Politics – Iron Ink

The Belgic Confession Of Faith Contra Janet Mefferd

“The government does not direct us “in a more godly direction.” That is the work of God.”

Janet Mefferd

Social Influencer
Christian Feminist

Janet Mefford with all the unction that a middle age woman can muster has been hostile to Christian Nationalism. She condemns “The WOKE Right,” as if insisting on God’s sovereignty makes one Woke the same way as insisting on man’s sovereignty makes one WOKE. We have to understand that WOKEism is what it is because if it is rebellion against God in favor of man’s sovereignty. WOKE from the right is not possible when what is being advocated from the Right is Biblical Christianity. Christian Nationalism can not be WOKE Right because Christian Nationalism is Christian.

Mefferd also complains about the “TheoBros,” as if she would prefer a group of guys called the “AnthropoBros.”

As to the quote above note the following;

1.) Mefferd gives us a false dichotomy. Why should we think that God doesn’t or can’t use Government in order to direct us in a more godly direction?

2.) If Government is not directing us in a more godly manner that means, by necessity, that Government is directing us in a more ungodly direction. There is no neutrality.

3 This woman is as jejune on this subject as Stephen Wolfe is on the subject of epistemology.

Note how the Reformers spoke about Civil Government contra Janet Mefferd;

ARTICLE 36 – THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT

We believe that, because of the depravity of mankind, our gracious God has
ordained kings, princes, and civil officers. He wants the world to be governed by laws and policies, in order that the licentiousness of men be restrained and that everything be conducted among them in good order. For that purpose He has placed the sword in the hand of the government to punish wrongdoers and to protect those who do what is good. Their task of restraining and sustaining is not limited to the public order but includes the protection of the Church and its ministry in order that the kingdom of Christ may come, the Word of the gospel may be preached everywhere, and God may be honoured and served by everyone, as He requires in His Word.

Moreover, everyone – no matter of what quality, condition, or rank – ought to be subject to the civil officers, pay taxes, hold them in honour and respect, and obey them in all things which do not disagree with the Word of God. We ought to pray for them, that God may direct them in all their ways and that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way. For that reason we condemn the Anabaptists and other rebellious people, and in general all those who reject the authorities and civil officers, subvert justice, introduce a communion of goods, and confound the decency that God has established among men.

Wolfe On Conversions’ Impact On Political Life…. McAtee On Wolfe

“If true conversion (‘change hearts and worldviews’) homogenizes political opinion, then politics has ended. There is no political life.”

Dr. Stephen Wolfe

It’s hard to believe that Wolfe is so erroneous on this.

This is an attempt by Wolfe to, once again, belittle Worldview as a concept. On the way to that end Wolfe also belies a profound misunderstanding of conversion. Wolfe’s statement above might be true if conversion was equal to instantaneous growth in sanctification so that the new convert instantly owns the mind of Christ in its full maturity. However, theologians know (and Wolfe has repeatedly admitted that he is no theologian) that conversion does not translate into instantaneous full bloom sanctification. The converted man still has miles to go in thinking God’s thoughts after Him. The converted person throughout his life will, by God’s grace, grow into an ever more complete and fulsome Christian World and Life view.

First, here we would note that if true conversion doesn’t change hearts & worldviews thus performing a homogenizing work on political opinion, then conversion means nothing. If there is no homogenizing work at all in conversion so that the regenerate begins to think in all areas of life in a way incrementally and ever increasingly more consistent with the Christian World life view then no conversion has taken place. Politics continues after conversion among a Christian people group because the rate of sanctification among Christians living in a Christian people group is going to be uneven, and as it will be uneven therefore politics, contra Wolfe, has not ended.

What Wolfe misses here, in his attempt to belittle Worldview thinking (and conversion for that matter) is that political life remains after multiple conversions in a nation due to the matter of the ongoing necessary work of sanctification. Because the mind isn’t instantly sanctified political life remains after Reformation in a given land among a set particular people because the rate of the effect of sanctification is uneven among any people or people group.

As Dr. Wolfe admits that he is no theologian, I suppose it might be somewhat understandable that he gets this so wrong. Maybe he should leave proper thinking on politics to theologians like me?

