Quotes & Commentary

Quoting Dr. Charles Hodge From His Theological Journal Article; “Emancipation”

Numerous people in “Reformed” “Churches” today are going after a handful of ministers today because they refuse to embrace what we might call “Racial Marxism.” Fathers like Dabney, Thornwell, Palmer, Girardeau, Machen, Rushdoony, and even Morton Smith are currently anathema to modern Reformed thought and so ministers today who advocate, in any measure, what those men advocated are being given the left foot of fellowship.

However, the views that these men held when it came to the issue of race were not unique to the men of the South, but were held by Reformed theologians of the North, including a giant of the Reformed faith, Dr. Charles Hodge. In a theological Journal before the War Against The Constitution the great Charles Hodge wrote on page 549;

“Another feature of that plan (to compensate slave owners for their freed slaves) was the expatriation of the liberated blacks. This also when feasible is wise. There are natural laws which forbid the union of distinct races in the same commonwealth. Where the difference is slight, as between Saxons and Celts, or the Teutonic and Romaic families, the different elements are soon fused. But even here we find that they often refuse to combine and remain apart for ages, the weaker constantly sinking, and the stronger constantly advancing. We have examples of this in the French payans of Canada, and Louisiana. The effect of the amalgamation of distinct races is seen in the physically, intellectually and socially degraded mongrel inhabitants of Mexico and South America. In these cases the chief elements were the Spanish and Indians, elements less widely separated than the Anglo Saxon and the Negro. The amalgamation of these races must inevitably lead to the deterioration of both. It would fill the country with a feeble and degraded population, which must ultimately perish. For it is a well ascertained fact that the mulatto is far more frail than either the white man or the negro. We read in the disastrous physical effects of the amalgamation of the blacks and whites, a clear intimation that such amalgamation is contrary to the will of God, and therefore is not an end which statesmen ought in any way to facilitate.”

Dr. Charles Hodge
Reformed Theologian – Old Princeton
Article — Emancipation

Now, the point here is not necessarily that Charles Hodge was correct in this view. The point here is that this view was considered consistent with the Reformed faith and nobody was screaming for Hodge to be excommunicated for this view.

This compels us to ask; “Does truth change?” If it was taught for centuries that race was/is real and that certain considerations must be made because race is real (as the two books “Racialism in Sacred Tradition,” and “Who Is My Neighbor” clearly demonstrates) then how can “Reformed” denominations today be seeking to cast out clergy who hold to comparatively thin versions of what the Church has believed for millennium– and that in all times and in all places? Isn’t this demonstrating a kind of cultural or historical relativism where these “Reformed” denominations are saying that truth is culturally conditioned and so what was true for one generation is a lie and offense for another generation and so cannot be allowed?

The warfare in Reformed denominations (ARP, PCA, OPC, etc.) has to end lest these denominational bodies be seen as fighting against God.

Advice On People’s Advice Concerning “Manliness”

Recently, there have been a spate of books written on what it means to be a man. Also there have been the requisite blog posts to the same end. Some of it is quite good (Rev. Zach Garris’ book Masculine Christianity for example) while others are questionable at best.

Yesterday, I came across a typical bite sized X post on the subject of manliness from someone who is getting a great deal of press these days that has stuck in my craw because I think it is nonsense and can do a great deal of damage.

Here is the advice I came across from some genius on the subject of manliness;

The best of men learn how to thrive in moments of intense opposition and adversity. This is the “it” factor. 4th and long. Bottom of the 9th, 2 outs. “Manliness loves…the position of being embattled and alone against the world.”

The first sentence and the last sentence do not necessarily coincide and are not really the same thing. It can be true that the best of men learn how to thrive in moments of intense opposition and adversity while not being true that “manliness loves… the position of being embattled and alone against the world.”

