Apologetics – Page 5

Bultmann, Bonhoeffer, Brito, Lusk & McAtee

The quote by Bultmann below defines the kind of Christianity that Dietrich Bonhoeffer embraced.

“It is impossible to use electrical light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles.”

Rudolf Bultmann

Kerygma and Myth

And yet, Rev. Uri Brito and Rev. Rich Lusk of the CREC are both out there championing that Bonhoeffer was not so bad and was even a conservative theologian.

What Bultmann gives in this quote is the essence of Neo-Orthodox (Barthian) theology. The Neo-Orthodox theologians would argue and quibble among themselves, but make no mistake, not one of them were Christian in any historic sense. Neither were any of them conservative in any historic sense. Because that is true for “men” like Brito and Lusk to argue the way they are arguing is sheer madness.

Here is a quote from the Bonhoeffer himself on Scripture,

“There may be some difficulties about preaching from a text whose authenticity has been destroyed by historical research. Verbal inspiration is a poor substitute for the resurrection! It amounts to a denial of the unique presence of the risen one. It gives history an eternal value instead of seeing history and knowing it from the point of view of God’s eternity. It is wrecked in its attempt to level the rough ground. The Bible remains a book like other books. One must be ready to accept the concealment within history and therefore let historical criticism run its course. But it is through the Bible, with all its flaws, that the risen one encounters us. We must get into the troubled waters of historical criticism.”

[Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christ the Center, ed. Eberhard Bethge, trans. Edwin H. Robertson (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), 73-74.]

1.) The authenticity of the text of Scripture has been destroyed by historical research.

2.) When Bonhoeffer bitches about “Verbal inspiration is a poor substitute for the resurrection,” what he is saying is that it is the subjective encounter with the resurrected Christ we must be looking for in order to arrive at “truth” and not some kind of reliance on the fact that the only Christ we know of is the Christ revealed in a propositionally true and inspired text. Bonhoeffer, like all neo-Orthodox “theologians” presupposes that the objectively supernatural cannot be true and so what must be pursued is an individual personal subjective mystical encounter with a Christ who may or may not be reflective of the Christ found in the verbally inerrant scripture.

3.) When Bonhoeffer says, “But it is through the Bible, with all its flaws, that the risen one encounters us,” he does not bother to tell you that the risen one that one is encountering is not necessarily the risen one who walks through the pages of Scripture. In point of fact that Bible is a flawed book and so the only encounter one can have is with a Jesus that is unrelated to the flawed Bible because the Jesus of the flawed Bible is a flawed Jesus.

Neo-orthodoxy has always been contradictory subjective excrement, and neo-orthodox theologians have always been contradictory subjective excrement eaters. They take their subjective experiences, call it encounter, and then like filling their subjective balloons with a kind of experiential helium they call their subjective balloons “objective reality.”

And Brito and Lusk are calling this “Conservative.”

Matthew Poole; “The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church Are Infidels”

Here is the ARP defining Kinism which they inveigh against and condemn;

“The belief that God has not ordained the existence of distinct ethnic and racial groups and that these groups should not be preserved and protected . . . It is the conviction that the love of one’s own kind is not a natural and biblical duty, and that the modern drive for ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘universalism’ is not a rebellion against the created order.”

By the way here is Matthew Poole on 1 Tim. 5:8 insisting that the ARP clergy are idiots. Perhaps someone has denied the gospel, but it is not the Kinists by the definition the ARP provided.

“‘But 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.’

But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house: here is a manifest distinction between his own, idiwn, and his own household, oikeiwn, they are distinguished by terms in the Greek, and as to the care which men and women ought to extend to them. By his own he means his relations, all of a man’s family or stock; by his own household, he seemeth to mean those who cohabit with him. The apostle saith that he who is careless of providing for the former, (so far as he is able), but especially for the latter, hath denied the Christian faith, that is, in the practice of it, though in words he professeth it; he liveth not up to the rule of the gospel, which directeth other things. And is worse than an infidel; and is worse than a heathen, that believeth not; because many good-natured heathens do this by the light of nature, and those who do it not, yet are more excusable, being strangers to the obligation of the revealed law of God in the case.”

Matthew Poole

Any fair reading of Poole finds Poole insisting that the ARP clergy and elders who drafted the Kinist document are worse than infidels.

You might belong to the ARP if….

1.) You think an assertion is the same as an argument.

2.) You think the Ordo Amoris is a kind of salad dressing.

3.) You think that Drew Poplin is a heavyweight intellectual.

4.) You think that the church in the US needs more Brits like Andy Webb.

5.) You want your grandchildren to look like foreigners.

6.) It bothers you that Jesus had to be born of the tribe of Judah.

7.) You have never lived around or had to work with minorities.

8.) You’ve a poster in your study that reads “We be all the same.”

9.) John Lennon’s “Imagine” is you’re all time favorite song.

10.) You spend every night thinking, “If only I’d married outside my race.”
11.) Antonio Gramsci, Max Horkheimer, and Marcuse are your beau idéal.
12.) You spell “Exegesis” as “E – I – S – G – E – S – I – S.”
13.) You refuse to deal with Church history.
14.) You refuse to read the books “Who is My Neighbor,” and “A Survey of Racialism In The Sacred Christian Tradition,” for fear it will convict you.
15.) You think “Jacobin” is a brand name of blue-jeans
16.) You willfully misinterpret and twist what your conversation partner says.
17.) You think “Nuh-Uh” provides a serious rebuttal to a reasoned argument.
18.) Erskine Seminary is the only one that would accept your application.
19.) You assign sinister motives to people you disagree with … after all, they must be wicked if they disagree with you.
20.) You think you’re smarter than nearly all the Church fathers who preceded you.

