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 And Pelton On The Subject Of Gnosticism

James Pelton writes,”

Sin is a moral, spiritual rebellion against God—not a biological condition.

“Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.”
— James 1:14, ESV

Bret responds,

And you’re saying desire is completely unrelated to our biology? When a man lusts for a woman is there nothing about biology in that?

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.   Gen. 3:6

Are you saying there was no biology in those desires? Come on James … this is a sign that you are Gnostic.

You are divorcing things that cannot be divorced. They can be distinguished but not divorced.

James Pelton writes,

Can anger issues run in families? Yes—but that’s temperament or learned behavior, not guilt for sin. A quick temper might be genetic. But sinning in anger is a choice, not an inheritance.

Romans 5:12 says sin entered through Adam, and all die because all sinned—not because they got the “sin gene.”

Bret responds,

Certainly anger can be a learned behavior but it can also be a genetic trait and finally it can be both. Do you think everything is nurture holding that nature doesn’t exist? If you do that is Gnostic. Gnosticism eliminates the corporeal reality of existence and makes those realities unimportant. That’s what I see you doing by denying that creationally God has put us in particular peoples — with all their strengths and weaknesses. Those creational categories (nature) are restored (made what they were always intended to be in their best expression) by grace. Anger for example, can become resolve.

James Pelton writes,

Traducianism is the view that the soul is generated along with the body from the parents—not specially created by God at each conception. It explains how we inherit a sin nature, but not that sin is in our DNA.

Bret responds,

Was David’s lust for Bathsheba a lust that existed without cooperation from his DNA?

James Pelton writes

I would affirm:

-Sin is a spiritual problem
-We are responsible for our own sin
Genetics may influence behavior, but they don’t cause sin

Bret responds,

If genetics is influencing your behavior, then it is causal in sin. Now, of course our spiritual sin nature is moving our biological desires but one can’t say that genetics influence behavior and as the same time say it is not causal in the least.

You chaps want to make this vast divide between the spiritual and the corporeal. However, God made us as whole beings. Distinctions can be made but you chaps are divorcing the spiritual from the corporeal. That, James, is Gnostic like.

James Pelton really reaches,

Otherwise, you’d be saying Jesus would’ve inherited sin through Mary’s genetics—which Scripture and the early church reject.

Bret responds,

That would only be the case if one didn’t believe that God supernaturally worked so as Jesus did not inherit a sin nature. God, Scripture records, does the miraculous.

James Pelton writes,

When someone gets saved, they remain biologically male or female, Jew or Gentile, black or white. Your body and ethnicity don’t vanish.

But Scripture is clear that in Christ, those categories are no longer ultimate.

Bret responds,

There the Gnosticism is again.

Here is John Calvin on that subject;

“Regarding our eternal salvation, it is true that one must not distinguish between man and woman, or between king and a shepherd, or between a German and a Frenchman. Regarding policy, however, we have what St. Paul declares here; for our, Lord Jesus Christ did not come to mix up nature, or to abolish what belongs to the preservation of decency and peace among us….Regarding the kingdom of God (which is spiritual) there is no distinction or difference between man and woman, servant and master, poor and rich, great and small. Nevertheless, there does have to be some order among us, and Jesus Christ did not mean to eliminate it, as some flighty and scatterbrained dreamers [believe].”

John Calvin (Sermon on 1 Corinthians 11:2-3)

Are you a flighty scatterbrained dreamer James?

James Pelton wrote,

“You have put off the old self… and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew… but Christ is all, and in all.”
— Colossians 3:9–11, ESV

This isn’t Gnosticism, this is orthodox

Bret responds,

But the new self that is being put on is consistent with who God creationally made me to be. Grace restores nature James.

You are Cultural Marxist orthodox. You are not Biblically orthodox.

Rev. 21:22 But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine [l]in it, for the [m]glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. 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.

Interview With James Edwards — Political Cesspool 17 May 2025

James Edwards:  Please inform our readers about your educational background and provide some details about the church you pastor.

Pastor Bret McAtee:

My educational background is undergrad work @ Indiana Wesleyan University. When I attended there it was called “Marion College.” I graduated with a BS in Political-Science, Religion-Philosophy, and History. While there I did a great deal of work in Worldview thinking and presuppositionalism under the guidance of Dr. Glenn Martin, who was himself a worldwide leader in Worldview thinking and presuppositionalism at the time.

After that I attended Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina at Columbia Biblical Seminary. I received my M.Div there with an emphasis on Cross Cultural ministry which was a natural fit with what I had learned in undergrad in terms of Worldview thinking and presuppositionalism.

Finally, I did Ph. D. work at Whitfield Theological Seminary though I never finished that degree. However, the reading I did there likewise supported the trajectory that I had already pursued.

