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.

McAtee On the Rosebrough vs. Mahler Debate II — On The Individual vs. The Collective

Rosebrough grilled Mahler regarding Mahler’s insistence that there is no such thing as the individual. Instinct rises here to agree with Rosebrough but when Mahler makes clear what his definition of “the individual” is one has to agree that Mahler is correct. Mahler is not saying individuals do not exist and all that exists is a hive. Mahler is saying that no individual can claim that he or she are what they are independent of any other considerations. All of us, as individuals, are what we are because of descent as well as the multitude of interrelationships that we develop over the course of our lives. Mahler is merely saying that no man can claim to be sui generis in his individuality.

Mahler, given his definition of individualism (which is admittedly incredibly atomistic) is correct that individualism doesn’t exist.

Now, there are implications though here that need to be examined. Is Mahler saying that because there is no such thing as the individual, given his definition of the individual, that therefore Government arrangement that only emphasize the collective are therefore the best. Corey Mahler did say that he believed in property rights and if that is the case it does strike me that Mahler allows for the existence of what most people would call “the individual” in this political theory. Having said that, Fascism as a political system, which Mahler seems to prefer, has had as a weakness the loss of the individual as that is commonly understood in Western political history. The loss of the individual in a political ecosystem would be a severe loss. To be honest this is one of my concerns about any collectivist political system, but this concern has to be set against the fact that our system of so called individual freedom has, for whatever reason, failed and because of the collectivist agencies in our culture (public schools, churches, media) the rugged American individual largely no longer exists. Our population is as characterized by mindless bots (cogs in a machine) as any collectivist political system you’d like to name. Because of that, Fascism becomes less scary though one could still like to daydream about a system, influenced by the Christian categories of the temporal “One and the Many,” based as it would be on the eternal one and the many could still predominate so that a genuine individualism could exist alongside a healthy collective impulse.

Because, we as a people are no longer Christian, and as such have surrendered how belief in the Trinitarian God permeates a social order, we have surrendered the Trinitarian idea of God’s plurality as expressing itself in our social order/culture in favor of a Unitarian conception of God as located in our State organs. Having given up the God of the Bible in His One and Many expression, we have embrace a Oneism in our social institutions that is no longer complimented by a genuine plurality of authority in our various other institutions. As such we are a collectivist people who believe that in the State we live and move and have our being. This is not a whit different than what one can find in collectivist social orders. The idea that Americans, speaking generally, know anything about true biblical individualism is a joke. This is because all our cultural mediating institutions that once existed in order to drive a true individualism because they were not beholden to a Statist arrangement have been co-opted by the state.

There is no use in Rosebrough arguing for a Democracy where the individual can exist because those days are long gone with the advent of the government schools as combined with the constant conditioning that comes from pulpits and media outlets. All of these work in harmony to collectivize the American mind so that no individual really does exist today. Rosebrough himself, in this debate, reveals over and over again that he is just another collectivist clergy bot reinforcing the collectivist narrative.

Give Rosebrough 1/2 a point for valuing the individual. Take 1/2 point away from Rosebrough for not realizing that the individual no longer exists. Give Mahler a point for being able to read the tea leaves on this subject. Take 1/2 point away from Mahler for not valuing the individual enough.

Final analysis … Mahler + 1/2 point.

Total so far … Rosebrough 1/2 point …. Mahler 1.5 points.

McAtee on The Rosebrough vs. Mahler Debate I — Touching Democracy

Recently there was a debate between two Lutherans here on the subject of political governance. Rosebrough was taking the “Democracy is good” side while Mahler was taking the “Democracy needs to be replaced with Fascism” side.

Overall, I think I was able to be an objective observant because I want nothing to do with either Democracy or Fascism. However, to be fair, I hate Democracy as it is and I can envision a Fascism that would be superior to the Democracy we currently have, though I can also easily envision a Fascism that would be worse than the current Democracy we have.

A few observations;

1.) I am not usually able to sit through these long podcast interviews/debates because they can get so tedious and tendentious. However this one I made through the whole 2 hours 40 minutes. I guess I was captivated by both Rosebrough’s density and Mahler’s unflappability.

2.) Since these chaps were both Lutherans there were times when I, as a Biblical Christian, did not agree with either one. At those points I was completely left agog.

3.) My comments follow the order of the debate. So, if my comments seem disconnected to you you will have to go to the point of the conversation between Rosebrough and Mahler to see what I am getting at.

Turning to my comments on the debate;

1.) Rev. Chris Roseborough faults Corey Mahler for opposing Democracy and yet our founding Fathers viciously opposed Democracy. Idiot points for Roseborough.

