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.

Tolerance

Just as political multiculturalism cannot accept absolute religious liberty or absolute religious pluralism (it always excludes those religions that have a standard that measures and excludes political multiculturalism) so political Theonomy cannot accept a absolute religious liberty or absolute religious pluralism. In any culture it is always only a question of which religious expression will be excluded. Every culture excludes faiths and cultures derived from those faiths which cannot abide with their version of cultures pluralism.

When the call for religious, cultural, and behavioral tolerance arises in a culture it is often a smoke screen attempting to mask the rise of different religions, cultures and behaviors that the current predominant culture does not tolerate for a reason. If those calling for what they style as increased tolerance are successful in gaining more tolerance they will eventually, once these promoters of tolerance have gained power, themselves refuse to tolerate the religion, culture and behavior of those that they demanded the right of tolerance to begin with.

Any culture that extends tolerance, as defined by their enemies, to those who are ideologically and theologically opposed to their religion, culture, and commonly accepted patterns of behavior, is a culture that no longer understands its meaning or who it is, and so is a culture destined for defeat by those who are forever whining about tolerance.

This is what has happened in the West. The West lost its cultural self understanding and as such did not teach why it was good, healthy, and vibrant to be Western to its children. No longer having a grip on why Western civilization was superior, the children who were not taught the superiority of Western religion, culture and behavior, were swallowed alive by those who were epistemologically self-conscious regarding their hatred of the West and its civilization. As such the demand for several generations now has been for more tolerance as those who are seeking to destroy the West are using the West’s historic sense of equity to seek and overthrow Western civilization.

Profiling

Major media outlets and news shows are going hari kari about Arizona’s new immigration law. Once again, as we heard with the Tea-party rallies so we are hearing again now how racist Americans are.

Now understand that Arizona passed this legislation because they have serious problems. The Crime along the border and up to 100 miles inland has skyrocketed. Drug trafficking has leaped exponentially. The pressure on the social safety net (hospitals and schools) is ripping the social safety net in half. If Arizona wanted to continue as a cohesively functioning state with a modicum amount of social stability something had to be done.

Now obviously the charge has arisen that Latinos are going to experience “profiling.” And it is no doubt true that to a certain degree they will. But profiling, whether we like it or not as its place. For example, if a rash of middle-aged white Bald guys start blowing up airplanes, strapping suicide bombs to themselves to blow up market places, and writing “how to” books on how to destroy the West or if suddenly millions of middle-aged bald white guys from Canada become illegal immigrants, it would make perfect sense to start profiling middle aged white bald guys. Further to make it personal, I want everyone one to know that I will not be offended if authorities begin to profile middle aged white Bald guys like me.

Unlike LaRaza, our President and the members of the Pravda media in their little girl shrill reactions concerning racist Americans, if the day ever comes when middle aged white bald guys are drowning the country in illegal immigration with the problems that illegal Latino immigration are bringing I will understand if people’s first reaction to me as a middle aged white bald guy is one of guarded caution. I will understand if responsible parents tell their children to avoid middle aged bald white men. Further, I will not consider you a “BALDIST” if you avoid me.

It simply is the case that profiling is absolutely necessary as a tool to restore social stability. It may be unfortunate but the anger really ought to pointed not at white America who only desires social stability, but it should be pointed at the government that allowed us to get to the place where we have 12-20 million illegal immigrants in our country. If we are in the position where we have to profile it is only because the government failed to do (provide for the general welfare and protect the common defense) what it is supposed to be doing.

The Incomplete Story Of ‘Secularization’

Scholars and authors will often speak of our increasingly “secular” culture, but this is a confusing speech habit that does not tell the whole story. Noting the secularization of our culture is only half of the repentance equation that is being played out.

Repentance is a matter of turning from course while turning to another course. When we read of secular culture or how the West is being secularized or of our ongoing secularization what is being noted is only the negative movement of Repentance where something is being turned from. That which is being turned away from, when scholars write of secularization, is the Christianity that has so influenced America since its founding.

There is however a positive movement in this secularization process. The repentance we are experiencing in secularization is not only a turning away from Christianity but also a turning to and a movement towards pagan belief systems (various expressions of humanism). Not only are we becoming more secular we are also becoming more anti-Christ.

