Category: Apologetics

The coming of Christ, the true Son of God, abolishes national Israel. Since the coming of Christ, there is no more reason for the theocracy. Whether they mean to or not, theonomists are an affront to Christ. They want to have the theocracy that Christ abolished by his coming. He fulfilled the purposes of Israel. To claim those purposes for ourselves is to reject Christ himself.

Read Gal 5:1-5 and replace “circumcision” with “theonomy”.

First, the coming of Christ does indeed abolish national Israel. That is why we don’t see any relevance of that piece of sod in the Middle East for eschatology. However, saying that the coming of Christ abolishes national Israel and saying that the coming of Christ abolishes the law are two quite different statements. The case law that Theonomy appeals to is naught but the moral law applied to concrete situations. If one insists that the case law is abolished one is left saying that the moral law only continues to inform in a completely abstract fashion, or one is left to inconsistently saying that while the moral law applies concretely to individuals it doesn’t apply concretely to the public square where it was specifically given and never rescinded to apply to.

Second, as Theocracy is an inescapable category, the coming of Christ has nothing to do with its elimination. All governmental arrangements are theocratic since all law orders that provide the framework for all social orders are derivative of some expressed or implied Theology. Saying that theocracy is eliminated by the coming of Christ is like insisting that oxygen has been eliminated by the coming of Christ. You can say it all you want but it doesn’t make it so.

Third, we would say that it is not theonomists who are an affront to Christ but rather those who would deny the proper place of His Kingship. They argue against God’s concrete law and they turn around and plead for a Kingship of Jesus that is abstract and debatable. (Debatable because Jesus’ Kingship as expressed by their natural law theories is a Kingship that looks different according to which natural law theorists you speak with.)

You letter however, does reveal the anti-thesis between Christians who are theonomists and Christians who desire to read them out of the Kingdom. It is difficult to see how, if each insists that the other is an affront to Christ how they can co-exist together.

Fourth, theonomist, most assuredly do not desire the Israelite Theocracy that Christ abolished. They want the Theocracy that comes from bearing allegiance to Christ in this age and in this place. Silly boy, why would we ever build fences around our roofs as the Israelite Theocracy was required to? No, the Israelite Theocracy is abolished, but the law of God lives on since it is, after all, Holy, just and good.

Fifth the purpose of Israel is not abolished. The overarching purpose of Israel was to testify and be witnesses to God’s hegemonic glory. That remains the overarching purpose of the Church today. Certainly you are not saying that this purpose is abolished are you? That would be true Reformed Dispensationalism if you were. One way the overarching purpose continues to be pursued is by properly esteeming God’s law (we still meditate on it both day and night), which means that we do not seek to use it as a ladder to climb into the presence of God but rather out of gratitude we seek to conform ourselves in every area of life to God’s law revelation.

Sixth, thus it is quite clear that theonomists do not reject Christ himself, though once again we see the anti-thesis here between Classical Reformed Theology and more recent Reformed innovations. We see it because it is the conviction of many a theonomist that it is the Reformed innovations that are rejecting Christ himself. So, each side continues to hurl invective at one another.

1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free,[a] and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. 2 Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become a theonomist, Christ will profit you nothing. 3 And I testify again to every man who becomes a theonomist that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. 4 You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. 5 For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

First, while it might have been convenient for your argument if the Holy Spirit had inspired the writer to write ‘theonomy’ instead of ‘circumcision’ such is not the case and the suggestion of replacing one word for the other is completely gratuitous and may border on faulting the Holy Spirit for not using the word that you would prefer.

Second, while Scripture makes it abundantly clear that the ceremonial law has been fulfilled (not abolished) and so no longer in force it does not make the same case for the moral law which the civil law is but the concrete embodiment of.

Third, your position consistently embraced would (and some would say does) result in public square anti-nomianism.

Fourth, you come perilously close to bearing false witness about Theonomists since no theonomist has ever come close to teaching that we are justified by the law as the Judaizers taught that the Galatians would be justified by circumcision. Do you have no conscience against bearing false witness or do you not have to be concerned about that since your comments are in the public square and the law does not apply to the public square? Once again, I would recommend Samuel Bolton’s book to you that teaches a very standard Reformed and Puritan view of the Law.

I hope this helps you think your way through these matters more precisely,

Pastor Bret

Over at the Confessional OH the R2k boys are offering up hackneyed versions of Eric F. Wakeman’s recent visitation to friendly environs of Iron Ink. Here is his report.

