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.

Exposing the R2K Agenda of Dr. Kevin De Young’s In His Interpretation of the WCF

The duties required in the Second Commandment are…the disapproving, detesting, opposing, all false worship; and, according to each one’s place and calling, removing it, and all monuments of idolatry.

Westminster Larger Catechism 108

It seems pretty clear from the above that those clergy who subscribe to the WCF, are required to be adamantly opposed to a “principled pluralism” that allows for all the gods to be in the public square and yet Rev. Kevin DeYoung can write;

‘”Gone from WCF 23:3 in the American revision are any references to the civil magistrate’s role in suppressing heresies and blasphemies, in reforming the church, in maintaining a church establishment, and in calling and providing for synods…. In its place, the American revision lists four basic functions for the civil magistrate relative to the church…(4) protect all people so no one is injured or maligned based on his or her religion or lack of religion.”

With this quote above DeYoung puts the WCF in contradiction to itself. De Young would interpret WCF 23:3 as in direct contradiction to WLC 108, and while not trying to be too persnickety, Dr. Rev. De Young also, via his interpretation of the American revised WCF 23:3 put the Westminster Confession in contradiction with itself in WCF 19:4;

To them also, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.

WCF 19.4

19:4 teaches that a general equity relating to the judicial laws remain and further teaches that Christian Magistrates are required (obliged) to enforce that general equity where it remains. R2K chaps like Kevin De Young don’t like that idea because it doesn’t fit with their pursuit of a body politic devoted to principled pluralism (polytheism) with its god named “Natural Law,” as represented by the priesthood of government officials who interpret the will and Law-word of the god “Natural Law.”

That I am correct about this R2K Tom-foolery is seen in a quote from team R2K Reformed clergy member Dr. R. Scott Clark

“All orthodox Christians affirm that God’s moral law is enduring and binding to all people—to deny that is antinomianism. What is at stake here is the magistrate’s role in enforcing that moral law. The framers of the Statement (Statement On Christian Nationalism and the Gospel) have a plan, to which we have not yet arrived, but it entails some enforcement of the first table, and thus is theocratic.”

R. Scott Clark
Sub-Christian Nationalism? (Part 4)

Clark here is raising the horrors in the idea that the Magistrate might actually enforce the 1st table of God’s moral law. The danger he is bemoaning is “theocracy.” Like De Young, Dr. Clark desires a principled pluralism (polytheism) for the body politic with the god named “Natural Law” sitting as the God over all the gods. This god “Natural Law” has his word discovered and implemented by the governmental and bureaucratic priesthood who do his bidding.

DeYoung, along with Clark, and all the sycophants of R2K are insisting that the revised WCF now yields a required “principled pluralism,” and yet if DeYoung’s reading is correct on 23:3 then WLC 108 must be either revised or ignored. Note that WLC 108 explicitly says; “according to each one’s place and calling.” Clearly, Christian magistrates are being told that according to their place and calling they are to disapprove, detest, and oppose all false worship by removing said false worship and yet R2K in its pursuit of a non theocratic (principled pluralism / polytheism) theocracy (ruled by the god named Natural Law as interpreted by the governmental and bureaucratic priesthood) is denying their own confession with their errant theology.

DeYoung, wearing the uniform of team R2K is seeking to officially change the WCF from a Christian confession to a polytheistic confession. I say “officially,” because most Presbyterians already treat the WCF as a confession that requires the magistrate to rule over a polytheistic body-politic.

Refuting Rev. Chris Gordon’s “Babel Christianity”

This showed up in my newsfeed today as coming from Rev. Chris Gordon. I find it so interesting because both Gordon and his conversational partner here, Dr. Stephen Wolfe embrace Thomistic Natural Law thinking and yet they are vehemently disagreeing on the effects Christianity should have when landing among different social orders. So, they are both Thomists, philosophically, and yet they are at distinct loggerheads here.

A couple more things, first, Rev. Gordon teed this up by writing;

“Most important moment in my CN discussion with Stephen Wolfe:”

Chris clearly thinks he had Wolfe on the ropes here in this part of the interview.

Chis Gordon: Most people in CA are mocha, a mix of different ethnicities, do these people have a homeland?