To speak of our secularization without also speaking of our secularization thus is significantly misleading if only because it suggests that Christianity is being moved away from to a realm that is not identified by some kind of faith expression. Whenever you read of the “secularization” of the West you should insert the word “paganism” along with it. It is not just that the West is becoming more secular but it is also that the West is becoming more secular because it is becoming more pagan. In turning from its Christian roots it is turning to and planting roots in a pagan faith system.

John Calvin & Theonomic Leanings

I will be the first to admit that John Calvin’s position on the abiding validity of the judicial laws of God is nuanced and even sometimes complicated. I offer these quotes in order to reveal that Calvin said things (many things actually) that indicate that he can not be seriously claimed as R2Kt by those adherents. Were one to read Calvin’s Sermons on Deuteronomy they would read many of the same kind of material.

“They will reply, possibly, that the civil government of the people of Israel was a figure of the Spiritual Kingdom of Jesus Christ and lasted only until his coming. I will admit to them that, in part, it was a figure, but I deny that it was nothing more than this, and not w/o reason. For in itself it was a political government, which is a requirement among all people. That such is the case, it is written of the Levitical priesthood that it had come to an end and be abolished at the coming of our Lord Jesus (Heb. 7:12ff.) Where is it written that the same is true of the external order? It is true that the scepter and government were to come from the tribe of Judah and the house of David, but that the government was to cease is manifestly contrary to Scripture.”

John Calvin
Treatise against the Anabaptists and against the Libertines

“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 beginning 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 it 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 w/ the Word alone like sheep among 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 Last four Books of Moses.

These quotations demonstrate that thenomists are correct in looking to Calvin for historical Reformed precedent for their commitment to God’s judicials.

Bavinck on Nature & Grace & What It Means For SAC When Grace Restores Nature

“Bavinck frequently and forcefully underscored that the reformation Christ brought about by his revelation differs fundamentally from revolution. Moses and the prophets, Christ and the apostles ‘discriminated in an inimitable manner between healthy and sick reality.’ Whereas in other religions and philosophical systems ‘these two spheres’ are constantly confused and mixed together, the special revelation that comes to us in Christ,

keeps the two in clear distinction; it acknowledges nature, everywhere and without reservation, but it nevertheless joins battle w/ sin on every front. It seeks reformation of natural life, always and everywhere, but only for the purpose and by the means of liberating it from unrighteousness.

This insight is also determinative for the assessment of concrete events and movements in social and political affairs:

Because the gospel is concerned exclusively w/ liberation from sin, it leaves all natural institutions intact. It is in principle opposed to all socialism, communism and anarchism, since these never oppose only sin, but identify (through the denial of the Fall) sin w/ nature, unrighteousness w/ the very institution of family, state and society, and thus creation w/ the Fall. For the same reason the Gospel is averse to revolution of any kind, which arises out of the principle of unbelief, since such revolution, in its overthrowing of the existing order, makes no distinction between nature and sin, and eradicates the good together w/ the bad. The gospel, by contrast, always proceeds reformationally. The gospel itself brings about the greatest reformation, because it brings liberation from guilt, renews the heart, and thus in principle restores the right relation of man to God.

Jan Veenhof
Nature & Grace in Herman Bavinck — pg. 23-24

1.) What Veenhof is drawing out here from Bavinck is that Grace restores nature because Grace has the effect of removing from nature its participation in sin driven sick reality. Grace never turns nature into grace but the effect of grace upon nature is to restore nature to its healthy reality from the sick reality that sin has it in bondage to.

2.) Nature and Grace remain distinct for Bavinck but Grace has an impact on nature thus indication that Grace is not divorced from nature.

3.) For Bavinck Socialism, Anarchism, and Communism (SAC) had to be opposed by all right minded Christians because SAC are part of the disordered sin sick reality that nature was poisoned with. SAC creates sick reality because they identify sin w/ nature, and creation w/ the fall, and so in order to attack sin and the fall they attack nature and thus seek to pull down God’s institutional created social order that includes family, state, and society, preferring instead a sinful social order where God’s diversity is blended into a humanistic Unitarian sameness. This creates the sick reality that Bavinck speaks of.

4.) Where the Gospel flourishes and brings Reformation (i.e. counter-Revolution) SAC is brought to heel since SAC is the revolutionary antithesis based on the principle of unbelief. From this I would say that we can legitimately conclude that Reformation is being granted where SAC is seen in abysmal retreat. Where SAC isn’t in retreat there is no Reformation.