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DeYoung’s Painful Book Review on Reparations

I’m not a fan of Kevin DeYoung. He loses no sleep over that. In fairness, I’m not a fan of anything that is stamped with “The Gospel Coalition,” and as DeYoung is the board chairman of “TGC” I am hostile to him and it.

Yesterday (22 April 2021) Dr. Rev. DeYoung penned a piece reviewing a book calling for Reparations. You can find the review here;

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/reparations-a-critical-theological-review/ 

In the end, DeYoung comes out largely disagreeing with the book and for that, we can be thankful. However, following DeYoung’s path to that conclusion is painful as one can feel how much it hurts DeYoung to have to disagree with the authors who are two of those who sit at the cool kid’s table.

Below are just two examples that made me grimace in DeYoung’s review.

___

Dr. Rev. Kevin DeYoung  writes,

“I don’t believe the White church has been especially patient to listen to their African American brothers and sisters, nor particularly open to seeing sins in our national or ecclesiastical histories.”

Bret responds

Jeepers… imagine me not being particularly open to listening to a bunch of crypto-Marxists who are too stupid to know that they are channeling Karl Marx & Herbert Marcuse and calling it Christian theology. It might be worse though. It might be that they know they are channelling Trotsky and Gramsci while calling it Christian theology and they just don’t care.

Imagine me not listening to the intellectual descendants of James Cone even though it is even money they have never heard of James Cone. Why would I listen to Kwon and Thompson spouting black liberation theology?

People who believe the tripe that Kwon and Thompson believe are not my Christian brothers or sisters and I am under no obligation to listen to them — patiently or otherwise. These people are not writing within the context of a Christian weltanschauung unless we define “Christian” consistent with the writings of St. Horkheimer, St. Ordono, or St. Bell.

DeYoung tries to lay a guilt trip on the “White Church” by saying stupid things like the paragraph above. I am under no compulsion to listen to these people any longer than it takes to realize that they are of their father the Devil.

And as I am so busy seeing my own sin Kevin DeYoung will excuse me if I don’t focus on the sins of my Fathers. And if DeYoung wants me to see national and ecclesiastical sins how about we start with the sins of people like DeYoung who think it is virtuous to call our Fathers sinners and who doesn’t realize that Critical Race Theory even in diluted amounts, is sin?

DeYoung writes again,

“I want to listen. I don’t believe 350 years of injustice are erased in 50 years of improvement. “
Bret responds,

350 years of injustice? You mean the injustice found in not leaving the black man in Africa so he could be some cannibal’s next dinner? Hey Kev, do you mean the injustice found in Southerners buying slaves who if not bought found their next stop being sold into the cane fields of Cuba and Brazil where their life expectancy was 9 months? Do you mean the injustice of being made part of the Southern household?  Hey, Kev are you talking about the injustice of being evangelized and taught the Christian religion by the Southerners who owned their labor? Kev, are we talking about the injustice that found the black man reproducing and flourishing here in the South so that his numbers grew? Is that the kind of injustice you’re talking about Dr. DeYoung?

Were there injustices? Who could ever doubt it? Were there injustices done to all the white slaves taken over the centuries and enslaved in Arab and Muslim lands? Pretty certain there was. Were there injustices done to black men in Africa enslaved by other black Africans? Were there injustices done to black men in America enslaved by other black slave owners?

So much of what DeYoung writes is premised on the false narrative of slavery in the US.

And improvement? I guarantee you if an inner-city child in Chicago could choose to go back to the antebellum South slave plantation where he could get three hots and a cot or stay in the rat-infested gang banger hoodlum Chicago he would choose 1851 Charleston overnight.

DeYoung needs to quit reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin as if it is a history book and pick up a real history book. I can give him some recommendations if he likes.

Anyway, there is a good deal more like this that makes one cringe. However, as I said, DeYoung finally comes out on the side of the angels but the path he takes getting there makes me wish he’d just suit up for the other team.

WW II … A Revisionist Reading List

I try to read a great deal. One area among several I have concentrated on is WW II. Being familiar with the background of WW II is absolutely necessary to understand the 20th century as the 20th century has accelerated the Marxist Revolutionary push first started with the French Revolution. Most of what is available on WW II from the court historians reinforces the narrative of the Revolutionary history. The books below begin to puncture that narrative and offer the opportunity to reconstruct what I find to be a much more plausible narrative that instructs us that there were no “good guys” and “bad guys” during WW II but just a host of parties wearing different shades of black hats.

