Further Observations On RJR & Libertarianism

I don’t have a problem with RJR quoting the Libertarians or even with him making common cause with them as co-belligerents on certain issues. I acknowledge that RJR often was in bed with the Libertarians. I will even say that I can see RJR supporting a Ron Paul candidacy for President. (Does anyone know if RJR said anything regarding the Paul Libertarian Presidential Candidacy in 1988?)

However, what I object to, as coming from American Vision, is that they want to thump that Libertarian side of RJR completely and then turn around and disavow all the Kinist quotes from RJR as if that side of RJR never existed. The Kinist side of RJR is the balance and tension that is needed for all his Libertarian statements. It is true that RJR was a Libertarian as that concept finds meaning in the context of God’s Law word, but it is equally true that RJR was a Kinist as that concept finds meaning in the context of God’s law word. The fact that RJR would have embraced both Libertarian strains and Kinist strains fits perfectly with his understanding of, “The One and The Many,” and the fact that organizations invoking the name of RJR finds problems with either of these necessary strains is telling. Is it possible to be loyal to RJR and recognize his Libertarian strains while denouncing those who also recognize his Kinist strains or would such lopsidedness communicate that such a organization is leaning to far in a non God’s law word conditioned Libertarianism?

But AV doesn’t want the kinist RJR. They only want the Libertarian RJR. Meanwhile the Daniel Richies, Stephen Hallbrooks, and John Loftons don’t want either the Libertarian nor the Kinist RJR. The Theonomy of those people is highly suspect.

Rush was no Libertarian in the Rothbard or Rand sense of the word but He was smart enough to use them to advance His agenda, which had a libertarian side as that Libertarianism was conditioned by a Christian Theonomic Reconstructionist worldview.

I think what we might be seeing now is the unraveling of the coalition that RJR built. RJR was able to bring together a coalitiion of Libertarians, Kinists, soft covenanters, agrarians, and southern sympathizers but it seems that coalition is becoming undone.

Caleb’s Baptist — Question 2a

Caleb,

The Second question and answer of the first Lord’s day gives us the structural outline of the Catechism. The Catechism is divided according to the three part answer of question #2. Part #1 of the Catechism deals with how great our sins and miseries are. Part #2 of the Catechism (the longest part) deals with how we are delivered from all our sins and miseries. Part #3 of the Catechism deals with our response of gratitude to God for our deliverance. The Catechism is then sub-divided into 52 Lord’s Days. One unit for each week of the year. This structuring was often used in order to teach a congregation one Lord’s Day unit per week thus covering the Catechism in one year.

There is a certain logic to be found in this subdivision. A man will not see the need for salvation until he first sees his sin. Once man sees his sin, salvation is what he will pine for and once he begins to comprehend how great a salvation he has been freely given the natural response is to show gratitude to the one who has done all the saving.

Keep in mind that the Catechism was intended to be a kind of basic Christianity. It was hoped that all God’s people would be familiar with the basic truths brought out in the Catechism. Many people want to jump to graduate school Christianity without getting the basics down that are found in the Catechism. This is a dangerous road to take, if only because the basics are instrumental when seeking to understand matters loftier. If we don’t have the basics under our belt loftier matters might possibly throw us for a loop.

The second question asks,

How many things are necessary for thee to know, that thou, enjoying this comfort, mayest live and die happily?

First note how practical the Catechism is. It desires for people to live happily. It believes it is giving a way for people to die happily. The truths in the catechism are expected to have an impact in the way that we think, the way that we live, and the way that we die.

Second, not the premise of the second question. The premise is that Christianity is primarily the life of the mind. Question #2 asks, how many things are necessary for thee to know. With this question the Catechism tells us that unless we rationally understand certain truths we will not be able to enjoy the comfort that Christianity affords. Christianity is a life long pursuit of thinking God’s thoughts after Him. This is not a insignificant point as many versions of Christianity today denigrate the life of the mind in favor of emotion, or encounter or experience. Now, it may be the case that Christianity should well include emotion, encounter, and experience but these are the consequence of knowing God, not the basis of knowing God. I harp on this because much if not most of Christianity is based on the search for a meaningful experience with God, or a encounter with God, or some emotional high from God. The Catechism is not primarily concerned with these matters. The Catechism, following Scripture is concerned with you knowing God, and your undoubted Catholic Christian faith.

