Iron Ink

The greatest man in my life was Dr. Glenn Martin. Dr. Martin was chair of the Political Science Department at the college I attended and the college Dr. Ken Schenck now teaches at. Dr. Martin set me on the path of Presuppositionalism and Worldview thinking and introduced me to presuppositionalist authors such as Dr. C. Gregg Singer and Dr. Francis Schaeffer. Two of my majors at Marion (Political Science and History) found me sitting under almost every class that Martin offered.

Even before Cultural Marxism, Political Correctness and multiculturalism descended upon the West in full force, Dr. Martin was warning about these coming realities. Dr. Martin was pro-South, taught Austrian Economics, taught that the mainstream Media was captured by the Socialist left, taught the leftist history of the Union movement in America, taught about the communist influence in the US Government and told the real story about Alger Hiss and Whitaker Chambers. Dr. Martin exposed the wickedness of Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Dr. Martin introduced me to Alexander Solzhenitsyn where I read Solzhenitsyn’s – to date unheeded warning to the West – in his Harvard address. From there I absorbed on my own Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago” and “A Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich,” as well as other writings by Russia’s Prophetic voice to the West. Dr. Martin introduced me to Dr. Fred Schwarz’s “You Can Trust The Communists To Be Communists.” This was a book written in 1960 that should be required reading even yet today for in that book one can learn a great deal about our current domestic enemies. From Martin I likewise learned Muggeridge, Kuhn, McLuhan, Efron, and a host of other authors.

At 18-22 I hardly understood these authors and their greatness as well as I one day would when I would circle back and re-read them as I aged. Likewise, at 18-22 I never appreciated Dr. Martin as much as I do now. I now realize I missed the bullet that most university students, who receive major in the fields I received them in, take right between the eyes as their education is conditioned w/ Marxist poison of different varieties. Dr. Martin’s teaching was so exhaustive and so demanding that he always insisted that if you could earn an “A” in his class you could earn an “A” in any university in the country. The difference in those “A’s” though, was that most Universities in America were teaching history, political science, government, media, philosophy, from a pagan worldview while Martin was the Wesleyan version of R. J. Rushdoony.

Dr. Martin taught us the distinctions between different kinds of socialism (Fabianism, German National Socialism, Italian Fascism, etc.) and how it was, in most varieties, a political precursor to the same Utopian state that Communism was pursuing. Dr. Martin hated collectivistic and tyrannical government with every inch of his being. He hated them so much he loved telling a story about how he would speak in Churches and little old ladies would come up to him following his lecture and say, “What we need is a Christian dictator.” Dr. Martin would tell us in class that the very last thing we needed was a Christian dictator if only because such a thing is not possible. Dr. Martin believed in and taught Biblical government. Everything that Gary DeMar teaches in his “God and Government” book, Dr. Glenn Martin was teaching me in his 101 courses in 1977 at Marion College.

Further, as with all good presuppositionalists he taught the intellectual history of the philosophy of the West that was driving much of the cultural bankruptcy of the West. This included his course titled. “Western Intellectual and Social History.” In this course Dr. Martin traced the degradation of the Philosophy of the West starting w/ the attempt to synthesize Augustinianism w/ rationalism through Aquinas and the Scholastics. Martin’s premise was as long as the West kept trying to mix Biblical Christianity w/ pagan philosophy it would never have the strength to resist defeat. Martin spent a good deal of time covering existentialism covering Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and others. This training put me in good stead to understand postmodernism for what it was when it showed up on the scene.

As I grew older, I discovered other presuppositionalists (Bahnsen, Rushdoony, Clark, Os Guiness, Van Til, etc.) and by learning them I learned at the same time that Dr. Martin would have been well served if had been a little more conversant in Reformed Theology. Dr. Martin tried to avoid the Reformed vs. Arminian conflict his whole teaching career. I think his teaching would have been even more powerful if he had had some background in Reformed systematic and historical theology. As it was, since he taught at a Arminian college, he was forever trying to avoid the Arminian vs. Reformed debate, choosing to always only refer to himself as a “Biblical Christian.” As I became more conversant in Reformed Theology and later re-read his works I noticed some glaring inconsistencies in some of his lectures. I think though I can say that Dr. Glenn Martin, though he may have never intended to, planted some Reformed seeds in me that years later came to maturation. (I was still quite the rabid Arminian when I graduated Marion College.)

When I began college I was a personal mess. To this day I can’t believe I made it through my first year. (I even actually “quit” for a week, but went back because I had nowhere else to go.) I was failing exams and courses left and right. I finally made my failures a matter of prayer and told the Lord Christ that, “if in the exam I was taking on the morrow, in Dr. Martin’s class, I failed that really would be the end.” I took the exam and the next week received the exam back. I think I had scored something like a “45%.” I thought to myself … “Well, Lord I guess that does it – I’m finished.” However, I thought I would check on Dr. Martin’s door to correlate the score to the grade and found out, that because Martin graded on a curve, and because the rest of the Freshman class was as stupid as I was that a “45%” was a “C.” I stuck with it and the rest is, as they say, History.

Dr. Martin was also my adviser through college and we became as much friends as a bumpkin and a genius can become. I’ll never forget that he went out of his way to attend the first sermon I ever preached. (Which must have been quite painful for him to sit through.) I also remember him attending a meal in my honor at my graduation w/ my family and friends. I also was privileged to be invited to his home to watch the Republicans in 1980 nominate Ronald Reagan for President. Reagan was a man for which Dr. Martin had great hopes.

Dr. Martin was always viewed with suspicion at his place of employment. In reflection I would say that that was one part envy and one part ideological conflict. The suspicion became so deep while I was there that one professor each from the Sociology and the Psychology departments actually enrolled to take classes from Dr. Martin because they just couldn’t believe what Martin students were bringing to and saying in the classes in sociology and psychology they were teaching. It was clear that Worldview conflict between departments at Marion College was intense. Dr. Martin seemed not to be phased by this as he understood and taught the whole Reformed idea of the antithesis, though he never called it “Reformed.”

Dr. Martin’s influence was so great at Marion College while I was there that when an attempt was made to start a “Young Democrats Club” nobody showed up to become a member. Largely because of Dr. Martin Marion College was a conservative (I would even say paleo-conservative) campus.

I left in 1982 and occasionally I would hear through the grapevine that Indiana Wesleyan University (the new name of my Marion College) was going liberal. When I attended Marion College there was always a professor here or there who was loopy that way, but on the whole the religion and theology department (one of my degrees was from this department as well) was as solid as Arminians can be in that regard. I mean, in hindsight their theology sucked, but they weren’t teaching the historical-critical method of hermeneutics or singing the praises of Bultmann or Tillich, or Barth. They were basically “come to Jesus” (revivalist) people in their theology and while the damage in such theology is bad enough it was nowhere near the muck and mire that is being taught at Indiana Wesleyan University now.

And this brings us back to Dr. Schenck. Somehow (and I honestly quite forget how) I learned that Schenck and the Religion department was running down Dr. Martin. Then as I interacted w/ Dr. Ken Schenck I leanred for myself the incredible public disrespect Schenck exhibited for Dr. Martin.

Now, I have many faults. Legion is their name. However, one of them isn’t a lack of loyalty. I owe a debt that I will never be able to repay to Dr. Glen Martin and I didn’t and don’t take to kindly to these fool Ph.D’s in the religion department at IWU running down the greatest teacher that University will probably ever know. Further then that this becomes a, “Who is on the King’s side,” kind of tale because in the attacks the religion department made on Martin while he was alive and now makes on him now that he is dead they are attacking, as far as I am concerned, King Jesus. Not because Dr. Martin = Jesus but because many of the positions that Martin took were just your basic Christianity 101.

The theology of these people isn’t merely your garden variety Arminianism (which would be bad enough) but rather IWU has gone over the edge w/ a Barthian-post-modernist strain in their thinking. Schenck himself has told me that there is no way that one can ever find an objective. For Schenck all there is, is particulars. There are no Universals. This descends into pure subjectivism in theology and in matters of truth. Schenck insists that he prefers to play “small ball” when it comes to these issues but if there are no Universals then how can he know what small ball is?

I will always … always have a soft spot in my heart for the Wesleyans. When I was a child and a young adult they were the love of Christ to me when I was living in a pretty messed up family life. It may seem a severe mercy with the slapping around of Dr. Ken Schenck that I am returning to them for all their past kindnesses but if I could write anything to shake these people up and get them to return to John Wesley Arminiansim as opposed to Ken Schenck post-modern Arminianism I would be ecstatic.

And besides, I’m not a guy with a lot of heroes in my life and the handful I have I am going to defend against the attacks of little men like Dr. Ken Schenck who look big in our even smaller culture and church.

People who live their lives pickling their brains w/ alcohol sometimes contract Korsakov’s syndrome, which is a kind of Alzheimer’s that hits some alcoholics. Like Alzheimer’s the person w/ Korsakov’s syndrome suffers a significant and permanent loss of memory – in their case due to the destructive effect of Alcohol upon the neurons. The result of Korsakov’s disease is that large swaths of a person’s memory are deleted.

The neuroscientist Oliver Sachs quotes one of his patients saying, “You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all … Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.”

On this Memorial Day I would like to suggest that this remains true for the Church. Without God’s remembering us, we would be nothing …. w/o our remembering God we will be a dishonor to Him remembering us.

I.) God Remembers Us

“But God remembered Noah…” – Genesis 8:1

“Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” Genesis 9:16

“Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and opened her womb.” Genesis 30:22

The next book of the Bible tells the story of God’s people groaning in their slavery and then it says that God “heard their groaning and remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So God looked on them and was concerned about them” (Exodus 2:24-25)

Psalm 103:13As(A) a father shows compassion to his children,
so the LORD shows compassion( to those who fear him.
14For he knows our frame;[a]
he© remembers that we are dust.

Psalm 78:38 Yet he, being(A) compassionate,
( atoned for their iniquity
and did not destroy them;
he restrained his anger often
and did not stir up all his wrath.
39He© remembered that they were but(D) flesh,
(E) a wind that passes and comes not again.

The idea that “God remembers” occurs 73 times in Scripture. This does not mean that God is a forgetful Deity. Rather, when it is said that God remembers it is often the case that what is being communicated is that God is about to take up the cause of His people on the basis of God’s covenant promises.

1.) God remembered Noah – Flood waters start to subside (see 8:3-5).
2.) God remembered the rainbow – Earth was Blessed.
3.) God remembered Rachael – Rachel became pregnant.
4.) God remembered his people in slavery – God started their journey of redemption.
5.) God remembered His mercy – Mary becomes pregnant w/ Jesus

“He has helped His servant Israel, In remembrance of His Mercy.” (Luke 1:54)

When God remembers its not just mental activity; it’s redemption activity.

Two frequent Characteristics of God’s remembering His people

A.) It is covenantally based

A covenant may be defined as the legal action and parameters that shape, inform, and give stability to the lived out dynamics of a intimate interpersonal relationship.

The most common covenant we still have some small sense of is the Marriage covenant. A marriage is a intimate interpersonal relationship but it is lived out in the context of certain structure that the legal covenant brings to it.

When God remembers us, He remembers us on the basis of His covenant w/ us.

Take the Exodus 2 passage. God remembers His people, but He remembers them covenantally. He remembered his covenant w/ Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob. He intends to redeem them from the bondage of Egypt because they are in covenant w/ Him.

The same is true of Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:54) where she declares that God remembers His mercy as He spoke to Abraham & His seed forever. There is a covenant relationship.

B.) Being Covenantally Based it is Christocentric

You will remember that I said that the whole concept of covenant includes a legal dimension. A covenant is the legal action and parameters that shape, inform, and give stability to the lived out dynamics of a intimate interpersonal relationship.

In the covenant that God remembers and that we are included in, the key legal dynamic that is part of the covenant is that we needed a surety – someone who would become legally liable for our sin. God cuts covenant w/ us and remembers His covenant w/ us on the basis of Christ fulfilling all the legal requirements that as ours to meet in this legal arrangement.

So, when God remembers the covenant, He remembers us as belonging to Christ.

This is why Christians are so insistent on uniqueness and necessity of Christ. If we do not belong to Christ we will not and can not be remembered by God. And if a people do not or a person does not have Christ for our surety God will never remember them … God will never do them good … God will be unalterably opposed to them.

So, on this 2010 Memorial day, among the many things that we will be remembering, we would do well to remember that God has remembered us.

I trust that such a recall will then lead us, out of a sense of genuine gratitude to remember God.

II.) We Remember God

This idea that we are to remember is one that is sounded over and over again throughout the Scriptures.

De 4:9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.

De 6:12 be careful that you do not forget the LORD

De 8:11 Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day.

1Ch 16:12 Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced,

2Ki 17:38 Do not forget the covenant I have made with you, and do not worship other gods.

Ps 22:27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him,

Ps 103:2 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits–

Ps 105:5 Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced,

Ps 119:52 I remember your ancient laws, O LORD, and I find comfort in them.

Ps 119:141 Though I am lowly and despised, I do not forget your precepts.

Ec 12:1 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth

Isa 46:9 Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.

2Ti 2:8 Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead

Jude 1:17 But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold.

The call to memory here is characterized by the implied idea that memory should prompt us to a certain behavior or action. Our memory of God’s goodness is a goad to a life of gratitude, and a call to action. People who are genuinely grateful do no harm to their benefactor’s goodness.

The memory of God’s goodness should elicit

Praise – Psalm 103:2f
Obedience – Dt. 8:11

As we have seen, Scripture repeatedly teaches that God remembers us. From the reality that God remembers us we are to remember God and this remembrance is to reveal itself by our obedience that we may bless God by magnifying His greatness by walking in His ways that others may be attracted to, or repelled by, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Conversely, when we forget the mercies and covenantal loving-kindness of God the inevitable result is to do walk in contradiction of the covenant.

What is it that we have most need to remember about God.

We have need to remember repeatedly that we were at one time w/o God and w/o hope. And despite our inability to do anything to rectify our hopeless situation, God, out of His great mercy, delivered us from His just wrath and holy Hostility by sending Christ to receive upon Himself the liability due to our warfare against Him so that we may realize the benefits that come from the act of the Lord-Christ’s Righteousness. We have need to remember that we who were at one time strangers and aliens to God’s covenantal loving-Kindness, have now been made members of the Household of God – w/ all the attendant privilege. We have need to remember that we have been given the Holy Spirit that we may walk in the beneficial ways of our Lord Christ. We have need to remember how bitter, twisted, and angry we would be were it not that Christ delivered us from our varied alienations. On memorial day we need to remember this again.

____________________________________________________________________________

Disconnected thought

Only the Biblical Christian remembers in a sense that honors God. The Biblical Christian remembers God’s ways and how his forefathers in Christendom incarnated those ways in civilization. The Biblical Christian reveals his remembrance by loathing those who would rip up the past of Christendom without any reflection on why the past was lived the way it was. God haters are to busy being “innovative,” & remaking the wheel, & giving us “the new and improved,” to memorialize anything but their bitter railing against the ways received from the Fathers. On this Memorial day we all would do well to remember this.

