How Julian the Apostate Defeated the Church in America

By Anthony Horvath

Many people, Christians included, think that the American Church only cares about abortion and gay marriage. How did this come to be? In this essay, Christian apologist Anthony Horvath makes the following argument: Many of the other issues that Christians care about have been turned over to the State to administer, such as education and charity. Importantly, they get no credit for doing this. This is illustrated by accusations that Christians only care about the unborn, and not the born; the fact that Christians themselves were instrumental in erecting the 'social safety net' is completely forgotten. To make matters worse, these various programs are not usually administered by Christians. They are administered by secularists, who have their own ideas about what constitutes 'education' and 'charity.' None of this is particularly new. The Roman Emperor known as Julian the Apostate recognized early on that unless he took over the good things that Christians were doing, the Christian Church would continue to expand. What he did by force, Christians have brought upon their own heads. Now what?

• Language: English
• Publisher: apgroup
• Release date: Dec 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310705526

Anthony Horvath

Author, Christian apologist, pro-life advocate, public speaker.

Book preview

How Julian the Apostate Defeated

the Church in America

by

Anthony Horvath, PhD

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Copyright Anthony Horvath 2015. All Rights Reserved

Published by Athanatos Publishing Group

Website: www.athanatosministries.org

Contents

Foreword

How Julian the Apostate Defeated the Church in America

In the Bible, the Gospel Proclamation was Directly Linked to Concern for the Poor

How Did the State Take Over ‘Christian’ Charity?

Expertise, Efficiency, and the Progressive Movement

Charity and Eugenics

Contemporary Government-Sponsored ‘Charity’ that Christians Recoil At

Statism

A Final Problem

Recommendations

Conclusion

Foreword

The principles and idea discussed in this essay have a relevance that goes well beyond a consideration of a Christian’s attitude towards government-sponsored ‘charity.’ There are the more basic issues involved, such as whether or not a Christian takes the Scriptures as the final authority in their life. If not, it is hard to see what good this essay could possibly be for the reader. If so, however, it begs an important question: what other aspects of our existence on this planet are addressed in the Scriptures that we haven’t really paid much attention to?

These are big questions. They are difficult to answer if one doesn’t plan on investing time and energy into probing them. Frankly, I believe that God intended all along (even in a perfect, unfallen world) to make ‘faith seeking understanding’ something that required effort. It is easy to get swamped by life’s circumstances and forget our priorities.

Worse, I think, is the fact that we tend to fall into certain positions merely because they fit into our personality or appeal to our preferences. Our attitudes about the proper role of government is a case in point. Even the idea that there might be a proper role, Biblically, often surprises people. (Start your research with Romans 13.)

For the Christian, this is critically important, because there is a non-Christian perspective that seeks to bring all of human experience under the control of the government, in what I term ‘The Managed Society.’ It is not hard to notice a myriad of human activities that were once deemed private that have now become a topic not just of public consideration, but ‘public’ determination. Education jumps out as an easy example. Health care would be another. The reader may be shocked to hear that spirituality itself is being engulfed.

Julian Huxley is referenced several