At each step of the way I was reading tons of theology, history, political theology, economics, comparative religions, Worldview thinking and presuppositonalism.

The Church I ministering at currently is an Independent Reformed Church.  We left connected denominationalism six years ago. I have been here 30 years. We are a small but vibrant congregation. The Church itself has existed just over 60 years. We abide by the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession of Faith, and the Canons of Dort believing that they are accurate summaries of the basics of Scripture. We are a bit of a throwback compared to most contemporary Reformed Churches. We are decidedly Reformed in our theology. We are postmillennial in our eschatology, Christian Nationalist and familialistic in our social order understanding, we strongly emphasize the means of grace (Word & Sacrament) and we adhere to a rich covenant theology.

Edwards: The Southern Poverty Law Center, a widely criticized organization, publicly targeted you and your church a few years ago, resulting in significant media attention. Can you share your experience during that ordeal and how you responded to the attacks?

Pastor Bret McAtee:

First of all I have always found it to be hilarious that the #1 hate group in American (the SPLC) has gotten away with being known as that organization that identifies and labels extremist groups in America. It is pretty well known now that man who was the leader of that organization for years himself was tossed because of various unseemly actions on his part towards female employees and minorities as reported by various news outlets.

I would like to say that I handled the attacks with no problem but that wouldn’t be the truth. It was a very difficult time because not only was the SPLC lambasting us but also the Michigan media was splashing our name everywhere with their false and slanderous accusations. So my experience was one of despair at the time. I thought for sure that those people were going to bring myself, my family, and the families in the Church to ruin. That was definitely their intent. As a result of their libelous “reporting” I received multiple death threats. There was also slight vandalism to our church building. I also found myself denounced publicly in the local press by more than a few clergy members in the city in which I live. These clergy members were seeking to burnish their reputations by slandering me. It is interesting that not one of these local ministers ever reached out to me to ask me about the truthfulness of what was being reported. They just believed the constantly repeated errant reports from radio, television, and newspapers.

The way I responded was two fold …

1.) I refused to talk to Journalist, despite the numerous requests for interviews. Those people are never interested in the truth. They are only interested in spinning things to support the false narrative that they are seeking to weave.

2.) I took down my public online activity for a few months until the storm passed. I did that because the media had already been quoting my work completely out of context and I knew that if I left it up during the storm that they would continue with their libelous reporting where they cut and paste what one has written in such a way to make it say what one was not saying.

Edwards: Mel Gibson’s father, Hutton, once told me during an interview on my radio program that, “Tolerance is the last virtue of a depraved society. When an immoral society has blatantly and proudly violated all the commandments, it insists upon one last virtue: tolerance for its immorality. It will not tolerate condemnation of its perversions. It creates a whole new world in which only the intolerant critic of intolerable evil is evil.” What do you think?

Pastor Bret McAtee:

I think that tolerance is the battle cry for the person who uses the idea of freedom as a cover for licentiousness. So, on this point I think Hutton Gibson is correct. Freedom, or liberty, is only as good as that standard by which it is hemmed in and defined. Absolute unrestricted freedom is the kind of thing that the French Revolution era sexual pervert “the Marquis de Sade” advocated for, dreamt about, and practiced. A tolerance for absolute freedom or liberty without any guardrails to define that freedom is a illustrated by a railroad train that is free to travel without railroad tracks, or a goldfish who is free to swim without his goldfish bowl.

This reminds me of what I often say to the people I serve in the Church I pastor. I tell them that the only Taboo that is now left in the west is the Taboo against all Taboos.  That is true because of what Hutton observed about where we are at with the issue of tolerance.

Another reality that fits in here is that because of the ascendancy of tolerance we are repeatedly told over and over again that we are not to judge, and of course the reason people insist that we shouldn’t judge is because judging shows a lack of tolerance.  Yet, Jesus Himself did say;

“Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”

And elsewhere the Holy Spirit tells us;

Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!

We see thus that Scripture does not teach this idea of tolerance as some kind of supreme virtue. Now Christianity has always taught there are areas of adiaphora — or issues regarding this or that which are indifferent or permissible that not everyone will agree on but not everything is adiaphora.

In the end when you come right down to it, the worship of tolerance is consistent with the central Satanic doctrine  of “Thelema” crafted by that most famous warlock of the 20th century, “Aleister Crowley” which explicitly teaches, “Do what thou wilt.“

 

Edwards: During the madness of the COVID era, you once again consistently demonstrated your pastoral leadership.  What was the position of your church during the height of that hysteria?

