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.

Sundry Notes On I Peter 1:3-5

Calvin notes that the main object of Peter’s first epistle,

“is to raise us above the world, in order that we may be prepared and encouraged to sustain the spiritual contests of our warfare. For this end, the knowledge of God’s benefits avails much; for, when their value appears to us, all other things will be deemed worthless, especially when we consider what Christ and his blessings are; for everything w/o him is but dross. For this reason he highly extols the wonderful grace of God in Christ, that is that we may not deem it much to give up the world in order that we may enjoy the invaluable treasure of a future life; and also that we might not be broken down by present troubles, but patiently endure them, being satisfied w/ eternal happiness.”

In summary then Peter’s goal is to remind his readers that what is to be gained by the certain future by the faithful Christian far exceeds the hardships and struggles of the present as well as what might be considered as perceived loss of the present.

Surely, we can understand the necessity to speak words of promise and hope to a people who are suffering for the cause of Christ. Surely, we can understand the temptation that might be present to conclude that the promise of the unseen as held out by Christianity was not worth the perils of the seen as brought by the tormentors of these Christians.

Consequently Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writes to these recipients encouraging them to press on doing so by means of the Character of God and the abundance of mercy.

In the midst of their trials, Peter, following his salutation, opens with

I.) A Blessing Of God For His Goodness

By doing so, Peter subtly reminds his readers that this whole life is about God. Yes, trials may be present and hardships may descend upon us but even under these constraints there is a necessity to bless God and to remind ourselves of the objective truths regarding his goodness.

A.) Note the specific God that Peter references is brought to the fore by God’s sui generis (one of a kind) relationship to Jesus Christ

1.) Pursue the idea of the exclusivity of God
God can’t be known apart from a known Christ.
There is no knowing God in his naked majesty apart from Christ

2.) Pursue the idea that God is God to us because of the relationship
that both the Father and the Church has to Jesus Christ

3.) Pursue how Peter references Christ – 1.)Lord 2.) Jesus 3.)Christ

B.) Note The Piling Up Of God’s Blessings Upon God’s People As The Reason Why Peter’s Open’s With a Blessing of God

1.) Abundant Mercy

As I stated at the outset the spotlight is cast upon God here. To a people who are grieved by various trials the Apostle becomes radically God-centered.

He immediately reminds them, in a general way, of God’s abundant mercy and from there Peter will get into specifics as to the character of that abundant mercy. The emphasis here is on the objective truth of God’s goodness. Hardship and persecutions may come but in the midst of those subjective experiences we must remain mindful that God is good to those who trust in him.

It seems what is happening here is that Peter is reminding his readers to view their circumstances through God’s character and not begin reading God’s character through their dire circumstances. Trials may come and go, but God remains always full of abundant mercy (Covenant hesed) towards his people.

The radical God-centeredness of this passage continues as the specifics of God’s abundant mercy are named. Note in all that is to be named here as instantiations of “abundant mercy” the repeated emphasis is on the fact that God has done all the doing for His people.

God has begotten us to a living hope (cmp. John 1:13). We did not beget ourselves to a living hope.

The Father is the one who raised Christ from the dead as the foundation of our living hope. We did not raise Christ from the dead so that we could have a foundation for our eventual living hope.

The Father is the one who has given us an inheritance. We did not give ourselves an inheritance.

The Father is the one who keep us. We do not keep ourselves.

All of these markers that testify of God’s goodness are received by us passively. God is the one who does all the doing. God is the one, through the work of Christ, and by the ministry of the Spirit who both makes us alive and who causes us to contend till the very end.

This is why we say … “To God be the glory.” This is why we dwell so much on the idea of “grace alone.”

It is the greatness of God that is dwelled upon here and so upon which we dwell.

But let us look at each of these blessings a little more carefully.

— Begotten — regeneration

— Living hope — This living hope is characteristic of the one who patiently waits for the salvation God has promised to his people. It is living because it is a sure and real thing. It is hope because it raises our minds beyond our trials to God’s sure and certain promises.

It stands in contrast to the dead hope of the pagans. Whether their hope is Nirvana, or the voluptuaries of Allah’s paradise, or the reincarnation to progress of the Hindu, or the pagan after life of the Jew, or the envisioned utopia of the humanist. All of these are dead hopes. Only the Christian has a living hope.

