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.

Sundry Quotes Surrounding The Slavery Issue

“The negroes were already slaves in their own country — slaves to masters whose authority was absolute — and had been such for time immemorial…. Chiefs built their huts of human bones, and drank the blood of their enemy from human skulls, and yearly offered up whole hecatombs of human sacrifices; and on the death of every head man of the tribe, hundreds of his slaves were butchered over his grave, that they might accompany and serve their dead master in the other world.”

Daniel Robinson Hundley

Social Relations in our Southern States

Published 1860

Honestly, the descendants of those slaves who made it to America should be like Joseph in the Bible and understand that God intended their slavery for good even if others intended it for evil. There is much that the descendants of Africa have for which to daily thank God. One of which is that their forefathers didn’t end up dead in Africa before being brought to the new world.

“No race gets blamed more for the slavery of Africans than whites, yet no race has done more to abolish the slavery of blacks than whites. No race is seen more as victims of slavery than African descendants, yet no race has more promoted slavery of its people than black Africans.”

Isaac Bishop

Defending Dixie’s Land — p. 365

Perhaps the descendants of black slaves should first be demanding reparations from African nations and tribes?

“Slavery, as everybody knows, was forced upon the colonies by the arbitrary and despotic rule of Great Britain.”

Albert Taylor Bledsoe

“When American slave ships first came to Africa, slaves were already a booming African export. Africa’s #1 export was slaves, even before white men came to purchase slaves. Most African slaves had been sold and sent West to Arab Mooselimbs and Asia. Some countries in Africa had as much as 75-90% of their population enslaved by fellow blacks. Further only 6% of the slaves imported to the Western world from Africa between 1640-1820 came to America; most went to places like Brazil, Cuba, the Caribbean, etc.”

Isaac Bishop

Defending Dixie’s Land — p. 362

I suggest America paying reparations to slaves right after Africa and the Mooselimb world pay reparations to slaves.

This whole “reparations thing” is just one more shakedown.

On Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (EP)

“Where he could have freed slaves he did not. Where he did free slaves, he could not.”

Wm. Seward
Lincoln Sec’y of State

The London Spectator reported on the Emancipation Proclamation on 11 October, 1862;

“The Union government liberates the enemy’s slaves as it would the enemy’s cattle, simply to weaken them in conflict. The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he can’t own him unless he is loyal to the US.”

“The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these new [western territories]. We want them for the home of free white people.”

Abraham Lincoln

16 October, 1854

One more piece of evidence that the cause of the War Between the States was NOT slavery. In modern terms the North was “racist” for wanting to exclude blacks from the new territories while the South was “racist” for wanting to own blacks while living in the new territories.

The cause of the Civil War is found in the answer to the question, “What type of Federal Government shall we be ruled by?” Would we be ruled by a top down consolidated Nationalistic Federal Government or a Confederated Union of States where the Federal Government was to have delegated and enumerated powers that were limited and defined? The War of Northern Aggression answered the question for us, until such a time that the legality of the US Constitution can be restored.

“The Slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and glory of all their wealth. The Mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph of an enemy reduced to slavery.”

Black African King — King Gezo of Dahomey

1840

Upon hearing of the United Kingdom’s ending of the Slave trade The King of Bonny (now in Nigeria) was horrified at the conclusion of the practice and said,

” We think this trade must go on. That is the verdict of our oracle and the priests. They say that your country, however great, can never stop a trade ordained by God himself.”

On The Issue Of Who Is Downstream From Whom

It is only partially true that “politics is downstream of culture” and this because politics is itself an expression of culture. Saying that politics is downstream of culture is like saying that politics is downstream of politics or culture is downstream of culture.

Culture is not exactly the same as politics nor politics exactly the same as culture but they are so involved in one another it’s difficult to say that “politics is downstream of culture,” as if we can only fix politics once culture is fixed.

The real kicker here is that both culture and politics are downstream of another reality. Both culture and politics are downstream of theology. If it is true that “as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is,” then clearly politics and culture, when examined closely are nothing but the products of what a man thinketh about God. All of our politics and our culture are byproducts of how we think about theology. Indeed, not only all of our politics and our culture but everything that is part of what we call “culture.” From the fashion world, to economics, to art, to social theory — all of it is an expression of how we think about God. Change how a people think about God and you’ll change their culture and everything that comprised their culture. As such everything is downstream of theology. Theology remains the queen of the Sciences. This is especially so for people who deny that theology is the queen of the sciences for it is their theology that is informing them that theology is not the queen of the sciences.