In the end, America should have stayed out of that damnable war.

See the following revisionist history books for the truth on WW II

Churchill’s War Vol. 1 & 2 — David Irving
Hitler’s War — David Irving
Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War — Pat Buchanan
Other Losses — James Bacque
The Politician — Robert Welch
America’s Second Crusade — William Henry Chamberlin
Freedom Betrayed — Herbert Hoover
The Great Betrayal — Diane West
M. Stanton Evans — Blacklisted by History
Nicholas Tolstoy — Stalin’s Secret War
John T. Flynn — The Roosevelt Myth
Curtis Dall — My Exploited Father-in-law
John Stinnet — Day of Deceit
Julius Epstein — Operation Keelhaul
George Crocker — The Road to Yalta
Roosevlet & Stalin — Robert Nisbet
The Chief Culprit — Viktor Suvorov
The Naked Capitalist — Cleon Skousen
The Naked Communist — Cleon Skousen
Tragedy and Hope — Carol Quigley
Major Jordan’s Diaries
Desperate Deception — Thomas Mahl
Wall Street and the Rise of Trilogy …. Antony Sutton
Hellstorm: The Death of Nazi Germany, 1944-1947 — Thomas Goodrich
The Naked Capitalist and The Naked Communist are book-length reviews of Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope.”

If you haven’t read these books or books like them you are clueless about WW II and likely clueless about where we are at this point in history.

A Glimpse at Bolt’s “The Cross From a Distance”

“The Cross of Christ is no minor matter, simply dealing with individual salvation. The salvation of individuals through the Cross of Christ unleashes a revolutionary force that transforms society to its core. The message of the Cross is the only force that can change the world for the better, and the only force that has actually proved that it can do so. It is time for the Cross of Christ to be proclaimed once again, loudly and strongly.

Jesus was not crucified by chance. It was all according to plan. But the divine necessity that took him to the cross was not a blind fate that led to resignation before the pain of human mortality, or to an isolating detachment from human relationships. Jesus went to his death as the climax of the … plans of a loving Creator. Jesus took on human mortality and, by experiencing the full force of the horrors of our mortal flesh, he brought redemption. Personal identity is now found in following the savior to the cross, in the sure hope of the kingdom of God. This journey brings profound freedom: a liberation that comes from having a secure future.”

Dr. Peter G. Bolt 

“The Cross from a Distance; Atonement in Mark’s Gospel” – p. 79

I try to read at least one book on the Cross every year. Yesterday, I finished Peter G. Bolt’s “The Cross from a Distance; Atonement in Mark’s Gospel.” If you want something that is quite readable and serves the purpose of bringing out some rich detail in Mark’s Gospel concerning the Cross this is the book for you. Really, this is just the kind of book that ministers and laymen alike can pick up and profit from.

 
Bolt spends a good amount of time defending the idea that Christ’s death was vicarious, substitutionary, and penal but he does so drawing those ideas from Mark’s narrative and not by superimposing pre-existing theological categories on the text. Bolt also ties in the Cross with the Kingdom of God motif demonstrating that for Jesus the Cross was a necessary event prior to the Kingdom and that the Cross was the pivotal event to bring in the Kingdom of God. Bolt, in what I found fascinating, demonstrates that Mark’s narrative explicitly teaches that Jesus died under the wrath of God. The way that Bolt brings that out is really spell-binding. This exegesis alone is worth the price of the book. (Liberals hate the idea of God’s Wrath being visited on the Son.) Bolt does some interesting and thoughtful work tying the crucifixion together with Daniel 12. I don’t agree with Bolt completely on this score but it did set me to thinking on several of his points. Bolt also does a great job of showing God’s sovereignty in every detail of the cross. In a section, I wish Bolt had spent more time on he begins to limn out the irony found in the various mockeries of Jesus while on the cross. I was so drawn into that exegesis that I bought another book on Mark’s work on the Cross recommended by Bolt in which Bolt said that a full treatment could be found on the irony in those mockeries. Another strength is Bolt’s Biblical-theological approach to Mark’s text. Bolt did a really fine job of weaving in how the OT texts anticipated all that Mark brings out about the crucifixion. I’ve come to really enjoy the discipline of Biblical theology when it is well done and Bolt did a standup job here. Bolt also spends a good amount of time drawing out the Cross as a theodicy which of course is always helpful.
 