— This living hope comes through the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

In the middle of this God centered passage that is intended to give encouragement to believers Peter puts the Cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

— Inheritance

Described as — 1.) Incorruptible 2.) Undefiled 3.) Doesn’t fade
4.) Reserved

Application

1.)God is the center of every narrative and the center of that center is that God has done all the doing in Christ to rescue and redeem His people.

2.) A Christian’s plight and sorrows are never so defeating that they lose reason to bless God. Despite the greatest opposition or the greatest hardship the Christian remains the person who blesses God for His goodness to him.

3.) It is this living hope that Peter describes that keeps our dying and resisted efforts alive. We keep on contending for the crown rights of King Jesus because we have this living hope.

Ruminations On Father’s Day

God’s Love As Father Is Particular

1 John 4:10Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

2 Timothy 1:8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; 9Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Colossians 1:12Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us qualified to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: 13Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

Of course you will note the particularity that just sings through these passages. God, revealing His Fatherly character, loved “us” — His particular people. The love of God, as Father, is unique to His people. This particular “love” is to be distinguished from The love of God, as a general benefactor, who gives generic providential gifts to the just and the unjust.

Whenever God loves in a familial sense His love his particular, and it is this love in this salvific familial sense that we agree with the Scripture when they teach that God hates the wicked.

Now before we move on to a bit of application allow us to suggest one implication that we can draw from this reality that God’s love as a Father is particular … and that is

As God’s love as a Father is particular for His children so the children’s love for God as their Father must be particular as well.

As God’s dearly beloved children we are jealous for God’s reputation and His name. Understanding the great love of our Father wherein we have been loved, we in turn return that great love by intensely hating all other false gods and false representations of the true god. In a similar vein we likewise love our Brethren in a way that is unique and distinct to the love that we have for those who are the children of other false gods … for those who have fashioned and taken for themselves false gods.

Application

As God, our heavenly Father has a particular love for His own people, so any given Father has a particular love that reveals itself in the responsibility he has to his own children first and foremost. Because this is true, a Biblical Father acts in such a way as to uniquely protect his children from harm and danger. A Biblical Father seeks to uniquely regulate his own family life in prudent and wise ways — in ways that he does not do for families that are not his own. It is not selfish for a Father to take care of his own children ahead of the children of other families, though it would be selfish for a Biblical Father to only consider his own family. The argument here isn’t that heads of covenant homes and families should have no concern for anybody else except their own. The argument here is that charity starts at home. Just as God the Father’s love begins w/ His own children and then from there extends itself more generically to others so a Father’s love begins w/ His own children and then extends itself generically to others.

Illustration — Concentric circles of love.

If a Father so loved those who were not his own more than his own it would be tantamount to a disowning of those who are his own.

On a even larger scale Nations — which by historic definition have always been considered a family of related families — do the same type of thing. Nations, for example, set immigration policy in accord with the needs of the citizens. A nation has a responsibility to its own citizen’s first and foremost and so a nation sets an immigration policy that fits the needs of the citizenry before it fits the needs of potential emigres. If a nation so loved those who were not its own more than its own it would be tantamount to a disowning of those who were its own.

God’s Love As Father Is Unconditional In A Very Specific Sense

Often times the truth of unconditional election (which is the love of the Father for His particular people) is understood inadequately. Often, the unconditional love of the Father for His children is explained in ways that forgets that God’s love for His children was conditioned upon Christ’s work for them.

So the condition of God the Father’s love is that His particular people be pure and without fault. As we know, this was not a condition that any of God’s people could meet but, nonetheless, it was a condition. And so God setting this condition for His love and determining and knowing that His people could not meet this condition God Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, met this condition for His particular people.

The condition is one that God set and God met for His particular children.

So, God’s love, for us, as a Father, is unconditional in the sense that we aren’t involved in any per-formative acts that curry God’s love but God’s love for us, as a Father, is conditional in the sense that certain conditions had to be met before we could be accepted by the Father. These requirements God fulfilled in the birth, life, and work of the beloved Christ on behalf of love to the Father and love to the Father’s particular people.

All of this is communicated in Romans 3:21f

Romans 3:21 “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 23For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”

Now I spend some time stating the obvious because I fear that in some quarters the idea of God’s love as unconditional is being inappropriately twisted beyond all recognition. At least in some quarters the love of the Father as unconditional is being made to mean that as long as we invoke the magic talisman of some alien Jesus’ name, therefore, w/ God’s unconditional love in our pocket, we can autonomously create our own standards as to what the Christian life looks like. We seem to reason that “As long as I have God’s unconditional love we can go call good … evil, and evil …. good and we can go on sinning that grace may abound. We can turn
God’s standards upside down and we can make words like “compassion,” “social justice,” and “fairness,” to mean whatever we ruddy well like them to mean.

