Category: Apologetics

What A Nation Is … What It Means To Lose A Nation

A nation as a nation cannot exist as nothing more than a marketplace bizarre of workplaces and stores in which tokens earned at the former are then spent at the latter. Mistaking the economic machinery for a nation is the fallacy of assuming that man is nothing more than the sum of his economic spending habits. This is what we might call “the Libertarian fallacy.” A nation is more than the sum of economic individual choices as existing in that nation. A nation is a nation where there is a shared genetic stock who have a shared religion/faith who together built a shared culture with a shared language, a shared history, and a shared sense of purpose all yielding shared memories.

What happens to a society whose people have no reason to go on beyond their set routines interspersed with bouts of hedonism? What happens to a nation that loses its soul? We are living the answers to those questions. Because Christendom has reduced itself to an economic zone no longer asking or answering the larger questions of life we have lost the ability of self-understanding …. of understanding who we are together as a unique people. Having jettisoned our Christianity in exchange for bouts of libertarian hedonism we have lost the ability to think corporately. We have lost the ability to think of ourselves in terms of community being connected not only to the living who share our familial lines but we have even lost the ability to see ourselves connected to both our Fathers and our descendants. Because we have abandoned the God of our Fathers all other roots have been lost to us as well.

And so we have no auto-immune ability to resist the alien and stranger in our midst. No auto-immune ability to identify the rancid theology that is coming to us from our pulpits that reinforce our alienation, even teaching that the alienation is a positive good that should be gleefully embraced.

The first thing to go then was our undoubted catholic Christian faith. With the dissipation of that Christian faith came the dissipation of corporate self-identity. There can be no sense of belonging to a particular nation apart from a shared faith that serves as the coagulating agent that clots a particular people together.

T. S. Eliot long ago warned us that what we are now experiencing would come to pass;

‎”If Christianity goes the whole of our culture goes. Then you must start painfully again, and you cannot put on a new culture ready made. You must wait for the grass to grow to feed the sheep to give the wool out of which your new coat will be made. You must pass through many centuries of barbarism. We should not live to see the new culture, nor would our great-great-great grandchildren; and if we did, not one of us would be happy in it.”

T. S. Elliot
Christianity and Culture; The Idea of a Christian Society and Notes Toward the Definition of Culture — pg. 200

So, because our Christian faith declined the result of that was redefining and reducing a nation to be an economic zone where tokens earned at the workplace are exchanged for goods in the marketplace. What was lost was the ancient Christian teaching that a nation is composed of a particular people, descended from the same ancestors, as located in a particular place. Several generations later we stand on the ledge of a nation that no longer can be a nation because it is now filled with peoples who own contesting religions that work to alienate even people who share the same common Fathers from one another. Now add to this the stranger and alien who serve strange gods from foreign lands and the consequence is “things fall apart. The center cannot hold.”

As far as solutions go, the only one I have is a return to the faith of our Fathers but it strikes me that God may indeed be purging us for our rebellion against His kindness towards us. If you’re a parent with young children the best you can do right now is to pass on to them a Christian faith that is so totatlistic that it explains every aspect of their being and thinking. This must be done because the enemy will search high and low to continue to snuff out all competition to their retooling of the now declining Christendom, so as to refashion it into a haven of demons.

Egalitarianism Is The New Gospel

“Egalitarianism is Atheism because it despises the order that the good God has established in this world and would, if it could, kick God off His throne saying He had no right to make some people better than others.”

Rev. Michael Spangler
Old Paths Podcast

This is consistent with what I said yesterday in the sermon; “Egalitarianism is a denial of the Creator-Creature distinction having the consequence of dethroning God and enthroning sovereign man.”

One cannot be an egalitarian and a Christian at one and the same time because to do so is to reinterpret Christianity through an Cultural Marxist grid that holds that man is the definer of all reality. One cannot flatten all the God ordained distinctions as egalitarianism does without necessarily flattening at the same time the distinction between the Creator and the creature. Only with the destruction of the Creator-creature distinction can the project to destroy all other distinctions between man and man be successful and once the Creator-creature distinction is snuffed out all other distinctions are merely arbitrary — social constructs — and will be wiped out.

Now, since the above is true, and as of recently NAPARC churches have affirmed egalitarianism by condemning Kinism – a doctrine that merely affirms the Creator-creature distinction — therefore we must conclude that NAPARC churches are of their father the Devil.

It is not too late for NAPARC churches to pull back from the abyss of unbelief and rebellion. There is still time for them to heed the long historical record of their Father’s testimony against them concerning this trajectory they are on. There is still time for them to heed the few ministerial voices seeking to love them by calling them back from the abyss. As Christ’s ambassadors we plead with you to pull back from this egalitarianism that has become idolatry and Atheism to you. Why would you wound so severely the bride of Christ? Why would you do such damage to your own souls? Why would you overthrow God’s order and providence in order to gain the applause of those on their way to perdition?