Here are Founding Father on Democracy;

“Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to Say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy.”   -John Adams

“Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.” ~ James Madison

“It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.” ~ Alexander Hamilton

To put pure and simply, “Democracy sucks.” Americans were never given a Democracy but rather were bequeathed a Representative Republic wherein the franchise (vote) was, generally speaking, (exceptions existed in the states) limited to free white men who owned property. Further the US, when it voted to instil the 17th amendment went even further in its embrace of wicked Democracy.

Indeed, all wise men now oppose this Democratic form of Government the US currently has because it is not anywhere near consistent with what we find in the US Constitution. Corey Mahler is correct in opposing Democracy.

Score this point for Mahler.

Twenty Objections To Andrew Walker’s Objections To Christian Nationalism

Over here;

https://wng.org/opinions/its-not-too-late-to-abandon-christian-nationalism-1741834794

You can find an article criticizing Christian Nationalism. You will find that, just as I have predicted, that having villainized the word “Kinism” the “Christian” enemy is now seeking to villainize the term “Christian Nationalism.” If they are successful in villainizing that term they will villainize the next word or term someone comes up with to describe soci0-political action that aligns with the Christian faith.

You can read the article for yourself. I am going to offer bullet point critiques.

1.) Walker complains that the term “Christian Nationalism” is malleable and so should be given up. However, if this logic applied we would give up most controversial terms or descriptor words. For example, it could be rightly said of the word “Christian” that it is endlessly malleable and essentially vacuous and so should be given up. When a Lesbian Priest of the congregational church says she’s a “Christian,” and Andrew Walker says he is a “Christian” and I say, “I am a Christian” we all mean significantly different things. According to Walker’s logic we should give up the term Christian and move on to another word. Indeed, as Walker writes about Christian Nationalism so we could write about the word “Christian,” “the term has proven an unhelpful distraction.”

Walker is just being stupid here. If we always give up words or terms because the enemy seeks to villainize our language we will never have our own linguistics.

“Christian Nationalism,” like the word “Christian,” or the word “Kinism” should be retained with the very purpose of enraging the reactionary vanguards. There people are the enemy. What do we care what the enemy thinks of our language? It strikes me that as Walker aligns with the enemy in their project in forcing us to give up our language Walker demonstrates he is in league with the enemies of a Biblical and well thought out Christian Nationalism.

2.) Walker next demonstrates that he himself agrees with the enemies of Christian Nationalism (hereafter CN) on the left. Walker criticizes CN because it understands that as it applies to Western Nations CN will have a particularly European ethnic expression. Walker (who is an egghead at some Baptist Seminary) wrings his hands over the fact that CN’s today understand that Christianity does NOT have deeply Jewish roots, thus rejecting what is quite possibly a lingering Dispensationalism on the Baptist Walker’s observations. Christianity has deeply Jewish roots the way the Reformation had deeply Trentian Roman Catholic Roots.

3.) Next Walker tries to convince the reader that Christianity also benefited from North African developments, doubtlessly thinking of Augustine. However, Walker does not mention that his North African developments on Christianity are substantially different than what is meant by North African today. The man thus leaves an impression that the Christian faith was influenced by a black Athanasius or a black Augustine. Of course this is bunkum.

4.) Next Walker implies that the modern CN movement doesn’t embrace the idea that the Christian faith is to be accepted by all nations. Of course we understand that the Gospel is to conquer all nations and that all nations in their nations will one day embrace a Christianity that is colored by the ethnicities of the various peoples that embrace our undoubted catholic Christian faith.

5.) Walker then accuses CN of not treating the Christian faith as transcendent truth. Andrew Walker seems to think that CN today limits the Christian faith to only one ethno-racial vision of national identity. Again, this is absolutely false. See #4 above. Of course Christian Nationalists who belong to the West do see CN as something that will look particularly Western and European in Western and European contexts as existing among Western European peoples.

6.) Walker severely misread Ephesians 2:14-16 which applies to the Church and not necessarily to nations.

Paul is not talking about generic ethnic divides in Eph. 2 but specifically the aspects of the law-covenant that divided Jew from Gentiles. Therefore, someone cannot impose ethnic distinctions onto Paul’s words. The apostle has something uniquely covenantal in mind.

 

Second, the dividing wall was originally the will of God. To take the word “hostility” in and apply it as if multiculturalism is the goal is dangerous. The dividing wall to which Paul is referring is the Mosaic Law, and the Mosaic Law was God’s idea. He made the wall; then he removed it in Christ. The division was God’s will, not the by-product of human sin. “Racism,” on the other hand, is the result of human sin and never is the result of what God commands. By applying Ephesians 2:14 to ethnic strife today you effectively turn God into a “racist.”