Actually, this is a prime example of how theology cannot be separated from politics, in the way that Wolfe advocates. Because theology remains the Queen of the Sciences and so the driving force for politics, as well as all other disciplines, well trained theologians remain essential in order to do political theory aright. It is promissory of the most disastrous results to try and divorce politics from theology as if politics is an entirely different something (category) as from theology.

If politics as a discipline is defined as the art or science of governing a body politic then the art or science of governing well has to have a standard by which it can be adjudicated if a good politics is being pursued. That standard can good politics can only be determined upon a theological basis as God’s Word as well as Nature, as interpreted through the prism of God’s Word, is consulted. Even in politics Scripture is the norm that norms all norms.

As a modest theologian I’m here for Stephen so that he doesn’t get too far out on a limb.

Score a “swing and a miss” for Wolfe on this one. Theology would have helped him avoid this whiff.

Postscript: I am a little snarky when it comes to these subjects when dealing with Dr. Wolfe because he is forever seeking to stomp out Worldview thinking in favor of his woe-begotten Thomism.

Twenty Objections To Andrew Walker’s Objections To Christian Nationalism

Over here;

https://wng.org/opinions/its-not-too-late-to-abandon-christian-nationalism-1741834794

You can find an article criticizing Christian Nationalism. You will find that, just as I have predicted, that having villainized the word “Kinism” the “Christian” enemy is now seeking to villainize the term “Christian Nationalism.” If they are successful in villainizing that term they will villainize the next word or term someone comes up with to describe soci0-political action that aligns with the Christian faith.

You can read the article for yourself. I am going to offer bullet point critiques.

1.) Walker complains that the term “Christian Nationalism” is malleable and so should be given up. However, if this logic applied we would give up most controversial terms or descriptor words. For example, it could be rightly said of the word “Christian” that it is endlessly malleable and essentially vacuous and so should be given up. When a Lesbian Priest of the congregational church says she’s a “Christian,” and Andrew Walker says he is a “Christian” and I say, “I am a Christian” we all mean significantly different things. According to Walker’s logic we should give up the term Christian and move on to another word. Indeed, as Walker writes about Christian Nationalism so we could write about the word “Christian,” “the term has proven an unhelpful distraction.”

Walker is just being stupid here. If we always give up words or terms because the enemy seeks to villainize our language we will never have our own linguistics.

“Christian Nationalism,” like the word “Christian,” or the word “Kinism” should be retained with the very purpose of enraging the reactionary vanguards. There people are the enemy. What do we care what the enemy thinks of our language? It strikes me that as Walker aligns with the enemy in their project in forcing us to give up our language Walker demonstrates he is in league with the enemies of a Biblical and well thought out Christian Nationalism.

2.) Walker next demonstrates that he himself agrees with the enemies of Christian Nationalism (hereafter CN) on the left. Walker criticizes CN because it understands that as it applies to Western Nations CN will have a particularly European ethnic expression. Walker (who is an egghead at some Baptist Seminary) wrings his hands over the fact that CN’s today understand that Christianity does NOT have deeply Jewish roots, thus rejecting what is quite possibly a lingering Dispensationalism on the Baptist Walker’s observations. Christianity has deeply Jewish roots the way the Reformation had deeply Trentian Roman Catholic Roots.

3.) Next Walker tries to convince the reader that Christianity also benefited from North African developments, doubtlessly thinking of Augustine. However, Walker does not mention that his North African developments on Christianity are substantially different than what is meant by North African today. The man thus leaves an impression that the Christian faith was influenced by a black Athanasius or a black Augustine. Of course this is bunkum.

4.) Next Walker implies that the modern CN movement doesn’t embrace the idea that the Christian faith is to be accepted by all nations. Of course we understand that the Gospel is to conquer all nations and that all nations in their nations will one day embrace a Christianity that is colored by the ethnicities of the various peoples that embrace our undoubted catholic Christian faith.

5.) Walker then accuses CN of not treating the Christian faith as transcendent truth. Andrew Walker seems to think that CN today limits the Christian faith to only one ethno-racial vision of national identity. Again, this is absolutely false. See #4 above. Of course Christian Nationalists who belong to the West do see CN as something that will look particularly Western and European in Western and European contexts as existing among Western European peoples.

