Other Opposing Worldview

On People & Funerals

In attending various funerals one has a real glimpse into worldviews if only in the way they are conducted. A Lutheran funeral tells me a great deal about the way Lutherans think. A Wesleyan funeral tells me a great deal about the way Wesleyans think. The same is true of Pentecostal, Reformed, Catholic funerals. They all serve as a clear window into the belief system and the behavioral consequences of that belief system into those attending who belong to one of the faith expressions.

Of course, the same is true about pagan funerals where it is clearly seen that the people are without God and without hope.

I find it all very fascinating. I often have to remind myself at a funeral that I am not there to analyze but to pay my respects.

I worked for a funeral home for awhile and so was exposed to a large number of funerals. I had to quit that job because what I was seeing and hearing at funerals were working depression in me because they were so shallow and hopeless.

I went to a Holiness funeral recently. Large number of references to God, the power of God, the Love of God, the change wrought by God in the deceased’s life. However, the word “Cross” was not mentioned once.

I went to a liberal Reformed funeral once. I asked the Pastor afterward, “are you a Buddhist?”

I attended a Pentecostal funeral once — this one really stands out — and in the middle of the funeral some lady spoke in tongues followed by her husband’s interpretation of the tongues spoken by his wife. I don’t remember the interpretation. I do remember thinking, “even here, in this setting?”

I officiated at my father’s funeral and clearly articulated that I did not know of any time my father embraced Christ. Afterwards, a woman who was a complete stranger to me, came up to me and as clearly agitated she kept insisting that “your father will one day be the angel who comes to collect you when you are dying.” I remember thinking, “Lady, that would likely not bode well for me.” The point here is that the woman was quite uncomfortable with the idea that some people might not be in heaven.

I attended a funeral once of someone who perished in a horrible car accident and the first words out of the minister’s mouth were… “I want to let everyone here know that God had nothing to do with this.” That was the funeral that pushed me into quitting working at the funeral home.

When I was 17 I attended a funeral of a remote family member. I was concerned for their soul and so I asked the minister afterward if he thought that my family member had trusted Christ. He smiled at me condescendingly and asked, “Why would you be concerned about that?” That response has always stuck in my memory.

In South Carolina I co-officiated a funeral where the Pastor kept repeating in the eulogy … “James loved his truck.” After each statement that “James loved his truck” the Pastor would tell of how it was known that “James loved his truck.” It is a standing joke now in the McAtee household to say … “Yeah, but James loved his truck.”

More than a few times in the ministry where I have co-officiated a funeral service I was compelled to correct some really bad theology. I never said “What you just heard was shinola.” Most often what they had heard that was shinola was something like, “And if people liked you when you die you’ll also go to heaven.” I would make it clear when I spoke that “in life as well as in death our only hope is the atoning Cross work of Jesus Christ.” Some of my most satisfying moments as a minister was in these kinds of settings someone unknown to me would come up to me afterwards, pull me aside and say, “Thank you for setting the record straight.” I have had more than a few co-officiants refuse to talk to me after a funeral because they understood that I verbally stepped on their toes.

It’s also worked in the other direction. I once had to do a funeral for a suicide victim. The family felt shame. The sister even felt compelled to stand up during the funeral and say that her brother wasn’t a bad person and that people shouldn’t think that because he killed himself that he was in hell. I was able, during the funeral sermon, to say that while suicide is sin, it has never been an unpardonable sin and that doubtless heaven will have many occupants who committed suicide. The issue always is, have we embraced the Cross and trusted Christ alone for forgiveness.

Honestly, it has been my observation that most funerals are about the people attending more than either about the deceased or about the Triune God. More often than not funerals across the board, regardless of denominational trappings are quite man-centered. Praise God there are abundant exceptions.

Funerals are one of the clearest windows into the way people think, live, and act. I think it is because the pressure is on, stress is high, and mortality is staring at everybody. Not only a window into the lives of the family of the deceased but windows into those who put the funeral together and who are participating in the funeral.

Show me a funeral and I will tell you the theology and worldview of those in charge and those attending who are comfortable or uncomfortable with the funeral.

Theology remains the Queen of the Sciences.

Webbon Gives Pass To Calvin Robinson’s Anti-Protestant Christianity Lies

“Likewise Protestantism is a Jewish breakdown of the order of God. So, it’s like (for Protestants) “you can believe that, but you don’t have to believe that.” It’s the picking and choosing of bits of Christianity in order to lead people away from Christianity. Rather than having the fullness of truth (Protestants believe) you can have that bit of truth and reject that bit of truth and still be in good standing with God.”

Calvin Robinson
English Catholic Priest
Interview w/ Joel Webbon

Of course Webbon said nothing to refute this Papist bull fecal matter. I know some Reformed people who have become enamored with Robinson. Likely, it helps them to say to themselves, “See, I’m not racist. I like a black clergy member.”