 

Third, did Christ remove by his death the various differences between ethnicities and cultures today? Not at all. Before Christ’s death, one culture may prefer beer. Another culture may prefer wine. After the death of Christ the first culture still likes beer and the second culture still likes wine. The death of Christ was not intended to move the needle on these types of ethno-cultural differences (except for the aspects of man’s culture that are sinful). Nor did it overturn other aspects of human relations grounded in creation and nature.

 

More fundamentally, the church and nation are two different entities governed by Christ in different ways–with different laws and rules of citizenship. Walker collapsing the way the Church operates and the way Nations operate is problematic at best.

In brief, a racialized form of nationalism is no more evil than a racialized form of family.

7.) Next, Walker gives us the much tossed around meme of “anti-Semitism,” which, as Joe Sobran informed us long ago, is defined as “anybody who disagrees with a Jew.” Walker accuses some strains of CN of being Anti-Semitic. Of course Walker doesn’t give us any definition of Anti-Semitic so we are left having to imagine exactly what Walker means. The simple fact however is that any reading of Church history will quickly demonstrate that throughout the European history of Christianity the Jewish people have been at loggerheads with Christian peoples. This observation was not controversial in the least until after World War II.  The fact that CN today might recognize that Jewish interests are often at loggerheads with Jewish interests is realism and not Anti-Semitism in the least. I could offer Walker several books documenting this conflict in history should he need some reading material. Contra Walker, it is not abandoning of biblical Christianity to understand that since Jewish people have historically opposed Christianity in the lands of the West that they might have an interest in continuing to do so even today.

8.) Walker accuses CN of seeking to fuse Darwin with Christianity. He makes this accusation quite without any concrete evidence. Clearly, CN cannot be called CN if it really were the case that it was seeking to import Atheistic/Evolutionist Darwinism into CN. However, having said that it is simply the case that one can believe in genetics and average IQ levels among different peoples without being Darwinian and without being “fixated on genetics.” Further, despite Walker’s accusation to the contrary, a person can believe in genetics and the reality of ethnic IQ levels and still believe human dignity is rooted in the image of God. These accusations by Walker against CN’s are guilty of the red herring logical fallacy.

9.) Walker gives us an article obsessing over the virtue of ethnic heterogeneity and so accuses Christian Nationalists of obsessing over the virtue of ethnic homogeneity.

10.) Walker then offers up another false dichotomy by writing that “Christianity grants the legitimacy of nationhood, Christianity has never required nationalism to thrive.”  The problem here is that nationhood implies Nationalism. If a nation is to be a nation it must protect its National interests. To protect one’s national interests (the chief of which is one’s own people) then one needs to, by default, embrace nationalism to thrive.

11.) Next Walker complains about the lack of evangelistic zeal and personal holiness. Keep in mind though that when the conversation is on CN one expects people to talk about CN and not evangelism and personal holiness. For my part, I quite agree that CN needs to embrace evangelism, which is one reason I encourage young Christian people to have lots of children. Being a Pastor, I am constantly encouraging my people in personal holiness.

12.) I want to be fair and say that the critique of Walker here are not critiques that need to be brought against all those who oppose CN. However, men like Walker (Pope Doug, David Bahnsen, James White, Andrew Sandlin, Joe Boot) do need to have this kind of critique brought against them. I’m sure there are many others who oppose CN who do not bring the kinds of false charges against CN as Walker brings in his article against CN.

13.) Just as Kinism before it, CN is a fine handle to use to describe a Biblical position on Christian social order. We shouldn’t let Karens like Andrew Walker dissuade us from the use of this phrase. To be sure there have been evil versions of Nationalism in world history but those Nationalisms were never Christian in their orientation, though to be sure some tried to co-op Christianity in their version of Nationalism. The Nazi use of “Positive Christianity” is one such example. However, distortions can arise from all kinds of origins just as Andrew Walker distorts CN in his article today.

14.) Walker begins to round off his article by complaining about the Church wielding political force under the banner of CN. However, CN never argues that the Church should be running the affairs of State so I’m not sure where Walker gets this idea. As far as I know all Christians applaud the necessity of personal repentance, cultural renewal, and moral leadership — just as Walker mentions.

15.) Walker next writes that Christianity has never required nationalism to survive. That may be true but that doesn’t mean that Christianity doesn’t thrive more successfully being aided by a Nationalism that finds the state favoring the Christian faith. Walker gives another false dichotomy.

