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Recently I have seen a couple films that reinforces the narrative that Hollywood keeps spitting out the same movies only as cast in different genres. The great lion’s share of what Hollywood produces emphasizes how stupid or evil white people are. It is such a trope that you realize that every film is the same as the previous film that you viewed.

The first film I caught was “Django Unchained.” Here you find the typical tired bromides that White Southerners were evil and that blacks experienced the worst possible form of slavery. The only White person who comes across as “admirable” is a bounty hunter who is vicious in his murderous tactics in hunting down and killing those for whom he has a bounty. The only kindness our White Bounty Hunter has is for a black slave he frees in hopes of that slave being able to point out three brothers upon whom he has bounties. Over time however, the White Bounty Hunter takes a shine to the black slave and after they together murder the just mentioned three brothers the White Bounty Heart decides to make the now former black slave his Bounty Hunter protege. The White Bounty Hunter does this because he is smitten with how madly in love his slave is with his long lost German speaking black wife. We see here that the black slave is virtuous because of his deep love that will do anything (as we shall see) for his long separated wife.

The film progress with White people teaching the former slave how to use assorted firearms. The two Bounty Hunters gun down and murder countless numbers of white people. This was such a theme that Jamie Fox, who played Django — the freed slave turned bounty hunter — boasted in a Saturday Night Live appearance that “the movie was great, I get to kill all the white people.” Django becomes the modern Negro male beau ideal inasmuch as he finds his identity if murdering white people.

As mentioned earlier, all the white people in the film, save Dr. King Schultz (Bounty Hunter) are repulsive and wicked. The worst of them all is “Calvin Candie,” a plantation owner in Mississippi who owns Django’s wife. Of course, it is not accidental that the most wicked white man of them all is named “Calvin.” The film writers arrange it so that when Calvin is murdered the impulse is to cheer Dr. King Schultz.

One oddity in this film is that there is one black character in the film who is cast as being evil. However, this is not accidental because this black character (played by Samuel L. Jackson) is cast as a complete Uncle Tom who is the house Negro for the Calvin Candie plantation. Django murders this Uncle Tom to every viewer’s relief.

The film ends with every white person being dead (including Dr. King Schultz), the plantation manor dynamited and with Django having regained his long lost wife they ride off into the night.

One theme that comes through in the film is how much Whites hate uppity Negroes. Whites can’t believe that Django rides his own horse. Uncle Tom, the House Negro, can’t believe that Django is going to sleep in the Big House and eat with the White Folks at the White Folks table. Whites can’t believe that Django is dressed like a cowboy. Whites can’t believe that Django talks all uppity to Whites. Clearly we are to believe from the film that Whites expect of Blacks that they know their place.

In the Stephen King film, “The Green Mile,” we have much the same film only in a different genre. All the White people are evil or stupid or have to be enlightened by the “magic negro” in the film.

This film is cast in the context of a death row called “the Green Mile.” On death row in Louisiana are two white guys (one of whom is particularly demented and wicked), one American Indian, and one giant of a Black man named John Coffey. All are guilty of their crimes except the giant of a Black Man — John Coffey. Coffey, as we learn as the film unfolds is a gentle soul who was wrongly arrested and convicted for the rape and murder of two little white girl sisters — and this even though it was really the case that Coffey was seeking to heal them of their wounds. Keeping watch over the inmates are five guards. One (Percy) is particularly evil while the other four are simpletons who must be educated in goodness by the Black John Coffey.

The other two main characters are the White Warden and his wife. The wife is dying of a brain cancer.

In the course of the film we are constantly reminded of how gentle, wise, and supernaturally gifted John Coffey is. Coffey has the gift of the shine and of healing. Coffey knows what people are thinking and what they have done merely by touching them or by being in close proximity to them. Coffey also has a magic healing touch that comes to the fore several times in the film. Coffey is the very epitome of the “Magic Negro.”

As the film unfolds we learn how noble John Coffey is because he goes willingly to his death in the electric chair because he can no longer stand living in such a painful mean spirited world. (Now keep in mind all this pain and mean spirited-ness comes in the context of all his interaction with White people. He tried to supernaturally heal the two raped and murdered little girls (raped and murdered by one of the white inmates on death row [Green Mile] we learn in the film) but instead was treated like filth. He watched as Percy (the wicked guard) abuses the other prisoners. He sees one of the White inmates hurt his prison guard friends. White people have caused him all his pain so he is glad to leave this world in the electric chair.