1.) Natural law exists but it can’t be appealed to as a mechanism to build societal harmony or social order by, since men suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

2.) Natural law, according to Natural law theory, is that aspect of reality that is dependent upon the reality of God and is inescapable and because of its inescapable revelatory nature can be appealed to in order to build a common realm existence and social order. The problem here though, is that man Himself is part of Natural law – which is to say that man himself is dependent upon the reality of God and is Himself part of God’s inescapable revelatory work. Yet, because man suppresses the truth in unrighteousness he denies that he denies both that he is dependent upon God and that he himself is part of God’s inescapable revelatory work. Now, if man suppresses the truth about Natural law that is closest to himself (i.e. – his very own existence) how is it that man is going to accept the tenants of some Natural law theory that that would require far less suppression then the suppression used to deny that he himself is part of God’s Natural law?

3.)For Natural law to work it has to exist within a overarching agreed upon theological matrix / paradigm. You can have Christian Natural law work as a organizing mechanism for a social order but it is not working because of the Natural law component but because of the Christian framework that is informing Natural law and in which the natural law expression is resting. Some faith system is always prior to some Natural law expression.

4.) Natural law worked within Christendom for centuries precisely because the objective social order was Christian. Take away that objective social order and Natural law is just one mans or group of men’s opinion.

5.) This is why Natural Law can never work in a social order context that exists within overarching theological matrix of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism’s (pluralistic modernity) very definition requires as many Natural Laws as there are variant cultures comprising the “multi-cultural” project. To appeal to one Natural law in a multicultural society is in direct contradiction to the whole multicultural project. Multiculturalism demands multi-Natural-law theories.

6.) The one exception to #5 is when multiculturalism realizes that its project is not really about chaotic diversity but unitarian unity. What is really be pursued in multiculturalims is the mono-culture that is called multiculturalism. Natural law could work in a putative multicultural setting where it is realized, at least by the ruling elites, that multiculturalism is not about absolute cultural diversity but rather absolute cultural unity. However, the Natural law that will arise if this day ever comes will not be a Natural law that any Christian could ever accept.

However, in the scenario put forth in #6 once again Natural law is existing in a overarching a-priori theological matrix-paradigm.

7.) You can not invoke the matter upon which one will be thinking (Natural law) without first considering the thinker themselves. Since they will be thinking upon the matter delivered to them by natural law their cogitation is based on something prior to the matter they are receiving that Natural law is sending. In other words their thinking about what they are receiving in Natural law is already religiously conditioned, since they as the thinker are religiously conditioned. As man thinks about whatever he thinks about he thinks about it from a religiously conditioned viewpoint.

The whole “LIGHT” in the “light of nature” is only light as general revelation is read through the prism of special revelation.

8.) If you define the natural light as merely intuitive then we’d agree that natural light is perspicuous, necessary and sufficient. However, the minute you go from intuitive to discursive at that minute the process is poisoned by sin. Ontologically we can’t get away from what we know to be the truth and that ontological knowing seems to be grasped intuitively. However, it seems to be the case that we use our epistemological apparatus in discursive reasoning to deny what we can’t escape knowing ontologically.

Recently I was reviewing one of my Mars Hill Audios (Produced by Ken Meyers – This is a tool that all thinking Christians should have a subscription to) and as I listened to one of the interviews one of the authors gave his definition of “Liberalism.” Now, he admitted that you could define “Liberalism” in many ways but his definition of Liberalism really set off a chain reaction in my mind.

Paraphrasing, the author said that, Liberalism is defined as “the project that all gods are welcome in any culture as long as the adherents of the gods keep their religion in their private personal-religious realms. This demand is combined w/ the idea that all appeals in the public realm be made to non-religiously conditioned truth.”

Now the idea itself is not new, but I guess I had never thought of that as being a definition of “Liberalism.”

Now here is where the chain reaction set off. In the 1990’s the Christian Reformed Church experienced a quite significant exodus of people and churches from the denomination. Typically, that breakup has been described as one where liberals and conservatives couldn’t stay together. No doubt there is some truth in that analysis.

However, after listening to that definition of “Liberalism,” I’m beginning to think that there was something else going on in the 1990’s in the CRC besides just a Conservative vs. Liberal dust up. What I want to propose is that if the definition above is correct what happened in the 1990’s was as much as a break up between two competing visions of Liberalism as it was a break up between Liberals vs. Conservative.

Consider that the above definition of “Liberalism” corresponds almost exactly to how R2Kt insists that Reformed people should work in this world. By the definition given by our lecturer during the Mars Hill Audio interview R2Kt is Liberalism.

This realization made me wonder if the split up in the CRC that happened in the 1990’s was as much a split between what we shall call, “passive Liberals” of the R2Kt variety and “active Liberals” of the Liberation theology variety. Now certainly, there were genuine conservatives in that split up but I’m beginning to wonder what their numbers were in comparison to the passive Liberals (R2Kt types who called themselves “Confessionalists) who also left the denomination. Was the division in the CRC in the 1990’s a contest between how “Liberalism” would be defined and pursued?

Now, since that split from the CRC many of those who split off formed a new denomination called the United Reformed Church (URC). What is interesting is that in the URC there now seems to exist tension between the “passive Liberals” and the “Conservatives” who banded together to resist the “activist Liberals” when they were all together in the CRC. What kept the “conservatives” and the “passive Liberals” together in the CRC (their mutual loathing of the “activist Liberals") has disappeared and now the natural tensions between these two expressions of the Christian faith is beginning to surface.

Someone with more expertise would be able to speak to the accuracy of this theory. I am no expert on the dust up having only showed up in the CRC in 1995 and partaken only of the tail end of the dust up.

Ken Schenck

“You write so much Bret I hardly have the will to try to untangle the real from the false from the strange. I doubt if many people even read it here.

I feel confident the Supreme Court will reject all appeals to the 9th and 10th amendment in the light of Article 1, Section 8: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.” Providing a medium for universal health care surely could fall under the heading of general welfare in the same way as social security or Medicare.

As for the Bible, I don’t even know where to start. You are far worse than the classic pre-modern eisegete who does not know how to listen to the texts in contexts. You actually oppose listening to the texts in context in deference to your divinely revealed definitions as one of the predestined.

As for me being a Statist, when does one become a Statist? When they advocate a common police (or does that make me a Fascist?)? When they advocate a public school system that requires all children to be educated paid for through taxes? When they think short selling should be prohibited or are opposed to monopolies? Was everyone basically a Statist before Ronald Reagan deregulated so many things? Was Nixon a Statist (as well as being stupid) because he instituted price controls–while being on our side of the Cold War?

These terms are just not helpful in distinguishing truth from falsehood in this discussion.”

Bret L. McAtee responds,

Ken,

Since when did the Supreme court start caring about original intent of the US Constitution?

Here is what James Madison said about our original social contract – Federalist #45

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”

You can tell you’re as statist because you vehemently disagree with the Constitution and your position reveals a collectivist desire to invert Madison’s words in Federalist #45 so that powers of the federal government are many and amorphous.

Second, your appeal to the general welfare clause shows how stupid you are on this subject.

Once again Madison (remember him – Father of the US Constitution?)

“With respect to the words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”

This was the common and universal view of the ratifying conventions on the idea of the “general welfare.” Look it up.

(Hint – Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional and a violation of our social contract)

Yes … advocating a socialist government school system makes you a statist. Yes Nixon was a Statist and Reagan only succeeded in slowing down the growth of the State.

Naturally, you won’t be surprised to find me believing that you wouldn’t know how to interpret a Scripture if it walked up to you and told you what it meant. You are, as we have seen, thoroughly Barthian and post-modern. It is clear from this discussion, when combined w/ other discussions that you have no respect for original intent in texts and just make them say what you desire. You are more of a disciple of Derrida then you are of Christ.”

Ken Schenck

Bret,

To some extent, I feel your pain. I’ll assume you know your Madison (although the meaning of the Constitution, even its original meaning, cannot be limited to what Madison was thinking). You and all strict constructionists like yourself are political Amish, like the French living under laws passed in the Napoleonic age.

I feel the pain. We have to live within the bounds of the words of the Constitution reasonably defined. But as bright and good as these gentlemen were, they could not have anticipated anything like the world we live in. They wrote before the Civil War decisively shifted the sense of lines you emphasize in relation to the States. Our world stretches the application of their words well beyond anything they would have conceived.

So I respect your knowledge of the content of these documents. But you and those like you are a curiosity. I’ll drive by your house every once and a while so my children can see your buggy.”

Bret L. McAtee

So we see here folks that Ken believes that the Constitution has no static meaning and is a living document that only means whatever the majority of any given generation says it means. It is his same view of the scriptures.

Ken’s view of the law is a version of legal Postivism … a view that is not Christian.

What is ironic is that we live in the world we live in as a result of people like you saying we couldn’t pay attention to the Constitution.

Ken’s view of the Constitution gave us Abortion. Ken’s view of the Constitution gave us the New Deal NRA which had a Dry Cleaner being arrested because he sold pressed pants at .35 cents a pair as opposed to the New Deal NRA mandated .40 cents a pair. Ken’s Constitution will eventually give us homosexual marriage. Ken’s Constitution has led to the expansion of wicked American Empire. Ken’s Constitution will lead to all kinds of depredations and wickedness because it has no static meaning.

Here we see Ken’s process theology affecting his political theory. There is no static truth. Truth is forever becoming.

And who gets to define “reasonably defined?” Well, the only answer to that is those with the most guns.

You go ahead and bring your kids and come on by and see my buggy. I’ll be showing my children your gulags and concentration camps.”

Proposed – Baptist’s believe that God doesn’t express His love to children by establishing a covenantal relation w/ them until they first establish one w/ him.

Colt Nipps,

“Bret, I agree with your statement. However, the statement about Baptists is only true if they don’t embrace the Doctrines of Grace.”

Bret L. McAtee

Colt,

“Explain how my statement about Baptists is not true also about Reformed Baptists please. In my understanding the refusal of Reformed Baptist to give covenant children the sign of the covenant is proof positive that Baptists believe that Jesus doesn’t express His love to children by establishing a covenantal relation w/ them until they first establish one w/ him.”

Colt Nipps

“Bret,

The statement you made did not reference the “sign” of the covenant, only the covenant relationship itself. Baptists of Arminian persuasion would not believe in a covenant relationship prior to conversion. However, Calvinist Baptists would certainly agree that those whom God has elected to salvation, have a covenant with God even before their actual regeneration. As a Baptist, I do not have any issue with Infant Baptism. Also, the statement sounded as though all those who are baptized as infants, will most certainly come to faith. (maybe that was just I my mind perceived it.) Thanks for the dialogue.

Kevin Foflygen

Colt,

As one who was recently a Reformed Baptist, I do not think you have been fair to Bret’s statement. He said, “Baptists believe that [God] doesn’t express His love to children BY establishing a covenantal relation w/ them until they first establish one w/ him.” The “by” is important. I understand that Baptists have different ways of talking… See More about children, but the most consistent way I know of to be both Calvinistic and Baptist is embodied in the 1689 London Baptist Confession, which says:

“Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, to be UNTO THE PARTY BAPTIZED, A SIGN OF HIS FELLOWSHIP WITH HIM, in his death and resurrection; of his being engrafted into him; of remission of sins; and of giving up into God, through Jesus Christ, to live and walk in newness of life.” (2nd LBC, XXIX.1)

This is covenantal language, and at very least indicates that there is no objective covenant between God and the unbaptized person; so that whatever relationship may be imagined to exist, it is no formal covenantal relationship, but at best an abstract one; since the unbaptized person, whether he is elect or not, has no objective assurance of his election, having no “sign of his fellowship with Him.”

And indeed, I know from experience that children in strict Reformed Baptist churches are treated as unbelievers, until they give such evidence as would warrant baptism on Baptist principles. Hence, “Those who do ACTUALLY profess repentance towards God, faith in, and obedience to, our Lord Jesus Christ, are the ONLY proper subjects of this ordinance” (2nd LBC, XXIX.2); infants not being excepted, since it is not known whether they are in the eternal Covenant of Redemption.

Therefore, Reformed Baptists, of whom I was once one, would certainly NOT agree “that those whom God has elected to salvation, have a covenant with God even before their actual regeneration,” if the covenant you are referring to is the New Covenant.

Granted, some Baptists (like John Gill) so conflate the historical New Covenant with the eternal Covenant of Redemption that the membership of the two is always identical. But the mainstream position has historically been that the Covenant of Redemption is eternal, while the Covenant of Grace and its New Covenant administration are the historical outworking of that former. Hence, the Confession says that the New Covenant “is revealed in the gospel… and it is founded in that eternal covenant transaction that was between the Father and the Son about the redemption of the elect.” The idea is that the New Covenant community is growing until it is (by the last day) coterminous with the Covenant of Redemption.

In a nutshell: It is useless on Baptist principles to say that a child who WILL repent and believe at some point in the future is in covenant with God, because no one knows who that child is, except God. The discussion here is whether children are in a covenant with God that they and we are privy to, viz. the New Covenant. In other words, are they Christians? Are they members of the Church? If not, then it is futile to speculate about whether they are secretly among the eternal elect.”

Bret L. McAtee

Paging Colt,

“We are looking for your conversion to covenantal thinking and the Covenantal Jesus, who is a different Jesus than the chap you esteem and who has in common with the Biblical Jesus the same name.”

Colt Nipps

“Bret, that is an unfair statement.

I hope that was at least somewhat sarcastic. I haven’t disagreed with any of your declaration of theology. I have agreed with all of it. I was waiting for a reply to my statement as to whether you believe that all those baptized as infants are numbered among the elect and will come to faith. I am not a Dispensationalist as a great number of baptists are. And the church that I am responsible for has been changed to a plurality of eldership. I hold to covenant theology and have no issue with infant baptism. So, I was a little taken back by your last comment.

Kevin, thanks for your comments as well. A baptized child gives you no more assurance that they will come to faith than a circumcised child in the Old Covenant.”

Bret L. McAtee

Colt,

“Yes, giving God and His promises the benefit of the doubt, I do believe that all baptized infants are numbered among the elect and I believe they will all come to faith if they are not already faith filled at Baptism. I do not know this anymore than a credo-baptist knows that the adults they baptized are numbered among the elect and will have a faith that reveals itself as true faith. I also know that by Baptism they are put into an external relation to the covenant.

I do not mean to be gnarly when I observe that all Baptists are, at some level, dispensationalist in their theology. That this is so is revealed by their universal insistence on the covenantal discontinuities of the covenant that bring them to refusing their children the privilege of the ratification of their covenant membership. I am not saying that all Baptists are dispensational in the classics sense of that doctrine. I am saying there is a dispensational like tick in all Baptist theology.

I am glad to hear that you have no issue w/ infant Baptism. Does that mean that you affirm that credo-baptism is significant error? I ask that because I am of the persuasion that any person who genuinely has no issue w/ infant Baptism will be, at the same time, a person who believes that credo-baptism is significant error.

Please forgive me for my previous “unfair statement.” If you have no issue w/ infant Baptism to the point that you reject the error of credo-baptism I was in error.”

Colt Nipps

“We both would agree that credo-baptism is at least necessary for those who come to faith as adults that were not baptized as children. So we can neither totally reject credo-baptism.

Secondly, you should agree that baptism of infants is not a test of fellowship. So if we agree on everything except infant baptism, I see no grounds for you to claim that I need to convert to a “different” Jesus.

Thirdly, I believe that there is one great thread that runs from Genesis to Revelation. I see that God has always dealt with humanity the same way through the covenant. God has always saved people by grace through faith and by no other way.

