My Time In Purgatory V — Final Installment

I wanted to take one more installment to tie up some loose ends and to give a peek into some of the Clown Reformed Church Characters I knew. I will change the names so that the average reader can see the person without knowing the name.

I.) Loose Ends

A.) In three or four places I’ve used some scatological language. I do not apologize for that because I do believe there is a time and a place for everything under the sun. The malfeasance, malevolence, and mendacity of the Clown Reformed Church deserves stiffer language than I tagged it with. When one considers their disregard for the sheep by ordaining women and by ordaining men who had no business being ordained the outrage over this assault on the Church of Jesus Christ should know no boundaries. When one considers how the CRC destroyed the career of a faithful minister of Jesus Christ for the ecclesiastical equivalent of jaywalking — and then had to bury the exculpatory evidence to get it done — one should be outraged. When one considers the dissembling, the chicanery, and the distortions, (only my inherent easy-going nature keeps me from saying “lies”) that the CRC invoked in order to sling mud at a doctrine (“Natural Relations” sometimes called “Kinism”) that the Church has embraced for 2000 years, as seen in a cursory examination of the historical record, (get the Dow & Achord book) it requires language that would make widow’s cringe and virgin’s blush. I probably haven’t been direct enough in these pieces.

B.) I said I would return to a couple of sentences in the letter recommending my honorable release from the supervising Council. Those sentences were;

“In recent times, however, Rev. McAtee’s writings have been appropriated by a movement within the Reformed community known as “Kinism.” Though Rev. McAtee claims no affiliation among them, because of appropriation of his intellectual property, he has over the past two years been linked by accusations with having common cause.”

a.) I need to say here I do not recall ever making this claim.

b.) If I did claim no affiliation among them it is because, as I said earlier in this piece, there is no organization for me to affiliate with. There are no Kinists who have membership cards that get them a discount on the cost of the next Klan meeting. (That’s a joke for the humor-impaired among us.)

c.) Clearly, if some people were appropriating my intellectual property, it would be because those people believed my ideas had an affiliation with their ideas.

d.) I have common cause with everybody who agrees with me.

C.) Touching the word “Kinism”

Many have opined that we need to dump the word because of how successful the enemy has been in slinging mud at it. For a time, I agreed with that and started using the word “Famialism.” Same content. Different word. One could also use words like, “oikaphilia,” “ethno-nationalists,” and “racial-realist.” However, I have resorted to using the word “Kinism” again because;

a.) it’s easier to spell

b.) I have determined that all because the enemy is successful in prejudicing the language I shouldn’t, therefore, give up on the language. There are many idiotic Christians that I don’t want anything to do with but on that basis, I don’t start using a different word besides “Christian” to self-identify. (But believe me I’ve considered it.) In the same way, there are some Kinists who are way over the top and so bring reproach on what I believe. However, I’m not going to quit using the word “Kinism” either because my enemies are purposefully distorting the meaning, or because there are some dopes out there who are mauling the word.

D.) Why I wrote all this

I probably would have never have returned to this if the Clown Reformed Church had not decided to continue its attack on me. I let it slide after the misrepresentations in their District meeting that dismissed me. I let it slide after the Synod that referred to the situation repeatedly going so far as to pass overtures against a strawmen’s caricature of “kinism.”  They essentially crushed something I never believed. They did all this without using my name or the Church’s name and yet one would have had to have been an imbecile to not know who they were going after. Still, I let it slide and did not respond. However, when the Clown Reformed Chruch decided to jump on the Southern Poverty Law Center comical denunciation of myself and the Church I serve I determined I had had enough. It is clear that they are never going to let this go and will trot it out whenever it is convenient for them to virtue signal. As such, I determined that even though I would never have the platform those people had, I had to set the record straight — if only for the people who were getting splashed with mud whom I served.

II.) Clown Reformed World Personalities

Those that I’ve already dealt with in some measure I won’t bring up again.

Brun Hilda — This woman was really the reason for the intensifying of much of what transpired in the last few years. She fancied herself an expert on theology and would even introduce herself in such a matter. “Hello, my name is Brun Hilda, and I’m an expert in theology.” The funny thing was that the woman didn’t even know the meaning of the word “propitiation.” Experts in theology know what “propitation” means. She attended some high brow Liberal University in the Low Countries and it showed. She was a social justice warrior and feminist beyond measure. She even lobbied for “Social Justice” sermons from her Pastor and when the man said “no,” his life soon became severely troubled.

