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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Yes, and after Lee surrendered, he lamented that he had placed his trust in his enemies at Appomattox. He said that if he had known what was to take place (Lincoln’s destruction of his people and their way of life) he never would have surrendered.
My prayer is that reformed Christians will be wiser this time and not trust our enemies to treat us well. They are out to destroy us and our way of life, and if we surrender they shall surely finish the job. Destruction may come (and perhaps rightfully so for some of our behavior), but I pray surrender never does.
Yes, that quote by Lee is particularly arresting.
I think we need to keep in mind, per the title of Fred Schwarz’s book, that we can only trust the communists to be communists, which means we can’t trust them at all. All communists have ever been convinced by is strength and only strength will keep them honest.
MY orders are to fight;
Then if I bleed, or fail,
Or strongly win, what matters it?
God only doth prevail.
The servant craveth naught
Except to serve with might.
I was not told to win or lose,–
My orders are to fight.
Please tell me where you got the quote at the end. Those are words I’d like engraved on my heart (literally if need be).
Greg,
Those words have been my favorite for about 15 years now.
I read them initially in a secondary source. You can find the poem here,
http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache:EeLRQd_KXroJ:digital.library.upenn.edu/women/garvin/poets/wetherald.html+poetry+the+servant+craveth+not+except+to+serve+with+might&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
The title of the Poem is “My Orders.”
Very nice…they’ll be memorized by evening. We always open our family worship with a confession and reminder out of Isaiah 33:22. I’ve been looking for a similar way to close, and I think I just found it.
Thanks Bret
Of course, when Lee made that statement, Lincoln had been dead for over five years. In your haste to condemn Lincoln, you got the quote right, but the context wrong. Lee made the statement in 1870. http://www.lewrockwell.com/dieteman/dieteman38.html
A Lincoln reconstruction period may well have looked vastly different (and better) than reconstruction under the a weak executive branch “led” by President Andrew Johnson. See also, Lincoln’s Second inaugural address. http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres32.html
Paul,
This is all speculation. In point of fact, I think an argument could be made that a living Lincoln would have made reconstruction even more sever then it was under Johnson and Grant.
As far as Lincoln’s words in the second inaugural, we must keep in mind the rule of thumb for all politicians, which is, “never believe what a politician says, always watch what he does.”
Lincoln said a lot of things that were as insincere as any other run of the mill politician you might name. Rhetoric is the comparatively easy part.
The best thing that ever happened to Lincoln’s myth status was being shot. If he had had to of governed past 1865 his reputation would have been severely tarnished by the inevitable failures that would have attended such reconstruction governance.
But then you know I believe that Lincoln was one of this nations worst presidents.
Thanks for contributing.
Lincoln’s been dead now for over 140 years and his legacy is still killin’ us. Ideas and the actions they produce have consequences that often last well past the deaths of those who thought and performed them.
“”As far as Lincoln’s words in the second inaugural, we must keep in mind the rule of thumb for all politicians, which is, “never believe what a politician says, always watch what he does.””
And applying that statement to Reagan leaves you exactly where?
It leaves me with lower top marginal tax rates … down from (as I recall) from 70% to 38%.
It leaves me with the cure of an economy he inherited from Carter where unemployment was 12%, inflation was 12% and interest rates were 21.5 points.
It leaves me with missiles in Western Europe which broke the back of the Soviet Union and led to their crack up in 1989 — a year after he left office.
It left me with peace at home with no nation building abroad.
It left me with a robust economy that managed to survive the Clintons.
It left me with a judiciary populated by many small government minded justices.
And all of that is just off the top of my head.
Cheers,
Bret