Also, it is facile to compare being “embattled and alone against the world” with 4th and long and bottom of the 9th, 2 outs. When we think of embattled and alone against the world we think of the martyrs of the faith. That is a bit more consequential and trying then needing to make a first down or get a winning hit. Embattled and alone against the world is Polycarp being burnt at the stake. Embattled and alone against the world is fighting with the Confederacy after Richmond fell. Embattled and alone against the world is Pilgrim in Vanity Fair.

I wonder if someone who is dishing out this kind of advice has ever really themselves been “embattled and alone against the world.” I don’t think someone who has genuinely been “embattled and alone against the world” would use such trivial comparisons to the sportsball world.

It’s easy to toss around this kind of advice when not embattled and alone against the world. Much more difficult to live it out when one is in the vice grip of being embattled and alone.

Now if it had been said that love for greater realities moves one to accept their duty — no matter how difficult — I would have been satisfied with the statement. However, no man loves the position of being embattled and alone. Scripture teaches that we can learn to be content in all things but being content is different than loving being embattled and alone.

I reckon the reason I have taken such exception to this quote is because in many respects my ministry has been one of being embattled and alone. I have some experience here. Now, my being embattled and being alone is nothing to be compared with the saints who have gone before such as are listed in Hebrews 11;

others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection.

The idea that manliness “loves” this being embattled and alone turns manliness into a masochistic ideal. Now, manliness does endure such but to endure something because of one’s priorities is different than loving being embattled and alone.

Paul can write to Timothy saying;

Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

⁴No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

Timothy is counseled to endure hardness, just as Paul himself endured hardness. But love it, in the sense of being delighted in the hardness itself? Only a masochist would speak that way.

Manliness accepts the responsibility that one is called to. Manliness endures hardness out of love for Christ or for family or for the Church. But manliness does not love the being embattled and aloneness just as realities in themselves. That is not manliness and anyone telling you that it is has never been embattled and alone for sustained periods of time. They have never had to fight knowing that they wouldn’t win in the short term. They have never had to endure solitary confinement. They have never faced being the lone voice of sanity among peers that can damage them professionally for disagreeing as the lone voice. They have never had to endure being ground down year after year. They just are not being rational, choosing instead to embrace some kind of romantic nonsense about what it means to be a man.

And what of the others around this man who loves being embattled and alone? What of his wife and children? Is there no awareness that the man who is embattled and alone has no put his wife and children in the positions of being embattled and alone also? This is not to say that a man must do this if the issue warrants it but if a man chooses not only for himself but for his wife and children to be embattled and alone is it really sane to love that when he sees how much it hurts his wife and children to be embattled and alone — and that even if they agree with whatever the cause is that has them all embattled and alone?

Just to be clear, I do agree that manliness learns how to thrive when the chips are down. My beef is using silly sports analogies for something so serious and my beef is with the idea that real men love being embattled and alone. I suppose real men who are masochistic love being embattled and alone.

Anyway … be careful of the advice that is being thrown around out there in Christian corners. More than a little of this advice is not well thought out.

Bavinck Promoting A Now Lost Expression Of Christianity

“The centuries preceding the French Revolution (1789) are in many ways different from the epoch that followed. The radical change of direction introduced into the life and thought of the nations by this tremendous event shattered the continuity of history. We can project ourselves into the thought and life of those preceding ages only with great difficulty. They were the ages of authority and objectivity, whereas in our era the subject proclaims its freedom and asserts its rights in every area of human existence… After the middle of the eighteenth century this situation gradually changed. The subject came into its own. It became aware of its true or presumed rights and slowly broke all the ties binding it to the past. In an unlimited sense of freedom it emancipated itself from everything the past held sacred. All authority that demanded recognition and obedience had to answer first the foundational question: By what right do you demand my obedience? Critical reason had been awakened, launching an inquiry into the ground of all authority. Naive, simple, childlike faith all but vanished. Doubt has now become the sickness of our century, bringing with it a string of moral problems and plagues. Nowadays, many people take into account only what they can see; they deify matter, worship Mammon, or glorify power. The number of those who still utter an undaunted testimony of their faith with joyful enthusiasm and complete certainty is comparatively small. Families, generations, groups, and classes have turned away from all authority and broken with their faith. Even among those who still call themselves believers, how many must screw up their courage into a forced, unnatural belief? How many believe as a result of habit, laziness or lack of spirit? How many act out of an unhealthy attempt to recover the past or out of a misleading conservatism? There is much noise and movement, but little genuine spirit, little genuine enthusiasm issuing from an upright, fervent, sincere faith.”

