Category: Culture

A Few Thoughts On Blasphemy

[Otto Scott] Well, there are still social sanctions against blasphemy, but the idols have changed.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] You can’t blaspheme against certain minorities and that includes even discussing their behavior.

[Rushdoony] Yes, very good.

[Scott] Um, Judge Bork is being attacked because in the 1971 article. (In) 1971, he questioned the right to privacy as far as the Constitution is concerned. So he was committing blasphemy against Liberalism.

[Rushdoony] Very good. Excellent point… this is what blasphemy is about. And today, of course, as you have said Otto, we have reversed the moral order. We have made it blasphemy to speak ill of certain minority groups. And this is the problem.

RJR Lecture 
Blasphemy

1.) Blasphemy is an inescapable category. All social orders and cultures have either defacto or dejure blasphemy laws.

2.) Once one identifies what subject matter is outside the bounds of sustained and harsh criticism for a social order there one has identified the sacred. Once the sacred is identified then you know what is and is not considered blasphemy in that social order.

3.) Blasphemy laws can be of a dejure nature and often when crafted so the violation of blasphemy means a severe legal penalty. However, more often blasphemy laws are defacto and are not visited with a severe legal penalty but rather are visited with social and economic ostracism. We are seeing this increasingly in the West as a violation of non-legislated speech codes can cost someone their reputation, career and so livelihood.

4.) When the God of the Bible is eliminated from that which cannot be blasphemed the consequence is most usually it is the State which cannot be blasphemed or whatever the State by law or by precedent says may not be blasphemed.  That the State sets the parameter for what can and cannot be blasphemed one only needs to look at the Statist youth centers where the children are taught whom the god and gods are in the social order who must not be blasphemed. For example, the whole work going on against “bullying of the LGBQT community,” is largely just a program to set up the LGBQT community and their behavior as sacred and so not to be blasphemed.

5.) Blasphemy laws are about thought control. If one cannot say something one generally does not think that something. There is a tight connection between what one is allowed to say and what someone will end up thinking. If one cannot verbally denigrate God one will not likely give much thought to denigrating God. This is the way political correctness is working today. When we are not allowed to say something because the saying of it is considered blasphemy then the thinking of those thoughts will eventually dry up. For example, people very seldom use the word “sodomite” anymore to describe same-gender relation. The reason is that is the word “sodomite” has successfully been turned into a blasphemous word. To use that word is to raise a hand against that behavior which has become considered sacred.

6.) It is interesting that in Scripture there is little distinction between the sinner who deliberately abuses the name of the Lord ( Lev. 24:10-16), and the one who deliberately flouts his commandments ( Numbers 15:30-31). So tightly is God’s character/name and God’s law bound together that the flouting of either is the flouting of both. For both blasphemy and for the one who deliberately flouts God’s law, the death penalty is prescribed.

7.) Clearly, the God of the Bible is not considered sacred in our social order. In point of fact, a good case could be made that in order to advance in this social order one must not hold God as sacred for to hold God as sacred so as to not blaspheme His name would mean to blaspheme what this current social order takes as sacred.

8.) Summarizing, when one discovers in a social order what can or cannot be harshly criticized (blasphemed) there one has discovered the sacred in that social order. Once one has discovered the sacred in the social order one begins to unravel what the religion of that social order is. Blasphemy is an inescapable concept for all social orders because God and religion are inescapable concepts in all social orders.

Ask the Pastor … Guns in Church?

Dear Pastor Bret,

In light of recent tragic church shootings, should churches consider having members carry concealed weapons to church?

Thanks in advance,

Shawn Channing

Dear Shawn,

Thanks for writing.

I will answer this question in terms of the laws of the State of Michigan. In Michigan, Shawn, those with a concealed carry license cannot carry on any property or facility owned or operated by a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or other places of worship, unless the presiding official allows concealed weapons. So, in Michigan, one can legally according to Michigan state law conceal carry in Church if one has secured the presiding official’s permission.

Some would counsel to consult law enforcement for expert advice and perhaps even training for those who desire it before the presiding official allows such carry and I would concur with that as long as it was only one factor in the decision-making process. People must realize that law-enforcement officials could well have an interest in making sure only they are the ones carrying weapons.  All because someone is in law-enforcement doesn’t make them singularly able to provide counsel on this decision. The decision process should also realize that a Church that is declared as a gun-free zone is a church that is advertising to potential wolves that the gathering of the saints is also a gathering of easy picking sheep. The decision process should also include considering the many recent church shootings where the mortality rate may have been far lower if someone in the congregation where the shootings occurred had begun shooting back at the sociopaths who were discharging their weapons against judicially innocent church-goers.

