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Biblical Christians – which I consider synonymous with Reformed folks – have always been theocentric (God-centered) in their thinking. Indeed it is that which distinguishes them from those others we gladly embrace as Christians but of whom we insist are Christians who are embracing a sub-Christian Christianity.

We are passionately God centered… or at least try to be and when we fail in that we seek forgiveness for our thinking and behavior that was faithless in moving off that center. It breaks our heart when we see that sin or reflect on our past breaking of that conviction.

That we are a God centered people is seen in the fact that our by-word has always been the Sovereignty of God.

The Reformed mind, when it is humming consistent with its convictions takes seriously, “The Lord Omnipotent reigneth (Revelation 19:6).” The Reformed mind seeks to make concrete in his life the truth of Romans 11

36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

The Biblical Christian is intoxicated with God centeredness.

It agrees heartily with A. W. Pink when he said,

“Learn then this basic truth, that the Creator is absolute Sovereign, executing His own will, performing His own pleasure, and considering naught but His own glory. “The Lord hath made all things FOR HIMSELF. (Prov 16:4). And had He not a perfect right to do so? Since God is God, who dare challenge His prerogative? To murmur against Him is rank rebellion. To question His ways is to impugn His wisdom. To criticize Him is sin of the deepest dye. Have we forgotten who He is?” (p.30).

This mindset has its fingerprints all over our Confessions,

Q.) What is the Chief End of Man

A.) Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.

Man’s reason for being is to have God at his center.

This God-centeredness shows up in the BCF when right out of the gate the Belgic confession centers on God.

ARTICLE 1—THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD We all believe with the heart and confess with the mouth that there is only one God, who is a simple and spiritual Being; He is eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, immutable, infinite, almighty, perfectly wise, just, good, and the overflowing fountain of all good.

Let’s articulate this from a slightly different perspective.

Commonly it is said that there are two ways of doing theology. Those two ways are theology from above vis-a-vis theology from below.

Theology from above is the use of God’s revelation (Scripture) as the means of doing theology. We seek to understand all things from God’s speech in the text of Scripture. Theology from below tends to start with man and his needs. It seeks to make the scripture relevant so as to meet the felt needs of men.

Theology from above focus on God and his purpose, plans and ways of making mankind know his will. The Scripture stands as the basis of studying all the activities of God and is the only source of information about him. It is also the only basis for Christian faith and practice.

Theology from below is not always sinful. It is not sinful to for man to want to know how God’s word speaks to him in this or that situation. Theology from below can be helpful when we have first done

our work as theologians from above. Inevitably, theologians will be selective in their choice of the Biblical passages. They will focus on passages that they think people in particular context and culture will be able to understand.

This passionate God-centeredness that expresses itself in a preoccupation with “theology from above” is what sometimes makes it difficult to communicate with other Christians who are prone toward “theology from below,” as well as moderns whose weltanschauung begins and ends with man. Indeed there are times when the Christian who does theology from below will be more inclined to agree with the Christ-less modern man against the Biblical Christian instead of agreeing with his fellow Christian.

Illustration – Van Til, “Mr Black, Mr. Grey, & Mr. White”

For example if the question is whether or not man is free to refuse God’s irresistible grace both the non-Christian and the “theology from below” Christian will agree against the Biblical Christian that man is free to refuse God’s desire to bring man into the Kingdom. Man must have a right to say “no,” to irresistible grace.

The theology from below mindset and the mindset of modernity do not necessarily rule out the possibility of God but all possibility of God is to be understood only with the reality that man is the center of all thinking. This is because all their thinking starts with the premise that man is the basic given. Man is the measure of all things. The rights of man are the rights alone we need to consider.

As another example

Theology from below along with modern man talks constantly about the rights of man while the “theologian from above” thoughts turn to God’s rights. Those who are contrary to us insist that all men from Muslims to Atheist folks have a right to practice their God hating faith and beliefs.

But we pause to ask that If they have that right to do that where would that right come from? From the God who demands that there shall be no other Gods before Him? And if that right they insist upon doesn’t come from God then where else can it come but from man?

So we have this contrast, anthropocentric thinking vs. Theocentric thinking.

Further this contrast is not only as between those outside and inside the Church but exists within the walls of the visible Church. Within the Church are members who anthropocentric in their thinking and those who are theocentric.