As mentioned earlier Coffey heals the Warden’s wife of brain cancer. There was a very sexually suggestive scene in the film in the scene where Coffey heals the Warden’s wife. In that scene Coffey holds the Warden’s wife in his arm while he presses his lips against the Warden’s wife’s lips in order to suck the cancer out of her brain. The scene only last a few seconds but it clearly gives the flavor of some kind of miscegenation.

In both films the white people are evil, stupid, or simpletons. In both films the main characters are black who rise above the world, either by killing all the competition (Django Unchained) or by leaving the world (The Green Mile). In both films the theme of the movie is the inferiority of white people and the superiority of black people. In both films the audience is moved to identify with the black people and to loathe the white people. The message in both films is that it sucks to be a White person.

However, as said earlier, anymore these are the themes of every movie made by Hollywood.

“One thing that can be encouraging for us today is that the New Testament prepares us for living in the kind of world we find ourselves. The New Testament doesn’t prepare us for living in Christendom. The New Testament addresses a world in which believers are a small minority. It addresses a world in which Christians don’t have any illusions about being in charge of things. Christians are trying to do their best to live at peace with all men as far at it lies with them and yet also to recognize the legitimate authority of civil government and I think as we try to do a Biblical political theology there are all sorts of resources for us to live in the kind of world in which we find ourselves….

Does God wish us to strive for a unified Christian society in which civil government and economic institutions and everything else are united by a common confession of Christ? Now of course we all agree I hope in the proclamation of the Gospel we want as many people as the Spirit is pleased to convert to turn to Christ — of course that is not the question. I think the question is, do we believe that God has called our political communities as such to be those which are confessionally Christian. My argument is ‘no.’ A big part of my argument is to say, ‘actually our political communities are covenantally grounded’ and that is something that should resonate with Reformed people because we pay a lot of attention to the Biblical covenants in Scripture. My argument specifically is that our political communities are grounded in the covenant with Noah after the great flood. There God covenanted with the entire world — including all human beings — so not just with believers, not just with those who profess the name of Christ but with all human beings and God called all human beings to live together in a common community in which they are called to do justice You remember in the Noahic covenant (Gen. 9:6), ‘Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed,’ that’s a general call for justice and that is given to the entire human race and that Noahic covenant is still in effect today. That covenant is in effect til Christ comes again … My basic argument is that because God has ordained political communities to grow out of this covenant with Noah that we are to respect the commonality of our political communities. In other words, that these are communities that are supposed to bring together in some kind of common life — both those who profess Christ and those who don’t.”

Dr. David Van Drunnen (DVD)
Politics after Christendom
Interview w/ Dr. R. Scott Clark
Office Hours program

1.) Three times in the first three sentences DVD makes reference to the New Testament. In his constant return to this phrase it seems the expectation that DVD is pushing for is that Christians today would be “New Testament” Christians. Now, that phraseology, and DVD’s usage of “New Testament” in the first three sentences above has a distinctly Dispensational flavor to it. This type of thing is just one reason for why many have observed that R2K is Reformed Dispensationalism.

2.) DVD’s constant complaint is against the idea of repristinating Christendom and yet we hear DVD seemingly desiring to repristinate the conditions of the New Testament when the Scripture was written. Yet, there is not one word in the New Testament that we are required to maintain their level of paganism as it existed during the 1^st century AD. The fact that God’s New Testament Revelation and inscripturation came into a pagan culture and climate is no argument that God desires Christians to live in pagan cultures and climate. It is not even an argument that we should expect, as Christians to live in political communities that are not decidedly Christian.

3.) All because the New Testament addresses “a world in which believers are a small minority” doesn’t mean God’s intent was that the world would forever find believers being a small minority in political communities.

4.) DVD offers that the New Testament doesn’t prepare us for living in Christendom thus suggesting that therefore living in Christendom is not intended by the New Testament. By this reasoning we could just as easily say that “the New Testament doesn’t prepare us for living in the 21^st century therefore living in the 21^st century is not intended by the New Testament,” or “the New Testament doesn’t prepare us for living anywhere except the Mediterranean world therefore living elsewhere but the Mediterranean world is not intended by the New Testament.” It is a significant non-sequitur on DVD’s part.

