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.
View all posts by jetbrane
I think she is tolerated as far as she is in the MSM because she agrees with the neocons on foreign policy. Otherwise she would be as persona non grata as Steve Sailer (who she got the point about half-black celebrities from) and others. Thomas Fleming of Chronicles qualifies for your points a, b, and c above but I won’t hold my breath waiting for The View to have him on.
Seems to me you have to get MSM approval first before having the voice that can “shove it up the pie hole of the MSM” on the MSM’s own time. Otherwise, you are stuck in the backwaters of the Internet.
Bret,
This is what is so important about education to me. Coulter holds that the Scriptures are objective truth. She can stand up and succesfully defend that truth because she holds to a consistently Christian worlview.
To explain this a little further. If I train my child at home from the earliest age that God exists, He is holy and righteous and that He holds all men accountable; and then send my child to a public school and by doing this intentionally train him that these things are not true I have only installed a subjective truth (upper story) in my child. The objective truth that he has been taught (lower story) trumps the subjective truth that God exists and holds men accountable.
God makes and keeps His promises. A basic promise is Pr 22:6. I forget which book it is but in one of them Coulter absolutely rips public school education to shreds. 85% of Christians send their children to public schools. Until that changes people like Coulter will continue to be the exception rather than than the norm.
A real probleem here is that the Scriptures say one thing about education (Pr 22:6; Deut 6; Ps 78:1-7) and R2Kt says another.
One more note here and I’ll stop. In Genesis 18:17-19 God says “And the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him. Did Abraham do this by sending his children and household to the local Canaanite schools?
Sorry Bret, I know my last post was a little off topic but every once in a while I just gotta get that out 🙂
Jerry,
Don’t apologize. It’s good to hear someone saying it besides me.
Normally I am with you, Bret, but in this case, I beg to differ.
Appearing on the View and similar shows is throwing pearls before swine. While I did enjoy parts of Godless, on the whole I am not an admirer of Coulter, for various reasons including her unfeminine, belligerent demeanor and warmongering foreign policy views. I say this as someone who is not opposed to using strong rhetoric or demolishing false ideologies.
She commits the same basic error that many modern conservatives do, namely, incessantly critiquing liberal hypocrisy without presenting much of a positive case for conservatism (perhaps because no such case exists for modern conservatism). She also perpetuates the false idea that the antithesis is between republican and democrat, conservative and liberal. This approach has the effect of blinding modern conservatives to their own failings. Yes, liberals are hypocrites, but most conservatives today are as bad or worse.
There is some truth to the accusation that she can’t take what she dishes out. She does engage in too many ad hominem attacks, says things just for shock value, and often personalizes criticisms of her views.
Yes, it would be nice if Christian men today had a backbone like hers (or a backbone, period), but she’s not a boon to Christendom and if she represents “real” conservatism, then count me out.
Joshua L.
I’ve said in other posts that Coulter is a neo-con and for that reason I can’t follow her.
However, I’m just pleased as punch that somebody is giving push back to those who seem never to get push back.
Coulter, at some level, realizes that Conservatism is different from being Republican. This is the woman who said she would campaign for the Democrats if McCain was nominated.
You are correct that she falls in the school of critiquing without offering an alternative. As Gary North was fond of saying, “You can’t beat something with nothing.” However, as pathetic as it is, we still need people who expose the vacuity of non-Christian think and culture.
Thanks for keeping us all honest Joshua. Coulter is not a person we should idolize overall but at the very least in my estimation we can tip our hat to her when she exposes the fallacy of pagan presuppositions.
Agreed. This is an important task and to the extent that Coulter does this, her work is useful.
Yes, but did she actually do this? Or just scare everyone about BH Obama while defending McCain/Palin against the liberals? And she did write a book entitled If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans. Too often she comes across as a GOP cheerleader or lambastes the GOP for the wrong things (eg. not being hawkish enough).
The other issue I have with her method is that she presents the antithesis of conservative vs liberal in terms of smart vs dumb. Well, if we are being good Van-Tillians, we cannot accept this. Yes liberalism is madness and foolishness, but that’s not the whole story. The “xyz is dumb because he’s a democrat” argument cuts both ways. Plus, there are some pretty dumb republicans out there, to wit, almost every one in Congress.
In contrast to Coulter, I am more inclined to say “a pox on both your houses,” rather than defending the reprobate GOP or entertaining delusions that they represent conservatism, liberty or virtue in any way.
Joshua,
Are you Dr Joshua yet?
I hope it all goes well for you
Jerry,
I think you mean Joshua B? There are at least three or four Joshuas roaming around in here.
Jerry,
Since you asked, I am not Dr. Joshua yet (does Dr. Butcher sound intimidating, or is it only for an MD?). I did manage to pass my comprehensive exams (only just, due to some intolerance by my tolerance-loving secular humanist profs), and now I’ve only got the dissertation to do (which I hope to finish by the end of 2009).
~Joshua B.
Joshua,
Better Dr Butcher than Dr Jekyll. You’ve got a very bright future blessing a local church and hopefully more than that.
Keep up the good work brother. Both you and Bret are about 400 IQ points above me. Seriously, I’ll make it about 200 real life points 🙂 but I have benefitted greatly reading here and you are part of it. You and Bret both are very well rounded and I concentrate in my areas of interest.
Thank you Bret for a great site.
It is very edifying to me and I’m sure many others. I have been blessed by your ministry.
Is an edit button available so I can take care of all my typos?
Thanks
Jerry
“I did manage to pass my comprehensive exams . . .and now I’ve only got the dissertation to do.”
As another Joshua around here, I am in the same position as you. I.e., ABD. What is your field of study, Joshua B?
Joshua M. … Joshua B.’s study is Rhetoric and he is at Texas AM.
I think that’s right.
Now, what about you? What is your field of study?
I suppose we should ask if Joshua L. is a ABD as well.
All the Joshua’s in my life are intellectual giants.
English Lit., colonial to 19th C. American.
You are too kind.
I mean L & B
Bret is correct, I study rhetoric, otherwise known as philosophy for the masses.
Bret is correct, I study rhetoric, otherwise known as philosophy for the masses.
And he is writing his dissertation for a group of professors who, I believe it accurate to say, hold to a philosophy of the asses.
They wouldn’t know what philosophy was if it bit them on the ass.
Too sad too that one of my profs is a self-styled Presbyterian and the other a one time Lutheran convert to Judaism.