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.

Fisking Humanist Manifesto III (Antioch Declaration) (Part I)

Today Humanist Manifesto III was dropped by the Boomer-Cons. They are calling it “The Antioch Declaration.” I hope to interact with it some over the next few entries

We will start with a quote by Augustine;

“Difference of race or condition or sex is indeed taken away by the unity of faith, but it remains imbedded in our mortal interactions, and in the journey of this life the apostles themselves teach that it is to be respected, and they even proposed living in accord with the racial differences between Jews and Greeks as a wholesome rule.”

St. Augustine on Galatians 3:28

Humanist Manifesto III (Antioch Declaration — Hereafter AD)

“We deny that the Kingdom purposes of Christ and requirements of His Word can be equated with the seating positions of political actors during the French Revolution, or that the modern antithesis between right and left is equivalent to the antithesis that God established in the Garden of Eden between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, the kingdom of darkness and kingdom of light.”

Paleocon responds

I wonder if the Boomers who put this together know that even though the French Revolution gave us “the Left and the Right” as political categories realize that both the Girondists, who sat on the right nor the Montagnards who sat on the left belong to what today would be known as conservative. The difference between Girondists (“right”) and Montagnards (“left) is that the Girondists were moderate and soft left while the Montagnards were hard left. There was no right.

It is the same today. In wonderful irony these chaps writing this document belong to the soft-moderate left in the Church. They are not as far left as the WOKE left but they are still doing the devil’s work in opposing well established revisionist understandings of the post-enlightenment consensus.

Now as far as the antithesis goes, it is true that the Biblical antithesis is not the same as left vs. right but with that said can the Boomer-Cons give anybody on the left that doesn’t belong to the seed of the serpent? I can give all kinds of names of those on the Right that belong to the seed of the woman. So, there isn’t an exact mirroring going on here but everybody on the left hates the Messiah.

Humanist Manifesto II (AD) writes, 

“We affirm that the modern neo-pagan secular project is bankrupt and desperately trying to hold the social order together by means of a fraudulent narrative and anti-Christian worldview.  As a result, the lies of secular elites in all spheres have necessarily grown increasingly evident and outrageous.”

Paleocon responds,

I affirm that the Boomer-cons are likewise bankrupt, being a pale expression of the neo-liberal Enlightenment project. They are likewise seeking to desperately hold the ecclesiastical social order together by means of a fraudulent narrative that finds Hitler behind every thought that disagree with them and views themselves as being Churchills who won’t make the mistakes of Neville Chamberlain. I would contend that they likewise are holding to a anti-Christian world and life view, and in order to support it the lies of these would be gatekeepers necessarily grow increasingly evident and outrageous.  This is a classic case of accusing your enemies what you yourself are guilty of.

Humanist Manifesto (AD) writes,

“We affirm that, as a consequence, some young men in the West have become jaded and cynical, with an element among them now rejecting or doubting the received account of virtually anything. The great danger is that now, instead of acting on the basis of revealed truth in Christ, they are in the unhappy position of reacting by choosing between opposing sets of lies.”

Paleocon responds,

I affirm that, as a consequence, many old Boomers in the church in the West have become bossy and imperious, with an element among them now rejecting or doubting the well documented revisionist history on just about everything over the last 200 + years since the Endarkenment. The great danger is that now, instead of acting on the basis of a Christian Worldview derived from Scripture that allows them to properly read and interpret history, they are in the unhappy position of choosing to believe the lies fed to them by the non-Christian court historians of the 2oth century.

Twin Spin #2 — McAtee Contra Wilson On The Value Of His Conservatism

In this 30 second clip the Modernist of Moscow tips his hand in a revealing fashion;

https://www.youtube.com/clip/Ugkx7CxL4q6HzpNHhIzYS7j1kJI0UjqHnL6p

Wilson is a classic example why Biblical Christians need to avoid the sobriquet of “conservative,” and why they need to be done with being followers of Wilson. Wilson has demonstrated for us that there is very little admirable in being “conservative.” This is why some of us have reached for other labels. Some of us have suggested “Reformed Dissident.” We certainly need some identification that marks us as distinct from the type of conservatism that Wilson embodies.

The three quotes below from Samuel T. Francis begins to limn out the problems that currently exist with being thought of as “conservative.”

“What paleoconservatism tries to tell Americans is that the dominant forces in their society are no longer committed to conserving the traditions, institutions, and values that created and formed it, and, therefore, that those who are really conservative in any serious sense and wish to live under those traditions, institutions, and values need to oppose the dominant forces and form new ones.”

