Category: ecclesiology

From the Mailbox; Why Do You Say The CREC Belongs To The Left?

Dear Pastor,

Can you tell me why you say that the CREC is a Christian denomination that is on the left? As a Pastor in the CREC I think I should know this.

Kent

Bret Responds,

Hello Kent,

Thank you for writing and asking.

Of course, I am speaking of the denominational spokesmen like Doug Wilson, Uri Brito, and Rich Lusk. Even if you’re not on the left yourself those people who are the face of the denomination you’re part of are on the left. If the wife I’m married to is a whore it says something about me if I stay married to her.

These are my observations thus about the CREC

1.) They are Alienists (multiculturalists). They insist that race does not exist or that race is a social construct. They keep pushing for documents to be accepted by the denomination that will codify those beliefs. Nobody of any stature before the rise of Franz Boas believed this. Franz Boas non-Christian Gnostic anthropology is what is informing the CREC’s push when it comes to race issues. This is a position on the left.

2.) Doug Wilson is on record as advocating voting for a female for political office (Sarah Palin). This is a position on the left.

3.) Doug Wilson has said

“Our family would be much more involved on an active personal level if terrorists overran Israel that we would if terrorists overran Vermont.”

This is a take from the left. It is a confusion of categories. It is a reversal of the Ordo Amoris to love the stranger and alien over your own countrymen. It is Alienism.

And if Doug insists that it is not Alienism because his wife, and grandchildren putatively have so much Jewish blood in them then it is Kinism which Doug derisively calls “skinism.” A derision that only rises as from the left.

Doug Wilson is the face of your denomination (whether you like it or not) and when he speaks he paints everyone who is part of the denomination. Doug is, as I have said repeatedly now, a man who is holding down the right side of the left, yet even as on the right side of the left he is on the left.

4.) The inclusion by the CREC of both Baptists and non-Baptists in one denomination is a position that only the left could embrace. Reformed Baptists and Reformed non-Baptists are different expressions of the Christian faith so significant that to combine them in one denomination communicates that the denomination doesn’t understand the idea of distinctions. This is a position of the left.

5.) Then there is the whole Federal Vision thing which is humanist to its core since it advocates works salvation. This is the position of humanism and so is on the left. Individual Pastors may not agree with Federal Vision theology but if they are in a denomination that salutes it they are in a denomination that is on the left.

6.) I know for a fact that Wilson has been phoning Pastors of other denominations in order to warn those Pastors against young men who the CREC have deemed unworthy because those young men took up race realist views. This is a position on the left.

You may be my Brother in Christ Pastor Kent and as such it is my responsibility to tell you that you are in a denomination that is on the left.

With Apologies to James Stuart Blackie

Twas the thirty-first of August, in the twenty twenty-five,
On the Sabbath morn from the Grace Mosaic PCA Dive
Rev. Joel Littlepage let it be known that he’d play Rome’s fool
Sadly the spirit of Jenny Geddes was nowhere with a stool

Irwyn Ince, with Elders and Shepherdesses cheering approval
Never thought of Rev. Littlepage’s rebuke or removal
Never thought of any Presbyterian or Christian rule
Neither was there one Jenny Geddes Shepherdess with a stool

Rev. Littlepage mounted the Pulpit with solemn clergy tone
In twenty-three minutes he explained how he had grown
“Seeking the Lord’s face”, he said, “has me moving old school”
And nobody greeted his Romish words with Jenny Geddes stool

Rev. Littlepage spoke about his ministry as “assigned vocation”
For the time he spent during his Presbyterian long duration
No laughter was heard, nor was there sounds of deserved ridicules
And no denunciations of Geddes were heard nor her flying stools

Then pops up the head of the PCA, MNA, Irwyn Ince to speak
With praise upon his lips for the Joel Littlepage Papist geek
The effusiveness of Ince’s praise caused the MNA chief to drool
And still there was no shuffling sound that promised hurling stools

But the story is still not yet told, the affront not yet fully explained
The honor of our Lord Christ had not yet reached total stain
This papist Littlepage now serves the Lord’s table as a Romish tool
And still there is no multiplicity of hurled Jenny Geddes stools