Jeremiah 9:23 Thus says the LORD, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; 24 but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.

John 17:3 (Jesus speaking) This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

The shift from the insistence on “Knowing God,” to a insistence on “Experiencing God” can be seen in the Christian publishing world. In 1973 a book was published entitled “Knowing God.” It was considered a instant classic. Another book title from that era that was also was quite good was “Knowledge of the Holy.” However another publishing wave hit in 1990 and a book entitled, “Experiencing God,” became all the rage. The two titles of those two books tell a loud story about how the Church and Christians think about God. You should also know that theology of encounter with God is also a big emphasis in certain quarters. I tell you these things so that you might understand different flavors of Christianity as you come across them. Biblical Christianity wants you to know God. Now certainly proper emotions will follow (the emotion of misery when sin is known, the emotion of relief upon knowing that we’ve bee rescued, the emotion of gratitude as a knowing response to our rescue, the emotion of joy knowing that we are safe in Christ, the emotion of love in knowing that God loves us, etc.) but emotions, experience, or encounter are only the residue of knowing God and your undoubted Catholic Christian faith.

Tomorrow we will look at the answer to question #2.

Ode To Hot Water

When Hunger brays, at end of day there is always ample fodder
But oh to play, in the massaging spray, of glorious Hot Water
The aches and pains accumulate from working hour after hour
But they become negated, as I’m saturated in a simmering hot shower

Oh sing the praises of heated drops
That insures that I don’t falter
And removes assorted weary stops
All hail to heated water

When cold nips, or freezing wind rips, a fireplace is the cure
But repeated sips, of heated drips, of water clean and pure
Can warm me from the inside out as fine tea melts beneath hot water
And is served to me, to relieve my chill, by compassionate wife or daughter

Oh lift your voice and give thanks
For the invention of heated coiling
And lift your glass to vast storage tanks
That can deliver our water boiling

When its time to clean, in places unseen, it is a thankless task
But cleanliness next to Godliness is a virtue for which to ask
So, thanking God, we turn again to the civilizing hot tap
And hot water aids in our cleaning parade, filling heaven’s gap

Oh tip your hat, and raise a glass
to God’s invention of the Hot Spring
Inspiring men to bring hot water en mass
To homes that men might sing

Hot water, Hot water, Hot water, may we never miss your blessing
You bathe our children, and clean our clothes so that in finery we’re dressing
Hot water, Hot water, Hot water, may we never forget the time
When men spent their days, in stinky ways, forever covered in grime

Transcendentalism & The Battle Hymn Of The Republic

“We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson
American Transcendentalist Man of Letters
Essay– The Oversoul

“We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds…A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson
American Transcendentalist Man of Letters
1837 Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Address

When Ralph Waldo Emerson advocated this pantheistic ideology and so thought that all men were part of the Divine, he opened the way for human events to become Divine Events, and thus every man could become an avenging god destroying a sinful world with fire. This is precisely what happened as the US Government was captured by this ideology that taught that as all was a part of god therefore no part of god should be subservient to any other part of god. This Transcendental Jacobinism that animated the Radical Republicans (abolitionists) was set ablaze with the intent of making the world anew in the image of Emersonian Transcendentalism (i.e. — Jacobinism).

Another Transcendentalist of the time, Julia Ward Howe, gives us the proof of how Transcendental ideology, clothed in Christian language, captured the imagination of the Northern public and is found in the Yankee Battle Song that Howe inked.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

The Transcendental nature of this stanza is found in the fact that the coming of the Lord is seen in the eyes of Howe as the marching of the Union Armies. Her eyes have seen God’s judgment glory in the marching Union Armies. The Union Armies, as truth marching on, are the glory of the coming of the Lord. This coming that is being referred to here is a judgment coming as seen in the fact that the transcendentalist god is trampling his grapes of wrath and hath loosed its terrible swift sword.