5.) Living at peace with all men does not mean compromising on Biblical Christianity so that the pagans who hate Biblical Christianity will be satisfied with our presence. It is easy to live at peace with all men if we just jettison the core of Biblical Christianity in our political communities. In my estimation DVD is doing with this passage (Romans 12:18) what he does with so much Scripture; he is making it walk on all fours.

6.) As Christians we are certainly to “to recognize the legitimate authority of civil government,” while at same time insisting that if civil authority desires to be taken as legitimate then it has the requirement laid on it to rule consistent with God’s definition of justice. Here, in these united States, if any civil Government wants to be recognized as having legitimate authority they must rule consistent with their political covenant documents (Federal and State Constitutions). If they fail in that as characterized by a long train of abuses they have surrendered all expectation from both Christian or non-Christian to be recognized as having legitimate authority. The authority of civil-government is not absolute and is not to be recognized as legitimate when it becomes illegitimate.

7.) If we believe that there is no such thing as neutrality, then it is inescapable that if we are not striving for a unified Christian society bonded by a common confession of Christ then all that is left is striving for a society that is unified by some other God and Faith reflecting a common confession of some pagan deity. After all, “he who does not gather with Christ, scatters.”

As I noted in part 1 it is not possible to live in a political community that is not unified by one particular God and one particular faith. Pluralism is a myth. Multiculturalism likewise is a myth. They are both concocted so as to blind us from the reality that one God and one Faith is animating and controlling the political community. If we won’t strive for a unified Christian society we will, even if only by default, strive for a unified non-Christian political community and society. We cannot serve two Masters. We cannot serve Christ in our private individual lives and our Church lives and not serve Christ in the public square (common realm).

8.) Also at this point in the interview DVD returns to a central theme in his “theology” and that is his insistence that the Noahic covenant provides the cornerstone to his political-theology R2K project. This position has, in the past, been challenged repeatedly. DVD however can not give this position up because it is the lynch pin of his innovative system. The Noahic covenant was not a redemptive covenant and so must be common. This position allows DVD to pivot to say that the Noahic covenant is the covenant that all mankind operates and functions in during their lifetime when those who are believers are not operating and functioning within the Church. One implication of this for DVD and R2K is that the Church and the Kingdom are identified as exact synonyms. There is nothing outside the Church realm as existing in the public square that is an expression of the Kingdom of God. Everything outside the church realm as existing in the public square is a common realm relating back to the common Noahic covenant. The common Noahic covenant teaches us that there is no such thing as Christian politics, Christian economics, Christian Education, Christian family, etc. since all these function within the common Noahic covenant and not as ancillaries to the Kingdom of God.

That DVD is in error regarding his assertion that the Noahic covenant “doesn’t make any promises of Redemption,” can be seen inasmuch as the Noahic covenant is in point of fact highly redemptive, both in looking back to creation and looking forward to Christ.

First one finds the flood being presented in similar terms as the chaos of Gen. 1:2, and the ark’s landing on dry land and Noah’s commission by God to be fruitful and multiply both echo the original creation narrative. The rescue of Noah was a Redemptive rescue and this is hinted at when Noah offers sacrifice to God upon being released from the Ark. If the Noahic covenant was truly common would we see a blood sacrifice associated with it?

Second, the Noahic is Redemptive if only because it ends in a “new creation — restoration.” The Noahic covenant is a proleptic and typological event that portrays the final and ultimate redemption to be found in Christ. The Noahic covenant is thus, contrary to DVD’s assertion, Redemptive.

The fact that the Noahic covenant is Redemptive is pointed to in I Peter in such explicit terms it is difficult to believe that anybody could hold the Noahic covenant as common. The flood water symbolizes Baptism which is the sign and seal of Redemption by Jesus Christ.

I Peter 1:20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God.[e] It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

Eight were saved (Redeemed). The flood water symbolizes Baptism which is the sign and seal of Redemption by Jesus Christ.

Now, no one would argue that the Noahic covenant didn’t have implications for what R2K calls the “common realm,” but clearly the Noahic covenant is a Redemptive covenant. Noah points us back to creation and speaks of its renewal, but points us forward to the ultimate renewal in Christ. It is thoroughly redemptive, not merely “common.”

If the Noahic covenant made promises of Redemption, contrary to DVD, then his whole R2K project fails. Let it fail.

