Culture – Page 15

Dr. Mike Horton Bearing False Witness Against Thornwell & Dabney

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/white-horse-inn/id356920632?i=1000635315098

12:20-14:40 “Machen was flawed” regarding his racial views. “Dabney and Thornwell, the two main Southern theologians, they argued throughout their systemic theologies, their anthropology incorporated racism. Africans are inherently less human. And there were a lot of pro-slavery people who didn’t articulate those theological views, but they did. Leading Southern Presbyterian theologians. Machen never argued that. And moreover Machen showed that even though he didn’t make theological arguments for it, that he thought socially it was wrong. My thing is Dabney and Thornwell have nothing to say to the broader church today… Once you weave those kinds of godless doctrines into theology, it bleeds into soteriology, ecclesiology, eschatology. I think we just have to say the theological systems of Dabney and Thornwell should be considered moribund in our tradition. Different from Machen. So why not Christianity and Liberalism too? Because Christianity and Liberalism, nor any of Machen’s writings, sought to make theological arguments. He was frankly sociologically racist. But he didn’t undergird it with theological heresy. That’s why I would say there’s a different between somebody like Dabney and Thornwell and somebody like Machen.”

Mike Horton
White Horse Inn

Now, I’ve read a good deal of Dabney. Far less of Thornwell, but still more than your average clergy critter. There may be places where Dabney and Thornwell say what Horton insists that they said but I for one would like to have those quotes cited instead of just having to believe Horton, who has shown himself in the past to be more than able to get matters wrong. So, I concede it is possible that Dabney and Thornwell said things that communicated that “African are inherently less human,” but if they did I want the proof of that. I want the quotes. So, Mike, lets see the quotes that prove your statement because absent those quotes you need to shut your pie-hole.

I want the proof of that because I have quotes from Dabney and Thornwell that prove they most certainly did not believe that. For example;

“The Negro is one blood with ourselves — that he has sinned as we have, and that he has has an equal interest with us in the great Redemption. Science, falsely so called, may attempt to exclude him from the brotherhood of humanity…. but the instinctive impulses of our nature combined with the plainest declaration of the Word of God, lead us to recognize in his form and lineaments — his moral, religious, and intellectual nature — the same humanity in which we glory as the image of God. We are not ashamed to call him our brother.”

Dr. James Henley Thornwell

Sermon — Rights and Duties of Masters

Does that sound like Thornwell is saying that the African is inherently less human than whites? I mean the man explicitly says that “the Negro is one blood with ourselves.” The quote, taken as a whole, completely testifies that Horton is bearing false witness against a Father in the faith. Now, maybe Horton has some quotes wherein Thornwell contradicts himself here. If so, let Horton reproduce those quotes. Only by doing so can Horton be cleared of bearing false witness. Without said quotes demonstrating Horton’s allegation Horton needs to either publicly repent or failing that, be brought up on charges.

Now as to Dabney we read from his pen,

“… While we believe that “God made of one blood all nations of men to dwell under the whole heavens,” we know that the African has become, according to a well-known law of natural history, by the manifold influences of the ages, a different, fixed species of the race, separated from the white man by traits bodily, mental and moral, almost as rigid and permanent as those of genus. Hence the offspring of an amalgamation must be a hybrid race… incapable of the career of civilization and glory as an independent race. And this apparently is the destiny which our conquerors have in view. If indeed they can mix the blood of the heroes of Manassas with this vile stream from the fens of Africa, then they will never again have occasion to tremble before the righteous resistance of Virginia freemen; but will have a race supple and vile enough to fill that position of political subjection, which they desire to fix on the South?

R. L. Dabney

A Defense of Virginia & the South

Again, Horton may have quotes from Dabney from his systematic theology wherein Dabney contradicts himself. Note here that Dabney writes that;

1.) The African belongs to the nations that God made of one blood to dwell upon the earth. This contradicts Horton’s claim that Dabney believed that “African were inherently less human.”

2.) When Dabney speaks of the African as a “different fixed species of the race,” he is again affirming that Africans are human. Different does not mean “inherently less human.”

