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.

NY #23 And Voting Repbulican

The congressional race in the NY 23rd district is exhibiting why it is not wise for Christians to blindly support the Republican party and why voting third party is a good idea. In that district the Republican party has, by way of a smoke filled room decision amongst party hacks, put forth one Dede Scozzafava as their candidate to fill a seat vacated by the previous Congressman taking the position of Secretary of the Army. The problem with Dede is that she might as well be a Democrat. Her husband has serious ties to ACORN. She is pro baby murder. She is pro buggery marriage. She supports cap-and-trade anti-global warming legislation. She is in favor of the $787 billion Obama stimulus plan. She is a strong supporter of federal “card check” legislation that would force private-sector employers to recognize a union as the sole collective-bargaining agent if a union organizing drive at a given work site generates signatures indicating more than 50 percent of affected workers want to join. In short Dede Scozzafava is a Republican version of Nancy Pelosi.

A funny thing happened on the way to the general election though. Not only is Dede challenged by the expected leftist Democrat (Bill Owens) but the conservative party in New York is running one Doug Hoffman, an accountant by trade with solid conservative credentials. Right now the polls show the Democrat running marginally ahead with Scozzafava and Hoffman splitting the Republican vote.

Now according to the teachings we have seen at various time from those like Gary DeMar, Doug Wilson, Joel McDurmon and others Christians are supposed to hold their noses and vote for Dede Scozzafava simply because she is a Republican and she wouldn’t be as bad as the Democrat Owens. The argument continues that by voting third party we are insuring that the Democrat wins.

Naturally, the response to this is … so what? If we keep supporting the leftist RINO candidates that the leftist in the Republican party keep vomiting forth we are only going to get leftist candidates. If Hoffman and Scozzafava both lose in the NY 23 district race the Republican establishment will have learned (hopefully) to quit running leftist RINO’s. If enough people quit pulling levers for leftist RINO’s they can’t stand eventually some party is going to see that large minority of people and are going to respond to their concerns. But as long as we keep blindly supporting leftist RINO’s like Bush, McCain, Schwarzenegger, Crist, Specter, and Scozzafava, all we are ever going to get is leftist legislation and more leftist candidates.

It’s past time to start questioning any Christian leadership that tells us to get in bed with these leftists by way of supporting them with out vote. Certainly there is no such thing as a perfect candidate but calls in the past to not vote third party and to support McCain were blatantly ridiculous. Similarly, following that same principle that was invoked to support McCain would be equally ridiculous in voting for Scozzafava.

One more thing before I’m finished here. In my estimation Newt Gingrich, in his support for Scozzafava has insured that I will never pull a lever for Newt Gringrich. Gingrich is the preeminent neo-con and his support for this leftist Scozzafava reveals again the Rockefellar Republican instincts he had when he entered into the Republican party circa 1964.

Brownsville Comes To Charlotte

Periodically, I have to reminds myself just what a minority Reformed people are. I need to remind myself because sometimes I tend to think that all my posting and argumentation matters. The Reformed world is a backwater pond to the ocean of Christian expression. The current ocean of America Christianity is Pentecostalism. And so going to a Pentecostal revival service reminds me of the smallness of my voice and the smallness of the Reformed voice as compared to the larger voice of Pentecostalism that is what most people hear when they hear the voice of Christianity in their heads.

Pentecostalism in one form or another has crept in seemingly to a great number of historically non-Reformed denominations. For example, while on Holiday I saw the influence of Pentecostalism on the Church I attended when I lived in Maine. There was the ubiquitous pentecostal praise music accompanied by the swaying hand raised attendees. In the denomination I serve Pentecostalism, in its “Third wave” expression, received an official favorable report. There are Charismatic Catholics and tongue speaking Lutherans.

Anyway, having said all that I attended a Pentecostal revival service this evening that was featuring Steve Hill who was one of the main actors in the Brownsville Revival. Several years ago I did some research and reading on Brownsville as well as Toronto Airport and the Kansas City Prophets. As such I thought I would go to hear and see Steve Hill.

The service was just about what you would expect. It opened with 45 minutes of a band playing contemporary praise choruses. The music was simple, repetitive, and as with most of these services there was the ability to reach crescendos at just the moment when the joint voices reach their fevered prayer pitch in the congregation. I’ve always wondered how they manage to do that.

