Category: Apologetics

The Lazarus Chronicles I

When studying Journalism one maxim that floats to the surface quite quickly is the injunction to, “Never Bury the Lead.” As such the lead in this series is;

“For three to four minutes I was dead.”

Even now a week later typing out those words strike me as spooky and surreal at the same time.

The surgery to repair my genetically deformed heart valve problems was a success. However, upon the return from surgery to post-op the still completely unexplained happened. The methodology in this procedure is to create a electrical circuit to help the heart beat after it has been un-naturally handled. In the creation of this electrical circuit three small posts are placed in the body to close the circuit and drive the beating of the heart. Somewhere between the operating room and the post-op room one of those electrical posts was no longer doing its job and for some reason that post could not be found in order to be re-established. The missing post meant that my heart would not beat. A code was called. Th code itself lasted approximately 10 minutes. During part of that time the missing electrical post was being furiously sought for so as to re-establish the closed circuit that would drive the beating of my heart. Bandages were ripped off rather unceremoniously (I have the burn scars on my skin where those bandages were ripped off). Finally, in what I can only imagine might have been a scene out of an old silent film where the keystone cops finally shout “Eureka” a very attentive someone finally solved “The Case of the Missing electrical circuit” and my heart went back “online.”

There is some question why it took so long to find the electrical lead since the first instinct should have been to look for the second lead and check it. When pressed as to what precisely happened the answer we were met with was “sometimes these things happen.” Well, sure, all kinds of things sometime happen but that is hardly an answer to a legitimate question. Why did that which sometimes happen, happen in this instance? Or, to cut to the chase, “What went wrong.”

While all that was going on however standard heart compressions were pursued on my now non-living corpse. Keep in mind that heart compressions were being done on a chest that had only very recently been stitched and wired back together after being opened in order operate on the aortic heart valve. During this time, I, of course am completely unconscious (dead people don’t write memoirs) and also my family were not being updated as to the occurrence of any of this. Jane was not (and still is not) pleased at the lack of being updated.  Humorously enough, later, one of the Nurse Practitioners, obviously not knowing that my wife was a retired nurse or that my sister is also a Nurse Practitioner of some 40 years, told them that when my heart beat was gone that, “We patted his chest. Pat, pat pat.” Now, my friends, the blood does not perfuse the body’s organs by doing a chest compression that is characterized as “Pat, pat pat,” as if a patty-cake game is being played. Indeed, it is not uncommon to break ribs while doing heart compressions. But, I get that the impulse likely is to give the family as little startling information as possible, even if that means soft-selling the truth.

There was concern that the lack of perfusion of the organs with oxygen may have affected the brain and so when coming to, after my few hours on the ventilator I was getting peppered with questions,

1.) What is the date today?
2.) What day is it?
3.) Can you tell me the name of your surgeon?
4.) What is a woman?

I thought it was just a part of protocol but later I learned that they were probing as to whether or not I had become half a cucumber (vegetable). That question has not yet been completely resolved and I suspect I will someday die with people unsure whether or not I am some kind of vegetable.

Now as to what I saw while dead, well, its hard to explain. I did find myself being drawn towards a light, ever beckoning me forth to find out what the source of the light was. As I neared the source I heard Words coming out of the center of the light. At first those words were unintelligible. They were coming to me as if they were some kind of hieroglyphic, but eventually I was given ability to interpret those words.

And this was some of what I heard. I don’t remember it all. I heard,

1.) Kinism is my social order designate
2.) I am pleased with postmillennialism
3.) It is either my law (Theonomy) or some other god’s law
4.) I intend to treat Escondido as I once treated Sodom
5.) R2K, FV, Dispensationalism, NPP, are the doctrines of devils
6.) The Synagogue of Satan is alive and well. Oppose them.
7.) Do not concern yourself with those who are forever saying, “Christo-fascism”, “Racism” and “Sexism.” I will take care of them soon enough

There was much more like this. Some of it is still coming back to me. But the words out of the light were distinct and the above is some of what I heard.

