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.

Can One Be Both Collectivist and Christian?

In the previous post we looked at different variations of Collectivism as it incarnates itself in political and economic arrangements. In this post we want to make the case that it is no more possible to be a Satanist and a Christian than it is to be a epistemologically self conscious collectivist and a Christian at the same time. This is absolutely key to emphasize at this time since there are those in the Reformed world who seem to suggest that it is of no moment or matter whether or not one is a socialist or whether or not a country is socialistic. I wish some Reformed Theologians would stick to theology proper and give up broader political analysis.

Collectivism exists. It exists everywhere. It is not an imaginary bogeyman that right wing nut case Christians have invented so they could have windmills to tilt at. Indeed, the notion that collectivism is the figment of hyper active imaginations could only be advanced in a cultural setting that is drenched in collectivism. We are so saturated with collectivism we don’t even see collectivism anymore as collectivism. Instead of seeing collectivism as collectivism we tend to see it as just the way things are. Collectivism has become the constant hum in the background of our thinking that help us keep time in all of our endeavors. Because this is true our vision of what it means to be “Christian” as been cast in collectivist terms. Christians are so collectivistic / socialistic in their thinking that they don’t realize that the current danger that is greatest to the Christian faith right now is one form of collectivism or another.

For proof of this I ask the reader how many sermons he has ever listened to that deal with the idolatry of collectivism in one form or another? Has the reader ever heard a sermon attacking the idol of collectivism in education? In government? In economics? Has the reader ever heard a sermon exposing the consequences to a people who fall in worship of the idol of collectivism? Has the reader ever heard a sermon that clearly posits the anti-thesis between the authority of the idol of collectivism and the authority of King Jesus? Has the reader ever heard a sermon revealing how the idol of collectivism tries to provide a salvation that only Jesus can bring? The greatest danger to the Church and to Christianity today is the idolatry of collectivism and yet we have some of our best and brightest in the Reformed world pooh poohing the necessity to speak to this subject in our pulpits.

It is not possible to be a epistemologically self-conscious simultaneous supporter of collectivism and Christianity because these two faiths are set in antithesis to one another. In the former, autonomous man in his corporate expression through the mechanism of central planning (a euphemism for sovereignty if there ever was one) seeks to take up the sovereignty of God, while in Christianity man recognizes that only God is sovereign. In collectivist arrangements the state is seeking to be the institution that provides redemption from the sin of want and austerity for its worshipers — and in doing so the collectivist state, as god, redefines both what sin and salvation is. In Christianity, on the other hand, only Jesus can provide redemption from sin — and as such both sin and redemption as defined biblically. In collectivist arrangements man is considered as mass and the individual is lost. In Christianity each man is created with the image of God imprinted upon them and thus has value.

Edmund Opitz has seen this clearly:

“As History’s vice-regent, the Planner is forced to view men as mass; which is to deny their full stature as persons with rights endowed by the Creator, gifted with free will, possessing the capacity to order their own lives in terms of their convictions. The man who has the authority and the power to put the masses through their paces, and to punish nonconformists, must be ruthless enough to sacrifice a person to a principle…a commissar who believes that each person is a child of God will eventually yield to a commissar whose ideology is consonant with the demands of his job.

And so, Opitz concludes, “Socialism needs a secular religion to sanction its authoritarian politics, and it replaces the traditional moral order by a code which subordinates the individual to the collective.”

In collectivist arrangements the state owns the children and so all children must be “educated” in the matrix of the state. Further, in collectivist arrangements it is by education that individuals and society experience regeneration. In Christianity however God owns our children and the parents are stewards of God to raise their children in the way of God’s new and better covenant of grace. Further, regeneration in Christianity is a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit quite apart from the state’s educational matrix. In collectivist arrangements the ultimate value is the glory of the state for in the state we live and move and have our being. In Christianity the ultimate value is the glory of God for in God we live and move and have our being. In collectivist arrangements the state is the ultimate authority and any god must submit to the state, while in Christianity God is the ultimate authority and the state must submit to God. In collectivist cultures the state uses guilt as a means of manipulating the people and atonement is achieved sado-masochistically, while in Christianity Christ takes away our guilt so that we do not have to involve ourselves in purges of self-atonement. In collectivist arrangements the state is the creator, giver, and arbiter of human rights, while in Christianity God is the creator, giver, and arbiter of all that is inherently human and all that comes from being human. In collectivist arrangements coercion is the foundation of exchange and commerce while in Christian arrangements the golden rule is the foundation of exchange and commerce.

Collectivism is to the church today what Gnosticism was to the church in the second century, which is to say it is a subtle heresy that gains so much traction in the Church because it is such a quality counterfeit. In point of fact much of what collectivism is, is Christianity sat on its head. It is Christianity through and through with its own doctrine of sin, regeneration, redemption, and glorification. It has its own church, its own sacraments, its own savior and priests and confessionals and catechism and hymns. The place it differs from Christianity is that it puts man on God’s throne and seeks to throw God out of his universe.

Because all of this is true one cannot be both a committed collectivist and a Christian at the same time and anybody who suggests that collectivism is of no moment or matter that it should be addressed by Christian pastors in Christian Churches is at best a fool and at worst an enemy of the Cross.

The Way To Spin Your Readership

Obama calls cloning ‘dangerous, profoundly wrong’

This was the headline for Obama’s decision to have the government become officially involved again in the destruction of human life through the sanctioning of fetal stem cell researching.

