Category: Quotes & Commentary

A Older Calvinism

‎”When Kings or rulers become blasphemers of God, oppressors and murderers of their subjects, they ought no more to be accounted Kings or lawful magistrates, but as private men to be examined, accused, condemned, and punished by the law of God…. When magistrates cease to do their duty, the people are as it were, without magistrates … If Princes do right and keep promise with you, then do you owe all humble obedience. If not ye are discharged from and your study ought to be in this case how ye may depose and punish according to law such rebels against God and oppressors of their country.”

Christopher Goodman
Puritan / Co-pastor with John Knox in Geneva

How Superior Powers ought to be obeyed of their subjects; and wherein they may lawfully by God’s word be disobeyed and resisted.

“The fanatic for Calvinism was a fanatic for liberty; and, in the moral warfare for freedom, his creed was his most faithful counselor and his never failing support. The Puritans … planted … the undying principles of democratic liberty.”

George Bancroft — Historian
History of the United States of America — Vol. 1 — pg. 464

“Obedience to God’s Laws by disobeying man’s wicked laws is commendable, but to disobey God for any duty to man is all together damnable.”

John Knox

“On the eve of the Revolution, John Adams asserted that the pulpits of heavily Presbyterian Philadelphia thundered and lightninged every Sunday against the foreign tyranny, which Jefferson described a Virginia in which ‘pulpit oratory ran like a shock of electricity through the whole colony.”

James H. Huston
Religion and the Founding of the American Republic — p. 42

Further Observations On RJR & Libertarianism

I don’t have a problem with RJR quoting the Libertarians or even with him making common cause with them as co-belligerents on certain issues. I acknowledge that RJR often was in bed with the Libertarians. I will even say that I can see RJR supporting a Ron Paul candidacy for President. (Does anyone know if RJR said anything regarding the Paul Libertarian Presidential Candidacy in 1988?)

However, what I object to, as coming from American Vision, is that they want to thump that Libertarian side of RJR completely and then turn around and disavow all the Kinist quotes from RJR as if that side of RJR never existed. The Kinist side of RJR is the balance and tension that is needed for all his Libertarian statements. It is true that RJR was a Libertarian as that concept finds meaning in the context of God’s Law word, but it is equally true that RJR was a Kinist as that concept finds meaning in the context of God’s law word. The fact that RJR would have embraced both Libertarian strains and Kinist strains fits perfectly with his understanding of, “The One and The Many,” and the fact that organizations invoking the name of RJR finds problems with either of these necessary strains is telling. Is it possible to be loyal to RJR and recognize his Libertarian strains while denouncing those who also recognize his Kinist strains or would such lopsidedness communicate that such a organization is leaning to far in a non God’s law word conditioned Libertarianism?

But AV doesn’t want the kinist RJR. They only want the Libertarian RJR. Meanwhile the Daniel Richies, Stephen Hallbrooks, and John Loftons don’t want either the Libertarian nor the Kinist RJR. The Theonomy of those people is highly suspect.

Rush was no Libertarian in the Rothbard or Rand sense of the word but He was smart enough to use them to advance His agenda, which had a libertarian side as that Libertarianism was conditioned by a Christian Theonomic Reconstructionist worldview.

I think what we might be seeing now is the unraveling of the coalition that RJR built. RJR was able to bring together a coalitiion of Libertarians, Kinists, soft covenanters, agrarians, and southern sympathizers but it seems that coalition is becoming undone.

Martin & McAtee On Worldview Shelf Life

“Beliefs change very, very, slowly, particularly in the case of nations and civilizations. It is not the case that one worldview is center stage at one moment and at the next moment another worldview appears and drives the first view off center stage. Rather, there is always a gradual super interposition of the new upon the old. There is a twilight period of lengthy transition, during which the old worldview is setting and the new worldview is rising.

