins, are reborn as children of God….” The Basic Catechism declares that baptism “is necessary for salvation…cleanses us from original sin, makes us Christians….” Another sacrament is the Mass, which the Catechismdeclares to be “one and the same Sacrifice with that of the Cross, inasmuch as Christ…continues to offer himself…on the altar, through the ministry of his priests.” Canon 904 states that “the work of redemption is continually accomplished in the mystery of the Eucharistic Sacrifice,” thus denying Christ’s triumphant “It is finished!”

Let me remind you of Hugh Latimer’s last words, spoken through the flames to his companion who was bound to the same stake: “Be of good courage, master Ridley…for we shall by God’s grace this day light such a ‘candle’ in England as I pray shall never go out!” Tragically, the “candle” lit by hundreds of thousands of faithful martyrs burned at the stake, if not already out, is barely flickering and in danger of being snuffed completely. Paul Crouch, head of the largest Christian TV worldwide network, demeans the martyrs by calling the issues they died for mere semantics; and he makes a mockery of the Reformers by declaring orthodox the heresies that sparked the Reformation.

Those who believe Rome’s lies and follow her gospel of works for salvation are lost. Failing to recognize this fact, many evangelical leaders and cult experts have themselves been deceived by Rome and need to be confronted and informed. How tragic to assume that Catholics are Christians who merely have some peripheral beliefs and practices which seem peculiar to Protestants but which will not prevent them from being saved. A false gospel is a false gospel, and it damns those who believe it, whether preached by Mormonism or Catholicism. A cult is a cult. Roman Catholics, like the members of other cults, need to be treated with compassion, warned of cultic lies, and presented with the true gospel, which alone can save them.

If you are concerned about the growing cooperation between Catholic organizations and major evangelical ministries, please write to them and ask where they stand on this critical issue. The questions could be: 1) What is your organization’s position regarding Catholic doctrines? 2) What is your position regarding organizational participation with Catholics in matters of world evangelization? 3) Are you presently either officially or unofficially involved with any Catholic lay or clerical groups or organizations? If so, on what basis…and to what end?

http://www.thebereancall.org/content/catholicism-christian-or-cultic

Posted by permission of the Berean Call

Article first published in June, 1991

The Only Possible Defense of Private Property by Bojidar Marinov

Posted on March 9, 2013 by ccpastormike

In my previous article I showed that Classical Liberalism and Objectivism can’t defend private property on ethical grounds. They defend it on historical, pragmatic, linguistic grounds, etc., but they don’t give a defense of private property as ethical in itself. In all their views private property appeared long after man appeared, and is a later development. Therefore, it is not “natural” to man, that is, it is not part of his “natural state.” It is not sacred, Ludwig von Mises said, and thus he declared the impossibility of defending it on ethical grounds.

Unfortunately, there were others who started from the same philosophical presuppositions: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.[1] And unlike Dietze, Mises, or Rand, Marx and Engels were logical and consistent with their presuppositions: If private property was external to human nature, then it was alien to human nature. If mankind is to return to its “natural state,” it must abolish the source of all alienation and suffering: private property. Marx and Engels took the philosophical separation of property from human nature that the defenders of natural law upheld and developed practical ideology consistent with it. That ideology looked monstrous, unnatural, ugly, and it was monstrous, unnatural, and ugly. But it was logically and intellectually consistent, and it won the day, and it is still winning the day. What Dietze, Mises, and Rand lamented—the decline of property rights—was nothing but the predictable result of the superior logical consistency of Marxism.

There is only one ideology that defends private property on ethical grounds: Christianity, with its Biblical worldview, its doctrine of the creation of man in the image of God, and its doctrine of the moral superiority of the Law of God to any man-made laws.

Dietze got it right at the start: Property is an ethical institution, and first and foremost an ethical institution. It can’t be anything else, it can’t be defended on any other ground, any other ground is sand, and it will eventually collapse under the assault of the opponents of private property.

Then Dietze went in a completely wrong direction, philosophically. So did Mises. So did Rand. In order to defend property, we must declare its sacredness. We must declare its intrinsic goodness. And we must declare its naturalness. If it is not sacred, if it is not intrinsically good, and if it is not part of human nature—as opposed to external to human nature—property is only an expedient tool to be disposed of at will. If it is so, we have no recourse against those that want to confiscate our property in the name of expediency or of “return to nature.”

