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.

The nicest things anybody’s ever said to me in my capacity as Pastor

Last night, during the share and prayer time, one of the elderly saints who has been a member of the Church I serve since the Church started 45 years ago said,

“There has never been a time in the life of this church that forgiveness has been as emphasized as it currently is in this Church.”

Now, I normally wouldn’t mention this for fear of “breaking my arm in order to pat myself on the back,” but the way I get hammered with for being a “legalist” and worst yet, a “theonomist,” I thought any part of the world that cares should know that such ugly characterizations with their implied associations are completely off the mark.

Deliver Us From Evil

“… why do you allow these people who are in power to rob you step by step, openly and in secret, of one domain of your rights after another, until one day nothing — nothing — will be left but a mechanized homo state gulag presided over by the very worst phlegm our culture can cough up? Is your spirit so crushed by abuse, your intellect so numbed by your “education” and television viewing habits, your resolve so diluted by the state’s economic threatening, that you have forgotten that it is your right — or rather your moral duty — to forcefully say to this Kakistocracy, “this far and no farther”?

Blagojevich Was A Amateur — Corruption Has Been A Constant

“New York city had come under the control of William Macy Tweed of Tammany Hall — the infamous Boss Tweed. Tweed, a massive man with a thick beard and somber, searching eyes, had begun his career of bribery in a small way in 1859, when he and two fellow Democrats paid off a Republican politician and bought the right to name their friends as election inspectors. Within four years, Tweed had begun to drain money out of the city treasury. He held the post of Deputy Street Commissioner, which allowed him to make deals with contractors who supplied road-building materials to the city. Tweed and his co-horts decreed that the contractors were to raise the prices to the city by 35 percent over a normal profit. Of this sum, Tweed kept 25 percent and paid 10 percent to another city official. As the Tweed ring grew wealthier, it expanded its power steadily. Control of the city was assured by purchasing votes. Thousands of immigrants who could barely speak English were given citizenship and enrolled as Democrats. For a dollar or two apiece, Tweed bought their voting loyalty. Some Democrats voted two or three times, while the bribed election inspectors looked the other way. In one election, the Democratic candidate received the votes of 8 percent more New Yorkers than were listed in the whole voting population.

Tween eventually bribed the mayor of New York City, the Governor of New York State, the city and state legislatures, and countless minor officials….In 1869 all contractors doing business with the city were told to add a 100 percent overcharge to their bills and pass the extra money along to the ring. Later the fraudulent percentage went even higher. The symbol of Tweed’s misdeeds was the New York County Courthouse opposite City Hall. It was supposed to be built at a cost not exceeding $250,000, but between 1864 and 1872 some $600,000,000 was spent on the building, and $8,000,000 more was paid out for mythical work supposedly done by Tweed accomplices. The bill for carpeting the courthouse alone was $4,829, 426,26 — enough to carpet most of New York city. The plumbing contractor collected $1,508,410.89. A plasterer named Garvey billed the city for $3.500,000. The cost of forty chairs and tables was $170,279.60. All told the Tweed Ring milked the city for at least $75,000,000 between 1868 and 1871; one historian put the total losses at more that 200,000,000.”

Lloyd Robinson
The Stolen Election — pp. 89-90

By itself this argues one reason for the necessity to keep government checked. Big Government, historically speaking, has been characterized by graft. (You certainly didn’t think that recently opened Visitor Center in Washington D.C. only exceeded its projected building cost by hundreds of millions of dollars due to unforeseen difficulties did you?) Smaller government, with its trimmed down money flow helps insure lesser attraction of the cockroach class to the food supply.

Second, citizens shouldn’t be shocked when they hear of a crooked politician on the take. What do you expect from a pig but a grunt? The shock should come on the day that they meet an honest politician — should that day ever come. You can bet your bottom dollar that the very people that are prosecuting Blagojevich, as well as the politicians screaming about the injustice of Blagojevich’s actions are hip deep in their own graft. Diogenes lives, and continues to search in broad daylight, holding his lantern high, as he looks for an honest man.

Third, when you cause government to swell by increasing its access to the public till you guarantee that men of principle and honor will not pursue politics. Conversely, thus, what you will get running government, is, as I mentioned above, the cockroach class. If you want to find men and women without honor, without morals, and without shame all you have to do is find a government that is flush with money. Remember the whole Clinton imbroglio. Not only did we find out our President was a whore monger but we found out that the Speaker of the house (Newt Gingrich) had been whoring around. Likewise, we found out the Republican that was supposed to replace the Speaker of the House (Bob Livingston) was a whore monger. Honesty in government? — Please.