Pastor Bret McAtee:

We kept our doors open and never closed. We did try to be careful with our seating and the way we distributed the Eucharist. We decided to keep our doors open because I had a pretty good friend who is a statistics guy. It is what he does for a living. Michael was telling me and others that statistically speaking what was being reported as occurring was not statistically possible. Now, I know next to nothing about statistics but I knew that Michael was a man who could be trusted. Second, I caught a long piece by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya online. Bhattacharya, who is now head of the National Institute of Health — and who Fauci, Collins and company tried to destroy during the scamdemic — was clearly communicating that something was significantly off with what was being reported on the scamdemic. So, I combined these two pieces of information with my long established distrust of anything and everything that the Federal Government says and I along with the Elders decided to keep our doors open.

 

 

Edwards: Switching gears to a current issue, when asked by a reporter why Afrikaners are getting fast-tracked into the United States, President Trump replied, “Because they’re being killed…it’s a genocide…they happen to be white.” However, a recent NPR headline states, “The Episcopal Church will not settle white Afrikaners, citing moral opposition.” How do you respond to this issue?

Pastor Bret McAtee:

First, I would say that I don’t take the Episcopal Church to be a genuine Church. I have no doubt there are likely Christians in their fellowship but Institutionally the Church long ago left the Christian faith exchanging the truth of Christianity for the doctrines of demons.

Second, President Trump is exactly correct on this matter. What is being done to white farmers in South Africa matches the New World Order’s desire to treat all white people (especially Christians) in all the Western nations in the same fashion. Rev. R. L. Dabney said over 150 years ago that the intent of the New World Order types was to subjugate the Christian white man so there would no longer be any need for the New World Order types “to tremble before the righteous resistance of … freemen.”

Third, I think this also teaches us, what many of us knew back in the 1980s when Apartheid was an issue, and that is that the Apartheid that was practiced in South Africa (which was of a more benign variety than that which is currently practiced in Israel with the Palestinians) was a necessity in order to provide functional social order in that nation. If your readers have any doubt about this have them read Iliana Mercer’s, “Into The Cannibal’s Pot.”

Finally, the Episcopalian Church’s “moral opposition” proves a couple truths. It proves that the Episcopal Church’s morality is the morality of the Marxists. What do I care about the moral opposition of a Marxist organization? Second, it proves that what is called “replacement conspiracy” is not a conspiracy. Clearly, there is a global wide attempt to replace white people.

We should note here that this attempt to destroy white people is, in point of fact, a proxy war on the Kingship and authority of Jesus Christ. The NWO – of which many if not most Church denominations are in league with (even “conservative” denominations) – is going after white people because, historically speaking, white people have been the carriers of civilizational Christianity. Because the NWO so hates Christ, they are seeking to genocide that race which has, by God’s favor alone, been the race to build Christian civilization. Ultimately this is a religious war against Christianity and so penultimately a racial war on whites since whites have uniquely been that race to build Christian civilization across the globe.

Edwards: What is your general stance on immigration, and the alleged sins of “racism” and “xenophobia”?

Pastor Bret McAtee:

At this point in history I am completely against all immigration – legal and illegal. History teaches me that these united States were formed to be a Christian white nation.  The kind of immigration that we have taken up since the Hart-Cellar immigration act of 1965 has clearly been destructive of the nation in which I grew up. When I was a boy these united States were populated with 88% of the folks identifying as white. Today that number, is somewhere in the 61% area. The result — especially seen in our cities — is an increasing balkanization of America into tribal fiefdoms. In Michigan, for example, the Muslim Arabs basically own Dearborn and the surrounding area. In some Minnesota cities the Somalia community is overwhelming. The same is true of Lewiston – Auburn Maine. This kind of balkanization – both of race and religion – is a recipe for complete social order breakdown. I am convinced this is intended to the purpose of strengthening the position of a tyrant state. If civil unrest is a constant, the tyrant state believes that it is the only entity that can pretend to bring order. So, all this ridiculous immigration is purposeful and the purpose is ultimately to build a New World Order where nations as defined as, a particular people descended from the same ancestor, are eliminated. From a minister’s perspective that looks a great deal like a revised attempt to rebuild the wicked tower of Babel (Genesis 11). Our New World Order enemies want to build a “United States of the World.” It is just pure globalism.

As to the alleged sins of “racism” and “xenophobia,” as those words are commonly defined and tossed around today, I would say that they are not sins I find in the Scripture. The whole idea of “racism” was popularized by a Marxist (Leon Trotsky) in order to villainize the Slavs for wanting to maintain their distinct culture. The word serves the same kind of purpose today. Secondly, the phoniness of “racism” is also seen in the fact that only white people can be “racists.” If “racism” was really a thing then nobody would have a problem attaching the same label to some non-white person. I mean, it’s not like there aren’t tons of minorities who hate white people.