6.) Walker severely misread Ephesians 2:14-16 which applies to the Church and not necessarily to nations.

Paul is not talking about generic ethnic divides in Eph. 2 but specifically the aspects of the law-covenant that divided Jew from Gentiles. Therefore, someone cannot impose ethnic distinctions onto Paul’s words. The apostle has something uniquely covenantal in mind.

Second, the dividing wall was originally the will of God. To take the word “hostility” in and apply it as if multiculturalism is the goal is dangerous. The dividing wall to which Paul is referring is the Mosaic Law, and the Mosaic Law was God’s idea. He made the wall; then he removed it in Christ. The division was God’s will, not the by-product of human sin. “Racism,” on the other hand, is the result of human sin and never is the result of what God commands. By applying Ephesians 2:14 to ethnic strife today you effectively turn God into a “racist.”

Third, did Christ remove by his death the various differences between ethnicities and cultures today? Not at all. Before Christ’s death, one culture may prefer beer. Another culture may prefer wine. After the death of Christ the first culture still likes beer and the second culture still likes wine. The death of Christ was not intended to move the needle on these types of ethno-cultural differences (except for the aspects of man’s culture that are sinful). Nor did it overturn other aspects of human relations grounded in creation and nature.

More fundamentally, the church and nation are two different entities governed by Christ in different ways–with different laws and rules of citizenship. Walker collapsing the way the Church operates and the way Nations operate is problematic at best.

In brief, a racialized form of nationalism is no more evil than a racialized form of family.

7.) Next, Walker gives us the much tossed around meme of “anti-Semitism,” which, as Joe Sobran informed us long ago, is defined as “anybody who disagrees with a Jew.” Walker accuses some strains of CN of being Anti-Semitic. Of course Walker doesn’t give us any definition of Anti-Semitic so we are left having to imagine exactly what Walker means. The simple fact however is that any reading of Church history will quickly demonstrate that throughout the European history of Christianity the Jewish people have been at loggerheads with Christian peoples. This observation was not controversial in the least until after World War II. The fact that CN today might recognize that Jewish interests are often at loggerheads with Jewish interests is realism and not Anti-Semitism in the least. I could offer Walker several books documenting this conflict in history should he need some reading material. Contra Walker, it is not abandoning of biblical Christianity to understand that since Jewish people have historically opposed Christianity in the lands of the West that they might have an interest in continuing to do so even today.

8.) Walker accuses CN of seeking to fuse Darwin with Christianity. He makes this accusation quite without any concrete evidence. Clearly, CN cannot be called CN if it really were the case that it was seeking to import Atheistic/Evolutionist Darwinism into CN. However, having said that it is simply the case that one can believe in genetics and average IQ levels among different peoples without being Darwinian and without being “fixated on genetics.” Further, despite Walker’s accusation to the contrary, a person can believe in genetics and the reality of ethnic IQ levels and still believe human dignity is rooted in the image of God. These accusations by Walker against CN’s are guilty of the red herring logical fallacy.

9.) Walker gives us an article obsessing over the virtue of ethnic heterogeneity and so accuses Christian Nationalists of obsessing over the virtue of ethnic homogeneity.

10.) Walker then offers up another false dichotomy by writing that “Christianity grants the legitimacy of nationhood, Christianity has never required nationalism to thrive.” The problem here is that nationhood implies Nationalism. If a nation is to be a nation it must protect its National interests. To protect one’s national interests (the chief of which is one’s own people) then one needs to, by default, embrace nationalism to thrive.

11.) Next Walker complains about the lack of evangelistic zeal and personal holiness. Keep in mind though that when the conversation is on CN one expects people to talk about CN and not evangelism and personal holiness. For my part, I quite agree that CN needs to embrace evangelism, which is one reason I encourage young Christian people to have lots of children. Being a Pastor, I am constantly encouraging my people in personal holiness.

12.) I want to be fair and say that the critique of Walker here are not critiques that need to be brought against all those who oppose CN. However, men like Walker (Pope Doug, David Bahnsen, James White, Andrew Sandlin, Joe Boot) do need to have this kind of critique brought against them. I’m sure there are many others who oppose CN who do not bring the kinds of false charges against CN as Walker brings in his article against CN.

