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.

Bavinck on Grace & Nature

“Therefore, whereas salvation in Christ, was formerly considered primarily a means to separate man from sin and the world, to prepared him for heavenly blessedness and to cause him to enjoy undisturbed fellowship w/ God there, Ritschl posits the very opposite relationship: the purpose of salvation in Christ is precisely to enable a person, once he is freed from the oppressive feeling of sin and lives in awareness of being a child of God, to exercise his earthly vocation and fulfill his moral purpose in this world. The antithesis, therefore, is fairly sharp: on the one side a Christian life that considers the highest goal, now and hereafter, to be the contemplation of God and fellowship w/ him, and for that reason (always being more or less hostile to the riches of an earthly life) is in danger of falling into asceticism, pietism, and mysticism; but on the side of Ritschl, a Christian life that considers its highest goal to be the Kingdom of God, i.e., the moral obligation of mankind, and for that reason, (always being more or less averse to the withdrawal into solitude and quiet communion w/ God), is in danger of degenerating into a cold Pelagianism and an unfeeling moralism. Personally, I do not yet see any way of combining the two points of view, but I do know that there is much that is excellent in both, and that both contain undeniable truth.”

Herman Bavinck
De Theologie van Albrecht Ritschl (Theologicische Studien VI 1888 — pg.397)
Nature & Grace in Herman Bavinck — Jan Veenhof

The Pietist dualistically separates nature from grace and lays all the emphasis on the human being as Christian and so calls the person to give up his humanity (nature) in favor of the pursuit of his Christianity (grace). This can express itself in the Anabaptist who considers the world of nature evil and who thus seeks to completely withdraw from the world or it can find Roman Catholic expression where nature only finds its meaning where it is brought under the canopy of grace. In such an expression nature only has value where it is superintended by the hierarchy of grace as found in the Church. A third way this dualism can express itself is in the R2Kt Kantian system where nature and grace remain cordoned off from one another. In such a dualistic system grace neither calls the faithful away from the world as with the Anabaptist dualism expression nor does it seek to bring nature under the canopy of grace as in the Roman Catholic dualism. Instead what it does is it allows nature to operate independently of and uninfluenced by grace in a common realm that is neither of the devil (anabaptism) or under the mediation of supervening grace (Roman Catholicism). In the R2Kt dualism there is no attempt to solve the dualism that one finds attempted both by anabaptists (nature is all evil) or Rome (nature is controlled by grace).

Bavinck points out however that there is another side of the coin that traditional liberalism falls into. Liberalism of the Ritschl variety tended to deny a supernatural realm of grace and as such the realm of grace was collapsed into the realm of nature, with the result that the nature/grace realm was the realm that must be rescued by deliberate activism. Since there is no unique supernatural grace realm to give a clear word as to what this activism must look like the result of Liberal activism was always autonomous and anthropocentric, and inevitably resulted in a kingdom building effort that, though pursued in the name of Christ, invariably led to Hegelian statist control structures where the representative of the State became God walking on the earth.

As a theologian Bavinck was not satisfied w/ these dualisms, nor was he satisfied with the how Ritschl and other liberals collapsed grace into nature. Bavinck’s contribution to Reformed theology was the attempt to find a way where grace could influence nature without collapsing grace into nature. Bavinck was not satisfied w/ either a nature-grace schematic where nature and grace were divorced from one another but neither was he satisfied w/ a nature-grace understanding where the distinctions between nature and grace were obliterated.

Veenhof in his book suggests that Bavinck limned a third way where grace could be seen to influence nature without either nature swallowing grace or grace swallowing nature. Such a solution is thus a threat to all dualisms and pietisms on one side as well as all autonomously inspired Kingdom projects on the other that lose grace in the putative pursuit of the Kingdom of God on earth which is in reality the Utopian search for the Kingdom of man.

Bavinck’s solution ends up making him the foe of just about all other contenders.