9.) It is interesting to note, per DVD’s standards, that the first political community to form after the flood wherein God’s people sought to live in peace with all men, and wherein the commonalities that are to be expected between all men, regardless of their faith, in their respective political communities is recorded in Genesis 11 and is known as Babel. I’m confident a ancestor of DVD was alive then and was emphasizing the importance of common grace.

10.) This is a comparative tidbit in terms of exposing DVD but possibly still a significant one. Note how DVD repeatedly uses the term “human beings.” Once upon a time the word there would be “mankind.” Is DVD influenced by political correctness?

“I think we have to affirm that there is a basic antithesis between believers and unbelievers — between a Christian way of thinking and a unbelieving way of thinking. At some fundamental level we think and act in different ways. At the same time, I believe, and I make the argument for this in the book that actually God calls us, as believers, to live together alongside unbelievers in our political communities. God did not institute political communities only for Christians. These are places where Christians and non-Christians are called to live together in some sort of peace, justice and order. And that really is the challenge because that is not easy….”

“There is a sense in which under Christendom … there was sort of this attempt to say, ‘you know the only people who really ought to have a share in our political communities is those who think like us, and so we all ought to agree on the same sort of basic fundamental issues.’ I’m making the argument that the Lord is calling us to strive to live in peace with all sorts of different people and not to try to eliminate from the political community those who don’t agree with us about the most important things and so that really is the challenge. How can we faithfully, wisely seek to live together peacefully as justly as possible with whom we disagree about fundamental things. Here, I think the doctrine of common grace is very important because we recognize that in addition to God’s saving grace … God is at work preserving a measure of peace in this world…”

Dr. David Van Drunnen (DVD)
Politics after Christendom
Interview w/ Dr. R. Scott Clark
Office Hours program

This will be part 1 of a likely 3 part series on DVD’s interview with Clark. The reason that I am preoccupied with DVD now is that DVD has a new book out pushing the R2K agenda and as such he is out everywhere hawking his book. As such I am everywhere out exposing the gross error found in his “theology.”

1.) DVD speaks of an antithesis existing between believers and unbelievers and yet I very seldom hear DVD talk about just exactly what the antithesis looks like in the every day world. In point of fact, DVD’s whole R2K project is to say that in the common realm the antithesis is, or at least ought to be, completely muted. DVD heralds the idea that in the common realm the Buddhist, Talmudist, Muslim, and Christian can come together, and by virtue of all living under the same natural law — which we call appeal to together — we can all live in harmony. Reading or listening to DVD there is very little antithesis that is articulated. One wonders where DVD would find the anti-thesis (concretely speaking) in the common realm?

2.) DVD denies Christendom when he says above that “God did not institute political communities only for Christians.” This sounds reasonable to those of us who have been raised in the multicultural environs that is now the West. DVD’s statement is the perfect theological reflection that reflects a willingness to embrace multiculturalism. I don’t believe Christians have any business embracing multiculturalism.

However, more that that I can make an argument that DVD here is saying that God did not institute families only for Christians. Keep in mind that the family is a political community. Family is a child’s first political community. Larger political communities are merely family extended. At least that is the way “nations” were thought of before the multicultural dream was hatched. As such, I disagree with DVD when he says that God “did not institute political communities only for Christians,” because in that statement I hear that God did not institute any nation as only for Christians. I think God did intend, and does intend, for all political communities to be only for Christians. I believe this because Christ’s last words to the disciples were to baptize the nations and teach the nations to observe wherein all He commanded them (Matthew 28:16f). Because of that I think that DVD is being overly comfortable with the abomination that is multi-culturalism and has crafted a theology that harmonizes with multiculturalism.

3.) DVD presupposes that it is possible to have a political community that does not have some faith in the ascendancy that is ruling over every other faith. What else can I conclude from DVD’s idea that people of different faiths can work together in peace, justice, and order. What DVD is missing is that all political communities are animated by and reflective of one particular faith expression. Now, other faiths may be allowed to co-exist but the political community has only one God running the show. Muslims may allow people of the book to survive in their political community but only as hewers of wood and bearers of water (metaphorically speaking). Democracies may allow people of different faiths to operate in their political community but only as long as they don’t take their various gods too seriously. Christians can operate in this political community as long as they don’t take the God of the Bible seriously about the definition of marriage. Muslims in France can operate in the French political community as long as they forgo wearing the Hijab in French schools.

