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We have a problem.

Actually, we are deluged with problems. The problem I’m speaking of here is the instinct to “return to chaos,” based on the belief that out of chaos order comes. This belief is the creed of the Revolutionary. It is the watchword of those who want to make the world anew and make it anew overnight. It was a motto of the Scottish Rite Masons preferring to use the Latin, “Ordo Ab Chao.”

Order out of chaos is the belief that the only way that disorder can be rectified is to return to chaos believing that out of chaos a order will arise Phoenix like from the ashes of what has been burnt to the ground. Order out of chaos was the guiding motif of the French Revolution with its guillotine , the War of Northern Aggression with its total war on civilians, and the Bolshevik Revolution with its gulag system. It is the guiding motif of Mardi Gras with its night of debauchery preceding Ash Wednesday and Lent. It was present in the ancient world with its Bacchanalian festivals. It was the theme behind Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Order out of chaos presupposes the absence of God and if there is no God and all there is, is matter in motion then the distaste for the present order requires throwing the dice of chance again in order to roll a reality that is more to one’s liking. Return to chaos in hopes of birthing a better order.

We well can see that such a conviction is present with our current Revolutionaries trolling the streets of our major cities. Oh, they may not be able to articulate it has we have done in the first two paragraphs above but it is this conviction that animates them even if they themselves don’t understand it. One sees it in the irrational pulling down of statuary, the burning and looting, the gang assault on random vehicles. In all this is the attempt to return to chaos.

However, the suggested problem we began with is that now we are beginning to see, in some quarters, this desire to “return to chaos” in what were formerly conservative, or, at least more conservative quarters. There is a mind set developing that looks at the present social order, and rightly disgusted with our governmental structures and our current bent towards anarcho-tyranny desires to join hands with the Revolutionaries among us in their avowed techniques and agree to just burn it all down. Understand they do not agree with the Black Lives Matter club on the new order they hope chaos to produce but they do agree with the Black Lives Matter narrative that it all has to burn in order for something better to arise in its stead. Black Lives Matter envisions a new order with the Black Marxist as top rail. The self-identified anarchist-capitalists, minarchists, and neo-Libertarians instead envision a night watchmen state at best in order to afford maximum liberty. However, for both of them the way to gain their envisioned narratives is to return to chaos.

The ironic thing about all this neo-Anarchism (by whatever name) ends up being merely Communism for the individual. So the Black Lives desires to have a traditional communism while the neo-anarchists desire to have private individual communism. But communism by any other name remains communism. Historically, Marx’s most severe venom (and Marx could be venomous) was saved for Max Stirner who might be labeled the father of philosophical anarchism. Stirner convincingly, in ” The Ego and Its Own,” unraveled Marx’s communism proving that he and it were inconsistent with Marx’s own principles. Stirner demonstrated that Marx’s communism only made sense when embraced on a private individual basis. If Stirner was right then, the neo-anarchists who want to see it all burn so order can come out of chaos and the Black Lives Matter who want to see it all burn so order can come out of chaos are all drinking from the same philosophical well. Maybe it makes sense that they both desire to pull the house down around their own heads?

The Christian does not believe that order arises out of chaos believing that change comes with line upon line and precept upon precept. As such, the Christian may well oppose the Government when it is going all anarcho-tyranny but it does so hoping to retain the best of the system that already exists. The Christian, not being pagan, does not desire to see it all just burn without discriminating about what should and should not be given to the flames. It is the difference between a Cromwell and a Robespierre.

The solution to our present quandary is not to burn it all down in hopes that order will arise out of chaos. The solution is,

1.) A return to self-governing consistent with God’s Law-Word

Unless we are granted a Reformation characterized by the preaching of Christ crucified with the consequent life of grateful obedience to His Word all we can expect is the growth of the conviction that the solution is return to chaos.

Keep in mind that unless men are self-regulated and self-governed by some objective law then the only answer to regulating and governing men is a top down solution which will inevitably become tyrannical.

Muscular Christianity must return. A Christianity that preaches the law to the unbeliever as a preparation for grace and then preaches a grace to the believer that speaks up walking in terms of the law as gratitude for grace.

2.) Should God be pleased to grant Reformation to a large enough percentage of the population then that percentage of population as to fight to overthrow the wickedness that would otherwise pull down Christ and His faithful Church.

There are those among the putative Christian community who are calling for Christians to withdraw from the public square in order to concentrate on those things that matter most. Listen to one of the leaders of the Liberal Gospel Coalition, Rev. Kevin DeYoung,

“Maybe there are more important ways to promote Christian virtue and preserve Christian orthodoxy in our world (than winning political victories)….