Obama Administration Has Made It About Race

“And President Obama (is) expected to do a lot more (for the Black community),” said (Charles) Ogletree, referring to the challenges Obama faces in two wars and the struggling economy. Still, he predicted, the new health care law would affect uninsured black Americans more than any other segment of the population.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iYGOI4yJ-sG3CCY-VilGt3T_PZvQD9F593M00

Charles Ogletree is an African-American Harvard Law Professor who has for years supported race based reparations. What we learn from the quote above is the confirmation of what I have been saying for some time and that is that the Obama-care legislation is really reparations by means of redistribution in a less overt form. Reparations was always an idea that resulted in visceral resistance in the American population. Outright reparations was an idea that could have never received the votes in order pass. However stealth reparations, by way of major legislation which is thought to be primarily economically advantageous for the black community has become the way that reparations is being achieved.

Second, Ogletree’s comments reveal that Obama is a true disciple of Jeremiah Wright who preached hatred of white people. Obama is pursuing policy that is designed to enrich the black community at the expense of Americans who are not black. Further, Ogletree, an adviser for Obama, observes that Obama is expected to do a lot more for blacks, but what people need to know is that this doing of more for Blacks as an interest group is at the cost of the impoverishment of white people.

Now this observation makes many white people uncomfortable because they have, for two or three generations, been inculcated with the idea that Black people are oppressed and so can’t be racist. Also, such observations as what I’ve offered above are considered in themselves to be racist. However, with the advent of the ubiquitous accusations against (mostly-White) Tea-party folks as being racist reveals we are long past the time when we can continue to ignore the racism that is emanating from the Pravda “American” media who are serving as spokesmen now for the new black power center. We simply must, not only refuse the accusations of “racism,” but we must also insist that it is the Obama administration that are the racists, haters of Christians, and haters of historical Western culture. It is the Black community (excluding many individual notable exceptions) who have been turned into the shock troops, along w/ the perverts and feminists, of the cultural Marxists in their attempt to destroy the last remnant of the West.

Some people are beginning to understand this but the battle that we are currently involved in, in resisting the Obama administration is not primarily about the economy, or even primarily about the size of Government. The battle we are currently involved in, is a battle to resist the success of Cultural Marxism to overturn the very little remains of Christendom. Unfortunately, the chief disadvantage that those who are resisting the cultural Marxist are saddled w/ is that they are not epistemologically self conscious regarding their belief system. Many of the tea-party types are operating off the fumes of Biblical Christianity when, in order to be successful in their resistance, they need to be fueled w/ the high octane petrol of Biblical Christianity.

In this contest, one tactic that needs to be constantly returned to in order to try and reason with the shock troops of the cultural Marxists is the attempt to explain to them that if they get what they want they will be worse off then where they are now. Most of these cultural shock troops really believe that their lot in life is going to be improved once Cultural Marixism reaches absolute ascendancy. Little do they know that the shock troops will be the first to be eliminated if their elitist masters take control.

It is most unfortunate that a war that is really primarily theological, ideological and cultural also has become a war where the dividing line is largely crossing race and ethnic boundaries as well.

The Ron Paul Coalition

Last week a poll was conducted which found that, if an election for President was currently held, Rep. Ron Paul would finish w/ 41% of the vote with Barry Hussein Sotero garnering 42% of the vote. It was a bit of a shocker to the political class (Both Republicrats and Demoicans) in America as the political class continues to seek to do all they can to marginalize the ideas of Ron Paul.

However, Ron Paul’s problems are not primarily the political class. Ron Paul’s primary problem, as was alluded to in a conversation I had this past weekend w/ Chad Degenhart, is that Paul’s coalition is fragile and one would think that a smart opposition to Paul could easily divide his movement.

