ecclesiology – Iron Ink

Calvin’s Ecclesiology

“The conception of the church as the restoration of order in the world, means that the church cannot be thought of apart from the world, or as a secure corner of redemption in it. That is so because the order which is being restored in the church is nothing else than the restoration of the image of God in man and the three spheres of order are interrelated. The restoration of man will thus entail the restoration of order in the world. Calvin’s political activism then, may be traced directly to his conception of the church, as that movement which stands at the frontier of history, beckoning the world towards its appointed destiny.”

Benjamin Charles Milner Jr
Calvin’s Doctrine of the Church

Calvin did not restrict the righteousness that God demands to the abstracted atomized individual nor to the church realm. Calvin saw that the church as organism was to be God’s means by which order in the world would be restored. This understanding flies in the face of the Church’s century long hibernation in pietism and in the face of the militant amillennialism we call R2K. For both pietism, and R2K, the church is a monastic retreat center that does not engage with the world so as to re-order it in Christ honoring direction.

This quote also touches on why the modern Reformed world so thoroughly hates theonomy in any expression. Theonomists, agreeing with Calvin (see his series of sermons on Deuteronomy titled “The Covenant Enforced”), understand that the church, as God’s mouthpiece, works to restore the world by proclaiming what God’s righteousness concretely looks like as revealed in God’s moral law and the general equity of His civil law.

There is definitely a flavor of postmillennialism in the quote above. There is the expectation that the realm of “the world” will shrink as it is re-ordered consistent with God’s revelation.

The Sweet Spot … An Explanation of the Demise of Conservative Christianity

In baseball the goal of the hitter is to make contact with a baseball on what is called the “sweet spot” on the bat. The sweet spot on a baseball bat is a 2-inch wide zone located roughly 5-7 inches from the end of the barrel of the bat. At that point the energy transfer of the swing is maximized upon contact while hand sting from vibrations are minimized. In brief, it is the place on the baseball bat where the hitter most desires to strike the pitch because the sweet spot gives the hitter the most bang for his buck, because the concentration of wood in the bat is meeting dead on center the delivered pitch. Hitting the ball on the sweet spot promises the most optimum result in favor of the hitter. The sweet spot is the sweet spot precisely because on the sweet spot the hitter is getting the most concentrated amount of wood on the ball.

When this sweet spot principle is applied to sociological movements it is translated to mean that one desires to speak a message that will naturally have the biggest and best effect upon those hearing the message. When it is taken up by church denominations it means that in pursuit of gaining the best result in terms of adherents and attendance one will want to find the sweet spot in their audience, which means one will desire their messaging to strike the place where the most concentrated amount of hearers will respond positively. While in baseball the pitcher does not desire his pitch to find the hitter’s sweet spot, in Church growth the minister does desire his pitch (message) to find the hitters (listeners) sweet spot because in such a way the minister can gather the maximum amount of followers.

In every culture there is going to be a sweet spot for messaging. Finding that sweet spot is what is required in order to build large congregations and denominations and podcast audiences. The problem, as it pertains to Biblical Christianity, is that in this current climate Christianity is, by definition, cross-cultural and so is not going to find a natural sweet spot that resonates with the culture. Yet, the former conservative denominations prioritizing finding the sweet spot in the larger culture in order to attract adherents to support their infrastructure have given up a messaging that is consistent with the sweet spot messaging of Scripture.

From a sociological perspective, this is all about giving people what they want to hear, because from a sociological perspective one can’t build a movement by not giving people what they don’t want to hear.

The most naked expression of this “going for the sweet-spot,” is pursued (and this really happens) when a church plant is scoping out an area in order to plant a church. The techniques that will be used before opening is to survey and poll the general area by asking people “if you were to attend a church what is it that you would want to hear.” They then typically give people about 5 choices and they ask people to rank these in the order they would prefer. Having canvassed the general area they take the results and determine where the sweet spot is in the community and then shape the Church and the messaging to what the survey told them people wanted to hear.

Now, most of the Conservative church is not that naked in their search for the sweet spot, but the fact of the matter is that what was once considered the Conservative denominations are playing to the crowd. They will seldom, if ever, associate with subject that are marked by stigma and sacrifice as measured by their sweet spot audience. They have no interest in stigma because stigma consists of all aspects of what is considered social deviance by the sweet spot. The stigma of accepting, for example, the historic Biblical doctrine of the Ordo Amoris is deemed “abnormal” by their sweet spot clientele and so they will not go near such subject matter. Similarly, they have no interest in sacrifice since sacrifice consists of foregone opportunities required of those who would gain and retain leadership (and even membership) in the sweet spot group.

So, as the sweet spot of culture continues to tack to the left, the formerly conservative denominations tack to the left with the cultural sweet spot in order to remain “relevant,” and in order to build up the numbers in their local churches. Examples of this abound. Could you ever imagine, even 30 years ago the conservative denominations deposing, excommunicating or releasing people on the basis of their embrace of the Ordo Amoris, or their teaching that there remain creational differences between men and women. These actions against good men are pursued in order to pursue the cultural sweet spot. Another example is the rise of Tim Keller. It is hard to imagine Tim Keller gaining any traction in the PCA when it was first formed, though along with Harvie Conn and Jack Miller the liberal sweet spot movement was in the PCA very early.

The reason Biblical, and so conservative confessional Christianity can’t survive in this ongoing search for the cultural sweet spot is because Biblical/conservative confessional Christianity is by definition a reality that requires the embrace of both stigma and sacrifice. Stigma and sacrifice sweet spot Christianity avoids like Dracula avoids the cross.

So, as hitters are forever in search of finding the sweet spot on the bat so as to be productive, so clergy today are forever in search of finding the sweet spot in the Culture so as to be productive in terms of noise, nickels and numbers.