Secondly, common sense teaches that owning and carrying a gun is a reasonable means of protection. A recent Pew survey reported that two-thirds of American gun owners cite protection as the major reason they own guns. Now, Shawn, some well-intended but misguided people might somehow extrapolate that Pew survey to mean that people are relying on guns as idols instead of relying on God for protection. Such thinking is most unfortunate. Carrying a weapon no more proves that one is not trusting in God than carrying a chainsaw proves that someone who wants a tree cut down is not trusting in God for the tree to come down. Carrying a weapon no more proves that one is not trusting in God than a Chef carrying a frying pan proves that the Chef is not trusting God for the meal to be prepared. A gun is a tool, much like a chainsaw or a frying pan. Having the proper tool for the proper job that might need to be done should not inch us towards concluding that the one carrying a chainsaw, a frying pan, or a gun, is treating that tool as an idol. Such reasoning is quite beyond suspect. American gun owners carry guns because that is one tool God has provided in order to to be protected.

Another truth we might offer here Shaun is that guns do not create the problems they solve. The problems guns solve are men with wicked hearts who wish to bring harm to us, our friends, or our families. Guns don’t create sociopaths who might well show up in Church to do harm. Guns are just one solution to sociopaths who might well show up in Church to do harm.

We should be a people who rely on God as we rely on more potential shooters as the solution to a potential active shooter situation. If we don’t rely on God this way we should seriously examine our hearts to ensure that we have not misplaced our faith by trusting in God in such a way that doesn’t include using all the tools that He has put at our disposal for safety. We need to be careful that we don’t become the butt of that well-known joke,

“Soon a man in a rowboat came by and the fellow shouted to the man on the roof, “Jump in, I can save you.”

The stranded fellow shouted back, “No, it’s OK, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me.”

So the rowboat went on.

Then a motorboat came by. “The fellow in the motorboat shouted, “Jump in, I can save you.”

To this, the stranded man said, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.”

So the motorboat went on.

Then a helicopter came by and the pilot shouted down, “Grab this rope and I will lift you to safety.”

To this, the stranded man again replied, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.”

So the helicopter reluctantly flew away.

Soon the water rose above the rooftop and the man drowned. He went to Heaven. He finally got his chance to discuss this whole situation with God, at which point he exclaimed, “I had faith in you but you didn’t save me, you let me drown. I don’t understand why!”

To this God replied, “I sent you a rowboat and a motorboat and a helicopter, what more did you expect?”

If we refuse to carry weapons to Church and end up getting shot by sociopaths in Church God may well reply to us upon our discussing the matter face to face with him,

“I sent you a Ruger, a Smith & Wesson, and a Glock, what more did you expect?”

Scripture clearly teaches that self-defense is biblically set forth (Exodus 22:2-3). To insist that one should not make provision to defend themselves so they might instead just trust God is its own kind of specious idolatry.

Finally, on this score, we should consider our history on guns in Church. There is a long storied history of guns in Church that even found, at times in history, guns be required by force of law to be carried to Church. In her book, ‘The Sabbath in Puritan New England,’ we learn this from author Alice Morse Earl,

“For many years after the settlement of New England the Puritans, even in outwardly tranquil times, went armed to meeting; and to sanctify the Sunday gun-loading they were expressly forbidden to fire off their charges at any object on that day save an Indian or a wolf, their two “greatest inconveniencies.” Trumbull, in his “Mac Fingal,” writes thus in jest of this custom of Sunday arm-bearing:–

“So once, for fear of Indian beating,
Our grandsires bore their guns to meeting,–
Each man equipped on Sunday morn
With psalm-book, shot, and powder-horn,
And looked in form, as all must grant,
Like the ancient true church militant.”