To marshal our energies as if political victories were more important than strengthening the family is a decidedly un-conservative position. I’m not calling for abandoning politics, but I am asking the question, “What does it profit a man if he gets textualists on the Supreme Court but loses his own children? …”

Here’s a culture war strategy conservative Christians should get behind: have more children and disciple them like crazy.“

Rev. DeYoung in this is in no way advocating a order from chaos philosophy for cultural renewal. However he is advocating a cultural renewal philosophy that is not far-sighted in the least. Why does Rev. DeYoung believe that Christian parents will be allowed to pass on the Christian faith to their seed? If Christian parents will not be allowed to forbid their children from the State forcing vaccines upon their children why does Rev. DeYoung believe that in a social order where Christianity has not triumphed in the Culture wars will be allowed to disciple their own children like crazy? Voices like DeYoung don’t seem to realize that should Christians lose the public square they are not going to allowed to concentrate on the things that matter most and so keep their children.

I have lived through the homeschooling regimen. Let me just say that looking over the wreckage that was the intent to disciple children like crazy hasn’t gone well and the reason for that, in part, is because we have not fought effectively the culture wars from which DeYoung wants to retire in some measure.

In brief, I see little evidence that we are keeping our own children despite countless people thinking they were discipling their own children like crazy.

3.) To start guarding our pulpits more zealously.

Right now the pulpit in American is manned by those embracing worldviews foreign to our Fathers and more importantly foreign to the Bible. We have everything from the heresis of R2K to Dispensationalism to New Perspective on Paul to Federal Vision to Cultural Marxism in our pulpits all across the country. Seeking to find a plain old fashioned historic Calvinist minister is like searching for a left-handed smoke-bender. We cannot expect Reformation as long as the pulpit in America is innovative. A mist in the pulpit always results in a fog in the pew.

Neither the Revolutionary Ordo Ab Chao nor withdrawing from the public square is going to solve our social order problems.

Sen. Stephen Douglas had been excoriated by Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. Sen. Douglas let it slide confiding to a confidant,

“This damn fool is going get himself shot by some other damn fool.”

Not long after that comment Sen. Sumner lit out after Sen. Andrew Butler of South Carolina over issues touching on slavery. Sumner also excoriated Butler as he had Douglas previously but this time Sumner dropped innuendos about Butler’s taking delight in black slave female flesh in the boudoir.

The damn fool Sumner, contra Douglas’ prediction, wasn’t shot, but he did discover the Southern concept of “honor.”

Sen. Butler, being a gentleman, would not descend to defend his own honor against Sen. Sumner, however, unfortunately for Sumner, Sen. Butler had kin in political Washington D.C. Sen. Butler’s cousin, Preston Brooks was a US Congressman representing a district in South Carolina.

Brooks, hearing of how his cousin had been slandered on the floor of the US Senate, originally desired to challenge Sen. Sumner to a duel but was talked out of that decision by fellow South Carolina Congressman Laurence Keit upon the basis that dueling was only for gentlemen and Sumner was no gentlemen and as such it would denigrate Brooks’ honor by challenging such human refuse as Sumner to a duel.

So, on May 22 Brooks, having his back covered by Rep. Keitt who was wielding a brace of pistols to ward off the other Senators who tried to come to Sumner’s defense, gave Sumner the beating he was worthy of. With the caning Brooks was communicating that Sumner was nothing more than a cur dog that has to be shown its place when it snarls at the wrong person.

Immediately after the beating Congressman Brooks resigned his seat as a matter of honor and then stood in the special election to fill his resigned seat. Preston Brooks was overwhelmingly re-elected by the people of his district in August and then again elected when his seat came up again in the natural election cycle for that seat three months later.

The South had communicated, by its electoral stamp of approval on Brooks, that the South was done with the slander and libel of the abolitionist types like Sumner. The South, by voting for Brooks, metaphorically communicated that they only wished that they could have been there with Brooks beating the shite out of Sumner.

Two years later Preston Brooks died unexpectedly from the croup. His funeral fell on a day that was remarked upon for how foul the weather was. Thousands attended both the memorial service and funeral despite the weather.

And Congressman Brooks pistelero accomplice, Congressman Keitt?

