Category: Apologetics

Owen & Bret Chit Chat About The Possibility of Christian Nations

“Nations can’t become Christian.

Nations can be profoundly influenced by Christianity, but only people — sinners — can become Christian. This is why you shouldn’t try to coerce faith, nor force people to convert. You’ll only do damage to the gospel cause if you try.”

Dr. Owen ‘Strychnine’ Strachan

1.) If Nations can’t be Christian then neither can families be Christian. This presupposes that God only works individually and not corporately or covenantally. This is exactly the kind of “logic” one should expect a Baptist to use.

2.) All Government arrangements seek to coerce faith. In as much as all enacted legislation (law) is the residual expression of religion, any time a Government passes law it is seeking to coerce faith. Why shouldn’t Christian governments seek to coerce faith in the manner of passing Godly legislation?

3.) While people can never be forced to convert in the sense of subjectively embracing for themselves ownership of Christ, people can and should, in an objective sense be forced to convert so as to be forced to follow the strictures of a Christian social order.

4.) Such “forced conversion” would be good for any Christian nation. Forcing Christ-hating people to objectively convert and so walk in righteous laws, even if they don’t want to, is a good thing that is Christ honoring. Keep in mind that the opposite of this kind of “forced conversion” is a libertarian licentiousness where each man does what is right in his own unconverted eyes.

Dr. Joe Boot Joins The Stupid Brigade … McAtee Defends Wolfe

The confusion on the relationship between man as both a spiritual being and a corporeal being continues to flex its muscle among those reputed to be pillars in the Church. If this confusion were a disease the fatalities among the inhabitants of the Evangelical/Reformed/Lutheran Church would be so catastrophic that people would be thinking the church would never recover from this pandemic.

The most recent example of someone showing all the symptoms of diapslama-ia is Dr Joe Boot. I find this most disappointing since I’ve profited by the writings and speaking of Boot. I’ve read many of the man’s works and though I’ve had a quibble here or there, (like being too influenced by the Amsterdam philosophy school) on the whole I have recommended his writings.

Now I will have to explain to people, to whom I recommending reading Boot, that he is not trustworthy on the issue of the man as a dichotomous being.

Before we get to the Boot quote, allow me to interject that I am no apologist for Dr. Stephen Wolfe. I offer that because the Boot quote comes as lodging a complaint against Wolfe. My problem with Wolfe is his reliance on Natural Law theory. However, this complaint by Boot as little to do with that aspect of Wolfe’s thinking.

So, here is the monstrously stupid quote from Dr. Joe Boot;
 

“Wolfe seems oblivious to the fact that, had his course of making a given country the absolute cultural possession of its people – simultaneously absolutizing a ‘natural right’ of ethnic and cultural particularity – been taken seriously by missionaries to the Anglo-Saxon world, none of us would be Christians today, but would still be drinking the blood of the dead! Nor would William Carey, the remarkable British missionary to India, have worked against his host culture to abolish the heinous custom of Sati (burning the living wife on the funeral pyre of her dead husband). In his enthusiasm to preserve the remnants of the Anglo-European Christian culture of America, Wolfe fails to grasp its religious, not ethnic root (incredible in itself, since America is a new nation of immigrants) and cuts a re-paganizing America off from the possibility of godly transformation by incoming Christian missionaries from around the world calling the nation to repentance.”

Joseph Boot
“Christianity Versus Racism”

1.) Boot’s accusation here, boiled down to its essence, is that Wolfe is a ethno-cultural particularist to such a degree that Wolfe is saying that if we really took seriously the necessity of every people to have its own cultural particularity then we would not take up the Great Commission in order to herald Christ to heathen anti-Christ cultures for fear of changing their cultural particularity.

The problems with that assertion by Boot against Wolfe are;

A.) Nowhere, have I read Wolfe propose any such nonsense.

B.) The accusation that Wolfe would not be interested in Missions endeavors in no way follows the idea that Wolfe favors cultural particularity for people of a particular country,  who are the absolute possessors of its culture. It does not follow because when the Gospel works to redeem Christ-haters from their empty way of life as handed down to them from their ancestors it does not mean they lose their cultural particularity. What redeemed cultures lose, is the sinfulness that characterized their culture. Boot seems to forget that grace restores nature and the nature that grace restores is what makes for the particularity of any given people. Now, to be sure, there will be changes in those cultures but those changes that come from being redeemed will not eliminate the particularity of any given people. Wolfe can hold to cultural particularity of any given people and still believe in the necessity of the Great Commission, knowing that a redeemed people and so culture will still be unique vis-a-vis other redeemed people’s and cultures.