In 1640 it was ordered in Massachusetts that in every township the attendants at church should carry a “competent number of peeces, fixed and compleat with powder and shot and swords every Lords-day to the meeting-house;” one armed man from each household was then thought advisable and necessary for public safety. In 1642 six men with muskets and powder and shot were thought sufficient for protection for each church. In Connecticut similar mandates were issued, and as the orders were neglected “by divers persones,” a law was passed in 1643 that each offender should forfeit twelve pence for each offence. In 1644 a fourth part of the “trayned hand” was obliged to come armed each Sabbath, and the sentinels were ordered to keep their matches constantly lighted for use in their match-locks. They were also commanded to wear armor, which consisted of “coats basted with cotton-wool, and thus made defensive against Indian arrows.” In 1650 so much dread and fear were felt of Sunday attacks from the red men that the Sabbath-Day guard was doubled in number. In 1692, the Connecticut Legislature ordered one fifth of the soldiers in each town to come armed to each meeting, and that nowhere should be present as a guard at time of public worship fewer than eight soldiers and a sergeant. In Hadley the guard was allowed annually from the public treasury a pound of lead and a pound of powder to each soldier.

No details that could add to safety on the Sabbath were forgotten or overlooked by the New Haven church; bullets were made common currency at the value of a farthing, in order that they might be plentiful and in every one’s possession; the colonists were enjoined to determine in advance what to do with the women and children in case of attack, “that they do not hang about them and hinder them;” the men were ordered to bring at least six charges of powder and shot to meeting; the farmers were forbidden to “leave more arms at home than men to use them;” the half-pikes were to be headed and the whole ones mended, and the swords “and all piercing weapons furbished up and dressed;” wood was to be placed in the watch-house; it was ordered that the “door of the meeting-house next the soldiers’ seat be kept clear from women and children sitting there, that if there be occasion for the soldiers to go suddenly forth, they may have free passage.” The soldiers sat on either side of the main door, a sentinel was stationed in the meeting-house turret, and armed watchers paced the streets; three cannon were mounted by the side of this “church militant,” which must strongly have resembled a garrison. …

In spite of these events in the New Haven church (which were certainly exceptional), the seemingly incongruous union of church and army was suitable enough in a community that always began and ended the military exercises on “training day” with solemn prayer and psalm-singing; and that used the army and encouraged a true soldier-like spirit not chiefly as aids in war, but to help to conquer and destroy the adversaries of truth, and to “achieve greater matters by this little handful of men than the world is aware of.”

The Salem sentinels wore doubtless some of the good English armor owned by the town,–corselets to cover the body; gorgets to guard the throat; tasses to protect the thighs; all varnished black, and costing each suit “twenty-four shillings a peece.” The sentry also wore a bandileer, a large “neat’s leather” belt thrown over the right shoulder, and hanging down under the left arm. This bandileer sustained twelve boxes of cartridges, and a well-filled bullet-bag. Each man bore either a “bastard musket with a snaphance,” a “long fowling-piece with musket bore,” a “full musket,” a “barrell with a match-cock,” or perhaps (for they were purchased by the town) a leather gun (though these leather guns may have been cannon). Other weapons there were to choose from, mysterious in name, “sakers, minions, ffaulcons, rabinets, murthers (or murderers, as they were sometimes appropriately called) chambers, harque-busses, carbins,” …

The armed Salem watcher, besides his firearms and ammunition, had attached to his wrist by a cord a gun-rest, or gun-fork, which he placed upon the ground when he wished to fire his musket, and upon which that constitutional kicker rested when touched off. He also carried a sword and sometimes a pike, and thus heavily burdened with multitudinous arms and cumbersome armor, could never have run after or from an Indian with much agility or celerity; though he could stand at the church-door with his leather gun,–an awe-inspiring figure,–and he could shoot with his “harquebuss,” or “carbin,” as we well know.

These armed “sentinells” are always regarded as a most picturesque accompaniment of Puritan religious worship, and the Salem and Plymouth armed men were imposing, though clumsy. But the New Haven soldiers, with their bulky garments wadded and stuffed out with thick layers of cotton wool, must have been more safety-assuring and comforting than they were romantic or heroic; but perhaps they too wore painted tin armor, “corselets and gorgets and tasses.”


In Concord, New Hampshire, the men, who all came armed to meeting, stacked their muskets around a post in the middle of the church, while the honored pastor, who was a good shot and owned the best gun in the settlement, preached with his treasured weapon in the pulpit by his side, ready from his post of vantage to blaze away at any red man whom he saw sneaking without, or to lead, if necessary, his congregation to battle. The church in York, Maine, until the year 1746, felt it necessary to retain the custom of carrying arms to the meeting-house, so plentiful and so aggressive were Maine Indians.

