Apologetics – Page 3

Announcing the Availability to Order, “Saved to be Warriors”

I am humbled to be able to announce the arrival of “Saved To Be Warriors,” my first, of what I hope to be many more to come, book. There is a link embedded in the link below that informs where the book can be ordered.

In a endorsing statement of the book, that is sure to bring Rev. Sacha Walicord grief from some quarters, Rev. Walicord writes,

“Woe unto the preacher who does not sound the alarm when the Good News is attacked from within the church, when the Law is pitted against the Gospel, and when Christ’s Crown Rights over all of life is disputed. Especially in this day and age when unity is elevated far above purity and when virtue signaling seems to be the order of the day, I am most grateful for this excellent contribution by Rev. Bret McAtee. This work robs the serious reader of every excuse not to stand up against a false and dangerous doctrine – one that is by no means a minor issue, but an assault on the Gospel of Jesus Christ itself. I am most thankful that McAtee has answered the call and dealt with the assailants, not with cheap rhetoric, but by biblically interacting with their own words”

Rev. Sacha Walicord

Saved to be Warriors

The Noble Savage?

Behold the peaceful culture of the American Indian;

___________________________

“Given that human sacrificing and scalping were part of American Indian culture, but not mentioned in Government school textbooks, it is not surprising that the cannibalism that was also present in many tribes likewise is not mentioned. A little known fact is that the Mohawk tribe derived its name from its habit of eating human flesh. Alpheus Hyatt Verill writes: ‘ The Mohawks were notorious eaters of human flesh, and were called Mohowauock or man-eaters by the Narragansets. William Warren, a native of the Chippewas, noted in his History of the Ojibways (1852) that his people occasionally ate human flesh. In 1853 John Palliser wrote that the Sioux and Minitares had their women cut pieces of human flesh from slain enemy warriors. These pieces were then broiled and eaten. Eskimos, especially during times of stress, also consumed human flesh. The Pawnees would roast their prisoners for food. The French explorer, La Sale, reported that the encountered an instance in which the slaves of Indians were forced to eat their own.

In the 1670’s Father Chrestien Le Clercq described some Iroquois cruelties that often including forcing prisoners to eat their own flesh. The Roman Emperors, Diocletian and Nero, the two savage persecutors of the early Christians, ‘would hold in horror the vengeance, the tortures, and the cruelty of the Indians of New France [Quebec], and above all the Iroquois, towards their prisoners. Le Clercq noted that the Iroquois cut off the prisoners’ fingers, burned them with firebrands, tore away their nails, and made ‘them eat their own flesh.’

The Menace of Multiculturalism

Alvin J. Schmidt — pg. 48

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The point of the quote and the book from which it is taken is to bring some perspective to the whole “the evil White Christian European” and all the damage that Western Culture has done. Doubtless we, like all cultures have our sin, but to suggest that other peoples have been more noble is just ridiculous. Western Culture is the greatest Culture that mankind has ever produced and that is so because Western Culture was shaped by Christianity.

When you talk about Western Culture you’re talking about the culture produced by a people who were intoxicated with the Lord Christ.

Next time someone wants to tell you about the evil culture of the white man you might want to recite the above. Our Forbears called them “savages” for a reason.

I Had A Dream The Same Night Chris Gordon Had A Dream

As I sailed on the waters of the Great Lakes, I came to a certain place that seemed like an island, and I laid down in that place to sleep; and as I slept I dreamed a dream…

I was driving through Tekonsha on Mi 60, and I came to a fruit stand that filled me with the urge to listen to some androgynous music. Finally I stumbled across Ziggy Stardust singing,

“Here comes Dick, he’s wearing a skirt
Here comes Jane, y’know she’s sporting a chain
Same hair, revolution
Same build, evolution
Tomorrow who’s gonna fuss?

[Chorus]
And they love each other so
Androgynous
Closer than you know, love each other so
Androgynous

The next song I heard in my dream was some kind of rift off of the Eagle’s “Hotel California;

Last thing I remember, I was
Countering their lore
I had to turn their worldview back
To the Calvin it was before
‘Relax,’ said the ordained man,
‘We are programmed to deceive.
You can argue anything you like
But we will never believe!’

And my dream turned even more surreal with men in skirts in pulpits lisping as they read something about being pilgrims and strangers in this land, yet feeling quite at home with their six figure income and book sales. As they deposited their checks they chanted “in this world we have no continuing city.” Koreans pressed for their autographs while they boasted about how they had people in their congregations on both sides of the “gay” marriage issue. In my dream the babies that had been aborted, as the men in skirts had remained silent in their pulpits on the issue of abortion, were now speaking at the men in skirts ordination services mentioning something about how as little ones they had been offended by the silence of Escondido. Chris Gordon was there giving the Benediction while obviously dreaming himself.

