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.

Can Propositional Nations Work?

“American nationalism, no less than German, was born out of a core ethnic and religious identity. Over the next 225 years, that identity has been called into question, modified, and expanded but never entirely lost. It has framed the current struggle over what it means to be an American.

The creation of the American identity began even before the revolution. There was a sense of common ancestry and belief that underlay the difficult transition from colonial Britain to revolutionary America and to the ‘we the people’ of the Constitution. In his plea for a United States, John Jay described this basis for the new nation;

“With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice, that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country, to one united people; a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established their general Liberty and Independence.

This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.”

John Jay
Federalist no. 2

In 1790, when the first census occurred, about 90% of white American settlers were British in origin – 82% were English. An even higher percentage of them were Protestants. Not all settlers had sided with the revolutionaries against the British, but the revolutionary victory in 1783 had consolidated the understanding of settlers as ‘Americans’ as distinct from ‘Britons’ or ‘English.’ While the framers of the Constitution would resist the term ‘nation’ – they preferred ‘union’ – what came into being after the Revolution was, however fractured into states, a new American nation where most of the inhabitants felt a sense of kinship.”

John B. Judis
The Nationalist Revival – p. 48-49

Pat Buchanan notes something similar as Judis notes above when he wrote;

Should America lose her ethnic-cultural core and become a nation of nations, America will not survive. For nowhere on this earth can one find a multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual nation that is not at risk. Democracy is not enough. Equality is not enough. Free markets are not enough–to hold a people together. Without patriotism, a love of country and countrymen not for what they believe or profess but for who they are, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

Pat Buchanan
State of Emergency

Right now, all across the West, the attempt has been made and is being made to deny the need for a common ancestry as definitional of what a nation is. Our “leaders” have and continue to insist that a nation can be constructed along the lines of the citizenry having only in common a commitment to a shared set of propositions. This program fails because propositions are only as good as the people who are interpreting those propositions. For example, one needed proposition to be an American, it is reported, is the affirmation that “all men are created equal.” I can affirm that but when I affirm that I do not affirm that the same way somebody else might. Someone else might affirm that equality means the need to make sure, by way of legislation, that all people have the same starting point. Yet another person might affirm that equality means that all people have an equality of outcomes and that such a program should be pursued by way of legislation (equity). I, however, take the phrase that “all men are created equal” to mean only that all men are equal before the law and that all men are equally held to be sinners before God. I hold that “all men are created equal” was a statement that in its original context merely meant that all Englishmen were created equal with one another in terms of political rights. This is but one example how various men can all affirm the same proposition while that phrase has radically different meanings. Propositional nations will never do because they cannot work because men — especially from different races, cultures, and faiths, — will always fill those propositions with different meaning.

And so, a nation can only succeed when it is comprised of a citizenry with a shared blood and a shared faith. Out of those two realities will then arise a shared culture, heritage, and history. Not even differing languages will by itself divide a nation that has a shared blood and a shared faith though it will make matters more complex.

If the West does not realize this simple truth the West is going to go into the abyss because as Buchanan notes above;

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

Pin The Tail On The Theonomist

Was John Wycliffe a theonomist?

“The law of Christ, when perfectly executed, teaches most rightfully how every injustice must be extirpated from the commonwealth, and how those offending against the law should be chastised.”

John Wycliffe

Was John Calvin a Theonomist?

“That to discern that there is nothing but vanity in all worldly devices, we must know the Laws and ordinances of God. But if we rest upon men’s laws, surely it is not possible for us to judge rightly.”

John Calvin

Was Heinrich Bullinger a Theonomist?”

“Kings are not as lords and rulers over the word and laws of God; but are, as subjects, to be judged by God by the word, as they ought to rule and govern all things according to the rule of His word and commandment.”

Heinrich Bullinger

Was John Knox a Theonomist?

“Kings then have not absolute power to do in their regiment what pleaseth them; but their power is limited by God’s Word. So that if they strike where God commandeth not, they are but murderers; and if they spare were God commandeth to strike they and their throne are criminal, and guilty of wickedness that aboundeth upon the face of the earth for their lack of punishment.”

John Knox

Was Zwingli a Theonomists?

“For He [God] wills that His Word alone be obeyed, and that the life be regulated by it alone.”

Ulrich Zwingli

Believing That Race Is Real Is A Gospel Issue

“Now of course, belonging to a people (nation) is always more than being descended from a common ancestor but it is never less than that. The chief addition to belonging to a nation is embracing a shared faith/religion. This explains why many people have a short definition of nation that reads; “A nation is particular ethnos who share a common religion which together creates a common culture (law, customs, language), as normatively sharing a common geographic setting.” Clearly, like Israel of old, the foreigner may dwell among a particular people but the foreigner will always be understood by himself and the people as a foreigner – even as treated with dignity.”