I visited the blog of a CRC minister that was referred to me by a friend in mid-Michigan. This minister is a theonomist who calls Two Kingdom Theology (2Kt) a “disease”, and makes gratuitous assertions about a connection between 2Kt and gnosticism.

First, as I don’t know what people understand ‘theonomy’ to mean, I seldom refer to myself as a ‘theonomist’ as the guys at the Confessional Outhouse suggest. I really couldn’t say I am a theonomist until EFW first tells me what he thinks theonomy is. Personally, I would be satisfied with arrangements that follow the classical Reformed take advocated by Samuel Bolton in the ‘True Bounds Of Christian Freedom.’ Unfortunately, R2Kt types object to the classical Reformed take on the law and so they hastily stick the label of ‘Theonomist’ — a label that they have worked so assiduously to turn into a pejorative — upon people who dare to take exception to their novel Klinean Reformed dispensationalism.

Second, since none of my commentary was composed of assertions my commentary couldn’t suffer from being gratuitous.

One thing that EFW has right in the quote above is that I do think that R2Kt is a disease that if not quarantined will either contribute to the death of what remains of Christendom (an eventuality that they are perfectly at peace with) or will work to redefine what Christianity is.

Unfortunately I took the bait and attempted a dialog. In return I recieved more gratuitious assertions, strawman arguments, and ad hominem attacks. Finally, I made assertions regarding what I believe concerning the nature of the two kingdoms and the Church’s role in them. Responding to this, this pastor pulled my post and hacked it apart so as to take my words out of context and do more grandstanding to show just how totally right he is for being a thenomist and how ludicrous my thinking on 2Kt is. He was even so kind as to make more assertions… this time telling me (or more correctly, those who read his blog) what I believe (which I can understand since much of my original post, that which contained my own assertions of belief, was removed or ‘reorganized’). To add insult to injury, he assured his audience that he does not care to support his claims concerning the connection between 2Kt and gnosticism.

Starting from the bottom up, I most certainly did show the connection between R2Kt and gnosticism. Eric was so put off that he completely read past the connection made.

Second all are welcome to go to this link

The Family Values Candidate Just Sprung A Leak

and see if EFW is accurate in his accusation that I ‘hacked apart (his words) so as to take his words out of context. Examining his original post will also answer the scurrilous accusation that I removed or ‘reorganized his words.’ I think I only deleted his request for gnostic proof, and I did that because I had already provided that in the part I put in bold at that link. What EFW slanderously accuses me of only serves his purpose to look as if he is the injured party. Once again, much of Eric’s post was not removed. Only his request for gnostic proof was removed and that because I had already answered that request.

The fact of the matter is, is that EFW and his R2Kt was taken to the woodshed. In what could be taken as an attempt to mitigate that embarrassment EFW now accuses me of misquoting and misrepresenting him. Something that an examination of that link will thoroughly disprove.

Interestingly enough, several days ago there was a post concerning the political grandstanding and underhandedness of the Obama campaign. This being the culture a Theonomist would care to redeem, one must wonder exactly what that redemption will look like in that great millenium of political victory when ministers like this one rule the world ‘by the power of the Holy Spirit’. His concern, it was suggested in response to some of my comments, was the third use of the Law. I care not for it, he said, but he wants to see its fruits.

Ummm… the end of grandstanding and underhandedness?

Of course those who subscribe to a 2Kt believe in the third use of the Law, and I pointed this out (that was one of those points he didn’t see fit to publish on his site). Furthermore, I am in awe of the ironic state of affairs in which this pastor finds himself; on the one hand he argues for application of the Law to the culture at large, and yet he violates it in his argumentation of that very point.

First, look at the link provided and see for yourself whether or not I didn’t publish his point about the third use of the law.

EFW’s second point touching irony therefore doesn’t stand since I posted his comments.

This is highly irritating.

I do not believe it would be right for me to direct y’all to this site, nor do I think I ought to give his name. But there is a lesson to be learned here, and it is my hobby horse: everybody has a system. We’ve all thought this stuff through and I have no doubt that many who disagree with me are bright, intelligent, well-intending souls. They are just wrong. On the other hand, I’m happy to go toe-to-toe with those with whom I disagree knowing that I’ll either be strengthened in my belief or be corrected where I err. This, of course, requires argumentation that is soundly logical and respectful. We can debate and discuss with attention to one another’s presuppotions therein, but I stop when I feel the need to call names, mischaracterize, or call into question the salvation of those with whom I disagree (at least those who are presumably in the Church).