Illustration — Machen and Henry Van Dyke

“Beginning in October, 1923, Machen served as stated supply at Princeton’s First Presbyterian Church. Soon after preaching a series of messages on the issues dividing liberals and conservatives,7 he met opposition in the person of Henry Van Dyke, an old family friend, who surrendered his pew at First Church rather than sit under Machen’s “bitter, schismatic and unscriptural preaching.”8 Van Dyke’s tirade was carried by major newspapers throughout the country. Even Machen admitted that Van Dyke had boosted the sales of Christianity and Liberalism!”

Machen was thinking theocentrically while Van Dyke was thinking anthropocentrically.

Finally this contrast exists within myself and all of us. This orientation is the difference between who we are in Adam and who we are in Christ and we all struggle and will fail in being theocentric in our thinking more often than we’d like. We call this failure selfishness, or self-centeredness, or self-preoccupation. When violate in this way it is because we not theocentric in our thinking.

This Anthropocentric mindset which all of Adam’s descendants own as original sin, is hard-baked into our culture so that we are constantly carpet bombed with messages whose intent is destruction to theocentric thinking. From the novels we read, to the films we view, to the radio talk shows we listen to, to the news we consume we repeatedly absorb anthropocentric thinking.


That this is true is seen by Scripture having to instruct us to “set our minds on things above

Col 3:2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.

Contrary to the way this is often cited, this is not a call of being heavenly minded in the sense of it being better to think on systematic theology vs. getting the car fixed or bringing flowers to your wife.

Rather I believe what the Apostle is getting at here is the necessity as he says elsewhere to take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. Dr. Meyer says it has to do with, “the whole practical bent of thought and disposition.” The Christian seeks to find the things above in all he does in this life on earth. If he fails in that he is then not setting his mind on things above.

Let’s spend just a wee bit of time here if only because recently I’ve listened to two lectures where I think the Ph.D., chaps citing Col. 3:2 were getting it dreadfully wrong. They were taking the passage in an almost Platonic – pietistic manner. Setting our minds on things above meant not being that concerned with politics, or philosophy, or economics, or Law, etc. Those are below things. The idea was that Christians have more important things to think about like spiritual things (whatever that might be).

This is a matter of “structure” and “direction.” The structure of all created life is good and so we can find the above in the created life. However, to often we set our minds on things below in the sinful direction which we take of the good structures. For example, philosophy is a structure that God created and if our minds are set above in the proper direction we can find the good. However if our minds are not set on above – if our minds are set on the wrong direction — then that which is a good structure will be corrupted.

All of our thinking must be theocentric – must be set on above — and so our Woldview must begin and end with God in all that we think about. We must find the above in all that think about and handle.

Too often our “Christian” thinking is like a vanilla ice cream cone dipped in chocolate. The vanilla ice cream represents anthropocentric thinking. The chocolate dip represents what we’d like to think isl theocentric thinking. We dip that anthropocentric thinking in the chocolate theocentric dip and we end up thinking that we are now God-centered in our thinking when all we really have is the thinnest of shell masquerading a thick substance of humanism. We slapped a prayer or a bible verse on thinking or behavior that is 100% consonant with pagan thinking or behavior and then called it Christian.

This kind of thing used to happen in College and Seminary Classrooms all the time. One would be studying, as random examples, Carl Rogers in a Psychology class, or Soren Kierkegaard in a philosophy class without exposing their anti-Christ thinking. Even though they were anti-Christ it was all good because we opened class in prayer. I had an existentialist as my main instructor for my philosophy degree in under-grad but he labeled his existentialism, “Christianity.” It took me some time to undo that damage.

The Biblical mindset that understands that God is sovereign and desires to think to the glory of God can’t be satisfied with the dipped ice cream approach.

This Biblical mindset we are talking about begins and ends with God.

We might add here that we cannot be theocentric without being theonomic in some expression. God’s character is His Law and so if we refuse to be theonomic we can hardly, without our noses going all Pinocchio, claim to be theocentric.

God’s Word is our final authority. It is our starting point. Our ending point. And God’s Word is our methodology that gets from starting point to ending point. Being theocentric and theonomic we do not use other disciplines to prove God without first starting with God in order to prove those disciplines. For example, we do not use Archaeology to prove the truth of Scripture without first appealing to the authority of Scripture for the legitimacy Archaeology. If we use anything else existing as independent of God to prove God’s authority is valid then whatever that anything else is, has become God’s source of authority and we have fallen into anthropocentric thinking.