Next, I understand how one arrives at agreeing with Infant Baptism. I see the similarities between the Old Testament sign and the New Testament sign. I do see that they are not identical though. We both would agree with Paul that, “not all Israel is Israel.” They all received the sign of the covenant, but not all were numbered among the elect. I am almost persuaded by the logic myself. However, we should both agree that the scriptures neither expressly command nor condemn this practice. (Even Dr. Sproul admits this). I just feel like there is room for you to deal a little more graciously with your Christian brethren.”

Bret L. McAtee

Colt,

“No, I do not agree that credo-baptism is necessary for those who come to faith as adults. Not in the slightest! Credo-baptism teaches that Baptism is primarily about the convert’s decision and Baptism thus becomes about the promises of the Baptized. This is overwhelming error! No, when I baptize an adult, I do not Baptize them on the basis of, or in agreement w/ credo-Baptism tenets or thinking. The only thing in common between my baptism of an adult and a Reformed Baptist baptism of an adult is that the recipient is an adult and has made a confession of faith.

I did not make the Baptism of infants a test of fellowship between Christians. I do make the Baptism of infants a test of whether or not a Christian is attending a true Church. If a church will not baptize infants AND will not teach that credo-baptism is significant error I do not consider that Church a true Church. Neither does Jesus.

So, I may very well, have fellowship w/ a credo-baptist individual Christian but I will always do so in hopes of their conversion to covenantal thinking.

On your third point … if you really believe that then you should be baptizing Babies and teaching against those who refuse to Baptize Babies.”

Finally, I do not agree that the Scriptures do not explicitly command infant Baptism. Only a Baptist who is trying to desperately cling to the legitimacy of his position would suggest that. The covenantal character of Scripture finds us required by God to give His children the sign of the covenant.”

Kevin Foflygen

Colt,

You wrote,

“A baptized child gives you no more assurance that they will come to faith than a circumcised child in the Old Covenant.”

Ultimately, that is right: Baptism in itself is not what gives assurance, either to the baptized or to his parents. That would be to put the cart before the horse. However, baptism does give assurance when received by faith, because baptism is grounded in a promise from God, Who cannot lie. Our faith is not in the water; our faith is in the promise. Their faith was not in the circumcision itself, but in the promise signified thereby. If we trust water, then we become Pharisees and are condemned by the Apostle Paul.

Nevertheless, anyone who receives baptism by faith receives what is signified by baptism and is thereby sealed through the sacrament, every bit as much as everyone who receives the gospel by faith receives the content thereof. Therefore, in this sense baptism does give assurance, every bit as much as the word of promise itself.

Moreover, it is not without effect in those who receive it without faith. They are not like every other unbeliever; rather they are counted as covenant breakers and receive a greater condemnation. Thus the sacrament is efficacious whether it is received by faith or not.

Now, more on assurance. If baptism is continuous with circumcision, so that the covenant of circumcision continues through that of baptism, then as far as structure goes, the New Covenant is like the Older; the discontinuity lying elsewhere, namely in the greater clarity and efficacy of the New. Therefore, “the promise is unto you, and to your children.” (Acts 2:39) That is, a Christian can know with absolute, infallible certainty that his children are in covenant with the Lord. If they fall away later, then that does not mean they were never in covenant; it means they are now covenant breakers. (Here the perspective of the warnings in Hebrews comes into play, not the perspective of 1 John 2:19.) But their falling away is not completely mysterious, random, or arbitrary. I believe if we take God at His Word on this point, we must conclude that parents who raise their children faithfully in the nurture and admonition of the Lord will see their children persevere to the end. Many Christian parents are quick to conclude that their children’s rebellion is inexplicable, even though they sent their children to the state indoctrination facility to learn how to worship Caesar.”

Mark Chambers

Colt,

“Scripture gives absolutely no indication anywhere that faithful covenant parenting leads to anything other than faithful covenant children. And the words to Christian parents concerning their children are words of discipleship, not evangelism.”

Dr. Schenck of Indiana Wesleyan University,

“The problem with making anything like a direct connection between personal property and money given for taxes is that a society is bigger than the sum of its individuals. We pay taxes to empower the structure that maintains the terms of our social contract. This includes police, army, the justice system and it could potentially involve a health system that provided health to everyone.

“If we had such a health system, just because a person would not need it at one point would not mean that a person might not need it at some other point. Paying for such things now would be an investment for having it available at another time.

“In the same way, foreign aid and development is in the long term advantage of the individual American. The question is the amount, not the importance or public value. As long as a person lives within and benefits from a societal social contract, they have certain obligations to maintain the overall societal structure.”

Rev. McAtee

1.) Our “Social contract” as you put it, is embodied in the US Constitution. The problem w/ your reasoning is that the US Constitution nowhere authorizes many of the things you suggest are part of what it means to be parties to that social contract. Indeed, our social contract, as embodied in the Constitution absolutely forbids (9th & 10th amendments) many of the things, that as a Statist, you are in favor of. It is you, by the Statist positions you champion, who are seeking to re-write our ’social contract.’

Nobody disagrees on taxes where taxes are due. (Though we might certainly disagree on any number of the ways that taxes are raised and apportioned.) Very few people argue against monies raised to pay the police, military, and justice system. Would that those systems were all that were necessary for our taxes to support. No, the question is not one of paying taxes for what the “social contract” calls for. The questions is you and your types continual bastardizing of the social contract which in turn always calls for the government to go beyond the social contract. The question has to do with whether or not it is, Biblcially speaking, right for a government to egregiously violate the 8th commandment in order to violate the stated limits of the “social contract.”

(Please keep in mind here that I am using your language on this whole “social contract” characterization. I am more inclined to believe that our legal system was set up on a basis of covenant considerations.)

2.) Your referencing health care and foreign aid is characterized by assertions that support your presuppositions. There is no hard evidence that paying for health care now is a positive investment for the future. Indeed, all evidence, on that assertion, seems to point to the contrary as the health care systems of other socialized health care countries communicate the deplorable results that arise when socialized health care is pursued. So, unless you are talking about a negative future return on current investment I have to say that this is just the statist in you demonstrating the statist predilection for the wish to give birth to the reality.

It is so typical of socialists, communists, fascists, and other assorted fools, and statists to constantly insist that there system is a “positive investment” when in point of fact their systems have never ever worked wherever they have been attempted.

3.) You so glibly talk about the necessity to support the societal structures in which we live and yet you seems completely clueless on how the State is attacking all other societal structures in a mad rush to totalize and make ubiquitous its authority. You encourage people to support the societal structures, by which you mean the state in all that it demands, and yet you seemingly have no capacity to see that by supporting the current vulture state in all that it demands you are at the same time supporting the destruction of other necessary societal structures such as the family and the Church. You suggest that we should support the State’s socializing of health care in order to support the societal structures but you fail to see that by supporting the societal structure of the state in its attempt to swallow health care you are pulling down the societal structures of medical establishments and institutions that were independent corporate societal structures of their own.

It is you, who I would say, is destroying the societal structures of this country by seeking to amalgamate all of them under one umbrella. It is you are trying to define society, with its normative concomitant interdependent structures, with the “government.” It is you who are seeking to make “society” and “state” coterminous. However, this is no surprise for this is what statists do.

Dr. Ken Schenck – Dean of Indiana Wesleyan University Seminary

“Of course this is to say nothing of the Christian orientation around personal sacrifice in the interests of others–an ironically different orientation than much “Christian” rhetoric being sounded right now out there from misguided pulpit and pew” (and blog).

Rev. Bret McAtee

What a bunch of statist, “Christian” Marxist bovine fecal!

Here again is typical statist type speech. Clearly, for the statist, it is the case that if Christian people do not believe that State mechanisms or collectivist ideologies are the best way to look after the interests of others than they have given up on the Christian call and theme for personal sacrifice.

Christians speak against state mechanisms and collectivist ideologies precisely because they believe in a personal sacrifice that actually lifts and aids the people for which they are sacrificing. It is because of my interest in others that finds me so intensely disliking you and your ideas. My interests in others demands that I put a metaphorical lance through the death dealing ideas that you champion. Your well intentioned statism is going to hurt a great number of people and so as a Christian I personally sacrifice my time and resources in hopes that my words against you will dislodge a few people from the web of destruction that your ideas are going to visit upon people.

Where you will find the irony is in the words of a man complaining about the necessity of personal sacrifice in the interests of others who is himself doing so much to harm the interests of others.

Every Christian agrees on the necessity of the personal sacrifice for the interests of others. The question does not settles itself on that issue. The question settles itself on how best to look after the interests of others and how best to make personal sacrifice that will help others. You seem to think, like all statists, that good intentions are enough. I, on the other hand, having been a student of collectivist systems for nearly all my life, know that collectivist systems do not help people, but instead only bring them into bondage and slavery.

Dr. Ken Schenck – Dean of Indiana Wesleyan University Seminary

“I might reiterate here that a label like Marxism or Statist is really quite peripheral. Where does the label come from? The Bible? It comes from the ideas of a nineteenth century philosopher. It illustrates the fact that your categories are imposed on the Bible rather than drawn from it. As you have heard but hardenedly refuse to hear, there is much more community redistribution of resources in the NT than there is any rhetoric about making sure each individual have control of what they have.”

Rev. Bret McAtee

My labels are only peripheral to you because they function in the most unpleasant manners of pinning the tail on Donkey Schenck.

Secondly, the label Marxism may have not been developed until the 19th century but it is simply a system that was developed in order to overturn Biblical Christianity. If a system’s label does not come from the Bible, what matters using that label as long as it is clearly seen that the system in question is clearly anti-Biblical and so Anti-Christ. Shall we talk about the dialectical materialism of Marxism in order to prove its anti-Christianty Ken? Shall we speak of its materialism in order to prove its anti-Christianity Ken? Shall we speak of 20th century track record of killing tens of millions of people to prove its anti-Christianity Ken? Shall we speak of its inevitable outworking that reduces people to the equality of the damned (except the elites of course)? Your playing word games now Ken and are grasping for straws. You are a statist and a Marxist. You cover it up in pious sounding Christian platitudes but you are a statist and you are wiggling like a hare caught in a trap trying to escape.

Now, in terms of the community redistribution of wealth that we see in the NT that is all voluntary. Please give me one example where some government, or even Church, official insists, under the coercive power of law, that they must surrender their property and possession in order for it to be redistributed. You can’t. Instead, with smoke and mirrors you create this illusion that your statist position is Biblically supported when in point of fact you are advancing an anti-Christ position.

“Dr. Ken Schenck – Dean of Indiana Wesleyan University Seminary

In the end I am opposed to communism for practical reasons, not because I find any significant biblical argument against it.

Rev. McAtee

Practical reasons? By what standard do you measure your practical reasons?

Your not against communism. Your against the word “communism.” You are all for collectivist control. Now, perhaps, you are for less communism then other communists but to suggest that you are opposed to communism is just silly.

Finally, a Christian minister of the Gospel says he finds no significant biblical argument against communism? No Biblical argument against the materialism of Communism? No Biblical argument against the atheism of communism? No Biblical argument against the dialectal materialism of communism? No Biblical argument against the communism that created the Holdomar, Katyn forest, and the gulag archipelago? No Biblical argument against the communism of the great leap forward, the Khmer Rouge, and Castro’s dungeons? No Biblical argument against the random communist tortures and tyranny of Tito, Ceausescu, Kun?

You are a fool Ken – made all the more dangerous by being in a position where you can spread your foolishness like some modern day version of typhoid Mary.

ORfW – Ken Schenck

“If we take all the kings of Israel and Judah, far more were not kings after God’s own heart than were. And the period of the judges was far from an operational theocracy. In short, this distinction applies even to ancient Israel, which is usually used as the model for those groups that most wish to identify church and state.”

Bret

Here is where I would ask our reporter to give us the name of these Christian groups that want to identify Church and State. I know of nobody Biblical who insists that Church and State are to identified as one entity. They weren’t even identified as one entity in the Old Covenant (Remember the story of Uzziah) so why would anybody want to identify them as one entity in this current age?

Second, that Kings of Israel were often far from God’s heart does nothing to suggest that the heart of Kings should not be challenged when they are far from God.

Third, ORfW seems to think that somehow it is possible to avoid a operational Theocracy. All governments, are, by definition, Theocratic. Theocracy is an inescapable category. The question is never, “if there will be a theocracy or not,” the question always is, which theocracy shall we have.”

ORfW

“What we find in the story of Joseph and Pharaoh or Daniel and Nebuchanezzar or Nehemiah with Persia or Esther with Artaxerxes or Paul with Rome is that there is always a “dancing with the devil” dimension to any relationship between the people of God and government. God can and does use government to forward His will. God uses specific individuals at specific times and places to move governments in the right direction.”

Bret

This is a rather obvious statement. I would only add that God always uses government (just as He uses everything) to forward His concealed and predestined will. However, Christians are not responsible to God’s concealed will in the sense that they are to be fatalists. It is true that God may well predestine the death of tens of thousands of Huguenots on St. Bartholomew day, at the hands of and under the design of Roman Catholicism, but that does not mean that the Huguenots should not fight back in obedience to the 6th commandant. Similarly, God may predestine, according to His concealed will, wicked governments but that does not mean that Christians should not obey God’s revealed will in resisting those wicked governments. After all, we do not know what His concealed will is.

“But it’s often like playing with a snake. It can bite you. The relationship between people of God and worldly powers is ambiguous. It can be good. I can be bad. It is not a simple formula. It is not always Christ versus culture. It is not always Christ within culture. And this side of eternity it will never be finally transformed any more than our flesh is ever permanently removed from play. The relationship is dynamic.”

Bret

Here, we see again, this thinking that seems to suggest that all because a power is in this world that it automatically is “worldly.” A Christian civil government run by Christian men in submission to God would be no more “worldly” than a Christian Church government run by Christian men in submission to God would be “worldly.”

I will agree though that when we are dealing with a power that finds it origin in this present wicked age that how we interact with it is not a simple formula. However, in these cases the Christians long range goal will be to cut the snakes head off.

Also, on this quote we see that ORfW has a pessimistic eschatology. I do not agree that “this side of eternity culture will never be finally transformed,” if by that it is meant that the Kingdoms of this world will not become the Kingdoms of our Lord in space and time History.

ORfW

“I am not advocating a two kingdoms model because I am not suggesting that Christians can give up their Christian identity in their involvement with worldly powers. I am not advocating a Christ versus culture model where one withdraws from political engagement. I am advocating the attempt to intersect the kingdom of God with the kingdom of this world as much as possible to “bend” it.”

Bret

I should think a better model should be “Christ against pagan culture with the view of Christ transforming pagan culture through the triumph of the Gospel.” However, I am glad to agree that until such a time that Christ transforms culture we should do all that we can to bend it in a direction that is inconsistent w/ its self avowed hatred of all things Christian. So, I would agree with ORfW’s counsel on not withdrawing from political engagement. However, my disagreements on what Christian engagement should look like and in what direction we should be trying to bend things is so vast that even in this agreement we would be working in polar opposite directions in our attempt to bend and engage.

ORfW

“Although I would not make too much of the supposed Christian foundations of America, there is a great deal of commonality between fundamental Christian values and fundamental American principles. More than most other nations in history, we have the opportunity to “bend the power of the United States” in Christian directions. As was also pointed out at the conference, here we are the government, in a sense.”