Reed M. Walters

To dismiss as important the issue that race is real simply because it is not directly related to the gospel is foolish and it is foolish because the issue of race is directly related to the Gospel. To deny race is part of the egalitarian push to deny distinctions. The ultimate distinction that the consistent egalitarian who denies race wants to deny is the distinction between God and man. It ought to be obvious now that this is where all this distinction denying is leading. First we started with the denial of the distinction between races and now we are denying the distinction between male and female. How can people not see that it won’t be long till the egalitarians  overtly stating what they are secretly presupposing and that is that there is no distinction between God and man?

If there is no distinction between God and man then there can be no Gospel. So, dismissing the issue of race because it is not directly related to the gospel is a non-sequitur that can only be championed by people who have no ability to do consequential thinking.

Clergy who deny the existence of distinctions in races and yet affirm the existence of the distinction of God and man are just one generation from their children being consistent.

Now, can people be saved by the Gospel who remain practitioners and champions of egalitarianism? Only God knows but I would think that it depends on far they take their egalitarianism. You see, egalitarianism is another religion, with another definition of sin, another definition of Jesus, another definition of salvation, and another definition of sanctification. How wrong must one be before they are so wrong that they can’t be Christian?

Only God knows. But why try to press the boundaries to find out?

Culture, Peoples, and Beliefs

“The idea that some cultures are better than others and that some are worse than others was the most common Christian thing until our brains were broken and we were forced to pretend not to know things.”

Dr. Stephen Wolfe
X post

Bret responds

The above is true but it is more true than Wolfe might even like to admit. Culture is not something that drops out of the sky. Culture is the result of a particular set of beliefs as embraced and lived out be a particular ethnic people group. This is why we can say that culture is theology externalized. When we say that culture is theology externalized we are noting that a particular ethnic group have owned a particular theology and they are, as a particular people living out that particular theology. This is why it can also be said that culture is the outward manifestation of a particular people groups inward beliefs.

Because culture is one part genetics and one part plausibility structure as owned by that genetic grouping it is the case that should either of those two factors be changed out, the result will be a different culture. So, if one changes either the people group who are doing the believing or if one changes out the set of beliefs that the particular people group believe the consequence will be a different culture. This explains why if you have different races occupying the same geographic space that there will be conflict even if those different races hold the same beliefs. There will be conflict because genetics matter and genetics are one of the two factors that comprise culture. The same is true if you flip the scenario. If you have the same racial/ethnic people group occupying the same geographic area but some of the people in that people group own a different religion there will be conflict that rises up between the varying belief systems. For example, White people who embrace Marxism, living cheek by jowl with white people who embrace Biblical Christianity will not get along.

Now, imagine what we are trying to do now in the West. We are trying to put together in the same geographic space different peoples groups with different religious beliefs. We are trying to place alien Mooselimbs, Jews, and Indians (dot not feather) Hindus, etc. together with white Christians into one living space and we are expecting that there is going to be harmonious culture. It is as rational as to geld a horse and then expect it to be fruitful.

Let us add to what was said above; since cultures are a combination of particular people and their particular beliefs this necessitates thinking that some particular people(s) and beliefs are better than other particular peoples and/or beliefs. If one culture is superior to another culture or if one culture is inferior to another the reason for that superiority or inferiority is going to be found in one of the two realities that comprise culture. Culture A is going to be superior to culture B either because the people themselves are a superior people or the beliefs of the people in culture A or superior to the beliefs of people in culture B or some combination of the two.

We cannot argue that cultures are superior or inferior to other cultures without arguing also that the reason this is so is because a combination of distinct ethnic/racial people groups and their beliefs are at the same time superior and/or inferior to another.

Now, because of the West’s revolutionary egalitarianism we don’t like saying or observing these truths that used to be accepted as a matter of fact. In America the civil rights legislation of the 1960s prohibited us from thinking the obvious. But the denial of the obvious doesn’t make the obvious go away. Peoples are different and different peoples build different cultures. Beliefs are different and different belief systems build different cultures. Different peoples with the same belief system will build different cultures. People who are the same with different belief systems will build different cultures.

This really isn’t that difficult… unless you’re an egalitarian.

The Christian & The Prospect Of Suffering

13 And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. “And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.”

I Peter 3

Here Peter returns to a point that he had dropped earlier;

I Peter 2:12 having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.

The ideas being communicated in each of these passages is that Christians will be challenged by the wicked as to their beliefs … indeed they may even suffer persecution … and in those situations Christians both by their conduct and by their words are responsible to give an apologetic … a defense of the faith. They are to provide a reason for the hope that is in them.

