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.

ARTICLE REVIEW OF D. G. HART’S “CHURCH NOT STATE” PART II

We continue to consider Dr. Darryl Hart’s article in “The American Conservative,” where he insists that a naked public square, bereft of the religious impulse, is true conservatism. And of course his insistence on this is made quite apart from any religious impulse arising within him in the way of influence.

Hart’s essays seems to suggest that since different competing religions in the public square results in “a political urge is to blend religions together.” On this score I quite agree with Dr. Hart. The impulse is always towards religious syncretism in public square when you open it up to all religions (public square polytheism). However, Dr. Hart’s solution to strip the public square of religion (public square atheism) leaves us in a place that is just as bad. Dr. Hart has not reckoned with the reality of what happens when one attempts to have a religion-less public square. What happens is not the disappearance of religion in the public square but rather what happens is that a vacuum is created in which, at least in our setting, the Idol-State fills and becomes the defacto established religion. This is what we have today in spades. The Government schools, putatively stripped of religion, are now factories producing humanist citizens to work in our humanist social order. Dr. Hart’s ideas for a naked public square would yield the same results that have been produced in our “naked public square” government schools. This is not a conservative view.

It is interesting to note that it appears that one aspect in which Hart’s essay can find application, is in finding a way to eliminate the balkanization of America’s public square. Is there belief by “Augustinian Christians” that if we extracted religion (an impossible task as we have already noted) from the public square then the citizenry (or at least Christians) would be far less inclined to be divided over sectarian lines as those sectarian positions express themselves in the public square? At the very least they would certainly be less divided in Church as such public square issue would never come up in Augustinian Churches since, according to Radical Two Kingdom advocates, the Church is not the place to speak on what is happening in the public square. Dr. Hart’s “Conservative views” have the felicitous effect of silencing the Church’s voice in a public square that is wrestling over issues like “abortion,” “Homosexual marriage,” and state sanctioned theft.

It is of note that Dr. Hart, as a Augustinian Christian, is advocating for the public square the putative Augustinian Christian position that he lays out in his article. Apparently Hart finds no contradiction or irony in trying to bring his Augustinian Christian influence to bear on the issue of the public square, all the while insisting that Christians should not influence the public square.

Hart continues his article by comparing and contrasting “Republican Christianity” (Hart’s villain in his write up) with Augustinian Christianity (Hart’s champion in his piece). Dr. Hart suggests that “Augustinian Christianity” is more virtuous because it spoke up least in the public square for King Christ and did not try to have a relevant or influential impact on Dr. Hart’s “common realm.” Hart even tells us, “don’t let appearances deceive: the Americans who are the most devout may be the ones least likely to talk about their faith openly.” We learn here that those who are most mute in the public square for the cause of Christ are the ones who are the most pious.

There is another matter here that we must turn to, and that is Dr. Hart’s appeal to the “secular.” Dr. Hart seems to believe that there is some realm or sphere that is not normed by faith convictions. For Hart, as for most R2K advocates, the common realm is a realm that is, by definition, not shaped nor having the capacity of being shaped, by Christianity. It is a secular (neutral) realm that exists and moves by impulses that are not faith defined or faith conditioned. According to Hart, because this is so, we must not try to introduce faith into this common realm. Hart speaks of the problem of Protestantism being “secularized,” or of “secularization,” and yet Protestantism wasn’t secularized, but rather it became syncretistic — which is to say that it imbibed the presuppositions of other non-Christian faith systems and so incrementally surrendered the faith. Similarly the problem has never been secularization — as if the Christian faith moved from Christianity to neutrality — but rather the problem has been “paganization,” where the Christian faith moved from Christianity to humanism. Dr. Hart’s analysis is weak because Dr. Hart’s categories are fallacious.

Dr. Hart then turns to a historical treatise that describes, in his opinion, where America went wrong by embracing Republican Christianity vs. Augustinian Christianity. In Part III we will take up Dr. Hart’s historical analysis.

McAtee Contra Very Bad Dr. John Piper Baptist Pluralism “Theology”

‘This is a response to a very bad piece by Dr. John Piper. The whole piece can be located at the link below. Piper”s article is entitled, “Making Room for Atheism.” The blockquote segments are from Piper. My responses follow.

http://www.kfia.com/devotionals/desiringgod/11557990

Our church exists “to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.” That is our mission. “All things” means business, industry, education, media, sports, arts, leisure, government, and all the details of our lives. Ideally this means God should be recognized and trusted as supreme by every person he has made. But the Bible teaches plainly that there will never be a time before Jesus comes back when all people will honor him as supreme (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10).

