My Day At The Mall

Today I spent the day with my Grandchildren who live 2.5 hours North of us. We met them half way in Saginaw, Michigan. Saginaw is a city of 46K, and has all the accouterments of a city that size including malls, which, is where we met up with our daughter and the grandchildren.

The first thing that hit me was how empty this large mall was. That was followed by being shocked by how many venues (storefronts) were unoccupied. The next thing I wondered is how any of the stores which were still operating could make enough revenue to stay open.

I don’t get out, in this kind of context, often and so all of this was a bit of an education for me. I can remember the days when malls were hopping. I even worked as a night security/janitor in a mall once upon a time in my college days and cleaning up at night was busy work because the mall had had so much traffic during the day.

Of course that was before online services basically gutted the shopping mall model.

However, while the traffic at the mall was slight, it remained interesting and I found myself wondering if malls now doubled as circuses. While at the mall today I saw a clown. I don’t think the person intended to be a clown but I don’t know what else you would call what I saw. This clown made me do a triple take to make sure I was seeing what I had seen with the first take and then the second take.

This was, I think, a blond hair male of about 23 years of age, who stood about 6 foot tall… or would have stood 6feet tall if he had not had on 6 inch black platform tennis shoes. His blond hair had been spray painted with streaks of pink and he wore a tight black t-shirt with black tights. Over his t-shirt and tights he wore something that approximated a blue ballerina tutu, or maybe it was a short mini-skirt. I was desperately trying not to stare. Across his shoulders he carried a hiked up back pack that was shaped like a pink kitty cat. This is not the kind of thing I see every day. Bring in the clowns indeed.

The circus like effect was augmented by the fresh pile of dog crap that lay in the middle of one of the walk ways. I mean, if one goes to the circus one expects animal droppings. The problem here, beyond the obvious, is it seemed like people delighted in stepping in it and smearing it all over the mall.

There were of course the various other freak shows you find at a circus. Bearded ladies, and the tattooed woman, and ears with giant holes in them. In one store the employee working behind the counter had a kind of pea-green colored hair with one of those upside down horseshoes in her nose, accompanied by boldly colored eye shadow and  screaming colored lipstick. I must admit, I found myself asking, “What was it that found those who interviewed her for the job compelled to say to themselves; ‘Yep, she’s what we are looking for as our face to the public.'”

I’m not done yet.

There was a store dedicated to sell clothing for women who are of ample size. Nothing wrong with that…. except when you advertise your product by putting a life-size photo of a very large woman on your store front window as regaled in a bikini that has far less cloth than she has flesh. I must admit I found myself admiring that model, if only for her courage. It had to take a great deal of courage to submit for that photo shoot knowing a photo that looked like that was going to be the storefront window display for this company chain. It brought back memories of 

There were some encouraging aspects. I saw a Tim Keller book on the “we really want to give this away because nobody will buy it” priced table. That was a balm for my soul. We saw a sign for sale that said, “Christ Alone is our only Hope.” I think it was buried behind the other “a witch and warlock live here” signs, and the “He ain’t Heavy, He’s my Mephistopheles” signs and the “We get drunk every day here at 5pm,” signs. BUT it was there.

I bought a scarf for my daughter. The check out clerk scared me. I tried to be extra polite because I didn’t want to give her a reason to snarl at me. I’ve had plenty of experience with angry pit-bulls and I care not to have any further experiences.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my grandchildren, but they are growing up in a very different world than the one I grew up. May God protect them from our current insane culture, and may he give me the equilibrium to never see any of this as normal.

Back to Begging… Well, Maybe Not Exactly Begging

“The one badge of Christian discipleship is not orthodoxy but love.”

Billy Graham
Circa 1957

The Christian has to say to Homosexuals, ‘We will not treat you in those ways. We can’t revile you, but we can’t affirm you. The reason that we can’t revile you is same reason why we can’t affirm you, because of the Bible, because of God’s love, because of His grace, because of His goodness.’”

Rev. Alistair Begg

A recent post here dealt with Rev. Alister Begg’s comments advising a Grandmother that she can indeed attend the perverted wedding of her grandson, and with a gift.

https://ironink.org/2024/01/alister-begg-r-c-sproul-2-0-on-matters-surrounding-attending-sodomite-marriages/

In the face of withering criticism coming from what remains of the Christian dissident voice in America Rev. Begg decided to double down and tell his critics to, in essence, “go pound sand.”

