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.

Separation Of Church and State

There remains a great deal of misunderstanding regarding the whole notion of separation of church and state as that phrase is applies in our cultural context.

First, we would say that while there may be no agreed upon content of the meaning of “separation of church and state” in our culture there certainly is a historical meaning to that phrase.

The whole notion of separation of Church and State is nowhere found in any of the founding legal documents of this country. Indeed a perusal of the Congressional Records from June 7 to September 25, 1789 — a perusal of the time frame that covers the time period when the First Amendment was debated by the ninety men responsible for giving us the language of the First Amendment — finds absolutely no mention of the phrase “Separation of Church and State.” This phrase comes instead from Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists. Jefferson – who was not one of the ninety who gave us the language of the First amendment — was seeking to reassure a group of Baptists that the Federal Government would do nothing to delimit their First Amendment rights.

There seems to be a widespread failure to realize that the First Amendment originally only applied to the Federal Government. The State Governments were free to establish state Churches — and many did. The prohibition against States establishing a Church was only codified much later in the incorporation doctrine — a legal doctrine that is still controverted — though it had been decades since any State had established a State Church.

So, when the phrase “separation of Church and State” is used in its historical context, at the most it meant, that the Federal Government could not establish a State Church.

I can not speak to what other people mean when they say that the “separation of church and state” does not exist. However, what I mean when I negate the “separation of church and state” is that church and state are still firmly tied at the hip in this country. Now when I say that church and state are still firmly tied at the hip in this country I do not mean that the state does not officially declare that there is no state established church. What I mean is that the state, even if it refuses to recognize in a dejure sense a state church, will recognize one in a defacto sense. In our own country the defacto state established Church is humanism and the Churches of the state that dot our country are euphemistically referred to as “public schools.” Like all established state churches their funding is forcefully extracted from the citizenry — both those who agree and disagree with the established church. Like all established state churches parents must secure permission from the state in order for their children to be excused from attending. Like all established state churches the children are, while attending the government funded state church, taught the essentials of the belief system of the church that the state has established. Clearly, we see here that separation of church and state is does not exist in this country.

Now, there are many who insist that Christians should actively work to make sure that, in our country with its putative separation of Church and state, the state insures that Christianity does not become the ascendant faith. These folks seems to reason that it would be unfair to other faiths if the government ever played favorites with any one expression of faith, including Christianity. One problem w/ this line of reasoning is that by insisting that the state is responsible to insure that all faiths have a seat at the table what is at the same time being accomplished is that the state is being made the god of the gods. When the state actively works to make sure that all faiths continue to have a seat at the table and that no one faith is allowed to reach cultural ascendancy what the state has been invested w/ is the power to limit how much influence any one god can have in a culture. This works to effectively make the state God.

A second problem with the idea of a Christian advocating some version of “it is only fair that in a pluralistic culture that no faith, including Christianity, ever be preferred by the state” is that such a statement is treason against the King Jesus Christ. All Christians should be actively working for the elimination of false faiths from our culture and for the elimination of the influence of false faiths upon our civil-social / governmental structures. Any Christian who advocates the planned continuance of religious and cultural pluralism is a Christian who is denying the King Jesus.

Dawson On How Culture Changes

“It seems to be the fact that a new way of life or a new view of Reality is felt intuitively before it is comprehended intellectually, that a philosophy is the last product of a mature culture, the crown of a long process of social development, not its foundation. It is Religion and Art that we can best see the vital intention of the living culture….

The Greek statue must be first conceived, then lived, then made, and last of all thought. There you have the whole cycle of creative Hellenic culture. First Religion, then Society, then Art, and finally Philosophy. Not that one of these is cause and the others effects. They are all different aspects or functions of one life.”

Christopher Dawson
Enquiries Into Religion & Culture — pg. 99, 100

1.) I probably would take exception to Dawson’s claim that ‘not one of these is cause.’ I would insist that theology is cause. “As a man thinketh in his heart so he is.”

2.) The inuitive precedes logically the intellectual for the same reason the ontological precedes the epistemological. Epistemological explanation is the apparatus used in order to communicate what has been ontologically impressed upon us by God. It is a old argument about which is prior to the other but as long as we insist that the two correspond I agree that the intuitive precedes the intellectual expression. Michael Polanyi, in his works teases out this same idea.