3.) Anybody who knows the history of tribal Africa blinks not a whit at the description of “vile stream from the fens of Africa.” One could easily imagine Cortez describing the “vile stream from the fens of the Aztecs,” or Moses describing the “vile stream from the fens of Canaan.”

4.) As much as the R2K Gnostic Mike Horton might find the Dabney quote he nowhere here says that Africans are inherently less human. Indeed, he admits they are human by noting the one blood concept. He merely recognizes there are vast differences between the African race and the white man.

So again, Dr. Horton, or anybody who would like to defend Horton, please do us a favor and provide the Thornwell and Dabney quotes that proves that they thought the African was inherently less human.

One more thing here before I sign off. This statement by Horton is breathtaking in its absolute idiocy;

“Because Christianity and Liberalism, nor any of Machen’s writings, sought to make theological arguments.”

I’m pretty confident that Machen would be surprised to learn that in none of his writings was he seeking to make theological arguments. This statement is nothing but dumbassery on Horton’s part.

In conclusion, I hope I live long enough to see the day when the theological system of Horton will be taken as completely moribund and when in Seminaries Horton is held up as a negative example of doing theology much the way that Charles Grandison Finney is mocked today as a theologian in Reformed seminaries.

Commenting on DeYoung’s Solo Foodfight Against Pope Doug

Over here;

https://clearlyreformed.org/on-culture-war-doug-wilson-and-the-moscow-mood/?fbclid=IwAR1-mGWEoz3uofTIeXG1iAu8Xqw_z1GAHxQqq_8FvZ7Rr_LYvbcWFu96t14

The Dr. Rev. Kevin DeYoung published one heck of a strange column, the explanation of which can only be that Doug Wilson is increasingly being seen as a threat to established Presbyterianism. I offer that because the minute this piece by DeYoung was hot off the press our favorite academic Presbyterian dunce (Dr. R. Scott Clark) immediately linked it and praised it to the hilt. Of course, Scott also, back in the day, similarly praised to the hilt Tullian Tchividjian. All that to say that Scott’s track record for picking winners isn’t exactly praiseworthy.

Now those who know me and/or follow Iron Ink know that I am no friend to Pope Doug. So, this ends up being a case of “a pox upon both your houses.” Still, the criticisms of DeYoung are so cringe worthy that something has to be said. I guess that in this column I am pulling a Winston Churchill who once said that “if Hitler ever attacked Hell, he put in a good word for the Devil.”

I honestly don’t understand what DeYoung is seeking to accomplish with this piece. Nobody who reads this who already hates Wilson needs to read it, and those who love Wilson will only love him more as a result of the whining that Kevin DeYoung does here.

Below find some quotes from DeYoung followed by some of my observations.

“The most important fight is the fight for faith, not the fight for Christendom. The Christian life must be shaped by the theology of the cross, however much we might prefer an ever-present theology of glory. ”

Kevin DeYoung

1.) This is straight up R2K speak.

2.) So we want to fight for a faith that is dis-attached from the Christendom that is its natural impulse and consequence? This is like saying we want to fight for sex in marriage, not fight for pregnancy in marriage.

3.) This reference to a “theology of the Cross,” is what you hear from the Protestant Clergy who have forgotten that following the Cross was the Resurrection and the Ascension and the ruling at the right hand of the father. These chaps like DeYoung love them the crucifix. One wonders if, in their world, Jesus ever gets off that cross to ascend to the throne at the Right hand of the Father?

“We could do with fewer witticisms front and center, and more conspicuous delighting in the sweetness of fellowship with Christ and exulting in the love of God our Savior.”

Kevin DeYoung

This used to be called Pietism. Now we call it “Karen-ism.” (And no that isn’t a diss at white women alone. For Pete’s sake Karen’s come in all colors, shapes, and sizes.) It is sentimental hooey… God is my girlfriend stuff. It is not the way soldiers love their great Captains. It’s the way that women think about their beaus.

“I’m all for cultural engagement, even for some culture warring rightly understood.”

