Category: Apologetics

My Night On The Town … Celebrating Jane’s Birthday

I took the wife out today for her birthday. Now, I don’t go out in public that much. I see the folks in the Church I serve. I see my children and grandchildren. I talk on the phone with people who share a like faith/worldview but I don’t rub shoulders with the hoi poloi very often.

After tonight I know why I don’t go out very often. Tonight, while shopping at a small knick-knack establishment the wife wanted to stop at, I saw a clerk who was tatted all up. Now, I know this is pretty common, but it was not the fact of the tatts that had me gawking in amazement. No, rather it was the type of tatts. If you remember the kind of macabre stuff that Film Director Tim Burton used to deliver up (see his film “Night After Christmas”) this woman was tatted all over with Tim Burton kind of cartoon characters. As I watched her move from task to task it was akin to watching a live version of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” only with Tim Burton type characters.

Then there was another tatted white woman who was decidedly blond but who had a Rastafarian style hairdo wherein the Rasta locks looked like they were each a different color randomly drawn from a Crayola crayon mega box. Her blond locks bounced around with her Crayola Crayon Rasta locks and it reminded me of those old multi-flavored life-saver candy wrappers. Now, what really made it surreal is that she was holding the hand of a 3 or 4 year old and was speaking to the child in a nurturing and loving tone, like any mother might. I thought, “This must be what it is like to be the child of a mother who is a cross between Medusa and Willy Wonka.”

At another store I couldn’t help but hear the conversation of two rather tall chaps who looked all the world to be from the Dinka tribe and likely playing Basketball for Michigan State. We were in Lansing after all. Their conversation was loud and almost undecipherable. Yet, every so often I’d hear, “Gonna get me a flannel shirt. Never had a flannel shirt.” Only it came out more as monosyllabic grunts that I’m sure in the Dinka language was really quite flowery and expressive. As to the second tall Dinka, well the only thing I could make out from his language was “LEVIS.” It became apparent that he had never owned a pair of Levis before and he was delighted with finding a pair that might fit his extraordinary inseam. They made me nervous because wherever I went in the small store, the Dinka Brothers seemed to be following me with their strange and barely decipherable yet energetic linguistic outbursts. I guess all those cases of Iryna Zarutska and Austin Metcalf are starting to give me the jitters.

Then we dropped into a bookstore. You’d think one would find maybe a Christmas display or something down that line but the first thing I bump into upon entering the store is a display in praise of Hannukah heaping praise on sundry Jewish authors during this Hannukah season. The good news though is that I did not see any Kwanza displays. They were probably in another part of the bookstore.

As we walked the Mall I couldn’t help but notice how many of the “street vendors” in the Mall had a great deal in common with Vivek Ramaswamy, Usha Bala Chilukuri Vance, Piyush “Bobby” Jindal and Nimarata Nikki Randhawa Haley. I guess those people are just really good entrepreneurs, thus explaining why they would be so well represented in those little side shops.

I was also in a Macy’s store where I saw a very well dressed male clerk going about his business stocking shelves. He was wearing a tie and a suit. I thought … “Now this chap sticks out more than anybody I’ve seen so far because he is so 1960s with his well-trimmed mustache, his nattily pressed suit, and his conscientious arranging of the stock for which he was responsible.” Yep… he was the weirdest sight of them all. The guy who was the most “normal” existing and going about his business in the midst of a circus show specializing in the “odd and never seen before,” was the circuses biggest attraction.

We decided to eat at a Chinese Restaurant where, I am confident in saying, that all the help spoke perfect Chinese. I don’t know if they could speak English since I didn’t hear any until it came time to pay my bill. Only then did I discover that some “Engrish” was in their grasp.

Now, Lansing, Michigan is a university city (Home of Michigan State) and so I shouldn’t be surprised with the multicultural feel. However, as I reflected that night on previous celebrations of my wife’s Birthday over the decades, I couldn’t help but hear the echoes of Dorothy ringing in my ears … “Toto, darling, we are not in Kansas anymore.”

Historic Usage Of Doctrine Of “Spirituality of the Church” In USA

 I am currently reading Daniel G. Hummel’s, “The Rise And Fall Of Dispensationalism; How The Evangelical Battle Over The End Times Shaped A Nation.”

I’m learning that the “Spirituality of the Church” (a doctrine repeatedly appealed to by R2K) was pursued by men like Rev. James H. Brooks, Rev. J. H. Thornwell and others as a means to avoid having to answer the political question of slavery that was dividing the nation. Thornwell, originally did not want to secede, and as such, he appealed to the “Spirituality of the Church” doctrine in order to teach that the Church did not have to take a position on the matter. Brooks did much the same. Thornwell, eventually, made known his opposition to freeing slaves, after secession became a fait accompli designating slavery as key to maintaining social order. (See his, “To All The Churches Of Christ.”) However, before secession actually occurred Thornwell tried to evade the secession he opposed by saying that the Church did not need to speak on it given the doctrine of the Spirituality of the Church.