Now we come to the laying on of hands upon family Littlepage
“Dear God we pray you will bless the future of this alienage
And bless wife Melissa as she works for a sodomite Democrat fool”
Somewhere Jenny was weeping over the absence of just one stool

And thus no mighty deed was done by a modern Jenny fan
No removal of foppish Popery from the Washington DC PCA land
But the time is coming and now is when Romish ghouls
Will once again be greeted with Jenny Geddes famous stools

Kevin DeYoung’s Attempt To Institutionalize Polytheism In The Westminster Confession

There has been a debate that has arisen in “conservative” “Presbyterian” circles that finds a certain party in these denominations insisting that their founding revised 1788 American Westminster Confession of faith (WCF) was a repudiation of the 1646 Original WCF on the matter of how the Civil Magistrate is related to the claims of Biblical Christianity. The argument being advanced by Judas Goats like Kevin DeYoung is that in 1788 American Presbyterians had become recalcitrant in extending Establishmentarian religious authority to the state and consequently drafted a “revision” that had “more robust notions of religious liberty,” than what had previously existed in the original WCF. In the mind of the Quislings like DeYoung the American adaptation represent movement of the Reformed from historically Reformed position to a more Anabaptist/Libertarian understanding on the subject of Magistrates. DeYoung’s position putatively allows for more religious toleration. More religious toleration is, by definition, less religious toleration for those whose religion teaches that Christ and His Word is to be King over the civil Magistrate and that the Civil Magistrate is to be a “Nursing father to the Christian Church (Isaiah 49:23).”

We see here then that DeYoung and his pirate crew is not really pursuing a course that leads to an expanding of religious toleration but rather DeYoung and his pirate crew is pursuing a course that diminishes toleration for Biblical Christianity, with its claim that Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and that all Kings must submit to Him. That DeYoung is on such a course is seen in his own words;

“As new debates about the proper relationship between church and state continue to multiply, it’s important to recognize that the two versions of WCF 23:3 represent two different and irreconcilable views of the civil magistrate.”

Dr. Kevin DeYoung
Presbyterian “Minister”

In DeYoung’s pursuit of revising the 23:3 WCF revision so that it is interpreted in a more Anabaptist/polytheistic fashion DeYoung is staking out the territory that disallows 23:3 to be read in such a way wherein the civil Magistrate is to be uniquely committed to upholding the first table of the law, while requiring the Magistrate to be more of a Pontifex Maximus putatively representing the interests of all the religions in the Republic. Of course we know that such a Pontifex Maximus doesn’t really represent the interest of all religions in the Republic because such a Magistrate could not represent the religion that said all the religions in the Republic except Christianity must, in light of the 1st commandment, be abominated by the Christian Magistrate.

One humorous aspect of this debate is that the American WCF, even as revised in 23:3 clearly still supports Christian Magistrates as we see in the Westminster Larger Catechism 191 where the Catechism answers “What does thy Kingdom come mean,” answering, in part with the statement that, “the church be …  countenanced and maintained by the civil magistrate.” My friends, the Christian church can not be countenanced and maintained by the Christian civil magistrate if he, at the same time, is countenancing and maintaining all other pagan religions, for to countenance and maintain a pagan religion would be at the same time to discountenance and pull down the Christian church. Caesar can not serve two or more masters.

Pertaining to the WLC the above is not all. Previously, in teaching on the 5th commandment the WLC states that our superiors include not only “father and mother” but also those superiors as located in church and commonwealth, and then goes on to teach that all these superiors must provide “all things necessary for body and soul (Q. 124, 129).” This must as a shock to Rev. DeYoung, to think that the Magistrate must, as in their defined role as Magistrate, provide all things necessary for the soul, since for DeYoung the Magistrate is to be the Polytheistic Pontifex Maximus.