Racism is conveniently now defined as prejudice plus power. If that is the definition of “racism” then I don’t have any problem being a “racist.” Let me explain. I have a prejudice towards my wife, children and grandchildren. I also have the power to do for them before I do for other people’s wives, children, and grandchildren. I have power plus prejudice and I use that for the good and health of my family. Now if that makes me a “racist” then that is a good thing to be.  However, all because I prioritize my people doesn’t mean I hate everybody else. It merely means that since I am a finite being with finite resources I have to prioritize where my resources are to be used. We see this idea taught in the Bible where it says “the man who does not provide for his own household is worse than an infidel.”

In the same way my love for my family, and people doesn’t mean I am xenophobic towards the stranger and the alien. It merely means, to  quote Kipling,

The Stranger within my gates,
He may be evil or good,
But I cannot tell what powers control–
What reasons sway his mood;
Nor when the Gods of his far-off land
Shall repossess his blood.

The men of my own stock,
Bitter bad they may be,
But, at least, they hear the things I hear,
And see the things I see;
And whatever I think of them and their likes
   They think of the likes of me.

By the way, all of this is Biblical. If people want to read more on the Biblical justification for what I’ve written here on Immigration I suggest they read; James K. Hoffmeier’s; “The Immigration Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens, and the Bible.” 

Edwards: In a recent sermon, you spoke about so-called white guilt. What is it about this phenomenon that you think people should know?

Pastor Bret McAtee:,

White Americans as a people are increasingly turning away from the God who called us and blessed us. For Christians this means that increasingly as we rebel against God we are a sinful and guilty people. The only way that sin and guilt can be removed is by looking to Jesus Christ and trusting His death on the Cross as the just payment for our sin and the removal of our guilt. If we refuse to trust Jesus Christ’s death on the cross as the satisfaction in our place for our sin and guilt then that means we continue to carry that sin and guilt.

Now if we don’t bow to Jesus Christ this means that we will forever be seeking to do what only He can do and that is to seek to get rid of the sin and guilt that we know that we are riddled with. In the attempt to rid ourselves of our own sin and guilt we only have two options if we will not place our sins on Jesus Christ. We can either try to carry our sin and guilt ourselves (which is a form of masochism) or we can try to push off our sin and guilt on other people (which is a form of sadism). Now, along come the race pimps and they bombard us with the allegation that the white man is guilty of “racism.” Now, of course that is not true generally speaking, but as the white man is already guilt ridden because he has not owned Christ as his deliverer from sin and guilt he masochistically owns that false guilt pushed on him by the manipulative race pimp and tries to pay for it himself by voting for black people, or by falling all over himself apologizing for whatever it is the race pimps want to blame white folks for. If the white man would trust Christ again, there would be no ability for the race pimps to shove off on the white man all this false guilt. However, since the white man has abandoned Jesus Christ, and as such is indeed carrying true moral sin and guilt it is easy for the white man to masochistically just accept whatever false guilt is thrown his way by the race pimps and then to accept whatever solution to that false guilt that the current race pimps want to lay at their door. By accepting this false guilt, and the race pimp’s solution to false guilt the white man thinks that he can atone for his own sin instead of trusting Jesus Christ as the only means by which true sin and guilt can be removed and forgiveness discovered.

If you’re reading this and you have not trusted Jesus Christ as your alone savior then you will forever being carrying around sin and guilt and you will forever either try to pay for it yourself or you will forever try to pawn off your sin and guilt on someone else. The former leads to self-destructive behavior. The latter explains the incredible increase that we have seen in narcissistic behavior in recent years.

But for the sake of argument let us posit that the white man really is uniquely guilty and sinful as to the black man. (I don’t believe this but this is all for the sake of the argument.) Well, in the Christian world that would be solved by restitution. In the Christian world when one sins against another restitution between people is provided. However, even here the white man has no guilt because the restitution that has been provided for the black man with welfare programs, quota legislation, set asides, and other egalitarian legislation which has more than made up for any restitution that might have ever been required by Scripture.

Edwards: Many churches today are dying because they alienate men, who are the natural spiritual leaders of families.  Such churches, with their inconsistent positions on race and immigration, demand that the saving grace of Christ comes attached at the hip with feminized leadership. The famed Southern Presbyterian theologian R. L. Dabney essentially warned in his time that a reasonable person would reject such a ridiculous practice of religion out of hand, meaning the very best people would be alienated from Christianity. Does this even qualify as a gospel, when any sane person must reject the suicidal package offered by these churches?