Brooks, though privately opposed to slavery, carried out his allegiance to the “Spirituality of the Church,” by refusing to pray for the success of the Union Armies while in the pulpit serving his St. Louis Presbyterian church. For this omission Brookes was eventually tossed from his pulpit though a split occurred that resulted in Brooks taking the new congregation who was good with his doctrine of the “Spirituality of the Church” and his refusal to pray for the success of the Union Armies.

The thing to note here is that this “Spirituality of the Church” doctrine while insisting that it wants to avoid politics, embraces politics firmly. Not taking a position on a moral issue that the Scripture speaks to is taking a position against the Scripture.

The putative doctrine of the “Spirituality of the Church” was and is not so much a doctrine as it is a tactic in order to evade controversy where controversy is inescapable. If God’s word speaks to all of life then the church is not an institution that can evade the pressing issues of the time like slavery (which Scripture clearly regulates and so allows), political plans that promote socialism as seen in confiscatory taxation (which per the 8th commandment is theft), legislation that works to the end of weakening the family, etc.

In the end the appeal to the doctrine of the “Spirituality of the Church” as defined so to rule out the Church speaking from the pulpit where God has clearly spoken is a doctrine for cowards who do not want to deny themselves and take up the Cross. I have heard of accounts in NAPARC Presbyteries of a refusal to condemn an prospective ordinates’ clearly articulated socialism because “God’s word doesn’t speak to socialism.” This is all about the “Spirituality of the Church.”

The Current Hegelian Dialectic Exposed

The Hegelian dialectic contains a theory of history believed by the Marxist to be the means by which history is manipulated by the Marxists. It presupposes that there is no God and that history is materialistic and can be directed.

I propose that this is the Hegelian dialectic that is being worked on us by the New World Order repeatedly in the context of Color Revolution.

Wash, rinse, and repeat over and over again.

Thesis

Creation and or magnification of crises and problems. Financial panic, war, artificial shortages of basic commodities, gun and violence awareness.

The more problems factored into the equation, the swifter political and socio-economic changes can be accomplished; as in the former Soviet Union.

Antithesis

Use of the media, puppets, and other communication (podcasts Carlson, Owen, Fuentes, etc.) to focus attention to the crises and mobilize the opposition to the problem.

Synthesis

Offers the solution to the artificially created or magnified problems of step one. The sweeping changes succeed only because of the well orchestrated dispensation of social propaganda during the incubation process and ensuing panic period. The masses consent to otherwise intolerable socio-economic reform (Mahmdani in NYC, Katie Wilson in Seattle, Jacob Frey in Minneapolis, etc.) with little or no resistance.

Answering DeYoung’s Six Questions

DeYoung asks;

Question #1: Do you unequivocally renounce antisemitism, racism, and Nazism? antisemitism, racism, and Nazism.

That is to say, do you hold to any of the following: (1) a disdain for Jewish people and a belief that a secret cabal of Jews are responsible for a litany of evils in our world, (2) a disdain for non-Whites and a belief in the mental and spiritual inferiority of Blacks, and (3) an appreciation for Adolf Hitler and a belief that Nazis were the misunderstood good guys in World War II? I know I haven’t provided technical definitions for these isms or sought to substantiate my insinuation that all three are sinful and abhorrent. But that’s the point. Most people don’t need a lot of nuance to condemn Kevin  I commend Christian Nationalists like Doug Wilson who have called out these destructive sympathies on the right. It should be a simple thing to reject these ideologies and make clear that they have no place in conservatism, in Christianity, or in Christian Nationalism.

Bret responds,

Up until WW II it was a widely embraced consensus that a secret cabal of Jews were responsible for a litany of evils in our world. Men like Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton, Abraham Kuyper, and Winston Churchill spilled copious measures of ink on the problem of the Bagels. Government officials sent missives back to their respective governments detailing that the Russian Revolution was a Bolshevik Jewish Revolution. Church history is peppered with Church councils having to deal with the problem of the Bagels throughout the centuries. For DeYoung to pretend that our Fathers have not struggled with how to contain the Bagels given their propensity to be responsible for a litany of evils is just DeYoung whistling past the graveyard or it is a case of monumental and decided ignorance of history on DeYoung’s part.

In terms of DeYoung’s (2) above I can only direct him to read Charles Murray’s 1994 “The Bell Curve.” He can find it on PDF if he is interested.

In terms of my attitude towards blacks … it is best summed up by 19th century J. H. Thornwell;

“The Negro is one blood with ourselves — that he has sinned as we have, and that he has has an equal interest with us in the great Redemption. Science, falsely so called, may attempt to exclude him from the brotherhood of humanity…. but the instinctive impulses of our nature combined with the plainest declaration of the Word of God, lead us to recognize in his form and lineaments — his moral, religious, and intellectual nature — the same humanity in which we glory as the image of God. We are not ashamed to call him our brother.”

Dr. James Henley Thornwell

Sermon — Rights and Duties of Masters

In terms of DeYoung’s (3) above, I again accuse the man of historical illiteracy. Keep in mind that folks today who might be reconsidering Hitler might be doing so because they are also reconsidering Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, etc.