Well this is a hobby horse we can both ride into the sunset EFW. You have misrepresented our discussion in order to make yourself smell like Mr. Clean when in point of fact you have the deposits of the Outhouse covering you. Who has done the misrepresentation? Who has shown a lack of respect by these ungrounded accusations? Who has cast aspersions that are not true?

The fact of the matter is that EFW is infected with the R2Kt and hence he is severely wrong.

It would seem to me that given my disappointment with the rancor and putrid state of affairs in the realm of politics (though it doesn’t surprise me, it is politics after all) that I as a Christian could possibly (attempt to) set an example to the world. Must we always agree? Absolutely not. I love to argue. Should we attack (percieved) inconsistencies in the ideas of others? I hope so. Should we attack one another as stupid, as “against the Kingdom of God” or practice illegitimate forms of debate such as those cited above? Lets not.

Look, the R2kt virus is against the kingdom of God. I have no doubt it is well intended. I have no doubt that people mean well by advocating it. But at the end of the day it is against the Kingdom of God.

Second, all the illegitimate forms of debate I’ve been accused of have been shown to be so much grandstanding and ad hominem by EFW.

Whether we all agree on 2Kt, Calvinism, Covenantalism (or what have you) or not, we agree that the saints of God ought to conduct themselves in a way that reflects the application of the redemption which God has accomplished through Christ on the cross. This board has gotten heated at times as these topics are likely to do, and we’ve had brothers correct brothers and get corrected back and so on, but we have stayed away from the sort of political grandstanding that I witnessed recently.

Oh for pete’s sake. Give me a break. The piousness is getting so thick you can shovel it with a pitchfork. If there is any grandstanding you are witnessing it in this post I am responding to.

And that is exactly what it was. Political grandstanding for an audience. Why do I subscribe to 2Kt? Because ministers ought not attempt to utilize the tools of the kingdom of men such as mischaracterization, slander, and blantant dishonesty to further our Lord’s Kingdom. The Lord will bring in an innumberable harvest in the elect, but He will do so by His appointed means. We do Him no favors when we privelege cultural transformation over seeing to the faithful execution of those means. They’re weak in the eyes of men and even those in our own reformed camp sometimes sound as though they believe them inadequate to the task, but they’re all we’ve got.

I am working on being calm here. Someone mind hitting a gong and telling me to find my calming mantra?

We must ask here what makes a tool a tool of the Kingdom of men? EFW has gone all pious and spiritual on me and yet all he has done is mischaracterize and slander me while offering blatant dishonesty to further his argumentation. He has, by dishonest means (look at the link) sought to advance his R2Kt kingdom.

Second, I quite agree that God will bring in His elect by His appointed means of Word and Sacrament. I have never said that people are saved by any other means. To imply that I have is yet one more example of EFW’s dishonesty, slander, and mischaracterization. I am hoping that EFW is 20 something years old.

Third, it is completely gratuitous of EFW to suggest that classic Reformed Theology privileges cultural transformation over Word and Sacrament as the means of God’s harvest. The problem with EFW is that he can’t see a link between God’s harvest of men and how men harvested bring God’s salvation to every thing they touch.

Fourth, I quite agree that the means of grace seem weak in the eyes of men and I quite agree that they are the means that God has appointed by which men will be saved. Personally, I know of no orthodox Reformed people who would disagree with that statement. The implication that I would disagree with that is an example of dishonesty, slander and mischaracterization on EFW’s part.

If my difficulty in hearing what you’re saying is built upon a pretext it is this: Christ came to build His Church. He didn’t call His people to an overthrow of the social order. In fact, He specifically told His inquisitors that His kingdom was of a different nature.

He told Pilate that ‘My Kingdom is not of this world.’ This text is often cited wrongly in support of the idea that Jesus’ Kingdom was of such a nature that it was irrelevant to this world. The problem with such interpretation is that it doesn’t fit what John does with the word ‘world’ through much of his Gospel. For John, the word ‘world’ is often used to designate this world as it lies in the thralldom of Satan. Hence Jesus speaks of the Spirit who the Father will send — The Spirit that the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him (The Spirit) or knows Him. As just one more example, Jesus can say in 14:30 that ‘the ruler of this world is coming.’ For John the word ‘world’ often works in the same kind of way that the phrase ‘this present wicked age’ works for the Apostle Paul. Because this is so we shouldn’t stumble over reading Jesus saying that ‘My Kingdom is not of this world, anymore then we would stumble if we read Jesus saying, ‘My Kingdom is not of this present wicked age.’ Of course His Kingdom was not of the world as it lies in the thralldom of Satan. But that doesn’t mean that His Kingdom, which is not of this world, isn’t a Kingdom that will overcome this world.

