Author: jetbrane
I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling.
I am postmillennial in my eschatology.
Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity
Reformed in my Soteriology
Presuppositional in my apologetics
Familialist in my family theology
Agrarian in my regional community social order belief
Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief
Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic
Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern
Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview
One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics
Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place
Some of my favorite authors,
Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc.
My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture.
Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.
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I think the White Horse Inn radio program and Modern Reformation Magazine are largely to blame for the mass distribution of this Deformed Theology. They seem to be the ones who have popularized it, and unfortunately, this has caused a major outbreak within the PCA.
A major problem is lack of critical thinking and deep reading among the reformed. I find most read books (written chiefly by contemporary baptists) on personal devotion, relationship issues or TULIP. Sunday school classes follow the same topics. This is pietism. The main concern is individual salvation; there is no concern for salvation in its cosmical relations, as Warfield said. There is little attempt to explore the implications of Calvinism for every discipline (or to learn how those in the past have explored those implications).
Joshua hit the nail on the head…the Reformed have descended into our own form of pietism for which we used to be the antedote.
Excellent Point – and I would LOVE it if someone (nudge, nudge) would help us to combat this type of thinking that is REALLY, REALLY seeping into our congregations. It is very much pietistic and is so incredibly dangerous because, yet again, it turns our eyes inward instead of upward.
It is true, we need a full-fledged scholarly treatment of all subjects from a Reformed point of view, but given the disorganization in the Reformed world and lack of institutional structures to take on such a massive project, I don’t see that happening in the near future. Could, though, with a lot of independent work. We won’t get this done in an secular academic setting, so we need lots of smart people devoting spare time for free on these subjects. I highly recommend doing just that. So what subjects are you all working on? (Rhetorical question.)
You have to admit that it can go the other way, too. I have known a few Reformed people, generally men, who ride intellectual hobby horses into most of their conversations. It might be politics or the creation/evolution debate (a field also led by baptists and dispies on the creation side). I wouldn’t call the people who do have these hobbyhorses “critical thinkers” though.
Also, I don’t see what’s so bad about reading books on relationships (to God or man), unless they are bad books on relationships, which there are a lot of. It doesn’t seem pietistic unless a person takes it there. I can’t look up something in Matthew Henry without seeing him say something about it. Not only are people bad at relationships — the sociological effect of sin — but the Bible addresses this topic almost unceasingly. Children, wives, fathers, husbands, neighbors, etc. It’s all over the place, and we all deal with it every second, so we might as well think about it and practice being good at it. It’s where each one of us have both immediate and long-term cultural impact.
Relationships don’t seem to be my forte, but part of that I’ve chalked up to constantly being in a kind of culture shock. Today for example, I was with a gathering and I noticed some of the Mothers talking about not being able to wait until their children were out from under foot so they would have more time to do what they wanted to do. One of the mother’s said this despite the fact that her children are already at daycare during her work day. I didn’t say anything but I found it all difficult to understand. Similarly I bumped into a guy who was all atwitter for Obama. I constantly ask myself… “How do I relate to these people.”
Sometimes not being good at relationships is our (my) fault. Sometimes though it is the fact that we live in a odd culture and usually it is a combination of both.
I wish I did better with people, but most of my time I am mute trying to figure out why they would think what they think or why they said what they said or how it is that they are contributing to our cultural malaise or how I might say something without offending someone.
It’s a tricky culture in order to navigate relationships…. At least for me.