 
There were some weaknesses. Bolt insists that the death of Christ gets rid of religion. Now, Bolt is defining religion very narrowly but I’d still rather not use that language since I remain convinced that religion is an inescapable category. Bolt spends a good deal of time dealing with Christ’s cry of dereliction from the Cross (My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me…”) and I’m not satisfied with Bolt’s conclusions here. He dismisses several sets of interpretations as inadequate and ends that section by largely saying that cry is a mystery, going almost Barthian in the end. I do think Calvinists might have better answers on Jesus’ cry of dereliction than Bolt. Another weakness is that Bolt spends way too much time giving us the background of ancient pagan notions of apotheosis in the context of talking about the resurrection. Dealing with weaknesses as a partial Preterist I’m not satisfied in the least with Bolt’s interpretation of “Mark’s Little Apocalypse.” Finally, in terms of weakness, I’m fairly certain that Bolt is not a postmillennialist and that pessimism about future triumph shows.
 
At just less than 175 pages of text, you can’t go wrong as a layman or minister in picking this volume up and learning from Dr. Bolt.

Who Knew … BLM Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors Confesses To Being A Kinist

https://mobile.twitter.com/thekangminlee/status/1382911612147822594?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1382911612147822594%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnotthebee.com%2Farticle%2Fready-to-hear-the-co-founder-of-blm-trying-to-justify-her-multi-million-dollar-home-buying-spree

Mark’s Gospel Testimony That Jesus Would Experience The Wrath of God

There are those in the Christian community who deny that Jesus experienced the wrath of the Father as a substitute for and representative of sinners on the Cross. These people eschew the penal-substitutionary theory of the Atonement preferring instead some other theory of the Atonement such as the Governmental view, the Moral Influence view, or the Ransom to Satan view, or the Christus Victor view.

Loathing for the idea that the Son was a penal substitute for elect sinners has long been articulated. Going at least as far back as Peter Abelard (1079 – 1142) men have chafed at the Anselmian developed idea of the Son undergoing the wrath of the Father in the offering Himself up as a blood sacrifice to pay the penalty for sin. Below is a succinct clip of how Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) explained this in a conversation with his student Boso,

Anselm: So no one except God can make the satisfaction.
Boso: That follows.
Anselm: But no one except humanity ought to do it — otherwise, humanity has not made satisfaction.
Boso: Nothing could be more just.
Anselm: … So if no one except God can make it and no one except man ought to make it, there must be a God-Man to make it.
Boso: Blessed be God.

Abelard who lived concurrently with Anselm wrote of this Anselmian view;

“Indeed how cruel and wicked it seems that anyone should demand the blood of an innocent person as the price for anything, or that it should in any way please him that an innocent man should be slain — still less that God should consider the death of his Son so agreeable that by it he should be reconciled to the whole world?”

And the liberal wing of the Church has followed Abelard on this ever this with much the same complaint. Of course, Abelard’s complaint breaks down as a complaint against both justice and mercy. It is a complaint against justice because Abelard implies that the penalty paid by the only one who could successfully pay it is somehow cruel of God. It is a complaint against mercy because Abelard would not have God convey mercy to others on the basis of the Son paying the penalty for sin.

Of course, what Abelard failed to see then, and what those who hate the penal satisfaction theory of the atonement fail to see now is that God, in the incarnate 2nd person of the Trinity is the one who pays the penalty of sin Himself. God demanded the price be paid (without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin) and it is the God-Man in a display of mercy who pays the price that was justly demanded. Where Abelard is the cruelty and wickedness in that?

Having said that what does the Scripture say about this matter of the Son bearing the Father’s wrath against sin. The Scripture speaks with a clear voice on this matter.

Consider just a few examples.

Mark 10:33 “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him to the Gentiles;

1.) The phrase “handed over to the Gentiles,” is a phrase that is pregnant with meaning that when examined pulls back the curtain that the Son endured the Father’s wrath in His death.

In the OT to hand someone over to the nations (Gentiles) was the equivalent of handing them over to God’s wrath. We see this in the way of warning God gave to Israel in its early formation as a promise to Israel should they break His covenant. God promised that He Himself would hand them over to the Gentiles;

Leviticus 26:32 I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it.33 I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities waste….38 You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

Much later God delivers the same kind of warning and promise to the Northern Kingdom (Hosea 8:10). A promise that was ignored leading to God’s wrath handing them over to the Assyrians.