16.) Walker, seemingly complains about Christians having (wielding) political force as if that ability to wield political force is inherently wrong or evil. Where in Scripture are we taught that it is evil for Christian magistrates to wield political force in favor of the Christian faith? There is nothing inherently evil about the proper use of force and Christians in the project of CN should pray that a day comes when Christian Magistrates use force as honoring unto God in a Christian nation.

17.) What is hilarious now is that Walker appeals to Natural Law to overturn Stephen Wolfe’s appeal to Natural Law for the establishing of CN. Would the real Natural Law please stand up?

18.) Walker next insists that “We should advocate for policies that promote common good, not just interests of Christians”

The problem here is that advocating for policies that promote the interests of Christians are always policies that serve the common good. Walker is involved in a false dichotomy. Again, we need to reject Andrew Walker’s boneheaded advice that would find us embracing a “Thirdwayism.” We have seen in the past what this kind of quietism and milquetoast approach achieves.

19.) Walker next argues that the Christianizing of the West will only happen by a bottom up approach, villainizing a top down approach. I quite agree that a top down approach alone will never give us a CN. However, I also thoroughly disagree that a bottom up alone approach will give us Christian culture. Change in a nation has to come from both top down and bottom up as well as from the inside out. An alone bottom up approach alone that Walker advocates will never succeed when the top down is ignored because those on the top will use the means of the state to crush an alone bottom up approach.  A label like CN which emphasized both bottom up and top down as well as inside out will communicate what all biblical Christians desire in their social order. Ideas like Walker’s only distract us from the mission.

20.) It is not too late to ignore chaps like Andrew Walker as well as those who would so water down CN. Men like Pope Doug and those several other mentioned above must be defeated. They do not belong to the work of Christian renewal.

Calvin & Jefferson On Diversity & Multiculturalism

 “If you fix your eyes not on one state merely, but look around the world, or at least direct your view to regions widely separated from each other, you will perceive that Divine Providence has not, without good cause, arranged that different countries should be governed by different forms of polity. For as only elements of unequal temperature adhere together, so in different regions a similar inequality in the form of government is best.”

John Calvin 
Institutes

Calvin here is clearly against any notion of multiculturalism. Different countries, populated by different peoples, are governed by different forms of polity that best reflect and so serve different peoples. From this we learn the advisability of properly segregating those social realities that should be properly segregated. For example, it would be foolhardy to try to integrate the Shona people group as living among the Japanese. They are different peoples and should be ruled by different traditions, customs, and governance. Their differences don’t allow for social integration as one people. This seems obvious.

What Calvin wrote in the 16th century Thomas Jefferson echoed in his lifetime when writing about the differences between blacks and whites;

“Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.”

What Calvin and Jefferson observed was not merely a matter of opinion. Calvin would have said that this was clear from God’s Word as seen in how the OT gives very precise delineations keeping the stranger and the alien distinct from Israel. Jefferson would have said this was obvious as seen in Nature and Nature’s God. Both would have been correct though today’s Natural Law enthusiasts would disagree with Jefferson’s correct interpretation of Natural Law.

Calvin and Jefferson were not merely rendering up subjective opinions merely reflective of their times. Calvin and Jefferson (and countless other men) were reflecting objective truth. It’s the same truth that is found in Scripture wherein it is taught

“You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.”  Deut. 22:10

One would think that the obvious failure of our long pursued egalitarianism would be obvious on this matter. One would think that the failures of multiculturalism are glaring. Instead, we continue to hear stupid slogans that have repeatedly been demonstrated as abundantly not even close to being true like “diversity is our strength,” “Strength lies in differences, not in similarities,” “Diversity is a mix and inclusion is making the mix work,” “No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive,” and “A democracy thrives on diversity. Tyranny oppresses it.”  All of this has been to prop up an egalitarianism that can not stand, never has stood, and never will stand. The continued decline of the US and Europe in their attempt to embrace diversity and multiculturalism has proven the wisdom of Calvin and Jefferson and countless others. A society… a culture … is only strong where there is worldview, ideological, theological, philosophical, religious, and cultural harmony of interest as combined with a shared racial / ethnic history and tradition.

Hat-tip — Adam Plewes

The Eventual Breakup Of These US & Europe

America’s population is northwards of 347 million people now. There are those who contend that approximately 30 million of those are illegal aliens — criminals.

This presents the question of “what unites us together as a cohesive nation?” The premise is that a nation, like a family, must have common ground in order to function coherently. Without common ground a nation, like a family, will disintegrate over time. So, given our ever increasing multicultural status as a nation what are the dynamics that make us, as a many peoples, one people?