Kevin DeYoung

The only culture warring that DeYoung is interested in is culture warring against those who culture war.

Clergy like DeYoung and Wilson remind me why I hate admitting to being clergy. Who wants to be associated with these nekulturny? It would be like a Bagel admitting, while visiting the ghettos, that he worked for the Reich ministry of Propaganda as Goebbels’s chief Lieutenant.

Watching DeYoung assail Wilson is like back when you were in High School and you would occasionally see the Special Ed. kid get in a fight in the hallway. You knew he meant to really bring it, but you also knew that he was at a disadvantage from jump.

“For the mood that attracts people to Moscow is too often incompatible w/ Christian virtue, inconsiderate of other Christians, & ultimately inconsistent w/ stated aims of Wilson’s Christendom project”

Kevin DeYoung

Snort …. if DeYoung only knew that Moscow was merely the blunt side of the sword. The side we use when we want to slice bread or spank the toddlers.

“The naughty part is that Wilson uses the words “wussy” and “wuss”—adolescent slang for someone weak and effeminate. These are words most Christian parents don’t allow their kids to use, since the terms probably originated as a combination of “wimp” and another word I won’t mention.”

Kevin DeYoung

Article Criticizing Pope Doug

LOL… of all the things that Pope Doug could be justly criticized for, DeYoung chose to go after Wilson for saying “wuss” and “wussy?” I mean DeYoung could have gone after Doug’s constant trimming and equivocating, or he could have slapped Wilson upside the head for his constant usage of false dichotomy, or he could have questioned Wilson’s thinking that marriage can cure pedophilia. There are tons of things that DeYoung could have gone after Wilson for but what we get is that Kevin can’t abide Dougie’s use of a marginally and barely naughty word? It’s like a child seeing little Johnny flash someone on the playground but tattling to the teacher that Johnny cut in line.

This is why many men no longer take conservative Presbyterian clergy seriously. Personally, I never let my son go outdoors to play if he DIDN’T promise to use words like that when necessary. Personally, I never knew any Christian parents who didn’t allow their sons to use “language like that,” and if I did know any Christian parents like that, they sure didn’t want to know me.

Yeah… it’s true… Kevin DeYoung is a WUSSY.

Rev. Dr. Kevin DeYoung explains perfectly that old French proverb;

There are three sexes,

1.) Male
2.) Female
3.) Clergy

At the end of the day my complaint about Wilson is he is not enough of the things that DeYoung accuses him off. I think that Wilson is not really serious and if he is serious he has seriously underestimated what it will take to restore Christian Western civilization. In other words, Wilson takes half measures. Wilson sustained this accusation when in replying to an accusation against him that he was trying to be Rushdoony 2.0 he quipped, “And here I was trying to merely be Rushdoony 0.5.” The fact that Doug is trying to cut the potency of Rushdoony in half communicates that Doug is moving away from Rushdoony to what Doug views is a safer place. That reality shows in many of Doug’s position, from his reluctance to advocate for the death penalty for sodomites, to his reluctance to insist that sabbath laws should be implemented across the whole social order Doug wants to turn back the hands of time to when we had a peaceable classically liberal social order. However we have, in America, long passed that exit and we won’t be going back to any classical liberal social order since such a social order given our demographic composition today will not allow for the exclusivity of Jesus Christ as the unique King of the social order. Our classical liberal social order could work for as long as it did because of two reasons,

1.) Here in the states we were overwhelmingly White. The European cousins had made flight to America and intermarried and yet remained 87% white.

2.) Here in the states we were overwhelmingly Christian of one flavor or another. Those who weren’t Christian had to conform. (Think US vs. Reynolds where the Mormons were told polygamy would not be allowed.)

A classically liberal social order can not work where there no longer exists a shared demographic and a shared religion wherein harmony of interest can be shared among the populace.

Neither Wilson nor DeYoung are going to help us return to a social order that refuses classical liberalism.