I for one view Hitler as a villain because I believe it is entirely possible that he was a creation of the same forces that crushed him. I believe he was created in order to be crushed. I don’t believe Hitler was a villain because of his desire to protect Germans from the Communist threat that was promised to pour over Europe. I also believe that the US joined hands with a mass murderer when they held hands with Stalin as allies in WW II and as such I have disdain for that generation of leadership. At least Patton got it right (too late) to note that, “we may have been fighting the wrong enemy (Germany) all along.”

DeYoung here is playing the struggle session card and is expecting folks to jump at his a-historical posturing. Folks can say, “If forced to choose between Hitler and Stalin, I would have chosen Hitler,” without thereby communicating that they are Hitler fans.

I encourage Rev. DeYoung to read Antony’s Sutton;

“Wall Street & The Rise Of Hitler.”

Maybe he will learn something that might be helpful to his ridiculous reading of history.

Which Came First; The Way R2K “Reformed” Chaps “Reason” Or The Way Baptists Reason?

“Is it true that there is “no neutrality” in the cosmos? Here are several thoughts on the “Christ vs. Chaos” mindset:

1. Yes, Christ is Lord. Amen!

2. Yes, all people are called to submit to Christ’s Lordship.

3. At the level of the human person, we really are in either Christ or chaos, then.

4. But this does not follow for institutions and nations and stores and the public square. These entities are nowhere Christianized in the New Testament.

5. Jesus does not teach that Caesar is “neutral,” exactly, but Jesus does teach us to render to Caesar what is due Caesar (Matthew 22:21).

6. So too does Peter tell us to honor the emperor (1 Peter 2) in an era when the emperor was decidedly not Christian.

7. All this means that while the public square isn’t “neutral,” it’s also not savable like the human person is.

8. Nowhere in the NT do governments or stores or schools get saved.

9. We believers seek to influence the public square and the cultural order in a serious way; that’s what being “salt and light” means (Matthew 5:13-14).”

Owen Strachan
Provost – Grace Bible Theological Seminary  (Baptist)

Bret Responds;

1.) For Owen, Christ is Lord except when Christ isn’t Lord. Christ is Lord over the individual but Christ can’t be Lord in any kind of Institution among men where the men in that Institution resolve together to operate that Institution as Christian Men.

2.) For Owen all people are called to submit to Christ’s Lordship until they start to work together in some kind of corporate endeavor. Once you put more than one person together with another person to sell widgets or Lemonade then the requirement to submit to Christ’s Lordship ends.

3.) Agreed, as far as Owen goes here.

4.) First here, note that Owen restricts his Bible to the NT. Quite to the contrary of Owen we note that the Scriptures are comprised of both the OT and NT.

Second, if “institutions and nations and stores and the public square” are not to be Christianized then what is left? Does Owen realize that Mooselimbs, Bagels, and Hindus are not going to reason that “institutions, and nations, and stores and the public square” are not to be Islamicized, Judaized, or Hinduized. So, Owen, like R2K, would argue for a religiously naked public square but will provide no answer to the conundrum that Mooselimbs, and Bagels, and Hindus, and Atheists will pursue with definite conviction a public square, a nation, and Institutions that are beholden to their demon gods?

Frankly, as I have said repeatedly in connection with R2K this kind of reasoning is not just off, it is monumentally stupid and worse yet it is dangerous because if pursued by all Christians as living in a multicultural setting it means the success of Mooselimbs, Bagels, Hindus, etc. to roll Christ off the throne in the public square. It means the persecution of the Christian faith. It means Dhimmitude status.

Look, the hour is late and we no longer can just smile and shake our heads at these R2K/Lutheran/Baptist idiots. Their theology is a theology of absolute abject surrender. It is a theology that is embraced by people who hate their children, hate their neighbors, and worse of all hate their God.

5.) It is true that Jesus said to render unto God the things that are God’s and to render unto Caesar the things are Caesar’s. This, by necessity, means that we, as Christians, must render Caesar and all he claims to God since Caesar is a thing that belongs to God. If Caesar can find anything that is uniquely is and not God’s and I will be sure to render that thing unto Caesar.

6.) It is true, that we are to honor the King. However, that honor due to the King does not exceed our responsibility to honor the King of Kings and so if it is the case that the Emperor becomes in his duties an “Anti-Emperor” then Christians are duty bound to honor the office of Emperor by throwing him out on his keister.

7.) If the public square is not neutral then the public square must be rendered unto Christ as King since the public square belongs to Him. We are sinning if, as Christians, we do not render the public square unto Christ. If Christian men and women render the public square unto Christ, I’ll be glad to let Christ worry about whether or not the public square is salvable.

8.) Christianity has such an effect that when it is introduced into the bloodstream of a nation, public square, or Institution it completely turns that nation, public square, and Institution on its head. See the account in Ephesus recorded in Acts 19:23f. There we see a city fighting against being saved.

9.) It seems that Owen desires Christians to salt and influence the public square much like the seasoning oregano season a tomato dish. Owen can’t envision where the salting and influencing rises to the point to be the dish served and not merely the seasoning.

I suspect that, like R2K, Owen is not postmillennial and so is retrofitting his theology to fit his a-priori eschatology.