Peter begins here by bringing up

I.) The Possibility of Suffering/Persecution

The Apostle opens in vs. 13 by suggesting that generally speaking those who are followers of good, will be left alone. In vs. 14 though Peter does allow that there will be times when Christians suffer for righteousness sake. Of course we see that throughout the Scriptural record as well as throughout Church history. There are times, especially when the surrounding culture and visible church goes into steep decline, when Christians will suffer for righteousness sake. That is, Christians will suffer because they are doing or speaking the right thing… they are living and speaking consistent with their Christian faith.

II.) Next Peter Enjoins The Proper Response to Suffering/Persecution

Peter says that in light of that unjust persecution and suffering that the response is to first realize that we are blessed. Peter is perhaps recalling here the words of our Lord Christ who also anticipated that Christians would suffer and be persecuted;

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

So, the first response that we are to have should it ever be the case that we are unjustly persecuted and so suffering is to realize that we are blessed. We can rejoice and be glad in the midst of unjust suffering because we know that such suffering is promissory of future great reward and we can rejoice and be glad in the midst of unjust suffering and persecution because we know we are keeping the very best of company being counted as among the prophets. I mean, who doesn’t want to be identified with the great prophets of God who went before us?

Peter then combines the reminder that those are blessed who suffer persecuted for righteousness sake with the admonition to “not be afraid of their threats.” This is the second response we are to have in the face of persecution and suffering. Fear not.

The last few weeks we have been considering the why behind these word “do not be afraid of their threats.” The reason for knowing no fear in light of suffering, persecution, and threats, is that the Lord God omnipotent reigns. God is sovereign and has called His people, “The apple of His eye.” The Holy Spirit has reminded us that all things work together for the good of those God loves and are called according to His purpose. God has explicitly told us that He has engraved our names on the palms of His hands (Is. 49:16). For these reasons we are not to be afraid of their threats. God is our God due to the fact that we have been united to Christ.

The third response Peter writes here to the flock as it pertains to people breathing out threats and persecuting us is to

Sanctify (Set Apart) The Lord Christ in your hearts

This call echoes Isaiah 8:13 where we read;

13 The LORD of Hosts is the One you shall regard as holy. Only He should be feared; only He should be dreaded.

This call from Peter then to Sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts in the face of persecution and suffering seems to counsel on how to overcome the fear that Peter warns against. Peter writes in essence, “very well, there is this possible persecution and suffering and in light of that there is a natural response to have fear. Well, little flock, the way to deal with the understandable fear of man is to replace it with the fear of God. Sanctify (set apart – hold as holy and distinct) the Lord God in your hearts.”

You see a genuine fear of God – a genuine setting apart God will calm the swells that can overwhelm a understandable fear of men who are breathing out threats against us.

So to “sanctify Christ” as most versions have it or to “sanctify God” was to count His Name as holy (sanctified) above all other names. To “Sanctify Christ” means to own the fear of God, as the only fear which men ought to cherish, resulting in the safeguard against all undue fear of men.

This is not easy. I know I have failed at this in my past. I know if I had sanctified God in my heart and so feared God more than men the harassment and persecution of men would have not knocked me off my center. So, learning the fear of God… learning to set apart God is an arrows that warriors should have in their quiver because warriors are inevitably going to have to deal with persecution and suffering at one level or another.

One more word here. Peter says we are to sanctify God in your hearts.

Moderns tend to want to drive a dichotomy between head and heart. We have all kinds of silly sayings

Follow your heart
Affairs of the heart
In the 1960 Prez campaign Americans heard constantly, “In your heart you know he’s right.”

However the idea that there is this vast dichotomy between head and heart is just nonsense if we are going to understand the language in its Biblical context.

Gordon Clark dealt with this issue two generations ago. After collating all the Scripture that referred to heart Clark noted;

In eighty percent or more of (Bible verses)… the context shows… that the intellect or man’s mind is intended. Maybe ten percent mean volition (will). Another ten percent signify the emotions. Hence the actual usage very nearly identifies the heart with the intellect.

So, it would be a mistake to imagine that Peter is speaking of the “heart” here as though it is referring to the center of our emotions over against the mind with which we think. That kind of dichotomy is a stranger to Biblical thinking. In Biblical terminology the “heart” is the location of our reasoning (Romans 1:21), meditation (Psalms 19:14), understanding (Proverbs 8:5), thinking (Deuteronomy 7:17; 8:5) and believing (Romans 10:10). It is just here—in the center of our thinking and reasoning—that Christ is to be consecrated as Lord, when we are suffering and being persecuted.

So, biblically speaking, “set apart Christ as the Lord in your hearts,” means think as a Christian on this matter. It means to resolve to think properly. We are take ourselves into our hands and talk back to ourselves saying,

“Very well then, matters are getting difficult here. I am surrounded by the Philistines and they are breathing out threats and are persecuting me. I am languishing here. Very well, I must take myself in hand and at this very moment think properly about Christ as being Lord … I must sanctify God as Lord and be done with this fear of man and get on with the battle at hand.”