The 20th century has been such a period. The Biblical Christian worldview was pushed off center stage…”

Dr. Glenn Martin
IWU Professor Genius

The consequence of such a pushing of Biblical Christianity off center stage is not the disappearance of all expressions of Christianity but merely the disappearance of Biblical Christianity. New Christianities will arise that have reinterpreted Biblical Christianity through the pagan worldview that is in the ascendancy. Such new instantiations of Christianity have as little to do with Biblical Christianity as Hannibal Lectre has to do with with vegetarianism. Biblical Christians need to be aware of this counterfeiting so that they are not sucked into the candy coated zeitgeist.

Michael Horton — 1995 / Michael Horton 2012

Nevertheless, Kuyper did make “Christian” versions of many things in the world: Christian schools, newspapers, and political parties tended to obscure the earlier Protestant confidence in the realm of nature as possessing sufficient life and justification for its existence without having to be organized as specifically Christian. This Kuyperian spirit has been especially attractive in some circles in North America, because it is world-embracing and eschews the pietistic retreat from society, and yet it should not be too hastily concluded that one can find a distinctively “Christian” philosophy, political theory, or aesthetic. If these are indeed realms of common grace and natural revelation, they do not require a specifically Christian explanation. Looking for one will only tend to polarize Christians from non-Christians until believers are at last exiled again from the public square forced to pursue their “Christian” philosophy in their own spiritual ghetto.[1]

Dr. Michael Horton
“Where in the World is the Church? A Christian Viwe of Culture and Your Role in It”
Moody Press, 1995 , page 32.

This is an older quote from Mike and it may be the case that he has changed his mind about this, though I would be surprised if he has. I have my doubts about his having changed any given this quote from Mike that is very recent.

“Christians, of all people, should be concerned about the pressing issues in culture and society today. However, even in the same church, where people share the same faith, worldview, and values, there will be different applications, policies, and agendas.”

1.) Mike speaks of an earlier Protestant consideration, pre-Kuyper, of a nature realm that possessed sufficient life and justification for its existence without having to be organized as specifically Christian.

And yet guys like John Knox, who certainly represent the earlier Protestantism that Mike speaks of, could insist that Mike’s natural realm be organized as specifically Christian.

“For it is a thing more certain that whatsoever God required of the civil magistrate in Israel or Judah concerning the observation of true religion during the time of the Law, the same doth he require of lawful magistrates professing Christ Jesus in the time of the Gospel, as the Holy Ghost hath taught us by the mouth of David, saying (Psalm 2): ‘Be learned, you that judge the earth, kiss the Son, lest that the Lord wax angry and that ye perish from the way.’ This admonition did not extend to the judges under the Law only, but doth also include such as be promoted to honours in the time of the Gospel, when Christ Jesus doth reign and fight in His spiritual kingdom, whose enemies in that Psalm be most sharply taxed, their fury expressed and vanity mocked. And then are kings and judges, who think themselves free from all law and obedience, commanded to repent their former blind rage, and judges are charged to be learned. And last are all commanded to serve the Eternal in fear, to rejoice before Him in trembling, to kiss the Son, that is, to give unto Him most humble obedience. Whereof it is evident that the rulers, magistrates and judges now in Christ’s kingdom are no less bound to obedience unto God than were those under the Law.”

John Knox, The appellation of John Knox from the cruel and most injust sentence pronounced against him by the false bishops and clergy of Scotland, with his supplication and exhortation to the nobility, estates and commonality of the same realm (Geneva, 1558) in idem, On rebellion, ed. R. A. Mason (Cambridge, 1994), pp 91-2.

I could repeat these kinds of quote many times over from Reformed men that long predated Abraham Kuyper and at least call into question Mike’s assertion of a earlier Protestant confidence in a natural realm that could be organized neutrally.

2.) Mike almost dismisses the idea of the possibility of Christian philosophy. With such a casual dismissal Mike dismisses the work of Christian Philosophers who believed that they were advancing Christian philosophy. Mike dismisses the work of men like Augustine, Cornelius Van Til, Gordon Clark, C. Gregg Singer, Francis Schaeffer, Ronald Nash, Greg Bahnsen, and any number of other Christian philosophers who insisted that they were advocating Christian Philosophy. This dismissal made so casually is a bit shocking even considering that it comes from a R2K advocate.

