The Difference Between Christian Beliefs And Popular “Christian”, Non-Christian Beliefs

If you’re clergy and you agree that the Christian faith needs to work diligently at hearing the voices of minorities because white Christians have been tone deaf on the “racism” issue chances are that you are a Marxist and not a Christian.

If you’re clergy and you think that women in the Church need to be given leadership positions in order to be “fair” chances are you are a feminist and not a Christian.

If you’re clergy and you are actively seeking out ways to get more minorities to attend your Church for the sole reason that they are minorities odds are that you are a cultural Marxist and not Christian.

If you’re clergy and can’t see the serious problem with the way the corporate lugenpresse as well as Hollyweird films, as well as politicians are force feeding us egalitarianism with the way that miscegenation is forced down our throats odds are you believe in the “Tower of Babel” project of Gen. 11 and so not Christian.

If you’re clergy and you think that Uncle Adolph is the worst person who has ever lived but you are clueless about the crimes of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao that make Uncle Addie look like a piker as well as being ignorant of the  2000 year historical conflict between Bagels and Christians I’m leaning towards the fact that you are either a member of the Communist party or are a member of the Synagogue of Satan and so are not Christian.

If you’re clergy and you “know” all about the 6 gazillion Bagels who allegedly had their fat made into soap, or their skin made into lampshades, or their bone made into fine bone china but you know nothing of the mass slaughter by the American forces of over a million unarmed Germans after WW II ended or nothing about the forced return of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers who fought against Stalin in WW II to be murdered by Stalin, (as well as civilians who had not lived in Russia for generations) you may still indeed be Christian but you’re also just downright stupid and no more belong in a pulpit than a puppy belongs in the middle of a four lane highway during rush hour.

McAtee Contra Dr. Clay Libolt On The Penal Substitutionary Doctrine Of The Atonement

On his Blog former CRC Pastor Dr. Rev. Clay Libolt begins to explore the idea that all those who hold to the Penal Substitutionary teaching of the Atonement as recorded in Scripture are advancing the idea that God is mean.

I sometimes browse Dr. Libolt’s blog (“The Peripatetic Pastor”) because;

1.) Libolt was my assigned “mentor” when I began to date the CRC. New chaps dating the CRC, according to their book of Church Order have to be assigned mentors, presumably to help the newbee wade into the denomination. This “relationship” between Clay and I was a comedy of theological/ideological explosion. It was the classic example of when an immovable force meets an unstoppable object. Clay was and remains so far left that it is difficult for me to imagine how anyone could get more left. He was in his time the Robespierre of the CRC. Of course I was and am a touch to the right. In our few meetings we would invariably, within seconds, be debating as if the world’s future depended upon convincing one another of their error. To this day, the fact that I was assigned Clay Libolt as a mentor is proof to me that the thrice Holy God has a sense of humor.

2.) I also browse Clay’s blog because it is a handy dandy way to keep up to date on the latest boneheaded theory being advanced by the “Christian” left. Clay reads a good deal of the garbage put out by the “intellectual” left and so it is a way to keep up with the latest WOKE theology. One way to keep one’s mind sharp is by knowing the enemy’s strategy and thinking.

Not that Clay or anyone else cares but I seriously doubt that Clay is a Christian in any historic or Biblical sense of the word, and yet he Pastored one of the CRC flagship churches for decades and by his own accounting had a considerable influence in the denomination, being a voice for the “progressives” as they largely solidified their hold over the denomination during the time he “served.”

Libolt, as noted above, believes that the idea that Jesus Christ, serving as the penalty bearing substitute for the elect makes God mean. Clay writes,

“‘Is God Mean?’ And, in line with the direction of my Bad Theology series, to ask whether a mean God leads to mean politics. (The answer is yes.)”

As you can see in one fell swoop, Libolt has indicted historical biblical theology and contemporary politics as being mean.

Of course a question arises that Libolt does not answer and that question is “Mean to whom?” Certainly, it could not be argued that God is mean to the elect for whom Christ was their substitute, nor I shouldn’t think it could be argued that God was mean to the reprobate who only received what they earnestly desired. I mean is it “mean” to give to people what they want and/or what they deserve?

