Category: Apologetics

DEI And WOKE In the PCA’s MNA — I

Recently the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA) has been letting its true WOKE colors be seen. As often happens this WOKEism comes from the apparatchik, bureaucratic, and administrative bowels of the denomination.

First a bureaucratic arm of the denomination (Mission To The World [MNA] – A denominational agency that allegedly helps the denomination with Church plants and philanthropy) decided it was appropriate to put up a website instructing illegal aliens on how to evade being bagged, flagged, and tagged by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for return to country of origin. In other words a PCA bureaucratic agency served as an ally in order to aid and abet criminals. Now, the website was met with a storm of protest and was eventually taken down but it is clear that within the bowels of the PCA bureaucracy a criminal loving anti-Christian element exists and saying “I’m sorry,” and pulling down the website (repenting) doesn’t change the fact that there is a mindset that exists within the PCA that is not only errant but is criminal. How can one note conclude that the PCA is, in its bureaucratic entrails, a creature of the Left?

Following that imbroglio the PCA drew attention again for the action of a church (Resurrection Oakland Church — Oakland Ca.) that was prejudiced against white people. Let’s be clear here. I don’t really view it as being prejudiced in any kind of negative way but certainly we would have to say that in light of the current bogus standards of what constitutes “racism” a PCA Church with the black head of the MNA as a speaker had a luncheon wherein only black folk were invited has to be considered by WOKE standards as “racist.” Now, once again, I want to be clear here. I have not a scintilla of problem with this gathering except that it is the case that if white people were to legitimately want to have a fellowship meal and session exclusively with a prominent white speaker the black community in the Reformed church would go grape ape crazy. So, my problem is not with Dr. Ince having a fellowship meal with black people only. My problem is that sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander. Further, my problem is all the ridiculous justifications that I have read for why it is acceptable for black folk to occasionally cordone (segregate?) themselves off from white folks but it is not ok for white folks to occasionally cordone themselves off from black folks.

The MNA, trying to thread the needle of repenting of its DEI visage by giving criminal aid to illegal immigrants while explaining why DEI is acceptable when applied to the acceptable practice of segregation for minorities said;

    “fellowship gatherings or events that center on the shared cultural experiences of ethnic minority brothers and sisters (are acceptable).”

The MNA went out of its way to also say that the organizers of ResOak’s Black Fellowship Dinner, which requested attendees to register, “did not prohibit or turn away anyone from attending.” Now if this doesn’t give you a good belly laugh nothing will. Of course they did not prohibit or turn away anyone from attending since after the announcement that “no white people were wanted” doubtless no white person wanted to attend. I mean why would any White person want to attend a “blacks only” gathering after they had been told explicitly, “Whitey stay home?”

Next the PCA tries to go all “marketing” in their messaging;

“Affinity ministries equip and encourage minority members who worship in so many of our churches. These ministries support shared cultural experiences for the edification of the whole body,” the committee said, going on to list some of the minority ethnic groups that make up “the dynamic diversity of the PCA.”

“We affirm affinity gatherings as a part of rejoicing in our unity and diversity,” the committee said, citing I Cor. 12 and Rev. 7.

Again, I don’t have any problems with a ecclesia within the ecclesia. What I have a problem with is daring to suggest that if White people desire to have an affinity ministry together in order to equip and encourage non-minority members who worship in many of our churches would somehow be an example of evil segregation and/or “racism.”

 In a separate statement, PCA Stated Clerk Bryan Chapell suggested that media covering the dissension within the denomination over such issues have shown an “‘inability or unwillingness to understand PCA leaders’ explanations’ of the difference between groups segregated by prejudice on the one hand, and affinity groups gathered to advance gospel witness on the other hand.”

This statement from Dr. Chapell is also rich with belly laugh material. If white people segregate than it is evil prejudice but if minority folk self-segregate then it is “affinity groups gathered to advance the gospel witness.” It is amazing that these people can’t see how transparently ridiculous these “distinctions” are.

All of this demonstrates the Church’s subtle and not so subtle contribution to the replacement agenda.

Next we are told;

“MNA offers specific ministries for several ethnic minorities, including one for Hispanics that claims the recent demographic change in the U.S. amid “loosened” immigration policies was “orchestrated by God Himself” to provide “an unprecedented opportunity” to fulfill the Great Commission.”

