Category: Book Recommendations

“Banner Of Truth” Not Being Truthful … Or “Orwell Saw It All Coming”

In December I posted the following quote from J. C. Ryle.

“The dwelling-places of the earth’s inhabitants are curiously divided. The world is not made up of one people or one colour. God by His providential ordering has separated the earth’s inhabitants into distinct nations, languages, and races, each with its own peculiar characteristics. These distinctions have existed for centuries, and have been preserved in a most remarkable manner. No climate, no teaching, no misfortune has ever succeeded in obliterating them. The negro is still black, the Red Indian is still red, and the Chinaman is still yellow. Nothing seems to account for these things but a miraculous interposition of God.

…

Let us beware of giving way to the modern notion that there is no such thing as God’s providential arrangement of the nations, and that the present attempt to amalgamate all nationalities and races, and to denationalise and unchurch people, is wise and politic. God has divided the world into separate nationalities, climates, languages, and churches, and it is the height of mischief to try and break down the divisions.”

~J.C. Ryle
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Matthew 24

Today, a friend of mine showed up in the comments saying that he owned a hard copy of Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels and that the quote I have above was not in his volume and asking me if I were confused.

That set me on the task of tracking down the quote. I traced the quote back to where I picked it up. I picked it up from my good friend and famous artist, Dan Brannan. I wrote Dan and asked him where he got the quote and together Dan and I went on a search and destroy mission to figure out where the problem was.

I soon learned that this book was published by “Banner of Truth Trust.” I immediately recalled that Banner of Truth had a past reputation of dropping material down the memory whole. That is Banner of Truth had been caught years ago editing out material from the work of A. W. Pink’s “The Sovereignty of God.” I immediately wondered if they had done the same to Ryle’s quote since it has the flavor of controversy about it.

In the meanwhile Dan was digging around in PDF’s online and discovering that despite Artificial Intelligence (GROK) giving him the quote above and the page number it was on in the Ryle volume he could not find the Ryle quote in available PDFs online.

Dan went back to GROK and asked … “Hey GROK, what gives? Why are you telling me that this quote exists — even giving me the page numbers — and yet when I go to the PDFs you have linked to me, the quotes are not there?

GROK wrote back;

” The specific passage on racial/national separation in the commentary on Matthew 24:1-7 appears to have been omitted or edited out in some later reprints and digital versions for sensitivity reasons in the 20th/21st centuries.

The full, unedited passage (including references to distinct races like ‘the negro,’ ‘Red Indian,’ and ‘Chinaman,’ and the warning against ‘amalgamating’ races/nationalities) is present in certain historical editions, particularly those published before widespread modern editing. However, it is not in most common public domain PDFs circulating online today.”

Some Praise For The Prophet Of Leaky Dispensationalism

Years ago I did a deep dive on Dispensationalism. I read over the course of time;

“Prophecy & The Church” – O. T. Allis
“Wrongly Dividing the Truth” – John Gerstner
“The Incredible Scofield & His Book” – Joseph Canfield
“Life Of Edward Irving: Fore-Runner Of The Charismatic Movement” – Arnold Dallimore
“Understanding Dispensationalists” – Vern Poythress
“Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church” – Marvin Rosenthal
“House Divided: The Break-Up of Dispensational Theology – Bahnsen & DeMar
“The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow” – O. Palmer Robertson
“Dispensationalism: Rightly Dividing the People of God” – Keith Mathison

These are the ones I remember. I know there were other titles I can’t remember now. I also read many books arguing for Covenant theology in general.

Because of this study I’ve been adamantly opposed to Dispensationalism in all its expressions. Gerstner goes so far as to say it is heresy. Allis’ work is perhaps the most devastating to this “theology.”

It is because of this foursquare opposition to Dispensationalism in all of its varieties (even of the so called “leaky Dispensationalism variety”) that I find it difficult to join in with the legions of Baptists and others who are now mourning the death of John MacArthur.

That is not to say that I am not a little bit saddened. It is to say that my sorrow is not anywhere near where it was when Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Martyn Lloyd Jones, Van Til, Gordon Clark and others died.