The passage in Thessalonians does not teach (plainly or otherwise) that there will never be a time before Jesus comes back when all people will honor Him as supreme. A careful reading of the text reveals that what Paul is teaching is that it is those at that time who are troubling the Thessalonians who God will repay with tribulation. The same Greek word “tribulation” is also used by Paul in Romans 2:9. In both cases what is being taught is that tribulation will be brought upon evildoers at the last judgment. The passage is dealing with ultimate bliss and woe connected with the Day of the Lord. Everyone agrees that all evildoers will suffer tribulation at the last day but that does not necessarily mean that there will never be a time before Jesus comes back when all people will honor him as supreme. Certainly B. B. Warfield, with his teaching on “Eschatological Universalism,” would take umbrage with Piper”s “exegesis.”

Piper is reading this passage through his premillennial lenses and arriving at premillennial conclusions.

So how do we express a passion for God”s supremacy in a pluralistic world where most people do not recognize God as an important part of their lives, let alone an important part of government or education or business or industry or art or recreation or entertainment?

Answer: We express a passion for the supremacy of God…

Piper’s first 4 ways of expressing a passion for the supremacy of God are excellent. Should the reader desire to note these he can access the link provided above. It is Piper”s fifth way of expressing a passion for the supremacy of God that leaves us in a train wreck.

5) by making clear that God himself is the foundation for our commitment to a pluralistic democratic order-not because pluralism is his ultimate ideal, but because in a fallen world, legal coercion will not produce the kingdom of God. Christians agree to make room for non-Christian faiths (including naturalistic, materialistic faiths), not because commitment to God”s supremacy is unimportant, but because it must be voluntary, or it is worthless. We have a God-centered ground for making room for atheism. “If my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight” (John 18:36). The fact that God establishes his kingdom through the supernatural miracle of faith, not firearms, means that Christians in this age will not endorse coercive governments-Christian or secular.

1.) In that first sentence above Piper wrote that a pluralistic democratic order is not God”s ultimate ideal but because it is the best God can do in a fallen world Christians should be supporters of a pluralistic democratic order.

First, this again assumes Piper”s eschatology. Piper assumes that where grace abounds sin abounds all the more, thus Christians must settle for a social order (pluralistic democratic) where the Lordship of Jesus Christ is challenged by the Lordship of the other gods. In other words, because God will never have visible and recognized hegemony in this fallen world, therefore we have to support a social order committed to making sure that every knee will not bow, nor every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Piper”s eschatology creates and insures the success of his defeatism.

2.) Christians can believe that God can conquer democratic pluralism without supporting the idea that such total victory of the already victorious Christ will come about through legal coercion. Piper marries his faulty eschatology to a faulty conclusion thus implying that anybody who is against democratic pluralism is for building God”s Kingdom through legal coercion. This is a logical fallacy. All postmillennialists believe that God will build His Kingdom here so that the knowledge of God covers the earth as the water covers the sea. No postmillennialist believes that will be done by the means of legal coercion.

3.) The second sentence in the blockquote above is likewise confused. Piper has gone from writing about social orders (the institutional framework upon which cultures hang and through which a people”s belief system is expressed) to writing about individuals. Certainly in a Christian social order that recognizes the Lordship of Jesus Christ there would be room for non-Christian faiths on a individual or personal basis. However such room for non-Christian faiths on a individual or personal basis would not be allowed to overthrow the Christian public square as informed by a Christian social order. The traditional Protestant view is that while Christ is the Lord of the conscience, non-believers cannot in any way openly practice nor promote false religion in order to overturn a Christian social order.

Second on this point, Piper”s observation is far far too broad. Would Piper contend that a Christian social order must make room for the non-Christian faith of Hinduism which requires widows to be burned alive with their dead husband? Would Piper contend that a Christian social order must make room for the non-Christian faith of Muslims which allow for Muslim male family representatives to kill female members of family for fraternizing with a male not in their family? Would Piper contend that a Christian social order must make room for a faith that requires smoking peyote as part of the worship service? Would Piper contend that a Christian social order must make room for a faith that requires temple prostitutes or ritual murder? Where does Piper”s tolerance end in terms of making room for non-Christian faiths? Why should these other faiths that Piper wants to make room for in his democratic pluralistic social order be constrained to give up their faith practice? By what standard will Piper appeal to in order to determine which other faiths must be made room for and which will not?

It is simply the case that all social orders are coercive to one degree or another. Would Piper suggest that those who disagree with his view of the proper social order be coerced to accept his vision of a Christian social order, or would he allow other visions of Christian social order that find democratic pluralism to be un-biblical the opportunity to overthrow his vision of Christian social order excellence?