If humor is part of the landscape for this discussion nobody did a better stand up routine then when R2K guru, R. Scott Clark — he of “Recovering the Reformed Confessions” fame — recently offered on X that DeYoung is correct about the WCF being a complete revision of the WCF 1646 in an anti-Establishmentarian direction and that the inconsistencies of the WCF with the WLC could be explained by the fact that the Americans in 1788 just forgot to go ahead and change the WLC so as to be consistent with the 1788 WCF change. As we all know … remembering details can be a tricky thing.

Of course all this is being driven by the push in Reformed circles, since the days of Meredith Kline, to turn the Reformed faith into a R2K playground. Increasingly the Seminaries are embracing R2K and this sudden pursuit to officially change the WCF, in a Anabaptist/Libertarian direction, is just one more expression of Radical Two Kingdom “theology.” By insisting that the Magistrate has no obligation to the Christian church to be unto the Christian church a uniquely nursing father, R2K succeeds in their ongoing attempt to make all of life, in the words of D. G. Hart, a hyphenated life. If DeYoung’s effort succeeds to reinterpret 23:3 of the WCF the result will be an even more retreatist Christianity. Reformed Christianity will more and more be a religion that belongs to the catacombs. If DeYoung is successful Christianity will increasingly retreat from the public square.

DeYoung’s Christianity is the Christianity cherished by every polytheist in the public square. If Michael Servetus were alive today he might have taken DeYoung’s methodology to make room for his Socinianism in Geneva. The Mooselimbs, Talmudists, Hindus, etc. in America are all cheering on Dr. Kevin DeYoung’s attempt to officially strip the WCF of any notion that it might support Christian Nationalism. After all, if the 1646 WCF is correct then, by necessity Christian Nationalism is true. If Christian Magistrates are required by the WCF then of course that can not be apart from a Christian nation.

We should end by noting what a nation looks like if Dr. Rev. Kevin DeYoung gets his way. Such a nation would by definition have to be polytheistic. The kind of pluralism that DeYoung envisions cannot exist apart from the religious polytheism that drives political/sociological pluralism. It is an odd position to take when we are increasingly seeing what pluralism looks like in these united States. For example, recently in Minneapolis, a city ordinance was passed that allows for the public Mooslimb call to prayer 5 times a day regardless of the time that the call to prayer is required. Another example is found in Dearborn, Michigan where the Mooselimb Mayor hired a Mooselimb Chief of police who has recently arrested a non-Mooselimb for posting something on social media that was foolishly threatening in a vague manner Mooselimbs who were marching in Dearborn shouting “Death to America.” Another example of the implications of Rev. Dr. DeYoung’s heretical war against the 1st commandment would be the requirement of a state to allow Baphomet statues in state capitals such as was the case in Iowa in 2023. In Rev. Dr. DeYoung’s world such realities would not only have to be tolerated by Christians but they would also have to be applauded as part of the doctrinal foundation upon which Christianity is based.

If Benedict Arnolds like Kevin DeYoung are successful there will be no public roadblock to blasphemies of every shape and size. DeYoung’s views institutionalize Polytheism in the Westminster Confession and institutionalize polytheism in formerly Christian America. It is one more nail in the coffin of any notion of Christendom.

Keep in mind that Kevin DeYoung is the chap who is heading up the committee in the PCA taking up the subject of Christian Nationalism. Given this “man’s” views what do you think that PCA committee is going to produce as it speaks to the issue of Christian Nationalism?

The Current Common Ground Between Marxism & Christianity

It is well known that the Marxism/Communism of the 20th century was a religion that required of men everything. It required their dissolution of their human-ness in order to be re-designed into the “New Soviet Man.” The New Soviet Man was a man with no allegiances, no identity, no distinctiveness, except as set against the all Sovereign Party/State. The Marxists/Communists so believed this that man became an interchangeable cog in the machinery of the state/party. Practically, what this meant was the destruction of the family for the reason that the family gave one an identity other than the Party. This meant the destruction of maleness and femaleness as sexuality & gender was irrelevant for the New Soviet Man.  This destruction of maleness and femaleness was demonstrated in the Soviet effort during WW II where 5% of the Soviet troops (appx. 800K) were comprised of women who fought as snipers, pilots, and as medical personnel. Per Communist doctrine man qua man was a distinction-less, identity-less, being that was to find his whole identity only in terms of the State/Party.

