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.

Conference Call With Michigan US Congressman Mark Schauer

I just hung up from a conference call with US Congressman Mark Schauer. I don’t know how it is I was phoned. The whole process was set up by his office. Apparently, people throughout Michigan were randomly called and were allowed to listen in on the conversation. There appeared to be a mechanism where one could ask the Congressman questions and in answering the question you were allowed to hear the Congressman’s response to political questions. We were periodically told that if we wanted to ask a question we should push #3. I pushed #3 but never got a chance to ask a question. I wanted to ask the Congressman where in the US Constitution he and the government found the authority to spend 800 billion dollars. I also wanted to ask what a provision to create health care bureaucracy was doing in this legislation.

Anyway, having said all that, allow me to tell you that if the microcosm of the Michigan citizens I heard tonight is representative of the American public at large, we are so toast as a nation. The Michigan citizens who asked questions (assuming it wasn’t rigged) were all statist. They all asked in one form or another what the stimulus package was going to do for their special interest. An auto worker from Eaton Rapids phoned in and wanted money for the auto industry. A senior citizen from Grand Ledge phoned in wanting to know what money was in the legislation for senior citizens. (She also was offended that people wanted to criticize the President, who was, after all, only trying to do what the great Franklin Roosevelt did.) A guy from Washtenaw called in complaining that Wall Street shouldn’t have got bailed out but rather guys like him should have got bailed out. A guy from Charlotte called in who has been trying to sell a house for over a year and he wanted to know what the government was going to do to help houses sell more briskly. Are we beginning to see a theme here?

As long as Americans believe it is the job of the state to provide nourishment and it is their job to suck at the teat of government we will continue to spiral into tyranny and oppression. I fear that the one two punch of government schools and mass media over the course of several generations have effectively rendered the citizenry (at least the sampling from Michigan I listened to tonight) brain dead. There is no desire for freedom, but instead a long plaintive cry to be fed, taken care of, and to have their diapers changed. People really have come to believe that in the state we love and move and have our being. People really have come to the point where they are looking to the state for salvation. This mindset which I repeat endlessly as being part of the American psyche, was born out in spades in this telephone conference this evening. It was most discouraging.

Congressman Schauer was unfailingly courteous, but then nobody he spoke to was disagreeing with the BS he was shoveling. Congressman Schauer made it clear that there is going to be a huge push for alternative energy. Carbon fuel is out and bio-fuel, wind energy, and other forms are in. According to Congressman Schauer this bill provides money to invest in “green cars.” Congressman Schauer noted that it was his hope that some of those cars would be built in Michigan. Interestingly enough there was a great deal of talk about ending free trade in favor of fair trade. Congressman Schauer said a great many things that were untrue. I don’t think Congressman Schauer purposely is a liar but rather it is my opinion that his false worldview causes him to speak lies that he genuinely believes are true. Most of his lies had to do with how this spending is going to help the economy and how this is all the previous administrations fault and how doing something is better than doing nothing and how every $1.00 spent by the government will result in a $1.50 return in the economy. This is Keynesianism that has long since been proven as completely false. Congressman Schauer also faulted people who just wanted to continue to pursue the failed ‘tax cuts for the rich’ policy pursued by the Bush administration. The obvious answer to this is that tax cuts without spending cuts was irresponsible — indeed almost as irresponsible as pursuing a policy to go deeper in debt through irresponsible spending legislation in order to solve being in debt.

What is sad about all of this is that these people have so few that can challenge them from rank and file America. What is sad is that Americans are largely drones that have been reared and trained to keep the machinery of our fascist culture running and consequently have not be reared and trained to ask questions about the nature of the machine. People need to quit warning about coming fascism or socialism. We already are far into Huxley’s Brave New World.

Rice Christians … Rice Americans

Historically, in the history of Christian Missions, any individual or people groups of an indigenous culture that the Missionaries were serving in that converted to Christian just for the advantages that Christianity brought were often referred to as a “Rice Christians.” Often times these conversions were in name only as attachments to the previous religion that they were thought to have left was retained in subtle ways and so the label “Rice Christians” became a pejorative. Basically the reality of “Rice Christians” was that their loyalty to Christ was purchased at the price of social or material advantage. Once that social or material advantage went into eclipse so did their loyalty to Christ.

Today in our current climate I am convinced that something like this is happening in America in reference to the religion of statism. Legion are the name of those whose loyalty belongs to the state so long as the state can provide them with material or social advance. But what is to happen when the state runs out of provision for these Rice Americans? What will it mean for our nation when people lose their loyalty to the state because the state can no longer provide — especially when there is no religion for them to go back to with which they are already familiar? I am fairly certain that families who have been Rice Americans for several generations are not going to deal peacefully if their god and their religion can no longer provide for them.

But I suppose this scenario could never play out since the states supply for Rice Americans is doubtless inexhaustible.

