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.

Marxism’s Aping Of Christianity

“Marx took materialistic philosophy which taught that the force of (impersonal time + chance) history had decreed that certain things must inevitably happen, and married this philosophy to an intense personal, sacrificial dedication to make these things come to pass.”

You Can Trust The Communists To Be Communists
Dr. Fred Schwarz

There have been many who have noted that Marxism is the best example of a non-Christian religion which successfully aped basic Christianity. The way that Marxism did this was to take components of Christianity and place them in an materialistic, atheistic paradigm. For example, the idea of the inevitability of a humanist progress as coupled with the notion that that which is inevitable finds its inevitability as it is propelled forward by human implementation is actually the Christian doctrine of predestination combined with the doctrine of postmillennialism.

Christians, like the later Marxists who co-opted much of their faith, also believed in the idea that certain things had been decreed that must inevitably happen. The difference here is that in Marxism the predestinating agent is Hegel’s impersonal dialectical view of history as married to a Feuerbachian materialism, whereas in Christianity the predestinating agent was a personal creator God. Similarly, Christian, like the later Marxists who co-opted much of their faith, also believed that God ordained human agents to be the means by which His predestinating ends came to pass. The difference here is that in Marxism man is moving in terms of a predestination that is impersonal and is guided by time plus chance plus circumstance whereas Christianity always taught that man is moving in terms of a predestination that is personal and is guided by the explicit foreknowledge and will of an extra-mundane being. The difference between the two beliefs thus is only that Marxism believes in an irrational will that guides “progress” while Christianity taught a rational will that guides progress.

The embarrassment in all of this is that Christianity no longer believes in a postmillennialism that inspires intense personal, sacrificial dedication to make the extension of the Kingdom of God, which He has predestined, come to pass. Instead what we believe is some kind of predestination and eschatology where the story ends with God being defeated in space and time history. Believing in that kind of predestination and eschatology we are little engaged in sweeping forth with the Crown rights of King Jesus.
Without a vision the people perish. This has the consequence of leaving us as a people defeated by other predestinations and eschatologies of other religions and other gods. One of those religions remains cultural Marxism whose god is the State.

Nana & The Lay Lutheran Pastor

Randy,

I don’t think I misunderstood you. You said, “I, too, used to “thwack” people upside the head with God’s Word.” By your use of the word “too” you did more than imply that Mrs. Nanna was, like you, being legalistic. As I pointed out, that was inaccurate.

I praise God that he rescued your from the GRBC with its dispensationalism and its fundamentalism. I pray that God will continue to deliver His people from the errors that their current respective faith communities entertain.

You said Randy,

“Still, now having said that, while legalism is ultimate a “Law+Grace=saved,” the end effect can be the same if a Christian believes that in order to be a “good Christian” or a “real Christian” then you really need to do “X,y,Z.” That is a very dangerous place to go and we need to be careful when we head there.”

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. I do know that throughout the Scriptures the Apostle Paul warns people against behavior that is inconsistent w/ confessing Christ. The Apostle Paul doesn’t seem to shy away from saying that we may not go on sinning that grace may abound.

As a contrary example to your statement the Apostle Paul seems to suggest that the Galatians can’t be good Christians if they deny being saved by faith alone. Another contrary example to your statement would be when the Apostle tells the Corinthians that they are not being very good Christians when they take one another to court, or when they allow the one caught in incest to remain a member of their Church. But perhaps I’m misunderstanding your concern?

Actually, Luther, in his writings was more predestinarian than Calvin ever was. And I agree w/ you that Lutherans don’t mind contradictions. That is why they have a mystery box to throw them in.

I think Anna’s post in which we are responding to is not the legalistic admonition that you fear it is. Thanks for your concern for her though. It is always good to be reminded that we need to tell people of God’s grace.

Reuters News Service Reports New Obama Administration Policy

Reuters news agency reports that the Obama administration has come out with a new program intended to stimulate the US economy. This new program is called, “Cash for condoms.” The thinking is by stimulating the condom market that not only will condom producers increase the size of their market share but also that at the same time STD’s and unwanted pregnancies will decrease.

When Condom Czar Peter Gravida was asked if the “Cash for Condom” program was intended to intersect with the “Cash for Clunkers” program he answered by saying,

“It must be appreciated that the Auto industry is not the only manufacturer in our country that is to big to fail. It is also the case that the US Rubber industry is a industry that is to big to fail. As such we thought that in the interest of fairness we would provide seed money to the Rubber industry as well as to the Auto industry.”