Van Til On The Rationality / Irrationality Problem Of Those Who Eliminate God

“The rationalists and the empiricists were quite wrong in thinking that man could reach out beyond sensuous experience and attain to knowledge of God conceptually. To solve the problem of uniting the facts of existence (matter) to the principles of rationality (form), Kant found it necessary to say that these principles are a priori forms of the human mind . As forms these principles need the purely non rational stuff of sensuous experience for their filling . By combining this purely abstract form of rationality and the equally abstract principle of pure contingency , Kant sought to save science. He sought by means of this combination to attain to the universality and objectivity of scientific knowledge .

Obviously this universality is, on this basis, located in the knowing subject . And this subject is certainly not God . For by definition there is no theoretical knowledge of God at all. The ultimate reference point for all knowledge is therefore placed in man. If then there is any relation of necessity in nature and any relation of order in history , these relations spring ultimately not from God but from man. Therefore, if God is to be revealed to man in nature or in history, he must be wholly revealed in it and wholly penetrable by the theoretical reason . And thus positive or statutory religion must become identical with natural religion . The incarnation must become the abstraction of ideal humanity .

However , on this view man himself too would be swallowed up by nature as nature in turn would be swallowed up by man . In other words , the only way by which man can retain his freedom or assert his autonomy , an autonomy in terms of which the whole of nature and history has to be constructed , is by means of pure negation . As autonomous and free , man must be as little known by his own conceptual reason as is his God , for if man were known to himself by means of this theoretical reason then he would no longer be he . He would then be reduced to nature . It is for this reason that Kroner’s phrase, “ethical dualism,” expresses so accurately Kant’s conception of the negative relation of nature to the human self .”

CVT
Christianity & Barthianism – p. 406

1.) In order to get form in touch with matter … in order to put concepts and precepts in relation to one another there is only one way to do so and that is by presupposing the God of the Bible and His Word. Man, who starts with man to reason his way to God will always reason his way to a God who is but man said loudly. Man cannot even know himself unless he presupposes God. Neither can man know nature or its law unless he presupposes God who alone can give man a working definition of both what man is as the presupposer and what nature is as that which is being presupposed.

2.) When CVT writes;

The ultimate reference point for all knowledge is therefore placed in man. If then there is any relation of necessity in nature and any relation of order in history, these relations spring ultimately not from God but from man.

He is fairly close to the point that Thomas Kuhn’s was making in “Structures of Scientific Revolutions.” Kuhn, by demonstrating how science isn’t particularly “scientific” in the way we commonly think of science as being just the collection of objective facts, and Van Til by demonstrating that the reason that is so is because man, apart from the God of the Bible, is the one subjectively determining what science will and will not be, are both making the point that the objective world isn’t necessarily objective. Van Til only pipes up to say that, contra Kuhn, that the world can be objective if the God of the Bible is the one presupposed in all our thinking.

From the Mailbag: R2K & The ICE Protests

Dear Pastor;

What would R2K think of the protesters interrupting the Minnesota church service?

I know liberals always love the separation of church and state and even though they take it out of context, but here they seemed to meld the two.

John from Canada

Bret responds,

Hello John,

Good to hear from you. You’re one of those chaps who refresh me given how much we share in our mutual faith and worldview.

A couple options here;

They might say that Christians, as private citizens, might well do that as protesters who are Christian organized a political club opposed to ICE, while those members claim that is what Jesus would want of them.

R2K advocates have said in the past that Christians as private citizens are welcome to join Christian organizations that take up this or that cause. R2K just doesn’t want to be put in the position of having to speak on the issue of protests one way or the other. R2K might well say, “that is the common realm and what happens in the common realm is not related to the lane (grace realm) that we are obliged by God to not abandon.”

So, theoretically, in this scenario, Presbyterian Church “A” has some members (B) that belong to a political organization in favor of protesting ICE while at the same time having members (C) that belong to a political organization that protest those protesting ICE. These Christians will have no problem worshiping together in Presbyterian Church “A” because the pulpit will remain silent on the subject. Christians in groups “B” and “C” will find themselves, for example, taking communion together in the same service even though on Monday they may be in each other’s face in terms of protests.

The point is that it is possible that a R2K church and clergy would silent on the whole thing

John presses the question and asks;

But if we looked Michael Horton in the eye or that poor Pastor in Minnesota asked, hey Mike, would you be on my side that they did a terrible wrong here? What would Michael Horton say?

Bret responds;

This is the other possible option as to what R2K would say in this situation.

It might be the case that Mike Horton (or any R2K clergy advocate) would say that this would be an instance where the protesters are coming in to the grace realm (the Church’s worship service) from the common realm and as such the protesters (Christian or not) are confusing the two realms (grace and common) and so shouldn’t be there. If that is the way that R2K would consider the matter then a R2K clergy may well speak from the pulpit against the vagrancy.

However, I am fairly certain that R2K fanboys would not say the same thing if the protesters descended on a private business the way they did that church. If the protesters were descending on private property that are not churches then I can see R2K thinking … “That protesting is taking place in the common realm and therefore I will not speak to it from the pulpit,”or, “as a Pastor. I am obliged, in order to honor God, to remain silent on the subject. The two-Kingdom theology demands my silence.”