B. F. Wescott wrote on John 18:36 saying,

“…Yet He (Jesus) did claim a sovereignty, a sovereignty of which the spring and the source was not of earth but of heaven.” So, agreeing with the Greek scholar Wescott we say that ‘My Kingdom is not of this world,’ means it (quoting Wescott again) does not derive its origin or its support from earthly sources.”

Second, in responding to your statement immediately above allow me to suggest that you forget the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples to pray. One line in that prayer is, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Now, if we are to pray that God’s present Kingdom continues to come that implies that we are praying against other Kingdoms that would exalt themselves over God’s Kingdom. To pray for God’s Kingdom to come is to pray against Kingdoms that rise up in defiance of that always present and always coming Kingdom. E. F., my friend, go read of that Stone in Daniel 2. It is definitely not an a-millennial Stone, but rather it is a rolling post-millennial stone that gathers no moss but instead overthrows and crushes everything in its path, including a-millennial naysayers.

The postmillenial obsession with the culture… transformation of the culture… influencing the culture… what you have sounds like a contradiction.

Well, when people use pretzel logic, I’m sure straight thinking gets accused of being contradictory.

I am not obsessed with culture. I am obsessed with the global and cosmic implications of the finished work of the King-Priest Jesus. I am obsessed with my ruling liege-Lord who provides such a rich salvation that it overflow the banks of individual lives and hearts that have been visited with His salvation. I see this salvation start trickling, pouring and cascading in the cultural street so that the salvation of the good High King Jesus becomes a flood that rolls over all of humanity and all of its institutions bringing life where the desert of wickedness had previously been.

I am obsessed with people coming to Jesus. I am obsessed with the Church swelling as God calls in His elect. I am obsessed with the glory of the crucified and ascended Jesus.

If my belief that Christ will ultimately have victory over sin and death and create a new order in His second and victorious coming is Gnostic I guess I’ve misread something. Your implied assertion that I do not believe that Christ and His disciples had all power is a misunderstanding of two kingdom thinking: I believe that said power is of a different nature than the power to transform secular culture. The power of the Holy Spirit will empower His Church to continue faithfully preaching the Gospel message.

First, there is no such thing as secular culture. It is a phrase that has been invented and repeated ad nauseum to convince people that culture can be a-religious. Culture is but the outward manifestation of a people’s inward beliefs. As all belief is theological, all cultures are theological. There is no such thing as ‘secular culture.’

Second, you believe ‘the power of the Holy Spirit will empower His Church to continue faithfully preaching’ with a message that in the end utterly is triumphed over as the Church becomes a isolate fort surrounded by the ‘injuns’ that can only be rescued by a deus ex machina eschatological in breaking. You believe that Jesus returns to a tare field in order to pick the wheat out. I, on the other hand, believe that Jesus returns to a wheat field to pick out a few irksome tares. I likewise believe that the ‘power of the Holy Spirit will empower His Church to continue faithfully preaching,’ but unlike you, I also believe that the Gospel will both succeed and bear fruit that will remain. I don’t confuse the Gospel for the culture but neither do I fail to believe that the Gospel has implications. That a people freely declared Holy will increasingly become what they have freely been declared to be and that with that personal and individual transformation all that they touch will be affected by the salvation that has visited them. Salvation doesn’t end with Jesus coming into people’s hearts. Neither does salvation end with doing Church just right. The salvation that Christ brings to individuals gets in their marriages, their families, their schools, their economic structures, their juridical and legal institutions, their art and science and every other realm over which Jesus is King.

Quit being embarrassed by Jesus cosmic Lordship.

Furthermore, my comments regarding the personal holiness of believers and our call to be salt and light refer directly to the third use of the law. The third use of the law, unfortunately for you, does not call those outside the Church to be transformed, but those inside.