While it may seem that I am straying afar from DVD my point here is that DVD assumes that political communities are pluralistic but in point of fact all political communities are totalistic and always insist that those living in their political communities must serve the God in charge of the differing political communities. So, in order for Christians to live in political communities that are putatively multicultural they must be treasonous to their God in order to co-exist. For DVD that treason is acceptable.

4.) DVD speaks about living with those who don’t agree with us (Christians) about the most important things. Let’s consider the implications of this statement given our current setting in the West. Per DVD we are expected to live with those who don’t agree with us on,

a.) There being a differences between men and women
b.) The Lord’s Day being set apart as unique
c.) The routine killing of the unborn
d.) The catechization of our children in Government schools in Marxist thinking
e.) The Muslim call to Worship across Britain on BBC radio
f.) The fact that “married” sodomites should be accepted as “married.”

According to DVD we ought, as Christians “not to try to eliminate from the political community those who don’t agree with us,” on these types of issues.

5.) DVD talks about God, via common grace, preserving a measure of peace. Is that really what is happening or is it instead that Christians are compromising for the sake of not upsetting the God of the multicultural West?

“The right to marry is fundamental as a matter of history and tradition, but rights come not from ancient sources alone. They rise, too, from a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in our own era. Many who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here. But when that sincere, personal opposition becomes enacted law and public policy, the necessary consequence is to put the imprimatur of the State itself on an exclusion that soon demeans or stigmatizes those whose own liberty is then denied. Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their person-hood to deny them this right.

Anthony Kennedy
Obergefell vs. Hodges

1.) “Rights come not from ancient sources alone” — Clearly a swipe at the Christian Scriptures. So if rights do not come from God alone what other God is there to give rights to man if not man as God?


2.) “Better informed understanding” — those poor poor fools of the past who were not bright enough to have the better informed understanding of this brilliant current generation. Of course this is generational snobbery. Any current living generation always has the advantage of having a “better informed understanding,” than those poor benighted fools who went before.

3.) We’re not disparaging you or your beliefs as wrong in the least. We are just saying that you did not have the “better informed understanding” that we have. No disparagement at all here. Your definition of marriage in the past was that in order for marriage to be possible you need to join male and female. Our better informed understanding will now re-define marriage so as to be defined as the joining of male and male or female and female. Let the Dictionary and all the Gods be damned, we will completely redefine marriage because of our “better informed understanding.”

4.) So, Christian beliefs as enacted law should not be but the religious beliefs of sodomites should be enacted law?

5.) I should think that the Mormons will be wanting to revisit Reynolds vs. US with this ruling.

6.) Is it ever proper to stigmatize or disparage any sexual self identity? Polygamy? Polyandry? Bestiality? Pedophilia? Necrophilia? Remember Justice Kennedy you have created a right of self identity in this decision.

7.) If marriage can be mean anything then it means nothing. This decision moves the end of marriage if only because marriage no longer has any stable meaning.

In a sane world, Justice Anthony Kennedy would be committed to an insane asylum. Elsewhere in this decision he writes,

“The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity.”

Yet, a few sentences later the man could write,

“And their immutable nature dictates that same-sex marriage is their only real path to this profound commitment.”

Anthony Kennedy
Obergefell vs. Hodges

First they themselves are defining and expressing their identity. Then, a few sentences later we find out about their “immutable nature.”

CONTRADICT MUCH?

If the sodomites are defining and expressing their identity how can it be the case that they have an immutable nature?

Just one more from Kennedy in his decision,

“The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity.”

Anthony Kennedy
Obergefell vs. Hodges

Kennedy found a Constitutional right that allows persons to define and express their identity?

Who knew that the Constitution supports Existentialism? Who knew that the Constitution embraces the notion that humans have not set nature? Who knew that the Constitution taught Existentialist post-modern Anthropology?

“It would be a grave mistake to reduce … the universalist principles of the Founding [for an] ethno-nationalism.”

Senator Ben Sasse — R. – Nebraska
Twitter account

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, 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.

U.S. Constitution

“Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people, a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, without which a common and free government would be impossible.”

John Jay, Federalist #2

“The United States have already felt the evils of incorporating a large number of foreigners into their national mass; by promoting in different classes different predilections in favor of particular foreign nations, and antipathies against others, it has served very much to divide the community and to distract our councils. It has been often likely to compromise the interests of our own country in favor of another.”

Alexander Hamilton