Steve Hill’s message was random and scattered. His methodology was entertainment Oprah like oriented and was filled with personal anecdotes and story telling. He had a real ability to connect with the audience. He told stories about how when he was doing in ministry in Chili he had the foot traffic in a community park and the auto traffic that went by the community park come to a complete and total standstill because the spirit fell on the park. He noted how he went from stopped car to stopped car to tell the drivers and passengers that what they were all sensing and feeling was the Holy Spirit and that they needed to repent. He noted how one business woman stood stock still for four hours straight because the Holy Ghost was upon her. The emphasis fell on conversion by Spirit’s work over conversion by proclamation of the Gospel though Steve did mention that he told people they must repent.

Steve started the message by showing a USA Today piece that reported coming hate laws speech in America. Steve suggested that the way that the only way America can avoid coming hate laws that will stifle Christian speech is for Americans to get saved. He spent about 5 minutes on sin and 3 minutes on Jesus dying for sinners and then he went on to what people need to have in order to succeed. (Hey, I said it was random.) He noted that his listeners need to avoid negative people and negative people were defined as anybody who doubts how continuing revelation comes to individuals. Clearly the emphasis on this part of the service was the validity of current expressions of gifts, signs and wonders. This was underscored by his insistence that we need the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. This power is known by having supernatural occurrences in our lives.

Steve pushed for the necessity of an encounter with Jesus. I think he was emphasizing the personal relationship with Jesus necessity. It reminded me of something I read recently from Gordon Clark challenging the way Evangelicals have typically talked about a “personal relationship with Jesus.”

Steve gave us the Pentecostal Word of the Lord routine. He started the service by telling us that someone here is ________ and God told me to tell you this evening that _______. He informed us that the Jesus died for everybody. He told us that God was much more exacting in the Old Testament than He is today suggesting that OT penology isn’t for today.

The most important part of the service though was the altar time. Steve gave a typical altar call and then proceeded to slay people in the Spirit. Women were falling left and right, caught by the assigned catchers. The air was filled with the sounds of “heavenly languages.”

Somewhere in the mix we had an offering where Steve said with a straight face, “The small bill is of the Devil and the big bills are of God.”

On the positive side I really believe that God uses Pentecostals in the way of common grace. Pentecostalism does a wonderful job of supporting traditional Christian morality. It is long on emphasizing certain behavior patterns even if it is short on building a sound theological foundation under those behavior patterns.

In the end though it remains far to prone to measuring truth by means of emotion and experience. It remains far to little concerned with the life of the mind. Because of that its adherents are far to easily swayed by every wind of doctrine that blows. Were real Reformation to visit our country one sign of it would be Pentecostals becoming a little less existential and a little more Word oriented.

Pot Porrui On Obama and His Minions

You Don’t Pay Up, I Break Your Leg

The health insurance companies were ready to go along with socialized health care when they thought that they would make bunches of money off of the plan. Health insurance companies had thought that everybody was going to be forced to buy insurance from them and they believed that such a proposal would more than offset the coming requirement that they would be required to insure everybody regardless of pre-existing conditions. However a funny thing happened on the way to socializing health care. The Baucus bill includes the requirement for health insurers to cover all people but it only provides for a small fine for those who refuse to be insured. This means that many people will prefer to pay the small fine as opposed to health insurance premiums. Suddenly the offset between collecting more money from a larger pool of people in order to pay for insuring even sickie people suddenly disappeared. Now healthy people can wait until they get sick to purchase health insurance and the insurance companies won’t be able to say “no.” Of course such a bill means the end of private insurance companies and the institutionalizing of the federal government being the public insurer. Naturally the health care insurance companies are raising a stink. That stink included their commissioning a study that points out that the Baucus bill will increase the cost of insurance to those who already have it.

In response to the health insurance companies decision to fight against “health care reform” the Democrats are threatening to end their protection against anti-trust legislation. This amounts to the mob putting out a hit on somebody because they refuse to pay for protection. What the Democrats are saying is, “since you refuse to play ball on socializing health care we are going to destroy your industry.” The health insurance companies are going to lose either way so they might as well go out with a fight.

