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.

Reformed Confessions Disagree With R. Scott Clark’s Assertions Regarding Theocracy

“All orthodox Christians affirm that God’s moral law is enduring and binding to all people—to deny that is antinomianism. What is at stake here is the magistrate’s role in enforcing that moral law. The framers of the Statement have a plan, to which we have not yet arrived, but it entails some enforcement of the first table, and thus is theocratic.”

R. Scott Clark
Sub-Christian Nationalism? (Part 4)

So, what if it is theocratic? The Reformed Confessions repeatedly call for enforcement of the 1st table and also are hopelessly theocratic. Here is the 2nd Helvetic Confession as just one example of a Reformed Theocratic Confession;

“THE DUTY OF THE MAGISTRATE. The chief duty of the magistrate is to
secure and preserve peace and public tranquility. Doubtless he will never do this more successfully than when he is truly God-fearing and religious; that is to say, when, according to the example of the most holy kings and princes of the people of the Lord, he promotes the preaching of the truth and sincere faith, roots out lies and all superstition, together with all impiety and idolatry, and defends the Church of God. We certainly teach that the care of religion belongs especially to the holy magistrate.

Let him, therefore, hold the Word of God in his hands, and take care
lest anything contrary to it is taught. Likewise let him govern the people entrusted to him by God with good laws made according to the Word of God, and let him keep them in discipline, duty and obedience. Let him exercise judgment by judging uprightly. Let him not respect any man’s person or accept bribes. Let him protect widows, orphans and the afflicted. Let him punish and even banish criminals, impostors and barbarians. For he does not bear the sword in vain (Rom. 13:4).

Therefore, let him draw this sword of God against all malefactors,
seditious persons, thieves, murderers, oppressors, blasphemers, perjuried persons, and all those whom God has commanded him to punish and even to execute. Let him suppress stubborn heretics (who are truly heretics), who do not cease to blaspheme the majesty of God and to trouble, and even to destroy the Church of God.”

___

“In Bullinger’s ‘Decades,’ he expounds the above argument further. Using the likes of Solomon, Asa, and Josiah, Bullinger argued that the care and ordering of religion does not belong to Bishops alone. Contrary to those who might relegate these examples to the old covenant, Bullinger responds, ‘The men of this opinion ought to prove, that the Lord Jesus and His apostles did translate the care of religion from the magistrate unto Bishops alone: which they shall never be able to do.’

Both the Reformed theologians Francis Turretin and David Dickson followed this line of argumentation from the example of OT kings.”

Cited in Jonathan Beeke’s
Duplex Regnum Christi — FN 30, pg, 74

Cheong In-Wa, Alexander Jun, and R. J. Rushdoony All Agree On Christian Nationalism

“The gospel of Jesus ought to meet the needs of the people in the life and circumstances where each lives; it should give expression to the latent aspirations in the national sub-conscience. Each people has its typical ways of feeling, its different aspirations. These peculiarities should … find expression in the religious life of the people. Here we find the real meaning of Christian nationalism.”

Cheong In-wa
The head of the Department for Religious Education of the Presbyterian Church of Korea, who famously attended the Eleventh World Sunday School Convention in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1932, where this declaration was put forth.

“We are made in God’s image. [As such] we should take the totality of both our Christian identity and our ethnic identity, perhaps in that order, but we are still recognizing our ethnic society.”

Dr. Alex Jun,
Coordinator of the Korean-American Leadership Initiative in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) defending the continued existence of Korean congregations

“The trend towards internationalism is a part of this desire to eliminate all differences, to say that the idea of having different cultures, different standards, different languages is altogether wrong, and so we must eliminate them, return men to supposedly their original one condition, a common language, a common culture, everyone the same; and at the same time we must abolish all differences. It is for this reason that the U.N. Charter declares that it is determined to save men. (Save men) from what (we might ask). From all inequalities and distinctions, and so it says that there must be no discrimination with respect to race, color, or creed. In other words, all religions must be abolished, as well as all races. And so the idea is of course a return to paradise.”

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony
Nakedness — Pocket College Lecture

Those who oppose what In-wa, Jun and Rushdoony are saying here are opposing Christian Nationalism and so are supporting ungodly Internationalism and in doing so oppose Christ and His Word.

R2K Speaks For Itself … McAtee Brings out Implications

“If this [Sinaitic covenant] doesn’t sound like a bargain, recall that the original Israelites did not consider it a bargain either, and they resisted Moses’ efforts to engage them in it. All things considered, many of the first-generation Israelites, who received this covenant while trembling at the foot of a quaking mountain and then wandered in the wilderness, preferred to return to Egypt rather than to enter the covenant with a frightening deity who threatened curse-sanctions upon them if they disobeyed. I do not blame them; their assessment of the matter was judicious and well considered, albeit rebellious. The Sinai covenant-administration was no bargain for sinners, and I pity the poor Israelites who suffered under its administration…I would have resisted this covenant also, had I been there, because such a legal covenant, whose conditions require strict obedience (and threaten severe curse-sanctions), is bound to fail if one of the parties to it is a sinful people.”