Congressman Laurence Keitt also resigned his seat in Congress after being censured by the Congress for his covering Brooks back with pistols while Brooks was beating Sumner silly. Keitt, likewise stood for re-election of the seat he resigned and was resoundingly re-elected by the South Carolinians of his district. Keitt served in Congress until South Carolina seceded. Two years subsequent to his role with Brooks in caning Sumner, Keitt unsuccessfully tried to choke a Yankee Congressman from Pennsylvania for insulting him in the Well of the US Congress.

Keitt, upon leaving the US Congress served for two years in the Provisional Confederate Congress, whereupon he joined the Confederate military force and rose to the rank of Colonel commanding the 20th South Carolina infantry regiment and later the well known “Kershaw’s Brigade,” after Kershaw as promoted to the next level. Keitt was wounded at Cold Harbor on 01 June 1864 and three days later in the Southern Capital succumbed to his battle wounds.

Interview begins @ 14:40 mark

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3RoZXBvbGl0aWNhbGNlc3Nwb29sLm9yZy9mZWVkLw/episode/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGhlcG9saXRpY2FsY2Vzc3Bvb2wub3JnLz9wPTQxMjA3?hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwiqtfSQ-5HqAhVIeawKHTQECTkQieUEegQICBAG&ep=6&fbclid=IwAR2OfNXLQlrw2pNUe-GOLCLYiTbmpkTfbGa0l3Htz-u8DZCceVKNRL_Qr0U

U. S. Grant … Robert E. Lee … George Washington … Columbus … Albert Pike.

All recently having their statuary pulled down across the county.

Having read quite a bit on the Reformation there is a parallel here between now and then. In the time frame of the Reformation the Reformers were known as being iconoclasts. This meant that they were smashing Catholic statuary and idols everywhere. They hated the Roman Catholic statues primarily because those statues had violated the 2nd commandment. Still, in my estimation many went overboard in their zeal in destroying statues, paintings, and Christian art in general. Luther even had to rebuke Andreas Karlstadt for Karlstadt’s zeal in burning and destroying art.

The destruction of art, statues, and painting was especially prevalent in the area of the Radical Reformation where the Ana-baptists held sway. However both Zwingli and Calvin were iconoclasts and desired to get the art out of the Churches. A story is told about William Farrell (Calvin’s predecessor in Geneva) that Farrell came across some Priests carrying a piece of Roman Catholic statuary that people would bow down to as it passed. When Farrell came upon them providence had arranged that all were crossing a bridge. Farrell went into a frenzy, so the record goes, and tossed both the statue and the Priests carrying the statue over the bridge into the water below.

Because of such zealousness on the part of the Reformed Leaders the Reformed rank -n- file attacked statues and images. However, in most cases, civil authorities removed images in an orderly manner in the newly Reformed Protestant cities and territories of Europe.

Now, we have to keep in mind that during the Reformation era the statuary and art was being used to keep the people in bondage to the false God of Rome. As noted above, statues would be carried in processions so that people could bow down while the statue passed. Alongside this the Scripture clearly forbids, via the 2nd commandment, the kind of superstition that was being exercised by the Priests over the people. Weeping Madonnas, blood coming from crucifixes, phony miracles connected in some way with relics and art had contributed to the Medieval Roman Catholic destruction of the Christian faith. As such destruction of statuary, paintings and idolatrous art was understandable in the Reformation. Much of it was certainly being used in an idolatrous fashion.

One thing is clearly communicated though in the iconoclasts attack on the Medieval statuary and that was that there was a new God in town and the old art, representing the then considered wicked past was not going to be allowed to stand in the new social order that God was pleased to give in the bringing forth of the Reformation.

The linkage to what is happening now is clear. Though nobody is using statuary to reinforce homage to the old order such as was done in 1518, the Marxist Revolutionaries still understand the power of statuary, paintings, and art in sustaining an order they wish to rip up and destroy. As such the old order has to go and one way to initiate the departure of an order that the anarchists despise is to rip down its icons.

Such has been the action of every Revolution or Counter-Revolution of the past. Come with me to Paris of 1789 and watch the art fall. Come with me to Moscow of 1918 and see the Churches being pulled down and the sacred art destroyed. Come with me to the velvet Revolution in 1989 Czechoslovakia and watch the art come down. The same happened all across the former Soviet Bloc when Communism putatively fell. When Iraq fell before invading American Troops one of the first images that was broadcast over Western Television was the pulling down of Saddam Hussein’s statue. Indeed, so routine is the removal of statuary and art that when one sees it happening on a broad scale one can be sure they are living through Revolution or Counter-Revolution.