Social Orders and the Divine

All social orders presuppose some kind of divine. From there a Priestly class of some sort exists that is charged with interpreting the divine, a Political class that legislates into law the divine, a military class that protects the divine, an artist class which incarnates the divine, an educator class that teaches the divine to the upcoming generation, and then the working class which lives out the divine in their families, workplaces, and living.

For example in our humanist culture that which is presupposed as divine is man. That Priestly class which interprets that divine is typically today found among the Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Counselors and all wannabees of that variety. The political class rests in Washington and the State capitals who believe they are God walking on the earth. The military class of global humanism is the US Military which demonstrates its protection of the divine by the welcoming of the pervert and the tranny into the officer class of the US Military, the artist class is seen all around us in the ugliness and slovenliness in which we live, move and have our being. The educator class exist in our school from Kindergarten to the University level. And our working class reflects this humanism to its very core.

Vox Day, Vox McAtee

Over here;

MAILVOX: In Defense of Doug Wilson

Vox Day answers a letter defending Rev. Doug Wilson. It is a magnificent response. Still, despite that I can’t help but wanting to have my own go at this letter defending the Pope of Moscow.

Doug’s Defender (DD) writes to Vox Day,

Firstly, I acknowledge your critiques of Doug, and recognise that he has some enormous Boomer tendencies.

McAtee responds,

Is this like acknowledging that FDR was a cripple? I mean, Captain Obvious much?

DD writes,

But.

He has a growing appeal to disaffected young evangelical men (of whom I belonged).

McAtee responds,

Nobody can disagree with that sentence above. However, Doug should be to disaffected young evangelical men what marijuana was to druggies in the day, and that is only a gateway drug to the real narcotics. Doug is the wine cooler that opens the way someday to Tennessee Sipping Whiskey. If one doesn’t move beyond Doug, one remains stunted in their Christianity.

DD writes,

He spearheaded an enormous push towards Classical Christian schooling, founded on Western Civilisation (including the Greco-Roman underpinnings).

McAtee Responds,

Not to be too technical, but you do realize, don’t you, that the Greco-Romans were pagans? Classical Education has some real merit but unless it is reinterpreted through a Biblical Grid all it produces is pagans who now how to argue. I’ve seen my share of graduates from the Moscow Greystoke Manor who embody my observation.

DD writes,

It’s a huge movement, that is reintroducing the youth to the Good, Beautiful, and True.

McAtee responds,

If that is true, than certainly enough, these youths will see that Wilson and the CREC is still not that for which they are looking. If these youths are getting a taste of the good, the true, and the beautiful than soon enough they will push on from the holding tank that is not quite the good, the true, and the beautiful that is the CREC.

Imagine if you will a large room of painting canvases all set next to one another. The very first painting canvas is covered with a very watery red. The very last painting canvas is covered with a bold fire-engine red. All the canvases between the first one and the last one are canvases that each are a little more red then the previous one but a little less red then the next one in the series. Pope Doug and the CREC represents the entry level red canvas. It has introduced you to the idea of “red.” However, if you are really captivated by Red you will push on from the entry level red and eventually you’ll look back at the entry level red and see that it really isn’t that red at all.

DD writes,

They have cleaned up church liturgy, and recaptured theological maximalism, with many offshoot ministries pushing phrases like ‘Rebuilding the New Christendom.’

McAtee responds,

Cleaned up church liturgy and taken us back, in many cases, to a liturgy that goes back to smells and bells. Further, your CREC has taken up the cursed cause of Ecclesiocentrism and the fact that you may not even know what that word means, means that you have miles to go before you sleep.

And in terms of Wilson’s vision of “Rebuilding the New Christendom,” let me just say that if Wilson is successful in doing so, then I’ll be praying that the New, New Christendom will soon come to replace Wilson’s version because Wilson’s “New Christendom,” looks an awful lot like the old Liberalism of 1950. Tell me, please, how is Wilson going to build a New Christendom while holding on to the idea of “principled pluralism?”

DD writes,

This is all important foundational work to waking up Christians. It has led to me creating a homeschool co-op teaching the Classical method, and we are exposing our children to the glorious things that the Christian West has to offer.