Dr. T. David Gordon
The Law is Not of Faith — pg. 251

1.) So God demonstrates His graciousness by being the Lord God who brought them out of the land of Egypt — the house of bondage and yet that same God places Israel under a Mosaic covenant that made the hardships of Egypt look like a life of luxury?

2.) Israel’s proneness to rebel against God and the Mosaic covenant as seen in their preference to return to Egypt was judicious and well considered, even if rebellious?

3.) As New Covenant believers we should have pity on fellow believers in the household of God who lived during the OT epoch since God during that time was not as gracious as the God we serve today? (Can you say Marcionism?)

4.) God put His sinful people under a covenant that He knew and had determined that they would not be able to keep AND had no provision for their forgiveness when they did not keep it. He delighted in doing so?

5.) The OT believers as a party to the Mosaic covenant were a sinful people who were provided no relief in the Mosaic covenant for their sinfulness? All that blood in the sacrificial system meant nothing since our OT brothers could not offer up strict obedience?

Do these people hear themselves?

T. David Gordon? More like T. David Godless

Rev. Spurgeon and Rev. McAtee Chit Chat on Natural Law

Dear Pastor Bret,

“Couldn’t your criticism  (of natural law) be lobbed at scripture and the fact that different people interpret it differently? The fact that there are (Creedo)Baptists and paedobaptists both arguing from scripture could be used to argue against it (Scripture) being the highest authority. It seems the problem to me is not natural law any more than the problem would be scripture. God’s revelation whether in nature or in scripture is clear. We sinful humans twist it.”

Rev. Joseph Spurgeon
Sovereign King Church
Jeffersonville, Indiana


Rev. Spurgeon,

Greetings.

Before I answer your question I want to make it clear to people my support of your work there in Jeffersonville. Were I not in the ministry and were I living in your area I do believe I could find a home in attending your Church (as long as you kept me away from the Baylys.) According to everything I hear you are doing a good work in Jeffersonville. So, even though we disagree on this matter I would not have people thinking that I do not appreciate your labors for Jesus Christ.The answer to your opening question is definitely, “No.”

1.) You seem to think I deny the reality of Natural Law. I do not. What I deny is that fallen man has the ability to create a proper working social order by usage of only the means of Natural Law, apart from special revelation. This conviction is consistent in what we read and what I affirm confessionally from the Canons of Dordt;

“There remain, however, in man since the fall, the glimmerings of natural light, whereby he retains some knowledge of God, of natural things, and of the differences between good and evil, and discovers some regard for virtue, good order in society, and for maintaining an orderly external deportment. But so far is this light of nature from being sufficient to bring him to a saving knowledge of God and to true conversion, that he is incapable of using it aright even in things natural and civil. Nay, further, this light, such as it is, man in various ways renders WHOLLY polluted and holds it in unrighteousness, by doing which he becomes inexcusable before God.”

2.) If even Christians can’t agree on God’s special revelation at points how much more will it be the case that non-Christians will not agree on general revelation and Natural law? The problem with putting forth Natural Law for social order regulation among a pagan people, as Dr. Stephen Wolfe advocates, is that such a position does not take seriously the noetic effects of the fall.

3.) Natural law can only be consistently read aright and understood properly when read through the prism of special revelation, or at the very least, when read through the presuppositions that arise out of special revelation.

4.) With the Scriptures I have the text right in front of me to appeal to. With Natural Law all there is are impressions and insistence. For example, Yuval Noah Harai, via appeals to Natural Law, can argue for the fittingness of sodomy. Start @ the 2 minute mark.

Therefore I would not say the fact that Christians disagreeing on biblical texts is no different from people disagreeing on the interpretation of Natural Law. In point of fact, to make that argument suggests a putting of Natural Law on the same level of special revelation in terms of clarity. The doing so only has the effect of lowering the importance of Scripture vis-a-vis Natural law.

5.) Of course people disagree regarding Scripture but unlike Natural law the argument is made from the text and not some ephemeral esoteric “out there-ness.”

It is the case that if people disagree while arguing from Scripture that would impress people with the idea that even if there is disagreement at least all believe in the Scripture as being the authoritative source for all truth.