The Law & Sanctification — A Conversation

It is true that the first use of the law is still applicable to the Christian. The Christians hears the law and realizes his need for Christ and realizing that Christ is his only hope for what the law requires he rises in gratitude that Christ has given him a salvation that not be can improved upon to live an increasingly, though a never perfectly obedient life. The believer, living in the Spirit, walks in the Spirit, as they take heed to what God requires of His people as it comes to us via the third use of the law. We must never give up either the first use or the third use of the law for the Christian. To give up the first use would make us legalists trusting in our own performance instead of Christ’s performance for us. To give up the third use would make us antinomian, denying that we’ve been called to be a Holy people.

Bud Powell objects,

Did you read what I wrote, Bret? The law has the same relation to sanctification as it has to justification, by it is the knowledge of sin. But the thermometer does not cure the fever. Only Christ can cure. Moses points to Christ; Christ does not point to Moses, for when we have come to Him, we have come to the fullness of God.

A good work is one done in faith, according to the law of God, and for the glory of God as the HC says. But what has this to do with the heart? Until you can show me that good works sanctify and melt the hard heart, I will not subscribe to the idea that grace justifies and the law sanctifies.

But as I said before, good luck with this idea. It has been tried before with the same results. The flesh always produces the same fruit. I put on Christ and put off Adam; I don’t put off Adam so I can put on Moses.”

Bret responds,

Bud,

No one is saying that the law is a cure for sin in the life of the redeemed sinner. Obviously that will never do. What is being said is that the grace filled Christians, overflowing w/ gratitude for the redeeming work of Christ move out in Holy Spirit given grace to increasingly become all that they have freely been declared to be. As they increasingly become all that they have freely been declared to be the Spirit, through the preaching of the third use of the law brings to their consciousness how it is that can live in such a way as to please Him, who never ceases to be pleased w/ them for the sake of Christ. Grace and law are not in absolute antithesis for the redeemed believer. It is the work of grace to bring to the believer the law so that he may increasingly conform to Christ and it is the work of grace to cause the believer to understand that his increasingly and never adequate obedience is the consequence of grace and not the cause of grace.

Grace and law are not in absolute antithesis for the believer.

By the way Bud, what do you think of this quote from Westminster Divine Samuel Bolton?

The law sends us to the Gospel that we may be justified; and the Gospel sends us to the law again to inquire what is our duty as those who are justified.

Bud Powell continues the conversation,

But how does Hodge differ from what I said? By the law is the knowledge of sin. But Rushdoony put an antithesis between grace and law, saying that justification is by grace and purpose, sanctification is by law. That is flat wrong, for the law is necessary for justification to bring the knowledge and conviction of sin, and faith and grace is necessary for sanctification. We can no more be sanctified by law-keeping than we can be justified. It confuses cause and effect. Even the holiest of men have only a small beginning in obedience [HC]

Predestination is to be conformed to the image of Christ; is this not sanctification, and is not all of predestination by grace through faith and the renewal of the Holy Ghost? It is the dichotomy in Rush’s words that permeated theonomy that I object to and did years ago.

It is being joined to Christ though HIs Spirit, signified in the broken bread and cup of the Lord Supper, that nourishes my soul to life eternal; that’s why Paul could glory in the Cross of Christ by which he was crucified unto the world and the world unto him [sanctification]. The diagnostic tool is not the cure. The law is diagnostic, bit is the blood of Christ which cleanses us from all sin as we confess. [1John 1–sanctification]

Galatians is emphatically not about an error justification, but an error in sanctification. Are you made perfect by the law? having begun in Christ.

Bret responds,

Bud I think you are not accurate here.

You will have to show me where Rushdoony says that sanctification is by law apart from grace. Peter gives one sentence above but to suggest by this one sentence RJR believed in sanctification by a law that has nothing to do w/ grace is to read to much into one sentence.

Here is one example from Rushdoony that counters your assertion that Rushdoony believed that sanctification was by law apart from grace.