Not only in the time of Indian wars were armed men seen in the meeting-house, but on June 17, 1775, the Provincial Congress recommended that the men “within twenty miles of the sea-coast carry their arms and ammunition with them to meeting on the Sabbath and other days when they meet for public worship.” And on many a Sabbath and Lecture Day, during the years of war that followed, were proved the wisdom and foresight of that suggestion.

The men in those old days of the seventeenth century, when in constant dread of attacks by Indians, always rose when the services were ended and left the house before the women and children, thus making sure the safe exit of the latter. This custom prevailed from habit until a late date in many churches in New England, all the men, after the benediction and the exit of the parson, walking out in advance of the women. So also the custom of the men always sitting at the “head” or door of the pew arose from the early necessity of their always being ready to seize their arms and rush unobstructed to fight. In some New England village churches to this day, the man who would move down from his end of the pew and let a woman sit at the door, even if it were a more desirable seat from which to see the clergyman, would be thought a poor sort of a creature.”

Alice Morse Earle, The Sabbath in Puritan New England (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891), 19-25.

 

 

Calvin on Social Hierarchy and Inequality as Christian Doctrines II

“Regarding our eternal salvation it is true that one must not distinguish between man and woman, or between king and a shepherd, or between a German and a Frenchman. Regard policy however, we have what St. Paul declares here; for our Lord Jesus Christ did not come to mix up nature, or to abolish what belongs to the preservation of decency and peace among us….Regarding the kingdom of God (which is spiritual) there is no distinction or difference between man and woman, servant and master, poor and rich, great and small. Nevertheless, there does have to be some order among us, and Jesus Christ did not mean to eliminate it, as some flighty and scatterbrained dreamers [believe].”

John Calvin — Sermon on 1 Corinthians 11:2-3

Every one who goes beyond the limits of his calling provokes the wrath of God against himself by his rashness. Let every one therefore be satisfied with his lot, and learn not to aim at anything higher, but, on the contrary, to remain in his own rank in which God has placed him. If God stretch out his hand, and lift us up higher, we ought to go forward; but no one ought to take it on himself, or to strive for it from his own choice. And even those who are raised to a higher rank of honor ought to conduct themselves humbly and submissively, not with any pretended modesty, but with minds so thoroughly depressed that nothing can lift them up.”

John Calvin
In comments on Isaiah 14.13

It is the Lord’s peculiar work to divide people into their respective ranks, distinguishing one from another, as seemeth good to him, all men being on a level by nature.

John Calvin
On Psalm 87

Now we know for what end God would have rank and dignity to exist among men, and that is, that there might be something like a bridle to restrain the waywardness of the multitude.

John Calvin
Lecture 26 on Hosea

Since Isaiah reckons this confusion among the curses of God, and declares that, when the distinction of ranks is laid aside, it is a terrible display of the vengeance of God, we ought to conclude, on the other hand, how much God is pleased with regular government and the good order of society, and also how great a privilege it is to have it preserved among us; for when it is taken away, the life of man differs little from the sustenance of cattle and of beasts of prey.

John Calvin
On Isaiah 24:2

Meanwhile, the political distinction of ranks is not to be repudiated, for natural reason itself dictates this in order to take away confusion.

John Calvin
On Numbers 3:5

Christian History and its Consistent Stance on Hierarchy and Social Inequality as being Biblical

Over here,

Quotes on Social Inequality from the Protestant Tradition

There is a list of quotes that demonstrate that Christianity had never taught the Cultural Marxist doctrine of social equality. I am going to take a quote or two or three every day from this site and post the quote here. The idea of egalitarianism needs to be beaten, bruised and bloodied until it dies a violent death. If the idea of social equality (modern egalitarianism) is not killed it will kill the Church and us as a people.

Elsewhere, I have posted a slew of quotes that demonstrate that Christians throughout history have believed in distinctions between peoples and nations.

So Say We All … A Protest To Dr. Sproul 2.0’s Comments

Also, elsewhere I have posted several times where I have provided quotes that reveal that it is the Marxists and Cultural Marxists who have always desired social equality and social order egalitarianism.

These quotes I am providing in the next few days would provide a more general category under which the quotes I have provided earlier would exist as a subpoint under the general category.

Augustine (354 – 430)

Peace between man and man is well-ordered concord. Domestic peace is the well-ordered concord between those of the family who rule and those who obey. Civil peace is a similar concord among the citizens. The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. The peace of all things is the tranquility of order. Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal, each to its own place.  (City of God xix.13)

Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274):

Under the question “Whether in the state of innocence man would have been master over man?,” he writes (Summa Theologica 1.96.4):

But a man is the master of a free subject, by directing him either towards his proper welfare, or to the common good. Such a kind of mastership would have existed in the state of innocence between man and man, for two reasons.