After Chad made the passing observation about the fragility of Paul’s coalition I began to think about that reality. From where I sit you have Ron Paul building a coalition between people who support ordered liberty and people who support disordered liberty sharing only the common ground of opposing those who favor ordered Statist tyranny. This is not a coalition that can survive somebody coming along and pointing out that people who support ordered liberty (Jeffersonian Constitutionalism) and people who support disordered liberty (Randian libertinism) despise one another.

Allow me to give just one example. Ron Paul reveals his Randian Libertinism by supporting the idea that abortion should be an issue that the individual states decide. A Jeffersonian Constitutionalist is abhorred by such reasoning since they believe that the “Due Process clause” of the Constitution and the promise of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness requires the Federal Government to universally prohibit abortion in the nation.

Ron Paul is living the charmed life right now because people w/ very opposite convictions are coming to him and are reading him through their worldview lenses. Those who hate Statist tyranny and love ordered freedom listen to Ron Paul and hear him as a champion of their ideas. At the same time however, others who hate Statist tyranny and love disordered liberty hear him through their worldview and they think they hear somebody who favors, even if he personally does not, legalization of drugs, the legalization of prostitution, the legalization of homosexual marriages, and the legalization of every kind of disordered dysfunction that can be imagined. These two types of people should find the other type to be repulsive and yet in the Ron Paul campaign you find them working cheek by jowl in order to get Paul elected. It is quite surreal.

The odd thing about Libertarian thinking is that it can only really work in a culture where it doesn’t need to work. That is to say that Libertarian thinking, in order to be successful, requires people to be self governing according to a particular standard. If there is no shared standard as to what self governing means or looks like Objectivist Libertarianism can only lead to anarchy and chaos. However, where there exists a shared standard as to what self-governing means and looks like then a Libertarian like political philosophy can be easily embraced since there is not a need for heavy institutional controls upon a people. There is no need for the heavy institutional controls because the shared standard means that self-governing does all the controlling work.

Those who desire ordered liberty (and I am one of them) must realize that there is some heavy spade work to do before the kind of political government that Ron Paul is offering can work on a national scale. Offering people liberty only works if people are self governing. The incarceration rate, the out of wedlock pregnancies and births, the abortion rate, the billions of dollars made in the pornography industry, and a host of other indicators reveals that it has been a very long time since the citizenry of America could be fairly characterized as a self-governing people. Giving Americans Randian Libertinism at this point would be like giving a 3 year old a box full of grenades and telling them to go be free.

In order for Ron Paul’s political philosophy to work there is first a need for Reformation and awakening in the Church and in the country. And the kind of Reformation we are talking about here is not the slushy emotional experiential feelings oriented Reformation. The kind of Reformation I am talking about is the kind of Reformation that creates in people a commitment to the shared standard of God’s Law Word as the definition by which self-governing will be assessed. Until that kind of Reformation and awakening comes about all the talk about “real change” that Rep. Paul would bring is illusory.

Only a return to a Biblical Christianity that preaches Christ crucified, risen and ascended as King can provide the fertile ground out of which Jeffersonian Constitutionalism can work. Only a return to Biblical Christianity where individuals who were once dead to sin, but, by the power of God, are resurrected to walk in newness of life, can provide the backdrop against which political structures that provide real liberty make sense. Only by a apostate Western Church and lapsed Western Christians rejuvenated to embrace Biblical (pro God’s Law-Word in its third use in the public square) Christianity can the West avoid the humanist night that is currently falling upon the West. Until that kind of Christianity — the kind of Christianity that gave America her ordered liberty — is once again characteristic of us as a people, no political philosophy or candidate is going to save the day.

Good Reading Leads To Good Thinking

Religious Secularism Begins To Awaken To Its Peril

Wherein the religious fundamental Secularists realize the only way they can defeat fundamental Religions is to become more self-consciously religious and fundamentalist complete w/ a Missionary sense..