Samuel T. Francis

“Abandoning the illusion that it represents an establishment to be conserved, a new American Right must recognize that its values and goals lie outside and against the establishment and that its natural allies are not in Manhattan, Yale, and Washington but in the increasingly alienated and threatened strata of Middle America. The strategy of the Right should be to enhance the polarization of Middle Americans from the incumbent regime, not to build coalitions with the regime’s defenders and beneficiaries.

Samuel Francis

“The first thing we have to learn about fighting and winning a cultural war is that we are not fighting to “conserve” something; we are fighting to overthrow something….While we will find much in the conservative tradition to teach us about the nature of what we want to conserve and why we should want to conserve it, we will find little in conservative theory to instruct us in the strategy and tactics of challenging dominant authorities.”

Samuel Francis

Wilson in that link is nothing but astonishing … maybe “shocking” is a better word. I think my readers will find this link interesting.

To set this up, we need to keep in mind that there is a rumor floating around that Trump’s Sec.Def. nominee, Pete Hegseth is no longer a zionist, but that is not confirmed and is meaningless at this point. It is also interesting that I also heard that Hegseth attended a CREC church.

Anyway …  in this recent clip linked above, Doug expresses glee over the possibility that Hegseth IS a zionist, all because it puts a damper on those Doug label’s “Aunti-Zemite” and that crowd’s hope of prevailing against the advance of Zionism in America.

The great irony of this is that boiled down: DW would rather a Christian Heresy (zionism) continue to prosper and haunt our nation, just to shut down a group of people he has a personal grudge against. This even though this heresy of Zionism is really aimed at the strength of the church in favor of a heathen belief and people.

DW expresses glee over a heresy which has subjected our children and nation to constant war / poverty. He takes glee in the undermining of the Church and nation, so that these “Aunti-Zemites” he so detests personally would experience setback.

It’s also interesting that DW in the clip above talks about “bad forms of Kinism.” Does this mean that DW finally recognizes that there is a Kinism that isn’t bad? And if he finally recognizes that would he possibly come out and say so?

Folks, conservatism is dead and ministers like Wilson (and Foster, and Sandlin, and Boot, and White, and etc. etc. etc.) are Pied Pipers either keeping us in the very bad place we currently are or worse yet leading us to an even worse place yet.

Dabney noted this long before Samuel Francis when he wrote of Conservatism in the 2nd half of the 19th century;

“It may be inferred again that the present movement for women’s rights will certainly prevail from the history of its only opponent, Northern conservatism. This [Northern conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always when about to enter a protest very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance: The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip.”

― Robert Lewis Dabney

Biblical Christians need to be done with conservatism and they need to be done with the clergy, like Wilson, who are the embodiment of the Conservative impulse.

Twin Spin #1 — McAtee Contra Wilson On The Nature & Character of America

Responding to Doug Wilson’s bloviating on the thread linked below;

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1857824129925476821.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR3a1SPDhUvNC-nX6pYuuYPYmtPBv9NRr-5MKRrxyw5Qa4EIIxZ5eAtg2zg_aem_RkYsp4e3U2k8YoFQYGPCJw

“The heaviest lift in our (America’s) process of assimilation was the descendants of the Africans who were brought here as slaves against their will. But it still was largely accomplished . . . until the advent of identity politics. Identity politics intends to melt the pot itself.”


Doug Wilson
Pope of Moscow

1.) Yes the descendants of Africa were brought here against their will as they were sold into bondage by their black African captors to, in many cases, Bagels who owned the shipping that was transporting these black Africans captured and sold as booty of war at at a great profit. It was a terrible thing for those people to endure but in the endurance of it the descendants of those black Africans have inherited a position and well being that could have never been theirs had their ancestors remained in Africa as war booty.

2.) Descendants of Africans were assimilated? They sure didn’t think so in the time of MLK. To listen to many today they don’t want to be assimilated instead preferring to be constantly playing the role of aggrieved victim. Those genuinely assimilated will have no foundation for pleading victimization.

3.) Identity politics came into being precisely because assimilation with its “America as melting pot” metaphor was NEVER true. It was only a matter of time once the project of white replacement got underway that identity politics was seen as the mask it was and is.

It is a mask, having been ripped off is now understood . If one looks at voting patterns, for example, going back decades and decades one can see the reality of identity politics in how minorities have voted over the decades. Identity politics merely became a problem, for people like Doug Wilson, once white people started voting in their interests. Identity politics was fine with the left up until the point when White folks began to realize that they had unique interests vis-a-vis other people groups.