Pastor Bret McAtee:

No… there is very little Christianity in most of our Churches in the West today. I am thankful that there remain a handful of faithful ministers but to be honest the Church is in sad shape today because the clergy is so brain dead. There is little ability to take the abstractions of the Christian faith and translate them into concrete application and action. R. L. Dabney’s book “Secular Discussions” is worth its weight in gold because of how practical that book makes the Christian faith. R. J. Rushdoony was also another chap who had the ability to show how the abstractions of the Christian faith could be translated into concrete situations. I highly recommend both authors as well as Herman Bavinck who also had this ability.

We do have a problem today with more than a few white folks giving up on the Christian faith because they have witnessed what you describe in the opening question. They look at that and say; “If that is Christianity, I want nothing to do with it.” Frankly, I can’t blame them for looking elsewhere. However, the truth is, is that much of what is currently presented as Christianity is Anti-Christ. I would have nothing to do with a church that has pastorettes or female Elders. I would have nothing to do with a church that diminishes the importance of patriarchy. I would have nothing to do with a church that pushes egalitarianism in any way. I would have nothing to do with a church that hates prioritizing love of family (Ordo Amoris) over love of the stranger and alien. I would have nothing to do with a church that is purposefully trying to push interracial marriages. I would have nothing to do with them because I don’t think they are churches, or if they are churches they are churches that belong to Antichrists.

You would not believe all the phone calls I get from around the US and around the world from people lamenting that they can’t find a church to attend because of these kinds of issues. It breaks my heart as a Pastor. It breaks my heart even more as one who loves Jesus Christ. Why should His church be in such a sad shape? Yet, God has His reasons and our orders are not to despair but our orders are to fight.

Edwards: Rev. A. W. Tozer may have put it best when he wrote, “Religion today is not transforming people; rather, it is being transformed by the people. It is not raising the moral level of society; it is descending to society’s own level and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smilingly accepting its surrender.” Can believers return to a muscular brand of Christianity that served the West well for so long?

Bret responds,

I love Tozer. I read everything he wrote when I was in my 20s. One quote I love by him is; “God raises the prophet up, and the Church mows him down.” Oh, and by the way, Tozer was a Kinist. I have the quotes to prove it.

Being optimistic in my eschatology (I am postmillennial) I do believe that believers can return to a muscular brand of Christianity that made the Christian West the greatest civilization that has ever existed in the history of mankind. On this we have to consider;
.
1.) Scripture teaches that “All those who hate Wisdom (Christ) love death.” I conclude from that, that those fighting Biblical Christianity as thus fighting for death and as death is never a proposition that can ultimately win, since dying means losing, therefore Christianity, which is the only faith upon which a non-death civilization can be built — will be restored.

2.) Scripture teaches that Christ must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. This teaches me that a day will come, before the return of Jesus Christ in His final advent, when the all the nations will be vassal states to the current Dominion of Jesus Christ. This is why the OT Psalm 2 teaches that the Kings must kiss the Son lest they perish in the way.

3.) Further the Scripture teaches us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I am persuaded that our Lord Jesus would not have taught the disciples to pray something that would never come true. Now  combine that with Jesus own statement that the gates of Hell would not prevail over an attack Church army and I know with certainty that muscular Christianity will one day be hegemonic once again. Maybe not in my lifetime but before Christ returns.

One thing we have to keep in mind is that we must not despair. Our orders are to occupy until He returns. In that line one of my favorite poems has become;

My Orders are to fight
Then if I win
Or bravely fail
What matters it?
Only God doth prevail

The Servant craveth nought
Except to serve with might
I was not told to win
Or Lose
My Orders are to fight

 

Edwards: If readers are struggling to find a faithful congregation in their community that has not surrendered to the “woke” agenda, how can they enjoy your Sunday messages, whether in person or online?

McAtee:

Well, live we meet Sunday mornings @ 10:00 am at 421 State Street, Charlotte., Michigan. We also have Worldview meetings on every other Friday evening and we teach covenant classes to the children on every other Thursday. This year is winding down but through this month we have a class on The American War of Independence and another class on Civics/US Constitution and my wife teaches a third class on herbs.

They can watch live on Sundays online at

https://ironsermons.org/

They can also access us through Sermonaudio.com and there are youtube.com sermons online.

I also run and operate both IronInk.com where I give analysis on all kinds of different issues. Finally there is Iron Rhetoric podcasts which can be found on both Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

 

McAtee Contra the Baptist Fairchild On Baptism

This is from some Baptist Minister in Houston Texas serving at a Mega Church. Like most mega Churches the ministers are long on feel goods and short on doctrine. His name is Rev. L. David Fairchild.

Fairchild writes;

“The fatal flaw in paedobaptism is that it treats the New Covenant like the Old. A mixed bag. Some believe, some do not. But that is not how the Bible describes it. Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8 are clear. The New Covenant is made with those who know God. Who have been forgiven. Who have the Spirit. That is not a crowd you get into by birth. That is a regenerate people.