I would say that in the Penal Substitutionary atonement the only person that God could possibly be seen as being mean to is Himself. Now, I don’t believe that but if we use Libolt’s logic then as it was God Himself in the God-Man Jesus Christ who took on His own punishment for sin then there is no meanness to anyone else since there can be no being mean to those who were substituted for nor for those who weren’t substituted for since they didn’t want to be substituted for and since they received what they deserved.

In the OT we see that what Libolt is advocating just isn’t true. In Genesis 15, God enters into covenant with Abraham and whereas traditionally both parties to a covenant would walk between the slain bodies of the covenantal sacrifices in order to communicate that if the covenant agreement should be violated what had been done to the covenantal sacrifices would be done to the party that broke covenant. However, at this crucial part of the covenant ceremony the God of the Bible who is never described as “mean” chooses to put Abraham to sleep and takes on the full weight of the covenant punishments on himself walking alone between the bodies of the slain animals.  This is a “non-mean” covenant of grace.

Then, 2000 years later, in light of the fact that Abraham and his descendents repeatedly violated covenant, God, in the incarnate Jesus Christ, does take upon Himself the covenant curses for Abraham and the true sons of Abraham. And Libolt wants to call that mean?

To the contrary, of course, it is Libolt’s theology that creates for a mean God. Libolt would have us believe a God who does not punish sin thus showing a meanness to those who have had sin visited upon them by those who are mean. Libolt’s “non-mean” God means the judicially innocent never are avenged. The countless millions abused, tortured, and slain by the Soviet and Chinese communist gulag system are told “sucks to be you.” Libolt’s “non-mean” God means is unrighteous. A sovereign God who is also not righteous is a mean God. Libolt serves a mean God and because of that Libolt advances mean politics.

Honestly, this kind of talk (writing) by Libolt has to be considered blasphemous. I continue to pray that Libolt and his leftist legions repent and so discover for the first time the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. I also pray that God would remove this kind of theology and its adherents.

Setting the Record Straight … I Was Right Then, And I Am Correct Now

 Four years ago at this time I experienced the height of slander and libel from several different media outlets. Below I quote from the Lansing State Journal online reporting. In the section I have chosen from this article I am accused by one Rev. Reggie Smith of the Christian Reformed Church of allowing the spreading a false rumor in the church I serve.

“McAtee’s sermon was like ‘any other traditional church until the prayer time came,’ (Reggie) Smith said, and a woman in the crowd of about 20 asked for prayers for the white people living in South Africa.

‘There was this supposedly false rumor that white people were being killed by Black people in South Africa, which was totally untrue,’ Smith said.

Smith said McAtee ’embraced’ her sentiment.

‘That’s when I knew this was not what I thought it would be,’ he said. ‘There’s something wrong here.’

Lansing State Journal 
Online Edition 
19 February, 2021

And now I post a testimonial from a white woman in South Africa who was 8.5 months pregnant when her husband was murdered before her very eyes, thus substantiating both the prayer requests that Smith laments and my embrace of the sentiment.

Rev. Reggie Smith was gaslighting people when he said what he said in the quote above. This is proven by the link below.

https://rumble.com/v6jwyzp-wife-of-murdered-white-south-african-farmer-calls-on-americans-to-stop-igno.html

Back To Covenant Theology & Infant Baptism … Conversing With Rev. Tim Bushong (Baptist)

Rev. Tim Bushong wrote,

ALL – covenant members ‘know the Lord,’ they are regenerate, have all their sins forgiven, and have God’s Law written on their hearts and minds, and all these blessings are a present reality for all of them, since “He always lives to make intercession for them.”

BLMc responds,

If all covenant members ‘know the Lord’ and are regenerate then why the warning

26 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?