And so while God’s “unconditional love” is supposed to mean in Historic Christian theology that God Himself met all the conditions that He required so we might have a living vital covenant relationship with Him — as set by His terms — so that we might be equipped to live for His glory and be His servants, what God’s “unconditional love” has come to mean in post-modern “Christian” theology is that God Himself met all the conditions that He required so we might have a living vital covenant w/ Him — as set by our terms — so that we might be equipped to live for our glory and so that He might be our servant.

This changing of the definition of God’s “unconditional love” reminds me of Lewis Carrol’s famous “Alice in Wonderland.”

‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t – till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’

‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. ‘They’ve a temper, some of them – particularly verbs: they’re the proudest – adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs – however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!’

‘Would you tell me please,’ said Alice, ‘what that means?’

‘Now you talk like a reasonable child,’ said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. ‘I meant by “impenetrability” that we’ve had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you’d mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life.’

‘That’s a great deal to make one word mean,’ Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

‘When I make a word do a lot of work like that,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘I always pay it extra.’

‘Oh!’ said Alice.

(Carroll 1893, 113–15)

So, on this Father’s day, I am Alice insisting that the “unconditional love” of the Father means something while much of what I am seeing and hearing going on around me passing itself off as the “unconditional love” of the Father seems to mean whatever the speaker wants it to mean.

Unconditional love made to mean that God Himself met all the conditions that He required so we might have a living vital covenant w/ Him — as set by our terms — so that we might be equipped to live for our glory and so that He might be our servant is more of a revolutionary concept than any other doctrine of revolution. Unconditional love, defined this way, means the end of discrimination between god and not god, his standards and our standards, his definitions of morality and our definitions of morality, who our brethren are and who our enemies are, and all things else. Whenever anyone insists that God loves unconditionally, in the sense defined above they are telling you that they intend to make God in their own image.

Application

Now, after going a long way around I would say that as we apply this to earthly fathers I would likewise say as earthly Fathers our love for our children is likewise unconditional. This is true for adopted or biological children. No matter what might happen in a parent-child relationship a parent never quits loving their child.

Dads we need to tell our children this frequently. We need to keep reminding them that as our children they are loved unconditionally. We must be careful that we don’t place upon them, implicitly or explicitly, the idea that our love for them is based upon some kind of performative act or accomplishment on their part.

Just as we as Christians operate from the security that we can never increase God’s love for us because of God’s unconditional love for us, so our children need to realize that they operate from the security that they can never increase our love for them because of our unconditional love for them.

Many are the children who live their lives trying to meet the expectations of some demanding parent who has, implicitly or explicitly, communicated that their love was dependent upon the performance of the child. This ought not to be named among God’s people and when it is named among us it is a violation of Ephesians 6

“And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Dad’s throughout the lives of your children, regardless whether your children are 5 or 65 you need to communicate consistently to your children that you love them. A Dad’s influence on a childs life is monumental, and one of the best gifts you can give to your children is the stability, certainty, and confidence that comes from knowing that you love them unconditionally.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends IV

Carmon Friedrich, next to my own wife, is the wisest woman I know. This is a piece that absolutely nails the ugly contradiction of very public women leading the charge in the conservative family values campaign. Would to God that more women thought like Carmon.

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

The nomad and the anarchist accuse the domestic ideal of being merely timid and prim. But this is not because they themselves are bolder or more vigorous, but simply because they do not know it well enough to know how bold and vigorous it is. – G.K. Chesterton

Have you ever sat too long in the doctor’s waiting room and resorted to browsing through a children’s magazine, desperate for something to read? (For the sake of my example, we’ll assume you never even considered cracking the cover of the ubiquitous People magazine beckoning on the table.) Remember those mind-bending — to a five-year-old — puzzles which show two similar pictures, but in the second picture there are some differences which you are supposed to spot? What’s wrong with this picture? is the name of the game, and some of the changes can be quite subtle, making a mature woman spend way too much time poring over those junior periodicals and missing the nurse’s call when the examination room is finally free.

Ahem.

Life mirrors art, and I’ve been thinking of how we can get the wrong impression if we don’t carefully examine the picture we are presented by those who paint a scenario they want us to believe in.