Fascinating article.

http://newhumanist.org.uk/2267/battle-of-the-babies

Teaser —

“I ask him what he thinks we should be doing about the rise of religious fundamentalism that threatens to swamp liberal enlightenment Secularism…

“It may be necessary for secular people to have slightly more children but it would be nicer if we could get fundamentalists to have fewer children.” A strangely authoritarian notion to fall from the lips of a self-confessed liberal. “Yes,” he admits, “imposing restrictions would be condemned as discriminatory. But there are carrots as well as sticks….

Another scenario he imagines in his conclusion is that secularism might start to do a better job of winning over the children of religious fundamentalism. But at the moment he sees no statistical sign of this, and he seems gloomy about the prospect. Why? “Part of my argument is that religion does provide that enchantment, that meaning and emotion, and in our current moment we lack that. This is the challenge for secularism: can it come up with such an ideology?”

To my mind this looks a worrying prospect. Counter religion by producing a new kind of secular enchantment? Doesn’t it also betray a lack of conviction about the values that underpin our current society and the appeal they might hold for anyone who comes into contact with them? In a review of Christopher Caldwell’s book on European migration, which made similar warnings to Kaufmann’s, Kenan Malik undercuts the scaremongering that so often accompanies discussion of demography by suggesting that we already have a powerful weapon against the trends, if only we could see it. “What has eroded,” he argues, “is faith in the idea that it is possible to win peoples of different backgrounds to a common set of secular, humanist, enlightened values. And that is the real problem: not immigration, nor Muslim immigration, but the lack of conviction in a progressive, secular, humanist project.”

What Kaufmann and Malik are certainly in accord on is the need to displace the multicultural “celebration of difference” model of toleration with one that contains a far more robust sense of common values and a far more stringent rejection of reactionary fundamentalism. “We need a stronger sense of liberal values,” Kaufmann told me. “We should answer back to all fundamentalisms.”

Romans 13 And The Subjection Of the State to God

Here is a link where Rushdoony does a bang up job looking at Romans 13. RJR is seeking to correct the current Christian notion that the State is to be given absolute allegiance.

http://www.chalcedon.edu/blog/2007/08/rushdoony-on-romans-13.php

Teaser –

“It should be apparent by now that Paul not only places civil government under God, but he implicitly and surely requires that civil government comply with God’s law. This is clear from Paul’s references to civil government: it is “ordained of God,” as are all things, and, like everything else in the universe, must serve God. This same verse 1 also requires everyone to be “subject unto the higher powers.” Both words, ordained and subject, have reference to a God-established order, and both every man and every ruler are placed under that order with a duty to comply to it. The declaration by “Peter and the other apostles” that “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29) applies equally to the subject and the ruler, to the state and to the citizen. There are no exemptions from God’s law.”

Rise Again, Ye Lion-Hearted

The link below gives the tune for this hymn.

http://www.lutheran-hymnal.com/online/tlh-470.mid

Rise again , ye lion-hearted, saints of early Christendom.
Whither is your strength departed, wither gone your martyrdom?
Lo, love’s light is on them, glory’s flame upon them
And their will to die doth quell, even the lord and prince of hell.

These the men by fear unshaken, facing danger dauntlessly;
These no witching lust hath taken, lust that lures to vanity.
Mid the roar and rattle of tumultuous battle
In desire they soar above all that earth would have them love.

Great of heart, they know not turning, honor, gold they laugh to scorn.
Quench desires within them burning, by no earthly passion torn.
Mid the lions’ roaring, songs of praise out poring,
Joyously they take their stand on the arena’s bloody sand.

Would to God that I might even, as the martyred saints of old,
With the helping hand of Heaven, steadfast stand in battle bold!
O my God, I pray thee, in the combat stay me.
Grant that I may ever be loyal, stanch, and true to Thee.

Rise again, ye lion-hearted, saints of modern Christendom
With lesser loves ye now be parted, Soldiers in His “age to come”
Lo, our Lord commands us, triumph’s promise is upon us
And our will to fight doth quell, even the lord and prince of hell

Wouldn’t you love to sing this in a Sunday Morning worship service?