On this point I would love to know how the PCA knows that God has orchestrated the loosened immigration policies in order to provide an unprecedented opportunity to fulfill the great commission?

Did somebody in the PCA bureaucracy get a “word from the Lord?” I mean couldn’t it also be the case that God has orchestrated the loosened immigration policies in order to fulfill His promise to curse people who abandon Him per Deut. 28 where He promises those who disobey Him will become the tail and not the head?

Next, if the MNA were honest, they would see that it is the pagan immigrants who are converting American Christians to their third world ways and not American Christians who are seeing vast numbers of third worlders converted. Even this language italicized most immediately above is evidence of a leftist brain worm in the apparatchiks of the PCA. Loosened immigration policies certainly are the result of God will of decree but they are exactly contrary to God’s will of precept. Has God ever revealed, by way of precept, that a people as a people should break the 6th commandment and annihilate themselves by welcoming in the stranger and the alien so has to eat out the native born’s substance and steal the native born’s children’s inheritance?

McAtee On The Rosebrough vs. Mahler Debate IV — Ham’s Curse, Penalty for Theft, Constitutional Oaths

Before listening to Mahler and Rosebrough debate I spent time listening to Deace goosestep Ray Fava through a struggle session. Having listened to those two back to back I was reminding how far ahead of the curve we Kinists were on these Christian Nationalism and “the Bagels are a problem” issues. We Kinists were debating these same exact issues against the proto-“Christian” Maxists 15-20 years ago. Even now you can go to the Iron Ink search engine and plug in “Bojidar Marinov” and find now dated and considerably  heated debate on the same subjects that Deace and Fava and Mahler and Rosebrough were debating. 15-20 years ago it was Kinists like myself, Dan Brannan, Mark Chambers, Davis Carlton, Justin Cottrell, Adi Schlebusch, and Colby Malsbury going hammer and tong against the “Christian” Marxist crowd of Stephen Halbrook, Bojidar Marinov, Daniel Ritchie, Joel McDurmon, R. C. Sproul Jr. and others. Back then those discussions were fierce fire fights between the same two camps now represented by Rosebrough/Deace on one side and Mahler/Fava on the other side. In the past I’ve gone at it with clergy like Joe Morecraft, Chris Streval, Doug Wilson and others on these subjects. The Kinists were here manning the walls on these subjects long before Spangler, Hunter, Garris, and other really good men showed up to lend support. We have been paying the same price for years that the more recent arrivals have sadly been having to pay also. That isn’t to say that all the folks arguing for Christian Nationalism or Kinism agree on everything, rather it is too note we have had the same enemies.

That was an observational aside. As far as the Mahler vs. Rosebrough debate I thought it was funny that at one point Mahler accused Rosebrough of being “Reformed.”  Mahler made it clear that, like all Lutherans, he believes that God knows the future without determining the future.

At one point Rosebrough wanted to dismiss nearly all of Church history on the subject of race and the Jews. Rosebrough noted that one can find all kinds of errant beliefs (he used the example of the perpetual virginity of Mary) held by Church fathers in history. Therefore, all because one can quote Church Fathers (and even Lutheran Church fathers like Luther, Walther, Maier and others) that doesn’t mean that their or the Christian Nationalist is correct. This of course is true. However, the problem Rosebrough has with this line of reasoning is that the testimony of the Church Fathers on this subject is so thick and so long-standing and so prevalent that it beggars the imagination that they were all in error. We have two anthologies out now that demonstrate that this doctrine of Kinism is one of those doctrines that has been believed by all people of all times in all places by the Church. If this subject is disputed let the Alienists produce a couple volumes of anthologies giving us quotes from the Church Fathers through history supporting the egalitarianism and the support of the Jews that is now characteristic of the Alienists. Anabaptists don’t count as Church Fathers and the quotes have to be older than 1960.

Next, Rosebrough demonstrated that he doesn’t understand the possibility that Scripture uses Canaan as a synecdoche for Ham when it came to the curse of Ham. Personally, I don’t have a settled position on the cursing of Ham but I recognize that it can play into this debate. Having said that I think one has to say it is possible that Canaan serves as a synecdoche for all the descendents of Ham. I would also add that merely because those from the lines of Shem and Japheth have themselves been enslaved over the centuries that does not negate the possibility that Ham and his descendants are uniquely cursed by Noah to that end.

Rounding off this section, there were a couple points that Mahler looked bad on.