First, because man is naturally a social being, and so in the state of innocence he would have led a social life. Now a social life cannot exist among a number of people unless under the presidency of one to look after the common good; for many, as such, seek many things, whereas one attends only to one. Wherefore the Philosopher says, in the beginning of the Politics, that wherever many things are directed to one, we shall always find one at the head directing them.

Secondly, if one man surpassed another in knowledge and virtue, this would not have been fitting unless these gifts conduced to the benefit of others, according to 1 Peter 4:10, “As every man hath received grace, ministering the same one to another.” Wherefore Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xix, 14): “Just men command not by the love of domineering, but by the service of counsel”: and (De Civ. Dei xix, 15): “The natural order of things requires this; and thus did God make man.”

For the question, “Whether men were equal in the state of innocence?” he writes:

Equality is the cause of equality in mutual love. Yet between those who are unequal there can be a greater love than between equals; although there be not an equal response: for a father naturally loves his son more than a brother loves his brother; although the son does not love his father as much as he is loved by him.

The cause of inequality could be on the part of God; not indeed that He would punish some and reward others, but that He would exalt some above others; so that the beauty of order would the more shine forth among men. Inequality might also arise on the part of nature as above described, without any defect of nature.

A properly ordered hierarchical social order has greater beauty than a collection of equals. This is consistent with Aquinas’s view that “divine goodness” is communicated “more perfectly” by “diverse things” (Summa Contra Gentiles , III, 97)

God, through His providence, orders all things to divine goodness as to an end; not however in such a manner that His goodness increases through those things which come to be, but so that a likeness of His goodness is imprinted in things insofar as it is possible, for indeed it is necessary that every created substance fall short of divine goodness, so that in order for divine goodness to be communicated to things more perfectly, it was necessary for there to be diversity in things, so that what is not able to be perfectly represented by some one [thing] is represented in a more perfect manner through diverse things in diverse ways.

The Implications of Biblical Election When Thinking About Social Order Issues

“There are doctrines of modern liberalism, just as tenaciously and intolerantly upheld as any doctrines that find a place in the historic creeds. Such for example are the liberal doctrines of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. These doctrines are, as we shall see, contrary to the doctrines of the Christian religion. But doctrines they are all the same, and as such, they require intellectual defense. In seeming to object to all theology, the liberal preacher is often merely objecting to one system of theology in the interests of another.”

Dr. J. Gresham Machen 
Christianity and Liberalism

Our current Cultural Marxist egalitarianism problem in the Western Calvinist Churches is a reflection of the decline of genuinely Reformed soteriology. Biblical and Historical Calvinism has always advocated for limited damnation (particular redemption), where Christ is put forth as a sacrifice for only His people. God makes distinctions when it comes to salvation and men are not equal when it comes to their determined soteric status.

In the Reformed (Biblical) understanding God’s chief passion is Himself. In the Reformed (Biblical) understanding God does all He does for His own interest. He pursues His own interests and in the context of particular redemption, this means He willfully limits His affections to His people.

Reformed folk once understood that this had implications. As God’s love was particular so Reformed folk refused both the idea of “the Father of God over all men,” and “the Brotherhood of all men.” If God restricts His love so that His love is particular so man’s love can be particular as well. In other words, God’s love and favor for His own is a communicable attribute. Like God, men can love and favor their own.

If it were the case that God did not restrict His love so that He loved all men indiscriminately then men by necessity would have to be pluralists in their affections and love all men indiscriminately and so egalitarianism would by necessity be a Christian requirement. Because of our inability to tease out the idea of God’s discriminating election we are seeing that the idea of the brotherhood of all men, when taken to its egalitarian conclusion, would be destructive of the idea of men providing uniquely for their own household (I Tim. 5:8), or positing a special love for their kin (cmp. Romans 9:3). In brief, the Arminian idea that God loves everybody equally works itself out in the destruction of family, clan, and nations and the embrace of universal love.

The connection here is that as Calvinists become weak on Limited Damnation they become strong on the Liberal Doctrines of the “Fatherhood of God over all men,” and “the Brotherhood of all men.”