BLMc responds,

This would be true if it were not the case that the Old Covenant is like the New Covenant. The only difference is that the Old Covenant is the New Covenant not yet come to full flower. The Old Covenant is the not yet mature New Covenant.

That the New Covenant is like the Old Covenant in that both covenant are a mixed bad is seen in the fact that in the Old Covenant not all of Israel was of Israel as the Holy Spirit says in Romans 9. Some of Israel belonged to the outward administration of the covenant without having the essence of the covenant. In the same way the New Covenant is a mixed bag. We see this for example in Jesus warnings in Revelation to the seven churches that He would take their lampstands away if they were not faithful. We see this in the book of Hebrews with the warnings against falling away. We see this when John says of unregenerate people of the Church;

“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.”  I John 2:19

Then there is the Wheat and Tares parable that many a theologian has seen being about the Church having in it both wheat and tares.

So Fairchild’s idea that the New Covenant is comprised only of regenerate people is just a Baptist assumption with no foundation. Now, it is true that the essence of the New Covenant, who is Jesus the Christ, is only occupied by the regenerate but there are many people who are in the administrative outskirts of the New Covenant who do not have the essence of the New Covenant who will say on that day …

22  Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Matthew 7

So, clearly it is a Baptist interpretive mistake to say that only regenerate people are in the boundaries of the New Covenant. It has always been the case, both in the Old Covenant and the New Covenant that not all of Israel is of Israel.

In terms of Fairchild’s appeal to the language of Jeremiah and Hebrews Calvin easily dismisses Fairchild’s mis-interpretative ravings on this score;

“It may be asked, whether there was under the Law (Old Covenant) a sure and certain promise of salvation, whether the fathers had the gift of the Spirit, whether they enjoyed God’s paternal favor through the remission of sins? Yes, it is evident that they worshipped God with a sincere heart and a pure conscience, and that they walked in his commandments, and this could not have been the case except they had been inwardly taught by the Spirit; and it is also evident, that whenever they thought of their sins, they were raised up by the assurance of a gratuitous pardon. And yet the Apostle, by referring the prophecy of Jeremiah to the coming of Christ, seems to rob them of these blessings. To this I reply, that he does not expressly deny that God formerly wrote his Law on their hearts and pardoned their sins, but he makes a comparison between the less and the greater. As then the Father has put forth more fully the power of his Spirit under the kingdom of Christ, and has poured forth more abundantly his mercy on mankind, this exuberance renders insignificant the small portion of grace which he had been pleased to bestow on the fathers. We also see that the promises were then obscure and intricate, so that they shone only like the moon and stars in comparison with the clear light of the Gospel which shines brightly on us.”

Calvin’s Commentary
Hebrews 8

L. David Fairchild writes,

“So baptizing someone with no faith, no regeneration, and no profession, like an infant, just does not fit. It breaks the meaning of baptism from the inside out.”

BLMc responds,

In point of fact since regeneration & justification are all God’s work with man contributing nothing baptizing infants is a perfect picture of God doing all the doing in saving helpless man. What Fairchild has done here is what all Baptists do. Fairchild has turned man’s faith into a work that he has to exchange as a work to trade in for salvation. This is justification by faith as a work alone. It is not a particularly Christian doctrine but really does lead back to some kind of pelagian arrangement. Of course it is the Baptist who breaks the meaning of Baptism from the inside out and turns the grace of God into something that is only gracious upon man’s trading up faith for grace.

L. David Fairchild;

I know the argument. Circumcision was the sign of the Old, baptism is the sign of the New. But that logic only works if the covenant structure stays the same. And it doesn’t. The Old Covenant was temporary. Shadows and types. The New Covenant is the real thing. It is better. It doesn’t just get a new sign. It has new membership. Baptism isn’t a repackaged circumcision. It’s the sign of a new creation.

BLMc responds,

1.) This reveals the Baptist propensity to assume discontinuity between the covenants. The Reformed, on the other hand, are disposed to seeing continuity between Old and New Covenant unless explicitly told of discontinuity such as the end of the sacrificial system and the ceremonial law.