First, Rosebrough was right in the whole hand amputation debate. If one takes Scripture as their standard it would be unbiblical to chop off of somebody’s hand for theft. Scripture does not teach that as a penalty for theft choosing instead restitution plus penalty for the crime of theft. Mahler was in error in arguing that the amputation of the hand for theft was a perfectly legitimate option in a Christian law order.

Second, Mahler is playing games when he says he has vowed to uphold the Constitution but then turns around and says there is nothing for him to uphold in his lawyer oath to uphold the Constitution since the Constitution has no meaning. If the constitution has no meaning and didn’t have any meaning when Mahler, as a lawyer swore to uphold it, then the man should not have taken an oath to uphold something that by his own definition can’t be upheld. Mahler kept insisting that “An oath to a document (Constitution) that can change doesn’t mean anything,” has to be met with two responses;

1.) Is that what they taught you in law school?
2.) Then how is it you weren’t bearing false witness when you took the oath since obviously the people requiring the oath believe that the Constitution has meaning?

Points for Mahler on the Ham curse possibility explanation. Points for Rosebrough on the discussion of penal sanction in the case of theft and for his exposure of Mahler’s weak position of taking an oath to uphold the Constitution.

Calvin & Jefferson On Diversity & Multiculturalism

 “If you fix your eyes not on one state merely, but look around the world, or at least direct your view to regions widely separated from each other, you will perceive that Divine Providence has not, without good cause, arranged that different countries should be governed by different forms of polity. For as only elements of unequal temperature adhere together, so in different regions a similar inequality in the form of government is best.”

John Calvin 
Institutes

Calvin here is clearly against any notion of multiculturalism. Different countries, populated by different peoples, are governed by different forms of polity that best reflect and so serve different peoples. From this we learn the advisability of properly segregating those social realities that should be properly segregated. For example, it would be foolhardy to try to integrate the Shona people group as living among the Japanese. They are different peoples and should be ruled by different traditions, customs, and governance. Their differences don’t allow for social integration as one people. This seems obvious.

What Calvin wrote in the 16th century Thomas Jefferson echoed in his lifetime when writing about the differences between blacks and whites;

“Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.”

What Calvin and Jefferson observed was not merely a matter of opinion. Calvin would have said that this was clear from God’s Word as seen in how the OT gives very precise delineations keeping the stranger and the alien distinct from Israel. Jefferson would have said this was obvious as seen in Nature and Nature’s God. Both would have been correct though today’s Natural Law enthusiasts would disagree with Jefferson’s correct interpretation of Natural Law.

Calvin and Jefferson were not merely rendering up subjective opinions merely reflective of their times. Calvin and Jefferson (and countless other men) were reflecting objective truth. It’s the same truth that is found in Scripture wherein it is taught

“You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.”  Deut. 22:10

One would think that the obvious failure of our long pursued egalitarianism would be obvious on this matter. One would think that the failures of multiculturalism are glaring. Instead, we continue to hear stupid slogans that have repeatedly been demonstrated as abundantly not even close to being true like “diversity is our strength,” “Strength lies in differences, not in similarities,” “Diversity is a mix and inclusion is making the mix work,” “No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive,” and “A democracy thrives on diversity. Tyranny oppresses it.”  All of this has been to prop up an egalitarianism that can not stand, never has stood, and never will stand. The continued decline of the US and Europe in their attempt to embrace diversity and multiculturalism has proven the wisdom of Calvin and Jefferson and countless others. A society… a culture … is only strong where there is worldview, ideological, theological, philosophical, religious, and cultural harmony of interest as combined with a shared racial / ethnic history and tradition.

Hat-tip — Adam Plewes

The Nature of the Atonement … McAtee Contra Libolt (I)

Here I pick up critiquing CRC minister Dr. Clay Libolt’s thoughts on the weakness of the Biblical doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA). Clay has appealed to a recent book by Andrew Remington Rillera who was trained at that paragon Institution of Orthodox Christianity — Duke Divinity School. Rillera has produced a book that insists that the atonement was not about the effect of the atonement upon God (objective view) but instead the effect of the atonement was upon the believer (subjective view).  Rillera’s book insists that the sacrificial imagery in the NT is aimed at grounding the exhortation for the audience to be conformed to the cruciform image of Jesus by sharing in his death. The consistent message throughout the entire NT is not that Jesus died instead of us, rather, Jesus dies ahead of us so that we can unite with him and be conformed to the image of his death.

