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.

In the state we live and move and have our being

Melinda woke up at 6:00 am realizing that her water had broke. Quickly she woke up her partner Gladys who was sleeping next to her in order to drive her to the hospital. Melinda and Gladys had recently been married after the state had passed the gay marriage law. Melinda and Gladys had decided to get pregnant in celebration of their marriage. Fortunately, the provision in their state run health care insurance paid for the procedure.

Gladys had just dozed off after getting home from working the late shift as a data organizer for ACORN. Melinda was thankful that the timing of her water breaking was such that she could drop off her 4 year old Eddie at his school for the early school program. Melinda briefly wondered if she would have time to fix Eddie breakfast until she remembered that Eddie could get the state provided breakfast and lunch at government school.

So, within 15 minutes of her water breaking Gladys, Melinda, and Eddie were out of the door of their house — a house recently purchased with the help of both the Government owned Freddie Mac and one of the area Government banks. Melinda slid into the passenger side of their sleek new government motors hybrid “Medusa.” The state run hospital was five miles away, with the state run school being a mere two blocks away from the state run hospital. So, the three of them went from their state owned house mortgaged by state run financial institutions, to the state manufactured car, to the state run school, to the state run hospital all in a matter of 20 minutes.

Once in the doors of the hospital the state employee informed Melinda that there was at least a 95 minute wait for the labor room and that instead they were going to have one of the state internee doctors deliver the baby in the emergency room — which they hoped would be available sometime soon. While Melinda was being informed of this Gladys was being reminded that according to the state hospital records that Eddie had not been brought in for the state required vaccinations. Gladys was told that if she didn’t see to it that Eddie came in soon there would be both a fine and a government medical worker coming to the home to visit.

Finally, all the red tape was finished and Melinda was wheeled into the emergency room while Gladys took a detour in order to purchase one of the state run media newspapers.

45 minutes later Melinda gave birth to a baby girl. Upon birth the baby girl was put through the government mandated measurements and assessments. After baby Cher was determined to be worthy of life by the state, the state hospital assigned a government care worker to Melinda and Gladys in order to make periodic check ups and provide “counsel” as to how to raise baby Cher. This “benefit” of a government care worker coming into the homes of parents with newborns was part of Gladys and Melinda’s health care insurance.

A Matter Of Enmity

One of the first acts of God’s post fall grace was His placing enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman (Gen. 2:15). If not for this act of grace “the seed of the woman” — those who belonged to God — would forever have been joining league with the seed of woman in rebellion against God to the point where the righteous seed would completely disappear. Even with the enmity placed between these two competing seeds we see the constant inclination of the seed of the woman to cast off their allegiance to God. From the “sons of God” (“seed of he serpent”) taking for themselves the daughters of men (“seed of the woman”) for wives to the flood to Babel we constantly read of the tendency of the “seed of the woman” to negotiate away the gracious enmity that God placed between themselves and the “seed of the serpent.”

Many are those who have appealed to “common grace” as a doctrine which allows us to negotiate away God’s gracious enmity. However, as I understand the Kuyperian development of the doctrine of common grace this doctrine was developed so as to account for how believers and unbelievers could work together to advance a common culture on the terms of a preexisting Christian worldview. However what we are finding increasingly today is the doctrine of common grace used as a means to explain how Christians and pagans can work together to build a common culture on the terms of a preexisting pagan modernist worldview. The doctrine of common grace is one thing when it is invoked in order to explain how Christians can work with non-Christians in order to advance a common culture on the terms of a preexisting Christian worldview. The doctrine of common grace is quite another thing when it is invoked in order to allow Christians to negotiate away God’s gracious enmity in order that modernists and Christians might build a common culture on the terms of a preexisting non-Christian worldview.

That contemporary Christians are negotiating away God’s graciously placed enmity are everywhere to be seen. In the denomination that I am affiliated with it can be seen in the push in some quarters to normalize homosexuality, in the recent acceptance of the Belhar confession, and in the attempt to water down the form of subscription. In the larger culture we see the attempt on the part of Christians to negotiate away God’s graciously placed enmity in the reality that contemporary Christians are so relaxed about how the current State is seeking to currently ascend to the most high in order to seize the scepter of God and His Christ. A Christian people who were fully invested with the gracious enmity of God against the “seed of the serpent” would be in visible and constant tension with the current State since it is constantly revealing itself as being occupied and controlled by the “seed of the serpent.”