As it pertains to MacArthur I respected his stand against Charismania and anti-nomianism (even though he fell into neo-nomianism in opposing anti-nomianism). I saluted MacArthur when he took on the Church growth movement and tore it apart. I saluted MacArthur when he refused to qualify his opposition to sodomy and other tough issues like the absolute requirement for a known Jesus Christ in order to be redeemed. These were issues that many other guys like Tim Keller or Billy Graham or Robert Schuller were constantly trying to nuance to death. To MacArthur’s credit he did not do that. I saluted MacArthur when he warned his Seminary students that it would be hard sledding in the ministry given all the opposition that they would have to spend their whole lives fighting. I could identify with that one. Of course, MacArthur stood against California Gov. Newsome during the Covid issue in Newsome attempt to keep the Churches closed. MacArthur was one of the few who did so. That perhaps, was MacArthur’s greatest moment.  In many respects John MacArthur was a man who could be admired because of these qualities.

I also admired him a wee bit because my Father-in-law admired him. Rev. Anthony Lombardi owned series after series of MacArthur’s taped sermons. I have that collection now sitting in my office. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to one. I always believed that I had better things to read or listen to, but my Baptist minister Father-in-law was smitten with John MacArthur. That stands to reason though since they were both Baptists and they were both Dispensationalists and they were both more than a little put off by the seeker sensitive movement.

For myself, I only ever read MacArthur’s book on Charismania and his two books on Lordship salvation issue. I thought Richard Gaffin’s book was better on the Charismania issue and I thought Mike Horton’s book was better on the antinomian issue. Also, several of the Puritans put faith in justification and faith in sanctification in a far superior way to MacArthur’s take. Still, that MacArthur was willing to take on the issues spoke in his favor, even if he didn’t get it completely correct.

Also, MacArthur clearly helped thousands upon thousands of people through his preaching, and writing. That is a good thing.

However, having said all that to honor him, I do pray that ministers who embrace leaky dispensationalism as did MacArthur did not will no longer be a presence in the Church today. I say this because I do not think Dispensationalism is a proper understanding of Biblical Christianity. I think the theology of that school is a hindrance to the furtherance of the  Christian faith.  It is sub-Christianity. If you read Allis and Gerstner they would say it is anti-Christianity.

Remember, it was MacArthur who boldly told his legion of followers that “We lose down here. Get over it.” This pessimism is a direct result of MacArthur’s leaky Dispensationalism. As long as the clergy believe that the Church and the Christian faith will be defeated in space and time history that defeat will become a self-fulfilled prophecy. The Church doesn’t need more clergy like MacArthur who not only believes this but who still think that the eschatological clock is tied to modern Israel and that we have an obligation to support Israel and is still looking for the Temple in Jerusalem to be rebuilt. These characteristics of Dispensationalism need to be eternally put to rest.

So John MacArthur served his generation and now has been gathered to his fathers. We praise him for his strengths while not ignoring his weaknesses.

 

Of Burning Flags And Fascist Solutions

I noticed today a post on TwitteX of a foreigner (Visa Student) burning an American flag. In that context people like Andrew Isker was insisting that such a person be sent back to where he came from.

I understand the sentiment and agree that said person should be given the heave ho. But I agree with qualifications.

First, I have no problem with burning the American flag, as such, my issue wasn’t with the burning of the American flag itself but my problem was with who was burning the American flag.

Allow me to explain.

The American flag is a symbol and I have, with reluctance, determined it is a symbol of destruction. It was the American flag that was flown when the original American republic was destroyed in 1865 as the nation was transformed, by Lincoln’s war from a Federal Republic to a Unitary Nation State. My attitude towards the flag is similar to the old captured Confederate soldier who was told that if he took an oath of loyalty to the US flag he would be released from his Yankee captors. His response was classic;

“Sonny, I wouldn’t wipe my arse with that rag.”

The American flag likewise is largely responsible for the end of Christendom in Europe with America fighting to destroy old Europe in
WW I, the Versaille Treaty, and WW II, as the American flag led the way in shattering Christendom in Europe. In both wars America and her flag should have stayed at home. The American flag guaranteed that there would not be a negotiated peace after WW I, thus perhaps giving old Christendom the opportunity to rise from the war’s ashes. The American flag was at Versailles guaranteeing that per Woodrow Wilson’s “Peace” that WW II would break out again in twenty years, with the result that all the shards of old European Christendom was completely obliterated.

“This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years.”

French Marshall Fernand Foch
Supreme Allied Commander
Response to Versaille 

The American flag was on those planes that murdered countless civilians in the firebombing of civilians in WW II. The American flag was present on the planes that dropped two Atomic Bombs on Japan after Japan had already accepted the peace that was finally implemented after the dropping of the two bombs. The American flag was present during the Bolshevik Revolution providing coverage for the Communist Reds in their warfare against the Nationalist White Army.