“Until recently, America was a distinct ethnos that came into being as the result of many different ethnoi coming together at a pace that made assimilation possible—it was truly a melting pot.” 

Doug Wilson 
Pope of CREC

1.) What Doug doesn’t mention is that while it can be argued that America was indeed a distinct ethnoi, it was a distinct ethnoi as the European cousins inter-married. In other words, the US became a distinct ethnoi as comprised, in its majority expression, of White Europeans. That this is true is seen in census results from my own lifetime that registered America as being 88% white. This is a significant fact left off by “gate-keeper of Moscow.”

2.) Contra Wilson America was NEVER a melting pot. That was a myth sold to America in the early 19th century. I’m confident that current Reformed chaps seeking to be the Gatekeepers know that the more prevailing metaphor now is “America as salad bowl.” Interestingly enough the idea of America as melting pot was popularized by a early 20th century Russian Bagel immigrant, Israel Zwangli in a play he wrote. It has always been to the Bagel’s advantage to sell this dissimulation so that White Anglo Saxon Protestants don’t have a sense of ownership of their own nation. Those selling the whole “Melting Pot” myth have to know that America was, as recently as my birth, a nation that was 88% white and overwhelmingly Christian.

It is in the interest of Bagels to embrace and promulgate this false metaphor of “melting-pot” because by doing so no ethnic/racial majority is allowed to rise in order to “persecute” the Bagel population. A melting-pot metaphor keeps a people who are 2% of the population in an advantaged place as a “divide and conquer” technique. If there is no majority people group then it is easier for a group who has always refused to assimilate to control the whole nation.

“What these disparate groups were assimilated into was an Anglo Protestant culture that was superior to many other cultures. But any superiority that it had was because it was Christian, not because it was Anglo.”

Doug Wilson
Gate-keeper of Moscow

1.) If these disparate groups were assimilated into a Anglo-Protestant culture that was superior to many other cultures, then we might ask; “What the Hades has happened to that Anglo-Protestant culture these foreign elements were assimilated into?” I mean, if they were really ‘assimilated’ per the Gate-keeper of Moscow shouldn’t we still have that original Anglo-Protestant culture?

For the rest of the Wilson blathering immediately quoted above I quote the response of my friend DD;

2.) Wilson is arguing that America is not monoethnic but is a “melting pot” that at one point had an “Anglo-Protestant” culture. There are problems with this too numerous to deal with in a short post, but what I want you to see is the underlying egalitarianism.

If this is correct, there is no functional difference between ancient Greece, Japan, and the Aztecs because all were pagan.

At root, you see, there are no significant differences among the different peoples that cannot be primarily explained by the external factor of religion. There are men–not Dutchmen, Englishmen, Chinese, etc. and culture is reduced almost exclusively to one factor.

I once tried to explain to a pastor-friend, many years ago now, that the views he was articulating (similar to Wilson) were bound up in egalitarianism, which is a faith system that acts like leaven, poisoning the entire loaf. Once the camel’s nose is into the tent it is not long before you have women leading pastoral prayer or distributing the Eucharist. In time, they will be officers in the church, ruling and teaching. The knocking down of natural boundaries and categories does not stop, it is a ceaseless acid burning down the social order.



The Modernist of Moscow isn’t finished quite yet;

“The open borders policies of the last few years were not a continuation of our historic pattern of assimilation, but rather an ideological assault on the culture that was doing the assimilating.”

Doug Wilson
Embodiment of Modernity

1.) The last few years? Does the last few years begin for Dougie Doo Doo with the The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Celler Act,? That was when this ideological assault began in principle. What has happened in “last few years,” is merely the logical consequence of that act that overturned a previous immigration policy that was decidedly pro Western and pro White.

2.) As this immigration is indeed a part of an ideological assault on our culture it is obvious in order to save what is left of this once “superior culture” we must close the borders and repatriate tens of millions of people. Is Doug down with that? I have my doubts.

3.) If you scratch the surface of the Hart-Celler Act Doug isn’t going to be too pleased with which unassimilated people group in America were the ones pushing for the end of the previous Hart-Cellar policy.

Dougie Poo continues with his genius IQ;

 

“In light of all the foregoing, Clarence Thomas is a far better representative of—and defender of— our Anglo Protestant cultural heritage than, say, a gross ton of anon crusader accounts with laser eyes.”