And the only way to declare its sacredness, goodness, and naturalness is to accept the Bible’s claim that man was created an owner, and that he owned private property from the very beginning of his created existence. Humans did not develop the concept of property, nor did it evolve in result of man’s praxis or interaction. Property was inextricably part of man’s existence in the Garden, and there is no way to define man as a being without property.

That view of property as being inextricably part of the very nature of man is reflected in the Ten Commandments. The same law code that protects man’s life protects his property too—in the Eighth and the Tenth Commandments. We can’t define man without his life; in the same way, we cannot define man without his property. His life is an “ethical institution,” it is sacred, in the same way, his property is an “ethical institution,” it is sacred.

This definition of man as a being that naturally has life and property is not a mere philosophical assumption; it flows from the very nature of objective reality because God Himself is a Proprietor. In the Third Commandment—which corresponds to the Eighth in the first five Commandments—God declares limits to man’s use of His name. God is not a remote being. He owns everything, including the breath from our mouth, and we are not allowed to use that breath in a way that violates God’s name. Using God’s name in an inappropriate way was as heavy a crime as worshipping other gods, and violating His property was a crime against the Person of God. In the same way, Biblically, violating a man’s property was a crime against the person of man.

It is no wonder, then, that the idea of sacred property rights originated with Christianity, and it developed as Christianity developed doctrinally and worked out its doctrines in practice. Even as early as the 4th century Bishop Ambrose declared to Emperor Theodosius the theological connection between God’s property and a private man’s property. When he was commanded by the Emperor, “Surrender the Basilica,” Ambrose replied:

It is not lawful for me to surrender it nor good for you, Emperor, to receive it. By no right can you violate the house of a private person. Do you think that a house of God can be taken away from Him? . . . If you hope for a long reign, submit yourself to God.

Notice the argument: The house of a private person is just as inviolable as is the House of God. In a remarkable early defense of property rights, Ambrose didn’t hesitate to declare: “By no right!,” and he made a connection that the Bible made from the very beginning. Had Ambrose wanted to defend property rights on the basis of natural law, he would have been as helpless as Dietze, Mises, or Rand. But his firm stand on the theological foundation of property made Theodosius yield and repent.

The “evolution” of property rights was only observable in the Christian West in the last 1500 years. Moreover, it was not an independent event: It followed the “evolution” of the doctrines of Christianity, as Christian thinkers studied the Bible and applied it to their theory and practice. The “Renaissance” in the 12th and 13th centuries, the Scholastic revolution, contributed to the development of private property rights more than anything before.

And of course, the Protestant Reformation, in its return to the pure teachings of the Bible, exalted property rights to the level of a “divine right” for the individual. Contrary to what Mises and Rand believed, capitalism did not create property rights. It was the perfection of the legal concept of property rights by Protestant theologians that created capitalism, and therefore created the modern world. Capitalism did not create property; property created capitalism; and the Bible established property and built a defense perimeter around it, and sanctioned its ethical and economic advance.

Much is said by Classical Libertarians and by Ayn Rand herself about the American Revolution and its great principle of the rights to Life, Liberty, and Property. And yet, one will be pressed hard to find a justification of that belief on any other basis but Christianity. Why would Property be equal in value as a right to Life, if we accept natural law as our foundation? After all, man was man long before he had any property, if one accepts the evolutionist ideas of the believers in natural law. It is only when we lay the Creation account as our foundation that we can add Property to Life as an unalienable right. And therefore, the greatest victory for property rights in the history of mankind—the American Revolution—cannot be understood without its Christian foundations.

Christianity as the only philosophical foundation to property is also the explanation for the decline of property rights in the 20th century. The more Christ is banned from the public discourse, the less His Law—the only foundation for property—has influence over the public actions of men and their political representatives. Modern society still has some notion of property because of its Christian past; in fact, Classical Liberals themselves wouldn’t be able to produce their great works if it wasn’t for the Christian roots of our civilization. They intuitively accept the logical conclusions of the Law of God – the importance of the private property rights—while intellectually rejecting its premises. But the removal of Christianity from society has taken its toll; and the decline of all rights, including property rights, is part of that toll. There is only one possible defense of property—ethical defense—and there is only one ideology that supplies both the epistemological foundations and the legal corpus for that defense. That ideology is based on the Biblical worldview. Remove that foundation, and property rights will follow.