Similarly, it is the American flag that owns every abortion since 1973.

So, I think that is a pretty good case of not having any problem with the American Flag being burned on principle.

However, when it is a foreigner who is present on a Student Visa burning the American flag that is a different kettle of fish because that student is burning it in support of policies that if taken up would make me want to burn even more American flags.

Yet, people may find it odd that in spite of all this I love America and Americans enough to write all this. Mine is not a blind hatred of all things American. Mine is a hatred of all the unrighteousness that the flag is associated with. We, as Americans, have not been a God-fearing people for a very long time and because of that why should I want to defend the symbol that stands for a Christ-hating America?

Now a word as to the cure for all this. Increasingly, we are seeing younger Christians understanding that the America of the post-war consensus to be an ugly failure. More than a few are advocating that what America really needs is a good old fashioned National Socialist Government. Quotes like,

“National Socialism is merely the politicization of Christianity.”

Or

“Hitler was a Christian Prince.”

Or

“Race is real. Jews are evil. Whites are supreme.”

Are deeply problematic. Some of these statements just are not true. Some of these statements lack the requisite nuance. Reformation in America is not going to come via embracing National Socialism or variant forms of Fascism. The answer to an Cultural Marxist America that deserves to have its flags burned is not National Socialism where;

“All is within the state, nothing is outside the state, nothing is against the state.”

In such an arrangement the State becomes God walking on the earth. In such an arrangement we can say that “in the state we live and move and have our being.” Being ugly in a different way is not the answer to being ugly in the way we are now.

The answer to our current ungodly liberalism is not Stone Choir’s advocacy of National Socialism. Instead we could pursue a social order theology where the State, like all the other institutions in society, is merely one institution among many operating in a Christian society. The National Socialism idea that all must operate in the state and per the state is anti-Christ because it makes the State to be the norm that norms all norms. It will do no good to insist that in National Socialism the State only does what the Volk wants because it is the state that is determining what it is the Volk want.

America is ugly. As such burning American flags in protest of America’s real ugliness leaves me undisturbed — and that even if I could never bring myself to burn a flag. The answer though is not to slingshot in another ugly direction by supporting a State centered answer informed by Marxist categories.

We need a return to Biblical Christianity that because it embraces the theological idea of the temporal one and many as a reflection of the eternal one and many can provide both unity (in a common faith) and diversity (as each social institution orders itself consistent with God’s Word). This means a sovereignty that is not unitary in the State or any other cultural institution in the society. This means all cultural institutions are allowed to flourish in the sphere wherein they were designed to flourish. The Christian state flourishes in the state sphere. The Christian family flourishes in the family sphere. The Christian church flourishes in the church sphere as each and all together operating consistent with Christ’s sovereignty. This is the idea of diffuse law orders operating under God’s law in one society.

For those who want to  pursue the ideas about how society should reflect the idea of the One and the Many should read;

Colin Gunton — The One, the Three and the Many: God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity / The 1992 Bampton Lectures 
Rushdoony — The One and the Many
Law & Revolution — Harold J. Berman (Two Volumes)

Book Review — “The Other Worldview; Exposing Christianity’s Greatest Threat”

Completed what is likely the last completed book for 2015.

“The Other Worldview; Exposing Christianity’s Greatest Threat.”

The greatest threat is what he calls “Oneism,” but could just as easily be called “systematic Cultural Marxism.” He mentions Cultural Marxism but his focus is more on Karl Jung and Jung’s disciples. He locates animistic type religion in Jung’s psychoanalysis and insists that the goal of this religious Cultural Marxism is “thus all men Shamans.”

Dr. Peter Jones relates that the problem of the Jung(ians) is that they live in a Cosmos that is defined by Outsidelessness. This is another way of saying that there is no Transcendent Reference point by which meaning can be determined. Without a Transcendent outsidedness (that is also Trinitarian and so personal) what results is man sinking into himself to find meaning and to discover the divinity within.

This new Monistic Cultural Marxist religion is committed to the New Age goal of combining the opposites. This gives us a “beyond good and evil” morality where each man does what is right in his own eyes. Of course this is just another way of embracing the Hegelian dialectic of Marxism.