Clearly, the warning implies that there are those who are in the outward administration of the covenant of grace but who may indeed not have the substance of the covenant (Christ.). All covenant members who have the essence of the covenant do indeed know the Lord but not all who are in the circumference of the covenant necessarily have the substance of the covenant and so need this warning in order that they may take seriously their covenant membership and so not abandon the faith. Those who have the substance of the covenant will take heed of this warning and not trample the Son of God underfoot. It still remains the case even in the Church that not all of Israel is of Israel; that is not all of the Church is of the Church.

TB wrote,

I believe that the particular structure of this version of covenant theology does something unnecessary (at best) to the nature of the New Covenant, and returns to prioritizing OC typology.

BLMc replies,

I believe that the insistence that church membership is universally regenerate is a particular structure of the version of the new and better covenant that finds us insisting that there were two different ways of covenantal belonging, and so two different ways of salvation. The implication here is that in the Old Covenant covenantal belonging was not by grace alone while in the NC covenantal belonging is by grace alone. This is to severely misunderstand the continuity between the OC and the new and better covenant.

TB wrote,

The discontinuity, or maybe just one of the differences, between the Covenants is evinced in the exchange between local and physical (Israel) with the universal and spiritual (the whole world).

BLMc responds,

Of course this is the common Baptist assertion of radical discontinuity between OC and NW. The OC was not merely local as seen in, for example, Jonah’s work with the Assyrians (Nineveh). Also there are other examples such as Naaman’s cleansing and Nebuchadnezzar’s confession in Daniel. As such we see a hint of the Universal and the spiritual in the OC. With the new and better covenant this is expanded but it remains present in the OC. In the same way there is continuity in the OC to the NC with the administration of the covenant sign to the children of the covenant and the expansion of this covenant sign is seen in the fact that not only males are given the sign of the covenant. Still, just as children in the OC were members of the covenant so children in the NC are members of the covenant and so should be given the ratification sign of the covenant. This is a serious error wherein Baptists fail.

TB wrote,

IOW, the price of ‘all the nations’ being included in the New Covenant meant that mere human progeny was no longer the ticket of admission—axiomatically ‘automatically in’ the Covenant by genealogy—as was the case in the Old Covenant.

BLMc responds

This is just not accurate. The price of all nations being included in the NC is clearly articulated in the OC in speaking of Christ;

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

The price of all nations being included in the NC was not the exclusion of the children of God’s children. The price of all nations being included in the NC was the precious blood of Jesus Christ which spoke of a better covenant than one that was only typified by the blood of bulls and goats.

Baptist thinking on this subject does not treat the Scriptures organically and because of that posits an unfortunate individualistic take on covenant theology.

McAtee Contra Dr. Stephen Wolfe’s Assertions On Worldview Thinking

“He who with his whole heart believes in Jesus as the Son of God is thereby committed to a view of God, to a view of man, to a view of sin, to a view of Redemption, to a view of the purpose of God in creation and history, to a view of human destiny, FOUND ONLY IN CHRISTIANITY. This forms a ‘Weltanschauung’ or ‘Christian View of the World,’ which stands in marked contrast with theories wrought out from a purely philosophical or scientific standpoint…. The thing in itself is as old as the dawn of reflection and is found in cruder or more advanced form in every religion and philosophy with any pretension to a historical character.”

James Orr
The Christian View of God and the World — p. 4

 Dr. Stephen Wolfe does us the favor of disagreeing with Dr. James Orr in the quote above. Here Wolfe, once again, aligns himself with the same position as the R2K “theologians” even though Wolfe decidedly is not R2K. However, Wolfe does share a great deal with R2K … it sometimes seems as if he shares with them everything but their conclusions.

Anyway, I am going to fisk a Wolfe quote I came across recently on X.

Wolfe writes,


“Worldview” is a reactionary word. Evangelicals found themselves embattled with innumerable, well-accepted ideas in complex fields requiring specialization that seem to oppose conservative Christianity. The average person lacks the expertise in these fields to challenge them on their own terms and by their own methodology. Yet they need to be challenged, because modern life strongly imposes them on everyone. “Worldview” was introduced to neutralize these ideas for the average person, not by analyzing data, refuting propositions, showing invalidity, criticizing methodology, knowing the actual facts on the ground, etc. but by blaming them on “presuppositions.”