Therefore the restoration of property rights can and will start only with the restoration of Christianity to its place of a dominant religion in the West. Only when our law codes, our cultural practices, our economic, political, scientific, scholarly and other fields of society submit to the revelation and the requirements of the Law of God, we will see the property rights truly upheld and defended. Like all other rights, property rights come from God, and they stand or fall with our obedience to God, as a nation under Him.

Endnote:

[1] See Communist Manifesto, Anti-Düring, Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Das Kapital, The Principles of Communism, and others.

http://www.americanvision.org/article/the-only-possible-defense-of-private-property/

The Only Possible Defense of Private Property by Bojidar Marinov, Feb 11, 2010

Transforming Word Bible Institute

Posted on March 8, 2013 by ccpastormike

Friends:

This post announces the opening of the Transforming Word Bible Institute (TWBI). This is a ministry aimed at providing Bible college type educational opportunities at a small fraction of the cost. The TWBI utilizes the internet to provide an online classroom accessible by the student at anytime of the day or night. For an informational brochure email TWBI at twbi@woh.rr.com

God bless you today as you seek to serve Jesus!

Mike

Bloody Hands: The Southern Poverty Law Center by Matt Barber

Posted on February 9, 2013 by ccpastormike

Long before homosexual activist Floyd Corkins entered the D.C.-based Family Research Council (FRC) with the intent to commit mass murder, I warned from the rooftops that the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center’s anti-Christian “hate group” propaganda might spur such bloodshed. With a column headlined, “Liberal violence rising,” I wrote, “The SPLC’s dangerous and irresponsible (‘hate group’) disinformation campaign can embolden and give license to like-minded, though less stable, left-wing extremists, creating a climate of true hate. Such a climate is ripe for violence.”

Tragically, my deepest fears were realized.

Then, in August, days after Corkins was heroically disarmed by FRC employ Leo Johnson, whom Corkins shot in the arm, I penned another column titled “Fanning the flames of left-wing violence.” I plead with the SPLC to end its “dishonest and reprehensible” strategy of “juxtaposing FRC and other Christian organizations with violent extremist groups” in a transparent effort to marginalize them.

“I appeal to your sense of goodwill. This is not a game. Lives are at stake,” I implored. “I know you have good employees (I’ve met some) who believe they’re doing the right thing; so, please, validate that belief. It’s time to remove your metaphorical ‘hate group’ Star of David from mainstream Christian organizations before another of your ideological allies spills blood.”

I no longer believe the SPLC has a sense of goodwill. In fact, based on FBI evidence and the group’s own actions (and inaction), I and many others are left with no other inference but this: The SPLC – a left-wing extremist fundraising behemoth – may be intentionally inciting anti-Christian violence.

Just days ago, Corkins pled guilty to a number of charges, including domestic terrorism. FBI evidence revealed that he was both motivated by and utilized the SPLC’s “anti-gay hate map” to target and locate his intended Christian mass murder victims.

Further evidence reveals that the “hate map” – more accurately labeled “hit map” – even provided the exact location of FRC and other Christian groups found on Corkins’ hit-list with little red dots to helpfully pinpoint their precise locations.

Corkins told the FBI after the shooting that he intended to “kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-fil-A sandwiches (which he brought with him) in victims’ faces.” Prosecutors said that he planned to leave FRC after the attack and go to another conservative group to continue his reign of terror. A handwritten list of three other groups was found with his belongings while an investigation of Corkins’ computer revealed that he identified his targets on the SPLC website. The other groups were also maliciously listed by the SPLC as “hate groups.”

Motive to kill? Fomented. Who to kill? Provided. Where to kill? Pinpointed, with easy access to driving directions. The only thing the SPLC did not do was purchase Corkins’ gun and drive him to the crime scene.

