Category: Culture

A Response To The CREC Knox Presbytery Propositional Declaration On Ethnic Balance

On Ethnic Balance

We believe the human tendency to congregate around shared affections is natural and can be good—it creates the blessing of cultures and subcultures, for example. But as with all natural goods in a fallen world, there is a temptation to exalt it to a position of unbiblical importance, thus making it an idol. While an ethnic heritage is something to be grateful for, and which may be preserved in any way consistent with the law of God, it is important to reject every form of identity politics, including kinism—whether malicious, vainglorious, or ideologically separatist/segregationist.

Knox Presbytery, December 1, 2022


Our Response;

On Propositional Declarations

We believe the human tendency to congregate around shared propositional declarations on certain positions is natural and can be good—it creates the blessing of cultures and subcultures, for example. But as with all natural goods in a fallen world, there is a temptation to exalt the making of certain propositional declarations to a position of unbiblical importance, thus making those propositional declarations an idol. While shared propositional declarations are something to be grateful for, and which may be preserved in any way consistent with the law of God, it is important to reject every form of identity politics, including propositional Declarationism – whether malicious, vainglorious, or ideologically separatist/segregationist.

 

 

A Response To CREC Knox Presbytery’s Proposal On Issue of Jews

“We believe the conversion of the Jews is key to the success of Christ’s Great Commission, and it is incumbent upon us to pray and labor toward that end. (1) While, apart from Christ, the Jews are as all others—alienated from God—they have remained an object of God’s care because the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. (2) God’s plan for converting them is for them to see Gentile nations under the blessings of Christ’s lordship, thus leading them to long for the same. (3) Hence, the cancerous sin of anti-Semitism has no place in God’s plan.” (4)

CREC – Knox Presbytery
December 1, 2022

1a.) This whole statement is based on a misinterpretation of Romans 11. Romans 11 was future to Paul but has been fulfilled and so is past to us. The conversion of those who are (wrongly) referred to as “Jews” has nothing to do with the success of Christ’s great commission.

1b.) It is no more or less incumbent for Christian to labor and pray for the conversion of those who call themselves “Jews” then it is to labor and pray for the conversion of any other ethnic people group.

1c.) If the conversion of Jews as a people is “key to the success of Christ’s Great Commission” it would logically imply that Jews must continue to exist as a coherent and distinct people group. The eschatology offered here demands “Kinism” for Jews, right? And yet Doug Wilson continues to derisively refers to those who champion the Ordo Amoris as “skinists.” To be “saved” as a people necessarily demands existing as a people. Given Doug Wilson’s proud proclamation of the Jewishness of his own family this sentence in this proposal sounds vainglorious.

1d.) To say that conversion of the Jews is ‘key to the success of the great commission’ would mean the great commission is a failure until those that call themselves “Jews” are converted is absurd. Further to hang the success of the conversion of all nations on them as if it didn’t hang on the conversion of other nations just as much makes nonsense of the whole question.

2a.) God converted the Jewish Israel of God by AD 70.

2b.) God divorced Israel in AD 70. There remains no special relationship between what is now called “Israel” and the God of the Bible. This divorce was promised in the OT;

2 And He said, “Amos, what do you see?”

So I said, “A basket of summer fruit.”

Then the Lord said to me:

“The end has come upon My people Israel;
I will not pass by them anymore.  (Amos 8:2)

“Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom,
And I will destroy it from the face of the earth;
Yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,”
Says the Lord.  Amos 9:8

And the coming dismissal of Christ hating Israel as God’s chosen people for their sin of rejecting their Messiah was made clear in the NT; Luke 13:1-8, Mark 11:12-25, Matthew 21:37-43. Finally, in AD 70 with the Judgment coming of Jesus against Israel, Israel as a nation which had previously served as the chosen people of God was served divorce papers. The ruination of Jerusalem and the Jewish abomination Temple were destroyed by the Roman armies of Vespasian and Titus. According to Josephus 1million Jews were slaughtered. This was God’s final word regarding National Israel. God may and does still call individual Jews but as a nation God is done with them. God is done with Israel as a nation or people. Now any Gentile nation that God calls and which then covenants with God can be one national expression of God’s people as long as they own the graciousness of grace and then walk increasingly but never perfectly in terms of obedience to God’s gracious Law-Word.

2c.) Then there is the whole issue of whether or not those currently referred to as Jews are indeed Jews. Israel itself has passed laws making it extraordinarily difficult for the “Jewish” inhabitants of Israel to do DNA testing in order to determine ethnic heritage. Could that be due to the fact that they don’t want the hoi polloi to know that they are not really ethnically “Jewish?” The fact of the matter is that the Palestinians have more Jewish blood in them then the Khazars, Edomites, Khazars, Turks, etc. who call themselves “Jews” now living in Israel.

3.) Fulfilled by AD 70.