Of course the same principle applied to man in terms of his racial-ethnic identity. Man’s creaturely distinctive of race, ethnicity, family were irrelevant categories for the New Soviet man. The State/Party was to serve as the the New Soviet Man’s race. One way this was pursued in the USSR, by Stalin was by means of mass deportations of different people groups from one area of the USSR to another. The goal was to so dilute ethnic identity with their distinctive cultural lifestyles by thrusting them amidst new locales and different peoples.

Stalin, and his henchman, Lavrentiy Beria (Head of Soviet NKVD), pursued these mass deportations as a way to suppress any coordinated uprisings by particular concentrated people groups protesting Stalin’s totalitarianism. Such deportations also served the purpose of creating a visibly observable internationalism that bespoke a uniform identity of all Soviet peoples. Between the 1930s-1950s in the Soviet Union approximately 3.5 million from 40 different ethnic groups were relocated (deported) from their previous homeland in order to discover and enjoy become part of the New International man.

All of this is consistent with the explicit statements by the Marxists/Communists on their intent of eliminating all national distinctions so that a new man could be created — a new man whose only identity was the Communist Party/State apparatus. Here are but a few of their own words;

”What will be the attitude of communism to existing nationalities?

The nationalities of the peoples associating themselves in accordance with the principle of community will be compelled to mingle with each other as a result of this association and hereby to dissolve themselves, just as the various estate and class distinctions must disappear through the abolition of their basis, private property.”

~ Frederick Engels in “The Principles of Communism”, 1847

Or we might consult one Nikita Khrushchev;

“Full-scale Communist construction constitutes a new stage in the development of national relations in the U.S.S.R., in which the nations will draw still closer together until complete unity is achieved…. However, the obliteration of national distinctions and especially of language distinctions is a considerably longer process than the obliteration of class distinctions.”

Nikita Khrushchev

And Marx himself,

“Even the natural differences within species, like racial
differences…, can and must be done away with historically.”
 
K. Marx’s Collected Works V:103,
 
As cited in S.F. Bloom’s The World of Nations: A

Study of the National Implications in the Work of Karl Marx, Columbia University Press, New York, 1941, pp. 11 & 15-19:

What we have seen here thus is that Communist/Marxist Godlessness has always sought to destroy the distinctive creaturely stamp that God has placed upon men at their birth. Gone are gender/sexual distinctives in the Soviet state. Gone are racial/ethnic distinctions in the Soviet State. Gone are family distinctions in the Soviet State.

Mussolini’s words here describe perfectly this totalitarian arrangement;

‘All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.’

Now, I have a larger purpose in pointing all this out, as interesting as it might be by itself. My larger purpose here is to suggest that modern Christianity and the modern Church has become an ape to this kind of Soviet understanding of man with its repeated denunciations of the reality of races, ethnicities, and clans. Indeed, so much like the Soviets of yesteryear have become that churches now are routinely defrocking, disbarring, and disciplining ministers who give even the slightest inclination of believing that the Christian’s Union with Christ does not take away their human distinctives of sexuality, family, race or ethnic belongingness.

The cases of Michel Hunter, Michael Spangler, and my own are somewhat known now. However, other men such as Rev. Zach Garris and Rev. James Baird have likewise been given a good amount of official grief for their views. Then there are cases like Tim Harris, and Ryan Louis Underwood that have not received the publicity that they should have received. Then going way back, there is the case of Neil Payne and Todd Mahaffy where the SPLC was brought in, in order to substantiate the charges “racism” brought by an Alienist PCA minister. Fast forward to this past spring and the RPCNA, ARP, and PCA all adopted Soviet like language in order to condemn that which the Soviet Politburo would have heartily agreed. The Reformed churches keep trying to put a lid on all this but the lid keeps popping off.  Now combine all this with the inability of the PCA to bring discipline against the self-confessed celibate but still sodomite Rev. Greg Johnson and we begin to see that the contemporary Reformed Denominations, in principle, look an awful lot like they are in league with the now defunct Soviet Union in creating the “New Soviet Man.”