Actually, I admire Begg’s willingness to give the middle finger salute to his critics. I always like seeing backbone. Now if it only was backbone as standing for a righteous cause instead of backbone standing for wickedness.

Rev. Begg opens up by appealing to Luke 15 and the parable of the prodigal son. Rev. Begg tries to position himself as the Father who eagerly anticipates the return of the prodigal son. Rev. Begg sees himself as the loving Father in the prodigal son parable. Further, he sees the perverted grandson getting “married” to another pervert to be the prodigal son and Begg sees all his critics as Pharisees and tax collectors, who are the Older son in the parable.

The problem here of course is obvious to those with eyes to see. In the Parable of the prodigal son, the prodigal is returning to his Father, with a mindset of repenting to take a servant’s place in the household. To the contrary, in real life, the prodigal (perverted) grandson remains in the pig stye dining with the swine, still refusing to return to his grandmother’s God and Christian faith. So, the passage that Rev. Begg appeals to in order to double down finds him guilty of gross eisegesis.

Let it be said here that any Christian worthy of the name Christian would be the first in line to welcome back any returning prodigal pervert. The Christian faith prides itself on the fact that it restores prodigals.

9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous[b] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,[c] 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Furthermore, any Christian worthy of the name Christian would even be willing to exercise great effort to articulate the saving message of Christianity to all prodigals, commanding them to repent. However, what a Christ honoring Christian will never do is celebrate perversity, or drink a toast to perversity, or be found countenancing a stiff necked perversity happening in God’s face. A Christ honoring Christian does not deny the message of Christ in the hopes that by their denial of the message of Christ they might win some to Christ.

Rev. Begg in his sermon quotes from a book the he wrote on the necessity of loving one’s enemy. Rev. Begg admits that he does not like perverts but that is irrelevant since he is called to love them. The problem here, I think is Begg’s understanding of love. Allow me to posit that Begg advising the grandmother to attend that “wedding,” is not counsel wherein biblical love is found. It is not Christian love to the lost as God defines love to join in celebration of a pervert marriage, though I am glad to concede that it is Christian love to the lost as fallen man defines love. The most loving thing possible that Begg could counsel is to explain to the grandmother how she is demonstrating love for her grandson by not attending the wedding. Rev. Begg is using the word “love” here in the sense of “that harlot sure loved her latest customer.”

The love I am talking about is the idea found in teaching parents that it is love for a child that visits the child with discipline, and even, when warranted, spankings. Rev. Begg’s logic is the same logic that says that disciplining your children is not loving. However, as any parent knows, as painful as discipline is for both parent and child it is the very nard of love and to neglect it is not loving but is full on hate. This is what Begg told the grandmother. Begg told the grandmother, “In the name of love, you go ahead and hate your grandson by attending this ‘wedding.'” It is profoundly unwise counsel coming from a chap who is 72 years old and who has been in the ministry his whole adult life.

We should note here that Rev. Begg’s warning against Pharisaic behavior is still worthy of hearing. We all (or at least I do) have this tendency towards self-righteousness, and as such it is always good to be probed by God’s warning Word on this matter. Having said that, I continue to insist that Rev. Begg has missed the mark in accusing people of being Pharisaic because they oppose his advice. Speaking only for myself, my life has found me attending gay bars and having gay friends who were genuine friends hoping by some means to communicate Christ. (To my great sadness they never did embrace Christ.)

Rev. Begg said in his double down sermon;

“In that conversation with that grandmother, I was concerned about the well-being of their relationship more than anything else. Hence my counsel. Don’t misunderstand that in any way at all.”

Now, I will be accused of being picayune but here is Begg’s major problem. We can applaud Begg for his well intended compassion here but, as the saying goes, “good intention pave the road to hell.” Rev. Begg’s concern should have been about the well being of God’s glory more than anything else. How is God glorified by the grandmother celebrating a monstrosity called a “wedding,” which is in point of fact a mockery of God and His reality?

In the end one wonders how far Rev. Begg would take this kind of logic? I mean, let’s try a couple reductio-ad-absurdum.