6.) You might counter that “Natural law as a vehicle for social order arrangement was supported by many Reformers throughout history.” And to that I can only concur while offering at the same time that the difference between then and now is that the Reformers (and other Christians) could appeal to Natural law as a vehicle for social order because the culture(s) in which they already were living were largely organized around Christian premises. A people living and saturated in Christendom in the 16th century are going to see Natural Law as teaching Christian principles as more obvious because they have borrowed worldview capital from Christianity without even realizing it. But we in the 21st century no longer live in Christendom, no longer begin with Christian presuppositions, and no longer are living off of the borrowed capital that is necessary to make Natural law work among non-Christian people living in a Christian social order context.

No, Joseph, I might wish you were correct, but the Scriptures and confessions are against such thinking as well as the existential moment in which we live.

So, we see your objection, while understandable, is not well founded.

Thank you for the inquiry.

p.s. — Spend some time investigating Alfred the Great and his book of Doom and see how Alfred relied on special revelation to organize the social order of his day.

Ligonier, Indiana & America’s Diversity

“Well, I’m a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona And such a fine sight to see It’s a girl, my lord In a flatbed Ford Slowin’ down to take a look at me.”

Take It Easy
Eagles

Last week found me standing on a corner in Ligonier, Indiana while visiting kin.

Ligonier, you must understand is about as rural Indiana as one can get. It was, when I was growing up, the epitome of small town rural Indiana. At about 4000 residents Ligonier once upon a time claimed to be the Marshmallow capital of the world. That industry has long been absent from Ligonier, Indiana. When I was a boy, I would attend Ligonier’s West Noble High School basketball games against whom a uncle competed in Basketball games. I am here to testify that Uncle Kevin did not compete against any Hispanics in 1972 when he was competing against West Noble High School.

A funny thing has happened to Ligonier in the last 25 years or so. A funny thing connected to the surreal reality that upwards of 30 million illegal aliens now live in the USA. That number is so huge it is hard for one to really get their mind around it. However, visiting Ligonier, Indiana (or my hometown of Sturgis, Michigan) begins to make the number concrete.

When I was a boy, and even a young man Ligonier, Indiana and Sturgis, Michigan and many more small towns like them were as white bread as one can possibly imagine. However, with the US policy of porous borders small town America now looks increasingly like what small town Mexico must have looked like in 1975.

For example in Ligonier in the 2010 census Hispanic or Latino of any race were 51.5% of the population. That was an increase of almost 20% form the 2000 census. Further, as of 2020, 23.6% of Ligonier, IN residents were born outside of the country (1.06k people). Also of 2020, 81.2% of Ligonier, In residents were US citizens, which is lower than the national average of 93.4%. In 2019, the percentage of US citizens in Ligonier, IN was 82.6%, meaning that the rate of American citizenship has been decreasing.

Ligonier, I submit, provides a window into what is happening in small town America in these formerly united States. These two links sustain that observation;

The 10 Indiana Cities With The Largest Latino Population For 2023

The 10 Michigan Cities With The Largest Latino Population For 2023

While I stood on the corner of Ligonier, Indiana awaiting my Kin’s shopping I found myself observing the surrounding as it were from outside of myself. In the 20 minutes I waited for my Kin to finish her shopping I saw, as in a strange dream the following;

I saw sundry Hispanics walking up and down the sidewalk and it was obvious as to why. From where I stood I could see more than one Mexican Restaurant and several other Hispanic business devoted to bring in the Hispanic clientele. I saw a bakery, dedicated to Eastern European baked goods immediately next door to a bakery dedicated to Mexican baked goods. I saw three ample young ladies walking with a black young gentleman. I saw sundry white chaps passing by in their pick up trucks who had beards right out of Duck Dynasty or ZZ Top. I saw the average joe white person walking the sidewalks. And to add to the bizarre and surreal there I first heard the clopping of horse hooves and then saw sundry Amish buggies go traveling by me containing the Amish folk replete with the distinct attire that the Amish wear. Now toss in the requisite tatts and piercings that has become such a fixture in modern American culture and I found myself humming,

Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes

Cellophane flowers of yellow and green
Towering over your head
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes
And she’s gone

Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds, ahh

But for me it was;

Picture yourself on a street in a city
Where American towns are now bastardized
Somebody walks by, you’re staring quite boldly
A community now balkanized

Restaurants selling Mexican black beans
Amish coverings on heads
Look for the girl with white in her skin
And she’s gone

Diversity is our strength we’re now dyin’
Diversity is our strength we’re now dyin’
Diversity is our strength we’re now dyin’

Because of my visit to Ligonier, Indiana, as well as previous trips to my hometown of Sturgis, Michigan I can now more easily get my head around 30 million illegal aliens now living in these formerly united States. I can see the havoc that the Biden border policy is playing with the former homogeneity of America. I can visibly see that America is now being ruled by an occupying force that is resolved on destroying America.

And I can most clearly see that the only hope of historic Americans is the rise of peaceful secession movements so that this now balkanized country might become several nations.