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.

Assurance & The Objectivity Of The Covenant

Bret said It is the same kind of promise that was extended to Israel… both to the Israel of Israel and the Israel that was not of Israel. When considering the promise in light of knowing the whole story it is conditional to the reprobate and unconditional to the elect.

David responds,

Agreed, but then how does this establish personal assurance of salvation? The thing FV tries to do is to point to the sacraments and the covenant to establish assurance because they are supposed to be “objective”, but then it has a doctrine of the covenant that is conditional and includes reprobates, curses and the possibility of apostacy. But FV, not being a paragon of logical consistency, fails to see that it undercuts itself in making this very move.

David, I’m not FV so what I am about to say is my answer. I don’t know how the FV would answer it.

As a pastor I deal with two types of people when it comes to the issue of assurance. On the one hand I deal with believers, who realizing God’s great holiness and their own behavior in light of that holiness struggle haplessly for assurance regardless of how superior their Christian character is. They have trouble bringing themselves to believe that God can really forgive them. To these ‘naval gazer’ types
I first admonish them for looking so intently inwardly rather then outwardly but I also say, “Christ is for you and He has given the Sacraments to confirm that He really has forgiven you. Take and feast on Christ and know that you are accepted for the sake of the work for you of He who is conveyed to you in the Sacrament.” In short I emphasize the objectivity of the covenant. Luther made a move somewhat similar to this. When the devil would come to him and remind him of his great sins, Luther, being overwhelmed, would finally say, “It’s true, It’s true, but I’ve been baptized.” The covenant is objective.

On the other hand ministers have to deal with those in the congregation who need to hear a different emphasis because they are dispositionally relating to the covenant in a different manner. These are thus whose lives are characterized by a neglect of pursuit of holiness in favor or a pursuit of behavior that is inconsistent with a professing Christian. To these I need to remind them that the very same covenant that must be taken as rock solid assurance by the naval gazers is a covenant that offers no assurance to ‘the people of God’ who are acting like “dogs returning to their own vomit, and sows, having been bathed, to their rolling in mire.” Indeed that very same covenant that is a rock of assurance to the navel gazers who will look away from themselves to Jesus is a rock that will crush the libertines.

To the former I must tell them to rightly presume on grace. To the latter I must warn them of the danger of wrongly presuming on grace.

Now that can be made to look contradictory, as you have done above, but given how I’ve explained it, and given the fact that different people in the Church with different problems need to be spoken to differently I fail to see the contradiction.

Hillary ain’t never been called a trigger

As I noted yesterday, race is continuing to seep into the Democratic Presidential sweepstakes.

Since yesterdays post about Geraldine Ferraro saying that “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” Ms. Ferraro has resigned from her loose connections with the Clinton campaign.

Today, however there is more news on the race front. As I have mentioned before Barack Obama has a black racist as a Pastor. It seems that Obama has been attending this Church for twenty years and considers Rev. Jeremiah Wright a sort of mentor. This Rev. Wright Married the Obamas, baptized their children, and his Church has been the major recipient of the Obama’s charitable giving over the years.

Now, this is no casual relationship between Pastor and parishioner. Barack Hussein Obama obviously likes what he sees in his Pastor which is confirmed by the reality that Rev. Wright is now connected to the Obama campaign.

Here we have this cozy relationship between these two men. Isn’t it profitable for us that Rev. Wright’s sermons have been transcribed over the years so that we can have a peek into the kind of Spiritual mentor that Obama has esteemed over all these years?

Quoting Rev. Wright from some of his sermons,

“Barack knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people, Hillary would never know that. Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had a people defined as a non-person.”

“Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill has been good to us. No he ain’t! Bill did us, just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty.”

“God d&*% America for treating its citizens as less than human. (We’re living in the) “US of KKK A.”

So here we have this Holy Man who has been so profoundly influential on Barack Hussein Obama. We know that the Obama’s have been listening to this kind of Black whitey hatred for 20 years. Now, we can understand, perhaps, why Mrs. Michelle Obama recently said,

For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is making a comeback.”

If I sat under the kind of preaching that constantly gave doses of how Black people were victims and were being hustled by White people I likewise might say for the first time in my life I was proud of my country, if I saw my spouse making headway in a campaign for President.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a window into the soul of Barack Hussein Obama. It is a dirty window, that not even a forced resignation of Rev. Wright could clean. For twenty years Wright has been, in Obama’s own words, his “sounding board”, “moral compass”. “mentor”, and “spiritual inspiration.”