And so the more successful we are in being theocentric the more we will be odd ducks in our anthropocentric culture. The more we are biblically theonomic, the more we will not feel at home among typical Americans or even typical American Evangelicals. We will often be theocentrically alone in the anthropocentric crowd. We will laugh at things that our anthropocentric compatriots find shocking. We will be in high dudgeon about matters that everyone else is shrugging their shoulders over. When everyone else is merely seeing with the eyes we are the ones seeing through the eyes.

“This life’s dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.”

Wm. Blake

And so as theocentric Christians we talk about God’s rights unlike the constant clamoring for ever increased ‘human rights,’ or if we do talk about human rights we anchor those rights in our duties to first God and then man. As theocentric if we dare ask “Why Me,” it is not related to why do bad things happen to me but rather it is why do good things happen to me. As theocentric we realize that not only our end but God’s end is God. God being the Summum Bonum (highest good) there is no end that can be higher or better than God. As theocentric we ache for the world made new, we desire for men to know the sweetness of this God centeredness, we delight in decreasing if it means that the God wherein the good, the true, and the beautiful find meaning increases.

Over here

https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/an-evangelical-case-for-four-more-years.html?fbclid=IwAR1qqrI5hhQJLs_kY7rINzgomGkD9r5AsB4vTX6sOc9c4JUAwW8r0-r_k3Y

Rev. Doug Wilson offers explains why he intends to vote for Trump this Fall. In this piece I intend to challenge the Man from Moscow’s “reasoning.” You will want to read the whole article. I have hit only what I believe are the high points.

Rev. Doug Wilson (hereinafter RDW) wrote,

“We all have authority over the content of our vote, but we also all have authority over the meaning of it. “

BLM responds,

Really?

And here I thought that God was the one who had the authority over the content of our vote and what it might or might not mean.

It turns out as one reads this article by RDW one discovers this idea expressed in RDW’s quote above provides the central pillar of reasoning for RDW. RDW’s reasoning boils down to, “I get to vote for whoever I want to and I get to assign whatever meaning I might want to my vote.”

This is a shocking statement for a theonomist to make. Theonomists used to think that God was the one who gave meaning to everything.

More on this later.

RDW wrote,

“So a person could vote for Luther’s apocryphal wise Turk without idolatry”

Bret L. McAtee

Seriously? One could vote for a complete Christ hater and that vote not be idolatrous?

Here is the difference between myself and RDW. RDW is practicing a teleological ethic when it comes to his voting. This means that RDW sees an end that he wants to get to and based on that desired end he is voting based on what he thinks (he can’t know) will get him to that end. This is also known as Consequentialism. Consequentialism, like teleological ethics, holds that the consequences of ones conduct (in this case the anticipated positives of voting for Sir Don) is the standard for adjudicating the morality or immorality of the contemplated conduct. A good result justifies the rightness or wrongness of the action in question (voting for the Big Orange).

On the other hand I am practicing what is called a “De-ontological” ethic when it comes to my vote. This ethic states, “what is right is right and I can’t deviate from that even if it might be seemingly to my advantage to deviate from this ethic.” Deontological ethics abides by the nostrum that the rightness or wrongness of an action should be based on whether that action is itself right or wrong per God’s law, rather than being based on the possible negative consequences of the action contemplated.

Believe me when I tell you that I feel the pull of Consquentialism here. I agree that from where I stand and from what I can see voting for “Mr. Apprentice” has strong appeal. The only way I resist that appeal is by being very deep in American history. A familiarity with American political history suggests that candidates seldom are what they represent themselves as being. I know it will come as a shock, but candidates lie. As much as I might want to vote for the incumbent I do not believe he is who he says he is, and I do not believe he will do what he has promised to do.

More on that later.

RDW writes,

I intend to vote for Donald Trump in the fall, as I did not do in 2016. But this is what such an action does not mean. It does not mean that I have gotten on the Trump train,

Bret responds,

This is an odd statement. It’s like saying “I intend to vote for Trump but I don’t support Trump.” By voting for Trump RDW is buying the ticket which means RDW is on the Trump train?

All aboard.

RDW writes.