Stephen Wolfe: California is unique though. If I stayed in CA…I don’t know. I bring this stuff up because of the importance of it…do you have a homeland? When I hear the stories of old CA…horseback riding in hills of Napa, 22 riffles…there is a sense of loss…

Bret Interjects:

1.) Gordon here clearly concedes that race and ethnicity are realities. After all, you can’t get to a “mocha, a mix of different ethnicities” without acknowledging that there were different ethnicities that existed that are now mixed.

2.) Second, I would say that if the decided majority of California was a thorough mix of different ethnicities than the homeland for those who were a thorough mix of different ethnicities would be California. It would be the homeland for those who had successfully embraced the Babel project that God judged in Genesis 11. California would be the homeland of the multicultural, multiracial and multi-faith people.

3.) Notice Wolfe’s response is to say that the previous people who occupied California have been run out by the new multicult crowd who now owns California, and that there is a certain sadness about that. I don’t know how anybody could disagree that it is sad when a particular people group is extinguished in favor of another people group whose bond is established by the fact that they have no bond except the bond of no bond.

Chris Gordon; The great message of the Christian gospel is I get to tell these people the church is the people and place, you have your soil, you have your place on the kingdom of God. Is this really the message that Christians want to give people, that previous generations lost all that was good with horses and guns, and that all of these many different “Johnny come lately” people groups really don’t belong with us? Is that our message, as Christians? Or might we seek to live in peace and harmony in this age together but with a distinctively Christian message that elevates us to a better salvific good, that God does give people a true homeland together in his kingdom, the church as Christ’s body, tearing down walls of hostility until we reach the heavenly land together of a multitude of nations worshipping God?

Bret responds,

1.) I’ll start at the end of Chris’ peroration here. One simply cannot have a multitude of nations worshipping God in the heavenly land if those nations have been bred out of existence, so that all that exists is a polyglot Babel stew in the land that is not yet heaven.

2.) As to this sentiment by Chris:

“The great message of the Christian gospel is I get to tell these people the church is the people and place, you have your soil, you have your place on the kingdom of God.”

All I can say is that it is contradictory to what John Calvin taught;

“Regarding our eternal salvation, it is true that one must not distinguish between man and woman, or between king and a shepherd, or between a German and a Frenchman. Regarding policy, however, we have what St. Paul declares here; for our, Lord Jesus Christ did not come to mix up nature, or to abolish what belongs to the preservation of decency and peace among us….Regarding the kingdom of God (which is spiritual) there is no distinction or difference between man and woman, servant and master, poor and rich, great and small. Nevertheless, there does have to be some order among us, and Jesus Christ did not mean to eliminate it, as some flighty and scatterbrained dreamers [believe].”

John Calvin (Sermon on 1 Corinthians 11:2-3)

The Reformed faith does welcome all to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” It does not say that there is no grace for the mulatto, mestizo, or whasian. All men everywhere are commanded to repent and if they do repent they are members of the Kingdom of God. However, just as repenting doesn’t change one’s gender, so repenting doesn’t change one’s ethnicity or race. Differences remain and those differences should be acknowledged.

I have a friend who Pastors a church in a large urban area. This church is comprised of different ethnicities and races and yet this Pastor friend tells me that he repeatedly tells his flock, from the pulpit, that even though they are all one in Christ that when it comes to marriage they should not intermarry because race/ethnicity matters.

3.) As to this portion by Rev. Gordon;

Is this really the message that Christians want to give people … that all of these many different “Johnny come lately” people groups really don’t belong with us? Is that our message, as Christians?

I would say the answer to that question is, “yes, that is the Christian message.” Just as the stranger and alien could never own land in ancient Israel because they were not Hebrews so Christianity teaches that it is not ideal to give your nation as a homeland to those who do not belong to your nation by way of descent.  Chris really need to consider reading James Hoffmeier’s book on immigration to understand that Christianity has never taught that “Johnny come lately” people groups belong with us. Until Chris does read Hoffmeier maybe he’ll consider this quote from Robert Putnam on the subject;

“Immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighborhoods residents of all races tend to `hunker down’. Trust (even of one’s own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer.”