While experiencing this, I saw Tim Keller to my right. In one of God’s ironies Keller and McAtee both died on the same day. I heard some muted conversation from the light and finally in a boisterous communication I heard, “We have some things to say to Keller but McAtee goes back. Somebody has to clean up the mess that Keller left behind.” That is the last thing I remember, though, as I said, some of those words from the light are still trickling back to my consciousness and there may be yet more to report in the future. Extra-Biblical revelation is a grand thing and only entrusted to a very few of us.

Keep in mind that for all believer we are told in Colossians 3:3 that for all believers it is the case;

3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

Now, this death that St. Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit speaks of here is the death that all believers in Christ experience who are united to Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit. This death is the death of who we were as we were as objectively counted by God as related to our first father Adam. With our looking to Christ as our salvation, that old man dies and who we are now in our living and someday our physical dying is a living and dying that is done as unto Jesus Christ. In dying to the old self we died to living with ourselves at the center of all reality. We died to living only for our selfish glory. We died to self-will, self-aggrandizement, and self-pleading. We died to all these matters of the old self and now God owns us and names us as His own because our lives are now hidden with Christ. When the Father considers, He only sees Christ, because having died to self, our lives are now hidden with Christ in God. All the guilt that is so definitional of who man is, as outside of Christ, is done way, because we are hidden in Christ and His righteousness … His acceptability is now our righteousness and our acceptability. Because of having died with Christ in this sense and because my life is now hidden in Christ, the sting of my future permanent physical death has lost much of its bite. The matter of my living or dying is a matter for me no longer to obsess over because my life continues after this life because I died and my life is now hidden with Christ in God.

Dear reader. Do not let this day pass without knowing that your life is hidden with Christ in God so that when the day comes of your departure you will be able to say with me and all the saints through all the ages;

“O Death where is thy sting.
O grave where is thy victory.”

Note — This article may be slightly updated in the future to get some of the matters regarding cardio-technology more accurate.

Feasting and Festivity Over The Announced Death of Rev. Tim Keller

“When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices; And when the wicked perish, there is jubilation.”   Proverbs 11:10

“And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.”

Exodus 15:21

“So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years.”

Judges 5:31

“Then they will throw dust on their heads as they weep and mourn and cry out: “Woe, woe to the great city, where all who had ships on the sea were enriched by her wealth! For in a single hour she has been destroyed. ”Rejoice over her, O heaven, O saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced for you His judgment against her.”

Revelation 18:19-20

Here at Iron Ink we have written more than once on the necessity to rejoice in the fall of the wicked. We have cited these same verses and ones like them to substantiate our claim that when the wicked die the response of the God’s people is to pop some corks, pour some champagne, and party.

And of course the wicked do the same thing when the righteous fall. The Papists struck a medal in honor of the murdering of the Huguenots in France. The Papists likewise hoisted a tanker at the death of the great Cromwell.

It is just the nature of reality to rejoice when God’s enemy and your enemy falls dead.

One problem with contemporary Christians is that we try to be “nicer than God.” God doesn’t weep with sorrow when His enemies perish. In point of fact God kills His enemy’s dead.

And so when enemies of God die we should kill the fatted calf, rollout the bubble making machine, and raise up our glasses to our glorious King for defending His Church.

And all of the above, my friends, should be our frame of mind regarding the death of one “Rev.” Timothy Keller (1950 – 2023). With a long and agonizing death stemming from pancreatic cancer Keller’s scourge of God’s Church has finally ended.

Keller’s wickedness is un-challengeable.  I offer the following links to sustain the charge as to Keller’s Ahab like behavior against God and His Church;

CHRISTIANS NEED BETTER HEROS OF THE FAITH -AND LESS CELEBRITY PREACHERS WHO ARE PRODUCTS OF THE GLOBAL ECUMENICAL EVANGELICAL MACHINE.

The Miserable State of the Clergy Seen in the Words of Tim Keller

Tim Keller’s Doctrine of No Doctrine

Tim Keller Channels George Orwell

If the reader desires more chronicling of Tim Keller’s wickedness they only have to punch in the name “Tim Keller” in the search link at Iron Ink.