Rumors are circulating among Washington insiders that next week, the Obama Administration will report its “Cash for Cancer” program. The thinking here is that by promoting financial incentive for contracting cancer there will be the effect of reducing the unwanted surplus human population that is such a burden on our health care industry.

The Greatest Generation …. Oh, Please

Tom Brokaw wrote a couple books invoking the idea that the generation prior to the Baby boomers should be referred to as “The Greatest Generation.” Now, this generation includes my parents (barely) and my grandparents. Now, I love my kin as much as the other person but to suggest that that generation is “The Greatest Generation” begs a great number of questions.

After all it was this generation that,

1.) Made communism an international phenomenon. Sure, the greatest generation contributed to victory in WW II but what kind of victory was it when we put all of Eastern and much of Central Europe behind the Iron Curtain? What kind of victory was it when we put much of Asia behind a Communistic Bamboo curtain?

2.)Gave approval and participated in the un-Christian and barbaric acts that were the bombing of Dresden, the firebombing of Tokyo and the nuking of Japan. If Christian views of warfare had been followed such a thing could have never happened.

3.) Were standing guard when abortion was legalized. I’m supposed to get all misty eyed about a generation that stood by while abortion became a sacrament of the West?

4.) Were responsible for “The Great Society,” “The Welfare – Warfare State,” and the Military Industrial complex. In short it was on the “greatest generation’s” watch that we became increasingly and perhaps irretrievably socialist.

5.) Stood by and watched while gambling became legalized, while contraception became socially approved, and while immigration laws were changed in such a way that this country was assured that it would no longer be have a singular identifiable culture. Further the greatest generation watched as laws were put into place that feminized us as a people.

Now, I’m not suggesting that the generation in question didn’t have strengths. Neither am I suggesting that my generation has done well. It’s done even worst than their parents and grandparents. What I am suggesting is that is stretches credulity to suggest that the generation prior to the boomers should be referred to as “The Greatest Generation.”

This is why I’ve never bought into the whole “Greatest generation” bumble-fumble.

Of Slaughtered Piglets and Destroyed Automobiles

During the New Deal the Roosevelt administration came up with a bright idea as to how to keep agricultural prices high. Roosevelt, through his Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), proposed to pay farmers for decreasing their production. The thinking was that by decreasing the supply they would increase the prices for agricultural products. This however was deemed not sufficient enough. The Roosevelt administration went further in their price propping schemes and legislated the killing of six million pigs and the plowing under of ten million acres of cotton. At the time, Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace, described the wholesale destruction of crops and livestock as “a cleaning up of the wreckage from the old days of unbalanced production.”

Now in 2009 the Obama administration has come up with the bright idea as to how to prop up the auto industry. Obama, through his “Cash for Clunkers,” is paying the owners of older cars to destroy their automobiles. The thinking is that by decreasing the supply of bad cars that will increase both the productivity of the auto industry while at the same time saving on energy. The effect of this action will be to,

1.) Increase the price of used cars.

As older cars are destroyed the effect will be to shrink the supply of older cars. With the number of older cars diminished the effect will be that the older cars that remain on the market will increase in price since demand, remaining consistent, will find that it takes more dollars to purchase a older car since supply is constricted.

This is bad news for those young people who are looking to purchase their first car.

2.) Increase personal debt

People, who are pursuing the “Cash for Clunkers” program, are people, on the whole, who will go from owning their vehicles outright to people who have taken on debt in order to finance that new car they purchased.

3.) Increases public debt

The government is going into debt to the tune of billions of dollars it doesn’t have in order to fund this “cash for clunkers” program. The government doesn’t have any money that it does not first steal from its citizens. Funds to pay for “Cash for Clunkers” are funds stolen from the American taxpayer.

4.) Create an entitlement mentality

“Cash for Clunkers” is a middle class entitlement. These kinds of programs turn the middle class into a slave class as the expectation grows that entitlements are acceptable as long as they are entitlements that serve my wants and needs. With this program the government is not giving away money as much as it is buying slaves.

And none of what we have said so far begins to approach the problem of taking perfectly good used cars and destroying them. “Waste not, want not,” keeps pounding through my head.

Oh, and could anybody point to where the Federal government finds authority in the US Constitution for “Cash for Clunkers”?