13.) Just as Kinism before it, CN is a fine handle to use to describe a Biblical position on Christian social order. We shouldn’t let Karens like Andrew Walker dissuade us from the use of this phrase. To be sure there have been evil versions of Nationalism in world history but those Nationalisms were never Christian in their orientation, though to be sure some tried to co-op Christianity in their version of Nationalism. The Nazi use of “Positive Christianity” is one such example. However, distortions can arise from all kinds of origins just as Andrew Walker distorts CN in his article today.

14.) Walker begins to round off his article by complaining about the Church wielding political force under the banner of CN. However, CN never argues that the Church should be running the affairs of State so I’m not sure where Walker gets this idea. As far as I know all Christians applaud the necessity of personal repentance, cultural renewal, and moral leadership — just as Walker mentions.

15.) Walker next writes that Christianity has never required nationalism to survive. That may be true but that doesn’t mean that Christianity doesn’t thrive more successfully being aided by a Nationalism that finds the state favoring the Christian faith. Walker gives another false dichotomy.

16.) Walker, seemingly complains about Christians having (wielding) political force as if that ability to wield political force is inherently wrong or evil. Where in Scripture are we taught that it is evil for Christian magistrates to wield political force in favor of the Christian faith? There is nothing inherently evil about the proper use of force and Christians in the project of CN should pray that a day comes when Christian Magistrates use force as honoring unto God in a Christian nation.

17.) What is hilarious now is that Walker appeals to Natural Law to overturn Stephen Wolfe’s appeal to Natural Law for the establishing of CN. Would the real Natural Law please stand up?

18.) Walker next insists that “We should advocate for policies that promote common good, not just interests of Christians”

The problem here is that advocating for policies that promote the interests of Christians are always policies that serve the common good. Walker is involved in a false dichotomy. Again, we need to reject Andrew Walker’s boneheaded advice that would find us embracing a “Thirdwayism.” We have seen in the past what this kind of quietism and milquetoast approach achieves.

19.) Walker next argues that the Christianizing of the West will only happen by a bottom up approach, villainizing a top down approach. I quite agree that a top down approach alone will never give us a CN. However, I also thoroughly disagree that a bottom up alone approach will give us Christian culture. Change in a nation has to come from both top down and bottom up as well as from the inside out. An alone bottom up approach alone that Walker advocates will never succeed when the top down is ignored because those on the top will use the means of the state to crush an alone bottom up approach. A label like CN which emphasized both bottom up and top down as well as inside out will communicate what all biblical Christians desire in their social order. Ideas like Walker’s only distract us from the mission.

20.) It is not too late to ignore chaps like Andrew Walker as well as those who would so water down CN. Men like Pope Doug and those several other mentioned above must be defeated. They do not belong to the work of Christian renewal.

Taking The Whip To Kevin DeYoung On The Issue Of “Political Punditry”

“Don’t get me wrong, we need some Christians (though, undoubtedly, not as many as we have now) to participate in the maelstrom of cultural commentary, just like we need Christians in every non-sinful area of human activity. Political punditry is a legitimate calling. It’s just not the pastor’s calling. The man who comments constantly on the things “everyone is talking about” is almost assuredly not talking about the things the Bible is most interested in talking about. That word “constant” is important. It takes wisdom to know when jumping in the fray might be necessary, but we don’t need pastors looking like a poor man’s version of the Daily Wire or the New York Times.”

Dr. Rev. Kevin DeYoung
Just Another Confused “Reformed” Clergy

There has been a good deal of noise in the past few years about how “Pastors need to stay in their lanes.” This originally came from the R2K crowd who insisted and insists still that Pastors shouldn’t speak to public square issues. Recently, Dr. Stephen Wolfe and the whole Thomist crowd has likewise been seeking to shame pastors into shutting up about any number of issues because any number of issues aren’t theology and Pastors should only speak on theology. I am hopeful that Wolfe and his crowd are saying their version of the R2K mantra because so many Clergy are indeed idiots who probably shouldn’t even be preaching on theology proper, never mind any other subject.

