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.

You know you might be Republican …

if where a spine is supposed to be there is linguine instead.

if you’re more afraid of the news media then you are the voters.

if you think big government is bad unless your party is in charge.

if your goal is to simply “moderate” Democratic ideas and policy.

if you think it “crafty” of you when you make sure the Democrats get only 95% of what they want.

if you think Ron Paul is an extremist.

if you’ve never read a book.

if you can’t decide who is better looking … Nancy Pelosi or the Congressional pageboys.

if you took John McCain seriously.

if you can’t make the connection between the Warfare State and the Nanny State.

if you could proudly say without cracking up …. “George W. Bush is my President.”

if you never doubted “weapons of mass destruction.”

if you thought the worst thing that Clinton did in the White House was to get serviced by an intern.

if the phrases “monetary policy,” “fiat money,” “fractional reserve banking” and “inflationary cycle,” find you scrambling for a dictionary.

if you’re genetically incapable of realizing that the lesser of two evils remains evil.

A Discussion Concerning Warren’s Prayer

Eva Marie Cropsey — Daughter of a Michigan State Senator

“Isa” is the name for Jesus in Arabic. Yeah, it’s the name used in the Qu’ran, because the Qu’ran was written in Arabic. You can’t look at this and say it’s “totally disgusting, since all those mentioned are not the same God at all,” because they are all actually referring to the same person. Yeah, Islam goes wrong in what they believe about Jesus’ resurrection and in believing that Muhammad was greater than He was, but they do honor and revere Him.

Unless you actually talk to Rick Warren, you can’t give his motivation for praying the way he did. However, a possible alternative to the idea that he’s just trying to make everybody happy is that he’s trying to build on the common roots of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. If you know anything about the history of these religions, you should know that Christianity’s basis is in Judaism (Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecies in the Hebrew scriptures), and Muhammad was greatly influenced by both Judaism and Christianity. If you want to reach people for Christ, you need to build on common ground, rather than trying to eliminate the commonalities you do share. Jesus called us to be peacemakers (Matthew 5), and Paul sets a precedent for this in his sermon to the Areopagus (Acts 15) where he quotes the an Athenian poet and references an Athenian religious tradition of worshiping an unknown God (for more on this, you should read Eternity in Their Hearts by Don Richardson). The Shema is from the Hebrew Scriptures, yes, but aren’t the Hebrew Scriptures also your Old Testament? God hasn’t changed since then. Islam teaches that God is compassionate and merciful, but doesn’t Christianity teach the same? And in case you’re wondering, “Allah” is simply a generic word that means “God.” There are thousands of Christians in the Middle East that use this word to refer to the same God that you and I worship.

I’m sorry. It looks like neither one of us is going to change our positions, so there isn’t any reason to discuss it further. I would suggest that you research the historical roots of both Islam and Christianity for yourself–outside of what you have been taught by a pastor or Christian educator–and also that you read the book A Deadly Misunderstanding by Mark Siljander.

Bret responds,

No, you are wrong. If Jews and Muslims do not believe Jesus is the Son of God who died for the sins of the world they do not revere him and they do not honor him. In point of fact they dishonor him, disrespect him and call God a liar. That is not revering! In point of fact that is blasphemy.

This can be seen by your notion that Islam, Christianity and Judaism has common roots. What Islam and Judaism teach is diametrically opposed to Christianity. Judaism and Islam are bastard religions that deny the essence of Christianity. The Triune God that Christians serve has absolutely nothing in common with the Unitarian blasphemy of Islam and Judaism. Muslims and Jews deny the virgin birth. Muslims and Jews deny that there is salvation in no other name except for Jesus. Muslim and Jews deny that Jesus is God. Muslim and Jews deny that Jesus will return again to judge the quick and the dead. Saying that Islam, Christianity and Judaism have common roots is like saying that a Porn Flick, a Snuff Movie and “Old Yeller” have common roots all because they are all cinema.

When a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ prays he is not looking to find common ground with pagan religions or pagan gods. In doing so he is doing exactly what I suggested he was doing when I wrote the analysis piece of Warren’s prayer. When a Christian minister prays he prays that the God of the Bible would defeat all other rival gods and deliver their adherents out of the false religions they are in bondage to.

No you advised me that my learning is deficient. I should probably tell you that I am a Pastor. I have the requisite degrees. I have done the research. I have already read the books you recommend.

Allow me to suggest you have read all the books that are creating the current crisis in Christianity. For example in Acts 17 Paul was not using a common ground approach. You might want to check out this links to see that discussed in detail.

http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pa045.htm

Common ground evangelism is a disaster precisely because the pagan denies the common ground exists. He hates God and so hates the common ground you are trying to reach him on. If you are interested in seeing this idea teased out I would recommend,

http://www.the-highway.com/defense_VanTil.html

The OT is my Bible but it is not the Jewish Bible. They read it in such a way that it is no longer the Scripture to them. They twist it and ruin it and what Jews need to be called back to is the Scriptures they deny by the way they read it.

Allah may be the same word for God but He is not the same God. We do Islam no service by allowing them to think Allah and the God of the Bible are the same beings. Primarily because the God of the Bible exists and Allah doesn’t. I don’t care if converted Muslims use the word Allah to address God as long as they are convinced of Allah’s Triune character.

Siljander used to be my congressman years ago. He is a liberal and knows less about Islam then I’d care to mention. A good beginning resource on Islam is Serdga Trifkovic. He grew up around Islam and knows what a danger it is and how it hates Christianity, and how it will not be satisfied until it conquerors all its competitors.