4.) I find Piper, on this point, giving up on the Supremacy of God in order to pursue the relegation of God to one who is a option. All because it is true that individual conversion ought to be voluntary that does not mean that we should build a social order designed to make all the gods equal in the private realm but subservient to the God of the social order (the State) in the public square. Piper fails to realize that in his democratic pluralism social order that all the gods are ruled by the State god because Piper is empowering the state to make sure that the God of the Bible (as well as the other gods) do not have absolute supremacy. Piper can write all he wants on his desire for the supremacy of God but as long as he holds this democratic pluralism he is advocating for the supremacy of gods that are no gods.

5.) I wonder if, according to Piper, Christians should not endorse governments — Christian or secular –that coerce people to accept his democratic-pluralism as the ideal social order. (On Piper”s misuse of John 18:36 see the many articles written on Iron Ink on that abused passage.)

6.) All should keep in mind that what Piper is advocating here is the overthrow of historic Christendom for a Christendom that culture is most Christian when it does not hold absolute sway.

Dr. Piper writes,

“This is why we resist the coercive secularization implied in some laws that repress Christian activity in public places. It is not that we want to establish Christianity as the law of the land. That is intrinsically impossible, because of the spiritual nature of the kingdom. It is rather because repression of free exercise of religion and persuasion is as wrong against Christians as it is against secularists. We believe this tolerance is rooted in the very nature of the gospel of Christ. In one sense, tolerance is pragmatic: freedom and democracy seem to be the best political order humans have conceived. But for Christians it is not purely pragmatic: the spiritual, relational nature of God”s kingdom is the ground of our endorsement of pluralism, until Christ comes with rights and authority that we do not have.”

1.) In the first sentence above we see that Piper is fighting the idea of not allowing Christianity in the public square (his lament on secularization) by advocating that all religions should be allowed into the public square. But the result of all gods being let into the public square is the same as not letting any of the gods into the public square since the consequence of both no gods in the public square and all gods in the public square is that the State is the god of the gods since it referees how far the gods can walk in the public square. What Piper is advocating is the destruction of Christendom (as noted earlier) in favor of Statist(dom). Piper would defeat the religiously sanitized public square with the polytheistic public square. However, in both cases the state ends up being the monotheistic god. Where now God”s supremacy John?

The fight against secularization is not won by enthroning the state. The fight against secularization is won by Christian (ministers and otherwise) tearing down every stronghold that raises itself up in defiance of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Christian ministers should not be arguing that the public square should be filled with all the gods, but rather they should be arguing that Christ is Lord over all, including the State. Let the ministers of the State who desire for the public square to be “neutral” argue for a neutral public square.

2.) Why should Christian not want to establish Christianity as the law of the land? Who says that Christianity being the law of the land is intrinsically impossible? In Piper”s world is not Piper saying that we establish Christianity as the law of the land by making sure Christianity is not the law of the land?

3.) Why does Piper think that because the Kingdom of God is spiritual therefore it cannot incarnate itself in every increasing degrees into a social order? Where in scripture does it teach that the spiritualKingdom of God does not instantiate itself in cultures and social orders? If the Kingdom of God is spiritual and yet can effect individuals so that we have an expectation of what a Christian looks like why can the spiritual Kingdom of God not be spiritual and still effect social orders to the point that we have an expectation of what a Christian social order looks like? (It sure isn”t Democratic Pluralism!) It looks to me as if Piper is drinking from some kind of dualism well.

4.) Piper complains about repressions of Christians in the secularization process and yet what he advocates is certain to bring about the very thing he laments. The fact is that Piper is wrong about what he terms as “secularization.” What is going on is the advance of humanism in the public square and naturally humanists are, following their religious tenets, not going to allow for another faith system to challenge them. There is no secularization going on here. There is only the advanced de-Christianization of the West. \r\n\r\n5.) Piper talks about Christ coming with rights and authority we do not have. Is not Christ ruling now? Are not the Kings instructed to “Kiss the Son.” If Christ has authority now why should His people insist that His authority and rights are only future as if Christ isn”t exercising His regal rights now?

On this point Piper surrenders his quest for the Supremacy of God in all things and becomes someone who is advocating for a toothless god who must wait in line with all the rest of the gods.

Article Review of D. G. Hart’s “Church Not State” Part I

At the link below Dr. D. G. Hart seeks to establish his vision of a common square without Christianity in the name of Christianity.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/church-not-state/

In this article Hart seeks to designate his view as “the conservative view,” but as the this review unfolds it is hoped that it will be clearly seen that Dr. Hart’s views, if they are Christian, are of the anabaptist variety, and that they are Libertarian and definitely not Conservative.