Bret

1.) Our Reporter just doesn’t know his American History. Any objective look at American History gives overwhelming evidence of America’s distinct Christian influence in its founding. Ken really needs to give the “Christian Life & Character of the Civil Institutions of the U.S.", by Benjamin Morris a read. It is a massive treatise that piles evidence upon evidence that counteracts ORfW’s assertion.

2.) The reason there is a great deal of commonality between fundamental Christian values and fundamental American principles is because the American Institutions, as they were originally formed, were formed by Christian principles.

3.) However, I will say again, any attempt to work to see that the US Government is bent to give assistance to other countries by stealing from its citizenry is thoroughly anti-Christ. Both fundamental Christian values and fundamental American principles, as they were originally conceived, shriek in abject loathing at such a notion.

ORfW,

“But make no mistake, the US government operates on the basis of a social contract between everyone living here, which includes many non-Christians. No law or policy that is specifically Christian–and not generally beneficial–will stand the test of time. This is why the entire Christian lobby against gay marriage will eventually fail and probably is, in my suspicion, a waste of energy, an exercise in futility.”

Bret

1.) All law or policy that is specifically Christian, is by definition generally beneficial. There is nothing that a Christian advocates by way of policy that isn’t beneficial to everyone. Now, I gladly concede that not everybody admits that. Some, such a the homosexual lobby, would prefer to be given license to legally pursue their own death, but Christian policy on this matter would be vastly generally beneficial then policy advocated by homosexuals.

2.) I think also we should realize that the entire Christian lobby against Man boy love will eventually fail and probably is a waste of energy, an exercise in futility. Christians should just realize that eventually the weight of a increasingly pagan society is going to embrace Adult Child lovemaking and just accept it now w/o wasting energy and resources.

ORfW

“But it will also often be possible to argue for Christian goals within the language of the US Constitution. For example, it is in the best interest of the US government to alleviate poverty in those parts of the world that grow terrorists. The current problems around the world with terrorism stem more than anything else to the impoverishment of peoples. So Christians are motivated to eliminate poverty because we are following the mandates of Christ. But we can “bend the power of the United States” using an argument that achieves a similar end but using the language of national self-interest.”

Bret

1.) Ken (Our Reporter from Wheaton) has a Pelagian view of sin where sin is explained by environment and example rather than the reality of original sin. The alleviation of poverty will not stop terrorism any more than education of thieves will end stealing. The problem isn’t the environment. The problem is the human heart. What is needed to stop terrorism is Missions efforts and the spreading of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

2.) It is against Scripture and the US Constitution for the government to steal from the citizenry in order to give that money to Muslim countries in order to, theoretically, stop them from becoming terrorists.

3.) How does ORfW know that impoverishment causes terrorism? I’ve know a great number of people who grew up impoverished and they didn’t become terrorists. Likewise I’ve known a great number of rich people who grew up to become terrorists. (Anybody remember Patty Hearst?) This notion that poverty causes terrorism is typical liberal gobbledygook. What causes terrorism is not poverty but original sin.

4.) If Christians really wanted to follow the mandates of Christ to eliminate poverty around the world they would be energized to support Biblical Missions. The Rice Christians in China in the 19th century ought to itself alone, call into question this whole notion that if Christians just given resources to third world country inhabitants it will solve their poverty. What solves poverty is the Gospel, because the Gospel changes the way that people think and act. The Gospel changes pagan cultures where poverty is but the natural outcome of the worldview that those pagan cultures instantiate.

Christians should earnestly desire the end to poverty but poverty will not end as long as we keep seeking Marxist solutions wrapped up on Christian jargon.

ORfW

“In the end, my mind was drawn to the Parable of the Unjust Steward in Luke 16. This parable seems filled with all the ambiguity of the relationship between the people of God and worldly power. As in all of Luke, money is viewed as something outside the kingdom of God. It is morally dubious at best. This strange parable seems to say, Be very, very sharp when dealing with the world. You are handling a dangerous thing, like a snake. Be very shrewd. Be wise as a serpent, but harmless as a dove.”

When we are dealing with a genuine worldly power this is good advice.

Ken Schenck – Our Reporter from Wheaton (ORfW)

The first presentation of the conference was on the biblical basis for governmental assistance. The presentation focused on Psalm 72 and Romans 11. I imagine that I wasn’t the only one that found this line a little shaky. One professor from Denver Seminary used the word “tricky.”

If you read Psalm 72 and Romans 11 you immediately notice how Scripture must be twisted to use these passages to suggest that there is a Biblical basis for governmental assistance. Remember now, that when one suggests that there is a Biblical basis for governmental assistance one is insisting that the redistribution of wealth is Biblical. When one suggests that there is a Biblical basis for governmental assistance one is saying that the Bible teaches that the Marxist proverb, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” is God’s mind. We need to keep in mind that Government does not have any money that it does not steal from the citizenry and so when Government gives assistance to anybody (domestic or international) government is first stealing that money from the citizenry and thus violating God’s mind as expressed in the 8th commandment.

The very idea that Governments are wiser in charity then private individuals is the very hallmark of Statist Marxist thinking. This is why after reading a summary on the Wheaton conference I smelled Marxism. To suggest that Psalm 72 and Romans 11 can be used to teach that governmental assistance is Biblical is an abomination.

Remember the role of the civil realm is to bear the sword. The Magistrate is to provide the force that justice requires. It is the role of Church to minister grace and provide mercy ministries. When the State takes up mercy ministries it seeks to absorb the sovereignty that God has delegated to a different realm.

ORfW

“It’s always tricky in my mind to apply the civil dimensions of the Old Testament to today. Governments are usually a given rather than something we can apply the Bible to. What is different about the US is that it is a democracy. Within the limits of the Constitution, we can as a people “bend the power of the United States” in certain directions, as long as they we do not violate the establishment of religion clause.”

1.) These united States are not a Democracy. We are a Constitutional Republic. Our Reporter should (along with millions of other people) look up the difference.

2.) The second sentence in the paragraph above is odd. We can’t apply the Bible to governments because they are a given? What does that even mean? Family is a given also. Does that mean we can’t apply the Bible to family life? Culture is a given. Does this mean we can’t apply the bible to cultural life? That second sentence is a very strange sentence. I would say that as government was instituted by God that it definitely must have the Bible applied to it. The government is comprised of by people. Why should people serving in the government get a pass on God’s standards just because they comprise the government. The problem w/ the Wheaton conference is not that they are trying to apply the Bible to government. The problem is that they are Statists and the Bible does not condone Statism.

3.) I wish that more people believed that the Government would only act within the limits of the Constitution. If the government acted w/i the limits of the Constitution there would be no talk about “government assistance.”

4.) It is not possible to not violate the establishment of religion clause. Every time some law is made the establishment of religion clause is violated.

ORfW

“I’ve never found Romans 11 very helpful on these issues either. Statements in the Bible usually give a snapshot of the truth that is particularly relevant to a place and time. Romans 11 is nothing like an absolute philosophical statement on the timeless purpose of government. Governments punish wrongdoers. Yep.”

Alright … it is clear now that ORfW has problems w/ his reporting. It must be that the appeal was to Romans 13 and not Romans 11.

Clearly our Reporters analysis is as embarrassingly in error as is his facts. With the hermeneutic that is being presupposed by our reporter no truth is timeless but all truth is time and situation conditioned because the truth as found in the Bible was only particularly relevant to the place and time where it was recorded. This is pure relativism (Time conditioned = Linear relativism … Place conditioned = Cultural Relativism) and it causes us to ask why we should even bother referencing God’s word.

Romans 13 is a absolute philosophical (and more importantly Theological) statement on the timeless purpose of government. Governments punish wrongdoers and they do so by God’s standard of what is right and wrong. If Governments don’t punish wrongdoers according to God’s standards they lose their legitimacy before God and God’s people.

However Romans 13 gives no suggestion that it is Biblical for the State to steal from one set of people so that the money can be redistributed to another set of people. This has been tried and tried throughout history and it always ends in misery and death.

ORfW

“But they can do much, much, more and they often do less. In fact, this was the same government that put Paul to death, reflecting the simple fact that governments more often than not fail at one of their fundamental purposes. Indeed, we cannot be completely sure that there is not an element of rhetoric in Romans 11–that Paul is giving a more idealistic picture of Rome than he himself believed, suggesting what Rome should be like rather than how it is.”

There is considerable debate has to when exactly this was written. Most concede that it was during Nero’s reign. But what most don’t realize is that the first five years or so on Nero’s reign was actually not bad. It may be that Paul wrote Romans 13 during this time and if he did so, an implied appeal to the legitimacy of Nero would not have been out of order.

Still, the idealistic explanation is plausible itself. If this is true then Paul was teaching not only what the Christians response should be to Government but also what Governments responsibility was to God. If they are only a threat to wrongdoers then when they quit being a threat to wrongdoers then they lose their legitimacy.

ORfW

“Interestingly, the most helpful part of the conference for me on this score came in the last 20 minutes of the conference in a comment from Cheryl Sanders of Howard University. She mentioned the Joseph story of Genesis. When someone questioned this example, wondering if Pharaoh was really a model for government, her response was, to me, very insightful. It amounted to “Exactly.” In so many words, Pharaoh embodies all the ambiguities of the people of God engaging with worldly powers.”

First, off, we must be careful to discern when Scripture is simply being descriptive and when it is being prescriptive. To suggest that Pharaoh’s role of enslaving His people to the Egyptian government as a result of famine is prescriptive is mind boggling. Pharaoh was acting like all tyrants act. This is supposed to be prescriptive for governments?

I agree that there are ambiguities when it comes to discerning how the people of God should engage with wicked worldly powers but I do not agree that Pharaoh is supposed to be some kind of template for governing authorities.

ORfW

“So I propose the following model of Christian-state relationship. First and foremost, the people of God should never confuse themselves with worldly powers. Even when we are in government, even if Billy Graham were to become President of the United States, we must always distinguish the people of God, the Church, from the powers of this world.”

I agree with this. The State and the Church should always remain identifiably distinct. The State ministers justice by means of force. The Church ministers word & Sacrament and provides mercy ministries.

However, I would say also, that the model for Christian-state relationships is that Christians can only support the state in as much as it acts consistently w/ God’s revealed word. Where the state fails to do that the Christian must oppose the state. Where the state does act consistently w/ God’s revealed word the Christian is duty bound to support the State.

Finally, though, I would correct our reporter from Wheaton in one assumption. Our reporter seems to imply that even Godly government would be a “power of this world.” I do not agree with that. I believe that a Godly government would have to be considered a “power of the age to come operating in this world.” Not all powers operating in this world have to be considered ethically evil or opposed to God. It is theoretically possible for a government to act in such a godly way that it would be acting as a power of the heavenly world. If I am correct about what our reporter implies this is a significant difference between his theology and mine.

For the whole 20th century Communism advanced by complaining about the injustice of those in power, only to turn around and compound the ruling wickedness they complained of by 1000 fold. If the Czar’s killed their thousands, the Bolsheviks and Communists killed their tens of millions. If Chiang Kai-shek was ruthless it looked like gentle kisses in comparison to Mao’s Communism. Castro made Batista look like a day care provider. On and on the list goes. Wherever Communism has come to power it has made the roughness of the previous ruling authorities look like Nirvana.

This comparison includes Mandela and the ANC as compared to the Apartheid rulers. The West forced the end of white rule in South Africa and it feted and hailed Mandela when he visited the States. However the communist black rule of the ANC makes the “oppressive” white rule look absolutely benign.

This link is a excellent exposition of that idea and I recommend its viewing … especially in light of the recent Hollywood release of “INVICTUS” that continues to try and make Mandela look like some victimized God.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKO7MmJ60zY

————————————————

On a lighter note, the following link is absolutely hilarious. It is a song done by Don White (who has a Masterful singing voice) titled “I’m Arminian.” It is based on a poem written by Mark Chambers and set to the tune of, “If I Only Had A Brain.”

http://www.donsvoice.com/chambers/IAA.mp3

“We will keep our, as Secretary Salazar said, our boot on the throat of BP to ensure that they’re doing all that they – all that is necessary, while we do all that is humanly possible to deal with this incident. Absolutely…

Robert Gibbs
White House Spokesperson

http://dailyradar.com/beltwayblips/video/gibbs-boot-on-throat-of-bp/

I know that news cycles move fast and furious and that this is already old old “news,” but I couldn’t get over the fact that in some of my recent reading I came across almost that same exact vivid metaphor in a previous Democratic administration and that it was being used then also in reference to the state being in the abusive dominant position over free enterprise companies.

During the Roosevelt administration that National Recovery Act (NRA) was passed. This act required all like business to form cartels as organized by the State in order to set wages and prices. As you can imagine, this was great for the mega corporations as they could use such cartels to force out the competition from the small business owner who was more adept at quickly responding to the market in the setting of their prices. Small businessmen, during the NRA era, knew that the Blue Eagle (symbol for the NRA) would be the death of their businesses and so many refused to join the NRA and refused to have dictated to them what wages and prices they would pay and set. Several of these small businessmen went to jail for refusing to comply with the Roosevelt NRA demands.

One example of refusal to comply came in the tire industry. The NRA was great for corporate giants like Goodyear, and Firestone since they already had in place a massive distribution and service chain. Tire prices could be set and people from all across the country could go to the distribution and service centers and purchase tires knowing that their tires could be serviced almost anywhere in the country. However, such price setting killed local companies who could undersell the Corporate giants but who could not provide national service. Small tire companies sold to locals who would not be typically traveling nation wide and who were willing to pay less for a tire knowing that they wouldn’t have nationwide resources. Once price for tires was standardized locals no longer had incentive to purchase from regional tire companies. With the standardization brought by the NRA mega companies like Goodrich, Goodyear, and Firestone could tell consumers that since all tire prices were the same they would be better served to go with companies that provided service on the tires nationwide.

One effect of the standardized pricing of tires was to decrease the number of new tires sold. Once the niche companies, with their lower prices, were forced out of business consumers either had to purchase tires at artificially inflated prices or buy used tires or go without. Tire sales decreased.

“Sometimes a smaller tire seller would refuse to sign the NRA code, and refuse to sell tires at such high prices. F. H. Mills Jr., the President of Master Tire and Service, Inc., in Youngstown, Ohio, was one such businessman. When he did so, Frank Blodgett, and NRA adminstrator, came to Youngstown and visited Mr. Mills. ‘When I explained my conditions,’ Mills wrote, ‘and showed where it would be impossible to stay in business and comply w/ his request he demanded that he be given the right to go over my books and to run my business according to his ideas.’ Mills refused. ‘I have not signed the President’s agreement for a blue eagle (the NRA symbol) and never will or any other code agreement.’ The furious Mr. Blodgett then stated that he would put his heel upon the neck of our little company and twist it w/ all the force at his command.

From Burton Fulsom Jr.’s
New Deal or Raw Deal; How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America

It seems all that has changed between 1933 and 2010 is the size of the company neck that the state feels it is capable of placing its boot upon.

What I’m wondering is …. “Who is going to put their boot on the neck of a bully state who believes that it is its job to go around putting its boot on the neck of privately owned businesses?”

Wheaton college is a place that produces enemies of the Cross and of Biblical Christianity (Witness Michael Gerson). But then why should they be an exception to Evangelical Colleges that are anti-Christ?