McAtee responds,

And now someone has to come along and shore up the cracks on Wilson’s foundational work. I promise you there is something much larger than a pea under all those mattresses.

If you want your children exposed to the glorious things of the Christian West make sure you teach them about Lepanto, the Crusades, Jon Sobieski, Jan Valjean, etc.

DD writes,

Ministries like G3 ministries are on the warpath against ‘kinism’ which has significant sway over the Reformed Conservative movements.

McAtee Responds,

Have you been sleeping? Wilson’s warpath against Kinism makes the G3 look like a bunch of boy playing cowboys and injuns.

DD writes,

Guys like Doug want more mainstream appeal, so they have opted to go soft on the racial issue. They have ousted guys like Thomas Achord, which shows they mean business.

McAtee responds,

It’s clear to everybody who has eyes that Pope Doug is going for the neo-con/New York Times crowd.

And you think “outing guys like Thomas Achord” is a recommendation for Wilson and his peeps? This is like saying that Sherman should get a medal for raping and pillaging his way to Atlanta.

DD writes,

But it is worth noting that there are more guys like Thomas Achord in these organisations who will eventually start speaking out. The time doesn’t seem to have come for that yet.

McAtee responds,

And Pope Doug is the one we are all supposed to be waiting on to give the signal when the time has come for all that? Trust me… the time will never come because Doug is merely a gatekeeper interested in pushing his brand.

DD writes,

I’m sure you’re aware that racism is perhaps one of the most unforgivable sins in the Evangelical church and will get a robust and powerful reaction from the Evangelical base (especially the Boomers). He is pushing young men in the right direction, and Christian Nationalism, as promoted by Stephen Wolfe, is gaining significant traction.

McAtee responds by quoting Vox Day,

“Stephen Wolfe’s Christian Nationalism is fake nationalism. It’s a religious form of civic nationalism that substitutes Christianity for US citizenship. He’s just another gatekeeper.”

McAtee Contra Aaron Renn on “Nationalism”

People just can’t quit talking about Christian Nationalism and Kinism. Recently I read an interview piece with Andrew Sandlin and Joe Boot. Upon completing it I had to make sure I wasn’t reading a Norm MacDonald comedy routine. I may bring that to IronInk for analysis. On the other hand I can’t keep up with all the vacuous mindlessness out there on the subject of “Christian Nationalism,” and “Kinism” that needs to be critiqued.

However, in this post I am taking the time to critique another piece by Aaron Renn that can be found here;

Nationalism Isn’t American

Nobody will be surprised to learn that I find almost all that I read from the cognoscenti to be worthy only of mouse bait status. Renn is no different. See if you agree with me.

“As Georgetown professor Joshua Mitchell has shown, wokeness shot rapidly through American culture because it exploited Protestant religious themes that are embedded deep in our public consciousness, whereas Marxism never got traction because concepts like “class” don’t resonate in America. “

Aaron Renn

McAtee responds

1.) Leave it to a Georgetown Intellectual to conclude that somehow wokeness gained traction because it could exploit Protestant religious themes. I guarantee you if we looked at these Protestant themes the Georgetown professor is suggesting could be used by wokeness to worm its way into our public consciousness we would find that these putative Protestant themes are in point of fact Liberal themes that were like parasites that had attached to Protestantism. There is nothing in genuine Protestantism that makes a way for wokeness.

2.) The odd thing about this quote is Renn doesn’t seem to realize that wokeness is a form of Marxism. Hence, Marxism has resonated here but I would submit that the reason Marxism resonates is because we are no longer and have not been for quite some time a Christian people.

3.) I think the success of the Democratic party for the last 90 years or so is proof positive that the idea of “class” does indeed resonate in America.

“Whatever our challenges are today, they are certainly less serious than those of the Civil War or Great Depression.”