If a lesbian “couple” decides that one of them will get impregnated with the sperm of the brother of her partner so as to be parents does Rev. Begg recommend that their Christian grandmothers tell the lesbians that while grandma loves Jesus and therefore can’t affirm their lifestyle choices, grandma should nevertheless go to the baby shower and take a gift?

If a farmer decides to marry his favorite milk cow does Rev. Begg recommend that the farmer’s grandmother tell the farmer grandson that while grandma loves Jesus and therefore can’t affirm her farmer grandson’s lifestyle choices, grandma should go to the wedding and take a gift — perhaps a silver cowbell for Bessie?

Where does this kind of irrationality end? Honestly the only difference between what Rev. Begg has counseled and these other hypothetical counseling scenarios is that sodomy has now been accepted socially while the others have not. It is still safe to not be seen as being mean, if one counsels grandma not to attend my two pretend scenarios but it is not culturally safe to tell grandma that she shouldn’t attend her grandsons pervert “wedding.”

Rev. Begg goes on to say in her sermon;

“What happens to homosexual people, in my ‘experience,’ is that they are either reviled or they are affirmed. The Christian has to say, ‘We will not treat you in either of those ways. We cannot revile you, but we cannot affirm you. And the reason that we can’t revile you is the same reason why we can’t affirm you, because of the Bible, because of God’s love, because of His grace, because of His goodness.’”

And yet Rev. Begg has no problem whatsoever reviling those non-sodomites who are Christian for insisting he must repent. To those Christians Begg lifts the reviling voice by calling them “Pharisees,” and “Fundamentalists.” Clearly, then the problem for Begg is not the issue of reviling. He has demonstrated he is perfectly capable of doing that. The issue for Rev. Begg is “who shall be reviled.” For Begg, we do not revile perverts but we do revile those we wrongly categorize as Pharisees and Fundamentalists.

Rev. Begg, in his sermon goes on to say that a main reason why there is this problem is that he is a product of British Evangelicalism and not American Fundamentalism. Indeed, in many respects this is the key thing is Begg’s sermon because British Evangelicalism has always been weak. The Brit Evangelicals have been weak on social issues. John Stott, for example, was a proto pioneer for WOKEism. (See his vol. on the Sermon on the Mount.) British Evangelicalism was weak on Biblical inerrancy and inspiration. Even Lloyd-Jones, as solid as he was, found his own church become a laughing stock, after he left, because of his quirky doctrine on the sealing work of the Holy Spirit being a distinct second work of grace. Lloyd-Jones would have never countenanced what replaced him but it was because of his quirky doctrine that his work at Westminster chapel thoroughly deteriorated. British Evangelicalism sucks as is seen by British culture.

We find ourselves asking … Hey Alistair… how’s that British Evangelicalism working out for Britain these days?

Churches filled?
Clergy Orthodox?
Christian family life blooming?
Christian Worldview evident everywhere?
Christian Statesmen abound?
Grooming young girls brought to a halt?

Were I Alistair I would go real slow on glorying in British Evangelicalism over American Fundamentalism.

And while we are on Fundamentalism lets us say note here a dirty little secret. Everyone is a fundamentalist. Rev. Begg just prefers his fundamentalism of celebrating license while I prefer my fundamentalism of maintaining orthodoxy. However, Alister is just as much a Fundamentalist as anybody he would like to name who is opposing him. He is showing in this whole sermon that he is sticking to his fundamentals and one of his fundamentals is celebrating perversity. Rev. Begg is a liberal fundamentalist.

Begg goes on to note how he has been orthodox in the past on marriage and how he has opposed sodomy in the past. He seems to think that because he got it right in the past that makes his getting it wrong today ok, as if being in severe contradiction is not a problem. Sorry, Alistair but a past getting it right does not make sense of a contradiction presently where you get it grossly wrong.

As my Grandmother used to tell me when I did something stupid; “Your heart was in the right place,” so I don’t doubt that Rev. Begg’s heart is in the right place. He has the best of intentions. It’s just that his intentions are driving him to say stupid things that don’t really serve his intentions. Also, there is the matter that when Rev. Begg speaks like this it makes easier for some other young minister somewhere to also compromise because, “Well, if someone like Alistair Begg can say this then certainly I have to be gracious as well.” But, again, this isn’t gracious speech. This is hateful speech on Rev. Begg’s part and good intentions doesn’t change that.