Obama & FOX News

Every network and cable “news” agency except one has been ideologically compromised and as such they kiss arse sycophants for Obama. The only news agency that isn’t playing ball is FOX. Nobody should be fooled into thinking that FOX is a conservative network. It isn’t. It simply likes its socialism baked in a nationalist crust as opposed to the international crust that networks like CNN, MSNBC, CBC, NBC, prefer their socialism filling to be baked in.

Obama has decided to try and to isolate the FOX network. Now, the best I can hope for is that the national socialists and the international socialists will beat each other up so badly that something genuinely conservative will be able to rise from the ashes.

Still, having said that something should be said regarding the blatant propaganda that the White House is putting out. The idea that FOX, unlike the other Obama lapdog networks doesn’t really give “news” but only perspective is laughable. Has anyone ever watched the red bias of the news shows of FOX’s competitors?

What Obama is doing here is following Alinsky’s “Rules For Radicals.” Alinsky’s rule 12 states “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Obama is trying to get the other networks to ignore FOX. Obama’s problem here though is that the other networks have been ignoring FOX for years. What would be new? Secondly, Obama’s problem is that FOX is wiping the floor in terms of ratings with the other “networks.” If I were FOX I would turn the tables and freeze, personalize, and polarize Obama. FOX doesn’t need Obama.

In the end, I’m no fan of FOX except that it is the only resistance in town. As such, I’m hopeful that Fox and Obama and the other networks will beat the snot out of each other.

Cult & Culture … A Qualifier

We have affirmed constantly that cult drives culture. However, it seems that there are those who are taking that affirmation a bridge to far by suggesting that the Christian church as cult is responsible for our woeful culture. Actually, that is only marginally true.

In this reasoning there is a failure to understand that cult drives the culture even when the cult driving the culture is not the Christian cult. Today, in our culture the cult that is driving it is not so much the Christian church as it is the Humanist Church we find especially located in the Government schools. The Government schools are the cult that is driving our culture. Now, inasmuch as the Christian church doesn’t stand up and resist that humanist cult it is responsible for the the pagan cult and culture. And the Christian Church is responsible for our post-Christian culture in the sense that it is taking its clues for Worship from the Humanist cult and its culture. However, the Christian cult (The church)is not responsible in the sense that it is the originating cult for the culture that we currently swim in.

Cult and culture go together and when the Church is not being the Church in a culture then we must look for the animating cult elsewhere.

Obama Administration Sounds A Lot Like FDR Administration

At this link I point out how many Marxists are serving in the Marxist Obama administration.

https://ironink.org/index.php?blog=1&title=observations_on_the_regnant_follies&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1#comments

It seems that we can add another one we failed to mention earlier. Recently White House communications director Anita Dunn informed us that one of her favorite political philosophers was Chairman Mao Tse Tung.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/glenn_beck/

LOL … you couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.

Can’t you just envision Anita curling up to a cozy fire with Chairman Mao’s “Little Red Book?”

Yep … if you wanted to light up Anita’s arousal quotient all you had to do was whisper a little Mao in her ear. The one that would really get Anita in the mood was,

“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

This is not the first time an American Presidential administration has been Marxist. During the Roosevelt administration the White House was crawling with Marxists. One was a gent named Rex Tugwell. Before the days when the current fellow travelers can be instantly exposed by Youtube, Tugwell wrote prolifically about his disdain for capitalism. In his book, “American Economic Life” Tugwell wrote that the Soviet Union’s

“worst enemies are being forced to admit that the system appears to be able to produce goods in greater quantities than the old one and to spread such prosperity as there is over wider areas of the population.’

Tugwell believed that Soviet central planning enabled the Soviets to plan and to carry out their industrial operations in accordance with a completely thought out program.” Tugwell wrote that “the available evidence as to the success of the scheme seems to indicate clearly enough that it (communism) works.”

Now the reason I mention Rex Tugwell in the context of the current White House Director Anita Dunn’s admiration for Chairman Mao is to point out the common thread of admiration between FDR’s “Brain Trust” and Obama’s Czars and staff. Despite the utter failure of Marxism the Obama administration is fascinated with this ideology. Retrospectively speaking we can say that at least FDR’s “Brain Trust” could not be convicted of knowing better. They were true believers and honestly believed that the Soviet project could remake the world. The Obama people live on the other side of the 20th century and ought to be able to see the the graves of 100 million people slaughtered by Marxists, but it seems that to true believers the belief system is indefeasible.