Again, the impact of the cross work of Christ is on man and so the atonement is measured by the effect it has on man. This is in contrast to the teaching of the PSA which does not deny the effect the cross work of Christ has on man, but insist that the subjective impact can only make sense in light of the reconciling impact of the atonement on God toward man. In other words there is a manward impact upon the recipient but that manward impact only makes a difference because God set forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God. In the atonement God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them.

When we understand that differing theories of the atonement historically have fallen under three overarching categories;

1.) Theories which explain the atonement by the moral influence it has on those who will be recipients (Moral influence theories).

2.) Theories which explain the atonement as God’s eternally assigned means by which He would be reconciled to eternally loved but fallen sinners (Propitiation theories).

3.) Theories which proclaim the atonement as a cosmic victory (Christus Victor theories).

Some prefer a twofold classification of atonement theories, limiting the options to subjective theories as those which emphasize the effect on the believer, in distinction from objective theories which put the stress on what the atonement achieves quite outside the individual. Andrew Remington Rillera has given us a scholarly, erudite, but errant book that opts for option #1 with little to no consideration of the effect of the atonement Godward. This is “Christian” humanism and given Dr. Clay Libolt’s track record through the years of his ministry it is not surprising that Clay would be so enchanted by this volume from the Duke scholar and that despite the fact that such teaching goes against the Three Forms of Unity that Clay has sworn to uphold.

From here I will quote Dr. Libolt’s article that can be found here;

Harsh Justice, Introduction

Clay Libolt writes (Hereafter CL);

This theory of atonement is also “substitutionary.” Because we cannot pay the penalty, God sends God’s own son to pay it for us. Jesus steps in where we cannot. He pays the penalty on the cross.

I note here without developing the thought that this second claim of PSA (Penal Substitutionary Atonement) is a bit odd for at least two reasons. One is that the idea that someone can step in for the guilt of someone else seems strange. It’s true that occasionally a person will give up their life for someone else. I think about those who stepped in front of Nazi firing squads, allowing others to escape death. To do so was heroic. But what of the commander of the firing squad? To allow an innocent person to be executed or, rather, to require that someone die in those circumstances is on any account wrong. And in the PSA analogy, we would seem to be putting God in the place of the commander of the firing squad: someone must die; it doesn’t matter whom.

BLMc responds;

1.) I can’t explain why Clay would find this at all odd since Scripture explicitly tells us;

Rmns. 5:7 For one will hardly die for a righteous person; though perhaps for the good person someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

I Peter 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit,

2.) We would note that the Scripture does not teach that the Father “allowed” Jesus Christ to be a propitiatory sacrifice but rather Scripture teaches that God put forth Christ

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. — I John 4:10

3.) Clay writes that such an arrangement as the PSA would be “wrong.” We would ask, “wrong by what standard?” Clearly the death of the just for the unjust is extolled as pre-eminently right by God’s standard.

Him (Jesus Christ), being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:  Acts 2:23

Is Clay saying that God did wrong by sending forth Christ to serve as our substitutionary death.

We begin to see here that Clay is not only disagreeing with the nature of the atonement but we are seeing that Clay has embraced a very different God then the God we find in the Scriptures. This is not just merely a matter of disagreeing about the mechanics of the Cross (as magnificently important as that is). This is about the person, character and attributes of God. In the end this is competition between different understandings of Christianity. Clay wants to start with man. Christians want to start with God.

4.) Note that Clay has God being equal to a Nazi commander executing a poor innocent unjustly. Talk about loading the narrative in your favor. Does Clay really believe that orthodox Protestant Christian theology insists that God doesn’t really care who is the substitute for sinners?

According to the Heidelberg Catechism he swore to uphold the substitute for sinners can’t just any poor schlub;

Question 15: What sort of a mediator and deliverer then must we seek for?

Answer: For one who is very man,7 and perfectly righteous; and yet more powerful than all creatures; that is, one who is also very God.

Secondly on this note, when Clay writes against Penal Substitutionary Atonement he is directly contravening the Heidelberg which explicitly teaches Penal Substitutionary Atonement.

Question 12: Since then, by the righteous judgment of God, we deserve temporal and eternal punishment, is there no way by which we may escape that punishment, and be again received into favor?

Answer: God will have His justice satisfied (Penal), and therefore we must make this full satisfaction, either by ourselves or by another (Substitution).