… It does not mean that I own a MAGA hat, it does not mean I have abandoned my conservative principles,

BLM

Well, sure it does RDW. When you vote for a guy who supports placing sodomites in his cabinet, and when you vote for a guy who has said we need more legal immigration, and when you vote for a guy who has never met any pork in his fat budgets that he doesn’t like you are abandoning, by definition, your conservative principles. If you vote for a chap who is liberal on sodomy, on spending, on increasing legal immigration you are abandoning your conservative principles and embracing progressive principles – and that no matter how much you shout to the contrary that you are not.

This article demonstrates how Trump is playing both sides on Immigration.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/2/an-immigration-report-card-for-president-trump/?fbclid=IwAR0pIEaWdqRN2J7k0TmTkXGPujDpZ4py0tX2MaJh_VN3rv-pdb2KSQFJiBU

RDW.

Put not your trust in princes.

BLM

But by voting for Trump with your teleological ethic which essentially says the ends in voting justifies the means in vote, you are putting your trust in Princes. To put your trust in God would mean you would vote for someone who didn’t’ appoint sodomites to his cabinet, who didn’t advocate for more legal immigration, and who didn’t spend like a drunker sailor on shore leave.

RDW

I have authority over what my vote means.

BLM

This seems to be the central failure of RDW’s post.

If it is true that I have authority over what my vote means I could argue that it is legitimate to vote for Bernie because what that vote means, per my authority, is that it will lead faster to the breakup of the US. Therefore it is a God-honoring vote. If I have authority over what my vote means then no one can challenge me on any vote. I can vote for Pete Buttigieg because I say that vote would mean that I don’t want an old dude to die in office.

This “I have authority over my vote,” sounds absolutely postmodern. I can make reality whatever I want it to be. I can my vote to mean anything I want it to mean.

Really, how could anyone ever argue against that type of reasoning. If your vote is what you say it means and that is that how could anyone ever contradict that? After all, your the authority over your vote. Sucks to be God.

RDW writes,

I have said before, using Victor David Hanson’s metaphor, that Trump is chemo-therapy. He is toxic, but he is more toxic to the disease that has been killing our body politic than he is to the body politic, which is the whole idea behind chemo. At the same time, once that disease is gone, evangelicals should be fully prepared to fight the downstream effects of that toxicity. And they will not be inconsistent or hypocritical in doing so.

BLM

Bad illustration RDW. It is routine for people to die from Chemo-therapy. Indeed, I would say that as a minister I’ve seen more people die of their chemo-therapy than I have seen people survive the chemo-therapy. By your voting for the Big Orange, RDW, you are the Doctor applying the Chemo. As the patient I’m not particularly confident you know what you’re doing RDW.

Secondly, on this score, it does seem hypocritical to vote for a guy whose administration has campaigned for the end of anti-sodomite laws throughout the world only to turn around and fight the guy on his Log cabin Republican appointees.

RDW writes,

If the Democrat wins, we will be in a very different place in 2024 than we will be if Trump wins. And I can see a route to where we ought to be from a post-Trump era, in a way that I cannot see from, say, a post-Sanders administration.

BLM

Here is the Consquentialist argument again. Voting Trump is not ideal but it is a better non-ideal then the non-ideal that Bernie would give us.

As I said earlier, I consider this the most convincing thing DW has said. It has all the trappings of making good sense. Still not good enough of a reason to violate God’s Word which is what gives meaning to our vote.

God’s word says,

I Corinthians 6:14 “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? 15 And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? 16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God.”

Now, I have taken plenty of heat over the years to applying this text to the habit of voting. However, I remain convinced that a vote is a yoke. A yoke is a tying together of parties to end of accomplishing a particular task. When I vote I am yoking myself to the candidate I am voting for. I am transferring to him my authority to act on matters. I am lending him my strength. When he acts, I act in him. Some will remember this is the old idea of federalism.

There is no doubt that Trump is a better evil man then Democrat evil men, women who want to be men, and men who act like women, but where does Scripture allow me to vote for men who are not quite as evil as other men? Particularly when I’m expressly told “be ye not unequally yoked.”

RDW

Offers that a vote for Trump will lead to,

“the crown jewel of a remade judiciary will be the possible reversal of Roe.”

BLM

At this point I am wondering if Idaho has made Marijuana legal.