2.) To deny that there is sameness between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant suggests that

a.) God isn’t immutable but changes between Old Covenant and New Covenant. This is a serious theological problem. If there is as much change between Old Covenant and New Covenant such as Baptists like Fairchild is positing then we really have a different God in the OT then we have in the NT. This is a problem.

b.) the Old Testament believers were not saved by grace alone just as the New Testament believers are saved. This Baptist thinking posits that the OT saints if saved were saved by a different kind of salvation then the salvation by which the saints are saved by with the coming of the magnificent Jesus Christ.

c.) The reason there is a new sign for the new and better covenant is because the Lord Christ fulfills all the blood shedding required in the old covenant and so the water of Baptism is given as a sign of forgiveness. However, Baptism signifies just what circumcision signified in the Old Covenant. This explains why it is St. Paul seems to mix his circumcision and baptism metaphors in Colossians 2;

11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body [h]of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

The New Covenant has come with Christ and so circumcision is no longer the sign of the covenant as was the case when the Messiah was only anticipated. The reality is that the Old Covenant promised is now realized with the coming of Christ and so the covenant sign that was both anticipatory and yet at the same time proleptic is set aside for the sign (Baptism) that the reality has come. However, inasmuch as the old covenant was a unfolding and growing reality serving as a proleptic harbinger of the new covenant the new covenant remains related to what the old covenant anticipated.

Fairchild writes,

The pattern in the New Testament is painfully obvious. Hear the gospel. Believe. Repent. Then be baptized. That’s it. Over and over. There isn’t one clear example of an infant being baptized. Not one command to do it. Every baptism you can point to involves someone responding to Christ in faith.

 BLM responds,

1.) The problem here is what St. Peter himself says in that Pentecost sermon;

“38 Then Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the [k]remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.’”

Now, there is no way in Hades that a 1st century Jew would’ve heard these words and thought … “I can’t bring my children to be baptized.” It is just ridiculous to contend otherwise.

2.) We know from the NT record that the Jews howled and howled about the Gentiles coming in to the covenant and yet we are to believe that the Jews did not raise a peep about their children being excluded from the “new and better covenant.”

3.) There is an abundance of household baptisms in the NT. This gives us conclusive evidence that children should be given the sign of the covenant because household baptisms as practiced in the NT scream at us that if children had been present they would have been baptized since that was the very nature of NT Household baptisms.

4.) There also isn’t one clear command or example of women taking the Eucharist. Does that therefore mean that women today shouldn’t receive the Eucharist?

Baptist logic is so jejune.

Fairchild writes,

When you baptize someone who hasn’t believed, you confuse everything. You blur the line between the visible and invisible church. You give false assurance. You end up with churches full of people who think they’re Christian because water touched their forehead decades ago. That is not the gospel.

BLMc responds,

1.) Whenever Fairchild baptizes anybody he does not know they believe. I bet more Baptists have been baptized who never believed than Reformed Babies have been baptized who never believed.

2.) Who says that a baby can’t believe? John is recorded as leaping his mother’s womb for joy thus signifying his recognition of Jesus. The Psalmist (22) writes even;

9 Yet you brought me out of the womb;
    you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.
10 From birth I was cast on you;
    from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

3.) How can Fairchild even talk about a distinction between the visible and invisible church when he has said that he holds that all in the church are regenerate. The whole distinction between visible and invisible church rests upon the reality that not all members who say they are regenerate are indeed regenerate.

4.) The whole idea that paedo-baptist churches give false assurance is just Baptist bloviating. As paedo-baptist churches routinely preach to their people the 1st use of the law there is no false assurance going on.

5.) If Baptists want to talk about false assurance being given they should worry about the false assurance that comes with telling their membership that they are all regenerate.

Fairchild writes,

If you baptize someone who cannot believe, then you either have to say baptism doesn’t mean what Scripture says it does, or that it does something magical without faith. That’s precisely how you slide into baptismal regeneration, whether you admit it or not.

BLMC responds

1.) Scripture does not teach that infants can’t believe. See above.

2.) No paedo-Baptist teaches the Roman Catholic/Lutheran doctrine of Baptismal regeneration. Fairchild writing this just demonstrates the man’s ignorance on the subject once again.

McAtee Vindicated By President Donald J. Trump … CRC’s Rev. Reggie Smith Seen As Clueless

“It’s a genocide. White Farmers are being brutally killed and their land is being confiscated. And the media doesn’t even talk about it. If it were the other way around (Whites killing Black farmers), that would be the only story they talk about.”

President Donald J. Trump
Press Conference

https://x.com/_johnnymaga/status/1921944478778069489?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1921944478778069489%7Ctwgr%5E2e8d7cff0847334521c42deaa6460434852a5cb4%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Frevolver.news%2Fnewsfeed%2F

This has been known for a very long time now. However, it has also been denied as being true by the usual Marxist apologists. Indeed, in point of fact, my praying about this reality mentioned above became fodder for a front page Lansing State Journal story in 2021. The Lansing State Journal is the Paper of record for Mid-Michigan – located in the State Capital as it is. Here is their report that they featured so prominently. They are quoting from one “Rev. Reggie Smith” a black denominational chieftain of the CRC, who at the time was in attendance at a Charlotte Christ the King church service in order to attempt to destroy myself and the Church; Here is what the Lansing State Journal printed quoting this black chieftain of the CRC;

“McAtee’s sermon was like “any other traditional church until the prayer time came,” Smith said, and a woman in the crowd of about 20 asked for prayers for the white people living in South Africa.