Recently, Wheaton came out with a study exploring the, “Intersection of Government, Foreign Assistance, and God’s Mission in the World.” In a preliminary statement that still has to go through the revision stage they affirmed,

The extraordinary power of the United States and the daily impact of the United States on the world’s poor requires special vigilance on the part of American Christian citizens as to the effects of the US role and policies and assistance programs. Our goal should be to bend the power of the United States toward a maximally effective impact on the world’s poor”

And in a press release they offered a series of Affirmations,

1.) We affirm that active concern for the poor is a non-negotiable aspect of Christian discipleship.

2.) We affirm that Christians need to become more competent in addressing the full range of government policy as it relates to the poor in the United States and globally.

3.) We affirm that Christians should advocate for just, generous, and fair government foreign assistance and related policies.

Now the fact that these statements are just so much “social justice” window dressing to disguise a Marxist agenda is seen by the reality that one of their speakers was one Ron Sider whose position was totally decimated by David Chilton’s, “Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt-Manipulation: A Biblical Response to Ronald J. Sider,” in 1990.\

Now, on the surface there isn’t much to disagree with in these statements. However, if one scratches the surface of these statements one begins to smell the sulfur of Marxism. There is no absolute affirmation that wealth should be redistributed from the US to the world in order to pursue equity but the idea seems to lie just below the surface. For example, in that #3 above we find ourselves asking what standard they are using to define “just,” “generous,” and “fair.” I would be willing to bet the farm that the standard is a Marxist standard.

If we really wanted to “bend the power of the United States toward a maximally effective impact on the world’s poor” we would first realize that poverty often (not always) is a result of the death that always follows pagan religions. What impoverished countries need more than anything else (what this country needs more than anything else) is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Worldview that that Gospel creates. Countries that are institutionally and politically impoverished will never escape their impoverishment no matter how many resources we send their way, as long as they, as a culture, are haters of Christ. Concern for the poor demands that we cure their poverty with the totalistic impact of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Secondly, if we really wanted to “bend the power of the United States toward a maximally effective impact on the world’s poor” we would advocate destroying the IMF and Centralized Banking as it exists throughout the world. These Central Banks exist in order to impoverish nations by placing them in huge debt that can never be overcome. If Christians really desired to put a dent in global poverty they would end our own Federal Reserve and then demand that these united States pull out of every international banking cartel. Concern for the poor requires us to oppose the depredations of Global banking which always works to keep the poor, poor for the sake of the wealthy.

Thirdly, if we really wanted to “bend the power of the United States toward a maximally effective impact on the world’s poor” we would criminalize Marxism and social justice theories that are spun from Marxism. Marxism, insures poverty whenever it is pursued. People like Ron Sider and those who support Marxist inspired social justice theories should be deported or put in hospitals for the criminally insane. Concern for the poor requires us to marginalize those people who advocate policy that will create poverty.

“The psychiatric enterprise is so deeply rooted in social control and so strongly supported by pseudoscientific magic and prejudice that psychiatrists must either cling to and justify the coercive services they render or repudiate and abolish their profession as they and we know it.”

Dr. Thomas Szasz
Professor of psychiatry emeritus at SUNY

Psychology is the sham science. It really has advanced very little since it started with quacks feeling the bumps on people’s heads and from that diagnosing personality traits (phrenology). It was created as a means to provide explanation for behavior that completely excluded God from the equation. It is completely subjectivisitic and any standards it does have are completely arbitrary and so transitory.

It is literally the case that someone has to have their head examined to go have their head examined. Yet, despite the utter failure of psychology to do anything besides aid and assist in the tearing down of Christian standards our culture continues to invest psychology with authoritative status. Denominations use the quack “science” to determine who and who shouldn’t be ministers, church planters, and missionaries. (Thus assuring that only the dysfunctional need apply.) Government schools staff with psychologists and define themselves by the psuedoscientific magical “insights” of psychology.

People’s live and our whole culture is being destroyed by this god hating humanist discipline and yet Christians go right on saluting the psychology / psychiatry flag every time they pass by the flag-pole. If a shrink says to chock their kid full of Ritalin they ask if they can purchase it in bulk to get a better deal. If a organization of psychologists / psychiatrists says in 1973 that homosexuality should no longer be considered a psychological condition then, by Jupiter, we must agree that behavior that leads to the death of civilization is to be considered normal.

Szasz tells us plainly that it is all about social control and yet we never stop to ask, “by what standard is this maniac discipline defining normal so that social control can be achieved and maintained?” We have given the keys to the cupboard of what we consider “normal” to a bunch of deviant, self-loathing, Christ-hating degenerates who are involved in a discipline dedicated to the destruction of the West and controlled by cultural Marxists. It is a classic case of those who should be locked up in the funny farm dictating who should be locked up in the funny farm.

You will know Reformation and Awakening is percolating in the country when you see this discipline being attacked and discredited. Until then, talk of Reformation and awakening is just so much pentecostal gibberish.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/05/19/fred_thompson_blumenthal_is_a_lying_weasel.html

So the Attorney General of Connecticut who is running for the US Senate seat being vacated by Chris Dodd (another lying Weasel) was caught red handed lying like a trooper about having served in Vietnam. Blumenthal was caught on tape on more than one occasion saying or intimating that he served in Vietnam when in point of fact he received deferments and wouldn’t know the difference between the Viet Cong and a Donkey Kong.

My response?

Why is anybody surprised?

Politicians are a lying breed. Rare or unemployed is the politician who will not lie. Indeed, Blumenthal is a piker compared to some who have gone before.

In the 1920 Presidential Campaign FRD was on the Democratic ticket as Vice-President nominee. During his campaigning in Deer Lodge Montana Roosevelt speaking in support of the “League of Nations” issue, and seeking to do the same self-aggrandizement shtick as Blumenthal was caught doing said,

“Does anyone suppose that the votes of Cuba, Haiti, Santo Domingo, Panama, Nicaragua, and the other Central American states would be cast differently from the vote of the United States? We are in a very real sense the big brother of these little republics…. You know, I have had something to do w/ running a couple of these little Republics. The facts are that I wrote Haiti’s Constitution myself and, if I do say so, I think it is a pretty good Constitution.”

Roosevelt received such applause from the Deer Lodge, Montana folk on this stump speech that he also included his Constitution writing skills in his stump speech in both Butte and Helena Montana.

Of course Roosevelt was a shiftless worthless ne’er do well Mama’s rich boy. Roosevelt couldn’t successfully manage his own money or run his own life and he never ran a Central American Republic and he never came close to writing Haiti’s Constitution.

When confronted with his lie Roosevelt simply denied it and kept denying it throughout his life and this in spite of the fact that the Associated Press reported his lying gaffe and that 31 citizens of Butter signed a document swearing that they heard Roosevelt boast the he had written Haiti’s Constitution.

Politicians as a Breed are Lying Weasels

I met David Ehnis in Lansing approximately Eight years ago. He and his family attended the Church I pastor for several years and David served with me as an Elder on the Consistory. I have always considered David one of a handful that actually understands the large worldview picture of what the Christian faith is intended to be.

It is with great satisfaction that I recommend to you this post from my friend David Ehnis. (See link at bottom of post for David’s blogsite.)

Evangelism in the Old Testament

The great themes of the Scriptures start in Genesis and end in Revelation; where we get in trouble, as a Church, is to start imposing separations and systems that just aren’t there. One way that we do this is by placing a great divide between the Old and New Testaments. To not see great continuity between the Testaments one has to contort the scriptures to absurdity - thankfully most in Christendom aren’t consistent enough to accomplish that, even though their stated positions do. One such contortion is to read The Great Commission and Evangelism as a completely NEW, and thus unique, call to the Church. However, Evangelism is not new, it has been a part of the plan since the beginning.

Here are some examples:

* Israel being called to faith and repentance: Deut. 30:8; Josh. 24:15; Lev. 5:5; 16:29-31; Deut 10:16; Ezek. 18:30-31;
* Israel being called witness to their children: Deut. 6:7, 20-25;
* Israel being called to witness to their neighbors: Jer. 31:34;
* David’s call to witness to the nations: Ps. 18:49;
* David’s prayer that salvation would be known among all the nations: Ps. 67;
* David’s confidence that all nations would be converted: Ps. 22:27;
* The missionary work of the prophets: Isa. 2:2-4; 19:25; 40:5, 9; 42:6; 45:22; 49:6; 56:7; 66:19; Zech. 8:23; cf. Ps. 68:31; 85:92;

So, clearly, it is established that Evangelism was prescribed and practiced in the Old Testament; but what does that buy us? It gets us several things:

1. The consistent Character of God. Same God, same work, same destiny. This means, then that there has always been one plan of redemption, no changes, and no accidents.

2. More proof that God’s Word (and Law) applies to all people, in every time, everywhere. There is a modern error afoot that teaches that all has been abrogated until reinstated in the New Testament. This is a more “palatable” form of Dispensationalism and one that is counter-Scriptural.

3. It further lends proof to the idea that the New Testament is NOT a starting point, at least not in the same way it is held in the modern church. Now, granted most people would never admit this but practically speaking, especially when they ask the question “where do you see that in the New Testament", they are implicitly relying on this fallacy.

4. Understanding the above would also lend one to the understanding that God is at work and His work is large and grand - what He started in Israel is now EXPANDING to all the nations, and that’s exciting.

5. In tends to inoculate us against the error that makes “saving lost souls” the primary concern and over-individualizing all things Evangelical.

Personally, I find it incredibility reassuring that Kingdom growth has always been a part of the plan Israel the Church, and that I get to live in the “last days” on the other side of the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15 to witness His Kingdom expansion. What a great time to be alive!!

http://www.joyinchristendom.org/joy/2010/05/evangelism-in-the-old-testament.html

Luke 17:20-21

“And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”

‘The Kingdom of God is within you,’ some one once quoted to Fredrick Maurice. ‘Yes,’ he replied,’ and so is the Kingdom of England.’”

Christianity and the American Commonwealth
Charles B. Galloway

Typically when Luke 17:20-21 is taught what is emphasized is that the Kingdom of God is not a real corporeal Kingdom that exists but rather the Kingdom of God is Spiritual – and so invisible. This teaching comes from the idea that if the Kingdom of God is within one then it must be the case that Jesus is speaking of a non-corporeal Spiritual reality.

But what if the point of Luke 17 is not that the Kingdom is Spiritual, invisible and so doesn’t manifest itself corporeally, but rather what if the point is that the Kingdom of God doesn’t come from the outside in – i.e. “Lo here or, Lo there"? (Which is after all what the Pharisees were looking for.) What if the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation precisely because nobody observes the Kingdom of God coming from the outside in (like some attacking army) when the Kingdom is coming from the inside out as people live out the Kingdom that is within them?

The Kingdom of every potentate is always within the individual and the people who pledge allegiance to that Kingdom. Kingdoms couldn’t exist if that were not true. So when Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God is w/i you,” that doesn’t mean that God’s Spiritual Kingdom is non-corporeal or invisible. What Jesus seems to be getting at in Luke 17 is that the Kingdom of God doesn’t descend upon a people top down and outside in like the Mongol Kingdom descending upon poor hapless Asiatics.

It is precisely because the Kingdom of God is w/i God’s people that God’s Kingdom manifests itself corporeally. Just as it is true that it is precisely because the Kingdom of Satan is w/i the Devil’s people that the Devil’s Kingdom manifests itself corporeally. Those who belong either to God or to the Devil carry within them their respective anti-thesis Kingdoms and because that is so the respective peoples will incarnate those Kingdoms into the cultures they build.

Yes, the Kingdom of God is Spiritual. Yes the Kingdom of God is within. But precisely because it is within God’s people we should expect that Kingdom to manifest itself corporeally among God’s people in the cultures and institutions that they build.

Just as Western Missionaries took the Gospel to Africa in the 19th century, having their respective homeland Kingdoms within them, would often set up little “English” or “American” compounds in the heart of Africa – thus expressing that they had taken their English or American Kingdoms with them (and often confusing those City of Man Kingdoms w/ the Gospel Kingdom itself) – so Christians bearing within themselves the Kingdom of God will always set up Kingdom of God compounds wherever they live out their lives. The Kingdom of God, within God’s people, will always express itself corporeally in the lives they live. If that Kingdom of God does not express itself in the lives of God’s people, in everything they build and touch then the Kingdom of God does not reside within them.

By their fruits you shall know them. If the Kingdom of God is within us, then the fruit of that Kingdom presence within us will be the corporeal manifestation of that Kingdom in the every day lives of God’s people.

Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier – Triune God

As we invoke your presence and common blessings upon us this morning during this Commencement ceremony we are mindful that there are none who can contend with thee, nor any who can challenge thy regal majesty and awful splendor. With that in mind we are full of gratitude that thou art mindful of all your creatures and are even now fully considering all our ways.

At this celebratory milestone grant us your undeserved favor that we might learn to number our days so that we might live w/ our appearance before you as our final end. Do this that we might live for your glory, thus discovering true joy and robust mirth through all our days.

In keeping with your common providence bless our time now and extend to all gathered the joy that comes from the satisfaction that arises when hard work meets goals achieved.

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ we pray,

Amen

Merciful God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

We thank you once again, that through this Commencement ceremony, you have done us good by filling our hearts w/ gladness. We recognize your hand of providential kindness in all that has transpired during this time.

We thank you not only for these graduating students but also for Northwood University and the Northwood idea which instills into its students the expressly Christian beliefs that economic systems should not be forced into conformity with some centralized master plan; that people should have the freedom to fail, and that the practice of a healthy skepticism of large and powerful government is a positive truth.

We ask you now that you would dismiss us with your Blessings and that all would be mindful that it is in you that we live and move and have our being

In the unique authority of the name of Jesus Christ we ask these things,

AMEN.

Fact: As the census in the previous post revealed, given the opportunity, Negroes were 13 times more likely to own slaves than Whites were. Even if we reduce the percentage somewhat to account for free blacks purchasing their family and being required to continue to hold them as “slaves,” the numbers still de-mythologize the current cultural Marxist racial narrative that is crammed down our throats in this country.

Fact: The vast majority of slaves brought to the US came from the Caribbean, not directly from Africa, though clearly, they came to the Caribbean from Africa.

Fact: Slaves were almost never captured by Whites in Africa, and so we see that the whole ROOTS fantasia was a work of fiction. Slaves were usually the spoils of war of the incessant tribal conflicts in Africa, where, before they became an object of value, the ones the winning side didn’t need were usually killed out of hand, while the others had a short miserable life. After the international trade came into being, these slaves were brought down to the West African coast by their black owners, where they were traded to European, Jewish, and Mulatto (and years earlier Arab) interests for guns, spear points, cloth, rum, beads, etc. They were held in these factories until the trading ships arrived from Europe or Yankee New England with loads of these trade goods, and, after the exchange, they were packed for shipment to the Caribbean Islands. Once in the Caribbean, they were sold and cargoes of sugar cane molasses were taken on board, to be taken back to the home country to make rum. It was called the triangle; molasses, rum and slaves. Slaves coming here were later shipped from there. Over 90% of the slaves who reached the Americas’ mainland ended up in Latin America.

Fact: Slaves purchased in North America were delivered from the hell of working in the Sugar cane fields of Brazil and Cuba where life span expectancies were incredibly reduced as compared to those purchased by Southern Plantation owners. Also, the cruelty and bondage experienced by the slaves in those Sugar cane fields was barbaric. Though the Southern Plantation owners certainly did not intend to do those they purchased any favors the purchase of slaves by Southern Plantation owners certainly served to rescue those purchased slaves from a fate far worse than what they would have experienced in the Sugar Cane fields had they not been purchased by Southern Plantation owners.