Herman Bavinck
The Certainty of Faith — 1891

Of course the change that Bavinck refers to is what we retrospectively refer to as “The Enlightenment,” or if one prefers not to embrace the enemies nomenclature, “The Endarkenment.”

With the rise of the Endarkenment on the scene of Western Civilization the motif of the Reformation in Europe was turned aside and reversed in favor of the subjectivism of which Bavinck speaks. The Reformation had championed the authority of God as centered in the Scriptures and had moved away from the subjectivism of the Renaissance. The Reformation had removed the autonomy of fallen man as exhibited in the Roman Catholic Magisterium, wherein fallen man was given authority over the Scripture and had returned to the objective authority of Scripture Alone. The Reformation had returned the Church — and consequently Western Civilization — to a time of “authority and objectivity.”

With the rise of the philosophy and theology that drove the Endarkenment individual man was given autonomy to ascend to the most high so becoming his own authority and so his own objective. The subjective (fallen man) had become his own objective. The subjective had been objectivized but this objectification could never change the reality that at its core the objective remained subjective.

The two worlds — the world created by the Reformation and the world created by the Renaissance and later institutionalized by the Endarkenment could never really communicate with one another in any substantive manner. These two movements created two different worlds with two different languages, creating two different kinds of men. Subjective man who takes himself as his own objective can never understand man who stands on an authority that is outside and beyond himself. And so it remains today. There remains a small remnant of people who still believe in an objectively objective world wherein the authority of God’s Word remains the North Star for fallen man. This small remnant lives, cheek by jowl, with the majority of people — both inside and outside the church — who live with themselves as their own objective authority and standard. They can communicate with one another the way that a porcupine might communicate with a Weather Balloon. Ontologically they have all things in common but epistemologically they have nothing in common. They are living in two competing realities. This explains why Bavinck can write; “We can project ourselves into the thought and life of those preceding ages only with great difficulty.” Those of us who belong still to those preceding ages continue to have great difficulty but our great difficulty is projecting ourselves into the thought and life of the current age we now live in.

That Bavinck is correct here one only has to lift one’s eyes and look around. To the person who is conversant with the mindset of the preceding ages, having immersed themselves in those preceding ages via their reading habits, it is a daily reality that we have broke with what was once considered “sacred.” Whether it is the way we speak, the way we dress, or the way we worship as “Christians” all of what was once considered “sacred” is passe. In order for the idea of “sacred” to gain traction there must exist this concept of objective authority but with the disappearance of an objective authority so also has gone into remission any idea of “sacred.” If man is the measure than nothing can be set apart as unto God.

One of the pieces of irony in all this is the rise of “critical reason.” The irony is found in the fact that once the idea of authority and the objective is removed the idea that critical reason can still exist in a completely subjectivized and subjective world is a real knee-slapper. Without an authority or objective outside of us “critical reason” has no basis by which it can defend itself as either “critical” or as “reason.” Without authority to anchor it critical reason is just another subjective opinion. Indeed, “critical reason,” must presuppose what it is denying (objectivity and authority) in order to deny what it is denying. Before it can slap objectivity and authority in the face it must first climb up into its lap. Without objectivity and authority critical reason can be neither critical nor reason.

Do not move on from this quote without considering Bavinck’s final words here. In such an age as which we now live he notes that even most of the remaining Christians are in trouble. The remaining Christians, bitten by the zeitgeist, themselves have trouble returning to any real foundation. They exist as trying to return to a time, via a method (conservatism) which itself has very little eternal substance to it. They are seeking to “keep the faith,” but as Bavinck notes that faith has been planted in very shallow soil. Indeed, Bavinck’s words ring true again in thunderous tones for our day as he concludes; There is much noise and movement, but little genuine spirit, little genuine enthusiasm issuing from an upright, fervent, sincere faith.”