Malcolm Z — Malcolm Z is an African-American and is perhaps the #1 Social Justice Warrior in the Clown Reformed Church. He is convinced that what the White Boer South African Farmers are facing in terms of attempted genocide is all lies. Like all SJW’s he walks around begging people to disturb the chip that is on his shoulder. He once visited the Church I serve and I witnessed many of the people invite him to stay for our fellowship meal. When he finally reported on the service all he could note is that he knew something awful was present because we prayed for the White Boer farmers during the long Pastoral prayer and how we would have accused him of heresy if he had brought his white wife and family to church. The chip on the shoulder doesn’t take much to disturb it.

Percy Blakeney — One of the few good guys in the story. Percy was conservative by way of instinct. Percy did all he could do to help me out when I was on the hot seat but he was in a tough situation himself. Trying to help out someone seen by everyone else as a dirty racist is not a good position to be in. However, he did the best he could in a tough situation short of sacrificing himself and his career. I counted him a friend though I have not seen him since the whole thing mercifully ended. He was a kind and jovial man. Quick with laughter and always ready for a good conversation. I owe him a debt of gratitude for alone fighting for me in a Kangaroo court situation.

Thomas Beckett — Thomas was another of the guys in a white hat. He is the minister who was executed for ecclesiastical jaywalking. Brun Hilda asked the question, “Who will deliver me of this meddlesome Priest?,” — and the Elder board and the District did the deed. Thomas spent some time in a Communist country as a missionary before going into the ministry and as such Thomas was one of the few guys who understood the dangers of Marxism in the Church. This is one reason why he refused to start preaching Social Justice sermons contra Brun Hilda’s demand. The main reason however was that Thomas understood that the pulpit needs to be reserved for the Gospel and he wasn’t going to muddle up the pulpit or the Gospel with Social Justice bilge. Thomas was in a difficult spot the moment he arrived at the flagship church because he was an orthodox man coming to serve a congregation that had been fed on Liberal Barthian Higher Critical preaching for decades by Dr. Rev. Dusty Lugnut.

A funny story here. Not long after Thomas arrived on the scene he asked me to serve as his mentor. I refused for several months reasoning that there was no way in Hades that a minister serving at that Liberal Church genuinely wanted me to mentor him. I mean would Karl Barth ask J. Gresham Machen to mentor him? I figured it was just not possible that Thomas could be anything but a raging liberal and I had had my belly full of them. Thomas finally won me over when at a meeting he mentioned something derisive about the Liberal nature of the Bannaner. Shortly, thereafter we started meeting. I can say in all honesty that Thomas was the only epistemologically self-conscious conservative minister that I met during my almost 25 years in the CRC. I still count him as a friend and we talk often. We’ve both been through the fires.

P. T. Barnum — P. T. was a very likable man who was conservative by impulse but woefully unable to defend his conservatism when pushed to the wall by even the most hackneyed liberal. P. T. was a businessman/salesman before he was anything else (like a minister) and he had the ability to put the meat in the seats. (Put people in pews.) And to be honest, he probably was able to give his people all they could handle in terms of food for their souls. I remember P. T. if only because I cringed when he reported he was going to have a traveling strongman troupe in to give the Gospel and they would do so while tearing in half, thick phone books and bending thick bars of steel around their necks.

P. T. provided a funny memory for me as one time his Church was responsible to host a District meeting. The host at these meetings was responsible to provide worship leaders. Well, P. T. on that Saturday provided an Evangelical lounge singer’s version of “Tony Orlando & Dawn.” I think it was the only time in 20 years that the liberal clowns and I shared a conviction and it was on not caring for the Evangelical version of “Tony Orlando & Dawn,” as worship leader. The libs would have preferred Meagan Thee Stallion and I would have preferred the Three Tenors.

Cyrano de Bergerac — Cyrano was a fresh Seminary grad who was unmarried. He got engaged after meeting a girl in an online chat room. I tried to warn him off said girl because she was not Reformed and had never heard of things like the Heidelberg catechism and other Reformed staples. He, of course, ignored me and was married. Only a few years later he was asking different ministers for counseling advice for a troubled marriage. I liked Cyrano. He had an inquisitive mind, even if he staked out some strange positions. He genuinely wanted to be God’s instrument in helping people in the Kingdom. I admired him because of his willingness to continue to work in a place that was small. Speaking from experience I knew those charges were sometimes discouraging.

There were more. Many more enemies but it would do little good to regale you will all the stories about their oddities and villainy. It was a terrible place to be in for over 20 years but I guess that is what purgatory is all about.