CRC Banner & Speaking Of Evolution — Happy Birthday Darwin II

Recently, Christian Reformed Church flagship magazine, “The Banner” ran a three-page article on evolution arguing that theistic evolution (now called Evolutionary Creationists) is a viable alternative for Christians to embrace. The article was written by a couple who teaches at Calvin College and who work in the Physics and Astronomy departments. The article was excruciatingly basic and it was plugging a recent book that the Professor have recently written. I want to take a few minutes to examine some of the quotes in the article.

http://www.thebanner.org/magazine/article.cfm?article_id=1935

“For example, modern species of dogs and wolves and coyotes descended from some ancestral wolf-like species that no longer exists. Similarly, all dogs, cats, and other mammals descended from a common ancestor even longer ago.

Evolutionary Creationists combat evolutionism by attacking the first premise. They argue that God could work through biological evolution to create the species, just as God works through natural processes like evaporation and condensation to govern rainfall.”

From a Christian perspective of anthropology the statements of the Haarsma’s is fraught with grave danger. Indeed, the danger is so grave in these statements that the whole Christian faith could conceivably be overturned.

The Haarsma’s are telling us that it is acceptable to believe that all mammals (and keep in mind that man is a mammal) descended from (and so necessarily evolved from) a common ancestor. If this is true then the act of God in creating man as the piece de resistance of His creation is overturned. Likewise, any idea of man as uniquely bearing the image of God seems likewise overturned. The Haarsma’s are required to answer, if their supposition as evolutionary creationists is true that man has descended and evolved from a common ancestor, where in the evolutionary process man was stamped with the Imago Dei. When and where did God, in the evolutionary creationist myth, breathe into man the breath of life?

Also the Haarsma’s must answer in their evolutionary creationist paradigm when, where and how sin entered into the world.

Another problem in the Haarsma’s evolutionary creationism worldview is the presumption that all is evolutionary process. This presumption requires the belief that nature is going from something inferior to something superior (hence the term “evolution”). The problem though is that in Scripture the assumption is just the reverse. The assumption in scripture is not that everything is going from inferior to superior but rather that in creation we had the superior (the creation that was declared “good” and “very good”) which gave way to an inferior state (we might should call it devolution) called “The Fall.” The Christian story is Creation, Fall, Redemption, Glorification. For the Haarsma’s the Christian story seems to be Creation, evolution, Glorification.

Another problem in the Haarsma’s article is that in the Scriptures we clearly see man being distinct from the animals. Man is charged to name the animals thus showing his un-relatedness to the animals. And yet the Haarsma’s would have us believe that Man, having a common descendant with all animals has a basic relatedness to the animals.

Now, I’ve raised some questions here and to be fair to the Haarsma’s they did say in the article that there book attempts to answer questions that the article did not have space to address. But I will go out on a limb here and say, without reading their book, that evolutionary creationism can’t be harmonized with Scripture without doing serious damage to scripture.

The primary message to the ancient Hebrews was about the who and why of creation—that Israel’s God is the sovereign creator of all and humans are God’s image bearers—not the when and how of creation.

This is a HUGE assumption. Where in and from Scripture does Scripture teach that Scripture isn’t concerned with the when and how of creation? One just can’t assume these things without proving them so.

One could appeal to Jesus words in Matthew 19:4-5 that Jesus Himself believed that the when and how of the immediate and direct (hence non-evolutionary) creation of Adam and Eve was important. (We might also want to ask here if Jesus’ human nature was descended and evolved from a common ancestor.)

“If God’s purposes in Genesis 1 did not include teaching scientific information to the Israelites, then we should not look there for scientific information about the age of the earth or the formation of species. Instead, we can look at what God has revealed in nature itself to understand the when and how.”

The problem here is the assumption that general revelation can’t be read and interpreted properly apart from presupposing special revelation. It is true that God has given us two books wherein we can read His revelation but it is not true that we can read the book of nature correctly if we presuppose a theology other than Christianity.

Apart from presupposing what is taught in Scripture — that the Universe has order because of God’s providence — there is no consistent reason for the Scientist to believe that the Sun will rise regularly. The irrationality for believing that the sun will rise regularly is something David Hume pointed out. A science that begins without special revelation is a science that is autonomous and so can come up with everything from punctuated equilibrium to man being descended from animals.

It should be emphasized that evolution is only a theory. Embracing evolution is a blind leap of faith. There is no science that does or can prove it. Any evidence that is brought forth to support it is evidence that only proves evolution because it presupposes the truth of evolution. That is hardly a scientific approach. Therefore to appeal to nature as interpreted by science, as the way to determine the formation of species is a thin reed on which to rely.

The most significant problem I see with the Haarsma’s article is that it doesn’t take into account how theology informs science. Those who start with the theology of Hinduism, or Islam, or Communism (let us never forget Lysenkoism) or Humanism, or Christianity are going to develop significantly different sciences. Because that is so science can not be used to prove or disprove any metaphysical or theological construct since science depends upon those constructs for its existence.