Doug Wilson
Egalitarian Maestro

If Japan found a Clarence Thomas defending their cultural heritage I imagine that they would be glad for that Clarence Thomas. However, that doesn’t make such a thing ideal or the expected norm.

So, inasmuch as Clarence Thomas does defend Anglo-Protestant culture then three cheers and more for Clarence Thomas. May he remain healthy for many more years. May he find himself continued to be hated by the overwhelming majority of his own people.

However, that an anomaly exists doesn’t mean that we should keep looking for anomalies as the norm.

Dougie Poo ends with a flourish;

“So those who want to defend America as a monoethnic state need to take care lest they wind up defending a morono-ethnic state instead.”

Doug Wilson
Moron in Chief 

Look at how clever Doug is. Did you see what he did there? he changed out “mono” for “morono.” My that is clever. Head of the class type of stuff.  Makes me wish I could be clever just like Dougie.

Hey …. I’m trying.

 

 

 

 

 



Ehud Would On The Calvinist Concept of Culture — And Commentary

“Gordon H. Clark in his signal work, ‘A Christian View of Men and Things,’ juxtaposes the two modern canons of historical interpretation against one another: Spengler’s theory of history at one extremity, and Toynbee’s at the other. And he upbraids both equally. Where Spengler followed Herodotus in the pagan cyclical theory of history, claiming no ultimate purpose or end, his metaphysical narrative yet depicts history as the march of peoples. Whereas, Toynbee’s linear view of history envisions all, after the Aristotelian perspective, primarily as the march of ideas. Both are in equal measure right and wrong, albeit in tension; they supplement each other well. And Francis Parker Yockey has resolved that tension equally well:

‘Race is the material of History, it is the treasure which a people brings to an idea.’

This was the view presupposed in every jot and tittle of Bishop James Ussher’s Annals of World History, as well as Augustine’s City of God: history is neither solely the march of peoples nor ideas, but both; because certain ideas only occur to and resonate with certain peoples in any appreciable numbers. As it pertains to the Gospel, we know certain groups have proven more receptive than others, and in varying degrees. Some groups seem to continue demonstrating Christian principle in their culture even when the inward substance of that culture has slipped away. Other groups, having long accepted Christianity in abstract, have never gone on to demonstrate it in their societies. And others still, such as the Pirahã people have proven thus far incapable of grasping the most rudimentary aspects of Christianity.”

Ehud Would
The Calvinist Concept of Culture: Kinism

Here we see teased out and expanded the simple idea that has been articulated often here on Iron Ink that culture is defined as theology externalized as that theology is poured over particular peoples. If culture was simply theology externalized, without any consideration of the people who embraced the theology the inevitable outcome is a kind of Gnosticism where the creational and material reality that God ordained for particular people completely disappears into the ether. On the other hand if culture was simply the expression of particular peoples without any consideration of the impact of what particular people’s believed in terms of ultimate considerations (epistemology, axiology, ontology, teleology, etc.) then the results would be a naked materialism. Also, in each view there would be an arc towards a Globalist and Universalist reality as both views (Gnostic and Materialistic) would expect the whole world to move towards the singular reality that they espouse. We have seen this in conversation with Christian Alienists who expect that there will be a New World Order that will be Christian but a type of Christianity where all colors bleed into one — all ethno-distinctions disappear into the great miasma of Christian oneness. This is hardly dissimilar from the heathen Babel vision where the goal is the same. The only difference being is that the label “Christian” is slapped on this Christian globalist view.

In the Christian understanding of culture and eschatology, the world is converted to Christ so that the result is a variegated panoply of different Christian cultures, with each Christian culture finding a harmony of interests because despite their distinctions in flavor and arrangement there exists a unity given the reality that they each embrace “One Lord, One Faith, and One Baptism.” This stands in contrast to the uniformity of people demanded by the Christian Babel views that insist that Christianity will turn Chinese, or Ndebele, or Shona, or Intuits, or Mongolians into the same exact people with the same exact culture expressing the same exact Christianity. That this vision is a myth of exaggerated proportions is seen in Revelation 21 where we read of the existence of particular nations streaming into the New Jerusalem as particular nations;

24 And the nations [n]of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor [o]into it…. Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea.    

And then in this grand vision of John the Revelator we are told that;

2 In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Even in the new Jerusalem when the great consummation has arrived nations and peoples do not disappear as distinct nations and peoples.

