“[W]e ought to pray for kings, and all in authority, that under them we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness, and in honesty, which end cannot be attained unless the civil magistrate bridle and tie up heretics, 1 Tim. 2.2. These words, in all godliness, concern religion, or the first table of the moral law, as the following word, honesty, or civility, hath a respect to the commands of the second table, and the duties which we owe to our neighbour and to one another. For true magistrates are keepers and defenders of both tables of the ten commandments.”
~ David Dickson
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.
Gillespie on Calvinism and Heretics
”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
http://www.covenanter.org/GGillespie/wholesome_severity.html
Mohler On Institutuionalizing Homosexual Marriage … McAtee On Mohler
In this piece,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304584004576416284144069702.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Dr. R. Albert Mohler does a good job laying out the problem with the tsunami of the hommosexual agenda that is washing across these united States.
However, I do have some observations on Mohler’s segment below,
(1)”In this most awkward cultural predicament, evangelicals must be excruciatingly clear that we do not speak about the sinfulness of homosexuality as if we have no sin. As a matter of fact, it is precisely because we have come to know ourselves as sinners and of our need for a savior that we have come to faith in Jesus Christ. Our greatest fear is not that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted, but that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Christ and the forgiveness of their sins….
(2) It is now abundantly clear that evangelicals have failed in so many ways to meet this challenge. We have often spoken about homosexuality in ways that are crude and simplistic. We have failed to take account of how tenaciously sexuality comes to define us as human beings. We have failed to see the challenge of homosexuality as a Gospel issue. We are the ones, after all, who are supposed to know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only remedy for sin, starting with our own.
(3) We have demonstrated our own form of homophobia—not in the way that activists have used that word, but in the sense that we have been afraid to face this issue where it is most difficult . . . face to face.”
A.) In reference to sentence 1 of paragraph #(1)
All sins are equal in our culture today. This is why Dr. Mohler has to write this sentence, and it is why every time a Christian raises his voice against some public square sin the charge of “Hypocrisy” is leveled.
The conversation seems to go something like this,
Christian: “Homosexuality is evil.”
Public Response: “How dare you declaim against homosexuality when you are a sinner as well. We are all sinners and we need to keep that in mind before we go around faulting some people for the sins that are not ours. If we really took our sins seriously we would never speak against another persons sins.”
Yes, we are all sinners. And while all sins separate the one outside of Christ from God not all sins are equal in their malignity. Do we really believe that the sin of stealing a cookie from the cookie jar is the same in malignity as a College professor convincing a classroom that Government theft is righteous?
Yes Christians are sinners. Yes they need the Gospel of forgiveness preached to them because they are sinners. But the fact that Christians are sinners does not mean that Christians therefore can not raise their voice against malignant sins that destroy people and ruin civilizations.
B.) In reference to sentence #3 of paragraph (1),
1.) Mohler gives us a false dichotomy. It is our concern that Homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Jesus Christ that drives our concern that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted. Is Dr. Mohler trying to divide the concern that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Jesus Christ from the concern that homosexuality will become normalized and accepted? I would insist that a love for the Lord Christ and for those living with the burden of homosexuality dictates that both concerns be present as mutually reinforcing truths in the Christian community.
C.) In reference to paragraph #(2)
As a thought experiment imagine paragraph #(2) in 25 years being slightly rewritten from some erstwhile, nationally known Evangelical.
“It is now abundantly clear that evangelicals have failed in so many ways to meet this challenge. We have often spoken about Bestiality in ways that are crude and simplistic. We have failed to take account of how tenaciously sexuality comes to define us as human beings. We have failed to see the challenge of Bestiality as a Gospel issue. We are the ones, after all, who are supposed to know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only remedy for sin, starting with our own.”
I write the above paragraph for shock value. It is my hope that people will realize that the reason that that homosexuality was spoken of in crude and simplistic ways in the past was because people were, once upon a time, as appalled by it as they now are of the thought of coupling with farm animals. Surely we can understand why something this crude was spoken of in a crude and simplistic fashion. I think saying things “crude and simplistically” (Mohler’s phrase) also served to reinforce the taboo against homosexuality. In other words such disapproving shame type speech served the purpose of keeping homosexuality in the closet and away from our children and families. Now we speak all respectfully and with complexity on this issue and so the Homosexual is emboldened by this new found respect and the previous taboo is no longer taboo. Indeed, now we reserve our taboo reinforcing crude and simplistic language for those who believe that homosexuality is a perversion.
