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.

A Brief Look At Trueman’s Look At A Reformed Revival

Carl Trueman over at Reformation 21 has written an interesting article on the what appears to be an ever increasing matriculation towards the Reformed faith. I recommend reading the article.

However there are some things I don’t get about Dr. Trueman.

First, in the past he has written unkindly about home schoolers and homeschooling. Dr. Trueman refers to this movement mentioned in his article as revival and it might well be that it is revival but I will guarantee that it will be shallow, short lived and ineffectual if it is not accompanied by parents who understand what Christian education is and who thus pursue with all vigor.

Second, Dr. Trueman has, in the past, had some unflattering (actually “mean” would be a better word) words about Dr. R. J. Rushdoony and those who have an appreciation for the man and his work. In the article mentioned above Trueman waxes eloquent on how Dr. Albert Mohler has rescued Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville and yet Trueman has condemned Rushdoony who has done more to rescue Christian education at the secondary level than anybody in the last 100 years. Now I don’t believe in paper saints and the point is not that Rushdoony is beyond criticism but I should think if one is going to do criticism it should be well rounded. Trueman’s criticism of Rushdoony has been anything but well rounded.

Third, in the article above Trueman has this to say about the bubbling revival,

“It is also exciting to realize that this new zeal for solid theology does not always have to be combined with an uptight social and political conservatism that longs for the enlightened days of Genghis Khan’s domestic and foreign policies (hey, he was kind to his grandchildren…..) and the kind of women’s fashions made popular by Little House on the Prairie.

Given the false things that Trueman has said in the past on some issues I would dearly love to know what the man meant by the above blockquoted statement. What does Dr. Trueman consider to be “uptight social and political conservatism?” Where is Dr. Trueman finding the Reformed church being flooded by “women’s fashions made popular by Little House on the Prairie?” (Personally I always thought that Caroline looked kind of hot in those top of the neck to the bottom of the toe dresses.) Now if the “Genghis Khan domestic and foreign policies” that Trueman refers to are things like the Patriot Act or the new Cabinet post of Deutschland Security or the invasion of a country that didn’t have weapons of mass destruction I am right there with him. But I don’t know if he means that so it would be interesting for him to tease out exactly what he means. Dr. Trueman can you elaborate on your statement above and please speak clearly into the microphone so we all can hear you.

Another thing I don’t get is the infatuation I often see with all things Baptist by many Credo Reformed people. One can see it in this article by Trueman. Are Baptists — even Reformed Baptists — wrong? Sure, Reformed Baptist might be better then thorough-going Arminians but have our Credo-Reformed people given up on critiquing them? Does one get to a point in the Reformed Universe where pointed criticisms of Reformed Baptist are considered gauche and in bad taste?

Trueman makes some great points about the problem with Reformed people attending non Reformed Churches. One thing that Dr. Trueman doesn’t note though is how difficult it is for people to find a Reformed Church that is Reformed. The reason that Reformed people might be attending these non Reformed Churches, viewing them as Mission fields, is that there is nothing Reformed within a reasonable distance. It is possible that Dr. Trueman, holed up in his ivory tower, may not realize how bad it is outside of Philadelphia, Escondido, Grand Rapids or other Mecca points of the Reformed Faith. Still, his advice should be carefully heeded by people if there is a Reformed Church for them to attend in the area in which they live that is genuinely Reformed. Labels on the sign don’t get an automatic pass.

Trueman’s criticism of the personality cult is spot on. It is true for mega ministries, even of the orthodox Reformed variety, that people should “follow the money,” and ask if their favorite minister has gone from grinding out the grain to being a Rock Star.

The way that Truman reasons about “sociological phenomena” is curious. I think I know what he is getting at but it almost sounds like he is suggesting that sociology is a independent realm apart from theological influence that can give us insight into people’s social habits. If you read the article and don’t understand what I mean don’t worry about it. My radar might be wired to tightly.

Finally I have to know…

Is Dr. Trueman any relation to Harry? Did Margaret have a love child? Inquiring minds want to know.

Well The Good News Is

I won’t have to worry about spending time weeding my garden this year.

I love gardening. Every year we plant around 100 tomato plants and 50 assorted pepper plants plus rows of green beans. We do broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant, cabbage, brussel sprouts, turnips, beets, radishes, watermelon, various kinds of squash, cucumbers, etc. Then in harvest time we can and freeze to beat the band.

Well, for 2008 all of that is history. We had a beautiful garden growing but what surely must pass as the worst flash storm I’ve ever seen in my life all of our garden is toast. We had buckets of hail that just destroyed all of our plants. Kind of sad to see all those naked plants.

God does all things well.

Obama’s Zanesville Speech — Gov’t. & Faith Based Organizations

In a speech in Zanesville Ohio, Barack Hussein Obama continued to court the evangelical vote by promising increased cooperation from the federal government for faith based initiatives.

Obama noted how he came to realize that he could sit in Church and pray all he wanted he “wouldn’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I went out and did the Lord’s work.” Obama didn’t speak to the question of how it was possible to do “The Lord’s work” with money stolen from the taxpayer in confiscatory taxation and neither did he mention what the Lord would say about a policy that hooks people on the narcotic of government aid thus making them government addicts wedded to supporting big statist government in hopes of continuing to receive their “fix” from the State.

In his speech Obama mentioned several organizations that provide faith based assistance. Obama lauded them for their work but he didn’t mention the danger in these groups taking money from the state. He neglected to mention that “he who take the Kings coin is the kings man.” He didn’t mention the danger of these faith based organizations getting hooked on government aid and what that addiction might mean in way of compromise when the State comes along with directives to the organization if it wants to retain its cash flow from the State.