Dr. Hart opens his article and his first problematic presupposition is laid bare in the first and second paragraph when he suggests that it is possible for religion to be excluded from the public square. Hart writes, “Religion was honored in the public square—and incorporated into politics.” This is significant because Hart is going to argue in his article that religion should not be honored in the public square, or conversely that religion is most honored when it is excluded from the public square. Hart desires for the public square to remain naked in terms of religion. This problematic presupposition shows up again in Dr. Hart’s second paragraph when he writes, The loss of religion’s formerly privileged place…. Note again that Hart assumes that it is possible for religion to ever not have a privileged place in the public square.

Of course the problem with this is that religion in the public square is a inescapable concept. Dr. Hart repeatedly misses the fact that it is never a question of whether or not the public square will be shaped and formed by religion but only a question of which religion will influence the public square. Even were it possible to strip the public square of the influence of religion that stripping of the public square of the influence of religion would come about from the influence of the religion that states no religion should influence the public square. Thus Dr. Hart’s opening presupposition about religion and the public square is seen to be an absurdity. Religion’s privileged place in the public square remains, even if it is not the Christian religion’s privileged place.

I’m fairly confident that Dr. Hart would say that he wrote this article as a Historian and not a Theologian and yet Dr. Hart’s article is laden with (bad) theological assumptions. Hart’s appeal to history is read through his Anabaptist theological glasses. I only offer this observation because another of Dr. Hart’s methodological problems is that he assumes that he can cordon his history from theology. Dr. Hart would have us believe that his history is not theologically conditioned and yet his whole article screams of Anabaptist theological premises.

In Dr. Hart’s third paragraph we find this statement,

“Over the last 30 years, born-again Protestants have overwhelmingly backed Republican candidates in the belief that for religion to matter, it must influence not only what people do when they gather for worship but also what they do every other day of the week.”

People should not miss this sentence because implicit in this statement is Dr. Hart’s argument that Christianity (that is the religion, after all, that Hart is referencing) doesn’t need to influence what born-again Protestants do every other day of the week. For Dr. Hart Christianity is something that should influence born-again Protestants in the Redemptive realm but it should not influence them in the common realm, or, to try and put it more charitably for Dr. Hart, Christianity is not a religion that finds its credibility in influencing the public realm. In Dr. Hart’s fifth paragraph we find that theme referred to again when he laments about “conservatives (having) identified with arguments for the worldly relevance of faith…” Here again Dr. Hart is going to stump for a conservatism that explicitly eschews relevance of the Christian faith in the world. How can anyone take this position of Dr. Hart to be Conservative, let alone Christian?

Dr. Hart then tries to convince us that the “truly conservative position is to contend for faith’s own inherent merits, quite apart from any benediction from the civil government,” and Professor Hart worries for that his advocacy for this putatively sui generis “conservative position” is to risk his “sounding liberal—or even worse, secular.” Actually, strictly speaking it sounds Anabaptist.

We find Dr. Hart’s position here paralleling nicely the Reformed Anabaptist John Piper writings. Dr. Piper agrees with Dr. Hart when he writes,

We express a passion for the supremacy of God…

5) by making clear that God himself is the foundation for our commitment to a pluralistic democratic order… Christians agree to make room for non-Christian faiths (including naturalistic, materialistic faiths)… We have a God-centered ground for making room for atheism. “If my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight” (John 18:36)….

I quite agree with Dr. Hart that the Christian faith has it’s own inherent merits and it is precisely because of those inherent merits that the Christian faith pronounces benediction or cursing on the civil government that pronounces benedictions or curses upon the Christian faith. Dr. Hart’s problem here, once again, is that he presupposes that the common realm is, can be, and even should be, neutral.

In part I of this critical review of Dr. Hart’s opinion piece we have found that Dr. Hart’s position is plagued by irrational presuppositions that argue for the neutrality of the public square faith, the irrelevance of the Christian faith for the public square, and the fact that the Christian faith should not influence the public square. We have seen that Dr. Hart’s reasoning parallel’s Dr. John Pipers reasoning on the same subject thus showing the truth that “politics do indeed make strange bedfellows,” and we have begun to suggest that Dr. Hart is more than flirting with a Anabaptist theology that is informing his social order theory. We will see more of that as we continue this critical review.