2.) Basically, Joe Boot is arguing that to believe ethno-cultural preservation and separation precludes receiving the Gospel and repenting as corporate national salvation would require giving up the sinful expressions of an ethnicity’s identity. Boot is saying that Wolfe so favors nature that Wolfe’s position requires the refusal of grace to restore nature.

So, this accusation despite 2000 years of Church history that teaches that the Gospel changes people, peoples, and cultures while still leaving them a particularly ethnic people. Does Boot think that if different people groups become Christian therefore all cultures lose their particularity and so are going to be the same across the board?

As my British friend Henry Plantagenet said in a conversation concerning this monstrously stupid Boot quote;

“It’s as insane as saying that if we believe gender is fundamental to being human that we are precluding the Gospel from redeeming men and women because to do so would change the particularity of their gendered expression.”

3.) Joe Boot’s presupposition here is that to believe that blood relations have inherent and defining characteristics upon the nature of man, as Wolfe and all sane people do, is to reject the spiritual power of the Gospel. Boot is accusing Wolfe of absolutizing the corporeal side of man so that it would be impossible to own spiritual impact. As such, Boot is accusing Wolfe of being a materialist in this accusation, which I find interesting because it is the kind of accusation one might expect to find a Gnostic make against someone who claims that man’s material (genetic) side is really real. Is Boot laced with Gnosticism?

4.) Boot’s accusation that Wolfe prioritizes a people’s ethnic over religious root is insane. Indeed, some of us have been saying that Wolfe prioritizes man’s religious root over his ethnic roots. Wolfe has gone out of his way to insist that his theory of “Nationalism” does not absolutize, nor even necessarily prioritize ethnicity/race.

5.) We need to realize here that culture is merely the outward manifestation of a people groups belief. Culture is theology poured over ethnicity as existing in a particular place. Given that definition of culture (theology made manifest) when Boot accuses of Wolfe of what Boot accuses him of, Boot is saying that Wolfe is not interested in seeing a people’s theology changed to be Christ honoring. This is a serious accusation to make against a fellow Christian. Does Boot really believe that Wolfe desires for the unconverted to remain unconverted?

6.) Boot raises the old canard, that just isn’t true, that America was a nation of immigrants as if it never had a ethno-racial base, but was solely founded on ideas (propositional nationhood). I have demonstrated so often here, with quotes from the founding fathers, that the founders would have said that Joe Boot was full of fertilizer when he insists that we are a nation which has not ethno-racial base. If anyone happens to be reading this and wants me to reproduce the quotes once again, I’ll be happy to do that.

Let’s here from Henry Plantagenet again;

“I don’t get why everyone today fails to recognize that the redemptive order is simply the original Creation order cleansed from the power of sin.”

So, unless Boot repents, count him as just another platformed Reformed scholar who is stupid when it comes to the issue of basic Christian anthropology.

Vox Day, Vox McAtee

Over here;

MAILVOX: In Defense of Doug Wilson

Vox Day answers a letter defending Rev. Doug Wilson. It is a magnificent response. Still, despite that I can’t help but wanting to have my own go at this letter defending the Pope of Moscow.

Doug’s Defender (DD) writes to Vox Day,

Firstly, I acknowledge your critiques of Doug, and recognise that he has some enormous Boomer tendencies.

 

McAtee responds,

Is this like acknowledging that FDR was a cripple? I mean, Captain Obvious much?

DD writes,

But.

He has a growing appeal to disaffected young evangelical men (of whom I belonged).

McAtee responds,

Nobody can disagree with that sentence above. However, Doug should be to disaffected young evangelical men what marijuana was to druggies in the day, and that is only a gateway drug to the real narcotics. Doug is the wine cooler that opens the way someday to Tennessee Sipping Whiskey. If one doesn’t move beyond Doug, one remains stunted in their Christianity.

DD writes,

He spearheaded an enormous push towards Classical Christian schooling, founded on Western Civilisation (including the Greco-Roman underpinnings).

McAtee Responds,

Not to be too technical, but you do realize, don’t you, that the Greco-Romans were pagans? Classical Education has some real merit but unless it is reinterpreted through a Biblical Grid all it produces is pagans who now how to argue. I’ve seen my share of graduates from the Moscow Greystoke Manor who embody my observation.

DD writes,

It’s a huge movement, that is reintroducing the youth to the Good, Beautiful, and True.

McAtee responds,

If that is true, than certainly enough, these youths will see that Wilson and the CREC is still not that for which they are looking. If these youths are getting a taste of the good, the true, and the beautiful than soon enough they will push on from the holding tank that is not quite the good, the true, and the beautiful that is the CREC.