This reality is why Calvin Seminary Martin Wyngaarden could write in the 1960s;

Now the predicates of the covenant are applied in Isa. 19 to the Gentiles of the future, — “Egypt my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance,” Egypt, the people of “Jehovah of hosts,” (Isa. 19:25) is therefore also expected to live up to the covenant obligations, implied for Jehovah’s people. And Assyria comes under similar obligations and privileges. These nations are representative of the great Gentile world, to which the covenant privileges will, therefore, be extended.”

Martin J. Wyngaarden, The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011), p. 94.

And again,


“More than a dozen excellent commentaries could be mentioned that all interpret Israel as thus inclusive of Jew and Gentile, in this verse, — the Gentile adherents thus being merged with the covenant people of Israel, though each nationality remains distinct.”


“For, though Israel is frequently called Jehovah’s People, the work of his hands, his inheritance, yet these three epithets severally are applied not only to Israel, but also to Assyria and to Egypt: “Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance.”


Thus the highest description of Jehovah’s covenant people is applied to Egypt, — “my people,” — showing that the Gentiles will share the covenant blessings, not less than Israel. Yet the several nationalities are here kept distinct, even when Gentiles share, in the covenant blessing, on a level of equality with Israel. Egypt, Assyria, and Israel are not nationally merged. And the same principles, that nationalities are not obliterated, by membership in the covenant, applies, of course, also in the New Testament dispensation.”

Martin Wyngaarden

The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture — pp. 101-102.

This is the great contest that we find ourselves currently in. The question resolves to whether the Church of Jesus Christ will pursue a Uniformitarian Christianity where all colors bleed into one and where grace destroys nature so that the creational distinctions that each people group (and perhaps eventually even each gender) were assigned by the Creator God are snuffed out so that the current version of Babel distinction-less Christianity can flourish. The alternative is the embrace of the Trinitarian idea of Christianity as applied to culture where the whole globe is won to Christ but won to Christ allowing for unity in diversity as among the varied Christian cultures that each and all embrace “One Lord, One Faith, and One Baptism,” and yet that without becoming uniformitarian clones of one another.

May God grant us His grace to avoid the gray, bleak, uniformitarian cultures that the Christianity of modern churchmen desires to produce.

John Chrysostom …. The Kinist

Recently, I had a couple situations where more than one family protested rather decidedly that my embracing of Kinism was wrong since

a.) Kinism was not a first order doctrine related to salvation and so shouldn’t be front and center.

b.) Kinism was going to be a hurdle for their other friends making it difficult for children to find marriage partners.

I thought I would turn to the words of St. Chrysostom in order to demonstrate that Kinism is a first order doctrine and is related to salvation.

Speaking of those accursed who turn from God Chrysostom writes:

“Did they not trample kinship under foot, did they not forget their children, did they not forget the very God who created them.”

John Chrysostom
Discourses Against Judaizing Christians
3.3.8

“For if a man deserts those who are united by ties of kindred and affinity how shall he be affectionate towards others?”

St. John Chrysostom
The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom: Archbishop of Constantinople
ON the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon (Parker 1843), pg. 115

“If any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house,” that is, those who are nearly related to him, “he is worse than an infidel.”
And so says Isaiah, the chief of the Prophets, “Thou shalt not overlook thy kinsmen of thy own seed.” (Isa. lviii. 7, Sept.)

For if a man deserts. those who are united by ties of kindred and affinity, how shall he be affectionate towards others? Will it not have the appearance of vainglory, when benefiting others he slights his own relations, and does not provide for them? And what will be said, if instructing others, he neglects his own, though he has greater facilities; and a higher obligation to benefit them? Will it not be said, These Christians are affectionate indeed, who neglect their own relatives?

(2) “He is worse than an infidel.”

Wherefore? Because the latter, if he benefits not aliens, does not neglect his near kindred. What is meant is this: The law of God and of nature is violated by him who provides not for his own family. But if he who provides not for them has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel, where shall he be ranked who has injured his relatives? With whom shall he be placed? But how has he denied the faith? Even as it is said, “They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him.” (Tit. i. 16.) What has God, in whom they believe, commanded? “Hide not thyself from thine own flesh.” (Isa. lviii. 7.) How does he then believe who thus denies God? Let those consider this, who to spare their wealth neglect their kindred. It was the design of God, in uniting us by the ties of kindred, to afford us many opportunities of doing good to one another. When therefore thou neglectest a duty which infidels perform, hast thou not denied the faith?”

Chrysostom
Homilies on 1st Timothy XIV

In terms of (b) above the only thing that might be said is that there will be a greater cost born by family members for a patriarch abandoning truth than will be born by family members if the patriarch stands by the truth.