Second Word — Blessings & Cursings

Text — Exodus 19:4, 20:22-26, 34:17, Lev. 26:1-2, Dt. 4:15-24, 11:16-17, 27:15
Subject — Images
Theme — Blessings and cursings associated with Idol worship.
Proposition — The blessings and cursing associated with idol worship should cause us to to eschew all idolatry.
Purpose — Therefore having considered the blessings and cursing associated

By way of Introduction this morning we note that the Law of God for His people is not cordoned off into some private space in our lives or restricted in application to our personal lives. God’s law is totalistic in its application.

That Reformed people have not constrained God’s law to some private personal sphere or limited it in its application to some Church realm has been a conviction that has been around for a very long time in Reformed Church. That God’s law is totalistic in its application is seen by a few quotes,

“It is our duty, as far as lies in our power, immediately to organize human society and all its institutions and organs upon a distinctively Christian basis. Indifference or impartiality here between the law of the kingdom and the law of the world, or of its prince, the devil, is utter treason to the King of Righteousness … The Bible, the great statute-book of the Kingdom, explicitly lays down principles which, when candidly applied, will regulate the action of every human being in all relations. There can be no compromise. The King said, with regard to all descriptions of moral agents in all spheres of activity, “He that is not with me is against me.” If the national life in general is organized upon non-Christian principles, the churches which are embraced within the universal assimilating power of that nation will not long be able to preserve their integrity.”

~ A. A. Hodge

“…And this generall Rule give me leave to assert and commend to your most serious considerations and consciences. That whatsoever Law of God, or Command of His, we find recorded in the Law-booke, in either of the Volumnes of GOD’S Statute, the N.T. or the Old, Remaines obligatory to us, unless we can prove it to be expired, or repealed. So it is with the Statute-Law of this Nation, or any Nation.”

Herbert Palmer – 1601-1647
English Puritan
Sermon before Parliament — August 13, 1644

“But it is questioned whether the law pertains to the kingdom of Christ, which is spiritual and distinct from all earthly dominion; and there are some men, not otherwise ill-disposed, to whom it appears that our condition under the Gospel is different from that of the ancient people under the law; not only because the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, but because Christ was unwilling that the beginnings of His kingdom should be aided by the sword. But, when human judges consecrate their work to the promotion of Christ’s kingdom, I deny that on that account its nature is changed. For, although it was Christ’s will that His Gospel should be proclaimed by His disciples in opposition to the power of the whole world, and He exposed them armed with the Word alone like sheep amongst the wolves, He did not impose on Himself an eternal law that He should never bring kings under His subjection, nor tame their violence, nor change them from being cruel persecutors into the patrons and guardians of His Church.”

John Calvin
Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses — p. 77.

I could provide reams and reams more of similar quotes. All I am seeking to establish by such quotes is that Reformed people have for 500 years insisted the God’s law is not restricted to some personal private realm nor has God’s law been seen as less than totalistic (covering every realm of life) for all people.

And the reason I take the time to note this is that there are some pretty heavy Reformed hitters out there who are insisting that God’s law does not apply to the public square but instead the public square must be governed by a Natural law that is not allowed to explicitly reference God’s revealed Law in order to inform how we are governed.

When we come to God’s law we see a parallel in the way God’s works in ordering creation and the way he works in ordering man’s social existence. As God created order in the heavens and the earth w/ Ten words (Gen. 1:3-29) so He creates order in society w/ Ten words.

In the 1st commandment the prohibition is against serving any other God

As he have noted the 2nd commandment is a prohibition on

Making images to represent the true God (32:4)
Making images to represent false gods (any likeness of anything)

The problem with Idols is it allows the Deity to be controlled by those in charge of the Idol

This is to forget it is God who controls us, not we who control God.

1.) image worship is forbidden because it reduces God

a.) reduces God’s incomprehensibility to comprehensibility
b.) reduces God’s majesty and transcendence
c.) reduces God’s nearness & covenantal intimacy.
d.) reduces God’s Sovereignty

All of these put us in control of God

2.) image worship is forbidden because it creates self willed worship

God will not only be worshiped alone but He will be worshiped alone only in and by the way he dictates.

3.) image worship is forbidden because in it we become like what we worship (Ps. 115:4-8)

I.) A Brief Word On God’s Character Seen In The Second Commandment

The Hebrew word qana [a”n’q] and its cognates are the most extensively used words for jealousy in the Old Testament. In Exodus 34:14 we learn that “the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” In Deuteronomy 4:24, God is described as “a consuming fire, a jealous God, ” giving the idea that he will judge because of his jealousy. In Joshua 24:19, Joshua challenges the people to serve the Lord but reminds them that serving God will be difficult because “He is a holy God; he is a jealous God.” In Zechariah 1:14, when the Lord is asked why he allows Jerusalem to be down-trodden by the nations, he replies, “I am very jealous for Jerusalem and Zion.” In verse 15, he continues to explain that while he intended to punish Israel for her sin, the nations have “added to the calamity.” Because of his jealousy,God will restore Jerusalem to its rightful people and will build his temple there (v. 16).This concept is also brought out in context of the last days in Joel 2:18: “the Lord will be jealous for his land and take pity on his people.” The Hebrew noun is alsoused to describe a man’s jealousy for his wife ( Num 5:14-30 ) and God’s passionate anger against sin ( 1 Kings 14:22 ; Psalm 78:58 ).