Rick Warren is a well intended fool who is trying to sink Christianity into a sea of meaninglessness pluralism. I’m afraid you’re already wearing the weights around your ankles. You strike me as a sharp young lady. If you are as sharp as you sound you will go the extra mile and investigate these things I’m telling you to see whether or not they are so.

You know you might be Democrat …

If you got knocked up in order to collect a larger government check because you couldn’t afford your three children by three different men.

If you were glad for the government bailout because it allowed you to take your trip to the Riviera with your mistress.

If you were able to base your recent bank mortgage loan on the fact that you had had three jobs in two weeks.

If you cheated on your taxes and knew it wouldn’t matter much unless you were nominated to be the Secretary of the Treasury.

If you think that drinking copious amounts of Liquor is a cure for a hangover or if you think that borrowing more money is a cure for debt.

If you think that it is necessary to teach 1st graders what a dildo is while showing films on how homosexuals couple.

If you hate God even though you are convinced that he doesn’t exist.

If, while shoveling your sidewalk clean of the 24 inches of snow you have received daily for the past week, you keep warm in the sub zero cold by looking forward to legislation that will stop global warming.

If you consider Barney Frank a role model for America’s children.

If you think women should have a right to choose to kill their children but you don’t think Americans should have the right to choose to keep and bear arms.

If you think Republicans are conservative.

If you were one of the 1.8 million that attended the Obama inauguration but not one of the 14 who had a job and so had to miss work.

Behold The State … The Giver Of Life

ABC Sunday News Show

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

Now how did we go from aiding children’s health to making sure people don’t have children in two sentences? How does making sure that people don’t have children at the same time contribute to children’s health?

Look, the State sees itself as the parent of the citizenry and as the Parent it must decide when and to when not have children, and if it decides to not have children in order to relieve the pressure on the Parent’s budget as the parent it is sovereign to make that decision.

What this boils down is that the entitlement culture cannot provide for all the illegitimate children that it creates and as such the State will take sovereign responsibility to make sure that people on the Government dole will encouraged (in due time required) to not have to many children.

Also keep in mind that it is likely that planned parenthood is going to be the beneficiary of all this family planning stimulus money.

Now, you better believe that if the birth of children is a concern to the Sovereign state because of their great cost that it won’t be long until the Sovereign state will be concerned about how much money is required in our season of dying. The generation who aborted their children for the sake of convenience are going to find itself aborted in old age for the sake of convenience. Payback is a b—-.

How many more of God’s prerogatives does the State have to try and take up before Christians begin to realize that it is idolatry not to try and check the State’s desire to be God?

These people, and the people who keep voting for them are sphincter release valves.

Covenantalism & Social Order

“Natural law theory in both forms (the realism of Natural law organicism and the nominalism of Natural law social contract — BLM) prevented the development of a uniquely biblical social theory. The doctrine of the biblical covenant was missing, since one or more of its five points were denied: (1)the absolute personal sovereignty of God over both nature and human history; (2)the hierarchical authority of all human institutions under God’s limited, delegated sovereignty; (3)Biblical law as authoritative in all civilizations; (4) God’s historical sanctions (blessing and cursing), imposed in terms of his Bible revealed law; and (5) the development of history in response to the imposition of God’s sanctions, though mitigated temporarily by His mercy. Point 1 is called Calvinism; Point two is called representative government; points 3 and 4 are called theonomy; and point 5 is called postmillennialism. They are a package deal. Without all five, it is impossible to construct an exclusively and covenantally faithful biblical social theory.”

Dr. Gary North
Millennialism And Social Theory — pg. 39

Social theory that strives to be Biblical has to be covenantally structured. A Biblical social theory looks to create a social bond among men not in some chain of being reasoning that connects all reality into an organic whole that can then be read by a Natural law mechanism that is reflection of the union of all reality, nor in a social contract theory where the nature of reality is very mechanistically laid out and where natural law becomes the mechanistic equivalent for social order that the other laws of nature are for the operation of the cosmos.

The organic view of Natural law seems to partake in the errors of pantheism where man and God are united by shared being with the result that man can know the mind of God apart from God if only there is some sort of organic union that exists between the two. The social contract view of Natural law seem to partake in the errors of deism where God and His creation are divorced with God leaving behind a Natural law mechanism that functions in much the same way that the independent laws of nature operate. Man does not need special revelation to read this Natural law aright, he merely needs the use of his own right reason.

Each of these view of Natural law theory then incarnate themselves into differing understandings of social theory. Natural law realism produces a social theory organicism that is characterized by chain of being thinking. The metaphor that is often used to describe such societies is that it is a living entity. In this kind of Natural law everything in a social order is living tissue that is inter-connected. Society is viewed as an organism, just as the Cosmos as a whole is.

Natural law nominalism on the other hand produces a social theory that is contractual and is characterized by some kind of pre-historic contract that the ancients entered into that is binding on successive generations because the contract is a reflection of the way things are. According to Gary North,

“In the social contract theory men in the distant past voluntarily transferred their individually held political sovereignty to the State, which now maintains social order. Each social institution is governed by the terms of an original contract, whether mythical or historical.”

Unlike organicism which teaches that there is a unity between the seen and a real unseen realm social contract social theory denies any transcendent metaphysical reality or social unity where the contract on earth is corresponding to a contract in the heavenlies apart from the will of mortals. (Hence the nominalism)

A Biblical social order theory eschews both of these alternatives and opts for a view of social order has one that is kept together by complex system of legal bonds with God as the ultimate enforcer of that complex system.

In this social order arrangement there are four primary covenants, personal, familial, ecclesiastical, and civil.

More anon,