What has happened in our lifetimes is that we have moved from a Monistic Humanistic materialism where spiritual realities were folded into material reality to a Monistic Humanistic spiritualism where material realities are now folded into spiritual reality. Both humanisms are Monistic with the only difference being that during the Enlightenment age that which was genuinely spiritual was reduced to the material whereas now that which is genuinely material is reduced to being categorized as spiritual. When one looks at the modern sciences of Quantum indeterminacy, quantum holism, and quantum non-locality (sub sets of Quantum physics) along with Quantum mechanics one begins to see a “science” that is more friendly to the New Ageist Spirituality of Eastern Mysticism and Western Romanticism.
In this new gnostic Monism the goal is the elimination of not only Modernity but also of Biblical Christianity. All of the distinctions that one finds in Biblical Christianity are eliminated in favor of the merging of the opposites. As a result we can speak of now of a Homocosmology, Homostoricism, Homorality, as well as Homosexuality. Indeed so great is the push for the elimination of distinctions that Jones’ opines that a day is coming when Biblical Christianity will be criminalized. The sodomites are NOT interested in equality folks. They are interested in turning normalcy into the aberrant.

Jones’ goes out of his way to agree with what I’ve been saying since I was 30 and that is psychiatry and psychology are the cutting edge expressions of this new religion that intends to crush Biblical Christianity. My angst at this confirmation is that much of the Church and Church Mission agencies have already redefined themselves in terms of the Monistic psychiatry and psychology that Jones’ warns against. It has been the case for years that in many denominations one cannot enter into the ministry or missionary field without first submitting to a battery of Monistic humanistic psychological exams, as well as- required time spent with the Denominational Shrink – Shaman. What has happened is that instead of these fields being reinterpreted through a biblical grid (if indeed that is even possible) the disciplines of humanistic shamanistic psychology have reinterpreted Christianity through their Monistic – gnostic grids. You can be sure that Christ’s Church has suffered as a result of this.

As a criticism of the book, I’m not convinced that Jones’ himself has extirpated all the Monism from himself that he so clearly sees elsewhere. In point of fact, given some of Jones’ complaint about “Institutional racism,” and “Institutional Sexism” one wonders if Jones’ despite his excellent work here hasn’t himself swallowed a poison pill of Monistic making.

I’ve read most of Jones’ published work now and viewed many many of his lectures. That should tell you that I value his work. In point of fact I think it is indispensable given our time and historical situation. When combined with more thorough works on Cultural Marxism and Postmodernism I think one has the opportunity to see Christianity’s greatest worldview opponent at this time.

A Reading List For Those New To the Christian Faith

Last night, following our annual Christmas caroling in the neighborhood one of the young ladies whose family only recently attended the Church I serve pulled me aside and asked me to give her a list of books to read for someone who wants to understand more of basic Biblical Christian theology and doctrine. I am excited to do so. So, what follows is a list of books that are intended to be very basic for someone just learning about Reformed doctrine and theology.

1.) Heidelberg Catechism

There are 52 Lord’s Day here Eleanor. Each Lord’s day typically has 3 questions and answers (though that can vary). Read 1 Lord’s Day every week and over the course of one year (It won’t take more than a few minutes daily) you’ll begin to get a good footing. Then keep doing so for year after year. If you have questions write them down and send them to me. We can have a great conversation.

2.) Knowledge of the Holy — A. W. Tozer
3.) Knowing God — J. I. Packer
4.) The Pleasures of God; Meditations On God’s Delight In Being God — John Piper

The Christian faith starts with what is called “Theology Proper,” and Tozer, Packer and Piper do a good job in these books explaining in understandable terms the character of God.

5.) Knowing Scripture — R. C. Sproul

This will help you to know how to read the Scripture. It will help you to understand how we know what we know.

6.) What The Angels Wish They Knew — Alister Begg
7.) Putting Amazing Back Into Grace — Mike Horton

These two books will give you a good handle on knowing the content of the Gospel.

8.) The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance — Leon Morris

This book will help you understand the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross and why the Cross is at the center of our Christian faith.

9.) Who Is The Holy Spirit — R. C. Sproul Sr.

Modern Christians have low views and understandings of the person and work of the Holy Spirit. This book begins to teach who the person of the Holy Spirit is and what His role and work is in our Christian life.

10.) Every Thought Captive: a Study Manual for the Defense of the Truth —
Richard Pratt Jr.

This book will give you confidence in what you believe as it teaches you how to defend what you believe when people come around trying to belittle the Christian faith.