Keller had spoken repeatedly of how the Frankfurt school had profoundly influenced him. Keller’s vision was a Christianity which had the soteriology of scripture as combined with the morality of Gramsci. Anyone with a mere smattering of knowledge about the “Frankfurt school” knew immediately that Keller was, intentionally or unintentionally, a Marxist change agent leading a fifth columnists insurrection inside the visible Reformed Church to the end of redefining Christianity through a Cultural Marxist prism. This is why I have hated Tim Keller for decades now. I was not fooled by his “clever” rhetoric and Straussian writing methodology wherein clarity of meaning is purposefully avoided by the means of excessive nuance and qualification. I was not fooled by his slick presentation and charming personality. I was not fooled by his appeal to the cultural elites. The man was the very incarnation of what we might expect of a modern Mephistopheles. Tim Keller was C. S. Lewis’ “Uncle Screwtape” all dressed up.

So, because of all of the above and a host more of others, I am rejoicing at the news of Tim Keller’s death, which I heard while I was myself only clinging to life. I do weep at the same time that Tim rejected the demand that all men everywhere repent. How can grace saved sinners not weep, in this sense, at the death of each of the wicked? I weep because Tim rejected Christ and now it is too late for Keller to repent, but I rejoice that his wickedness is mercifully and finally at the end. No longer will Keller scourge the Church.

Still, we who remain are now left in cleaning up the mess that Keller left behind. We who remain are left having to slay all the Kellerite acolytes who are manning PCA pulpits across the land. We who remain are left having to explain that Christianity can’t be read through the prism of the ne0-Marxist Frankfurt school. We few who are left have the gargantuan task of preaching the Kellerites out of the Reformed Churches. The Kellerites control the PCA and have a large voice in other Reformed Institutions. So, we have a fight on our hands because these lesser spawn of Mordor is not going to simply walk away any more than Keller did.

In closing allow me again to have a personal word. Keller was a Marxist change agent but understand that the dialectical way these agents of change are working in the Reformed churches right now. On the one hand we have the dominionists change agents like Keller who believe that the Church should definitely engage in culture to bring change but the change that the dopes following Keller desire a change in the direction of cultural Marxism. At the same time the “anti-domininionists” school embodied by R2K is working to clear opposition for the Kellerite dominionionists. R2K teaches that the Church should be silent regarding cultural issues. This silences any biblical dominionists who would see the pulpit ring with “thus saith the Lord” on any number of issues. The effect of the silencing accomplished by R2K on Biblical dominionists in the Church is to give more leverage and power to Frankfurt school dominionists in the Church.

 

 

 

McAtee Would Like A Word With Americans Hankering For “Pluralism” XI

“The American Revolutionaries revolted against the British crown because they rejected the legitimacy of the monarchy, even an ostensibly Christian, theocratic monarchy. That some Americans today are even considering going back to that mess of pottage is astounding. It suggests that they have not digested 1 Samuel 8 and that, like the Marxists, they imagine theocracy has not worked because the right people have not tried it.”

Dr. R. Scott Idiot
R2K Cheerleader
IQ of a Potato

Bret responds,

1.) The Colonial Americans did not revolt because they rejected the legitimacy of a Monarch. The Colonial Americans revolted because they The American Revolutionaries revolted against the British crown because they rejected the illegitimate rule of a legitimate monarch. King George III had violated the political charters and covenants of the colonies and having violated those political charters and covenants the Colonialists understood they had to obligation to obey a otherwise legitimate Monarchy who had declared his illegitimacy by his actions in violating the political covenants that had been entered into by King and people.

2.) Now Christian pro establishment of religion people are “like the Marxists?” What a nekulturny Clark shows himself to be. Personally, I don’t want to go back to a Christian strongman Prince such as Stephen Wolfe advocates. I would prefer a return to muscular Christian Constitutional Republicanism. However, having said that and understanding that Enlightenment political theory is decidedly NOT Christian I can understand people thinking that a Christian strongman Prince man might be the way to go.

In closing let’s note something Cornelius Van Til (CVT) said. CVT wrote that people could be incredibly bright but still incredibly wrong. The analogy that CVT used is that of a miter saw. People’s minds are like miter saws that can be incredibly sharp but suffer from cutting at the wrong angle every time. I suppose it is possible that Clark is not an Idiot. I suppose he is just a CVT miter saw that cuts at the wrong angle every time. Either way… Idiot of miter saw don’t send your sons to be taught by R. Scott Clark.