In the second and third lines of the first stanza that coming of the Lord in the Union Armies is seen by the fact that those Armies are trampling out vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. Now, the place where the Union Armies were trampling was the South, and so the grapes of wrath that the transcendentalist god (Union Army) is trampling and out of which the vintage is coming are Southerners. Let us not miss the poetic imagery. The Union Army, as the Transcendentalist god, are trampling vintage out of gods wrath grapes, which is just another way of saying that the Union Army is trampling vintage blood out of those, for whom, god has stored up His wrath.

Union Armies = god // Trampling Southern blood = good

The third line finds the Transcendentalist god (Union Army) loosing the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword, once again communicating that the Union Army, as the Transcendentalist god, is visiting god’s judgment on the South.

Finally, all of this is bound up with Truth marching on and “Hallelujah,” literally means “Praise God.” Praise god that he is killing and maiming, raping and ruining, pillaging and destroying Southerners.

Howe the Transcendentalist goes on and the North sang along with her,

I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His day is marching on.

The idea that god equals the union Armies is clearly given us in the first line, or alternately she sees god in the actions of the Union Armies, which is much the same thing.

The idea of building an alter is interesting since most commonly what happens on altars is some kind of blood sacrifice. Are the alters which they (Howe slips into a distinction here between god and those who are doing god’s bidding) “builded” a reference to the work of blood sacrifice that the North is offering of the South?

Since all of this is in the context of blood and judgment one wonders if “The righteous sentence” of which Howe speaks as to do with something like, “the soul that sinneth shall surely die?” If that is the case White Southerners are souls that must die and the Transcendentalist god army is that which executes God’s judgment. The fact that we are still in judgment mode here is seen in the line, “His day is marching on.” This “day,” is a reference to the “Day of the Lord.” A Biblical idea that is commonly associated with God’s judgment visitation upon those who are His enemies.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.”
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Since God is marching on.

Note

1.) The fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel are the Yankee Bayonets and war machine.

2.) Second line — Gospel defined as grace extended to those who crush God’s contemners (scorners). The scorners of God are the Southerners. Yankee’s are earning God’s grace by crushing the South.

3.) Hero born of woman is Jesus as incarnated in the Union army and the serpent being crushed with the Yankee heel is the South. Another Biblical reference.

4.) God marching on = Yankee Armies marching on. As Sherman and his Bummers burned Atlanta and raped Columbia god was marching on. As Sheridan torched the Shenandoah valley so that a crow flying over would need to carry its own provisions god was marching on. When Grant starved out Vicksburg and used his men as canon fodder god was marching on. When Gen. “Beast” Butler was insulting Southern women god was marching on.

5.) Hallelujah = Praise god all this is happening.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet;
Our God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Our God is marching on.

Sounding forth Trumpet = Judgment language.

The second coming (characterized as a judgment coming) in the bible is a coming of judgment against God’s enemies and in the Bible this coming is introduced by the sounding of a Trumpet. The “Day of the Lord”, in which He judges mankind was prophesied by the Old Testament prophet Zephaniah to be “A day of trumpet and battle cry. The idea of the Union Army being equivalent to God’s judgment is laced all the way through this song.

Sifting out the hearts = In the bible, judgment includes sifting out wheat (good) mixed in with the chaff (bad). God, as incarnated in the Union Armies, is sifting out hearts before Him. Obviously the enemies of the Jacobins are chaff that needs to be sifted from the wheat.

Please understand that in all this the Devil is being painted as god and so though the language of “god” is used what all this is actually describing is the judgment of the devil against his enemies.

Oh, be swift, my soul… = The idea of calling people to rally to god’s side.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free;
While God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! While God is marching on.

Here the fact that the War Against the Constitution was a Holy War is clearly set forth. As Christ died to make men Holy, the members of the Union Army were called to die to make men free.

So the next time your Church heats up the organ to belt this song out just remember what it is that you are signing.