Quote Flurry From Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyan

“A man does evil not only because he is a villain, but also because he is accustomed to this weak-willed self-abasement in others. Slavery not only corrupts the slave, but also the slaveholder; unbridled man is unbridled not only by himself but also by the social environment, which allows him to unbridle himself; a despot is impossible if there are no reptiles; ‘everything is permitted,’ only where people have allowed each other everything.”

Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyan

On Resistance to Evil by Force

I’ve only read a few books (comparatively speaking) by EO writes but whenever I have those authors strike me as incredibly thoughtful.

“All of the great many people who have not developed a strong-willed character have neither a ‘king in their head,’ nor reigning sanctities in their hearts and so prove with their acts their inability to self-govern and their need for social education. And the tragedy of those who run away from this task is that it remains for them inescapable.

“All people continuously educate each other, whether they want to or not, whether they are aware of it or not, are good at it or not, are sincere or careless. They educate each other with every one of their manifestations: their replies and inflections, a smile and its absence, arrival and departure, exclamation and silence, request and demand, treatment and boycott. Every objection, every disapproval, every protest corrects and strengthens the outer edge of the human personality: man is socially dependent and socially adaptive being, and the more spineless a person is, the stronger this law of return and reflection.”

Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyan

On Resistance to Evil by Force — p. 31

This underscores what I’ve contended for quite some time and that is that most people are social chameleons and that regardless of their age. Most people will reflect and parrot the social background in which you place them. It’s just the nature of the human-animal to do so. This truth, in part, explains the impact of polling. If societally, there is an overwhelming movement towards consensus on this or that issue then precisely because humans are social chameleons it makes any contentious issue more likely to be permanent in change. In our unfortunate democracy massive social change only occurs because people are social chameleons.

It is only those who have quality character and who are of the leadership class who change their surroundings and don’t blend in to the social setting. It is these same people who are roundly hated by all the chameleons who want to just go with the herd.

“To educate a characterless child or, that which is almost the same, a spineless adult, means not only to awaken in him a spiritual sight and to spark love within him, but to teach him cathartically in the discipline of self-compulsion and peremptorily in the discipline of self-restraint. For a man incapable of good self-inducement, the only way to lead him to this art is to subject him to external pressure emanating from others.”

Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyan

On Resistance to Evil by Force — p. 31

Ilyan is spot on here. Character is built only by love of the good and love of the good will not come without that standard of good being set in the community around the characterless child and the spineless adult. Peer pressure can be a positive thing. This is why it is danger to let the collective character go down the tubes.

“In the face of evil, which can be contained by no other means, a forceful response, is not only permissible but becomes a knightly duty. Heroic courage consists not only in recognizing this duty but in bearing its heavy moral burden without fear.”

Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyan

On Resistance to Evil by Force

Tim Keller’s Preference For Democracy

“I’d rather be in a democracy than a state in which the government is officially Christian. Instead of trying to take power, I think what Christians ought to be doing is trying to renew their churches.”

-Tim Keller, Wall Street Journal

02 September 2022

1.) Understand what Keller has said here. He has said he’d rather be under a government that is non Christian than under a government that is officially Christian. Tim would rather have his magistrates be Christ-haters than have magistrates who are in submission to Christ.

2.) Tim talked about how Christians shouldn’t “try to take power.” The question is “take power from whom?” Presumably, in Tim’s world Christians shouldn’t try to take power from non Christians and should be happy to be ruled by Christ hating pagans.

3.) You know Tim, it is possible to both try and renew our Churches and in godly ways seek to take power.

4.) Tim’s statement above implies that there is something automatically wicked about Christian’s wielding power. Yet, here is Tim seeking to wield his power as a highly platformed Evangelical voice in service of keeping Christians from pursuing power.