In this context, it is interesting that Abraham Kuyper noted that in the late 1800s the belief in Unconditional Election with respect to natural conditions like family, nation, and race was universal in every denomination, though Arminians disagreed with Election of the Soul.  Listen to the great Kuyper on this matter,

“ Before I close, I feel nevertheless that one question continues to press for an answer, which accordingly I shall not refuse to face, the question namely, at what I am aiming in the end: at the abandonment of the doctrine of election … Our generation turns a deaf ear to Election [God’s order], but grows madly enthusiastic over Selection [encompassing everything from evolution to democracy, liberalism, imagination, and license] … The problem concerns the fundamental question: Whence are the differences? Why is not all alike? Whence is it that one thing exists in one state, another in another? There is no life without differentiation without inequality. The perception of difference, the very source of our human consciousness, the causative principles of all that exists, and grows and develops, in short, the mainspring of all life and thought … Whence are those differences? Whence is the dissimilarity, the heterogeneity of existence, of genesis, and consciousness? To put it concretely, if you were a plant, would you rather be a rose than a mushroom; if insect, butterfly rather than spider; if bird, eagle rather than owl; if a higher vertebrate, a lion rather than a hyena; and again, being a man, richer than poorer, talented rather than dull-minded, of Aryan race rather than Hottentot or Kaffir? Between all these there is differentiation, wide differentiation. Everywhere then differences, differences between one thing and the other; and that too, such differences involve in almost every instance, preference … This is the one supreme question in the vegetable and animal kingdom, among men, in all social life and it is by means of the theory of Selection that our present age attempts to solve this problem of problems …

Now the blade of grass is not conscious of this, and the spider goes on entrapping the fly, the tiger killing the stag, and in those cases, the weaker being does not account to itself for its misery. But we men are clearly conscious of these differences, and by us therefore the question cannot be evaded, whether the theory of Selection be a solution calculated to reconcile the weaker, the less richly endowed creature, with its existence. It will be acknowledged that in itself this theory can but incite to a more furious struggle, with a lasciate ogni speranza, voi che’ntrate for the weaker being. Against the ordinance of faith that the weaker shall succumb to the stronger, according to the system of election, no struggle can avail …

For this is precisely the high significance of the doctrine of Election that, in this dogma, as long as three centuries ago, Calvinism dared to face this same all-dominating problem, solving it, however, not in the sense of a blind selection stirring in unconscious cells, but honoring the sovereign choice of Him Who created all things visible and invisible. The determination of our own persons, whether one is to be born as girl or boy, rich or poor, dull or clever, white or colored, or even as Abel or Cain, is the most tremendous predestination conceivable in heaven or on earth; and still we see it taking place before our eyes every day, and we ourselves are subject to it in our entire personality; our existence, our very nature, our position in life being entirely dependent on it. This all embracing predestination … all-dominating election. Election in creation, election in Providence, and so election also to eternal life; election in the realm of grace as well as in the realm of nature … all Christians hold election as we do, in honor, both in creation and in providence; and that Calvinism deviates from the other Christian confessions in this respect only, that, seeking unity and placing the glory God above all things, it dares to extend the mystery of Election to spiritual life, and to the hope for all life to come?”

(A.Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, pp.117-119)

Now that many Arminians have been smitten with the egalitarian infection, they’re just being consistent with their soteriology as it works itself out in social order thinking. Arminians denied election in terms of grace and now they deny election in terms of nature. In order for the Calvinists to turn egalitarian, however, they have to be radically inconsistent with their soteriology. Most Calvinists and Calvinist churches still confess Election with respect to God’s differentiation among men and so the unequal states of their persons as it pertains to salvation before God, but many Reformed are no longer sure about unequal states of nature. That is to say many Calvinists can no longer affirm an Election (Predestination) which affirms that not only does God elect some and not others in regards to salvation, but also that God predestines some people and peoples to an unequal status as compared to His predestinating of other people and peoples. Does this contradiction between what we might call spiritual inequality as taught in the doctrine of election and natural inequality as implied in the doctrine of predestination (and so a necessary denial of the foundational tenets of modern egalitarianism) perhaps hint at the idea that many Reformed don’t understand the implications of their Calvinism?

Certainly, everyone agrees that men are all brothers in the sense that all men are created by God and that all men thus are the image of God. Likewise, everyone can agree that all men are brothers in the sense that all men are responsible to God’s law. This is gladly conceded. However, all men are not brothers in the sense of having God as their redemptive Father.  That fact that God makes distinctions among men has impact all the way down the line of our thinking.