Obama mentioned that he believed that “change comes not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up” but he didn’t explain how that belief is consistent with his non wavering support of Big government which is a classic “change comes from the top down” kind of belief.

In perhaps the most telling quote of the speech Obama said,

That’s why Washington needs to draw on them. The fact is, the challenges we face today – from saving our planet to ending poverty – are simply too big for government to solve alone. We need all hands on deck.

The reason that this quote is so important is that it begs the question of who is the captain directing “all hands on deck.” This quote seems to imply that faith based organizations are going to be drafted by the Federal Government to aid its attempt to solve what it perceives to be the world’s problem. Government won’t be solving these things alone, but rather Government will enlist the aid of faith based organizations to help it solve these problems together, much as the Government enlists the aid of the private citizen to “help” fund their nanny state projects.

Obama went on to cite how the previous two administration have paved the way to absorbing faith based organizations into the maw of the Leviathan State. He also promised that he would streamline the process to get government aid to faith based organizations so that smaller organizations could more easily get at and suckle from the teat of the State. Obama insisted in his plan that faith based organizations who take advantage of the money that the state has stolen in confiscatory taxation will not be allowed to proselytize (evangelize) people nor will they be allowed not to discriminate against people for religious reasons. Clearly, this means that Christian faith based organizations will not be able to fire people whose beliefs are completely contradictory to their beliefs.

Obama’s plans clearly allow the possibility for gaming the system. Crafty “religionists” could put up front organizations in order to satisfy the requirement for Federal Aid and then funnel that money in different directions allowing a pittance of that money to keep the front organization running.

Obama also proposed using the faith based monies for education mentioning the liberal and socialist “Children’s defense fund” by name. The problem with these schools is the same problem that exists in public schools and that is they are religious committed to Religious Humanism.

Obama mentioned other programs with which his support for “Faith based organizations” could assist. What the reader needs to realize is that all of this is geared for churches or organizations that have bought into the lie of humanist based socialism. What aid to faith based organizations is, is merely a parallel movement to do for “religious organizations” what has been done for “public schools.” A faith based organization that is epistemologically self consciously Christian would never want one dime of this money because they would realize that to take the money is to support the whole socialist apparatus that supports it.

Reading The Signs Of Our Times

Over at Mablog Doug Wilson continues to write on how to go about reading the meaning of historical events in terms of what God is saying. Wilson’s contention is that Christians ought to be able to read the times and by doing so proclaim what God is saying by events that happen in history. The belief that Christians ought to have the ability to do this has long historical legs in Christian thinking. St. Louis IX the Christian Crusader King concluded that God was afflicting him for his sins by not giving him the victory he was looking for on the Crusades in which he participated. The Puritan forebears in the early colonies understood God’s hand to be against them for disobedience when calamity came against them. Many of the Southern Theologians in the 2nd War for American Independence explained their defeat as God’s just judgments against them for their sins as a nation. In the same way you can find the opposite conclusions that God was giving success to undertakings because of obedience rendered by the people. You can find the kind of thing that Doug Wilson is contemplating all over Church history.

Now the positive aspect of this kind of approach is that it reminds us that what happens in history does not happen by way of mechanical necessity. This approach reminds us that God is intimately involved in history.It reminds us that Hurricanes are God’s Hurricanes. It reminds us that a rising to or falling from power is done by God. It reminds us that prosperity is ultimately due to God’s favor. Christians raised in a world where science is sovereign and so everything that happens has to be explained in terms of science need to learn that everything comes from a sovereign God who remains the sustainer and governor of the Universe.

Of course the problem with this enterprise is that it may be beyond human endeavor to climb up into God’s filing cabinet in order to say a “Thus saith the Lord” by way of precise explanation for why Hurricane Katrina happened or why 9-11 happened or why there are floods in the Midwest. Sure, we can always give the necessary observation that if towers fall and kill people what the living should do is repent unless something worst should happen to them (Luke 13:1-4) but that is a far piece from saying that the tower fell because of some legislation that passed that was anti-Christ.

On this subject here are a few things that I would like to recognize.

1.) Immediate blessing is not always the consequence of obedience and immediate cursing is not always the consequence of disobedience. The Covenanters were an obedient people but for decades they were mercilessly persecuted. The same goes for the Hugenots and the Puritans. Immediate blessing doesn’t always follow obedience.

2.) Whenever God does curse a people that curse is a blessing to God’s people who live among the cursed people. This is to say that for those who belong to God, whatever God does is blessing to them. The Heidelberg Catechism gets at this when it says “that God will make whatever evils he sends upon me (His people), in this valley of tears turn out to my advantage.” This means that if God sends a natural calamity it is both a cursing and a blessing. It is a cursing to God haters but a blessing to those God loves. God may chasten those He loves but that chastening is a blessing.

3.) Similarly whenever God blesses a people that blessing is always a curse to the reprobate. God may act favorably toward a people for the sake of His people in their midst but that very favor is judgment against the reprobate in their midst.

4.) The ability to say “This is That” gives the person who takes that upon himself to much power. If people really believe that somebody can tell them why God does such and such in history that person speaks to them with the voice of God and so has a leverage that probably isn’t going to be healthy. Cults form around people who presume to be able to be God’s interpreter on why what happens, happens.

It is my conviction that we should go very slow on taking up the prophetic mantle in order to do a “this is that” commentary at what happens in history. We don’t have the advantage of being inspired so as to have divine insight into the meaning of God’s working in this world as did the prophets in the Scriptures. On the other hand we need to cultivate the sense that all that happens, happens by the working of a Sovereign God bringing about the ends he has decreed.