Fact: Slaves had better working conditions, shorter hours, more benefits, and a notably longer average lifespan than the factory workers of the time – many of whom were woman and children who worked in Northern wage slave factories – and much better than the average Negro remaining in Africa, then and now. Slavery still exists in Africa, BTW, and is fairly widespread.

Fact: There seems to be no long lines to go back to Africa; instead, it looks like the Africans want to come here to this “racist” country.

Fact: No one is alive today who was involved in slavery in any way, shape or form, so why are people still whining about it?

Fact: there were more Irish slaves, or indentured servants imported in 1600-1700 than African slaves. Indeed, black slaves were so valued by Southern Plantation owners as property that this Irish would often be hired, at miserly wages, to do dangerous, life threatening work that the slave owners did not want their slaves to preform for fear of losing their property value in the case of death. White Irish, in this case were less valued than black slaves.

Fact: A large holder of Slaves were the native American Tribe the Navajo. The Navajo had been in the slave trade LONG before the Africans were brought to our shores.

“1860 census revealed that only 2-percent of white Americans owned slaves at
that time, but that 26-percent of free Negroes owned slaves!

I am utterly mystified that anyone would consider an objectively true fact such as the one above to be race-baiting, and yet that is what some have taken the posting of this statistic to be. I posted this nugget because, I, like many in this thread, am tired of the corporate guilt that Cultural Marxists (i.e. – Liberals) seek to cast upon white people. White people are no more, or no less guilty of race based slavery and/or abuse than any other ethnic group … including Blacks.

Ironically enough, This pseudo corporate guilt is being used, in such a way to enslave white people to the desires of cultural Marxist minorities who are serving the interests of cultural Marxist elites (many of whom are white).

Did Africans have it rough? Absolutely! From their being seized by their fellow Black Africans to their being sold to the middle man entrepreneur Black Africans, to being sold to either Arab, or European Yankee ship owners to being sold to Plantation owners up and down the Western Hemisphere coast Black Africans went through the sorrows of sin visited upon them.

HOWEVER, such hardship upon a people is nothing new. This is not a callous observation. The British visited terrible hardships upon the Irish (potato famine anyone?), the Black African has visited terrible hardship upon the White Rhodesian and is doing so now with the White Boer, the Scots were sorely abused at the hands of the English, the Picts were wiped out by the Celts, the indigenous tribes of Central America were nearly wiped out by Montezuma’s people, (and those oppressed people praised God when Cortez arrived upon the scene), The Japanese treated Chinese and Koreans horrendously during WWII, the Russian Communists slaughtered millions of Ukrainians, The Turks wiped out large portions of the Armenian people, and the American Indians were sorely treated by Americans after those Indian tribes wreaked mayhem and destruction upon one another for centuries in tribal internecine warfare.

This is the effect of sin. The only cure for such sin is the Gospel of Jesus Christ which holds out the promise of saving people from every tribe, tongue and nation so that whole people groups, in their people groups can together join in the praise of the lamb.

The idea that the politics of guilt and pity should be the basis of policy of any one people group over another is ridiculous and is just another different tool for enslavement. Christ has taken away my sin. I will not be loaded w/ false guilt in order to be maneuvered into a position where I concede the future to minority led Cultural Marxists.

Groen van Prinsterer’s “Lectures on Unbelief” can be hard to find. The link below provides these lectures. I would highly recommend the reading of these if you want a beginning idea on the notion of “Christian social order” theory.

http://www.allofliferedeemed.co.uk/groenvanprinsterer.htm

The link below may be the best one piece essay on the God given roles of men and women. I disagree only with Fenimore-Cooper’s suggestion that men are, by nature, more intelligent than women, but Fenimore-Cooper’s thesis does not depend on that idea. (And the fact that it is not true is seen by the elegant essay itself.) Beyond that, Susan Fenimore Cooper (daughter of James Fenimore Cooper) gives a priceless insight on the way that normal people used to think about sex role differences.

http://external.oneonta.edu/cooper/susan/suffrage.html

The next one gives a wonderful brief history of how government involvement in medicine and health issues over the last 100 years has royally scrooged up the system we currently have. It relates how homeopathic and naturopathic options were driven out of business by the partnership of Big medicine/pharmaceutical and Big government. It gives a brief overview of the rise of health care as a employee benefit and it tops the whole article off w/ an examination of how Obamacare shared many similarities w/ “conservative” plans for health care over-haul. It is eye opener that teaches that the reason we get into binds is because mega-government and mega-corporate have been holding hands for quite some time skewing a free market.

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=786

Finally, for this post, I insist that Christians who want to think about the fullness of their salvation read the following article by Abraham Kuyper. This link advances a position that is Biblical, logical, and provides some answers that much typical Reformed soteriology misses.

http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenthal/reformationink/akjust2.htm

O Sovereign and Benevolent God of the Lord Jesus Christ we implore your blessings upon the time we have gathered here to participate in this commencement ceremony. We ask that the graduates and all of us here gathered might be mindful of your word that teaches that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

We thank you for this University which has as its core values the uniquely Western ideals of an entrepreneurial, free-enterprise society characterized by individual freedom and individual responsibility; all of which are built upon a foundation of ethics and integrity. We pray that the graduates will, for the rest of their lives realize, that these core values can only come to full flower when embraced in light of the one true faith.

In keeping with your common providence bless our time now and extend to all gathered the joy that comes from the satisfaction that arises when hard work meets goals achieved.

In the name of the blessed Redeemer…

Amen

“Christianity can be proved to be the safest and highest ally of man’s nature, physical, moral, and intellectual, that the world has yet known. It protects his physical nature at every point by plain, stringent rules of general temperance and moderation. To his moral nature it gives the pervading strength of healthful purity. To his intellectual nature, while on one hand it enjoins full development and vigorous action, holding out to the spirit the highest conceivable aspirations, on the other it teaches the invaluable lessons of a wise humility. This grand and holy religion, whose whole action is healthful, whose restraints are all blessings–this gracious religion, whose chief precepts are the love of God and the love of man–this same Christianity confirms the subordinate position of woman, by allotting to man the headship in plain language and by positive precept. No system of philosophy has ever yet worked out in behalf of woman the practical results for good which Christianity has conferred on her. Christianity has raised woman from slavery and made her the thoughtful companion of man; finds her the mere toy, or the victim of his passions, and it places her by his side, his truest friend, his most faithful counselor, his helpmeet in every worthy and honorable task. It protects her far more effectually than any other system. It cultivates, strengthens, elevates, purifies all her highest endowments, and holds out to her aspirations the most sublime for that future state of existence, where precious rewards are promised to every faithful discharge of duty, even the most humble. But, while conferring on her these priceless blessings, it also enjoins the submission of the wife to the husband, and allots a subordinate position to the whole sex while here on earth. No woman calling herself a Christian, acknowledging her duties as such, can, therefore, consistently deny the obligation of a limited subordination laid upon her by her Lord and His Church.”

Susan Fenimore Cooper (1813-1894)
American Author

Text – Isaiah 49:15-16

15 “ Can a woman forget her nursing child,
And not have compassion on the son of her womb?
Surely they may forget,
Yet I will not forget you.
16 See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Your walls are continually before Me.”

Isaiah 66:13

13 As one whom his mother comforts,
So I will comfort you;
And you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

First, we want to establish immediately that in these kinds of metaphors it is the case that God is the archetype (original – voice) and man is the ectype (copy – echo) but God speaks to us in Scripture as if man were the original and God were the copy. This is so because God appeals to that which with we are familiar. God can be compared to a Mother’s compassion only because God’s compassionate nature is prior to a Mothers and because a Mother’s compassionate nature is that which is like God’s compassionate nature.

It is interesting that when God desires to communicate His compassion for and His mindfulness of His people God chooses to use a Mother’s relation to her children as the metaphor. Similarly, when God desires to communicate His intent to comfort His people it is the metaphor of a mother’s comfort that is appealed to, in order to make the point.

This teaches us that

1.) That there are distinct roles that men and women fill

It is not the Father that is appealed to as being the metaphor for God’s compassion and mindfulness and comfort giving capacity but the mother. This is not to suggest that Father’s can’t be, or aren’t compassionate or able to give comfort but it is to say that in this matter Woman are superior to men.

Let that last sentence run through your mind.

In the matter of the capacity to extend compassion, and provide comfort men are inferior to women.

With this appeal to the mother as a metaphor for God’s compassion, and comfort, we see the textual reason why it is avowed that women have a natural, God-given instinct for compassion.

What is seen here in the text is testified to time and time again throughout history. For example, the reality of what the text is teaching has been lived out in the nursing profession which was exclusively female in its origins and why it remains, to this day, preponderantly staffed by the compassionate sex.

It has likewise been seen and testified in family life throughout history but we have come to such a pass that to note the superiority of a woman’s ability to be compassionate and comforting over a man has, in some quarters, come to be seen as sexist or denigrating to women.

We see this tendency commonly in our family lives. Y’all probably each have your own stories.

Illustration – Dog hurting child – Father’s reaction // Mother’s reaction

Even children instinctively realize what Scripture teaches here. When a child is hurt, the child instinctively desires their mother. The child knows that the mother is the well of compassion, comfort and tenderness.

Now, this is not to say that some women aren’t more compassionate than other women or that this compassion can’t be largely trained out of women or that on occasion you will find a individual man who is more compassionate than some individual woman, but it is to say, that on the whole, the natural state of women, and especially of Mothers, is to be compassionate, tender, and mindful of their children in a superior fashion to their male counterpart in the home.

Clearly, in this appeal to Mother’s as a metaphor for God’s compassion one thing that is communicated is that women are different than men. This is a simple truth, that a Dutch Theologian Abraham Kuyper noted our culture seeks to eliminate.

“Modernism which denies and abolishes every difference, cannot rest until it has made woman man and man woman, and, putting every distinction on a common level, kills life by placing it under the ban of uniformity.” (A. Kuyper – Lectures On Calvinism p. 27)

Again, that men and women are different is a simple truth, but a truth that bears repeating in a egalitarian culture that is constantly trying to train that simple notion out of us.

2.) That since men and women together comprise the Image of God, we find in our Father God characteristics of both men and women.

This is not to say that God is androgynous. He most certainly is not. Scripture everywhere represents God as masculine (Father). However this masculine God has within Himself the traits that both men and women, as created beings of God, are reflectors of.

On this point of God having female attributes, Matthew Henry, Puritan commentator from the 17th century could write that God comforts us and he does so “not only with the rational arguments which a prudent father uses, but with the tender affections and compassions of a loving mother.”

Now, Henry isn’t saying there that Mother’s don’t likewise use rational arguments or that Father’s don’t have tender affections and compassions. Rather he is merely bringing to the fore the God created tendency of Fathers and Mothers.

Elsewhere, consistent w/ these passages in Isaiah, Scripture can say of God

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our tribulation,

God emphasizes his compassionate, comfort giving character in these passages. He is the God of all comfort and we can turn to Him for comfort much the same way that a child will turn to their mother when there is a need for comfort.

God is not only the male warrior God who is the Liege Lord of men going to battle but He also has within Him the compassion and comfort of a mother who makes all the hurt go away.

3.) Comfort is a suitable metaphor for God’s Saving actions towards us.

It is suitable because in God providing comfort we see the proclamation of Grace clearly pictured.

In the matter of comfort the one who is giving the comfort is the one who is completely active, and the one who is receiving the comfort is completely passive.

If we envision a child going to their mother w/ a hurt we can see in our mind’s eyes that it is the mother, who, in giving comfort, is doing all the doing.

Just so, as it pertains to the comfort we have found in God’s grace to us in Christ, God is doing all the doing and we are doing all the receiving. God is doing all the comforting and we are doing all the “being comforted.” We are not contributing in the slightest to our being comforted.

When it comes to our redemption God does all the doing and we are only recipients of His compassion and comfort.

Bottom line is that ALL amillenniallists and premillennialists share and so have the expectation that Christ’s Church and Kingdom will be be in utter shambles and on the verge of defeat by Satan’s Kingdom until Christ, like the Calvary in some “B” grade Western, comes riding in to save the day.

It is true that Christ currently reigns and it is because of that current definitive reign we see the Scriptures teach that the current definitive reign will become progressively realized until that Reign is Consummatively established. No, Christian who has a Biblical eschatology (i.e. – postmillennialism) denies that Christ currently reigns. What we deny is the pessimillennial teaching that the reigning Christ goes from defeat unto defeat in space and time. We affirm the idea that when Christ returns he returns to a WHEAT field that has some tares in it. We affirm that the leaven of the Kingdom works its way through the whole loaf. We affirm that the stone cut out of the Mountain destroys all other Kingdoms that pretentiously stand against the Knowledge of God. We affirm that the Kings must kiss the Son in space and time lest the Son be angry and those reprobate Kings perish in the way. We affirm that the Kingdom that started as a mustard seed becomes so large that all the Kingdoms of the earth take refuge in it. We affirm that the nations flow into the Church thus repairing David’s broken tent. In short we utterly and thoroughly deny, the premise of the defeatists, retreatists, pietists, quietiests, gnostics, dispensationalists and pessimillnnialists that the currently Reigning Christ is defeated in space and time so that he returns to an earth that is being run by King Satan.

Like the saints of Hebrews 11 we believe that this God who is not ashamed to be called our God, by grace gives us a faith that leads us, by and through faith, to conquer kingdoms, and enforce justice (Heb. 11:33). We believe that God’s grace is so expansive and so rich and so glorious that He will make the knowledge of His glory cover the Earth as the waters cover the sea so that every person will say to their neighbor, “come, and know the Lord.” We believe that the denizens of the new Jerusalem that is established upon our Lord Christ’s return to His public coronation service (which will stand in contrast to his public humiliation) will be so grand that the redeemed inhabitants of the new Jerusalem will only be counted by saying that there were thousands upon thousands, ten thousand times ten thousand … a number that no man can count. The census workers will return reporting that the inhabitants of the new Jerusalem are as the Stars of the Sky and the sand of the Sea-shore and among those stars and among that sand will be peoples from every tribe, tongue and nation – and this will be so because the Church, at the unction of the Spirit and in obedience to the King made disciples of all the nations.

The Postmillennialist walks by Faith that all these things will be so even though he is surrounded by nay-sayers who constantly berate him for believing in the liberating and exalting power of the Gospel. A liberating and exalting power that is able to liberate sinners from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son and then elevate them so that they live and move and have their being in relation to the Risen Christ. This liberating and Exalting power of the Gospel is so great in the lives of God’s people that the refreshing and enervating presence of it in the lives of God’s Kingdom people causes the wicked, who are living in cultures of death, to envy and to desire to have what the Kingdom people have been freely given by the Reigning King Jesus.

Just as political multiculturalism cannot accept absolute religious liberty or absolute religious pluralism (it always excludes those religions that have a standard that measures and excludes political multiculturalism) so political Theonomy cannot accept a absolute religious liberty or absolute religious pluralism. In any culture it is always only a question of which religious expression will be excluded. Every culture excludes faiths and cultures derived from those faiths which cannot abide with their version of cultures pluralism.