What shall we say of this negotiating away of God’s gracious enmity that we find in the Church today? Whether we find this enmity negotiated away through pelagian or gnostic theologies that have crept into our fellowships or whether we find this enmity negotiated away through the homosexualization and feminization of our fellowships what shall we say of this negotiating away of God’s gracious enmity?

I believe what we must say is that God has, for some time, entered into judgment against the Church and as that judgment has fallen upon the Church it has rippled across our culture and people. God’s judgment has been to turn us over to our own negotiating away of enmity between ourselves and our enemies. The only cure for this is repentance.

However the repentance that is called for is a repentance that will firmly reestablish the enmity that has been negotiated away. Such a repentance has to be characterized by a repentance in our thinking for a repentance that will reestablish God’s gracious enmity is a repentance that must find the intellectual reasons why the enmity that we have negotiated away must be reestablished. So, the repentance that we stand in need of is not the kind of repentance that is going to be found in your typical Arminian – Pentecostal revival setting as it is the case that repentance found in those settings are most commonly associated with an affectation of the emotions absent a radical change in thinking.

God’s graciously placed enmity between God’s enemies and God’s people. God’s people have historically negotiated that enmity away. Common grace is a doctrine that is often used to justify negotiating away God’s enmity. Signs are abundant that the contemporary Church continues today to negotiate away God’s enmity, especially as seen in its refusal to be at enmity with the current serpent state. Ultimately, all of this is indicative of God’s judgment against the Church — a judgment that ripples across the culture as a whole. The cure for this is a repentance characterized not primarily by the affectation of the emotions but rather characterized by the affectation of the intellect. Historically such repentance has been found especially among Reformed Churches.

If This Rumor Gains Steam It Will Be The End Of Me

Bret McAtee, a well known and popular Michigan pastor made a statement regarding Dr. Tiller’s murder:

http://www.examiner.com/x-900-Tampa-Politics-Examiner~y2009m6d7-What-does-prolife-mean-if-it-encourages-killing

And all this time I thought I was obscure and unpopular. Silly me.

If you read the article linked keep in mind that I am quoted out of context.

Michael Jackson

“The idol is the measure of the worshiper.”

James Russell Lowell

With the preoccupation of the news cycle with Michael Jackson apparently large number of Americans continue to live vicariously through people who become embodiments for their individual and collective existence. A person, such as Jackson, becomes abstracted and reified by the image making media with the result that people find large measures of their identity in the identity of the celebrity idol.

This would be bad enough if celebrity and hero were synonymous. They are not. The celebrity, unlike the hero who was known for his character, is known for being known. The celebrity has a skill but is launched into celebrity status for his signature personality or identifying habit. With Michael Jackson the identifying habit was his overall bizarreness. We love the celebrity — and this is the scary part when it comes to Michael Jackson — because in loving the celebrity we are loving ourselves because the celebrity is just us said loudly. Don’t fool yourself. This Jackson funeral isn’t so much an outpouring of love for Jackson as much as it is an outpouring of love for ourselves. In mourning the deceased Michael Jackson people are affirming how much they love themselves.

And what is it that people love about themselves that was embodied by Jackson? Could it be superficiality as exemplified by the lyrics of Jackson’s songs? Could it be the ability to remake ourselves in any image that was exemplified by Jackson’s surgical morphing? Could it be the ability to live beyond norms that was exemplified in Jackson’s life?

The whole funeral then becomes an exercise of self-congratulation. Michael Jackson was worthy of all this maudlin attention because we are worthy of all this maudlin attention. In the end the funeral is all about cultural narcissism.

Next as we look at this funeral what we see is the American Pravda media pushing and much of America apparently swallowing is an abstracted and reified idol, who, in a normal culture, would be considered anything but a hero. Indeed, I have been wondering with the Michael Jackson death marathon if this is more about the media elite pushing a distorted lifestyle then it is about pushing Michael Jackson and his music.

Consider that Michael Jackson in many respects is the perfect poster child for Cultural Marxism. He was not white. He was sexually dysfunctional. He had a non-traditional family. He was not Christian in any historic sense. Are not these descriptors the very thing for which the culturally Marxist elite are angling? So, Michael dies and suddenly cultural Marxism has the opportunity to glorify those very things that the cultural Marxist elites are trying to main stream. With the exalting of the twisted the overthrow of the normal is achieved.

I hope I won’t be misunderstood with this piece. This isn’t about whether or not someone liked or didn’t like Michael Jackson’s music. This is not about not having sympathy for a man obviously hurt and damaged by those things that marched through his life. This is about the meaning surrounding Jackson’s death as defined by the circus surrounding it.