Robert Putnam
E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century
The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture

I am of the conviction that what Gordon is giving us here is a Anabaptist paradigm. The Anabaptist were (and remain) the great levelers and what Rev. Gordon is calling for here is for leveling, whether he realizes it or not. Gordon is offering here a “All colors bleed into one” Christianity. He is, as Calvin describes above, a flighty and scatterbrained dreamer.” If Gordon gets his way the result will not be some Christian paradise composed of a Babel organized social order. If Gordon gets his way he will get a social order such as described by Putnam in the quote above.

Finally, note here that Gordon, who is R2K, is doing what R2K says should never be done by ministers. He is getting out of his lane talking about an issue that isn’t a “Gospel issue.” However, if Gordon wants to insist that this is a “Gospel issue” notice once again how liberal/progressive R2K is when it takes up social issues. R2K forever wants to present itself as uncommitted on political issues but here is Gordon being the raging liberal.

 

A Few Words On I Corinthians 15:20 & Resurrection, Age To Come, and Union With Christ

I Corinthians 15:20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

This passage is commonly used as a Easter Sunday sermon text. That is appropriate. However, in this post we are considering that even more can be taught from this text than might be first thought.

The most common and accurate point from this text that is taught is the reality of solidarity between Christ and the believer. This solidarity is of such a nature that what is predicated about Christ in terms of His resurrection is predicated about the believer. This is true, however this passage teaches more than solidarity, it teaches Union with Christ … it confirms what Christ Himself said earlier when He said;

5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

There is a vital union between Christ and the believer of such a nature that in life the believer produces the fruit of Christ and in death the believer, because of their union with Christ, is part of the harvest because he is one with Christ.

Referring back to I Cor. 15:2o we are told that Christ in His resurrection was the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. As is well known firstfruits comes from the Hebrew agricultural world. Paul’s usage of it here in relation to the resurrection is the motif of this whole chapter.  Firstfruits, in the OT described the firstfruits of sacrifice that were brought each year at the beginning of the spring grain harvest in Israel (e.g., Ex. 23:16, 19; Lev. 23:10, 17, 20; Prov. 3:9). Obviously enough, what was being communicated in part was the idea that with the cultic sacrifice the firstfruits were promissory of the whole to follow. However, there is more going on then mere temporal priority. There is also the idea communicated that their is a vital union between the firstfruits and the harvest that will eventually follow. The firstfruits harvest represents the harvest of the whole crop which will come. Christ as the resurrected firstfruit, is promissory of the whole crop because the firstfruits with the whole crop are one.

This whole Pauline concept teaches that just as the harvested firstfruits offered could not be separated from what was to to soon be harvested from the whole field so Christ as the firstfruit of the resurrection life cannot be separated from the whole crop that will follow. To talk about a firstfruit without a following harvest is like talking about a bride walking down the aisle that doesn’t end with a “now you may kiss the bride.”

So, there is more going on here than just the idea that because God raised Jesus from the dead therefore God will raise believers as well, as absolutely true as that is. The more that is here is that in Christ the resurrection harvest has begun and since believers are all part of that same harvest resurrection in Christ the firstfruits, believers themselves as the latter fruit have already experienced the beginnings of resurrection. In Christ’s resurrection, God has begun fulfilling the promise that includes our resurrection.

Dr. Richard Gaffin in his book, “In The Fullness of Time,” provides a helpful illustration;

“If we were to have Paul at a prophecy conference or some other venue and were to ask him, ‘When, Paul, will the resurrection event take place in which believers share?’ The first thing he would likely say is, ‘It has already begun.’ In Christ’s resurrection, the final harvest of bodily resurrection has become visible. He will argue that in some detail later in the chapter, particularly in 15:42-49.”

In having union with the resurrected Christ we as Christians because of our union with Christ likewise partake of His resurrection. This is explicitly taught in Ephesians

2 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,

Because of our union with Christ, objectively we were made alive with Christ in His resurrection while subjectively this resurrection awaited our regeneration where the objective truth was published to our consciousness. And all this because as the Elect in Christ we were united with Christ from eternity.

Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,

With this teaching that Christ’s resurrection is our resurrection because of our vital union with Christ we see that even though Christ’s resurrection lies in the past, because His resurrection is organically related to our future resurrection we can say that the past resurrection of our great Captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, lies still in the future. Christ’s resurrection is the initial part of the eschatological harvest of the resurrection of the saints at the end of history and because of our union with Christ His resurrection has entered into history because Christians are partakers of Christ’s eschatological life. With Christ’s resurrection, the age to come is operational in this present wicked age, through those who have been, because of union with Christ, been raised up with Christ.