II.)Political Calculations

Of course this does irreparable harm to Obama both now but more so if he makes it to the general election. As this becomes more widely known you can forget about the White Middle Class Union workers of Pennsylvania voting for Obama in the upcoming primary. Also if he makes it to the general election the rantings of Rev. Wright will be played every day on every radio talk show in the nation, with the results, as I’ve said before, that White America will not elect a Liberal Democrat Black man.

In the end Obama is no different then Jesse “New York City is Hymie Town” Jackson or Al “Tawana Brawley” Sharpton. In a sane country these revelations would destroy a candidate, reducing him to being able to garner only black voters.

BUT America is not sane so who can say what will happen.

Election Cycle 2008

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.”

Geraldine Ferraro
1984 Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee

For decades the Democrats have pushed the idea of affirmative action and race and gender quotas which teaches that people who are of politically correct skin hue or who have the politically correct genitalia must receive primary consideration for competitive government contracts, and placement in University programs above people who are more qualified then those whose skin hue isn’t dark enough or above those who used to be required to ride side saddle in order to be considered a lady.

Now they are in the position of complaining about the very standards that they helped to create. Ferraro is correct… if Obama weren’t a black man he would not only not be being considered to be qualified to be President but he also would not have been considered qualified to have been a U.S. Senator. His primary qualification to be President is that he is a Black man living in the midst of White, nominally Christian people who have been convinced that they need to feel guilty about being White and Christian and who further have been convinced that the way that their corporate guilt can be atoned for is by providing reparations by way of voting for an inexperienced black guy with a Muslim name that doesn’t strike them as being either to black or to Muslim.

The really ironic thing in all of this is that the Democratic party is going to rip itself apart trying to determine which minority (women or blacks) are the greater victims, who because of that higher victim status, deserve to have one or the other of their unqualified candidates at the top of the ticket. In any other election cycle a Al Gore or a John Kerry would cakewalk into the White House against a Republican party candidate that doesn’t appeal to his own base. Not so in election cycle 2008.In this election cycle the Democrats, because of their quota requirements, are going to offer up a candidate who is unqualified and who will represent a party that will be divided because some great victim group who will once again be victimized. Does anybody think the black vote is going to turnout for the Democrats if Hillary gets the nomination? Will the feminists be energized if Barak gives Hillary the shaft?

Already I can tell you that the Presidential election of 2008 is not going to about who can win but rather it is going to be about who can avoid losing. On the Republican side there will be no great passion for McCain by his base and on the Democratic either candidate will be damaged goods no matter what face they will try to put on it when it is all said and done. Voting will come down to a decision of who people hate less.

If you are a Christian why not vote US Constitution party and be able to live with yourself after you come out of the voting booth?

Revised & Updated FOS Changes

Apparently the committee that did the first work on giving reasoning for the wholesale change to the Christian Reformed Church’s Form of Subscription went back to the drawing board after some input and modified some of their work. I won’t spend a lot of time with this because the modifications are not that substantial.

From the new and improved committee work we read,

The variety of issues with signing the Form of Subscription that have come up, as well as ongoing attempts to change it, indicate that officebearers today seek to be guided by—not silenced by—the FOS in their understanding of the confessions.

OK… here is really where the issue becomes fuzzy. How could any officebearer claim to be being guided by the FOS if they were advocating something that heretofore would have found the FOS to have been silencing them? This whole ‘guided by – not silenced by’ language is just cutesy for, ‘What it says has made me to think but I disagree with it.’ Second, how can an officebearer claim to be guided by the Form of Subscription while at the same time rising up to speak against their guide? Why else would being ‘silenced by the FOS’ be threatening unless some officebearer determined that the guide was wrong? And if officebearers determine that the guide is wrong are they really be guided by the FOS? In this context, what does ‘guided by’ mean? (Everybody knows that ‘not silenced by’ means that it will be ok to rise up to speak against the confessions.)

Therefore, any regulatory instrument that is adopted by the church ought to be regarded as an invitation to the officebearers of the church to participate in this ongoing reflection rather than as a
document that precludes or hinders such reflection. To this end, we recommend, first, that the title of this document be A Doctrinal Covenant for Officebearers rather than Form of Subscription because it outlines the communal nature of the responsibilities and blessings of ordination and encourages participation as well as regulation.

First note that it is admitted that the FOS or Covenant of Ordination (COO) is intended to be a regulatory document. If something is regulatory it means that it is regulating (monitoring) behavior to insure conformity. And yet, this regulatory, ‘not silencing’instrument, is an invitation to ongoing reflection that presumptively can lead to change in the Confessions. So what does the regulatory instrument regulate since it no longer seems to be regulating adherence? Does it regulate the rate of change? Does it regulate the amount of loquaciousness of those who desire change? Does it regulate the communal nature of change? Does it regulate the rate of participation? What does this new document regulate?