Look, E. F. if you have a problem with transformation you need to take it up with Romans 12. In writing to the Church at Rome the Holy Spirit speaks,

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

The Holy Spirit speaks something similar in Ephesians 4:23-24 and while you have your Bible open you might want to also look at II Cor. 3:18 and Romans 8:28-29. Honestly, I can’t understand for the life of me the resistance of R2k types to the idea that the Christian life is one of ongoing transformation into the image of Christ.

The motivation for Gospel ministry for Amils such as myself is the glorification of our Lord through the steady use of the means of grace to the end that all of the elect may be brought into this redeemed culture called the Church. The postmil seems to have much more to do with reforming the existing political and social order.

As it is the case with all Amillennialists you are seriously confused. The postmillennialist is with you every step of the way in your first sentence above. The difference is that postmillenialists believe that the Gospel as vastly wider and more powerful implications then our Eeyeore cousin amillennialists. Notice also the amillennial tendency to compartmentalize nature and grace. This is platonic (gnostic) thinking.

Where did Christ command us to “baptize all cultures (especially Constantines Christendom)”? I thought that call was to people of every tribe and tongue… gotta return to Matthew 28 and reread I guess…

How very American and non-covenantal of you to read the text that way. No, you have no trouble reading what the text says … it is what it means you need to spend some time on.

I’m not Gnostic, you’re just a member of “the cirumcision group”.

I beg your pardon… Both my son and I still have our foreskins. Similarly we both believe that salvation is completely gracious.

Further gnostic comments will not be posted. Go find someplace else to evangelize people into the belief that Jesus is Lord in a abstract way over the realm where we do 95% of our living.

“Although Christianity does not end with the broken heart, it does begin with a broken heart; it begins with the consciousness of sin. Without consciousness of sin, the whole gospel will seem to be an idle tale…. But if the consciousness of sin is to be produced, the law of God must be proclaimed in the lives of Christian people as well as in word. It is quite useless for the preacher to breathe out fire and brimstone from the pulpit, if at the same time the occupants of the pews go on taking sin very lightly and being content with the moral standards of the world. The rank and file of the Church must do their part in so proclaiming the law of God with their lives….

J. Gresham Machen
Christianity and Liberalism

Of course Machen didn’t realize that the Church needs to distinguish between the need of the Church to proclaim the law of God in the personal and private lives of it’s members and the need of the Church to proclaim the law of God in their corporate and public lives of it’s members. Machen never learned that while the former is required the latter is not possible since God’s inscripturated Word doesn’t apply to the common realm. In the public and corporate life of any given culture Christians may take sin very lightly and be content with the moral standards of the world.

Some people may wonder why I keep returning to this radical two kingdom virus. The reasons I do so are multifaceted. First, I want to show that whatever this R2Kt virus, it isn’t Calvinism. I hope my series of posts from Witte, Jr’s book as aided in the dismantling of their delusions that they are Calvinists except in a very constrained way. I guess I would say that they are Cavlinists the way that the Beatles would have been the Beatles without Lennon and McCartney. Second, I want to expose its profound but enduring vacuity. Third, I want to let them shoot themselves by allowing for a large public reading of their own words. Fourth, I want to prevent people from being infected by the virus they carry. Fifth, I want them to repent. I could go on but you get the idea.

I lifted these comments from a thread where the recent documentary ‘EXPELLED’ was being discussed. Our friend from Grand Rapids, Zrim, is the one who comes up with such brilliant insights. It is interesting that even Dr. R. Scott Clark, the Typhoid Mary of the R2Kt in academia, can’t even go along with Zrim in some of Zrim’s comments. If you want drop into the conversation go here,

http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/the-furor-over-expelled/#comment-1302

“What I liked about that TIME piece was the old-school Calvinism: “The truth, of course, is that the only necessary and sufficient condition for human beings to murder one another is the simple fact of being human. We’ve always been a lustily fratricidal species, one that needed no Charles Darwin to goad us into millenniums of self-slaughter.”

Calvinism cuts through the crap of 21st century American pop- and partisan-politics, red and blue.”

It is true that humans, because of the fall, will find all kinds of ways to be destructive. However, their spiritual condition is not unrelated to the thinking which they pursue. Scripture clearly teaches that, ‘as a man thinketh in his heart so he is.’ When Zrim reasons the way he does he implicitly abjures this idea preferring instead to seemingly think that men behave the way they behave quite apart from intellectual, theological, or philosophical paradigms. So while it is true that we don’t need Charles Darwin to be lustily fatricidal, it is not true that we don’t need to have a thought system that gives us putative reasons for our fatricidal-ness. Before Darwin men were fatricidal but you could still draw a line between whatever belief system they had and their fatricidal actions.