A couple implications here. If this is accurate (and it is) then the whole idea of the errant theology of “full Preterism” comes crashing down. Full Preterism teaches that bodily resurrection of the saints is already past and that the age to come has already arrived, not only in an inaugurated sense, but in all its fullness. For the full Preterist (at least some variants. They argue among themselves) there is no “not yet.” All there is for them is realized eschatology. I have even had one of their teachers tell me that while the person will be resurrected his body will not be resurrected. This thinking breaks the chain of logic that unites Christ’s bodily resurrection with His people’s bodily resurrection.

Secondly, given this explanation we should understand that given the tight relation between Christ’s resurrection and the believers future resurrection that we are not talking about two different events here but rather are talking about one event though separated by a time lapse. Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection is of one piece and really is the same event.

So, Christ’s resurrection was the firstfruits of our resurrection to follow but that firstfruits, because of its union with the rest of the harvest, was, in principle, the resurrection of the whole crop. Since our great Liege Lord has been resurrected and since we have union with our great Captain we Christians experience now the inaugurated resurrection life that is itself promissory of the fact that what we live now as inaugurated will one day be completely realized in the future as we, as latter day fruit, follow the firstfruits into God’s presence. This, of course, means that we in Christ are living, in an inaugurated sense, in the future age to come while living at the same time in this present wicked age. 

Continuing To Refute Nonsense That Advocates For Government Schooling For God’s Covenant Seed

JA writes,

1. Homeschoolers fall into the error of univariable analysis. “Literacy is bad at 63% of schools. Since they are run by the government, the only reason for poor literacy must be the fact that they are government run.” No, to meaningfully understand the data, you have to dissect it. What is the literacy rate when you eliminate all the schools in blue cities? What is the literacy rate of a public school that has the same demographics as Christian schools – usually white, middle-class two parent families?

Bret responds,

You really seem not to get the macro picture Josh. Government schooling, by design, prohibits connecting what we know from how we know what we know. Government schools, by force of law, does not allow education to teach Christian ontology, epistemology, anthropology, axiology, or teleology. This means the foundation upon which everything the government schools sit upon is anti-Christ. As such, it is irrelevant if some government schools exist in a white, middle-class two parent family and if because of that those students escape some of the even worse outcomes that are characteristic in blue states. It’s all premised on anti-Christ presuppositions and you seem to not be able to understand that in our conversation. Maybe  you have an interest in not understanding?

JA writes,

2. You can read books on the state of public education, read all the bad headlines, but you still don’t really know how things are going at the school half an hour away from you. The PhDs in the Dept. of Education, or in school administration might announce all kinds of LBGT stuff that is going to get taught, but it often doesn’t happen. Teachers quietly shelve it, because they’ve got to get their students ready for next math, physics, English or chemistry test.

Bret responds,

Oh, I see… so all the books I’ve cited from all the authors I’ve read (some like Gatto criticizing Government schools as a teacher of the year recipient and as from inside the workings of the government schools) don’t really know how things are going on, but you do. Sorry … I’ll cast my lot with Gatto and wait for your book that details how Gatto (and others) have been wrong.

Secondly here, you expect me to take your word that “it often doesn’t happen.” Sorry, I don’t believe you. I might believe “it sometimes doesn’t happen,” but I don’t believe that it “often doesn’t happen,” and I doubt you have anything to back that spurious claim up.

JA writes,

3. You can go to school/college with bad students who don’t want to learn anything, but the resources are there if you want to learn. I went to a “conservative” public university in the South. Plenty there who just wanted to party. But a lifetime wouldn’t have been long enough to make use of all the resources there – including calculus, science, logic professors who professed faith in Christ and were ready to spend hours giving one-on-one tutoring.

BLMc responds,

Again… more anecdotal statements and mere assertions on your part.

If it is only about resources being there, one doesn’t need to attend government schools because there has never been a time when resources are more present outside of the government schools. Indeed, it is kind of what makes your end of the conversation moot. The resources are so ubiquitous in our information age that we hardly need to send God’s covenant seed to brain dead teachers in dreadful peer settings  in order for them to be educated. Indeed, sending them there is in pursuit of anti-education.