Here’s why, to my own aghast bewilderment, I’m left with little choice but to believe the SPLC may be intentionally inciting anti-Christian violence. As noted by the FRC, “Even after an attempted mass murder of the FRC staff, the ‘hate map’ is still prominently featured on the SPLC website today – which shocks most conservative pundits.”

“Shocks” is an understatement.

“When Congresswoman Giffords and several others were shot in Arizona by Jared Loughner, the left went into overdrive blaming Sarah Palin for a map that had a list of political targets on it. After the fact, we learned that Loughner was apolitical and he clearly had not used Sarah Palin’s map of political targets. That did not stop the left from blaming the right,” noted RedState’s Erick Erickson. “By the way, Palin took down her target map after the controversy. The Southern Poverty Law Center? Crickets …”

What other explanation is there? I understand that it’s difficult to admit you’re wrong, especially when the scheme seemed so delicious at the time. But once FBI evidence conclusively proves that you were, to a large degree, responsible for inciting an act of domestic terrorism, most reasonable people would take a deep breath, take a step back, admit fault and hobble forward in an effort to rehabilitate a reputation in ruin.

Is the SPLC a left-wing extremist group? Absolutely. Are they anti-Christian? Without a doubt. But few would have believed, until now, that they might intentionally, with malice aforethought, seek to incite anti-Christian bloodshed.

Scandalously, the Obama administration continues to maintain deep ties with this radical organization.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center has a long history of maliciously slandering pro-family groups with language and labels that incite hatred and undermine civil discourse,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “In the issues of family and marriage, Christians are literally in the crosshairs of radical homosexual activists, and the SPLC is fueling the hatred and providing the targets. The SPLC should be held accountable for its reckless acts. Even more disturbing than the SPLC’s irresponsible behavior is the fact that the Obama administration is in bed with this group,” said Staver.

“It is ironic that Christians who believe in natural marriage have been isolated by radical homosexual activists and demonized as ‘homophobes’ and ‘haters,’” he concluded.

Weeks before Corkins pleaded guilty of terrorism and assault with intent to kill, a study from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point entitled “Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far Right” said the “violent far right” exhibits an intense fear or dislike of foreign people, “including people with alternative sexual preferences.” The SPLC’s warped view of reality has been adopted by the Obama administration.

“What the SPLC and other homosexual activists are doing is intentional and dangerous,” said Staver. “It is time to end the dangerous rhetoric and resume a civil discourse on the subject of natural marriage and morality.”

Indeed if, God forbid, this SPLC “hate group” propaganda leads to another act of left-wing terrorism like that at FRC, this dangerous group should be held legally – perhaps even criminally liable.

In the meantime, to the media, I say this: If you dare, even for a moment, give any credence whatsoever to this deadly SPLC “hate group” nonsense, you too will have blood on your hands.

SPLC, you’re no longer fooling anyone.

Stop fooling yourselves.

Matt Barber is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as vice president of Liberty Counsel Action.

The Real Roots of School Violence by Tom DeWeese

Posted on January 26, 2013 by ccpastormike

In the brave new world of the very near future, children will enter their public schools passing police checkpoints, surveillance cameras, metal detectors, X-ray scanners and warrantless physical searches. Parents will relax, knowing their child is now “SAFE.” No violent evil doers will be able to get past that wall of security.

But what none of the checkpoints, scanners and cameras will detect is the child who walks right past, armed to the teeth with a hidden weapon actually enforced on him by the school itself. The weapon comes in many names and varieties: Ritlin, Luvox, Prozac, Zoloft, Cymbalta, Paxil, and more. Each weapon lovingly loaded into their child by concerned parents before they send them off to their “safe” school. And while the child’s backpack and pockets are checked by the armed force on the way in, the pharmaceutical poison is building up in his blood system, racing to the brain like a lit dynamite fuse.

As communities reel from one massive act of student violence after another, most recently in Newtown, Connecticut, the nation looks for answers. How many are looking at the schools themselves as the conduit through which millions of students are drugged with mind-altering drugs?

Some history. In 1965, the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), changed education forever as the seeds for today’s massive restructuring -away from academics to behavior modification – began. It was psychology’s crowning moment. The ESEA allocated massive federal funds and opened school doors to a flood of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and the psychiatric programs and testing needed to validate them. The number of educational psychologists in the U.S. increased from 455 in 1969 to 16,146 in 1992. As of 1994, child psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors and special educators in and around U.S. public schools nearly out-number teachers.