It strikes me that there can only be three answers to that question for any nation. Those three options are;

1.) Force / Totalitarianism
2.) Economic Prosperity
3.) Shared Race & Religion

When we consider the force / totalitarian option were are presented with the idea of “Empire.” Empires are kept together by a strong centralized and authoritarian political structure. Here we could remember examples like the former USSR, or the US immediately after the war of Northern Aggression. These Empires (USSR externally among many countries and the USA internally in the one nation) were kept together by the bayonet. Nations which are kept together by Force / Totalitarianism need and have large control mechanisms (Secret police) in order to immediately squash any movement by any subversive groups that might unravel the whole. Again we are reminded of the work of the Cheka/KGB in the former USSR and the Freedman’s Bureau as it existed in the conquered Southern States, post “War Against the Constitution.”

People’s living in and sharing the same “nation” may hate one another but if enough force is applied from a centralized source they can be stitched together for a period of time. Eventually though, Empires cannot sustain the amount of resources they need in order to continue their top down existence and they either implode or explode.

The second source of uniting a nation is Economic prosperity. This falls under the old proverb that all boats rise with a rising tide. When there is abundance among a nation that nation can rise above the inherent disagreements that exist as a result of being so fractured in their population base. I believe this is the explanation for why the US has been able to sustain its multicultural existence for the last few decades now. As racial/ethnic and religious homogeneity has decreased in the last three decades or so it is the fact of comparative economic prosperity that has kept us from disintegrating. This has been combined with ever increasing totalitarianism from Washington DC with its ever burgeoning surveillance society so that currently the reality that is keeping the US from flying apart in secession movements or general various geographic anarchies is comparative economic prosperity combined with the aforementioned totalitarianism.

However, Economic prosperity cannot last forever and eventually totalitarianism fails and at that point unless a nation exists as a nation because of a shared race/ethnicity and a shared religion the nation will not continue to be able to cohere as a nation and political division will result. This is what happened with the fall of the USSR. Economically, the USSR could not continue and as their never was any shared religion/race among the various countries that comprised that Empire the USSR disintegrated. This is what happened when the British lost their Empire under the rule of Churchill. England lost its ability to project power across its previous Empire and in light of its Economic loss in light of its diminishment in WW II its Empire began to melt away. In both cases there was nothing else to hold the people together and now England faces internally what it faced externally at the close of WW II. Because England has allowed itself to be swamped with immigrants from third world origins England is in danger of decided civil unrest. It already is increasing its totalitarian muscle in order to keep its population “united.”

That brings us back to the US. The US in my lifetime was at one point 89% White and Christian. That provided a religious and racial/ethnic base in order to provide a cohesiveness that could rise above national stress and strain. It was this common thread that brought us through two World Wars and a great Depression. It was this common thread that found us continuing during the Draft riots and the Political upheaval of Watergate. Because we were a people with a majority religion and race / ethnicity there were common bonds that could compel us to stay together despite pressures to separate politically.

The fact that shared race / ethnicity alone can’t keep a people together is seen by referencing again our own War Between the States. Despite the fact that we were largely one people racially, the differences at that time in the religion that was animating North (Transcendentalism-Romanticism) and South (Christianity) were so great that the previous common ground could not survive. Shared race alone without a shared religion cannot keep a people together once pressures descend.

The same is true in the other direction. Shared religion alone can’t keep a people together where there isn’t a shared racial/ethnic reality.  One has only to think of the division between blacks and whites in America who both boast of large “Christian” communities within their people groups and yet the divisions between black and white Christians over various issues in the US is well known. The conflict between Christian Serbs and Croats after the fall of Yugoslavia serves as another example of how a shared faith (Christianity) cannot by itself unite a people even when there is strong racial (Slavic) affinities.

All this brings us to the eventual breakup of the US and even of Europe. With the New World Order rearranging of the World via mass immigration the West is no longer the West. Europe and the US had been largely White and Christian until the latter part of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century. However, both the Christian base (even nominally considered) and the racial/ethnic base has been deteriorated  and the result is that we have nothing intrinsic that can hold us together as nations and this means that once totalitarian efforts are exhausted (and they always exhaust themselves eventually) the eventual course for the US will be the break-up of these once united States. Serious secession movements will arise in the next quarter of a century or so in the US unless something drastically changes in order to restore our religious and racial/ethnic homogeneity.

Before the breakup there may be efforts to pin together the country by force. Total control, with the advent of technology, is getting easier and easier but the centripetal forces are equally strong. Good economic times may also forestall the inevitable but good economic times do not last forever. Eventually, because of how the New World Order has been able to rearrange population centers the US will break apart as a nation.