3.) The polarization that Mike warns against arising between believers and pagans is the natural consequence of Christianity contra non-Christianity. Is Mike saying that we should jettison Christian thinking so that we can get on better with the non-Christians? And in terms of ghettoizing isn’t the consequence of clash of belief systems the eventual marginalization of those who lose that clash, whether Christian or non-Christian?

Take R2K for example. It is in the midst of a worldview warfare against Historic Reformed doctrine and should it lose it will be ghettoized. Similarly, if Historic Reformed doctrine loses in this worldview warfare against R2K it will be ghettoized. Ghettoization is always the consequences of those who lose worldview clashes. For example, look how ghettoized that the Church in Russian was as a result of losing the worldview warfare with the Bolsheviks. Were Mike alive then would he have been writing things like, “The Russian Church needs to jettison Christian thinking so that we can get on better with the Bolsheviks?

4.) In Mikes second quote he advances the strange idea that people who have the same worldview will have different applications, policies, and agendas. How is it possible Mike, to have the same exact world and life view and yet contend for different applications, policies, and agendas? Can two people have the same Christian worldview and find that one desires the legalizing of abortion while the other desires that abortion be made a crime?

Certainly there might exist slight nuance differences and strategy differences among those who share a worldview but to say that those with the same worldview have different agendas is quite curious speech.

The Eclipse Of Thought — Quote From Ellul’s Propaganda

“(When examining propaganda) we shall stress the dissociation between thought and action, which seems to us one of the most disturbing facts of our time. Nowadays, man acts without thinking, and in turn his thought can no longer be translated into action. Thinking has become a superfluous exercise, without reference to reality; it is purely internal, without compelling force, more or less a game. It is a literature’s domain; and I am not referring solely to ‘intellectual; thought, but to all thought, with concerns work or politics or family life. In sum, thought and reflection have been rendered thoroughly pointless by the circumstances in which modern man lives and acts. He does not need to think in order to act; his action is determined by the techniques he uses and by the sociological conditions. He acts without really wanting to, without ever reflecting on the meaning of or reason for his actions. This situation is the result of the whole evolution of our society. The schools, the press, and the social pragamatism are just as responsible for this as the psychotechnics, the modern political structure, and the obsession with productivity. But the two decisive factors are the mechanization of work and propaganda.

The mechanization of work is based on entirely on dissociation: those who think, establish the schedules, or set the norms, never act — and those who act must do so according to rules, patterns and plans imposed on them from outside. Above all they must not reflect on their actions. They can not do so anyhow, because of the speed with which they work. The modern ideal appears to be a reduction of action to complete automatism. This is considered to be a great benefit to the worker, who can dream or think of ‘other things’ while working. But this dissociation, which lasts eight hours a day, must necessarily affect all the rest of behaviour.

The other element that plays a decisive role in this connection is propaganda. Remember that propaganda seeks to induce action, adherence, and participation — with as little thought as possible. According to progaganda, it is useless, even harnful for man to think; thinking prevents him from acting with the required righteousness and simplicity. Action muct come directly from the depths of the unconcious; it must release tension, become a reflex. This presumes that thought unfolds on an entirely unreal level, that it never engages in political decision. And this is in fact so. No political thought that is at all conherent or distinct can possibly be applied. What man thinks either is totally without effect or must remain unsaid. This is the basic condition of the political organization of the modern world, and progapganda is the instrument to attain this effect. An example that show the radical devaluation of thought is the transformation of words in propaganda; there, language, the instrument of the mind, becomes ‘pure sound,’ a symbol directly evoking feelings and reflexes. This is one of the most serious dissociations that progapanda causes. There is another: the dissociation betwen the verbal universe, in which propaganda makes us live, and reality. Propaganda sometimes deliberately separates from man’s real world the verbal world that it creates; it then tends to destory man’s conscience.”

Jaques Ellul
Propaganda — The Formation Of Men’s Attitudes
pg. 179-181