When we cut culture or politics off from theology (as if we could) the result inevitably is a man centered culture and in a man centered culture/politics the result will be that man, considered either individually (anarchism) or collectively (statism) will become the god of the culture so that theology with man as God will remain the queen of the sciences. Everything is downstream of theology.

Because this is true nothing can be tweaked downstream of theology in culture or politics that does not mean that a change in theology upstream has been tweaked as well. All of life is nothing but our theology being lived out and put on display.

All of this explains why I find R2K so insufferable. R2K owns a theology that says the common realm must be Christian theology free. R2K denies that the common realm can be theologically Christian and by denying that they have affirmed, by necessity, that the common realm must be theologically heathen. Now, they will try to cover this with the idea that a non-Christian theology that is acceptable to all (going by the name of Natural Law) but this desperate denial by R2K that there exists “Christian families,” or “Christian education,” or “Christian law,” or “Christian nations,” or “Christendom,” or “Christian culture” only leaves to us the theology of polytheism and pluralism to govern the public square. In R2K land the absence of Christianity in the common realm is the presence of Christianity in the common realm. In R2K land the common realm is neutral not governed by any particular God’s law — except the law having the most force behind it in order to enforce the definition of natural law that must be embraced by the common realm. However…. that law which ends up having the most force behind it so that is is accepted as the definition of Natural Law is the force that is the God that is driving everything downstream.

How we think about God …

What is His character/attributes
What does He desire
What is true of those He claims are His
By what standard does He govern
Whose glory is He interested in
What does He call sin

Will incarnate itself into both politics and culture and everything else because it is always the case that in our gods we live and move and have our being.

All of this is in turn influenced by who God created each of us to be as belonging to our particular tribes, tongues, and nations.

All this to say that politics is not preeminent as if culture is downstream of politics. All this to say that culture is not preeminent as if everything is downstream of a culture that is theologically independent. All of this to say that everything is downstream of theology.

If we want to change our culture. We have to change our gods.

The Stranger Within Our Gates …. Kipling Updated

The Strangers within our gates
Strangers, they must remain
Lest God’s people become the aliens
And their inheritance wear iron chains
Lest alien gods become ascendant
And their children become our bane

The Strangers within our gates
Are now more than we can contain
As seen in the unrest witnessed
In the New Orleans’ hurt and slain
As seen in the growing replacement
That would end the the current reign

The Strangers within our gates
Propositions he may maintain
But absent from his chest and roots
Is the patria he cannot retain
His blood is cold to our ways
He’s sings the songs with his refrains

The Strangers within our gates
Is not uniquely the current bane
The traitor and the treasonous
Are voices that yet remain
Are voices that loudly support
The idea that were all the same

Party Politics & The Pervert Vote

As people are increasingly defined and controlled by their sexual lusts it will be the political party that caters to the fulfillment of those perverted lusts who will come to control the apparatus of the State. Politicians who offer to make perversion consequence free will be the Politicians elected to run the immorality state BUT as they offer sexual freedom as the promissory bait in exchange for votes what they are really selling is the hook of Political tyrannical control.

Constituents who can not control their passions are Constituents who will need to be controlled by the State as passions, once set free in the sexual domain, will not be able to stay within their boundaries in other domains.

Another reality that arises out of this political yielding to those controlled by their sexual lusts is the moving to the left of the Overton window. Sodomy, for example, is now openly embraced by both major parties. In my lifetime, a candidate who was outed for being sexually unfaithful to his wife, having gotten divorced could never be elected to any significant seat. However, now, with the political yielding to those controlled by their sexual lusts adultery and divorce are “ho-hum.” Sodomy among conservative Republicans is also “ho-hum” as seen in the fact that nobody arched an eyebrow by Trump’s nomination of a sodomite who has kidnapped children to be Secretary of the Treasury. And while Republicans aren’t yet ready to start nominating open Trannies to posts (like Biden did) it is just a matter of time before Trannieism is mainstreamed in Republican politics. It won’t be long before you see Republicans saying; “Oh, you can vote for her(m). She/He is a conservative Trannie.”

The fact that I am correct in all this is seen in recent Presidential politics. It was fairly well known that Barry Sotero (Barack Obama) was light in the loafers. They didn’t call him “Bathhouse Barry” for no reason. Still, all this was denied and it was realized that if it were true he could never be open about it and still be elected. However, with the coming of Donald Trump, the deal was sealed. Here was a man who had children by three different women and whose current wife’s porn shots were prominently displayed on the N.Y. Post front page and yet Trump was elected not once, but twice — and that on the back of Evangelicals voting for him. (In fairness to Evangelicals, all they had to vote for were criminals …. so better the criminal you like then the criminal you don’t like.) The point here is that perverted sexuality or sexual habits just don’t make much of a difference in presidential electoral politics. That is a vast shift occurring in my short lifetime.