Exposing Matt Walsh’s Lousy Apologetics

I just learned this morning that the talking head, Matt Walsh, has repeatedly said that when dealing with an Atheist it is stupid to “Biblethump them,” to “throw Scripture at them,” or to “quote Scripture” at them. Matt Walsh basis all that on the fact that since as Atheists the Atheist doesn’t believe the Word of God, therefore it is useless to quote Scripture at them. According to Matt Walsh, we must instead, use “logic,” and “reason.”

This is stupid but consistent with all those who are Natural Law Thomist types.

What might we say in response to this in order to see how stupid it is?

1.) Matt Walsh fails to understand what the underlying issue is as existing between the Atheist and the Christian when in debate/conversation. This issue isn’t so much what is immediately on the table. The issue is, “By whose authority are we going to determine the rightness or wrongness of whatever is being disputed.” The Atheist says to Matt Walsh … “I don’t accept your authority.” Matt Walsh says … “OK, then, I will agree to use your fallen authority as my authority.”What Matt Walsh has done by insisting that we shouldn’t Biblethump people is he has ceded the territory that counts the most. He has ceded to the Christ-hater the standard that will be used to determine truth. Now, if Matt Walsh does that … if Matt Walsh enters the dispute on the enemies chosen ground does Matt Walsh think he is going to be able to gainsay the Atheist? No … a thousand times “NO.” If the Christians abandons his Christian presuppositions in order to argue according to the humanist presuppositions, the Christian will lose every time.

2.) Logic and reason are what they are because of the authority of God’s Word. In other words Logic and reason, apart from presupposing God’s Word, quickly becomes illogical logic and irrational reason. Now, we can certainly make points against our Atheist friend without quoting chapter and verse but behind whatever point we are making better be a foundation that is anchored in Scripture or a necessary consequence thereof.

3.) Matt Walsh, being Roman Catholic, does not understand the noetic effects of the fall and as such does not embrace total depravity. For Matt Walsh (like all Thomists) man’s mind is not completely fallen and so quite without submission to God’s authority (whether implicit or explicit). Fallen man (like our Atheist friend) can be convinced about matters like Abortion, or Sodomite marriage, if we only make “reasonable” arguments per his self-centered standard. This appeal to “Natural Law” done by Matt Walsh and his Thomist friends fails to understand that as man is fallen, man uses his fallen thinking as a prism through which to see all issues that come before him. What Matt Walsh doesn’t realize is that the Atheist is not coming to the issue in a neutral fashion. The Atheist has skin in the came (his own autonomous authority that finds him being god in his life) and if we cede to the atheist the idea that we have to accept his putative neutral authority as the authority the Atheist will never convert because the very thing that needs to be challenged in the Atheist (his autonomous humanist reason) remains unchallenged, and so in authority over God’s authority.

4.) Matt Walsh, like all Thomists, has not only given up leveraging Scripture against the Atheist, he has also given up Scripture for himself. Matt Walsh is ignoring the passage in Romans 1 where the Holy Spirit clearly teaches that the Atheist is “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.” The Atheist is not an honest player in this discussion. His carnal mind is at warfare with God. Part of the Atheist’s plan for victory is to get “Christians” like Matt Walsh to broom out of the conversation the authority of God’s Word from the very beginning. In such a way the Atheist’s victory is assured in whatever dispute is at hand.

5.) What the Atheist needs to be told, when demanding that Scripture isn’t going to convince him, is, “I know. Now let me tell you why Scripture isn’t going to convince you. God’s Word, apart from the Holy Spirit’s regenerating power, is not going to convince you Mr. Atheist, because you are dead in your trespasses and sins. You are in rebellion against your maker and being in rebellion you will not submit to His authority. This leaves you without God and without hope. This leaves you continuing to try to escape what you know you can never escape as long as you’re in this defiance mode and that is that you are under God’s wrath and being under God’s just wrath against your sin you’re violently doing all you can to escape your sin, guilt and misery. You will not have God and His Word rule over you. Thus, I quite agree you can’t be convinced apart from the power of the Holy Spirit working in your life. The Holy Spirit, Mr. Atheist, was sent to convict people like you of sin, righteousness, and the judgment to come. Still, I have some hope. My hope is that you will finally see and admit to yourself your sin, guilt and misery and go to the only one who can set you free from that which has you so burdened and heavy laden. Mr. Atheist that one is Jesus Christ who God set forth as the one who alone can turn away God’s just wrath upon you and for the first time in your life give you peace with God. You see, Mr. Atheist, Jesus Christ died for sinners, and carried the guilt of particular sinners and now God commands you Mr. Atheist to finally give up your rebellion and flee to the only place where you can be once and forever done with your hatred of God, hatred of others, and hatred of self. Only upon crying out to God for rescue, will you understand and accept the clear teaching of Scripture on the matter we are in dispute. Won’t you please repent?”

For those who want to see this teased out even more, I highly recommend this article by Cornelius Van Til;

https://www.apologeticscentral.org/post/mr-grey-mr-black-and-mr-white-by-cornelius-van-til-with-commentary