BLMc replies,

Of course Wolfe is wrong here as Orr notes above;

“The thing in itself(Worldview)  is as old as the dawn of reflection and is found in cruder or more advanced form in every religion and philosophy with any pretension to a historical character.”

Worldview did not jump out of Zeus’ head in the 20th century as Wolfe errantly writes. As such, it is clearly not a “reactionary word” or concept. Here Wolfe just makes assertions without any proof.

In point of fact, an argument can be made that it was not the Christians who first developed an epistemologically self-conscious muscular worldview but rather that it was the Darwinians. If one considers the writings of Herbert Spencer in “Worldviewizing” the Darwinian conclusions in biology one can easily see that it was the pagans who were going all reactionary against the already established Christian Worldview.

For the evidence that a pagan worldview had long been established we read;

 (This essay) shows that his (Spencer’s) evolutionism was originally stimulated by his association with the Derby philosophical community, for it was through this group—of which his father, who also appears to have espoused a deistic evolutionary theory, was a member—that he was first exposed to progressive Enlightenment social and educational philosophies and to the evolutionary worldview of Erasmus Darwin, the first president of the Derby Philosophical Society. Darwin’s scheme was the first to incorporate biological evolution, associationist psychology, evolutionary geology, and cosmological developmentalism. Spencer’s own implicit denials of the link with Darwin are shown to be implausible in the face of Darwin’s continuing influence on the Derby savants…

Paul Elliott
Erasmus Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and the Origins of the Evolutionary Worldview in British Provincial Scientific Culture, 1770–1850

What the above quote demonstrates is that

1.) Worldview thinking was already in high gear as practiced by the heathens long before the timeframe that Wolfe errantly proclaims in his observation above.

2.) Worldview thinking was decidedly not introduced by Christians for the reasons that Dr. Wolfe asserts.

3.) Worldview as a philosophical concept long predated the 20th century as Wolfe errantly asserts.

4.) As such worldview as a philosophical concept was never a “reactionary word” as Dr. Wolfe errantly insists.

5.) Dr. Wolfe doesn’t know what he is talking about when he writes,

“Worldview” was introduced to neutralize these ideas for the average person, not by analyzing data, refuting propositions, showing invalidity, criticizing methodology, knowing the actual facts on the ground, etc. but by blaming them on “presuppositions.”

Worldview decidedly was NOT introduced for the reason that Wolfe elucidates. As the opening Orr quote indicates Worldview was not introduced in the 20th century by Christians quaking in their boots at the onslaught of modernity but rather is a truth that, as Orr wrote,

“itself is as old as the dawn of reflection and is found in cruder or more advanced form in every religion and philosophy with any pretension to a historical character.”

All of the above demonstrates that Dr. Wolfe just doesn’t know what he is talking about when he writes about the history of Worldview thinking. In brief what Wolfe says above is embarrassingly stupid and could only be written by someone whose worldview had an a-priori interest in claiming that worldview thinking is not true.

Dr. Stephen Wolfe continued his diatribe;

And “worldview” explained social phenomena with exclusively Christian explanations.

BLMc continues,

Here Wolfe contradicts the Reformed theology of the antithesis which claims the antithesis is a theological principle that is meant to describe the difference between believers and unbelievers and the way they think. There are many ways that we could describe that difference, but we must at the very least describe that difference as limning out the fact that because believers and heathens have different ultimate faith commitments those different ultimate faith commitments color the way each view the totality of life.

As such it is inevitable that Christians, because of the Reformed doctrine of the antithesis would explain matters with exclusively Christian explanations.

In previous explanations Dr. Wolfe has demonstrated that he does not understand the idea of total depravity. Here we see that Dr. Wolfe does not understand the Reformed theological idea of “the antithesis.” Dr. Wolfe has previously admitted that he is not a theologian. We wish he would remember that when he gets into these theological forrays. 

Dr. Stephen Wolfe wrote,

These explanations are typically simplistic and don’t explain much. Further, in effect no evangelical sees the need to know anything about these fields. They only need to know a universal method of “worldview analysis.” It’s a general skill for everything.