Secondly, I agree homosexuals need the Gospel. However, the Gospel begins with, “God is Transcendent and Holy and will not abide with wickedness.” Some would say, and Dr. Mohler is not one of these, that such a message is crude and simplistic.
Without going into all the details, without ever being homosexual I have seen the homosexual lifestyle up close. I have been to the gay bars. I have befriended the homosexual and have had them confide in me. It is a lifestyle of destruction and hatred. If it is cured it is only cured by regeneration accompanying someone compassionate enough to speak of the peril, both temporal and eternal, in which the homosexual finds themselves. The Love of Christ constrains us, with tears in our eyes, to command all men everywhere to repent.
D.) In reference to paragraph #(3)
But this can’t just be dealt with on an individual level, though I agree that it must start there. This has also now become a public policy issue to which Christians and Churches must speak. The Homosexual agenda is flooding our schools, it is now on the verge of normalizing homosexual “marriage.” It is an agenda that is anti-Christ to its core and is committed to perpetuating its strength through recruitment. We must shepherd the individual Christian homosexual who has this as a besetting sin they loathe but we also must speak publicly against the theology out of which homosexuality prospers — a Theology that hurts people that are created in the image of God.
Piper On Institutuionalizing Homosexual Marriage … McAtee On Piper
Piper’s piece
http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/my-eyes-shed-streams-of-tears-thoughts-on-the-new-calamity
is actually pretty good right up until he shows his historical Baptist skirt by saying that,
“My main reason for writing is not to mount a political counter-assault. I don’t think that is the calling of the church as such …”
Later he writes again,
“This is what I am writing for. Not political action, but love for the name of God and compassion for the city of destruction.”
A few observations about Dr. Piper’s statement,
1.) A lack of political action is a sign of a lack of love to God. Should the Church remain silent concerning the Public Square as a sign of love to God? This is preposterous. The Love of God constrains us to not only weep for the wicked but also to show compassion by championing the second use of the law in order to show compassion to the wicked by setting a legal bulwark against their inflamed wicked passions. This bulwark should not only include a legal code against homosexual sexual acts but a legal code against heterosexual sexual acts outside of marriage.
If people were gathering to celebrate the institutionalization of anti-Jew laws would Piper still go out of his way to say he is not writing to mount a political campaign and that such is not the calling of the Church as such?
Why should the Church be any more mute regarding a call to political action against institutionalizing homosexual deviancy then it would be mute regarding a call to political action against anti-Jew laws?
It is all so contradictory.
2.) There is a false dichotomy in Piper’s writing. He seems to imply that weeping over the city of destruction can only be done if we also don’t respond with some kind of political action.
3.) This sentimental piety that has us weeping like little girls instead of fighting like Charles Martel is going to get all us ruddy well killed. I don’t mind weeping over the lost as long as I can fight to make sure the pagan doesn’t pull my house down along with his own.
“One has freedom to believe socialism is a better system than capitalism”
“Yes, one has freedom to believe socialism is a better system than capitalism. Obviously a true believer would not accept the Marxism of enforced atheism and persecution of Christians, but as simple economic theory Christians are allowed to have dumb or misguided opinions on economic theories”
OPC R2K Minister
What? Does this parson really believe that a people can have economic Marxism without Political Marxism? Worldviews have a nasty way of being systemic and working out their implications all across various disciplines. We are talking about Worldview systems here, … we are not talking about the Chinese Buffet food line at the local “We serve plenty good dog-meat as well as Chicken flied lice” restaurant. Have these people forgotten their Van Til? It was Van Til who talked about systems vs. systems. These people have lost the ability (if they ever had it) to think systemically. Everything is compartmentalized.
How far shall we press this?
Does one have freedom to believe that Bestiality is a better sex system than heterosexuality? Does one have freedom to believe that polygamy or polyandry is a better marriage system then monogamy? Does one have freedom to believe that Child sacrifice is a better alternative to actually raising your children?
Where does this kind of thinking end?
This is why being associated with the ministry embarrasses me. Do your recent history … it is the ministers and the Church who have led the Church and this culture into utter ruin.