Also here, Christ was not “some poor victim” of a Nazi Firing Squad Commander (God) who God just randomly chose to be our substitute as Clay would have it;

John 6:38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but to do the will of Him who sent Me.

Ps. 40 “Here I am, I have come—it is written about me in the scroll: / I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your law is within my heart.” (Cmp. Heb. 10)

Jesus was sent by the Father and eternally willingly embraced what the Father eternally tasked Him with. The Son was not a victim of the Father but the Father and the Son with the Spirit entered from eternity into a covenant whereby God would be glorified in the cosmic impact of the Atonement.

Finally, while Christ was innocent in His person, as our sins were imputed to Him while on the Cross, as a public person He was our sin-bearer.

CL writes,

Second, there is a matter of proportionality. This goes in two directions. First, for God to require eternal punishment for temporal sins seems entirely out of proportion. Is it just for God to require hell for the sins of a child who dies young? Or a person who lives an exemplary life apart from the faith? But it is also out of proportion in the other direction. For the sufferings of Christ, terrible as they were, to balance the suffering of the world seems, well, not entirely adequate. Perhaps this is the reason that Christians seem intent on Good Friday of focusing on how much Jesus suffered.

BLMc responds;

This paragraph leaves me nearly speechless. The fact that a minister believes this and writes this is just astonishing. Understand that Clay is arguing here that God is not just. Clay believes that God is being unfair and overbearing by making the punishment fit the crime. Note, what Clay is doing here is that Clay is summoning God to the dock and serving as the jury Foreman Clay is demanding God give an account of Himself to Clay. It is stunning. Clay, according to Clay’s own standards, has determined that God is disproportional when it comes to punishment for sin.

As to Clay’s question;

1.) Yes, it is just for God to require hell for the sins of a child who dies young. Indeed, what is incredible is that any of us, regardless of our age and comparative innocence should be given grace. Clay is surprised by God’s justice. I am surprised by God’s grace. None of us deserve anything but Hell given both our sin nature and our sinful acts. When it comes to these matters we say along with Father Abraham, “Will not the judge of all the earth do right.” Who is Clay Libolt to call God before the bar of His adjudication?

2.) Yes, it is just of God to cast someone into hell who lived an “exemplary life” without faith. We find ourselves asking first, “exemplary by what standard?” Clay is clearly grading on a curve while God grades on a straight scale. All have sinned and fallen short of what God justly requires (living to and for His glory).  Also consider, is it really possible for anyone, saved or unsaved, to live an “exemplary life” when the standard is God’s perfection? Are we really to believe that a person who has lived their whole lives with themselves as God is a person who has lived an exemplary life? Can a person who has lived all his life for his own glory be said to have lived an exemplary life?

Can you believe a Christian minister is reasoning this way?

3.) But Clay doesn’t stop there. The man actually suggests that the sufferings of Christ on the Cross do not meet and so satisfy the way the world has suffered in/during world history. In other words, for Clay, the world has suffered more than Christ could have ever suffered during His life and on the Cross. Christ’s sufferings were not enough to pay (“not entirely adequate”) for all the suffering that sin has brought in the world. Honestly, even in my most generous moments I can’t see this as anything but blasphemous.

So, for Clay, Penal Substitutionary Atonement can’t be true because Christ didn’t suffer enough in order for it to be true.

We could go on a rag here but suffice it to say that Clay does not appreciate the suffering of the sinless perfect Man and Holy God and the suffering of sinners but clearly at Clay’s age it is unlike any reasoning is going to pull him up short.

Clay is Reformed. Bret is Reformed. Both Clay and Bret served in the same denomination. Clay and Bret can’t both be Christian.

Postmillennialism vis-a-vis Amillennialism … Foundational Differences Teased Out

“It is right for you to realise, and to take as the sum of what we have already stated, and to marvel at exceedingly; namely, that since the Saviour has come among us, idolatry not only has no longer increased, but what there was is diminishing and gradually coming to an end: and not only does the wisdom of the Greeks no longer advance , but what there was is fading away. … And to sum the matter up: behold how the Saviour’s doctrine is everywhere increasing, while all idolatry and everything opposed to the faith of Christ is daily dwindling, and losing power, and falling. … For as, when the sun is come, darkness no longer prevails, but if any be still left anywhere it is driven away; so, now that the divine Appearing of the Word of God is come, the darkness of the idols prevails no more, and all parts of the world in every direction are illumined by His teaching.”