The Modern Reformed Church and Reformed clergy, at least in the matter of trying to erase God ordained creaturely distinctives because “since we’re united with Christ we are all one” is singing out of the same hymnbook as Robespierre, Lenin, Marx, Stalin, and Mao. The Modern Reformed Church in its shared embrace with the Marxism/Communism doctrine of egalitarianism is testifying against itself by insisting that “grace destroys nature.” It would have been better if the Soviets had succeeded in this egalitarian attempt rather than our being in the position where the Reformed Churches of Jesus Christ may well be successful in this same effort where the Marxists thus far have not been successful.

Having said all this, I am glad to admit that it is possible to make an idol out of one’s family or ethnicity or race, but having admitted that this is possible is it really the case that the modern West is in danger of sliding into that abyss? I mean, how much ancestor worship do you come across daily in the non third world immigrant parts of the West? It has gotten so bad that there are those who now insist that they have more in common with a Nigerian Grandmother who is Christian than they have with their own unbelieving Mother. Honor thy Father and Mother much?

The modern Reformed church needs to return to the principle that grace restores nature. It needs to admit that churches that practice the homogenous principle are not in some kind of grave sin. I mean, the modern Reformed church if just find and dany with the homogenous principle as applied to Korean or Hmong Churches or even Black church but suddenly it begins to blanch when white Westerners pursue the same thing. The modern Reformed church needs to embrace men like Dabney and Thornwell, Palmer and Girardeau, Morton Smith and John Edwards Richards, Michael Spangler and Michael Hunter, Zach Garris and James Baird. The modern Reformed church needs to quit with its racial and Marxist witch hunts that are determined to eliminate every bit of legitimate racial realism that exists within their confines.

Kinism has always been part and parcel of the definition of Christianity through the ages. The two long anthologies “Who Is My Neighbor,” and “A Survey of Racialism in Christian Sacred Tradition” has made it indisputable that those Christians who understand that Kinism is just Christianity 101 are standing in the tradition of believing what all Christian at all times and in all places have believed.

If the Modern Reformed Church does not change its course on this matter historians of the future are going to look back on this time and describe it as “The Marxist Captivity of the Church.”

 

 

 

Machen’s Christianity & Liberalism & The Contemporary Church

“A terrible crisis unquestionably has arisen in the Church. In the ministry of evangelical churches are to be found hosts of those who reject the gospel of Christ. By the equivocal use of traditional phrases, by the representation of differences of opinion as though they were only differences about the interpretation of the Bible, entrance into the Church was secured for those who are hostile to the very foundations of the faith.”
 
 J. Gresham Machen
Christianity & Liberalism

One point covered yesterday in Sunday School as we continue to work through Machen’s “Christianity & Liberalism” is that Liberals are forever accusing Biblical Christians of having a “mean” God and a “mean” faith. Their reasons for their existence, in part, is to give us a kinder and gentler Christianity. However, the ironic part here is that the Christianity of the liberal is an example of “The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” Liberal Christianity, that seeks to get rid of all the “cringe factor” in Biblical Christianity is, in point of fact, the cruelest and meanest “Christianity” going. It yields a God who cannot save, a Christ that is not God, a salvation that is only experiential and emotional, and a anthropology that tells man he is basically good and just needs a few tweeks. It is the meanest of all faiths because it leaves men damned.

Machen was dealing with men who had emptied Christianity of its historical and doctrinal meaning and were refilling it with a content that was not Christian in the least. We fight the same battle today in our Churches with that problem. “Christianities” like R2K, Federal Vision, Dispensationalism, New Perspective on Paul, Roman Catholicism, Arminianism, Pentecostalism, all empty Christianity of its original historical and doctrinal content in favor of a redefined Christianity that is no Christianity.

Machen wrote “Christianity and Liberalism,” but today we could write books titled “Christianity and R2K,” “Christianity and Federal Vision,” “Christianity and Arminianism,” etc. because it is all bogus Christianity and it is all mean and cruel to those who embrace it.