And then a great dream arose within the first dream and ate the first dream from the inside out, like Jonah eating his way through the great fish, and in that dream I dreamed I saw all men praising God in the public square. I saw D. G. Hart, Mike Horton, and R. Scott Clark urging their students to become men like John Knox, Samuel Davies, and R. L. Dabney. (I told you it was a strange dream.)

In my dream David Van Drunen and Matt Tuininga sat at a table as tweedle-dumb and tweedle-stupid playing ping pong. The ball they were hitting back and forth had stamped on it “surrender.” In the corner of the room stood Jacques Rousseau and John Locke arguing with Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson over who was the most responsible for R2K theology. Periodically they would suddenly become doubles partners playing against Van Drunen and Tuininga in a round robin ping pong tournament.

Van Drunen, Tuininga, Williams, Hutchinson, Rosseau, Locke, D. G. Hart, Gordon, Horton, and Scott then suddenly were violin virtuosos who played with great dissonance while in the background the cultural Marxists were going all arsonist on the building in which they were playing. But it was all alright because people were getting saved while everything burned down around their violin concert. Van Drunen, Tuininga, Williams, Hutchinson, Rosseau, Locke, D. G. Hart, Gordon, Horton, and Scott suddenly began to laugh maniacally as they played faster and faster and the walls burned hotter and hotter because they had always predicted that this is how it would all end anyhow. The hotter it burned, the more they laughed and the more they laughed the hotter it burned.

Suddenly, in my dream Scrooge was there but as converted to the Escondido Jesus. He was lecturing to me about the desire to reduce the surplus population of theonomists in the Church. He said, and I quote;

“Every theonomist idiot who goes about with ‘God’s Law’ on his lips, should be burned alive with his own copy of Bahnsen’s “Theonomy in Christian Ethics,” and buried with a stake of general equity through his heart.”

Then in my dream I saw, as it were, two air tight compartments which in no wise could be pierced by the other except as by hallucination. As I had one hallucination I was regulated by the Escondido magisterium. As I had another hallucination I was regulated by a unnatural natural law.

Then I awoke from my dream and opened my Bible and the place where I landed was this:

“Be ye not conformed to this world but be yet transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

I realized that the impulse of the Anabaptists to retreat from the world was exactly the spirit that had overcome me.

In my dream of trying to leave this world I found that there was no way to do that. Every action or lack of action on my part was impacting everything. How was I to be effective if I were to re-build the monastery? Cowardice was driving me and I suddenly remembered that no coward was ever saved. I realized that I must die to my desired retreatism and must once again seek to be a warrior for Christ. I realized that it was I myself, by my retreatist theology, who had created divisions and disunity in the church and that I couldn’t blame everyone else. I must die to my desire to be conquered by this present evil age. I realized that I too must die to myself, along with my own vision of how I want to see Christ’s kingdom come by not coming and by not contending for it.

It was Jesus who said that upon the confession that Jesus is Lord, Jesus would build His Church, and I realized that I was not confessing Jesus in the public square. I had forgotten that the early church had always been arrested for sedition and not because they were worshiping secretly in the catacombs. I realized that, truth be told, I care more about not being persecuted for righteousness sake than I cared for aborted babies.

Back to Tekonsha, Mi, confident in my calling to be a witness to wicked potentates so as to be as a shining star in a dark universe, I decided to go.

Kevin DeYoung … Also Clueless When it Comes to Nationalism

“Is this (the conclusions in Stephen Wolfe’s book) really the direction we’re to be pushed by the gospel? Are we really to pursue a social ordering on earth so different from that which is present in heaven? Are we really so sure that our love for people like us and our ostracism of people unlike us are God-given inclinations and not fallen ones?”

Rev. Dr. Kevin DeYoung
PCA “Clergy”

1.) If Jesus is the Gospel than I’d say that, “yes” Wolfe’s book is really the direction we’re to be pushed to the Gospel;

²²And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. ²³But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. ²⁴But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ²⁵Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. ²⁶But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.²⁷And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. ²⁸Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

This passage teaches the great grace of the Lord Christ to all men. It teaches the necessity to be importunate in prayer. It teaches the centrality of faith. And by today’s standard among the “clergy” and the Church in the West it demonstrates that Jesus was a racist and that He understood the idea of properly ordered affections. Keep in mind that “dogs” is a pejorative term that is not loaded with any expression of kindness.