Last January I happened to be in Washington, D.C. with my daughter and a family friend during the annual March for Life. As ardent pro-life supporters, we knew we needed to join with the thousands of others on the Capitol Mall and by our presence, at least, show that we were on the side of life and unborn babies. It was encouraging to be among so many people who oppose abortion and want to see it stopped. But as I listened to the speeches from the podium, I grew restless and frustrated. I had heard the same speeches before, many times, over the past couple of decades. “If we only elect so-and-so” or “If we only get rid of so-and-so” were the most common refrains. That seductive stick with the juicy carrot of judicial appointments which could overturn Roe v. Wade was waved about several times. Most of the speakers were women.

I turned to the girls with me and looked them in the eye, and quietly gave them my take on the things I was hearing. Abortion in all 50 states throughout all nine months of pregnancy was declared “legal” by the Supreme Court in 1973, 27 years ago. Some in the pro-life movement claim minor victories as some abortion mills close down or statistics show slight decreases at times in the number of abortions, or Congress passes a law banning partial birth abortion. But reality is that we still have the blood of over one-and-one-quarter million babies each year crying out from the ground (Gen. 4:10). I told the girls that legal action to stop those deaths would be a wonderful blessing, but I don’t believe anything will change until the hearts of women who want those abortions are changed. They don’t want their babies. Why?

I notice that more and more of the leaders of pro-life and pro-family organizations are women. They are articulate and gifted women, skilled at public speaking and good at rallying the troops, like Joan of Arc or Deborah. It doesn’t take being a Sherlock Holmes to make a reasonable deduction that in order for these women to hold those leadership positions, they have to devote a lot of time and energy to their careers. That doesn’t leave much time for home and family. I will get in trouble for saying it, but I can’t help noticing that the empress is wearing a business suit and not an apron. And these are the women who are supposed to encourage women inclined to end an inconvenient pregnancy to instead sacrifice their time and energy in order to have a baby. Titus 2 for the twenty-first century.

That is one way the picture has some subtle changes from what we ought to see: many of the spokeswomen for the blessing of babies are living a lifestyle which portrays the feminist dream of power, prestige, and leadership in the public realm, a lifestyle which is not conducive to family life, let alone so-called “traditional family values.”

This brings me to a related issue which skews the picture our conservative friends are crafting: the whole-hearted endorsement of so many women for political office in the recent elections.

The frequent mention of the anomaly of Deborah during a time when every man was doing “what was right in his own eyes” has become a din almost as annoying as those vuvuzelas at the World Cup. She was one woman called out by God when there were no men with the gumption to take the lead and fight the scary Canaanites. Today, we have numerous women stepping into positions of leadership in every realm, but the real phenomenon is the strong support of so many conservative Christians for female political leaders, to carry the banner for those “traditional family values.”

“I do not think it means what you think it means.” –Inigo Montoya

The most prominent Deborah, of course, is Sarah Palin, who is angling for the highest office in the land. She recently proudly proclaimed herself a feminist. As she travels around the country giving high-paid speeches to tea party activists anxious for political hope and change, she speaks of “empowering women” and a “a new revival of that original feminism of Susan B. Anthony.” Unfortunately, that feminism laid the ground-work for the feminism of NOW, Hillary Clinton, and Gloria “A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle” Steinem.

And I know I will get in trouble (again) for saying it, but what about Baby Trig, single mommy Bristol, and husband Todd? What are they doing while Sarah is taking on the liberal establishment and reclaiming feminism? Who is holding down the home fort?

We hear a lot about Deborah today, but not so much about Jael. Some friends just had their fifth baby the other day, and her middle name is Jael. That same day, I was in a store and the young woman who was the clerk had a name tag that said, “Jael.” I commented on it and told her about my friends’ baby. The clerk, who sported several tattoos, was touched and told me her parents named her for the woman in the Bible, and she said she needed to go back and read the story again. I encouraged her to do so.

Do you know the story? After Deborah rallied the troops and encouraged General Barak to stop hiding behind her skirts to go after the Canaanites (she did NOT go into battle herself), the Israelites kicked their numerous behinds (i.e., “routed their troops”), and the enemy General Sisera ran for his life. Tired and scared, Sisera was given refuge by a woman named Jael, who lured him into her tent with assurances of safety. She kindly offered him a glass of warm milk, which every woman knows has soporific effects, and this time was no different. Soon he was sawing the logs, and Jael put an end to him with a tent peg to the temple. It’s not a story often told in Sunday schools, which may be why Deborah is more well-known than Jael.