“There was this supposedly false rumor that white people were being killed by Black people in South Africa, which was totally untrue,” Smith said.

Smith said McAtee “embraced” her sentiment.

“That’s when I knew this was not what I thought it would be,” he said. “There’s something wrong here.”

I just want to emphasize here now that Trump has made this clearly known before God and all the world that what we prayed for that morning was not based on a false rumor. It was true then and it is true now that white farmers are being viciously murdered by blacks and Rev. Reggie Smith, the CRC, and the Lansing State Journal were and are providing cover for the black murderers of white farmers in South Africa. Nothing that happened on that Sunday Morning in 2021 was racist unless you consider “the sin of noticing” to be racist.

Five years later very few people will care that I was right and wrongly indicted by Rev. Reggie Smith, the CRC, and the Lansing State Journal for praying that God would avenge Himself on these black animals who are torturing and murdering judicially innocent white farmers and their families. Very few people will care that Trump has vindicated my concern for South African White farmers and that Rev. Reggie Smith and the CRC has been revealed to either being knowing liars or a unwitting dupes.

Finally, to put a fine point on this, when all this occurred in 2021 I personally knew a South African man whose own grandfather farmer had been murdered by blacks. I wasn’t speaking out of my hat that morning. Some ministers in the US still keep abreast of what is happening elsewhere in the world.

Leo XIV; Divorcing The Doctrine of Christ From Knowing Jesus Christ

“We are often preoccupied with teaching doctrine, but we risk forgetting that our first task is to know Jesus Christ.”

Leo XIV
Newly Minted Pope

A few words here on the new Pope. First, all Popes…. all Roman Catholic Bishops, Priests, Monsignors, and members who embrace the official teaching of Rome (which includes the council of Trent) are anti-Christs without exception. Now many individual Protestants are as well but the Roman Catholic church as an institution is officially anti-Christ. Now, this is not to say that there does not exist within the membership of the Roman Catholic Church genuine Christians but if they are genuine Christians then they are not genuine Roman Catholics.

Second, we already see the post-modern mindset of this freshly minted Pope in the quote above. His words sound so noble… so pious and yet that sentence is stupidity on stilts.

a.) We wonder how is it we come to know Jesus Christ apart from teaching doctrine. What does knowing a doctrine-less Jesus look like?

b.) Underneath this statement is the assumption that experience trumps doctrine. What is being left unsaid is that knowing Jesus (in an experiential way) trumps knowing Jesus in a doctrinal way. However, there is no knowing Jesus in an experiential way that is not first anchored in doctrine.

c.) I would go as far to say that there is no knowing Jesus … no growth in knowing Jesus apart from knowing Christology (the doctrine of Christ). I can’t have Jesus over for a meal. I can’t go to a ball game with Him. There is no knowing Jesus on that kind of a “personal” level. The only way for me to know Jesus is to grow in my understanding of the doctrine of Christ.

Now, I suppose that knowledge could become sterile and antiseptic but a sterile and antiseptic knowledge of Jesus could only be cured by our doctrine of Jesus (Christology) improving. It would not be cured by having a greater experience of Jesus unless that experience was conveyed via a greater understanding of the doctrine of Christ.

Now, we should immediately recognize here that what the Pope says above is not unique to the most recently minted papal anti-Christ. All kinds of Protestants today say that kind of nonsense. Moderns and postmoderns alike have this mad infatuation with all things experiential. Similarly, moderns and postmoderns alike are allergic to the idea of doctrine.

It is a fact that the more we learn of the doctrine of Christ (Christology) the more we have a deep experiential love for our great Captain and Liege-Lord; Jesus the Christ. The more we come to understand the grandness and greatness of His person and work as mediated via the means of doctrine (Christology) as found in Scripture and as illumined by the Holy Spirit the more we are lost in wonder, love, and praise.

As an aside here, we should note that a man’s knowing of Christ will typically look different than a woman’s knowing of Christ. Neither knowing is superior or inferior. The point is that when a man increases his knowing of Christ it is an increased knowing that leads to a response that is akin to how a soldier responds in his increased knowing of his great Captain and leader in battle. When a woman increases her knowing of Christ it is an increased knowing that leads to a response that is akin to how a wife responds to increasingly knowing the way her husband loves her and for the way he cherishes and takes care of her. Men and women are different and so the way they respond to an increased understanding of Jesus via the doctrine of Christology, as drawn from the Scripture and illumined by the Spirit will be different.