When the call for religious, cultural, and behavioral tolerance arises in a culture it is often a smoke screen attempting to mask the rise of different religions, cultures and behaviors that the current predominant culture does not tolerate for a reason. If those calling for what they style as increased tolerance are successful in gaining more tolerance they will eventually, once these promoters of tolerance have gained power, themselves refuse to tolerate the religion, culture and behavior of those that they demanded the right of tolerance to begin with.

Any culture that extends tolerance, as defined by their enemies, to those who are ideologically and theologically opposed to their religion, culture, and commonly accepted patterns of behavior, is a culture that no longer understands its meaning or who it is, and so is a culture destined for defeat by those who are forever whining about tolerance.

This is what has happened in the West. The West lost its cultural self understanding and as such did not teach why it was good, healthy, and vibrant to be Western to its children. No longer having a grip on why Western civilization was superior, the children who were not taught the superiority of Western religion, culture and behavior, were swallowed alive by those who were epistemologically self-conscious regarding their hatred of the West and its civilization. As such the demand for several generations now has been for more tolerance as those who are seeking to destroy the West are using the West’s historic sense of equity to seek and overthrow Western civilization.

Major media outlets and news shows are going hari kari about Arizona’s new immigration law. Once again, as we heard with the Tea-party rallies so we are hearing again now how racist Americans are.

Now understand that Arizona passed this legislation because they have serious problems. The Crime along the border and up to 100 miles inland has skyrocketed. Drug trafficking has leaped exponentially. The pressure on the social safety net (hospitals and schools) is ripping the social safety net in half. If Arizona wanted to continue as a cohesively functioning state with a modicum amount of social stability something had to be done.

Now obviously the charge has arisen that Latinos are going to experience “profiling.” And it is no doubt true that to a certain degree they will. But profiling, whether we like it or not as its place. For example, if a rash of middle-aged white Bald guys start blowing up airplanes, strapping suicide bombs to themselves to blow up market places, and writing “how to” books on how to destroy the West or if suddenly millions of middle-aged bald white guys from Canada become illegal immigrants, it would make perfect sense to start profiling middle aged white bald guys. Further to make it personal, I want everyone one to know that I will not be offended if authorities begin to profile middle aged white Bald guys like me.

Unlike LaRaza, our President and the members of the Pravda media in their little girl shrill reactions concerning racist Americans, if the day ever comes when middle aged white bald guys are drowning the country in illegal immigration with the problems that illegal Latino immigration are bringing I will understand if people’s first reaction to me as a middle aged white bald guy is one of guarded caution. I will understand if responsible parents tell their children to avoid middle aged bald white men. Further, I will not consider you a “BALDIST” if you avoid me.

It simply is the case that profiling is absolutely necessary as a tool to restore social stability. It may be unfortunate but the anger really ought to pointed not at white America who only desires social stability, but it should be pointed at the government that allowed us to get to the place where we have 12-20 million illegal immigrants in our country. If we are in the position where we have to profile it is only because the government failed to do (provide for the general welfare and protect the common defense) what it is supposed to be doing.

Scholars and authors will often speak of our increasingly “secular” culture, but this is a confusing speech habit that does not tell the whole story. Noting the secularization of our culture is only half of the repentance equation that is being played out.

Repentance is a matter of turning from course while turning to another course. When we read of secular culture or how the West is being secularized or of our ongoing secularization what is being noted is only the negative movement of Repentance where something is being turned from. That which is being turned away from, when scholars write of secularization, is the Christianity that has so influenced America since its founding.

There is however a positive movement in this secularization process. The repentance we are experiencing in secularization is not only a turning away from Christianity but also a turning to and a movement towards pagan belief systems (various expressions of humanism). Not only are we becoming more secular we are also becoming more anti-Christ.

To speak of our secularization without also speaking of our secularization thus is significantly misleading if only because it suggests that Christianity is being moved away from to a realm that is not identified by some kind of faith expression. Whenever you read of the “secularization” of the West you should insert the word “paganism” along with it. It is not just that the West is becoming more secular but it is also that the West is becoming more secular because it is becoming more pagan. In turning from its Christian roots it is turning to and planting roots in a pagan faith system.

Argument #1

We need to combine the two simple truths that the atonement was completed “once for all” on the cross (Heb 2:10), with the truth that the faith was “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). With the finality of the Redemption provided by Christ we have at the same time the finality of the revelation that chronicled God’s Redemption story. All of this is ignored by those who conceive a “word from the Lord” while hyperventilating from alternating episodes of various seizures and vigorous calisthenics. The modern Church attender today is a closet Pentecostal of one stripe or another. These folks commit this error of continuing revelation by not receiving God’s verbal revelation as a once for all deposit in historic installments. Instead, the modern universal spirit of Montanism that all Pentecostalism channels imagines God’s revelation as akin to a cosmic radio program they can tune in continuously for late-breaking developments and for God’s punditry on how to interpret their latest personal crisis and reality in general.”

Argument #2

The Spirit says through Isaiah, “For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people” (Isa 28:11). To what people, according to Isaiah, will the Lord speak with stammering lips and another tongue? According to v. 14, it is to “ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.” The scornful men are the Jewish leadership of Jerusalem that were responsible for crucifixion of Christ. It is to Christ haters that the Lord will speak w/ stammering lips and another tongue as a testimony against their hatred.

Therefore, the gift of tongues was to be a sign against the Jews, as Paul also confirms:

“In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord. Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not.” (1 Cor 14:21-22a)

That sign of speaking in tongues was repeatedly given until the Son of Man came in judgment on the Jewish establishment, which judgment culminated in the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. Hence, “where there be tongues, they shall cease” (1 Cor 13:8b); and they will cease “when that which is perfect is come” (v. 10). They will cease when Daniel 9:24-27 is fulfilled, which, again, was in 70 AD by any sane interpretation.

So when Christ came in judgment upon Jerusalem in AD 70 the ongoing revelation of judgment that came in the way of tongues ceased. There is no longer any ongoing continuous special revelation from God.

Finally, when we allow ongoing revelation and embrace ongoing revelation the end result is to lower the value of God’s revelation of Scriptures to the same level of people’s experience of receiving and delivering God’s updated and most recent word. What happens when we embrace ongoing revelation is that we diminish our esteem for God’s Word. The more revelations we have the less value we have for the Scriptures as being God’s only revelation.

I will be the first to admit that John Calvin’s position on the abiding validity of the judicial laws of God is nuanced and even sometimes complicated. I offer these quotes in order to reveal that Calvin said things (many things actually) that indicate that he can not be seriously claimed as R2Kt by those adherents. Were one to read Calvin’s Sermons on Deuteronomy they would read many of the same kind of material.

“They will reply, possibly, that the civil government of the people of Israel was a figure of the Spiritual Kingdom of Jesus Christ and lasted only until his coming. I will admit to them that, in part, it was a figure, but I deny that it was nothing more than this, and not w/o reason. For in itself it was a political government, which is a requirement among all people. That such is the case, it is written of the Levitical priesthood that it had come to an end and be abolished at the coming of our Lord Jesus (Heb. 7:12ff.) Where is it written that the same is true of the external order? It is true that the scepter and government were to come from the tribe of Judah and the house of David, but that the government was to cease is manifestly contrary to Scripture.”

John Calvin
Treatise against the Anabaptists and against the Libertines

“But it is questioned whether the law pertains to the kingdom of Christ, which is spiritual and distinct from all earthly dominion; and there are some men, not otherwise ill-disposed, to whom it appears that our condition under the Gospel is different from that of the ancient people under the law; not only because the Kingdom of Christ is not of this world, but because Christ was unwilling that the beginning of His Kingdom should be aided by the sword. But, when human judges consecrate their work to the promotion of Christ’s Kingdom, I deny that on that account it nature is changed. For, although, it was Christ’s will that His Gospel should be proclaimed by His disciples in opposition to the power of the whole world, and He exposed them armed w/ the Word alone like sheep among wolves, He did not impose on Himself an eternal law that He should never bring Kings under his subjection, nor tame their violence, nor change them from being cruel persecutors into the patrons and guardians of His Church.”

John Calvin
Commentaries on the Last four Books of Moses.

These quotations demonstrate that thenomists are correct in looking to Calvin for historical Reformed precedent for their commitment to God’s judicials.

Golineri Conference 2010.5 presents,

Hard Questions For Reformed Christians Living in The West in the 21st Century

Thursday

3:10 – 4:10 P.M. Session 1: How Is Biblical Christianity Inconsistent w/ Marxism?

Many Christians argue that Marxism and Christianity are perfectly compatible. Even Reformed Seminaries have professors on their staffs who toy with Marxist economic interpretations of history. How is uneven riches just they ask? Why shouldn’t the Government be the great equalizer they suggest. In this lecture Dr. Pavel Crucioveyavich, drawing on the works of Dr. Herman Bavinck, Groen Van Prinester, and Dr. Greg Singer, among others, will set forth the Biblical reason why
Christians must attack “Christian Marxism,” in all its many guises as idolatry.

5:10 – 6 P.M. Session 2: What Has Been The Biblical View On Resistance To a Tyrant State?

For centuries Christianity has taught that resistance to Tyrants is the obligation of God’s people. Anabaptists, and Pacifists historically have just dismissed the non Christian community realm as “of the devil” while assorted R2Kt types claim that the Church shouldn’t speak to this subject since God’s word doesn’t speak to it. How should Christians respond? In this lecture Church Historian Dr. B. Lee Davidson, drawing on the long and developed doctrine of Christian Resistance to Tyrants and Tyranny, which includes the Dutch Act of Abjuration, Vindicae Contra Tyrannos, The English Roundhead rebellion, the English Glorious Revolution and the works of Groen Van Prinister, explains how it is that Christians came to conclude that “resistance to Tyrants is Obedience to Jesus.

8 – 9 P.M. Session 3: How Does the Munus Triplex offices of Jesus Christ Compliment, Imply & Demand One Another?

The Church in the America has seemingly divided the offices of Christ and played them against one another so that increasingly Christians are left in at least two different camps, to wit; Jesus is the Great High Priest Camp, and Jesus is the Great High King camp. In this Lecture Dr. Carl Grandison will reveal how it is that Jesus’ office of Great High Priest demands His office of Great High King and how His office of Great High King demands His office of Great High Priest. Dr. Grandison is seeks to keep together what many notable Reformed theologians are seeking to cast asunder.

Friday

8:30 – 9:30 A.M. Session 4: Does Romans 13 Teach Unqualified Obedience?

Leading exegete Dr. Samuel R. Utherford will give a exegetical, biblical theological, and historical tour of Romans 13 with the intent of opening the eyes of Christians that Romans 13 does not mean what it is commonly pushed as meaning. Drawing on sources like Christopher Goodman, Jonathon Mayhew, James Willson, John Knox, Andrew Melville, Principle Hoadley and others Utherford will open venues of understanding for those who attend our 2010.5 conference.


9:30 – 10:30 A.M. Session 5: Is Cultural Pluralism Consistent w/ The Christian Faith?

Should Christians insist that a nation’s culture be equally represented by people of all different faiths? Should the State be seen as that entity that umpires between the different faith claims of different religions that impact a culture? Does making the State the Umpire between competing faith claims that impact culture make the State the God over the gods? Come and hear Dr. Jean Lavellette teach on how all cultures are faith based and how, since that is so, Christians should advocate a culture that is uniquely Christian.

11:40 – 12:30 P.M. Session 6: What Are The Implications of the Christian Teaching of the Anti-thesis when living in a multicultural setting?

Should Christians support expressly Christ hating pagan businesses w/ their dollars knowing that by supporting with their patronage these business they are financing the war against Christianity? Should Christians directly challenge their Christian friends who embrace a pluralistic Jesus? Should Christians send their children to Universities where they know that the University will attack Biblical Christianity? Dr. Godfrey Boullion will speak to the question of the antithesis when living in a Church and culture that is increasingly hostile to Biblical Christianity.

2:30 – 3:25 P.M. Session 7: – Is Government Education A Legitimate Choice For Christians?

Dr. Leigh “Sonny” Sage will look at the history of Government Education in America mapping out how it has been devoted to Christ hating from its inception. Dr. Sage will present the presuppositional bias that forces Biblical Christians to withdraw from the Schools. Dr. Sage will also probe the questions as to whether or not Christians should be working at Government schools. Leigh will look at what the government education is doing to our Churches and to the ability of God’s people to think critically.

4:15 – 5:15 P.M. Session 8: Can there be fellowship w/ Christian faith communities that deny the Lordship of Jesus Christ?

If the largest idol of the age is the State how do we handle other Christians and Christian faith communities who refuse to challenge the idol of the age? How do we interact w/ those who defend and support the pagan State and who do not or can not see that the Pagan State is seeking to become God walking on the earth? Should we fellowship w/ epistemologically self-conscious Radical Two Kingdom adherents? Should we not even bid God-speed to epistemologically self-conscious Marxist Christians? Should we allow epistemologically self-conscious Dispensationalists to enter our houses (II John 10). Dr. Christian Preeminence will handle these difficult questions.

7:15 – 8:30 P.M. Session 9: Questions and Answers W/ Our Speakers

SATURDAY

8:30 – 9:40 A.M. Session 10:

If Christianity is to be all about forgiveness, salvation and life, then are we really advancing Christianity when we pointedly speak against the Idol State?

In this session Dr. Contra I. Dolatry will open up the Scriptures to reveal how it is that the Gospel brings not only relief to those who will repent but also condemnation for those who continue to set themselves up in opposition to God. Dr. Contra I. Dolatry will also explore the History of Calvinism to show that throughout the history of the Reformed Church it is Calvinists of all people that Tyrants have most desired to run out of their Kingdoms. Dr. Dolatry will also reveal how speaking pointedly to the Idol State is love for those who are being oppressed by the Idol State.

9:40 – 10:30 A.M. Session 11: How Does Money Relate to Sovereignty?

If Christians believe that Christ is King then what are the implications upon money in regard to Christ’s Kingship? Is Fiat Money a denial of the Kinship of Christ? Do Fractional Reserve Banking and Central Banks attack the Kingship of Jesus? How should Christians view money? What does the Scripture say about debt? Join us as Dr. Maurice Greene tackles these issues.

11:15 – 12:05 P.M. Session 12: Is there such a thing as a Christian Social Order?

Dr. Gary Northrup will look at what a Christian Social order might look like. Dr. Northrup will explore what the Scriptures have to say on this subject. Gary will tease out how all faith systems yield a social order that corresponds to their faith. Dr. Northrup will identify and then undress the social order that is supported by many deviant expressions of Christianity.

12:05 – 1 P.M. Session 13: What are the implications of the One and the Many when it comes to the post-millennial Kingdom?

Does the teaching of Postmillennialism imply that the whole world will be covered by a mono Christian culture or does the Doctrine of the One and the Many suggest that a Postmillennial Kingdom will be characterized by a World culture that is united without being uniform? Dr. William Bocephus will bring this lecture which will seek to communicate that since God is One and Many therefore the Postmillennial Kingdom cultures will have about them unity and diversity.

“There is great danger to hear, read, and converse, in an unfeeling and unsuitable manner on the theme of human inability. There is a danger of mistaking or drawing inferences from this doctrine, respecting man’s weakness of holy things.