Imagine if you will a large room of painting canvases all set next to one another. The very first painting canvas is covered with a very watery red. The very last painting canvas is covered with a bold fire-engine red. All the canvases between the first one and the last one are canvases that each are a little more red then the previous one but a little less red then the next one in the series. Pope Doug and the CREC represents the entry level red canvas. It has introduced you to the idea of “red.” However, if you are really captivated by Red you will push on from the entry level red and eventually you’ll look back at the entry level red and see that it really isn’t that red at all.

DD writes,

They have cleaned up church liturgy, and recaptured theological maximalism, with many offshoot ministries pushing phrases like ‘Rebuilding the New Christendom.’

McAtee responds,

Cleaned up church liturgy and taken us back, in many cases, to a liturgy that goes back to smells and bells. Further, your CREC has taken up the cursed cause of Ecclesiocentrism and the fact that you may not even know what that word means, means that you have miles to go before you sleep.

And in terms of Wilson’s vision of “Rebuilding the New Christendom,” let me just say that if Wilson is successful in doing so, then I’ll be praying that the New, New Christendom will soon come to replace Wilson’s version because Wilson’s “New Christendom,” looks an awful lot like the old Liberalism of 1950. Tell me, please, how is Wilson going to build a New Christendom while holding on to the idea of “principled pluralism?”

DD writes,

This is all important foundational work to waking up Christians. It has led to me creating a homeschool co-op teaching the Classical method, and we are exposing our children to the glorious things that the Christian West has to offer.

McAtee responds,

And now someone has to come along and shore up the cracks on Wilson’s foundational work. I promise you there is something much larger than a pea under all those mattresses.

If you want your children exposed to the glorious things of the Christian West make sure you teach them about Lepanto, the Crusades, Jon Sobieski, Jan Valjean, etc.

DD writes,

Ministries like G3 ministries are on the warpath against ‘kinism’ which has significant sway over the Reformed Conservative movements.

McAtee Responds,

Have you been sleeping? Wilson’s warpath against Kinism makes the G3 look like a bunch of boy playing cowboys and injuns.

DD writes,

Guys like Doug want more mainstream appeal, so they have opted to go soft on the racial issue. They have ousted guys like Thomas Achord, which shows they mean business.

McAtee responds,

It’s clear to everybody who has eyes that Pope Doug is going for the neo-con/New York Times crowd.

And you think “outing guys like Thomas Achord” is a recommendation for Wilson and his peeps? This is like saying that Sherman should get a medal for raping and pillaging his way to Atlanta.

DD writes,

But it is worth noting that there are more guys like Thomas Achord in these organisations who will eventually start speaking out. The time doesn’t seem to have come for that yet.

McAtee responds,

And Pope Doug is the one we are all supposed to be waiting on to give the signal when the time has come for all that? Trust me… the time will never come because Doug is merely a gatekeeper interested in pushing his brand.

DD writes,

I’m sure you’re aware that racism is perhaps one of the most unforgivable sins in the Evangelical church and will get a robust and powerful reaction from the Evangelical base (especially the Boomers). He is pushing young men in the right direction, and Christian Nationalism, as promoted by Stephen Wolfe, is gaining significant traction.

McAtee responds by quoting Vox Day,

“Stephen Wolfe’s Christian Nationalism is fake nationalism. It’s a religious form of civic nationalism that substitutes Christianity for US citizenship. He’s just another gatekeeper.”

Refuting the Idea that Hate is Bad Form for Christians

Have to be blunt: if you harbor hatred in your heart for Muslims (please recognize the difference between the Muslim people and Islam as a religion) you are sinning. Period. Full stop. As a follower of Christ, hatred is NOT an option, and if your “theology” gives you a place for it, you have been led astray. Repent.

James White

This is magnificent claptrap. This is the kind of stuff that either brain injured people come up with, or people who have been raised as modern Christians. It is the simpering speech used by derelicts, drug addicts, or people with Ph.D’s in some kind of “theology.”

1.) No man can truly love anything without also hating that which has as its animating spirit the annihilation of that which he loves. For example, as James White loves His wife, I suspect that he would hate anybody who assaulted or even degraded the man’s wife.

2.) The idea of “hating the sin, but loving the sinner,” while communicating a wee bit of Biblical thought isn’t the whole word on the matter. After all, God’s Word explicitly tells us that “there is a time and a season for everything under the sun. A time to love and a time to hate.” Do we really believe that Solomon in Ecclesiastes was thinking while writing, “A time to love and a time to hate the sin but love the sinner?”

3.) If we are to hate the sin but love the sinner then why are we not to love the righteous works but hate the righteous?

4.) If we are to be “like our Father in Heaven,” then it would seem that we absolutely must hate the sinner as well as his sin. Throughout revelation God does indeed hate the sinner, along with and because of their sins (Lev. 20:23, Ps. 5:4-6, 11:5, Prov. 6:16-19, Hos. 9:15, Mal. 1:3, Rom. 9:13). Indeed God hates the sinner so much that He casts the sinner with their sin into hell for all eternity (Mt. 10:28).