I notice you love to talk about the exceptions as opposed to the rule. The rule teaches, as the stats show, that American government schooled children test at the bottom when compared to students from other countries.

JA writes,

4. Public school students spend about 25% of their waking hours at school. Homeschoolers, after you add up time at homeschooling co-ops, athletics programs at the local high school, and the workplace, might spend 15% of their time in the same kind of environment, hearing and seeing all the trash you rightly condemn.

BLMc responds

This argument is “because Homeschoolers are not as superior as they might be therefore they should be even more inferior.”

JA writes,

5. If the child comes from devoted Protestant Christians, he will likely value education like all Protestants once did. He will easily get into honours classes, where they study Newton’s physics (a professing Christian, at least), electricity theories of Faraday (another Christian), and the medical guy who invented anethesthics (also a Christian). He will study advanced math – exercises in pure logic, and “the language of God’s universe,” as one Christian mathematics teacher in the homeschooling movement put it. If you want to exercise dominion over the earth as commanded, you need to know its language, he says.

Bret responds,

And all as presupposing a humanist (and so anti-Christian) starting point.

JA writes,

6. Public education is constantly producing useful studies – just look at all the academic papers cited in “Who is My Neighbour?” There’s a paradox in higher education that is often missed: the LGBT communist profs always making headlines and pushing globalisation, vs. the researchers who are publishing paper after paper demolishing the assumptions of those profs, eg. more diversity means less social trust, interracial marriages more likely to fail, interracial children less healthy and less fertile when adults etc etc.

Bret responds,

The case made by “Who Is My Neighbor” (the whole book) taken as a whole only reinforces my case. If you want to escape your children becoming egalitarian don’t send them to Government schools which is the seedbed for all things egalitarian. Indeed, Government schools are completely premised on egalitarianism. That some children come out having, by God’s grace alone, triumphant over the system is not a rational reason why we should send Christian children into a system that is, by design, thoroughly pagan. You are arguing here that we should go on sinning because grace has been present in a few cases.

JA writes,

8. Our children should do what Paul did as a child: study pagan thinkers. Then they could go to Mars Hill and point out their contradictions like Paul did. “You have all these altars to all kinds of gods, but your pagan poet says you are the offspring of one God who doesn’t need anything.”

BLMc responds,

How many Pharisees who studied pagan thinkers tried to kill Paul? You take one example of God’s marvelous grace and then try to argue from that one instance that therefore we are allowed to raise our children as pagans.

Joshua, the schools are anti-Christ. They are premised upon the anti-Christ foundation that all the wisdom and knowledge is not founded on Christ. This is contrary to God’s revelation which teaches that all the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge are known in Christ (Col. 2:3). A child (or adult) cannot be educated with an education that is dedicated to eliminating the God of the Bible as the locus for all knowing.

Then, of course, one has to add in all the social diseases that arises from putting children in a vast peer setting. Postmen writes about this in some of his books. You might want to read them. “The Disappearance of Childhood” could be a good place to start.

Joshua writes,

9. Michael Spangler just posted a very good analysis of homeschooling: it produces domesticated, effeminate young men, because they’re at home all the time with little kids and a female as their main teacher. They’re not getting educated well, they don’t have a public spirit, they develop a bunker mentality that lasts well into adulthood.

BLMc responds,

Shrug … just because Rev. Spangler writes something doesn’t make it true. It sounds like it is all anchored in anecdotal reasoning and not on proof. Honestly, this just sound like the warmed over  nonsensical “but homeschooled children aren’t properly socialized” argument. An odd argument since its inception. Still, I don’t doubt that the above might in some instances be true but on the whole I’d rather have the errors found in homeschooling than the errors found in Government schooling. Similarly, I don’t have a very high opinion of “Christian schools,” though again, I’m sure there are some fine ones out there.

Joshua writes,

10. The Roman Empire supposedly became Christian or at least tolerated Christianity when only approx 15% of the people were Christian. Lots of school districts have more than this amount. If Christians exercised their rights, they could make big changes. The problem is the Christian parents don’t want to confront the nonsense. They just put up with it or take their kids out and hide. That’s a lot easier than seeking grace to boldly but meekly confront teachers and principles about objectionable material.