Caleb’s Baptism (1c)

Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?

Answer

That I with body and soul, both in life and death, (a) am not my own, (b) but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; (c) who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, (d) and delivered me from all the power of the devil; (e) and so preserves me (f) that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; (g) yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, (h) and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, (i) and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him. (j)

Caleb,

In the previous post we began to look at the consequences (privileges) that accrue to us because we are owned by God. We left off with the idea that when God owns someone He never un-owns. God never loses what He has claimed as His own.

John 6:39 And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.

John 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

As we continue to consider the consequences and privileges of being owned by God as ratified by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to pay for ours we see not only are we delivered from the power of the devil, and not only are we preserved to the end of our days in God’s keep, but we also see that God’s providence (His governance over all that happens in life) directs our steps and accounts for our paths taken. God’s providential care (His governing oversight) includes minutia such as your hair count.

Matt.10:30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered

Of course God’s providential care (governing oversight) is over all His creation. The Sparrow does not fall apart from God’s Providence. The Lily’s grow according to God’s providence.

However, for those who belong to Him His care and oversight is the care and oversight of a Benevolent Father, while His providential care and oversight for those not claimed by Him is that of a condemning Judge. Some vessels have been made for wrath.

Next the Catechism teaches that God has a purpose in all of His providential oversight (governing care) over His people. We are to embrace the fact that whatever comes into our lives as God’s people is something ordained by our governing God for the furtherance of His intent to keep us owned in His salvation. This informs us that all that comes into our lives in the course of our everyday living is something sent by God to further the course of His and our salvation.

As being owned by God because He has benevolently provided for us Christ as our legal representation, we can now know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Two more privileges come to us as a result of being friends with God because of the spilled blood of Christ.

First, we are told that God sends His Holy Spirit to work in us an assurance that, because we are owned by Christ, we have eternal life now. There was a time in history when Christians found it hard to accept the fact that they were owned by Christ. They struggled with the reality of their sinfulness to the point they found it hard to believe that they had eternal life. Christians typically don’t struggle with this so much in the 21st century since we are more inclined to believe in a God who owes us forgiveness then believing in a God who is severe against our sinfulness. However, there are still those who find it hard to believe that they really have eternal life and so one of the benefits of being owned by Christ is that we are given His Holy Spirit as one who guarantees the eternal life we have now and the eternal life that is to come.

Eph.1:13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, 14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

Rom.8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God

The final benefit (consequence / privilege) mentioned in being owned by God, atoned for by Christ, and sealed permanently unto God by the Holy Spirit (notice the Trinitarian character of the first question) is that we live in terms of His authority and of who He is. Because we are owned by God the inevitable consequence is that we will live in light of His light, we will, in a ever increasing epistemologically self conscious fashion, live and move and have our being in Him, and we will live in terms of His law and testimonies. God has not redeemed us so that we might live in defiance of His character but He has redeemed us for particular works that God has prepared from eternity past for us (Ephesians 2:10).

Rom.8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

In order to simplify as much as possible,

I. ) Where do we find Comfort (Strength)?

A.) In the fact that we are not our own
B.) In the fact that we are owned by God in our complete totality

II.) How is it that we are owned by God?

A.) Because Jesus Christ spilled His blood
B.) Such a substitutionary death satisfies the Father’s just wrath against sin

III.) What are the consequences of being owned by God?

A.) The Devil has no hold upon me
B.) I am preserved to the very end by God who loves me and call me the apple of His eye.
C.) God’s providential (governing) care as a Father orders all my life
D.) All things that come into my life are serving the purpose of seeing me kept by God
E.) I am granted assurance that I really do have eternal life
F.) I am equipped so that my ongoing life story is a telling of the Greatness of my Lord Christ

Allow me to close that the consequences (benefits / privileges) of being owned by Christ should yield to us great confidence. What have we to fear? If all this is true that we have looked at, if it really is the case that God is for us, who can be against us? If all this is true why would you or I ever fear anyone or anything but God?

Tomorrow, we will look at Question #2