4.) We really need a definition of the “cancerous sin of anti-Semitism” before we can comment much on this statement. Currently, anti-Semitism often seems to be defined as “disagreeing with a Jew.” In point of fact, per the CREC, I’m pretty sure this whole post is “anti-Semitic.”

There are two major points here.

1.) Modern day Jews in Israel are not likely even Jews

2.) Even if they are Jews the Scripture does not allow us to think that they, as in their unconverted Christ hating state, are still God’s chosen people, since God divorced them as a people in AD 70 — consistent with the statements of Scripture.

Ordered Freedom …. Christian & Heathen

Conservatism is best defined as an ordered freedom that reflects the Christian transcendent and revealed order. Of course, there can be no such thing as an ordered freedom that is not anchored in a Biblical worldview (transcendent and revealed order) since without a Christian and Biblical worldview there would be no way to define the concepts of order or freedom. This means that there can be no consistent conservatism that pursues an ordered freedom that is Christless since such a conservatism will, by necessity, inject the need for ordered freedom with a humanism that will either find order (i.e.- Tyranny) eating up freedom or freedom (i.e. – Licentiousness) eating up order.

Because humanism is the very opposite of Christianity it cannot find the integration point between order and freedom. Instead humanism (whether Roman Catholic, Jewish, Mooselimb, “Secular.” etc,) will always in the end using both order and freedom (as subjectively defined) as limiting concepts that have no real intrinsic meaning in and of themselves. Because humanism has no objective ballast all humanism can constantly offer is a kind of warfare between the notions of order and freedom as order and freedom exist as limiting concepts. For the variants of humanism
“order” always ends up as tyranny and “freedom” always ends up as anarchistic licentiousness. For humanism either “order” ends up as Statist collectivism and/or Statist command and control social order (think Chinese Social Credit system) or it ends up with a licentiate individualism where “each man does what is right in his own eyes.”

The difference here in the variant Humanism (whether Statist tyrannical ordered collectivist humanism or Democratic anarchist hyper atomistic individualism) are captured in the two competing novels “1984,” and “Brave New World.” Orwell, in 1984 captured the anthill/beehive social order that exists when Humanist order loses its head. For Orwell, freedom for the individual was a myth as the picture of Orwell’s ordered future was a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.’ Orwell’s future vision of reality is a reality where the humanist limiting concept of freedom has been eclipsed as humanist order has eaten up humanist freedom. Huxley, on the other hand, gave us a vision of the future where humanist freedom had eaten up humanist order — although interestingly enough, as still in service of the totalitarian State. In Huxley’s view man is controlled by the State by giving individual men the ability to instantly satiate all their lusts. Licentiate freedom is maximized and personal / individual order and stability are absent.

This push me / pull you between humanist order vs. humanist freedom is where the West is right now as it continues to descend into its post-Christian quicksand. The Biblical Christian is forced to declare to each side “a Pox upon both your houses.”

The Biblical Christian proclaims a pox upon the house of the humanist freedom as it witnesses the excesses found in perverted sexuality, the break-down of the family, the war against the value of life, the growth of the drug culture and the open borders society. At the same time the Biblical Christian proclaims a pox upon the house of humanist order as it witnessed, in recent years, the demands of the state to be vaccinated w/ death dealing vaccines, to don masks that made absolutely no difference, to social distance, to close down and ruin small businesses by their policies and to destroy people who did not play along with their mandated “order” policies. In heathen arrangements of social order the citizenry always gets the stick of both woe-begotten notions of order and woe-begotten notions of freedom.

There are those in the Christian community who would restore the proper relationship between order and freedom by appealing to Natural law theories. The desire for placing order and freedom again on a stable definition foundation is admirable. However, Natural Law itself is a construct of ancient humanism (Greek Sophism) and as such is subjective and being subjective it does not take into account the fallenness of men to read this thing called Natural law aright. Natural law theorists promise a return to Biblical notions or “ordered freedom” but the history of Natural Law is not promising as to whether or not Natural Law can deliver Christian ideas of “ordered freedom.” In point of fact, Natural Law, if consistent can’t even speak of “Christian ideas of ordered freedom” since Natural Law is not religiously identified as being uniquely Christian.

Instead, there must be a return to the law and to the testimony (Isaiah 8:20) in order for there to be a return to a Christian social order again where order and freedom find their natural harmony of interests. Until the West returns to God’s revealed law the decline of the West will continue as order and freedom continue to be at war with one another.

Old Toby Sumter & Proof Of The Conservative Resurgence In Israel

“‘a conservative resurgence in Israel;’” I’m talking about people I met personally who take the 10 Commandments seriously.”
Toby Sumpter
Chief Lieutenant to Doug Wilson
Article Insisting that he is not a shill for Israel

Now, when Old Toby talks about being in Israel and relates the conservative resurgence to people he met personally who take the 10 commandments seriously, I can only conclude he can’t be serious.