God’s jealousy in 20:5 describes His passion for His Holy name. His people were to be known as God’s people so that if they committed idolatry it was God’s name (His character, His renown) that would be besmirched and seen as less glorious than it always remains. Eventually, this idolatry problem finds God removing his shekinah glory from the temple in Ezekiel 8:3. In Ez. 8:3 we have a description of an idol that was set up in the temple mount “that provokes to jealousy.”

God deigns to place His name upon us but in being adorned with His name we are not to provoke Him to jealously by involving ourselves with idolatry.

II.) The Familial Promises Attached To This Prohibition

A.) Cursings

Sanction and Blessing. To the second commandment are appended a sanction and a blessing.

We find the idea of blessings for obedience in many places in Scripture. Lev. 26:23=24 is one such example

23 “And if by this discipline you are not turned to me but walk contrary to me, 24 then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins.

In the Exodus reference we see that if the head of the family turns away from Yahweh to worship images, his entire family will be swallowed up in his self-willed worship. His sin becomes their stumbling. “The third and fourth generation” are mentioned, because sometimes parents lived to see these, and so with their eyes beheld the punishment inflicted upon their posterity for their sins, which must be distressing to them; The idea here is that these warnings might impress their minds and affect them, to think what their sins would bring upon their descendants, who would quickly come after them, and share in the sad effects of their iniquities, and so be a means to deter them from them.

Note how this reinforces Federal Theology.

That this blessing and curse are added to this commandment is significant. Lying and stealing are serious crimes, but turning your back on the Lord to practice self-willed religion is most serious.

This teaches us that true religion is not a matter of voluntary choice which is w/o repercussions. It is required by God, and failure to meet His requirements leads to judgment. To assume that men are free to worship or not worship w/o radical consequences for a family and even a society is to negate the very meaning of Biblical faith. The life of a family and a society is its religion and if that religion be false, then the family and the society is headed for God’s cursings. Obedience is thus not a matter of taste: it is a question of life and death.

B.) Blessings

If there are cursings that descend upon the family for the head of the family’s sin so there are blessings. All the way to the most extended generation imaginable, God will show his favor to those who are faithful to Him and keep His commands. David’s house continued for generations, even though they were punished for Solomon’s sins (1 Kings 11:34, 38-39).

“Showing Mercy” — This idea of Mercy in this text communicates the idea of God’s loving Kindness and Devotion to His people for the sake of His covenant with them. This idea of God “showing Mercy” is a strong term that communicates God’s unfailing commitment to His people.

Scriptures also describes this covenant faithfulness as “abounding in love,” (34:6) as a “Mercy that endureth forever (Psalm 136), and as so great that it takes back unfaithful Gomer (Hosea 2:19).

What might we say here?

You can love your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren best when you love God, thus leaving Generations yet unseen a Godly legacy.

For those without a Godly heritage in their family we can still take hope because Scripture teaches us that God, being merciful often graciously interrupts this cursing of the generations. These blessings and curses are not rules that God can not interrupt for His own ends. Pious Jehoshaphat had a godless son Jehoram (1 Kings 22:43; 2 Kings 8:16-18). Three godless sons and a godless grandson (2 Kings 22-23) succeeded God-fearing Josiah.

III.) Other Considerations Concerning Idolatry

The Impact of Idolatry On A Culture

In OT Israel the health of the body politic (commonwealth) required the prohibition of Idolatry, because the toleration of Idolatry meant the overthrow of God as God unto His people, which would result in death for the people. (All those who hate me love death).

As such in the OT Idolatry was punishable by Death since it constituted Treason against God.

Deuteronomy 17:2-7

2 “If there is found among you, within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, 3 and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden, 4 and it is told you and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel, 5 then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones. 6 On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. 7 The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge[a] the evil[b] from your midst.

Now, were we to implement this kind of procedure in our culture people would think it extreme, yet we are not inclined to think it extreme that people are put to death for treason against the State (Julius and Ethel Rosenberg).

But of course we do not visit Idolatry with capital punishment in this country but Calvinists over the Centuries have had other views.