BLMc responds,

Let me get this straight … owning a uniquely Christian epistemology (we know what we know by way of revelation vs. naked reasoning or some kind of mystic experience or by human tradition) is “simplistic and doesn’t explain much?”

Owning a uniquely Christian ontology (things did not happen by chance or circumstance but by the supernatural intent of a divine creator) is “simplistic and doesn’t explain much?”

Owning a uniquely Christian axiology (the highest value is the Glory of God, the Kingdom of God and the work of Christ as opposed to a axiology that claims that the highest value is the glory of man, the kingdom of man, and the Utopian work of man) is “simplistic and doesn’t explain much?”

Owning a uniquely Christian teleology (the ultimate end/ destination of man is to be homo adorans — man the worshiper who worships the God of the Bible, not owning a teleology wherein man worships himself in either his individualistic or corporate capacity) is “simplistic and doesn’t explain much?”

Dr. Stephen Wolfe writes,

No specialization required.

BLMc  responds,

This is what is called the red herring fallacy. No Christian who embraces worldview thinking in an epistemologically self conscious way suggest that “no specialization is required” is a host of different fields. Wolfe is just poisoning the well here in order to advance his idiotic Thomistic thinking. It’s all very insulting.

Dr. Stephen Wolfe writes,

This is why, I think, some evangelicals convert out of Protestantism. They find that their conservative professors, who actually know the field of study well, are often Roman Catholics (or maybe Anglicans), and they find among them an intellectual ecosystem that favors inquiry and critical thought without importing these “worldview” lenses to explains things away. (I’d also add that evangelical academics tend to be political squishes and center-left, at least in disposition). There is nothing about Protestantism or Roman Catholicism in themselves that explains this. Protestant intellectuals dominated intellectual thought in Europe for centuries. It’s entirely to due to historical dynamics, reaction, and the democratization of apologetics. We would become much smarter if we dropped “worldview” entirely.

BLMc responds,

1.) Nobody denies that a Roman Catholic or Anglican can be inconsistent in their worldview, holding to false doctrines touching soteriology but still managing to be correct on some matters in their field of expertise. Nobody denies that Thomistic mathematicians, for example, can count. The question is always, “can they account for their ability to count given their Thomistic worldview that teaches the autonomy of fallen man’s thinking.

2.) Worldview lenses, contrary to Wolfe’s naked assertion, do not merely “explain things away.” That is another red herring and poisoning the well. Is Wolfe really suggesting that those who embrace Worldview thinking who happen to be in any number of fields have not done the heavy lifting of diving into their field of study but instead merely, (presumably with a flippant wave of the hand) “explained things away?”

What is amusing here is that Wolfe himself is merely “explaining worldview thinking away” with a mere wave of the hand as accompanied by a few mindless and untrue assertions on his part.

3.) In this take down of Wolfe I have not used “worldview lenses” to explain things away. I have taken the time to explain and demonstrate where and how Wolfe is wrong in his various assertion. In point of fact it is Wolfe who has used his worldview lens of autonomous Thomistic thinking to explain things away with a mere wave of his hand followed by insulting comments.

4.) I’ve known plenty of Thomists who have been hard left in their specific fields. When Wolfe talks about Evangelicals (presumably with their Worldview thinking in tow) being squishy leftists this is another shot at Worldview thinking that doesn’t taken into account the many “Christians” in various fields who were Thomistic in their thinking and gave up the flag of Biblical Christianity to the Left. (R2K anybody?)

5.) Of course, I’m convinced that “we would become much smarter if we just dropped Dr. Stephen Wolfe entirely. He is poisoning the whole Christian thinking movement.

Now, I’ve been pretty direct here. Part of the reason for that is the gross inaccuracy on Wolfe’s part. Part of it is because how insulting Wolfe has been. The largest part of it is because there is a great deal of stake here. If we as Christians go the direction that Wolfe and the R2K chaps want to take us on Worldview thinking it will be a matter of once again returning to the chaos and dark night of intellectual advance.

This is important.