Let’s send British Evangelicalism back to Britain.

Alister Begg & R. C. Sproul 2.0 On Matters Surrounding Attending Sodomite Marriages

Rev. Allister Begg recently said, knowing that his comments would not be accepted in some (conservative?) corners that it would be acceptable to attend a sodomite wedding of someone close to you. Here are Begg’s comments given in a some kind of audio interview;

“…. we field questions all the time that go along the lines of ‘My grandson is about to be married to a transgender person, and I don’t know what to do about this, and I’m calling to ask you to tell me what to do’—which is a huge responsibility.

And in a conversation like that just a few days ago—and people may not like this answer—but I asked the grandmother, ‘Does your grandson understand your belief in Jesus?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does your grandson understand that your belief in Jesus makes it such that you can’t countenance in any affirming way the choices that he has made in life?’

‘Yes.’

I said, ‘Well then, okay. As long as he knows that, then I suggest that you do go to the ceremony. And I suggest that you buy them a gift.’

‘Oh,’ she said,  ‘what?’ She was caught off guard.”

Once this news came out R. C. Sproul 2.0, then followed shortly thereafter saying (paraphrasing) we should go easy on guys like Begg who have been faithful shepherds for so long even if they get one wrong.

In my mind, this proves that both Begg and Sproul 2.0 have accepted sodomy at some level. I say this because I’m fairly certain that Begg would not say, “Go ahead and go to a wedding where a chap marries his milking cow,” and I’m fairly certain that Sproul 2.0 would not say, in the face of that kind of hypothetical statement, “we need to go easy on otherwise faithful men if they get these matters wrong.”

Let be crystal clear here. I do agree with Sproul 2.0 that we should not casually cast otherwise faithful men aside if they get some matters wrong. For example, I don’t completely cast aside someone if they are an Amillennialist or premillenialist in their eschatology. However, if an “otherwise faithful man” goes Full Preterist I am going to cast him aside. I don’t completely cast someone aside if they are infralapsarian. However, if an “otherwise faithful man” tells me he is now an Open Theist I am going to cast him aside. In the same manner if the previously otherwise faithful man — Alister Begg — tells me to turn a blind eye to sodomy by sanctioning my attendance at a sodomite wedding, I am going to cast him aside. I am not going to read him anymore. I am not going to recommend him any more. I am not going to quote him any more.

And frankly, I’d be giving serious consideration of treating someone like Sproul 2.0 the same way.

Let’s pretend that Alister Begg gets an invitation to a sodomite wedding plus one. Do we really think that Alister is going to go to Jesus and say… “Hey, Jesus. You want to go to this sodomite marriage with me? It’ll be a great witness?”

Now neither one of these men are going to give two shakes that I cast them aside in my thinking. That’s ok. It is possible there will be others out there who see the logic of what I am trying to get at here.

The issue of perverted sexuality if a pivotal issue in the attempt to continue to completely unravel what little remains of Christendom. When men like Begg and Sproul shout from the rooftops that which they are shouting there has to be folks who stand up next to them holding a sign that says, “The guy next to me who is shouting is full of Bologna.”

There are plenty of men, both past and present, that we can learn from and read without having to spit out the little green sputum-balls in their teaching.

I’m sorry, but advising a grandmother that she can attend her perverted grandsons wedding as with a gift, as long as she has told little Johnny in the past that him boinking other little boys is sin, is just ludicrous and contradicts the scripture that teaches us “have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but expose them.” 

Dr. Andrew Sandlin’s Warning About the Second Coming of Lincolnian Nationalism

“I think the problem with Christian nationalism in its most prominent iterations is that it’s essentially the positing of an ethno-state bound together by kinship, presided over largely by concentrated political order with a formal Christian profession. That’s certainly not the same thing as Joe mentions as biblical nationhood, and it’s certainly not Christian culture. I think we need to understand that, proximately, the greatest enemy in Western culture is statism, and we don’t need a revived Christianized statism (which is oxymoronic) to replace that.