Another significant problem I see with the Haarsma’s position is its implied Deism. It seems that for evolutionary creationists God starts the evolutionary / creation process and then kind of fades away to let the evolutionary process roll on.

I will continue to be mystified by those who desire to take a paradigm that was created and defended as a means of explaining this world without taking into consideration the God of the Bible and try to combine it with the God of the Bible.

The Haarsma’s article is fraught with severe difficulties. I trust people will not take their word on the issue.

Muller On “What They Didn’t Tell You That TULIP Needs To Make Sense”

I have often times written and insisted that the Doctrines of Grace (fashionably styled as TULIP) absolutely require the larger context of the Reformed faith in order to retain their meaning. This means that those who hold to TULIP while denying the larger context of the Reformed Faith either don’t really hold to TULIP or are involved in some serious contradictions. I have, on ironink especially made that argument regarding the sacraments.

Recently, I stumbled across an article that makes that same overall argument in spades. I highly recommend it. It was written by Dr. Richard Muller and can be found at,

http://kimriddlebarger.squarespace.com/how-many-points/

I am going to hit some highlights here for those who don’t have the time to read ten pages.

“They also — all of them (Reformed confessions) — agree on the assumption that our assurance of the salvation, wrought by grace alone through the work of Christ and God’s Spirit in us, rests not on our outward deeds or personal claims but on our apprehension of Christ in faith and on our recognition of the inward work of the Spirit in us. Because this assurance is inward and cannot easily or definitively be externalized, all of these documents also agree that the church is both visible and invisible — that it is a covenanted people of God identified not by externalized indications of the work of God in individuals, such as adult conversion experiences but by the preaching of the word of God and the right administration of the sacraments.”

In today’s evangelical church the push is commonly towards externalizing indications that a work of God in individuals has taken place. This push was seen once upon a time in raising a hand or walking an aisle or sitting at the seekers bench. When the Pentecostals came along indications became a little more bizarre. With the third wave we have external indications of God’s work that range from swinging from chandeliers to making animal sounds. What the evangelical church misses is that God has given us externalized indications of his work in the Word preached and the Sacraments distributed. When we push for these non Word and Sacrament externalized indications we are subtly moving away from the importance of the Church where the God given externalized indications take place in Word and Sacrament and are moving towards an individualized me and Jesus Christianity. After all, you don’t need to be at church to get an electric Holy Spirit charge, and even if you are at church the emphasis of church gets changed from God acting in Word and Sacrament to a anticipation of when the Holy Spirit will cause some strange and aberrant behavior. Because we are totally depraved God works in us through the ordained means of Word and Sacrament. Moving the emphasis from the means of grace that God uses to resurrect sinners, to funky behavior that can be mimicked by anybody overturns the TULIP applecart.

“Baptism, rightly understood from the human side, signifies the placement of our children into the context where the promised grace of God is surely at work. And who more than an infant, incapable of meritorious works, can indicate to us that this salvation is by grace alone? By way of contrast, the restriction of baptism to adult believers who make a “decision” and who come forward voluntarily to receive a mere ordinance stands against recognition of baptism as a sign of utter graciousness on the part of God: Baptism here is offered only to certain individuals who have passed muster before a human, albeit churchly, court — or to state the problem slightly differently, who have had a particular experience viewed as the necessary prerequisite to baptism by a particular churchly group. If grace and election relate to this post-decision baptism, they can hardly be qualified by the terms “irresistible” and “unconditional.” There is an inescapable irony in refusing baptism to children, offering it only to adults, and then telling the adults that they must become as little children in order to inherit the kingdom of heaven.”

Muller then moves on to slice and dice the evangelical piety and nomenclature that talks about “having a personal relationship with Jesus.” Muller suggest that such talk that belies such an easy and casual intimacy can possibly detract from the “majesty of the doctrine of Christ’s Kingship.” He also suggests that this “personal relationship” language with its implied reciprocity may subtly inject in our thinking that salvation is, like any personal relationship, a co-operative effort. Muller suggests, by appealing to the Heidelberg Catechism, that a more Reformed way to speak than speaking of a “personal relationship” is by speaking that we belong in body and soul and in life and death to our faithful savior Jesus Christ.

Anyway … I recommend the whole article for your perusal. I would only slightly question Muller on two points. First, I would slightly question the way he connects the decrees of God in eternity to the way those decrees come to fruition in space and time. Muller rightly faults some people for not having a temporal order of grace. I would only add that that other people probably need to be faulted for not understanding that their temporal order of grace needs to be anchored in an a-temporal order of grace.

Second, I could wish that Muller saw the connection between a vigorous postmillennialism and the doctrines of grace. I agree with everything he says about amillennialism (and I think he uses “amillennialism” to include postmillennial notions) but I believe that a denial of a victorious eschatology flies in the face of the perseverance of the saints. Granted, amillennialism perseveres the saints but they persevere in the context of defeat. Postmillennialism does more justice to the triumph of Christ over all of his enemies in my estimation.

Anyway … great article by Dr. Muller. Give it a read and tell me what you think.