2.) DeYoung misreads the book of Revelation thinking that Revelation teaches that Heaven is an amalgamationist paradise, when in point of fact the book of Revelation teaches that the Saints are present in the New Jerusalem as belonging to their Nations (See Rev. 21).

²³And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. ²⁴And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. ²⁵And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. ²⁶And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.

The New Jerusalem is not inhabited by atomistic individuals but by people as still belonging to their respective nations. Heaven is inhabited by the Church as that Church belonged to their respective nations. Thus, the New Jerusalem finds nations remaining yet distinct, yet together united in their worship of the great and magnificent Lord Jesus Christ. This is the concept of the One and the Many incarnated into the Church in the New Jerusalem.

DeYoung’s ham-fisted reading of Scripture, interpreting it to be a place where “all colors bleed into one” is irresponsible, and in this climate, criminal exegesis.

3.) I’d love to see a quote from Wolfe’s book where he is insisting that we need to ostracize people unlike us. Am I ostracizing people when I spend my paycheck providing for my wife and family? Am I ostracizing other women when I don’t bed them while only bedding my wife?

The “Conservative” Guru of the PCA writes,

Likewise, Wolfe’s argument doesn’t reckon with the way the Bible relativizes our sense of family (Mark 3:31–35), tears down dividing walls between people groups (Eph. 2:11–22), and presents a multitribal and multilingual reality (and hoped-for future) as a heavenly good (Rev. 5:9–10).

1.) I dealt with DeYoung’s eisegesis in #2 above.

2.) Next, the Ephesians passage. I am working here to expose why DeYoung shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a pulpit;

The dividing wall in Ephesians is a reference to the Mosaic Law. Christ tears down the “dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances” (Eph 2:14b-15a).

When Christ died, God no longer imposed on Jews the rules that once separated them from Gentiles. The purpose of those aspects of the law has now been fulfilled. The laws that specifically divided Jew and Gentile are now done away with. It is not just the ceremonial laws that are now gone, but the old covenant to which they were intricately attached has been replaced by the new covenant. Under the new covenant God no longer imposes these expectations on his children. This arrangement grants Gentiles wide open access to enter the kingdom of God as Gentiles. Gentiles don’t have to become religio-cultural Jews in order to become Christian.

Further, in Ephesians Paul is not talking about generic ethnic divides but specifically the aspects of the law-covenant that divided Jew from Gentiles. Therefore, someone cannot impose ethnic distinctions onto Paul’s words. The apostle has something uniquely covenantal in mind.

Second, the dividing wall was originally the will of God. To take the word “hostility” in and apply it to racism is dangerous. The dividing wall to which Paul is referring is the Mosaic Law, and the Mosaic Law was God’s idea. He made the wall; then he removed it in Christ. The division that stood between Jew and Gentile in the Old Covenant was God’s will, not the by-product of human sin. “Racism,” (where it can genuinely be found) on the other hand, is the result of human sin and never is the result of what God commands. By applying Ephesians 2:14 to ethnic strife today you effectively turn God into a “racist.”

Third, did Christ remove, by his death, the various differences between cultures today? Not at all. Before Christ’s death, one culture may prefer beer. Another culture may prefer wine. After the death of Christ the first culture still likes beer and the second culture still likes wine. The death of Christ was not intended to move the needle on these types of cultural differences (except for the aspects of man’s culture that are sinful). Nor did it overturn other aspects of human relations grounded in creation, biology, and nature.

(Note: — The above 5 paragraphs were largely crafted by a chap who is now in hiding from the Stalinists cancel culture maniacs.)

Similarly Christ’s death did not remove the tendencies that belong to different ethnic peoples. Before Christ’s death Cretans were liars and gluttons. After Christ’s death Christian Cretans doubtless had to battle the besetting sin of lying and gluttony. The death of Christ does not destroy nature. For centuries McAtees have been hopelessly stubborn. I have been converted for decades now and a sinful stubbornness/defiance remains a besetting sin (ask my wife). The same is true for my children. It was true of my Father and it was true of his parents. This trait is in our genes. It is a characteristic long associated with the Scots. Peoples remain different, even after conversion. There is no sin in acknowledging that. Did Christ remove, by his death, the various differences between ethnicities today? Not at all.

(Note: In the previous paragraph we see why contra Doug Wilson that race/ethnicity is not merely about skin.)