Second, given this is a covenant of ordination and given that all covenants have sanctions for violations one wonders what will be considered a violation of this regulatory covenant and what will be the sanctions of the yet unknown violations?

To remain a truly confessional church, the confessions need to function significantly in our various callings, helping us to deepen our understanding of Scripture in our Reformed tradition.

The Confessions, ‘Functioning significantly’ is a great deal different then the Confessions ‘being adhered to.’ ‘Function significantly’ is also pretty subjective. Who gets to define if the Confessions are functioning significantly in Homer’s life but not Horatio’s and by what standard?

I still strenuously disagree with making the Contemporary Testimony a virtual Fourth form of unity and I likewise disagree with the slippery Covenant of ordination language.

People desiring to read the Committee’s revised work can go here,

Click to access FormofSubscriptionReport08.pdf

More News From California

In lightning pre-dawn strikes SWAT and ATF teams across California swept in on homeschooling families throughout the State. Just arriving reports suggest that causalities have been low with only a very few home school parents being killed although in one particular case it seems that one of the home school cells had been tipped off in advance with the result that a firefight ensued that ended with all 10 members of the revolutionary band being killed. The good news is though that none of the States brave police women or men have been injured in the pre-dawn raids.

The raids have collected a booty of subversive pamphlets, books, and other assorted literature. Already Police have set up tables identifying this subversive literature for the press corps to examine. There have been countless copies of the US Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Magna Carta seized, as well as such little known works as Vindicae Contra Tyrannos, The Kentucky, & Virginia Resolutions, St. George Tucker’s commentaries on the Constitution, Benjamin Morris’s, ‘The Christian Life and Character Of The Civil Institutions Of The United States,’ George Buchanan’s, ‘De Jure Regni Apud Scotos,’ Johannes Althusius ‘Politica Methodice Digesta, Atque Exemplis Sacris et Profanis Illustrata,’ the works of John Knox, Samuel Rutherford, Patrick Henry, and other authors and works that ATF Chief Joseph Steele Bismarck said were, “funny looking and more funny titled, and which when considering their cumulative effect on these strange people are self evidently destroyers of the general will, public harmony and our American way of life.” Later once the full catch is collated Police hope to display other assorted novels, treatises, and political tracts in order to convey to the public the dangers of a wrong kind of reading and education. Chief Bismarck ended our brief interview by saying that “once all the heavy work of tracing the books back to those who criminally sold such books and once the haul is fully cataloged the literature will be burned.”

Those subversives arrested during the morning ‘strike for freedom’ will be fully debriefed by professionals flown in from Langley. Authorities on the site are saying, even if only in whispered tones, that they hope it doesn’t come down to using water boarding techniques to gain information from those who are hurting the children. Officials already have brought in a team of child Psychologists to help with the children who have been traumatized by their home schooling experience. The psychologist professionals are telling this reporter that if the children are young enough and if they can isolate the children in the context of intense counseling and with the aid of psycho-tropic drugs the damage done to these children in most cases is rectifiable.

However the State has decided that once the debriefing sessions are finished, those seized, who will eventually be mainstreamed back into American educational centers, will be required to wear a yellow Cross prominently displayed on their clothing so as to identify them as potential dangers.

It seems that in light of this pre-dawn liberation every segment of society is coming forth to weigh in publicly on this stunning victory for liberty. The spokesman from the ACLU, Marten Boormen has said, “the repression of the civil rights of these children was unconscionable. The ACLU will be filing amicus briefs in favor of the State if any legal action is filed.” Torry Quemada speaking for ‘The Children’s Defense Fund’ said, “Today California revealed that to be ever free a people must be ever vigilant. The California chapter of the CDF, in compassion for its most innocent citizens, supports this necessary work of the State.” Also we have a statements by two Church organizations. First, the Evangelical California Churches stated through their spokesman, Rev. Larry Beria, “today Jesus is smiling in heaven as the State’s children have been set free from those who practice the religion of oppression, hate, and slavery. Our chief prayer is that these people during their restoration will find Jesus.” Westminster West Seminary Spokesman, Rev. Dr. R. Scott Irons said, “The Church cannot speak to this since God’s word doesn’t speak to this though we are encouraged to see Presbyterian Judges like H. Walter Croskey, who signed off on this raid, working in the common realm to implement his vision of the Christian faith.”

There seems to be some debate as to whether or not the trials will be public as some State official are concerned about the possible lynch mobs that such a public trial could create, although officials concede that with the current huge backlog of trials the public energy created by these arrests could be well dissipated by the time these cases are heard.