Really, we are entering a time that could rightly be called a “Sexocracy.” It is a time where sexual normalcy, as defined by biblical standards, will be considered prudish and intolerant. It will be a time whereupon the sexual perverts having been let out of the closet, the sexually normal will be pushed into the closet so that heterosexuality will eventually become that “love that dare not name its name.”

All this to say that the arc of history, protestations to the contrary, are not working in the direction of traditional Western mores. We can expect a continued expansion of our perverted Sexocracy.

But… God is not mocked. Whatsoever a nation seweth, that it shall also reap.

Jeff Durbin & His Charge Of “Racism”

“There are a handful of things that do cause me to question a person’s profession of faith. One of the things that tops the list: racism. I believe that a person (of whatever color) who is a racist or glories in the color of their skin, knows nothing of the Gospel and very probably has never met the Savior. A person (of whatever color) who creates divides in the Body of Christ around skin-color demonstrates a great deal about just how intimately acquainted they are with God and His Word.

Racism is a sin (it’s hatred) that will be judged by God and will send people to hell. Any professing believer who creates an environment for it to grow will have much to answer for in my estimation.”

Jeff Durbin

November 14, 2016

Someone sent me this quote yesterday and I couldn’t resist playing with it.

1.) Of course the chief problem here is that the Baptist Durbin does not give a thorough definition of racism, so one can’t be completely sure of what Jeffy is talking about here. Personally, I don’t know anybody who glories in the color of their skin though I know lots of people who think that race is real and being real should be taken into consideration when talking about social order issues.

2.) Jeffy would seem to be suggesting here that the matter of race is only about skin color as if only all the races had the same skin color then the issue of race would no longer exist. But as has been said countless times skin color is only the eponymous name given to a far larger reality. If one could make white people have black skin they would still be white people in every other way. For example, Forensic Pathologist can tell you if somebody who died in a fire who no longer has skin what race the deceased was. For example, bone marrow transplants don’t care what color one’s skin is but they do care what race one is. The idea that race is only about skin color, or the amount of pigment one has is ludicrous beyond naming.

3.) I can’t help but wonder if Jeffy here would consider “creates divides” as meaning something like churches that are specifically “Korean” for example. I know of churches that are specifically Hmong for example. When I lived in the South it was common to speak of “black churches,” and the black folks would speak of “white churches.” Are these kinds of churches examples for Rev. Jeff of “creating divides.” Are the Korean Presbyteries that exist in some denominations guilty of creating divides here according to Jeff? And if if is acceptable for Koreans, or Hmong, or Black to worship in their own churches where is the problem in whites doing so and why is that racist?

I mean, Dr. John Frame doesn’t agree with Rev. Jeff here;

“Scripture, as I read it, does not require societies, or even churches, to be integrated racially. Jews and Gentiles were brought together by God’s grace into one body. They were expected to love one another and to accept one another as brothers in the faith. But the Jewish Christians continued to maintain a distinct culture, and house churches were not required to include members of both groups.”

John Frame,
“Racism, Sexism, Marxism”

I wonder if Jeffy thinks Dr. Frame to be racist?

4.) We have to quit being scared of the word “racist,” or of being accused of “racism,” because the word today, meaning everything, means nothing. I suppose that there does exist people out there who, for example, hate white people merely because they are white and so are “racist” but that doesn’t mean that all people who want to remain distinct in cultural habits, grandchildren, or dispositions or habits are racist against white people. Mohammed Ali was not a racist because he said this;

I take absolutely no offense at what Ali said above. I don’t accuse him of being “racist.” I don’t fault him if he wants to worship with his own people. Because of that I think Rev. Jeff Durbin is intellectually dishevelled.

5.) Jeffy says that “racism is hatred” but as he hasn’t defined clearly what racism is and has not given examples of what he considers “racism” then it is hard to know if hatred is really that which is animating people who do create some divides. I wonder if Jeff would accuse Muhammed Ali of hatred?

I picked on this quote because “racism” is the accusation dujour today. It is what is flung at anybody who won’t conform to the civil rights racial narrative bequeathed to us from the 1960s. It is some of that which lies beneath the whole divide percolating right now between the Moscow Mood and the “Moscow is full of skubala” mood. And Durbin is in the thick of all that.