ARP Gives Nothing but Bare Assertions on Kinism … Where’s the Beef?

“Kinism is backwards theology; it is man trying to justify his own prejudices with the Bible, rather than letting his prejudices be transformed by it.”

2026 ARP Study Committee Report

1.) Note, there is no definition of Kinism in this report that a Kinist would recognize as Kinist since the definition originally given is contradicted later in the study. Therefore what is being reported against is a straw man, since the report embraces the contrary contradiction from the original statement as the definition they are working from.

2.) If Kinism is a backwards theology then all our fathers were backwards theologians since, as the anthologies, “Who Is My Neighbor,” and “A Survey of Racialism in Sacred History,” both demonstrate with quote after quote from the centuries of the Christian faith that Kinism is what the church has believed in all times and in all places where it has been orthodox. The ARP and other NAPARC churches are seeking to overturn the Christian faith in the name of Cultural Marxis egalitarianism

3.) Kinism has demonstrated that it is in keeping w/ the prejudices of the Bible. In point of fact, to be anti=Kinist is to be worse than an infidel we are told by Scripture.

4.) Only someone with prejudices against what the Bible teaches on Kinism could conclude that men who teach what is consistent with the Bible on Kinism are men “trying to justify their own prejudices with the Bible, rather than letting their prejudices be transformed by it.”

5.) Men who say what the ARP has said are Anathematizing the Christian faith and are serving the interests of Cultural Marxist egalitarianism.

On People & Funerals

In attending various funerals one has a real glimpse into worldviews if only in the way they are conducted. A Lutheran funeral tells me a great deal about the way Lutherans think. A Wesleyan funeral tells me a great deal about the way Wesleyans think. The same is true of Pentecostal, Reformed, Catholic funerals. They all serve as a clear window into the belief system and the behavioral consequences of that belief system into those attending who belong to one of the faith expressions.

Of course, the same is true about pagan funerals where it is clearly seen that the people are without God and without hope.

I find it all very fascinating. I often have to remind myself at a funeral that I am not there to analyze but to pay my respects.

I worked for a funeral home for awhile and so was exposed to a large number of funerals. I had to quit that job because what I was seeing and hearing at funerals were working depression in me because they were so shallow and hopeless.

I went to a Holiness funeral recently. Large number of references to God, the power of God, the Love of God, the change wrought by God in the deceased’s life. However, the word “Cross” was not mentioned once.

I went to a liberal Reformed funeral once. I asked the Pastor afterward, “are you a Buddhist?”

I attended a Pentecostal funeral once — this one really stands out — and in the middle of the funeral some lady spoke in tongues followed by her husband’s interpretation of the tongues spoken by his wife. I don’t remember the interpretation. I do remember thinking, “even here, in this setting?”

I officiated at my father’s funeral and clearly articulated that I did not know of any time my father embraced Christ. Afterwards, a woman who was a complete stranger to me, came up to me and as clearly agitated she kept insisting that “your father will one day be the angel who comes to collect you when you are dying.” I remember thinking, “Lady, that would likely not bode well for me.” The point here is that the woman was quite uncomfortable with the idea that some people might not be in heaven.

I attended a funeral once of someone who perished in a horrible car accident and the first words out of the minister’s mouth were… “I want to let everyone here know that God had nothing to do with this.” That was the funeral that pushed me into quitting working at the funeral home.

When I was 17 I attended a funeral of a remote family member. I was concerned for their soul and so I asked the minister afterward if he thought that my family member had trusted Christ. He smiled at me condescendingly and asked, “Why would you be concerned about that?” That response has always stuck in my memory.

In South Carolina I co-officiated a funeral where the Pastor kept repeating in the eulogy … “James loved his truck.” After each statement that “James loved his truck” the Pastor would tell of how it was known that “James loved his truck.” It is a standing joke now in the McAtee household to say … “Yeah, but James loved his truck.”

More than a few times in the ministry where I have co-officiated a funeral service I was compelled to correct some really bad theology. I never said “What you just heard was shinola.” Most often what they had heard that was shinola was something like, “And if people liked you when you die you’ll also go to heaven.” I would make it clear when I spoke that “in life as well as in death our only hope is the atoning Cross work of Jesus Christ.” Some of my most satisfying moments as a minister was in these kinds of settings someone unknown to me would come up to me afterwards, pull me aside and say, “Thank you for setting the record straight.” I have had more than a few co-officiants refuse to talk to me after a funeral because they understood that I verbally stepped on their toes.

It’s also worked in the other direction. I once had to do a funeral for a suicide victim. The family felt shame. The sister even felt compelled to stand up during the funeral and say that her brother wasn’t a bad person and that people shouldn’t think that because he killed himself that he was in hell. I was able, during the funeral sermon, to say that while suicide is sin, it has never been an unpardonable sin and that doubtless heaven will have many occupants who committed suicide. The issue always is, have we embraced the Cross and trusted Christ alone for forgiveness.

Honestly, it has been my observation that most funerals are about the people attending more than either about the deceased or about the Triune God. More often than not funerals across the board, regardless of denominational trappings are quite man-centered. Praise God there are abundant exceptions.

Funerals are one of the clearest windows into the way people think, live, and act. I think it is because the pressure is on, stress is high, and mortality is staring at everybody. Not only a window into the lives of the family of the deceased but windows into those who put the funeral together and who are participating in the funeral.

Show me a funeral and I will tell you the theology and worldview of those in charge and those attending who are comfortable or uncomfortable with the funeral.

Theology remains the Queen of the Sciences.