Zrim’s comments suggest that there is gnosticism going on in his thinking. Men are spiritual entities who act the way that they do for spiritual reasons and these spiritual entities act according to spiritual reasons quite apart from any concrete thinking or an anti-biblical contrarian thought system. Further, he seems to suggest, that we shouldn’t be concerned about tracing out the consequences of bad ideas since all we need to know is that men are spiritual fallen.

“While I think a substantial link between *Social* darwinist theory, eugenics, Nazism, and Planned Parenthood is pretty straightforward to address, mere Darwinism itself does not produce these evils. Refusing to view man as being made in the image of God and thus morally accountable to his Creator is the root of these evils, not the mere idea of natural selection.”

Really, Zrim only needs to spend some time in a library with Herbert Spencer to see the connection between Darwinism and *Social* Darwinism. The first sentence of the statement above only reveals Zrim’s lack of training in the history of ideas.

Second, Zrim cuts corners by suggesting that Darwinism is about ‘natural selection.’ Nobody disagrees with natural selection as a way to explain long beaked finches vs. short beaked finches. This is not the problem with Darwinism. Again, I humbly submit that Zrim go to the library and this time spend some time with T. H. Huxley (Darwin’s Bulldog) and learn that Darwinism was not offered as a mere theory of Natural Selection but rather as a comprehensive Worldview that was offered as a way to explain reality quite apart from the God of the Bible.

Still, we want to credit Zrim where he is correct. It is true that the refusal to view man as being made in the image of God and thus morally accountable to his Creator is the root of these evils. What Zrim doesn’t seem to know is that is exactly what Darwinism teaches. The truth of the matter is that Zrim’s real problem is that Reformed people are actually contending for King Christ in his common realm where no such overtly Christian contending is supposed to take place. Zrim doesn’t want Christ in this realm except in a most indirect way and Christians who take their faith into that realm trouble him deeply.

In this next section, Dr. R. Scott Clark had taken Zrim to task for going a little bit to far with their shared viral thinking. Zrim responds to Clark by noting that Christians have been just as wicked as pagans,

“Then how does one explain the Crusades, the Inquisition and the Salem witch trials, to name but a few examples of those who “view man as being made in the image of God and thus morally accountable to his Creator” and yet perpetrate evil? The implication of the above comment seems to be that if we can just get over the imago dei evil would be substantially reduced. Yet history is littered with those who embrace such a doctrine yet violate it.

It is quite true that -ism’s do not produce evil (since sinners are at the root of evil), but I find it ironic how straighter lines are drawn from the other guy’s -ism to evil.

Again, put another mark in the column for good old-fashioned Calvinism. That is one -ism that no man can escape.

First, we should note that Zrim really is a cultural relativist. No culture can be considered superior to another culture because all cultures show sin. Pagan Darwinist cultures show sin by perpetrating evil in eugenics and Christian cultures show sin by perpetrating evil in Crusades, Inquisitions, and Witch Trials.

Again, we need to ask Zrim to go to the library with us. Without arguing that the historical events that Zrim notes weren’t blemishes on the face of Christendom we need to keep in mind that the Crusades were a response to Muslim aggression and so were defensive in measure. Now, to be sure, in the Crusades sin abounded but to draw a moral equivalence between the Crusades and the Death Camps is just vile and putrid thinking. Christians should freely admit and publish their sins as warnings to future Christians but to suggest that the comparatively small number of deaths of Witches and inquisitorial victims to the millions upon millions who have been slaughtered since the advent of and on account of atheistic Darwinist thinking is just plain irresponsible.

I will be glad to put a mark in the column for good old-fashioned Calvinism — a Calvinism that built Christendom in the West and gives us the ability to distinguish good from evil.

So while Christendom may have a vested interest in reducing the culpability of something like the Crusades, Christianity seems to have no such interest. It is the meta-message that I find more compelling than in the more immediate one which tries to navigate around whose “system” is more/less evil. That WE are evil really changes the conversation.