We ought to be on our guard, lest we think that man’s inability make him excusable in his sin, or in neglecting his duties and the great salvation. By his inability he does not become unaccountable to God. The Lord’s authority to demand obedience from man, and man’s obligation to obey his Maker, are the same. Our disobedience is not less sinful because we are naturally sinners; and our sins are not less aggravating on account of our strong inclination to sin; and our vileness is not less evil because of our strong opposition to be holy. Let us beware lest we imagine that it is not sinful for us to be sinners. We should also beware of the thought that, as man is unable to change his nature, he is therefore excusable in living in his sin. It is no excuse whatever to him, neither does it lessen his fault at all, for he delights in his sin, and hates to be kept from it. He does not like to live a godly life, nor to be made willing and able. He contends w/ his Maker, opposes his Spirit, and rejects his invitations. Gen. 6:3, Acts 7:51, Proverbs 1:24,25

We ought to take care, on the other hand, lest, by proving that it is not the lack of members, senses, or faculties that accounts for man’s inability to act in a spiritual manner, we should set forth that weakness as something small, and that an may remove it by some endeavor of his own; or that ministers may overcome it by strong reasons, solemn, alarming threatenings, and winning, captivating invitations; and thereby disregard and lose sight of the truth respecting the Spirit’s work in man’s salvation. There is danger lest ministers and people should fail in observing the need of the Holy Ghost working by His grace and infinite strength in man’s salvation. There is much need of his apply it, as of the Son’s accomplishing it, as already observed. There is room to fear that preachers and hearers grieve the Holy Spirit by losing sight of this; and are, consequently, left destitute of his powerful influences and operations, because they do not seriously consider, nor humbly acknowledge, the necessity of the Spirit working powerfully by the ministry of the Word for man’s salvation.”

John Elias
19th century Welsh Reformed Minister
Sermon – On The Moral Inability

As I read old sermons from men of long ago I never cease to be amazed at what a shallow people we are by comparison. Go ahead and pull out a Jonathon Edwards sermon, or a Christmas Evans sermon, or a John Elias sermon and start reading, and as you read ask yourself if even the best of Reformed congregations would put up with such sermons as you are reading. Ask yourself if the average well read Reformed congregation even has the capacity to follows the arguments being made in these sermons.

Congregations today, typically (yes, I know there are exceptions) don’t want closely reasoned sermons w/ intricate argumentation. There have been times in my life when I have read these older sermons and have just started to laugh out loud because I could imagine how such a sermon would be received by today’s average congregation.

The point that Elias is pursuing is that “lack of ability does not imply lack of responsibility.” This is the opposite side of the Reformed coin that teaches that “responsibility does not imply ability.” There were those who so emphasized the latter truism that they began to negate the former truth at which Elias is focusing his fire.

The denial of the truth that “responsibility does not imply ability,” in favor of the idea that “if one is held responsible therefore one is able” is the mistake of all Pelagians. Pelagians typically insist that if God commands something of humans that implies that humans can obey whatever God commands. The Reformed always denied this insisting that all because God commands something of fallen man that doesn’t mean that fallen man has the ability to meet whatever God commands. Fallen Man is not able but man is still responsible for that which he is not able to preform.

The denial of the truth that “lack of ability implies lack of responsibility” in favor of the idea that “if one does not have the ability then one is no longer responsible to whatever God commands,” has typically been the error of Hyper-Calvinism. True Hyper Calvinism concluded that if sinful reprobate man was not able to repent therefore he was not responsible to repent. What this meant in some quarters is that there were signs that were looked for in men that might indicate they were elect before the demand of repentance was issued.

Biblical Christianity insists both that responsibility does not imply ability and that lack of ability does not imply lack of responsibility.

“What Christ gave as an atonement was himself, namely his person; not his body without his soul, nor his soul without his body, nor his human nature w/o his divine nature, but he offered up his person. His divine nature did not suffer, but it sustained and added virtue to the suffering of his human nature. He was treated as the chiefest of sinners; the Father hid His face from him; he suffered the extreme of man’s rage; he suffered his people’s hell; yea, he drank it to its dregs; he answered all the claims of law, to the extreme of its demands; he was found to be as the covering of the Ark, the same width, the same length.

In light of this atonement I see the evil of sin and the severity of law: all the perfections of God shining to the greatest degree: the greatest love and the bitterest sufferings; w/ all appropriateness, he could say ‘What sorrow like unto my sorrow?’ He drank the cup of millions. Here I see a fountain to wash the unclean, an example for every Christian of how he should behave in the midst of the greatest grief that should befall him in this world. Here I see the devil w/ his head bruised and his work being destroyed: and eternal justice being ushered in. Christ provided an atonement for our sins while in triple relationship w/ us: 1.) As being our surety. 2.) As being our family. 3.) As being married to us. Except for this relationship in triplicate Christ would profit us nothing. Those objects for whom Christ died are those who have gone to glory, and those who will go to him.”

Daniel Evans
19th Century Welsh Reformed Pastor
Little Children Saved – An Essay On The Salvation Of Babes

It is little taught anymore (indeed, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard it in someone else’ sermon) but the classic Reformed teaching is that the divine nature of Christ did not suffer, nor did it die on the Cross. The thought of the divine nature suffering or dying, to a Reformed person, is an absurdity. Indeed, this truth that the Divine nature did not suffer or die is one of those sui generis teachings that necessitates the ongoing existence of Calvinists and sets us apart from many other denominations.

Christ as our surety belongs to a forensic category and it insures our justification. Christ as our family (Elder Brother) is a familial category and it insures our adoption. Christ as married to us is a promissory category and it insures our sanctification as He is committed to present us without fault and with great joy.

It is interesting that Evans includes in Christ’s Cross work a moral exemplar aspect. Christ, in the way he suffered set a moral example for us to follow in our sufferings.

“Bavinck frequently and forcefully underscored that the reformation Christ brought about by his revelation differs fundamentally from revolution. Moses and the prophets, Christ and the apostles ‘discriminated in an inimitable manner between healthy and sick reality.’ Whereas in other religions and philosophical systems ‘these two spheres’ are constantly confused and mixed together, the special revelation that comes to us in Christ,

keeps the two in clear distinction; it acknowledges nature, everywhere and without reservation, but it nevertheless joins battle w/ sin on every front. It seeks reformation of natural life, always and everywhere, but only for the purpose and by the means of liberating it from unrighteousness.

This insight is also determinative for the assessment of concrete events and movements in social and political affairs:

Because the gospel is concerned exclusively w/ liberation from sin, it leaves all natural institutions intact. It is in principle opposed to all socialism, communism and anarchism, since these never oppose only sin, but identify (through the denial of the Fall) sin w/ nature, unrighteousness w/ the very institution of family, state and society, and thus creation w/ the Fall. For the same reason the Gospel is averse to revolution of any kind, which arises out of the principle of unbelief, since such revolution, in its overthrowing of the existing order, makes no distinction between nature and sin, and eradicates the good together w/ the bad. The gospel, by contrast, always proceeds reformationally. The gospel itself brings about the greatest reformation, because it brings liberation from guilt, renews the heart, and thus in principle restores the right relation of man to God.

Jan Veenhof
Nature & Grace in Herman Bavinck – pg. 23-24

1.) What Veenhof is drawing out here from Bavinck is that Grace restores nature because Grace has the effect of removing from nature its participation in sin driven sick reality. Grace never turns nature into grace but the effect of grace upon nature is to restore nature to its healthy reality from the sick reality that sin has it in bondage to.

2.) Nature and Grace remain distinct for Bavinck but Grace has an impact on nature thus indication that Grace is not divorced from nature.

3.) For Bavinck Socialism, Anarchism, and Communism (SAC) had to be opposed by all right minded Christians because SAC are part of the disordered sin sick reality that nature was poisoned with. SAC creates sick reality because they identify sin w/ nature, and creation w/ the fall, and so in order to attack sin and the fall they attack nature and thus seek to pull down God’s institutional created social order that includes family, state, and society, preferring instead a sinful social order where God’s diversity is blended into a humanistic Unitarian sameness. This creates the sick reality that Bavinck speaks of.

4.) Where the Gospel flourishes and brings Reformation (i.e. counter-Revolution) SAC is brought to heel since SAC is the revolutionary antithesis based on the principle of unbelief. From this I would say that we can legitimately conclude that Reformation is being granted where SAC is seen in abysmal retreat. Where SAC isn’t in retreat there is no Reformation.

“For the blasphemous and seditious heretics, both Lutherans and others of the Reformed churches do agree that they may be punished capitally, that is for their blasphemy or sedition. But the R2K-Socinian stands out here also, and denies it, alleging that the punishment of false prophets in that was especiali jure by special law granted to the Israelities, and therefore you must not look, (saith the R2K-Socinian) for a rule of proceeding against false prophets and blasphemers: Nor (saith Calvin and Catharinus) can you find in the New Testament any precept for the punishment of thieves, traitors, adulterers, witches, murders and the like, and yet they may, or at least some of them may be capitally punished: for the gospel destroys not the just laws of civil polity or commonwealths.”

Richard Vines – Westminster Divine
The Authors, Nature & Danger of Heresy
Laid open in a sermon preached before the Honorable House of Commons

Alright … so Vines didn’t add R2K as a prefix to Socinian but one can’t help but wonder if that is a legitimate move given that the way the Socinian reasons on the matters that Vines mentions is the same way that the R2Kt chap reasons on the same kind of subject matter.

Dear Pastor,

How does violent and seditious rhetoric against the government, by Christian laypeople or clergy, promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Forgiveness, life and salvation?

Terry G. Lemmarl
River Joint, Mi.

Well, first Brother we need to clear up some of the issues surrounding your use of language.

First, sedition is defined as ‘the raising commotions or disturbances in the state; it is a revolt against legitimate authority.”

Now, since we no longer are being ruled by legitimate authority as seen by the current Juntas violating of the covenantal charter of this country, I hardly think the current rhetoric can be considered seditious.

Secondly, since government are comprised of men the rhetoric that you find disconcerting is nothing but the rhetoric of Clergy pointing out sin and demanding repentance. There can be no forgiveness, life, and salvation offered to men until the soil of their souls are plowed up by the work of the law convicting men of sin. To put in your terms, the rhetoric that you find troubling is nothing but the preaching of the law. If people who are the agents of the government will repent they will find life, salvation, and forgiveness … as well as a citizenry that is mild, compliant, and supportive.

The government, just for starters, is responsible for the deaths of 1.3 million judicially innocent people every year and your complaining about the rhetoric of those who hate that which is evil?

Thirdly, without the rhetoric that you object to the State will create a cultural climate where the preaching of the Gospel that gives Forgiveness, life, and salvation will not be tolerated.

Fourth, the Gospel of Jesus Christ includes the Kingship of Christ. To not promote the Kingshihp of Christ in every area of life is to promote death and condemnation. By insisting on Christ’s Kingship we are at the same time insisting on life, forgiveness, and salvation.

I hope this begins to answer your question Terry.

“Roger Williams’ thinking has been used to justify the “emancipated” state from all obligations to any religion other than that which the state itself has devised. Williams’ state has essentially one criterion: leave the Church alone. Thus the state more and more reflects non-Christian thought; indeed, it subscribes to fase religion. This, in turn means that the laws flowing from the erroneous commitments of the state begin to wreak havoc on Christian ideals … And, sooner or later, on Christian individuals.

Lonn Oswalt
Bahnsen’s View of Church & State: Tangential or Mainstream?
The Standard Bearer – A Fetschrift for Greg L. Bahnsen – pg. 283

The problem of hard doctrines of Separation of Church and state where the state cannot influence religion and religion cannot the state is that such views are literally impossible. Since all States are but an expressions of some religion, as an expression of some religion the state will always find some Church to support that the state supported Church might in turn support the state. The altar and the throne always exist together.

When Christians advocate the neutrality of the State, or when Christians advocate that the state is merely a institution that belongs to some undifferentiated common realm the result is that Christians, in their pursuit of keeping the state “neutral” or part of a undifferentiated common realm, sacrifice the state to be captivated and owned by a pagan religion that will insist that it is not a religion but merely the expression of “neutrality.”

Until Christians begin to realize that the State is animated by religious convictions and so has an interest in spreading its religious convictions through legislation and lawmaking – with the end in mind of creating a citizenry that shares the religious image of the State – Christians will never be equipped to fight the fight they need to be fighting against idolatry.

Part of the implications of seeing someone converted to the Jesus of the Bible is that that converted person begins to understand and hate competing gods – including the competing gods that animate the state. What we have in the Church today is scads and scads of people who are converted to Jesus who do not hate the kinds of false religions that animate our culture and the state.

The command of a maniac or drunken father may be disregarded – the wife or even the children taking the (family) government into their own hands – much more may institutions and laws be disregarded when these run counter, either in their constitution or administration, to the divine law, and thus tend to the manifest injury of the commonwealth…

“Neither reason nor scripture demands the rendering of honor to the tyrannical, the immoral, or even justifies the rendering of honor to the tyrannical, the immoral, the profane, the godless. Reason does not; for this would tend to confound all moral distinction. To honor the undeserving is contrary to every right feeling – to every intelligent conviction; for what claim to ‘honor’ as ‘the minister of God,’ has the wicked ruler? Right reason forbids us to regard them w/ that ‘honor’ which the power ‘ordained of God’ may justly demand.”

James M Willson
19th Century Reformed Pastor
The Establishment and Limits of Civil Government; An Exposition of Romans 13:1-7

“The Bible is the great security of all social order. The Bible, of course, read, studied, believed, and made ‘the man of our counsel.’ It must be so; for it guards on the one hand, when fairly interpreted, the rights of the individual; it allows of no tyrannical exercise of power, forbidding all oppression, and elevating every human being to his true position of dignity and worth as intelligent and immortal; bringing all down to the same level as guilty before God, and utterly alienated from Him; raising again all the penitent and the believing alike to the highest place of privilege and hope. Consequently it abases pride, restrains gross and vulgar ambition, teaches mutual esteem, and enjoins mutual interest and good offices.

But on the other hand, the Bible enforces w/ its sanctions a due arrangement, connection and subordination in human society. Ever maintaining the prerogatives of an enlightened conscience, it offers no toleration to the vicious, the malevolent, the disorderly, the seditious. It not only restrains them by clear discoveries of the wrath of God, which inevitably attends and visits lawlessness and crime, but, in addition, arms lawful authority w/ the right to inflict punishment proportioned to the nature and circumstances of offenses against social order and moral law. It establishes all just authority; parental, ecclesiastical and civil.

These properties of the Word of God, properly considered, enable us to see why it is that tyrants fear it; that despotic governments oppose its free circulation. It sets up a standard of judgment as the guide of human action infinitely above the enactments of mere human power. It divests man of a superstitious and debasing reverence for arbitrary rule. It exalts, as to the greatest and most desirable issues, the poorest and humblest to a level w/ the highest. It brings all alike before the same just and impartial tribunal. And, hence, a community imbued w/ scriptural knowledge can never become the prey of arbitrary power. Such a people will scorn and cast off the yoke of ignoble bondage. But for the same reason, the Bible ever imparts an unshakable stability to free and equitable social and political arrangements, for it teaches men their several duties, discloses to them the beneficent ends of governmental institutions, and endues them w/ the dispositions and sobriety requisite to, and that go to make, a stable order of society. The free seek and promote, as the best safeguard of liberty, the knowledge of that very Bible which the aristocratic and selfish would put under restraint.”

James M Willson
19th Century Reformed Pastor
The Establishment and Limits of Civil Government; An Exposition of Romans 13:1-7