When one moves in terms of humanist sociology and not Biblical theology the search of the sweet spot makes sense.

Diktat Coming From the LCMS

I write a good deal here on Iron Ink about the fall of the NAPARC denominations due to the spell of Cultural Marxism. Of course, NAPARC is not unique in this regard. The same Cultural Marxist bug has bitten Southern Baptists, Pope Doug Wilson’s denomination (CREC), and more liberal denominations like the CRC. It should be said though that the heretofore conservative Lutherans are not safe from the infection that is Cultural Marxism. Below we find the LCMS institutionally trying to halt the critique of Cultural Marxism as that critique comes from pseudonymous accounts on social media.

The LCMS (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) convention passed the below resolution 10-04A

“Resolved, That those using pseudonymous accounts for the purpose of sowing discord within Synod be encouraged to repent, delete their accounts, and confess to their pastor or ecclesiastical supervisor to receive absolution…”

1.) By what standard “discord.” I’m pretty confident that what President Harrison might call discord, a pseudonymous account would call “the pursuit of truth without being destroyed by hack churchmen in the LCMS.” (Just ask the treatment Ryan Turnipseed received when criticizing the LCMS without being pseudonymous).

2.) By this standard Junker Jorg (a famous Lutheran synonym in Lutheran history) needed to repent because he was “sowing discord” within the Church. * See the end of this post to find out who Junker Jorg was in history.

3.) Obviously, this is a ham-fisted attempt by the LCMS to control the narrative. There shall not be any push back from people that cannot be destroyed by the LCMS because they dare push back.

4.) It is always the action of tyrants to completely squelch opposition. I would contend that this resolution proves that the LCMS is being wounded by those using the pseudonymous accounts. Think about it … I’m sure King George III would have loved to squelch the pseudonymous accounts that flourished during the time of the Colonial Rebellion against the Crown’s rebellion.

5.) Obviously, it is my prayer that pseudonymous accounts attacking the Cultural Marxism growing in the LCMS would flower and reproduce themselves a thousand times over. I have the same prayer for the opposition in the NAPARC faithless denominations.

* Junker Jorg was the pseudonym of Martin Luther.

Answering the Question for the Political Cesspool Audience; Why is what is Happening in NAPARC important to this National Radio Audience?

Why is the issue of NAPARC churches important to the Political Cesspool Radio audience,

1.) Well, first I would observe that it is strongly possible that at least some of the listeners belong to one of these denominations…. Associate Reformed Presbyterian, Reformed Presbyterian Church North America, Presbyterian Church of America, Orthodox Presbyterian Church. As such they would be interested in what is going on in these denominations. Secondly, even if a listener is not a member of these Churches the Southern Baptist Convention and Doug Wilson’s denomination the CREC is doing much the same thing in opposition to the worldview that is typical of the listeners of this broadcast. So, even though we are talking about NAPARC churches what is going on in those Reformed churches are going on in nearly all the denominations which were at one time thought of as being the conservative expression of Christianity. So, what we are talking about here is the fact that the denominations that we might once thought were safe have shown themselves to have been influenced by the Spirit of the Age… by Cultural Marxism and the listeners here should be aware of that.

2.) Secondly, the reason why this is important to the listeners of the political cesspool is because of the tight connection between cult and culture. Now, the word “cult” has today taken on a negative connotation but historically that is not the case. In historiography, there are no negative connotations to the use of the term cult, and it merely means as coming from the Latin “care, labor; cultivation, culture; worship, reverence, to bind” Now the reason that this is important is that culture is a word etymologically connected to cult and I would argue that a culture is a reflection of the majority cult found among the people. Now, if the previously conservative churches are no longer providing a proper cultus one can not expect the culture to rise higher than the cult. I have a friend who likes to say that the culture is the report card of the church. If the church is where the cult is found and if the cult has gone bad (and it has) then there is not apt to much progress being made in moving the culture in a positive direction. In brief if the cult is bad the culture will be bad. Right now the conservative churches where we once could find the cult being protected and cherished so that it would perfume well the culture now we are finding the cult stinking and so there is little hope for the culture until we get the source of the culture (the cult – Church) right.

3.) Thirdly, there is the reality that what people consume in church as coming from the pulpit and Sunday School is what they are going to live out in their daily lives. I like to say that “if there is a mist in the pulpit there will be a fog in the pew.” If the teaching coming from the pulpit is basically rehashed Cultural Marxism the result will be… a reproduction in the people of the same insipid theology coming from the pulpit. In interacting with clergy I know for a fact that this cultural Marxism has become an ear worm in the Reformed clergy and I think the listeners of the Political Cesspool should know.

4.) Finally, it is important for this audience to know about this because if they are attending one of these churches they need to find out where their particular church stands on the issue of Christian Nationalism / Kinism and if their local church is supporting these denominations financially they need to quit giving to the local church. The Reformed churches will only understand and possibly change if they are kicked in the wallet.

The PCA Christian Nationalism Report Denies Legitimacy of US Constitution

Sometimes it is too easy.

PCA Christian Nationalism Report:

“We deny that…biological descent… Confer[s ]…political legitimacy…. We reject kinism and all theological and political systems that treat racial
hierarchy or separation as in any way permissible”

(pg. 2710)

US Constitution Preamble:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty TO OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Bret summarizes in order to provide clarity;

The PCA Christian Nationalism report denies US Constitution’s political legitimacy since the US Constitution confers political legitimacy to the posterity (i.e. – those biologically descending from the “We the People of the United States”) of the founding fathers.

Helpful hint — All the descendants of those who signed and ratified the US Constitution are white people, since all those who signed and ratified the US Constitution were white people. The US Constitution thus itself embraces racial hierarchy and separation.

The PCA Christian Nationalism report finds the Founding Father’s guilty of sin.