Evil and forgiven. Zrim spends so much time on Christians as sinners that he forgets that Christians are saints, resurrected with Christ to walk in newness of life. It is true Christians continue to contend with the old man, but it is also true that Christians continue to put off the old man and put on the new man created in the image of God. Because that is so we can expect sanctification to progress not only in the lives of individual believers but also in their cultures as believers who are increasingly being conformed to Christ jointly build a culture that likewise partakes in sanctification.

As it pertains to the Crusades I would be satisfied if Zrim visited the library and at least read the Christian side of the Crusade account instead of ignorantly buying into the Muslim pagan account.

Still, Zrim is right that Christians do need to be reminded that they remain sinners. Without this reminder we run the danger of believing that the culture we build needs to constantly be Reformed. In short if we don’t remind people that WE are evil the odds increase dramatically that we will not be able to see the blind spots that keep us from going on in Christ both individually and culturally.

“Propaganda (The movie EXPELLED) helps nothing along. And it seems to me that what tends to inform most moderns is the stuff of sensationalism, including what we know about the Holocaust (from theories that it never happened to it was the greatest evil ever exacted). Sensationalism subsumes beneath “Sicko” as much as “Expelled.”

Unfortunately this is true. But we have arrived at the point that if one wants to change the dynamics of the game one has to play the game and the way one plays the game in this culture is by making a sensationalist Propaganda film that slightly begins to counterbalances all the sensationalism propaganda that the minions of the devil are pumping out. Would that we lived in a world where sustained and informed debate would inform most moderns but most moderns are idiots and the only way they are moved is by cheap sensationalism. We can thank our government education gulag for having arrived at this point.

“That said, even if you peel away the sensationalism you still have deal seriously with the notions that certain theories lead to certain phenomenon. And I am not so sure that “survival of the fittest” leads to gas chambers anymore than the “cultural mandate to subdue the earth”: they both depend on sinners who can parlay former into a box of Wheaties and the latter into mass destruction–or vice versa.”

Once again it is the library to which Zrim must go. If he doesn’t have time for the library today the link below will allow him to see the connections between ‘survival of the fittest leads to gas chambers.’

https://ironink.org/index.php?blog=1&cat=36

Also note the cultural relativism again. Darwinism is not better or worse then submission to Christ’s command to pursue Christ honoring dominion. Humble Christians seeking to honor Christ by building Christian culture are equivalent to Darwinists who only want to make a better box of Wheaties.

“The danger, it seems to me, is in trying to formulate any theory either betters or worsens the human condition. Christianity is not a system to improve the human condition but to save it; that “the Bible is not a handbook for living” works just as against those who are polyanna as those who seriously want to construct political, economic, social, scientific, educational theory from it. The implication of “Steinian” sorts of critiques (sensationalism aside) is that if one system leads to destruction another leads to redemption. Christianity does, but just not the way you’d think.”

This is a perfect reflection of a-millennial thinking. A-millennialism teaches that good and evil grow together till the end. As such, while we may look for periodic cultural lift in history we must also look for periodic cultural decline. In the end though nothing changes in terms of mankind’s conditions. Indeed, most A-millennialist will insist that things will get substantially worse before Jesus returns. Anyway, given this kind of macro eschatology where the teleology builds an expectation that good and evil always grow together in commensurate proportions we shouldn’t be surprised to find an adherent teaching that Christians shouldn’t bother in trying to formulate any theory that either betters or worsens the human condition. Since, according to a-millennialists human betterment is a-priori locked out then naturally theories are arrived at that teach we shouldn’t try to think in ways that will improve the human condition.

Further, the amillennial presuppositions are in flying full mast when Zrim offers that Christianity is supposed to save the human condition without improving it. Amillennialism holds that final salvation is catastrophic and comes from the outside in. As such it only stands to reason that Zrim would offer us teaching that has no intent offer human improvement. Only a catastrophic inbreaking by the returning Jesus will bring improvement. All other improvements are, at best, illusory. Humans are sinners and even the salvation given them to Jesus only offers a betterment in the sweet by and by.

Nobody needs to look at the Bible as a handbook for living who wants to understand the implications of total depravity in the realms of educational, political, economic, social, and scientific theory. It is just plain ignorance on stilts to suggest that sin doesn’t affect these areas of thought and it is ignorance on stilts wearing high heels that believes that Redemption can’t ameliorate the effects of sin on redeemed thinkers who are seeking to think God’s thoughts after Him in these areas. Zrim’s bible is a gnostic bible that saves men’s souls but leaves their bodies under the ravages of sin.

Pathetic.