This tale set in the context of a time of great turmoil and apostasy in Israel begins and ends with a woman. Deborah herself pointed out the irony of victory coming at the hand of a woman. Not exactly an imprimatur for future generations of women leaders. And the second woman stayed home and finished the job, using her domestic skills to foil the enemy. Imagine that.

What is it we are wanting to accomplish? Do we want to address symptoms or causes in our quest to set things straight? First we need to agree on which picture is true and which is distorted. We need to portray a lovely picture of the blessings of being a woman at home, having babies, being content as the helpmeet rather than taking the lead. We need to understand the great power in that privileged position and see God’s great providence at work as He brings opportunity knocking at our door, without the need to gallivant about looking for greener pastures or quixotic quests. Faithful service over a couple generations will generate greater hope and change than dozens of political campaigns filled with the same old platitudes, wrapped in a different package for a new crop of gullible voters.

We need more Jaels, not Deborahs.

Self-loathing & Self-Hatred Wrapped in Christianity & The Death of the West

There is, in the Church in America today, a profession of a love for Jesus that is in reality a masquerade for a self-loathing and self-hatred that stems from the conviction that White, Western, Male and traditionally Christian is the fountain head of all that is evil in the world. This pseudo-love for Jesus expresses itself as a love for others who are non-White, non-Western, feminist female, and marxist-Christian but in reality this faux love that seeks the advantage of the non-White, non-Westerner, feminist female, and marxist Christian is in reality an attempt, based on a overwhelming sense of unrelieved guilt, to provide a self-atonement by means of ethno-cide.

This kind of behavior is expressed in the countless ways that different expressions of the Church are advocating wealth redistribution away from the West to the non-West, and from a people still limned as Christian to a people who are certainly not historically Reformed, nor possibly even Christian. Whether it is the pursuit to continue to combine illegal immigration with a unfettered entitlement culture or the pursuit of junk science claims of anthropogenic global warming that end up de-funding the West in favor of the non-West or whether it is pursuit of gender neutral language that seek to emasculate the traditional male in favor of the Feminist female. It doesn’t matter that such attempts have never worked to enrich those who have funds redistributed in their direction, or that attempts to empower women have consistently, in the long run, ended with women being hurt and embittered and men becoming effeminate and without courage. All that matters is that the ongoing attempt to provide self-atonement for the perceived and conjured sins of some imaginary wicked past that is being carried as a great burden, and which serve as the foundation of the self-loathing.

What makes this self-loathing and self-hatred — this attempt at self-atonement — so insidious and reviling is that it is wrapped in Jesus talk. This self-loathing and self-hatred is made to appear that it is the very love of Jesus that has Western “Christians” immolating themselves in favor of non-Western non-Christians. What makes this self-loathing and self-hatred so sad is that it cannot help either non-Westerners who need the Gospel nor Westerners who are re-defining the Gospel to mean self-destruction. The result of this re-defining of Christianity will be death both for those it is intended to help as well as death for those who are doing the “helping.”

With this self-loathing, wrapped in happy Jesus talk, comes the death of the West by means of the pursued self-atonement that demands the West’s death in favor of the non-West in order to find some elusive forgiveness for past evils. The person who questions this self-loathing “Christianity” is the selfish, racist, bigot, sexist, hater of Jesus who is only trying to keep everything for himself. Even when that accusation is met with the reasoned reply that if our house is burned down we can not help those who are homeless, it is insisted with some kind of reply that amounts to “equity demands that true love for others means we burn down our own homes.”

This is not to say that the West has not had its share of sins. Nor is it even to say that the West has not often played the role of the oppressor. It is to say that for all its crimes and sins, the West, because of the past influence of Biblical Christianity, has exceeded every other culture that can be named in providing a context where people can live with the dignity that being made in the image of God demands.

However, though I believe that with God all things are possible, I also believe a fair reading of the times indicates that the self-loathers are going to succeed in tearing down the West. Then it will be seen to be true what Winston Churchill once said of Socialism,

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

Of Antinomians and Legalists

Antinomians are almost always legalistic. Where ever you find an antinomian you will find vacuous rules like don’t smoke, don’t drink, always be nice, being sentimental is necessary, etc. Whenever God’s law is abandoned some other law inevitably becomes the standard by which antinomians will measure themselves as “good little Christians.”

In the same way all Legalists will always be antinomian since to be a legalist is by definition to be against the law. The legalists aren’t legalist according to God’s law because God’s law teaches “don’t be a legalist.” As such their legalism is antinomian every time.