However, all of this complaint about Preachers “staying in their lane,” or “preachers not being political pundits” really is driven by the reality that these people complaining don’t see the organic nature of either theology or reality. Because reality and theology both are organic a minister doesn’t have to have a terminal degree in this or that subject matter in order to speak to the issue with wisdom. A minister doesn’t have to have a Ph.D. in economics to preach a sermon on how the Federal Reserve or Inflation is a violation of the 8th commandment. A minister doesn’t have to have attended the London School of economics to point out that the Scripture and the confessions rail against the usury we see in modern economic systems. A minister can preach a sermon on Just War Theory from the 6th commandment without having had to secure a degree on International Relations. These are but a few examples of dozens that I could give wherein a minister is quite in his lane were he to preach on these subjects at any given point.

Inasmuch as there is clear theological commentary in the Scripture on any given subject (and there seldom is not clear theological commentary in Scripture on any given subject) then the minister is called to be a political pundit, a sociological pundit, an economic pundit, a legal pundit, etc.

The problem here is that the Church by in large is abominating Worldview thinking which provides a foundation for understanding that both reality and theology are organically intertwined. Worldview thinking grants us the ability to see that theology drives everything and as theology drives everything then theology as coming from the pulpit can speak to everything. Why should we leave God’s people in the pew to have to choose for themselves from a smorgasbord of contesting pundits who each might insist that, despite their differing punditry, they are all “speaking for the Lord.” Why shouldn’t God’s people hear a “Thus saith the Lord” from the pulpit on, for example, how to take care of widows, or how slaves should treat their Masters, or how Scripture requires money to have real value, or that God has created only two sexes, or that Kinism is God’s norm for peoples?

The problem we have from our pulpits today is that clergy are not trained to see all of life as organically related. Nor are they taught that everything is driven by theology. In point of fact there is a huge push now from both R2K and the Thomist crowd to insist that theology in point of fact does NOT drive everything. I guess, if I have to listen to a clergy member from that school, I wouldn’t want to have their punditry on just about anything. Indeed, I wouldn’t want to have to hear their punditry on how their are two ways to come to truth — we come to truth through faith which subject matter belongs in the church and through reason which subject belongs outside the church.

You see, DeYoung has quaffed the R2K poison. (Looking at some of his old articles demonstrates that.) Wolfe, being a Thomist, has likewise quaffed from the same receptacle. Because of that these chaps are forever telling clergy to shut up on any subject matter that isn’t narrowly defined as having to do with the individual soul or having to do with church life. Other areas like Jurisprudence, Education, Arts, Politics, International Relations, Economics, etc. are all areas that are outside the “grace realm” and so ministers should not preach on these matters. Never mind that they are each and all driven by theological considerations upon which the Scripture is quite clear.

I am glad that this type of thinking we see coming from so many of the “educated class” was not present among our clergy in the American Colonies as they resisted the tyranny of British Crown and Parliament. Famously known as “The Black Robed Regiment” the ministers of that time rose in their pulpits and gave the mind of God on the matter of British tyranny. DeYoung would have labeled it all “political punditry,” and waved his finger at them seeking to shame them.

Then there were the Crusade Preachers, led by Bernard of Clairvaux. They went across Europe preaching Crusade against both the Jews and the Muslims. I’m sure DeYoung looks back on that era and has a cow.

In the end DeYoung’s advice fails on three accounts;

1.) It implies that Pastor can’t speak on these matters since God has no divine Word on these matters.

2.) It implies that the Scriptures do not talk about every condition of man and as such defies the maxim; “All of Christ for all of life.”

3.) Kevin is guilty of the very same thing he tells others not to be guilty of. In this article Kevin is serving as a clergy political pundit who is telling others not to be clergy political pundits. Kevin is giving clergy everywhere political punditry by telling them to be a-political. Physician heal thyself.

Finally, I want to mention here a wee bit of how Kevin has tipped his hand here. He warns against clergy becoming poor men’s version of the New York Times or the Daily Wire. New York Times and Daily Wire? Has Kevin just revealed to us where he goes to for his punditry? Why didn’t Kevin say instead; “A poor man’s version of American Renaissance or the Barnes Review….or Human Events or the Occidental Review?”