And of course what it all communicates is the Revolutionary or Counter-Revolutionary attempt to cut off a people from their past. Marx once presciently wrote, “Hitherto, philosophers have sought to understand the world; the point, however, is to change it.” One way that the world is changed, Marxists have always understood and routinely taught is to cut people of from their historical roots. If people have no past then they will have little ground to understand themselves and little guidance on how their future should look. Ripping down the statuary is one means by which Marxist sever people from their past. Because of this Marxist principle, I fully expect at some point in our current disheveling the anarchist / communist criminal class will start coming after the Churches.

So, for the epistemologically self-conscious among our current Goths, Mongols and Zulus criminal class, the purpose is clear. They are destroying Western Civilization by destroying its history. If they are successful then whatever history that will exist will be the history of the last 5 minutes as controlled by the Tyrant State. Communique will go out from the new American Soviet Supreme and history will be changed with every new communique. Some new art and statuary will slowly arise but even that will only mean whatever the State says it means at any given time. History and truth thus become transitory and mere tools for the State to keep people in line with the Revolutionary thinking. So, you’ll still get a Lenin as art here and there. You’ll get the kitschy Revolutionary “Internationale” or the corny Revolutionary art that finds the youth of the world in the painting bowing and throwing flowers at the feet of the great leader. Any other statues or art will be verboten.

Finally, keep in mind that in the desire to destroy the old order by destroying the art, what will eventually come is some formation of a “Committee on Public Safety,” to protect the new order from those who honored, respected, and cherished the old art. These people who can never be redeemed from their commitment to the old order ways must be destroyed every bit as much as all that old statuary. As such they will be guillotined, or gulag-ed, or just conveniently disappear. They will not rest with statuary destroyed. They will not be placated by your sincere apologies, kneeling, or reparations. They will not be fooled by you suddenly joining in the Revolution. Their desire is to steal, kill, and destroy. They will soon enough be coming for you.

____

Calvinist Minister John Witherspoon, as might be expected, earnestly and eloquently supported every measure adopted by Congress for securing independence. When the important moment came for signing the Declaration, and some of the members were hesitating to affix their names to it, he delivered an eloquent appeal, in which he said:

“That noble instrument upon your table, which ensures immortality to its author, should be subscribed this very morning by every pen in the house. He that will not respond to its accents, and strain every nerve to carry into effect its provisions, is unworthy the name of a freeman. For my own part, of property I have some, of reputation more. That reputation is staked, that property is pledged, on the issue of this contest. And although these gray hairs* must soon descend into the sepulcher, I would infinitely rather they should descend thither by the hands of the public executioner than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of my country.”

All honor to him and to the Church and the principles which he so eloquently represented ! That Church may well be proud of having her clergy so honorably represented among the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Witherspoon remained in Congress, excepting for a short period, till 1782, and contributed perhaps as largely as any one member to the patriotic cause.

Nathaniel McFetridge
Calvinism in History

How Calvinism has changed. Today if Witherspoon had been so involved in the affairs of State the R2K boys would have, at the very least, censored Witherspoon.

McFetridge gives account after account of Calvinists in American History who would have scorned and mocked R2K even more than I have done. The idea that the Minister had no business being involved in the common realm as a minister would have seen as complete and utter skubala.

McFetridge tells us of the Presbyterian Dr. John Rodgers the leading Presbyterian clergyman in New York city who,

“had to fly from New York city on the entrance of the British troops, who seized his church and turned it into a hospital. Congress acknowledged his patriotism and ability by employing him on an important mission to the South. He was chaplain in the army, and after- ward chaplain of the State convention of New York. He threw all his eloquence, influence and possessions upon the side of the good cause, and did more perhaps, in the beginning, to arouse the people than any other clergyman.”

McFetridge speaks of the Calvinist clergy in America as a whole,

“Thus I might trace through all that severe conflict the spirit of the Calvinists, and find it always the same—true to the cause of independence; indeed, the only unswerving champion of it.“

The Radical Two Kingdom theology of Van Drunen, Horton, D. G. Hart Clark, and T. David Gordon, is a lie. It has no connection whatsoever to the living, breathing Calvinism rooted in history and grounded in Scripture. What the R2K lads are offering up is anti-Calvinism. R2K is not a correction of Calvinism but rather it is a bastardization of Calvinism. The Calvinism of our Fathers was a faith that made men of boys. R2K makes effeminates of boys. The Calvinism of our Fathers put steel in the spine of its adherents and made them tough and unyielding as barbed wire. The Calvinism of R2K puts a “run away and surrender” spirit in the character of its adherents and makes them only tough when it comes to resisting historic Calvinism.