We have the words of an OT scholar Martin Wyngaarden that bears on this issue. Please Rev. Dr. DeYoung listen to Calvin Seminary Dr. Professor Martin Wyngaarden from the 1960’s on Isaiah 19;

Now the predicates of the covenant are applied in Isa. 19 to the Gentiles of the future, — “Egypt my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance,” Egypt, the people of “Jehovah of hosts,” (Isa. 19:25) is therefore also expected to live up to the covenant obligations, implied for Jehovah’s people. And Assyria comes under similar obligations and privileges. These nations are representative of the great Gentile world, to which the covenant privileges will therefore be extended.”

Martin J. Wyngaarden, The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011), p. 94.

And again;

“More than a dozen excellent commentaries could be mentioned that all interpret Israel as thus inclusive of Jew and Gentile, in this verse, — the Gentile adherents thus being merged with the covenant people of Israel, THOUGH EACH REMAINS NATIONALLY DISTINCT.”

“For, though Israel is frequently called Jehovah’s People, the work of his hands, his inheritance, yet these three epithets severally are applied not only to Israel, but also to Assyria and to Egypt: “Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance.” 19:25.

Thus the highest description of Jehovah’s covenant people is applied to Egypt, — “my people,” — showing that the Gentiles will share the covenant blessings, not less than Israel. YET the several nationalities are here kept distinct, even when Gentiles share, in the covenant blessing, on a level of equality with Israel. Egypt, Assyria and Israel are not nationally merged. And the same principles, that nationalities are not obliterated, by membership in the covenant, applies, of course, also in the New Testament dispensation.”

Wyngaarden, pp. 101-102.

3.) Now the Mark 3 passage

³²And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee.³³And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? ³⁴And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! ³⁵For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

DeYoung insists that the passage above relativizes our sense of family. I’d dearly like to hear DeYoung explain what he means by “relativizes.” If he simply means that the family can’t be raised above our union with Christ or that loyalty to family/people can’t rise above our loyalty to Christ who could ever argue? However, if “relativizes” means that family does not remain a priority, in its proper place, DeYoung has to deal with;

⁴For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. ⁵But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; ⁶And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. ⁷Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,

Clearly, our Great Master and Lord, Jesus Christ, does not relativize family/people to the point that somehow they become eclipsed in our responsibilities to them.

Then there are the words of God that teach that family most certainly is not over relativized;

⁸But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.

DeYoung and many like him are creating false dichotomies in order to avoid a Nationalism that is ethno by definition.

DeYoung is not a wise man on several matters. This is but one.

But why should be be the only clergy who is not wise in this regard?

I may have more in a future entry to say about DeYoungs misfiring in his analysis of Wolfe’s book.

Reading the Fall of Western Civilization in 500 words

One of the consequences of the War of Northern Aggression was the destruction of the USA as a constitutional Confederated Republic as replaced by the consolidated National Union. One impact of that was the death of regionalism which had characterized America for its first 80 years.

Regionalism was to be replaced with Unitarian Nationalism. People would be known post War Against the Constitution not as Virginians or Pennsylvanians but as vanilla “Americans.” In that way the Jacobin war of 1861-1877 was a war against distinctions.

Here we are now 160 years later and the war on distinctions that was began in the garden of Eden, and could be traced through the French Revolution, the European Revolutions of 1815 and 1848, the Jacobin war in America beginning in 1861, and on and on that same long Revolution continues to be waged today. The Kinists understand this history and are doing all they can to stop the West from sliding further down a slippery slope that began centuries ago. The Kinists alone understand where this all ends if we don’t start returning to distinctions that the Jacobin left has been fighting to eliminate since the fall of the Bastille.

The Kinists see the big picture and the big picture is survival of man as man. There is no hatred for the other in the Kinist but a love for a civilization that never ceases its mad frenzy to eliminate distinctions.

But we have slid so far into the egalitarian maw that now even the conservative Church is in league with the enemy and screams Hari Kari that the Kinists are heretics. When they do so all I hear is the Revolutionaries in Paris demanding “off with their head,” or the abolitionists in New York breathing fire against the South or the Bolsheviks screaming “Workers of the World Unite,” or the denunciations in Mao’s re-education centers during the cultural Revolution. It’s all a piece as littered across the last 240 years.

The Alienists today are just the most recent incarnation of that Jacobin spirit. When I hear a Dreher or a Roberts or a Littlejohn or a Brito, or a McDurman or a Marinov or a Wilson speak if I close my eyes I can hear a Beast Butler, or a Sherman, or a Thaddeus Stevens, or a Sheridan or a Stanton or a Robespierre or a St. Just, or a Danton speaking in just the same way, with the twist that the former sprinkles their speech with Jesus talk.

But make no mistake about it. The Revolutionary spirit lives on and its ugly face has been seen quite without its usual mask in the recent desire to destroy the life of a mousey academic living in the Louisiana backwaters.