Man’s salvation and sanctification [the process of becoming holy] are acts of God’s grace, not human effort” (Leviticus, p. 54).

Who has denied that faith and grace are necessary for sanctification? Will you deny that sincere though inadequate obedience to God’s law is part of sanctification? We are to put off the old man and put on the new man. Being dead to sin we are not longer to live in sin. The HC does say we have only a small beginning in obedience (but we do begin) but then it goes on to say ‘nevertheless, with earnest purpose Christians do begin to live not only according to some but to all the commandments of God.” Did you forget the second sentence Bud? Sanctification includes the grace to increasingly obey God’s law, and we can’t increasingly obedient if the law is not our standard informing us as to what obedience looks like.

Yes all of predestination is by grace through faith as by the Spirits gracious renewing work within us we increasingly conform to God’s law realizing all the while that even our best obedience must have the righteousness of Christ imputed to it in order to be acceptable before the Father. Your objection is misplaced Bud and your explanations seemingly lead to antinomianism.

Once again in this note you put a antithesis between the work of Christ for me that is outside of me and the work of the Spirit of Christ within me renewing me. The Spirit takes me to Christ to remind me of the unlimited free Grace won for me in His finished work on the Cross and Christ takes me back to the gracious law so as to know how to live for His glory. Christ nourishes my soul to life eternal and being nourished I work out my salvation with fear and trembling by learning what pleases God by meditating on His law both day and night.

Galatians is emphatically an error in justification. If they had believed that they were made perfect by Christ (justification) they would not have tried to be made perfect by the law.

I plead w/ you to re-think your theology. Shall we go on sinning that grace might increase?

Dispensationalism Possesses Congresswoman Bachmann

“I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States . . . [W]e have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play. And my husband and I are both Christians, and we believe very strongly the verse from Genesis [Genesis 12:3], we believe very strongly that nations also receive blessings as they bless Israel. It is a strong and beautiful principle.”

Michelle Bachmann
US Congressional Representative From the Third US District of Dispenistan
Speech to Republican Jewish Coalition

1.) Somebody needs to tell Michelle that God divorced Israel when they crucified Jesus. If God rejected Israel in AD 70 isn’t it acceptable to reject Israel in 2010 if and when they pursue policy that is not in our best interest?

2.) Israel didn’t become a nation until 1948. Were we not blessed as a nation until Israel became a nation?

3.) Genesis 12:3, wherein God makes the promise that in you (Abraham) all the families of the earth shall be blessed is a promise that refers to all the nations being blessed through Jesus Christ, whom, by the way, the Jewish people hate.

4.) When Christ haters come upon quotes like this you can hardly blame them for thinking Christianity is comprised of various fruit loops and assorted nuts. I’m not a Christ hater but I have to agree w/ the left when it mocks this kind of insane talk.

5.) There is no curse that comes into play for rejecting Israel anymore then there is a cures that comes into play for rejecting Scandinavia. The curse comes into play for rejecting Christ.

6.) The intellectual and theological havoc that dispensationalism has played with Western Christianity leaves me just this side of having to be committed to a rubber room. That this comic book theology can be taken serious by significant players in the political realm is a profound embarrassment to the cause of Christ.

7.) Think about this for a second. Do your really want this woman making political policy given her dispenstionalism? Will she try to pass legislation to make sure planes can fly w/o pilots that disappear in the rapture? Is she convinced that Russian must be resisted simply because they are the Gog and Magog crew?

News Items Of Interest

Economic Fascism — The Mega State is in bed with Mega Corporate America. The only things these people argue about is who gets to be on top.

http://www.thinkbigworksmall.com/mypage/player/tbws/23088/1157575

Government Looking to hire retarded lawyers as a way to fill quota system.

Please no jokes on how looking for retarded lawyers is redundant.

http://rawstory.com/2010/02/justice-department-seeks-applicants-mental-retardation/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zia-zoANZw

Keep in mind as you watch the above that the woman that Obama is speaking about was 41 when she died of breast cancer. Then keep in mind that the Obama Administration has clearly stated that women under 50 do not need breast exams.

http://www.abc2news.com/content/square_off/default.aspx

John Lofton stands against buggers pushing their …. er, um … agenda on the US Military.