Though they hire allies among the nations,
I will soon gather them up.
And the king and princes shall soon writhe
because of the tribute.

Judah ignored the Northern Kingdom being handed over and likewise experienced God’s “handing over” wrath  — this time to the Babylonians. When Israel reflected back upon this notice how they spoke about what happened,

And He gave them into the hand of the Gentiles,
And those who hated them ruled over them. (Psalm 106:41)

This reflection is recorded again in Ezra,

9:7 Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been very guilty, and for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and to humiliation,[a] as it is this day.

The intertestamental period also records this reflection;

“You were sold to the nations, not for destruction, and because you angered God; you were handed over to your enemies.” (Baruch 4:6)

This kind of language is also used during the Maccabean period in the Maccabee’s struggle against their enemies.

When we move beyond the Cross we hear echoes of this “handed over to the Gentiles” type of language in the book of Acts as another way of speaking about God’s wrath.

Acts 2:23 Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death;  (cmp. 3:13; 4:27-28)

In Mark 10:33 Jesus states that he “will be delivered to the Gentiles.” As we have seen this is a phrase that has a linguistic history and is the equivalent of saying that he will be delivered over to the wrath of God. Just as Israel and Judah suffered exile being delivered over to the nations as evidence of God’s wrath upon them, so the greater Israel, the suffering servant, was to be handed over into the hands of the nations by Israel’s “leaders.”

When Jesus says that He “will be delivered to the Gentiles,” He is saying that He will be delivered over to the Father’s wrath.

2.) Mark 10:38 But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” (cmp. 14:23-24; 14:36)

Jesus uses the imagery of the cup and it consistently holds a reference to His coming death. The idea of the drinking of the cup, like the phrase “handed over to the Gentiles”, points to the idea of Jesus bearing the wrath of God.

If we consider the OT in passages like Pss. 11:6; 75:8; Hab. 2:16; Isa. 51:17, 22; Ezek. 23:31-34 we see the usage of the “drinking of the cup” as imagery signifying wrath.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=+Psalm+11%3A6%3B+75%3A8%3B+Habakkuk+2%3A16%3B+Isaiah+51%3A17%2C+22%3B+Ezekiel+23%3A31-34&version=NKJV

The imagery of draining a cup to the last dregs is a powerful picture of being forced to swallow the inescapable and just judgment of God’s wrath. Typical of Israel was that she was convinced that the other nations would have to drink this cup but God’s prophets made it clear that she too would drink this cup.

3.) In Mark 10:38 cited above, there is also a parallel reference to the Baptism with which Christ would be baptized. This idea also points us to Jesus enduring the wrath of the Father.

In point of fact as we listen to Jesus’ words in Mark 10:38 referencing Baptism we could well hear the echoes of the Messianic Psalm that is Psalm 69. In Psalm 69 we hear how baptizo was used metaphorically for being overwhelmed with sorrows and trials. In this Psalm, the psalmist uses the image of Baptism for the overwhelming troubles that he was facing.

“Save me, O God!
For the waters have come up to my[b]neck.
2 I sink in deep mire,
Where there is no standing;
I have come into deep waters,
Where the floods overflow me….

14 Deliver me out of the mire,
And let me not sink;
Let me be delivered from those who hate me,
And out of the deep waters.
15 Let not the floodwater overflow me,
Nor let the deep swallow me up;
And let not the pit shut its mouth on me.

In this Messianic Psalm the psalmist also cries out,

17 And do not hide Your face from Your servant,
For I am in trouble;
Hear me speedily.

Added to the connection between Baptism and God’s wrath we see the Psalmist fearing God’s face being turned from him. This “hiding of the face” is likewise imagery of God’s wrath.

So, Mark’s Gospel when listened to attentively against the backdrop of the rest of Scripture clearly teaches that the Son is to experience the Father’s wrath. This is seen in Jesus’ language of “being delivered over to the Gentiles,” as well as His speaking of drinking the cup and of being baptized.

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This is a distillation in my words from what I have learned from Peter G. Bolt’s “The Cross From a Distance; Atonement in Mark’s Gospel,” pages 58, 66-71.