I think we need to Christianize culture in all areas of life. I’ll say finally, I think one problem is that because Christians have been so culturally derelict for the last 150 years—they have lost in culture, lost in politics, lost everywhere—now in a mad panic, say, we must capture politics in order to impose a Christian vision. I don’t think that they understand that the left did not first win politics, the left won culture over last 100 or 150 years. And we will not win the culture back simply by gaining political victories, though getting good Christians in political office is certainly desirable. So, this is basically a cultural battle. Christian nationalism sees it as a political battle and that is a dangerous miscalculation.”

Andy Sandlin

1.) Sandlin speaks of “CN in its most prominent iterations.” I want to know the names of those individual CN out there who believe that CN is what Sandlin is saying they believe CN is. I demand this because I seriously doubt very many of the major CN thinkers and advocates out there define CN has primarily political. Sandlin here has given us a genuine example of the red herring fallacy.

I will speak only for myself that this has never been my vision of Christian Nationalism and that in point of fact any Christian Nationalism that would be “presided over largely by concentrated political order,” could not be in any way taken as a serious establishment of Christian Nationalism.

It seems the Boomers like Sandlin have this fixated image in their head that all us Christian Nationalists desire the second coming of the Abraham Lincoln’s Nationalizing of America. It is just asinine that any Christian would have to say to Andy, “No, Andy, I do not desire the second coming of  Lincoln’s Nationalism. How could you be so stupid to think I would want that?”

2.) Having said that, what is the problem with “the positing of an ethno-state bound together by kinship, presided over largely by concentrated political order with a formal Christian profession.” as long as that non-concentrated political order is a reflection of a Christian culture. Sandlin knows that no Christian worth is salt is going to advocate for a concentrated (read centralized) Christian political order. In point of fact a concentrated political order would not be Christian Nationalism because such an arrangement is not particularly Christian. However, a non-concentrated political order — a political order that is diffused and decentralized — could indeed be Christian and I would be shocked to learn the movers and shakers out there supporting CN would say anything other.

Oh sure… there are some crackpots around who wet their pants over visions of some kind of version of Lincoln’s Marxists.

3.) It is completely bogus on Sandlin’s part to suggest that CN believe that it is a political battle vis-a-vis understanding that it is also a cultural battle. However, though politics is indeed downstream of culture, it is also at the same time part and parcel of culture so it cannot be ignored in the way that Andy as, in the past, suggested.

4.) Really, in my estimation, the thing that really blisters Andy’s chaps is the perfectly Biblical idea of CN “positing of an ethno-state bound together by kinship.” However, Andy is just going to have to get over this. As we have noted ad nauseum here nations are merely family writ large. Nations by their very definition have a ethnic core that cannot be negotiated w/o losing the whole concept of “nation.” Christian Nationalists merely desire that their blood informed nations (just as their blood informed family units) be defined and animated by Christian categories. There is nothing startling/shocking in this idea of Nationalism.

However, Andy has sipped from the grog that is the spirit of the age and, like Doug Wilson and so many other evangelicals who have bellied up to the bar of the zeitgeist, he and they just can’t hold his or their liquor.

Michael Hoffman Exposes Doug Wilson’s Inane Take on Israel

I don’t often make a link the center of something I post here but this is an exception.

People here, are not surprised to read me saying again that I have significant problems with Doug Wilson. I have often said that I wish I could buy Doug for what he is worth and turn around and sell him for what he thinks he is worth. The problem isn’t what Doug knows. He knows a good deal for which he should be extolled. The problem is what Doug thinks he knows but just isn’t so.

Many people take Doug as a cornucopia of encyclopedic wisdom. Those people who make Doug their “go-to guy” are themselves exercising all the wisdom of a duck flying in to land next to a decoy. There are those who will merely see envy in my observations regarding Doug. All I can say to that is that it isn’t true. Were Doug orthodox I would be doing cartwheels and being his chief cheerleader. I would urge people to move to Moscow. I would slay all those who rise up against him. But… people will say what they will all because I point our Doug’s errors and lamentable inconsistencies.

Here is a huge error of Doug’s pointed  out by someone else who has done the legwork.

https://michaelhoffman.substack.com/p/churchianitys-support-for-israeli

The errors in Wilson’s thinking that are pointed out here are just embarrassing and if it was anyone else besides Wilson it would go a long way towards ruining their credibility across the board. However, Doug has gained that “Teflon” ability and so his groupies will just shrug off the truths that Michael Hoffman reveals.

Read Hoffman’s piece and let me know what you think in the comments.