BLMc responds,

We’ve tried reclaiming the swamp for decades and decades. It’s time to just drain the swamp. See Rushdoony’s “The Messianic Character of American Education.”

Secondly, I seriously doubt that more than 15% of Biblical Christians live in these school districts because if 15% of Biblical Christians did live in these school districts the big changes would’ve been made long ago.

Thirdly, taking their children out is not a matter of hiding. Nice try at poisoning the well there. They take their children out because children are not equipped to withstand or refute the bilge that is characteristic of all Government schools.

As an example… in my little corner of the woods which is largely middle class and white (the standards that you previously mentioned) the Government schools are doing the whole “furrie” thing and the whole Trannie thing and the whole sex education thing.

You’re just massively in error Joshua about all of this. Indeed, for whatever it is worth, you really need to repent for being an advocate for Christians sending God’s covenant seed to anti-Christ government schools. It is sin for you to do this.

Josh writes,

11. A lot of Christian parents don’t take the LGBT crowd head on, because they are shaky on it themselves. They attend churches that say homosexual acts are sinful, but the orientation is not. They let their kids watch movies, listen to songs, spend hours on social media where this stuff is promoted non stop. Their kids are going to get swept away no matter where they go to school.

Bret responds,

So… because parents are rotten therefore it is OK for them to be maximum rotten?

Look, I quite agree that parents are a problem but maybe that is, in part, because the parents attended government schools?

Joshua writes,

12. High school kids are getting more conservative, according to some polls. At my children’s high schools, PRIDE displays get vandalized. Most despise the LGBT crowd. It’s against nature, so they naturally hate that whole agenda.

Bret responds,

When these children become adults with children I’ll then know the general population as gotten “more conservative,” when they refuse to send their children to government schools. Until then, it’s all anecdotal.

Look Joshua… I think we have covered this pretty well and it is clear that we are not making much progress. As such, I don’t know if I will be posting your future protestations. Thanks for being a contestant. There are some lovely parting prizes for some of our contestants who played but didn’t win.

In Defense Of Myself Against The Clergy’s Slander & Libel

“Some have complained that Luther was too severe. I will not deny this. But I will answer in the language of Erasmus: Because the sickness was so great, God gave this age a rough doctor … If Luther was severe, it was because of his earnestness for the truth, not because he loved strife or harshness.”

Phillip Melanchthon

Luther’s Funeral Oration

“The pastor ought to have two voices: one, for gathering the sheep; and another, for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves. The Scripture supplies him with the means of doing both.”

John Calvin

Recently, I was having a conversation with a Pastor I had met for the first time. Before meeting we had corresponded somewhat so we were not complete strangers. Within 10 minutes of our initial conversation he casually commented;

“I knew you wouldn’t bite my head off.”

To which I responded; “Who ever said I would?”

His response was not that surprising I suppose. He informed me that he had “Reformed” clergy friends who had witnessed that we were corresponding and those “Reformed” clergy friends upon seeing our corresponding had said things like, “Ah, now we see where you are trending.” My conversational partner made it clear that I had been marked out as one to be avoided by other Reformed clergy. To his credit, this Pastor defended me in his conversation.

A few months prior to this a little known Reformed clergy member in a phone booth sized Reformed denomination wrote in a public post that “Bret McAtee is the Godfather of Kinism,” and continued to warn people against me. Now, to be honest, I could wear the mantle of “The Godfather of Kinism” as a badge of honor were it true, but alas I am merely the lesser son of Greater Reformed Ministers and Doctors of the Church who came before me and from whom I have learned my Kinism.

There have been sundry other incidents. One time when a couple was considering attending the Church I minister at, the Pastor at the church they were leaving pulled the husband aside and in dark tones warned about attending a “racist” church. Said “Pastor” couldn’t wait to pull that card. Yet, nothing I have said on the subject of race was not said by countless other church Fathers as testified to in the Anthology; “Who Is My Neighbor.”

These attacks on my character and reputation are nothing new to me. Years ago newspapers, radio, and TV outlets across the state blackened my name with typical Lugenpresse lies and half-truths about the beliefs I hold that were the beliefs that I learned from my Christian Fathers. They picked this up from a muscular hate organization (SPLC) who also blackened my reputation and name. Not to be outdone, a major denomination in America went out of their way attempting to destroy my good name — again by allowing the enemies of the Gospel create the narrative without any input from me.