‎”The third opinion (of Calvinism) is, that the Magistrate may and ought to exercise his coercive power, in suppressing and punishing Heretics and Sectaries, less or more, according as the nature and degree of the error, schism, obstinacy, and danger of seducing others, doth require. This as it was the judgment of the orthodox Ancients, (vide Optati opera, edit, Albaspin. pag. 204, 215.) so it is followed by our soundest Protestant Writers; most largely by Beza against Bellius and Monfortius, in a peculiar Treatise De Hareticis à Magistratu puniendis. And though Gerhard, Brochmand [de magist. polit. cap. 2. quæst. 3. dub 2.] and other Lutheran Writers, make a controversy where they need not, alleging that the Calvinists (so nicknamed) hold as the Papists do, that all Heretics without distinction are to be put to death: The truth is, they themselves say as much as either Calvin or Beza, or any other whom they take for adversaries in this Question, that is, that Heretics are to be punished by mulcts, imprisonments, banishments, and if they be gross idolaters or blasphemers, and seducers of others, then to be put to death. What is it else that Calvin teacheth, when he distinguisheth three kinds of errors: some to be tolerated with a spirit of meekness, and such as ought not to separate betwixt brethren: others not to be tolerated, but to be suppressed with a certain degree of severity: a third sort so abominable and pestiferous, that they are to be cut off by the highest punishments?”

~ George Gillespie
Westminster Devine”

Calvin writes in his defense of the execution of Servetus:

Whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt. This is not laid down on human authority; it is God who speaks and prescribes a perpetual rule for his Church . It is not in vain that he banishes all those human affectations which soften our hearts; that he commands paternal love and all the benevolent feelings between brothers, relations, and friends to cease; in a word, that be almost deprives men of their nature in order that nothing may hinder their holy zeal. Why is so implacable a severity exacted but that we may know that God is defrauded of his honor, unless the piety that is due to him be preferred to all human duties, and that when his glory is to be asserted, humanity must be almost obliterated from our memories. [12]

Philip Schaff’s comment is important:

Calvin’s plea for the right and duty of the Christian magistrate to punish heresy by death, stands or falls with his theocratic theory and the binding authority of the Mosaic code. His arguments are chiefly drawn from the Jewish laws against idolatry and blasphemy, and from the examples of the pious kings of Israel. [13]

Gillespie and Calvin understood that to allow a alien law order, which allows Idolatry and all manner of sin which also is defined as criminality, to thrive in the name of some kind of enlightened pluralism was, in reality, to support the alien gods and the alien law order. To allow a law order to thrive that is alien to God’s law order to is to breathe life into the alien law order and to consign God’s law order to the garbage dump.

So, where Idolatry is allowed to have its way in any culture / social order means the eventual extinction of that culture / social order as people will disregard any social order constraints that get in the way of their self-assertion and desires. Just as Israel apart from the one true God was a nation where “every man did what was right in His own eyes,” so any nation that stands apart from the true God will have a culture where every man does what is right in his own eyes.

The only cure for this is Jesus Christ. Only Christ can provide the atonement necessary for those who have served false gods and desire to return to the only true God and the life that he promises.

Conclusion

Re-cap

Cultural Marxism, Critical Race Theory, Dr. Derrick Bell & B. Hussein Obama

Recently a videotape was released of B. Hussein Obama lauding and embracing Dr. Derrick Bell, a key advocate of what is known as “critical race theory.” Most Americans, being too busy watching the NCAA Basketball tournament do not realize how significant the discovery of this videotape is. So, because Americans don’t care to understand matters of such grave import if they don’t lend a quick and easy explanation and are too apathetic or preoccupied to realize that the man who is called “President” has drank deeply from the well of Cultural Marxism, this entry is committed to setting forth, in an easy to understand way, why Obama, first lauding and embracing Dr. Derrick Bell and later requiring the reading of Bell’s works as assignment for his students is a matter to note.

Since some Americans learn better visually then by reading, I offer the below video for their consumption.

http://content.bitsontherun.com/previews/ITUgkkVN-svqBtzyp

For the rest we start our examination of Obama and Bell by noting that the critical race theory that Bell created and Obama embraced starts with an understanding that critical race theory is a subset of critical theory, or to put it another way, critical race theory is the critical theory of Cultural Marxism as applied to race.