Aaron Renn

McAtee responds,

I think this a terrible reading of US history and our current place in that history. Now, to be sure, the War Against the Constitution, as well as the Great Depression were two very “serious” and difficult times of challenge in our country’s history but to suggest that where we are is less serious than those historical events belies a seriously tin ear as to the precipice we currently are upon. We have over 30 million illegal aliens in our country and our border is non existent. We have a debt that will never be paid off. We have two hot wars that we are arcing towards getting sucked into. The gap between the haves and have nots is greater than any time in several generations. We have an elite who are in point of fact an occupying force that clearly are not interested in representing the interests of the American people. We are setting on a racial powder keg that could explode at any moment. The Institutions of the US such as Universities, Families, and Churches are shredded in terms of supporting and maintaining a stable social order. Now, Renn would say to me, as he says in his “Nationalism” piece that this is all “apocalyptical thinking,” but naturally enough I find him playing with matches in a dark room filled with dynamite singing, “Don’t Worry, be Happy.”

The rest of Renn’s piece underscores my conviction that Renn is not very historically savvy. For example, elsewhere he can say;

“Repeatedly throughout American history, in times of crisis, our leaders have managed to take extraordinary action when necessary and to refresh our institutions to address new challenges. Lincoln did so during the Civil War. Teddy Roosevelt did so with his trust busting, as did FDR with the New Deal.”

Now, I’m not completely sure, but in my reading it looks to me that Renn is complimenting Lincoln, TR, and FDR, on how they handled great challenges. If that is what Renn is saying I’d say this is a misreading of history and doesn’t take into account the unmitigated disaster these Presidents were and how each and all of them were committed to continue to fundamentally transform the US Constitution. Lincoln was a tyrant. TR was a known progressive. FDR worked the Fascist side of the street.

If Renn thinks that current American leadership could work the magic that Lincoln, TR, and FDR, worked when they faced challenges all I can do is explain why that is stupid analysis and then pray God that current leaders don’t face our challenges the way that demonic trio faced challenges.

“What we need today, perhaps, is a modern-day FDR—a thoroughly American character who built solutions that would appeal to the people of this country.”

Aaron Renn

McAtee responds,

How can anybody take seriously anybody who would write a sentence like the one above?

Just for the record… FDR created the problems to which he offered “solutions” that only made the original problems twice as bad. Secondly, the only reason FDR “appealed” to the people of this country is because he first paid them and then set them against one another is a frenzied fit as to who was going to get first and primary access to the money he stole from the American people through his taxation policy as coupled with inflating the money supply.

“But terms like “nationalism” or “Christian nationalism” join the Left in abandoning these historic symbols in favor of ones that don’t resonate. So I believe it is a mistake to embrace this and other such language. The authentic American cultural and political tradition provides us all the resources we need to meet the challenges of today.”

Aaron Renn

McAtee responds,

Christian Nationalism doesn’t resonate? Renn says that despite the US Constitution being concerned with “securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Does Renn know what “ourselves and our posterity means?” Is not such a phrase “Nationalism” in embryonic form?

Or what about the Naturalization Act of 1790 where the law limited naturalization to “free White person(s) … of good character”, thus excluding Native Americans, indentured servants, enslaved people, free black people, and later Asians. Is there not a foundational notion of Nationalism in such language?

As late as 1921 we could read Vice President John Calvin Coolidge writing something that sure sounds like Nationalism;

“There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. The Nordics propagate themselves successfully. With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both sides. Quality of mind and body suggests that observance of ethnic law is as great a necessity to a nation as immigration law.”

Vice President John Calvin Coolidge

Good Housekeeping — 1921

In light of this a many many more examples that could be easily provided does Renn really want to stake out the position that “terms like “nationalism” or “Christian nationalism” join the Left in abandoning our historic symbols in favor of ones that don’t resonate.”

This is the first time I’ve take the time to analyze something written by Renn. I know he is supposed to be “all that and a bag of chips,” but this piece ranks right up there with what you’d hear in your average Owen Strachan sermon.

Renn is just terribly off in his article on Nationalism. I am coming to the conclusion that one can determine the bonafides of someone’s intellectual capacity based upon how they handle the question of Christian Nationalism. It seems to me that Renn fails just like Wilson, White, Strachan, Ainol, Boot, Sandlin, etc.