To date, there has never been issued a single peer- reviewed scientific paper officially claiming to prove ADD/ ADHD exists. Nor has there ever been a single bit of physical evidence to confirm the disease exists. So-called experts on the subject have refused to answer the simple question, “is ADD/ ADHD a real disease?” Medical researchers charge that ADHD does not meet the medical definition of a disease or syndrome or anything organic or biologic.

Yet, in 1991, eligibility rules for federal education grants were changed to provide schools with $400 in annual grant money for each child diagnosed with ADHD. That same year the Department of Education formally recognized ADHD as a handicap and directed all state education officers to establish procedures to screen and identify ADHD children and provide them with special education and psychological services. As a result, the number of ADD/ADHD cases soared again.

Today more than 7,000,000 children have been labeled, tamped and registered as permanent patients of the school system. 10 to 12 percent of all boys between the ages of 6 and 14 in the United States have been diagnosed as having ADD. One in every 30 Americans between the ages of 5 and 19 years old has a prescription for Ritalin. And the fuse burns as the “patients” sit in the classroom.

AS THE USE OF PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS RISE – SO TOO DO CHILD SUICIDES

Children are dying. Not just in shootings, but in rising incidents of suicide. Here are some details:

A November 1997 medical report found: “The association between benzodiazephine use and attempted suicide is especially high for…the young, and for males…” In the April 1996 Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, a study found that “the older tricyclic antidepressants are a significant cause of suicide” and accounted for the majority of antidepressant deaths studied between 1986 and 1990.

A December 1996 French study entitled, “Suicide and psychotropic drugs,” established that “suicide attempts are more frequent among patients taking antidepressants…”

In Denmark, with a huge usage of psychotropic drugs, the suicide rate is twice the rate of that in the United States…
In the U.S., teen suicides have tripled since 1960; today, suicide is the second leading cause of death…

In Israel, between 1981 and 1994, the estimated suicide rate for 15- to 19-year-old Jewish boys increased by about 183 percent. (Tellingly, the suicide rate dropped 10 percent during a 1997 period when Israel’s psychologists went on strike.)

Australia’s suicide rate increased between 1960 and 1967 when legislation was passed to enable a person to obtain multiple prescriptions for sedatives. When the law was modified in 1967 to restrict the practice, there was a decrease in per capita sedative usage and a decline in suicide rates.

Are we hearing an outcry from that tragedy? Are there calls for stopping, banning, regulating the use of these mind- altering drugs? Is the pharmaceutical industry being called on the carpet? Are there emergency congressional hearings being held to showcase the heads of big pharma as murdering criminals? Not on your life.

As the nation is outraged over the school shootings, demanding that something be done, guns become the target, not the drugs that filled the child’s mind with delusions to take such horrific action. Meanwhile the gun sits innocently in the corner, unmoving, unable to cause damage – until the real loaded weapon – the drugged student – picks it up.

View the full list with detailed information on the connection between drugs and school shootings

Tom DeWeese is one of the nation’s leading advocates of individual liberty, free enterprise, private property rights, personal privacy, back-to-basics education and American sovereignty and independence.

A native of Ohio, he’s been a candidate for the Ohio Legislature, served as editor of two newspapers, and has owned several businesses since the age of 23. In 1989 Tom led the only privately-funded election-observation team to the Panamanian elections. In 2006 Tom was invited to Cambridge University to debate the issue of the United Nations before the Cambridge Union, a 200 year old debating society. Today he serves as Founder and President of the American Policy Center and editor of The DeWeese Report

For 40 years Tom DeWeese has been a businessman, grassroots activist, writer and publisher. As such, he has always advocated a firm belief in man’s need to keep moving forward while protecting our Constitutionally-guaranteed rights.

The DeWeese Report , 70 Main Street, Suite 23, Warrenton Virginia. (540) 341-8911

E-Mail: admin@americanpolicy.org

E-Mail: ampolicycenter@hotmail.com

Website: www.americanpolicy.org

Originally published January 21, 2013
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