5.) God hates His enemies so thoroughly that He;

a.) Closed the door of the Ark so His enemies would drown
b.) Showered Sodom & Gomorrah with Brimstone and fire
c.) Totally obliterated the Egyptians in plague and water

6.) Further the saints of old — our Fathers — hated sinners

a.) Joshua’s work on the Canaanites
b.) David’s work on the enemies of God
c.) Samson’s work on the Philistines
d.) Elijah’s work on the Prophets of Baal
e.) Phineas’ Javelin throwing contest
f.) Moses’ dispatching of the Egyptian overseer
g.) Jesus Christ peeled skin with a whip against the Jewish Bankers

7.) Scripture informs me to

a.) “Hate that which is evil, love that which is good.” Rm. 12:9
b.) “Hate evil, O you who love the LORD!” Psalm 97:10
c.) “Hate evil and love good; establish justice in the gate.” Amos 5:15

On the Amos 5:15 passage the Puritan commentator Matthew Poole offers;

“Slight dislikes will do little in this ease, you rulers and judges must heartily hate, and show that you hate, the evil, both ways, doings, contrivers, and abettors of the evil among the people and yourselves;”

Now, those like Dr. James White who insists that Christians are not to hate those enemies of God who hate God and His Christ will instantly run to Matthew 5:39; 

39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.

This passage refers to just what it says, as it only applies to some kind of petty insult coming from a personal enemy. It seems past obvious that one can’t make this walk on all fours, and yet that is what we get from any number of those reputed to be pillars in the Church. Think about it for a second. Does making this text walk on all fours make any sense at all?

” But I tell you, whoever rapes you in one bodily orifice, offer him another,”

Or
” But I tell you, whoever bludgeons you with a pipe on one side of the skull, turn to him the other side of the skull to bludgeon.”
Or
” But I tell you, if someone abducts one of your children, give him another child to abduct.”

Or

“But I tell you, if someone rapes your wife, give him your daughter to rape.”

Now, all of the above does not mean that we don’t do good to those who are our personal enemies or who dish out to us petty insults. If my neighbor hates me throws paint balloons at me, I may well still bring them some hot chicken soup when they are ill and so show them a kindness. However, if that same neighbor goes after my grandchildren to harm them, they can be sure that fire and sulfur is going to rain down on them.

If you can’t find it in your heart to hate Muslims, Hindus, Jews, or Atheists as they seek to continue to bury this culture is Christ dishonoring laws and customs, you are indeed not right in the head. A lack of hate here communicates that you don’t really love Christ and His Law-Word.

One Implication of Egalitarianism

The 1st rule of Majority-Minority relations in a Egalitarian Liberal Culture

1.) The worse the behavior of a protected racial or sexual minority is the greater must be the cover up of that behavior in order to continue to preserve the egalitarian illusion. Further, this cover up will normally be pursued by the racial majority in the culture who have a vested interest in sustaining the hegemony of egalitarianism.

This rule has a necessary implication?

1a.) The more egregious any non-Western, non-White, and non-Christian behaves, the more evil the Christian Western White man must be reported to be for merely noticing and then drawing valid and rational conclusions about general truths regarding racial and/or sexual minority groups.

This means the more wicked minorities are, as against the Christian Western White man, the even more wicked the Christian Western white man must be envisioned as being so that it can be maintained that “the minorities are not any worse than the Christian Western White man.”

This is the inevitable logic of egalitarianism, for once the equality of all races and peoples is a driving presupposition, then the wickedness of any minority group must find the majority Christian Wester white group being seen as every bit as wicked if not more wicked than the wickedness of the guilty minority group.

Of course this only works in the direction of Whites as ever being seen as increasingly wicked in order to avoid any conclusion that Christian Western White behave in superior ways to any other minority group — sexual or racial.

The only way this is avoided is if, instead of the wickedness of racial or sexual minority groups being exposed, what happens is that behavior is covered up. This is what we are currently now seeing in the whole Nashville private school shooting from last summer where a sexual minority member shot up a Christian school. The manifesto of the tranny is not being released because the QGBTL minority is being protected from being seen as evil. Ask yourself this; “Do you really think that if the shooter in Buffalo had written a manifesto that it would have been buried the way the tranny’s manifesto has been buried in Nashville?”

This also explains why the FEDS are forever prating that White Supremacist groups are now the #1 terror threat in these united States. In doing this the FEDS are maintaining the illusion that White are not any better than racial or sexual minorities when the FEDS own documentation on crime screams to the contrary.