McAtee Would Like A Word With Americans Hankering For “Pluralism” X

“American religious pluralism works. There are indeed those on the radical cultural left who are seeking to impose a kind of new national religion. The answer, however, is not to react by seeking to overthrow the American experiment in favor of theocracy, but rather to reargue and reassert the American principle of religious pluralism. We should resist the theocrats of the left and the right.”

Dr. R. Scott Idiot
R2K Dissembler

Bret responds,

1.) Pluralism is a myth since pluralism does not allow for a Christian religion that resolves that there should be no other God’s before the God of the Bible in the public square. So, we do not live under pluralism. We live under a religious establishment that makes the State is God since it is the State which is the supreme entity that determines how far any God can walk in the public square. The State is, because of Scott’s putative religious pluralism, the God who is God over all the Gods. THAT is NOT pluralism. That is a system where there is one God (the FEDS) and all other gods must genuflect before that God. What we have is the old pluralistic Roman system that allowed for all the gods to be present in the public square as long as each of them pinched incense to Caesar. That R2K and Scott can’t see this and insists quite to the contrary that we live in pluralism just screams that this man should not be allowed within 10 miles of a pulpit or lectern.

2.) American religious pluralism works? Scott keeps using that word “work.” I do not think it means what he thinks it means. Well, I suppose if you believe that 50 million dead babies means “working” I guess it does. I suppose if you believe Drag Queen Story Hour, gender surgery for children, and sodomites marry uranians means “working” than I guess it works.
Do you see what I mean by repeatedly saying the man is an “idiot?” Only an idiot would say “American religious pluralism works.”

3.) Theocracy is an inescapable category. See earlier entry on this point. No government is arranged so as to avoid theocracy. Clark is an idiot.

4.) Of course everyone argues for theocracy since it is never an argument of if but only of which. Scott himself is arguing for a theocratic arrangement as embraced by Hume, Rousseau, and Voltaire. He probably doesn’t even know that since he is blind to his own worldview.

5.) Religious pluralism (so called) has got us where we are at and R. Scott Idiot suggests the remedy for where we are at is more religious pluralism (so called)? The man is a towering Idiot.

McAtee Would Like A Word With Americans Hankering For “Pluralism” IX

“We Americans have not, since the Revolution, suffered the endless European wars of religion in large measure because we have agreed that we will not seek to use the lever of state power to force others to support or adhere to our religion.”

R. Scott Idiot
R2K Novice Historian

Bret Responds,

I won’t take the time to unravel this but if the reader will reference the book by William T. Cavanaugh titled “The Myth of Religious Violence,” one will learn from Cavanaugh that the claim that “religion is … essentially prone to violence is one of the foundational legitimating myths of the liberal nation-state (p. 4).” In other words, of course R. Scott Idiot would seek to perpetuate this myth since their myth perpetuates his religious advocacy for the religion that outlaws the supremacy of Jesus Christ as King of Kings. Cavanaugh goes on to say that “It is this claim (the presence of wars of religion) that I find both unsustainable and dangerous (p. 6).”

Cavanaugh shreds our beloved Dr. R. Scott Idiot by writing of different variants of this view that “They all suffer from the same defect: the inability to find a convincing way to separate religious violence from secular violence (p. 8.)” Such arguments in fact “immunize themselves from empirical evidence (p. 8.)” Cavanaugh argues on the contrary that “so-called secular ideologies and institutions like nationalism and liberalism can be just as absolutist, divisive, and irrational as those called religious (p. 8.)”

Cavanaugh in fact organizes the different variants of Clark’s claim in Chapter 1 under the three categories of claims that “religion” is 1) absolutist, 2) divisive and 3) irrational. Cavanaugh concludes the chapter, indicating “The point is that the distinction between secular and religious violence is unhelpful, misleading, and mystifying, and it should be avoided altogether (p. 56).”

Now either Dr. R. Scott Idiot doesn’t know this and so is stupid or else he does know it and is seeking to deceive people into his position. So, either he is an idiot or he is a deceiver. You decide which is worst.