So, Obama approves of something grossly immoral and wicked and the headline gives us Obama standing in the gap against moral perfidy. What a joke.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to discuss with the President why he thinks cloning is wrong?

Dissent Is Patriotic … Wish They Had Thought Of That Eight Years Ago

Periodically I read redstate.com which is a big forum for a form of conservatism as well as a big supporter of most things Reagan Republican. Today I got a kick out of billboards they are financing and putting up around the country in support of Rush Limbaugh.

The billboards read,

“Dissent Is The Highest Form Of Patriotism.”

Now, this made me chuckle because for 8 years I have been dissenting against the absolute bone-headedness of all things Republican during the Bush administration. I dissented against the extension of Empire in the Iraq war. I dissented against the Bush policy on immigration. I dissented on the Bush “no child left behind” legislation crafted with Teddy Kennedy’s approval. I dissented in the Bush “prescription drug entitlement for senior citizens.” I dissented when Bush campaigned against Pat Toomey in the Republican Pennsylvania primary in favor of that foul liberal Arlen Spectre. I spent 8 years dissenting from the Bush administration and I can’t tell you how many times people from my own tribe (Christians) accused me of being unpatriotic.

Now, that a Democrat is in the White House dissent is fashionable again.

Part of the reason that Republicans are in the mess that they are in is that instead of being patriots and dissenting during the Bush years they wilted under pressure. As such it’s hard to take them seriously now in their dissent of all things Obama.

Still, we patriotic dissenters are glad for the company and after having dwelt in the waters of dissent for a very long time now we can say … “Come on in boys, the water is fine.”

Oh, and while we are on the whole Rush Limbaugh vs. the White House matter let me make just a few points.

1.) There is a proverb that says, “one shouldn’t get in an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel.” As such, I’m not sure how wise the White House war room was in trying to intimidate a guy who has 13,000,000 listeners for three hours every day.

2.) Limbaugh is good at what he does. If he were not such a war-hawk, Lincoln lover, and knee jerk Republican I might be able to actually appreciate him even more. Still, for all his mistaken convictions I think people need to realize that in this Limbaugh vs. White House war Limbaugh needs to win. Remember the end game in all this for the White House is the destruction of talk radio. Now, “Talk Radio” has its problems but without “Talk Radio” there will not be even a mildly alternative opinion out there accessible to the average American in competition with what the major media lies about.

Now, again, I realize that “Talk Radio” is hardly ideologically ideal but again if the White House succeeds in shutting town “Talk Radio” they and their major media market lap dogs will own the American mind. Yes, it is a crying shame that we have gotten to the point in this country where we must depend upon the simple bromides that are tossed to the citizenry by those on “Talk Radio” in order to build resistance but the situation is what it is and right now “Talk Radio” is the only game in town when it comes to large scale popular dissent and resistance.

3.) I am old enough to remember when Nixon went after the journalist Jack Anderson. The media was outraged by the idea that the Nixon White House had a journalist “enemies list.” Now Obama is doing the same thing and the lying dog major media doesn’t care? The White House is going after the first amendment and (through back door methodologies that will bring about the results of “fairness doctrine” legislation) very few people care?

The Winds Of Hell

Emergent Churches, homosexual marriage, Seeker Friendly philosophy, abortion, Liberation theology, Keynesianism, intellectually vapid Pentecostalism, existentialism, Arminianism, collectivism, Radical Two Kingdom theology, the decline of public morality …

All of these seeming disparate movements and many more like them have one thing in common and that is they are arid and life destroying winds that blow in from hell which are given to the complete destruction of the Western Church and so Western civilization.

It is not as if these movements and the ideas that motivate them are not inner connected. Only the fool would think that we are bent over at the force of hurricane winds and not realize that all of these winds serve blow in from the same pit and serve the same end. It may seem like Emergent churches have little to do with Keynesianism or that Pentecostalism and existentialism are isolated and unrelated breezes but we have need to realize that all of the breezes that blow from hell are resulting in a similar end. The work of the winds of government schools is one with the work of the winds of Radical Two Kingdom theology. The work of the winds of Arminianism is one with the work of collectivism. All these winds blow from West to East and all of these winds blow from Hell.

Ideas have consequences and the consequences of these ideational trade winds from Hell is to rob God of His glory while impoverishing and killing those made in His image. It is not as if these winds are random and isolated. They blow in at the beckoning of their master to take the life out of all that they swirl about. Taken together they have the ability to turn a verdant land into an arid desert and to reduce a land filled with a vibrant people to a wasteland populated by emaciated skull and bones.

We cannot allow ourselves to think that we can shelter ourselves from some breezes while allowing some to blow across us. They all are dedicated to destroying us. We will not save our churches by sheltering our churches from the winds of hell, for winds that destroy our families will destroy our Churches. We will not save our families by sheltering our families from the winds, for the winds, should they destroy our culture, will wreak havoc on our families. This is not a windstorm we can resist piecemeal. No, we must build wind shelters simultaneously for all our institutions — from family to church, from civil to educational, from the the arts to economics, from our structures of jurisprudence to all our cultural infrastructure.

With the intensity of these winds from hell we have come to the point where no one person or institution can find a safe way out for themselves alone. As such all must join together, out of interest for God’s glory, and stand together in the work of building shelter in the storm. At this moment in history there are none who are of like mind who can isolate themselves from those who share their interest. What is at stake is no less than God’s glory and our freedom.