Consider, that Old Toby very likely here is talking about Jews he met in Israel who “take the 10 commandments seriously.” Here is Toby Sumpter, a minister, who wants me to believe that Christ hating Bagels take the 10 commandments seriously. I thought it was Christian doctrine that only people who trust Jesus Christ as their alone savior were people who could take the 10 commandments seriously since in order to take the 10 commandments seriously one has to trust the Christ as savior to whom the 10 commandments are pointing. In order to take the 10 commandments seriously One has to trust in Jesus Christ who alone can fulfill the requirement of the law in our stead and impute to us his law keeping righteousness. These are the only people who take the 10 commandments seriously.

Elsewhere in the same article Old Toby writes;

For example, did you know that there is an anti-Pride parade in Jerusalem every year? Don’t you think that matters? Israel also has the highest birthrate among Western nations. Doesn’t that matter at all?

Toby Sumpter
Shilling For Israel

For Old Toby the above proves that there is a Conservative Resurgence in Israel.

So, our enemies have the highest birthrate among “Western” nations and that is supposed to convince me there is a conservative resurgence in Israel? Is this like telling the tribes that provided the sacrifices for the Aztecs;

“Not to worry, there is a conservative resurgence in Tenochtitlan. We know this because the Aztecs are having more babies.”

I’m sure that would be quite comforting to those tribes conquered by the Aztecs.

Methinks that Rev. Sumpter needs to bone up on his theology.

Dr. Andrew Walker’s Crowing About The Virtues Of Baptist Thinking Refuted

“I’m shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED, that regularly reciting the Nicene Creed and even enshrining a church-state establishment weren’t enough to inoculate against the corrosive trajectories of theological liberalism. Stay frosty and stay Baptist, friends.”

Dr. Andrew T. Walker 
Professor – Theology 
SBTS

Here Walker is responding to the fact that a woman (Sarah Mullally) was approved by King Charles III as the 106th archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the world’s 85 million Anglicans. Walker’s point, being a Baptist, is that Erastian Church-State relations don’t stop the “corrosive trajectories of theological liberalism.” Walker’s other implied point is that countries that practice a separation of Church and State are obviously superior to Erastian type Church-State relations. Of course both points are bogus.

We might want to take a gander at the British American cousins across the pond to see that the sacred Baptist principle of separation of Church and State has not fared so well in terms of the corrosive trajectories of theological liberalism. Dr. Stephen Wolfe nails this point in responding to Dr. Walker;

I’d like to point that every degeneracy of our time–everything you protect your kids from–arose without church establishment but under the secular conditions affirmed by Walker. If church establishment necessarily leads to apostasy, then “baptist” secular politics necessarily leads to degeneracy. The track record of Walker’s “contestation” liberalism is not good.

Next, we have to understand, that Walker’s supposed separation of Church and State has always been a mirage. There is never a time when the Church and State don’t work hand in glove. The only difference between England and ourselves is that England was open about its Erastianism while America has cloaked it in the language of “separation of Church and State,” all the while establishing the State Church in the Institution of the Government schools. America is every bit as Erastian as England. We just hide it from ourselves. It is natural for Walker to defend “anti-Erastian” arrangement since with anti-Erastian arrangements his preferred Baptist Erastianism can continue going forward. Since neutrality is impossible there is no such thing as separation of Church and State. Now, one may correctly speak about distinctions between Church and State but separation never exists.

The fact that separation never exists is seen in the fact that the current state is now a bonafide Humanist organization with the intent of persecuting above all those Biblical Christians and Churches who defy the Humanist State. The State must do this because it desires to prioritize the theological teachings of the Humanist Church as it is located in the Government schools and Universities.

Next, we would have to say that it is the “staying of being Baptist” that has brought us to the place we are now at in the US. How have the non-establishment Baptists slowed the cultural decline? For Pete’s sake, the non-establishment Baptists have not even been able to rescue their own denominations from the “corrosive trajectories of theological liberalism.” Talk about the pot calling the kettle, “black.”

Indeed, I think one could argue that it is the Baptist refusal to see linkage between church and state that has led to creating the vacuum that was filled by humanism as being the religion of the State and of most Churches in the former Christian West. Walker’s proposed solution (more Baptist thinking) is the problem that brought us to the place we are at.

It may be true that Christian Erastianism has slain its thousands, but it is even more true that Baptist “separation of Christian Church and Christian State” thinking as slain its hundreds of thousands.

By the way … this kind of Baptist thinking fits well with the Radical Two Kingdom theology that we now find so current in Covenant Reformed pulpits. R2K fanboys would be, on this point, cheek by jowl with the Baptists. The point for both is, “No affirmations of the Christian faith in the public square by political personages in their roles as political personages.”

A pox upon all of their houses.