So, since Joel Webbon said nothing to repudiate this garbage, allow me to say that Rome remains in violent opposition to the God of the Bible and the Christian faith. Rome is not Christian in the least given its official position and doctrines and until Rome repudiates Trent it remains as an Institution, anti-Christ. Also, how many consecutive clear anti-Christ Popes does their need to be before people realize that Rome is a whore house, just as the Reformers noted? The latest Pope’s latest activity finds him canoodling with the Muslims, giving them religious credibility.

These words by Robinson is pure projection on his part. It is Rome who invents its own Christianity and then after the Reformers stood up and said, “What you have randomly picked and chosen as Christianity is NOT Christianity,” Rome complains we Protestants are the ones picking and choosing what we will and will not believe.

Shame on Webbon for giving Robinson a pass.

We Decided to Convert the Enemy by Becoming a Watered-Down Version of the Enemy

One startling truth about the past 60 years of American social life is the collapse of Mainline Protestantism. In 1965, more than 50 percent of Americans belonged to the country’s historic Protestant congregations. Now less than 10 percent do, and that number continues to drop.

The second startling truth about the past 60 years is how the Evangelical movement, which was designed to be a via media between Mainline Protestantism and Fundamentalism, has completely capitulated to the old mindset of Mainline Protestantism. Indeed, one could even say that Mainline Protestantism lives on in Evangelicalism.

One suspects, as one looks to the future, that the new movement of “Neo-Calvinism” as the new via media between Old Line Historic Calvinism and Evangelicalism will likewise fail. It’s leaders show no more promise than the Harold J. Ockenga’s and D. Martyn Lloyd Jones’ of old, who were so instrumental in forming Evangelicalism.

The only answer is to quit trying to form movements which keep trying to keep one foot in the enemy camp. Whether we consider the Mainline Protestantism of old, or the Evangelical response, or the current Neo-Calvinism, what we see is that the attempt to present ourselves as reasonable to the enemy never ends well.

These movements are destroying the church in their quest to reach the lost. In seeking converts they are only giving unbelief a patina of Christian respectability.

Bahnsen Picks Apart Thomism

“Disagreeing with the natural man’s interpretation of himself as the ultimate reference point, the reformed apologist must seek his point of contact with the natural man, and that which is beneath the threshold of his working consciousness, and the sense of deity which he seeks to suppress. And to do this, the reformed apologist must also seek a point of contact with the systems constructed by the natural man. But this point of contact must be in the nature of a head-on collision.”

Dr. Greg Bahnsen
Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith

1.) This succinctly explains why the Thomistic Natural Law fanboys and the Presuppositional Fanboys are never going to get along. The Thomistic chaps never challenge the natural man’s interpretation of himself as the ultimate reference point for what is and what is not true. Thomism leaves the natural man in his self relaxed repose continuing to think of himself as he who is the determiner of truth instead of realizing that the natural man must be converted so that he only sees himself as a reinterpreter of God’s interpretation of truth. This goes back to the maxim that man must be converted so that he can say with the Psalmist, “In thy light we see light.” The Thomist leaves the natural man in a place where even after a putative conversion he says instead, “In my light I see light.” Thomism leaves the natural man as an “I” that has not yet seen itself in submission in a “I-Thou” relationship to God. Conversion, must mean that the natural man is not the ultimate reference point in terms of determining the nature of reality. He must own God as His ultimate reference point. The Natural Laws chaps fail miserably in this regard and so must be challenged.

2.) The Natural Man does not want what is beneath the working threshold of his consciousness to be challenged. When the Christian apologist does this the Natural Man recoils because it necessarily means that his worldview furniture is going to be busted up. The Natural Man like his Worldview living room arrangements and he resents when the presuppositional apologists shows up to tear up the furniture of his self-centered thinking. I suspect this accounts as a large reason why the Thomists yet today in the Reformed world are so aggravated by the presuppositionalists. We stand as a rebuke to their man-centered thinking.

3.) Van Til used to say that any God reasoned to via the means of natural theology was not the God of the Bible. In the same way, any God reasoned to by the Natural Man as not yet removed from his place of “the ultimate reference point” is not the God of the Bible. Now, I am willing to concede that a babe in Christ may indeed be converted without understanding this but someone who grows in Christ will at some point have to give themselves up as the ultimate reference point of reality and be consistent with their conversion. Many Thomists have yet to surrender this.

4.) Note Bahnsen’s reference to evangelism as worldview collision. This is in marked contrast to decades of Evangelicals being taught that Evangelism has to be a bridge building process where we approach the dead in sins sinner and say things like; “Now, see here, you believe in good and bad and I believe in good and bad and so we have this in common. Now all you need to do is to add Jesus and you will be converted.” Bahnsen, following Van Til here, says 1000 times “NO.” Evangelism is not a bridge building exercise. Evangelism is a head on collision and it is a head on collision because of the radically opposed starting points. It is a head on collision because the Natural Man starts with himself as his ultimate reference point while the Biblical Christian starts with God as his ultimate reference point. The differences cannot be anymore stark. The Natural Man proceeds from the authority of self. The Christian proceeds from the authority of not-self (God). Since that is so all that is possible is collision if each participant in the discussion is to be true to his or her starting point.