Athanasius, AD 296-372
Incarnation

“…the kingdom of God on earth is not confined to the mere ecclesiastical sphere, but aims at absolute universality, and extends its supreme reign over every department of human life….It follows that it is the duty of every loyal subject to endeavor to bring all human society, social and political, as well as ecclesiastical, into obedience to its law of righteousness.”

A.A. Hodge, Evangelical Theology: Lectures on Doctrine
(Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, [1890] 1990), 283

“It would be easy to show that at our present rate of progress the kingdoms of this world never could become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. Indeed, many in the Church are giving up the idea of it except on the occasion of the advent of Christ, which, as it chimes in with our own idleness, is likely to be a popular doctrine. I myself believe that King Jesus will reign, and the idols be utterly abolished; but I expect the same power which turned the world upside down once will still continue to do it. The Holy Ghost would never suffer the imputation to rest upon His holy name that He was not able to convert the world.”

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

As Amill eschatology believes that the Kingdom of God is exactly identified with the Church and only with the Church it is inevitable that Amills will diminish the necessity for Christianity to conquer in every area of life outside and beyond the Church. After all, for the Amillennial types, if the Kingdom of God is not inclusive of any area outside the Church and the Kingdom is only synonymous with and for “the Church,” there is no need to conquer those other arenas / areas that for the Amillenialist are “non-Kingdom” arenas.

What I mean is this: As the Amils are always leaning towards identifying the Kingdom of God only with the Church — thus drawing a bright line demarcating between Kingdom/Church activity and non-Kingdom/Church activity — the consequence is that the “consistent with their eschatology” Amils will always chide anybody in the Christian faith who sees the Kingdom as being an arena that is expansive beyond the Church so as in include arenas as education, jurisprudence, just war theory, politics, economics, etc.

Postmils, to the contrary, believing that the Kingdom is not identified as exclusively with the Church and believe thus that the Kingdom of God extends beyond the Church and so will do just the opposite of the Amill and emphasize the necessity that the Church, being the armory of God’s Kingdom, must seek to conquer every arena of human existence. The Postmills believing this then will, unlike their Amill counterparts, address these different various issues from the pulpit. This leaves their Amill counterparts apoplectic.

The fact that this analysis is accurate is seen especially in the writings of David Van Drunen, who I believe has drawn out the most consistently the errant implications of the Amil eschatology. Van Drunen writes in his “Living in God’s Two Kingdoms”;

“God is not redeeming the cultural activities and institutions of this world, but is preserving them through the covenant he made with all living creatures through Noah in Gen. 8:20 – 9:19.”

Van Drunen continues writing;

“God is redeeming a people for himself, by virtue of the covenant made with Abraham and brought to glorious fulfillment in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has completed Adam’s original task once and for all” (p. 15). As VanDrunen explains, “redemption is not ‘creation regained’ but ‘re-creation gained’” (p. 26).

When one follows this reasoning closely one realizes that for R2K Amillennialism the intent of Biblical Christianity is to preserve culture so that individuals alone, as extracted from their cultural context, might be redeemed. Individuals are redeemed while their cultural context by definition is unredeemable. If Van Drunen were a linguist he would say that God intends to redeem the text while leaving the context to experience soul sleep. This is consistent Amillennialism and because of this Amillennial “theologians” will go spastic in condemning Postmillennialists for preaching on subject matter that in their Amillennial worldview does not particularize the need for the individual as an individual to be redeemed.

This thus creates a ever growing hostility between consistent Amills and consistent Postmills. In this hostility the Amils will forever be accusing the Postmills of diluting the Christian message since, as the Amills believe, the Postmills major on the minors and the Postmills will forever rightly accuse the Amills of being cowardly pietists who love them some retreat and who are characterized in preaching a Christianity that redeems the text (individual) while leaving the context (culture) unaffected.

This explanation also sheds light on the fact that Amillennialism Christianity and Postmillennialism Christianity create very different types of character and personalities in people. People who are decidedly Postmil are typically going to be type “A” personalities who have a thirst to conquer while people who are decidedly type “B” personalities will be content to be passive and retiring — except when attacking postmillennialists and their eschatology. Amills typically refuse to fight unless it is to fight those (postmills) who never tire of fighting for the honor of Christ.