In the end it is my conviction that Kevin is just a stale old neo-con and I for one am hoping he takes his own advice and steers away from political punditry from the pulpit and leave that kind of thing to experts like me.

Examining Vivek Ramaswamy

“I’m Hindu, and I’m proud of that. I stand for that without apology. I think I’m going to be able to be more ardent as a defender of religious liberty.”

Vivek Ramaswamy
Proving What A Disaster Religious Liberty Is

Recently in a campaign appearance our favorite Hindu Indian Vivek Ramaswamy said the following;

1. God is real

This is boilerplate for the White rubes in the nearly all white audience. Of course when your average white rube hears “God is real” he is thinking of the Christian God but let’s keep in mind that Vivek is Hindu. When Vivek says that “God is real,” he could have in mind the Hindu gods Vishnu, Kali, or any number of the demon gods that belong to the pantheistic / polytheistic Hindu religion. One thing is for certain … the real God that Vivek has in mind is not the God of the Bible because the God of the Bible pisses on all other gods who are not real.

2. “There are two genders.”

We will give Vivek this one while at the same time noting that in saying this he is contradicting his Hindu religion that insists that all is one. If all is one, per Hinduism, then how can there be two anything? Hinduism embraces “Oneism” and this “all is one” philosophy/theology teaches that individual souls (Atman) are manifestations of the same universal essence. “Oneism” does not have room for two genders. Not if it is being consistent.

3. “Human flourishing requires fossil fuels.”

We will give Vivek this one and will applaud him. The whole notion of ridding ourselves of fossil fuels comes right out of the green religion for which Hindus are known.

4. “Reverse racism is racism.”

We will give Vivek a half a point on this one. Half a point because the whole conceptual world in which “racism” arose and in which it still now exists is a Marxist world. “Racism,” or “Racist” are words that have no real meaning any longer, instead being used to mean; “I don’t like what you’ve said or done because it gets in the way of my triumphing over you.” If white people use this trope of racism we perpetuate the Marxist category and concept that has been used to conquer us.

5. “An open border is no border.”

This is good as far as it goes. However, much more needs to be said in light of Vivek’s support for the H1-b visa. This visa allows Silicon valley billionaires to continue to flood the US with foreign born computer coders — many of them coincidentally enough, Indians from Vivek’s India. So, yes, we need to close the border but we also need to shut down all entry to all non WASP foreigners into America. I doubt that Vivek would say that.

6. “Parents determine the education of their children.”

This is also true as far as it goes. It would be better if the man would talk about closing government schools and having an agenda for privatizing American education. Parents sending their children to government schools are not determining the education of their children if it is the case that the parents desire their children to be educated in anything but a non-Marxist, post-modern fashion.

7. “The nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to mankind.”

This is a untrue statement. The Trustee family is the greatest form of governance known to mankind. There is a difference. You can find that difference here;

Trustee Family

8. “Capitalism lifts people up from poverty. Not Socialism.”

Here it depends on what kind of Capitalism one is talking about. Corporate Capitalism or Crony Capitalism or Finance Capitalism has historically worked hand in glove with Socialism to control markets. The fact that Vivek supports so adamantly H1-b visas suggests to me that Vivek wants a capitalism in which I’m not interested.

9. “There are three branches of the U.S. government, not four.”

Here Vivek could be talking either about bureaucracy or journalism as the pretended fourth branch of government. This is true, of course. However, if Vivek really wanted to impress me he would talk not only about the horizontal checks and balances that we are supposed to have, he would also talk about the vertical checks and balances that were original to our form of government that has largely gone into complete eclipse.

10. “The U.S. constitution is the strongest guarantor of freedoms in history.”

This has not been true in the US since 1861 and it is a pretense to suggest it is true today. It is more red meat for the white rube normies.

Scripture teaches;

You shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses; one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. — Deut. 17:15

If Americans remained Christian they would never consider voting for a foreigner and/or a Hindu to rule over them as their governor. Voters in Ohio, don’t shame yourself by voting for Vivek Ramaswamy.