For a brief explanation of cultural Marxism of which critical theory is a tool in order to advance see,

https://ironink.org/2010/09/gramsci_aamp_cultural_marxism/

https://ironink.org/2012/01/1300/

Critical theory became a key tool used by the Cultural Marxists who desired to overthrow the Christian influenced social order of Western Civilization. Critical theory was a tool of destruction introduced by a chap named Max Horkheimer in an essay entitled “Traditional and Critical Theory.” In Horkheimer’s essay we learn that Critical theory, in line with it’s Marxist pedigree, is a social theory dedicated not only toward critiquing a culture and prevailing social order but also to transforming it and changing it. In the creative hands of the Marxists the aim was to change and transform Western civilization. When considering this aspect of Critical theory keep in mind that Marx said that “the point is not merely to understand the world, but to change it.” Critical theory was oriented towards that goal.

Critical race theory then was, as we have already said, a subset of this Critical theory as applied to race, and as it is applied to race its purpose is to critique the idea of advance by way of merit and ability as merely a guise used by whites to maintain their power and dominance over blacks. Bell’s writings suggest that merit and natural ability were not the real reason for advantage but rather were the social construct used to explain white advantage over blacks. The consequence of Bell’s writings is that the reader was instructed that the differentiation in the degree of ownership is accounted for, not by sweat and hard work, but rather by institutional racism. The natural conclusion of this thinking was that the social injustice engendered by such a social construct racist system can only be rectified by a redistributionist economic model where whites have property stripped from them in order to give to the minority oppressed. This was coupled with the zealous pursuit of quotas and set asides, as well as a post-modern view of truth where a matter is true only if advances the critical race theory cause and a matter is false only if it does not advance the anti-white, anti-Christian, cultural Marxist agenda of Derrick Bell. Keep in mind in all this that this is the same worldview out of which B. Hussein Obama is living as evidenced not only by his support of Bell but only by his close relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright (who himself was a disciple of James Cone and was inspired by Derrick Bell) and by his close relationship with Bill Ayers.

Ayers affection for critical race theory is heard in the below 67 second clip.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/03/15/Ayers%20Revolution%20Needed%20To%20Stop%20White%20Supremacy

So we begin to see a tapestry being woven here. The Dunham family moved in 1955 to Mercer Island Seattle in order to put daughter Stanley Ann Dunham in a school that they knew was being led by self-admitted and known Communists John Stenhouse. There Ann Dunham was instructed by two teachers Val Fobear and Jim Winterman where subject matters such as Atheism, Materialism and Communism were covered. Not only did the Dunham’s send Ann to this school they also attended a Church led by Communist Stenhouse called “The Little Red Church on the Hill” where Stenhouse would teach on Marx’s planks of communism. Of course Stanley Ann Dunham would become the mother of B. Hussein Obama, who in his book, “Dreams Of My Father,” speaks of a mentor named “Frank” (Frank Marshall Davis). Davis was a known communist who belonged to a party subservient to the Soviet Union. In fact, the 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii identified Obama’s mentor as a Communist Party USA member. What’s more, anti-communist congressional committees, including the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations. While in college Obama has high esteem for cultural Marxist Dr. Derrick Bell, and later assigns Bell’s writings to the students of his classes. We also know that eventually Obama ends up in Chicago teaching the techniques of Cultural Marxist, Saul Alinsky (Rules For Radicals). During the 2008 Presidential campaign Obama has to disavow his pastor of 20 years Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who is himself a cultural Marxist of the Black Liberation theology variety and who practices in the pulpit, what might be called, “critical preaching theory.” Once elected Obama surrounds himself with Czars and personnel who have some connections to one Marxist variant or another (Van Jones, Donald Berwick, Leon Panetta, Kevin Jennings, Anita “Mao is my hero” Dunn, Eric “I don’t prosecute Panthers who are Black” Holder, etc.). In Obama’s first two Supreme Court appointments he places a woman who worked closely with Dr. Derrick Bell and a woman who gave a critical race theory soundbite when she said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” Finally throw in in this context Obama’s wife’s comment about “for the first time being proud of America” and one begins to see not merely a narrative but a Novel the size of “War and Peace,” that tells the Obama story. Really, does B. Hussein Obama have to walk up to a microphone and say, “I am a cultural Marxist,” in order for voters to understand that B. Hussein Obama is a Cultural Marxist who isn’t particularly fond of non cultural Marxist white people?

B. Hussein Obama’s whole career — his whole identity — has been shaped by Marxist / Cultural Marxist categories. From his Mother’s training in Communism, to his mentoring relationship with Frank Marshall Davis, to his affection for Dr. Derrick Bell, to his work as a communist agitator, er, I mean, community organizer of the Saul Alinsky stripe, to his friendship with known Marxists Bill Ayers and Bernadin Dohrn, to his Chief Executive appointments to various offices Obama while clearly Black on the outside is clearly red on the inside.