Then Peter gives some counsel on what more should be done in these situations;

III.) Be Ready to Give an Apologetic

and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.” I Peter 3

Now here we should first note that there is only one possible way to always be ready to give this kind of defense and that is by knowing what we believe and why we believe it and what we don’t believe and why we don’t believe it. There is no defending the Gospel hope … there is no defending the reason for the hope that is in us that is absent of knowing our undoubted Catholic Christian faith.

This verse is why I drill your children so much on the catechism. It is why we have worldview classes with the covenant seed. It is why I try while in the pulpit to get into the doctrine the way I do. All of that is explained by this first. I want you and the children and myself to have the ability to give a defense for the hope that lies within us.

It explains why I write the volumes I write on Iron Ink. It explains the existence of Iron Rhetoric. It explains my reading habits. Frankly, I am scared to death that some time will arise when I am not able to give a reason for the hope that is in me. As a minister I likewise daily wonder if I have done enough to help people likewise to be able to give a reason for the hope that lies within them.

This passage teaches us that Christianity is just not a label we wear. Christianity should be seen as a vocation much like being a Doctor or a Lawyer is a vocation. It should be our jobs … our callings to be Christian and like being a Doctor or a Lawyer that requires hard and long study. It requires putting our shoulder to the wheel of learning. Only in such a way can we be ready to give an apologetic … a defense for the reason for the hope that lies within us.

And never was there a time that this was more needed than our time. We are living in a church and cultural insane asylum. The proof of that was brought forth by the renown pollster George Barna in 2021 as he spoke in a Church in Virginia. I can only imagine that matters have deteriorated since then… Barna

Cited recent data indicating that just 6% of American people have a biblical worldview, despite 51% believing they do. The Cultural Research Center, which did the survey, concluded that 94% of Americans do not have a biblical worldview… According to Barna’s research, the worldview problem is in the church as well, with just 21% of evangelicals holding to a biblical worldview. Quick math tells us that 79% of Evangelicals do NOT have a Biblical worldview.

If one does not have a Biblical worldview, whatever one might be giving as the reason for the hope that lies within him it won’t be reasons that are reflective of what is taught in God’s Word.

Consider just one very recent piece of evidence of this lack of a Christian Worldview existing in the Reformed Churches.

Not many weeks ago a ordained minister named Littlepage in a PCA Washington DC church recently announced during a sermon that he was leaving the PCA church because the Lord had led he and his wife to become Roman Catholic. The head of the Home Missions department in the PCA was setting in the service and he along with the Elders and congregation cheered when Littlepage made the announcement. The head of the Home Missions called for the Leaders and Shepherdesses to come forward and lay hands on this departing minister. In the course of all this the now Roman Catholic but still ordained PCA minister was allowed to administer the Lord’s Table.

Talk about not having a Christian Worldview… not only as pertaining to the Minister, but as pertaining to the head of the Mission to North America and as pertaining to the Church Elders and as pertaining to the congregation. It would exhaust me to count all the different ways that this whole show was blasphemous. Do you think any of those people could give a acceptable reason for the hope that lies within them?

So, I return to the thought that we need to start thinking of our Christian faith as a vocation. To those of you here (and I know you’re present) who do constantly seek to sharpen your blade, I salute you. I salute you because you are so rare and as your Pastor allow me to commend you and to urge you to press on. I know what it means to work 80 hours a week, raise a family, and try to continue to pile up the ability to give reason for the hope that lies within me. I know it is not easy… but as you can learn your faith, learn it. While driving around listen to lectures/sermons. While preparing meals in the Kitchen or while in the laundry room pursue the knowing of what you believe and why you believe it and what you don’t believe and why you don’t believe it.

And then when God opens a door, step through it. There is such a need for godly reasoning in private conversations and in the public square.

Be ready to give a defense. There was a time when we might have been able to just let the professionals be the ones giving a defense, but we are living in a time when what is required is “all hands on deck.”

And what of that “hope that lies within us?”

Well clearly that hope is the magnificence of our Lord Jesus Christ who out of love for the Father and for His people took upon Himself a human nature and as the God-Man paid the just penalty for our sin so that God’s name would be cleared of any accusation and so that we could have peace with God. He who knew no sin, became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The hope that lies within us means that the grave holds less terror because we belong to Christ. Then the hope that lies within us means that we no longer walk as the pagans do with their darkened understanding.

Indeed, as we increasingly understand our undoubted Catholic Christian Faith our whole lives become a testimony of the hope that lies within us.

Friends, the visible church and culture desperately needs folks who can give a reason for the hope that lies within them. More important than that even though is that this is what we are called to in order to honor our master and liege-Lord… our great Captain, the Lord Jesus Christ.