5.) This means that the discussion can only proceed along hypothetical lines. The Christ believer enters into the worldview of the Christ-hater for the sake of argument but only with the purpose of soon exposing the contradiction in their thinking. For example; “I see you say you believe in good and bad. That is very good. But tell me, what is the foundation or standard for your categories of ‘good,’ and ‘bad,’ except for your own authority if you do not believe in a transcendent ultimate reference point (God) beyond yourself? I may very well agree with you about what you label as good and bad I can account for my labeling of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ by appealing to God’s authority but your appeal to this idea of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is only on the basis of your own say so. So, I must ask you, what makes your say so about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ categories any more authoritative than the Marquis de Sade’s authority of what constituted ‘good’ and ‘bad?’ Don’t you see my friend, you need a firmer foundation than your own determination. Only God in Christ can give you that firmer foundation and only by owning your sin of, to this point, being your own God in your life (your own ultimate reference point) can you be delivered from your captivity to this sin and so be free for the first time to have a true authority of ‘good,’ and ‘bad.'”

My friend, John Leonetti recently did a brief youtube citing this quote with an arresting illustration of worldview collision. It’s only 3 minutes long. You should have yourself a giggle at John’s illustration.

Worldview Thinking … Social Order …. Principalities & Powers

“The idea of unity so possesses itself of man, and is sought for by him so universally, that if he thinks he has found it, he readily yields himself up to repose in that belief. Nor does he content himself with the discovery that nothing is in the world but a creation and a Creator; still embarrassed by this primary division of things, he seeks to expand and to simplify his conception by including God and the universe in one great whole.”

Alexis de Tocqueville

“Democracy in America”

Fallen man is hopelessly Unitarian in his theology. He is forever looking for the unity of the godhead and having taken man as god, all individual men must submit to this denial of the Creator-creature distinction. All of this explains how it is that the State almost uniquely ends up being god walking on the earth. Fallen man, having denied the Creator-creation distinction looks to the state to provide the Unitarian God it requires and having found that God in the state all must be compelled to serve the state in order for the humanist godhead to have the requisite unity that divinity always requires. Thus slogans are born such as “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” When the Creator – creature distinction is denied the State, more often than not, is assigned the status of the imminent God (true transcendence having been lost) and having the status of the imminent God all the subjects (formerly citizens) must be as one with the Unitarian godhead of the State in order for the state to achieve apotheosis.

All of this follows like water running downhill. If a people eliminates the God of the Bible from their reckoning the inevitable eventual conclusion will be what is described above. However, all of this is not absent a spiritual reality. We are not talking about merely ideas here though obviously ideas enter into all this. We are also talking about principalities and powers. When the social order has evacuated the God of the Bible, embracing instead itself as its own unitarian God spiritual realities begin to exercise their muscle. Having locked God out of His rule — having made the heavens bronze and the earth iron — the power from below begins to reveal itself. Man’s evil thinking becomes consistent with the reasoning and work of the power from below. The social order is inverted and good becomes evil and evil becomes good. This was seen to have happened in the Weimar Republic. It was seen to have happened during the French Revolution as a brief familiarity with the Marquis de Sade’s work testifies. It is happening now in our social order. We have denied the Creator – creature distinction, we have joined the unitarian God-state in a creaturely oneness and the effect is now that we have let loose the demon horde upon ourselves as witnessed by our seeking to remake ourselves in the image of our creaturely demon god. Children are being sexually maimed via surgical techniques. Sodomy and Lesbianism is now mainstreamed and rampant (paging Rick Grenell) children are routinely sexually trafficked, the elite (as the Epstein files reveal) are Lizard people with no souls.

There is a danger of reading the times in a fashion that only traces out the ideas without realizing that behind the implications of bad ideas is a spiritual reality — principalities and powers — that rabidly hate those creatures who still retain the image of God that those spiritual powers likewise intensely hate. Hating God, they hate all creatures and so strive to pull down any social order that isn’t a reflection of the hell that they themselves occupy. Yes, ideas have consequences but both ideas and consequences are not spiritually neutered. There is a spiritual component to Worldview thinking that must be taken into account. It is not the case that we are only seeking to snuff out bad thinking. We have to realize behind that bad thinking is a Screwtape and a Uncle Wormwood that has an interest in breathing out bad thinking.

Yes, the denial of the Creator-creature distinction has great ramifications for a social order but those ramifications are being pursued by a malevolent consciousness to the end of destroying as many image bearers as possible.