Now combine all this vitriolic slander and libel with the fact that like Luther before me I have been a rough doctor because of the sickness of this age. Indeed, we (the church and the culture) are more sick than we can even begin to plumb. Like Luther, I have been severe because of my love for the truth and because of my love for the Lord Christ. I have been severe, at times, in rebuking idiots because I ardently believe that “bad theology hurts people and hurts them badly.” Like Calvin my voice has, perhaps, slightly been used as much to drive off the wolves and thieves than it has been used to gather the flock. For these realities, I do not apologize. Not in the least. Indeed, it is my daily prayer that God would raise up more shepherds who have the ability to see the danger that exists as coming from those reputed to be pillars in the church.

However, all should be aware that I have paid a price for standing athwart the times while cursing the enveloping and settling darkness. It is the kind of price that St. Paul talks about in the Scripture when he talks about being made a spectacle to the world in I Corinthians 4. It as all been the fulfillment of Christ’s words;

“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.”

And I have to tell you I do believe that even though a great amount of this hate is coming from “the church” it is really the case that it is coming from the world as in the Church. I believe this because I have said nothing, or believe nothing, that can’t be found in all the greats throughout history whom I have spent my life reading. None of it is new or original to me. It was all there and I found it in my wall to wall reading habits.

My problem, if a problem it is, is that the tight worldview I have does not allow me to see problems in other people’s thinking without at the same time seeing where even the comparatively smallest of errors in that thinking may well lead. If I have erred it has been to err by not just walking away from discussions without pointing out the implications of conversation partners thinking X, Y, or Z. Even at this age I continue to work at not picking at the tiny scabs in other people’s worldviews.

Still, I have lived through the rise of the heresy Federal Vision and have had to fight that. I have lived through the rise of Radical Two Kingdom theology and have to fight that. I have had to fight the dismal New Perspective On Paul theology. Then there have been the old enemies of dispensationalism, Arminianism, and Free Will Theism, not to mention, the whole abomination that was the “Church Growth Movement,” as well as the monster called “The Emergent Church Movement” — which was really just cultural Marxism and Liberation theology coming dressed up in Evangelical Evening clothes. Then there is, of course, the constant infusion of egalitarianism into the church at every turn — more cultural Marxism.

All of these are heresies. All of them deserve the harshest treatment possible. If the Church’s immune system were not shattered each would have been snuffed out in their crib.

So, my crime, if there is a crime, is that I have strongly insisted on the truth of what the Fathers have said. I have used the “drive off the wolves and thieves” voice to scatter God’s enemies. With God as my witness I have tried to be patient through the years. However, in the face of rank and death dealing doctrine I have protested often… and loudly. And so, I find myself enveloped in a reputation given to me by people who may be well intended but are largely dumb and it seems they have succeeded in making me a pariah in many quarters.

Well, my Lord Christ told me that

“If we suffer, we shall also reign with him”

So, I have this comfort. It is the comfort that Machen must have comforted himself with when he was defrocked. It is the comfort that Edwards must have known when he was tossed from his congregation. It is the comfort that the Reformers were familiar with when cast out by the Whore of a Church in Rome. Each and all, as well as countless others through the ages, have suffered far far worse than anything I have suffered. Along with everything else, my reputation belongs to Christ and I am secure in the fact that I have pleased Him by standing for His cause — even if I have hurt the feelings of todays “conservative” “Reformed” clergy.

I don’t suppose, at my age, the pitch and intensity of my voice is going to change much. I am not likely to get much softer when confronted with the utter skubala that is so often characteristic of the visible Church today. Counter-Revolutions are not led by the soft-spoken and retiring.

Folks can be comforted by one thing though… they can be comforted that if they are friends of the Christ who walks through Scripture they will be my friends. They can be comforted in knowing that if they are seeking truth I will be their most patient and best friend in that endeavor.

If they are not… well, then it is the rough doctor for you. But if the Rough Doctor comes out try to understand that he is present out of love of God and love for your soul’s well being.

Please pray for my ongoing need for sanctification. It is never easy to determine when it is time for the thief voice or time for the gather the sheep voice and I admittedly often fail in striking just the right tone. Also pray for the visible church and today’s “conservative” “Reformed” clergy corps that God might be pleased to give Reformation in head and members.