Seriously though, how many times have we been led down this path? Reagan is now 40 years in the rear view mirror. Reagan was going to give us “a remade judiciary with the possible reversal of Roe.” two of the three SCOTUS justices that the Gipper appointed voted to support Roe. Bush I appointed one pro butcher and one pro life.

Every four years since 1973 we have been told we have to vote for the Republican for President so that Roe could be overturned. That is now almost 50 years ago and there is no indication that Roe is going to be overturned. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me for 50 years and I’m a fool.

RDW

RDW next suggests that the deep state might go to jail for their crimes if Trump is re-elected.

“a number of people who ought to be in jail will be given a fair trial toward that end.”

BLM

A handful of far lesser lights went to jail for Watergate.

Does anyone really think that Hillary, Comey, Brennan, Clapper are going to be put on trial? For Pete’s sake Doug, they didn’t even put McCabe on trial.

I suppose someone will accuse me of being overly cynical but after knowing that Col. Edwin House, Harry Hopkins, Owen Lattimore, Henry Morgenthau Jr., Harry Dexter White, Lauchlin Currie, the Dulles Brothers, etc. ad nausea never served well deserved jail time then you’ll excuse me if I see a pattern that suggests that RDW is as high as a kite when he thinks any of the Russia Pee story contributors are going to jail. I think I’m merely being a realist.

RDW’s last paragraph reads like stand up comedy.

RDW writes,

And last, the Trump era has exposed the real divide in America. This divide is not between Republican and Democrat (although the two parties have served as platforms wherein different factions try to manipulate the divide). The real divide has been between an elite and unaccountable ruling class, on the one hand, and the ruled taxpayer, on the other. But the problem is not the existence of elites, which is inescapable. The problem is the existence of unaccountableelites, which is the kind of thing our original constitutional framework was designed to prohibit and exclude. For every check, there must be a balance, and for every balance there must be a check. Our divided America is not an America divided between to rival political parties. Our America is now divided between two rival constitutions. One is the Constitution drafted by the Founders, and the other is an upstart constitution assembled out of various bits and pieces — erratic decisions by progressive judges, the implicit tyranny of the regulatory agencies, the apparatus that has been built up on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a kennel-fed media, and so on. While Trump does not represent the originalist approach, he does represent an existential threat to the other approach, which explains the state of high panic, and all the dirty deeds being done out in the open. Trump represents that kind of threat for all kinds of reasons, mostly having to do with the divine sense of humor.

BLM responds,

I know Marijuana must be legal in Idaho.

Does RDW think this is something new? We’ve been living with this since the Lincoln Administration. Is he not familiar with the unaccountable elites of the Wilson, FDR, LBJ etc. administrations. We haven’t been living by our original Constitution since 1861. And Doug thinks voting for the Big Orange is going to change that.

I remain convinced that the Democrats and Republicans represent two sides to the same Elite coin. I’ve seen nothing that proves absolutely that Trump is any different. On the most important issues Trump continues to pursue the long established agenda. Trump is even more avidly Israel than any of our previous Presidents. Trump continues to grow the State as seen in his reckless spending. Trump as recently as 8 weeks ago publicly advocated increased legal immigration. Trump is pushing the sodomite agenda. The refugee problems remains untamed. (See Ann Corcoran’s website). These are indisputable facts.

Trump has talked the talk but like so many “conservatives” he doesn’t walk the walk so well.

Let me round off by saying that I think there is a chasm between who Trump is and what Trump symbolizes. If Trump really was what Trump symbolizes I’d vote for him in a skinny minute. But I’m convinced that what Trump symbolizes is the schtick that keeps the RDW’s on the Trump train.

I will defend Trump to the hilt when the discussion is on what Trump symbolizes. This is why I loathe “Never Trumpers.” They don’t get it that Trump is a symbol. Symbols are important and should be defended. But neither can I lock arms with the Trump fan-boys, who don’t seem to get that Trump isn’t what Trump symbolizes. It is an odd position to be in.

I don’t think Rev. Wilson’s argument for the Reformed voting for Trump is a good argument. In point of fact I think it is a particularly awful argument.

Believe me, I gain very little advantage in my circles by opposing Reformed folk voting for Trump.

“Bilbo was desperate…. He must stab the foul thing, put its eyes out, kill it. It meant to kill him. No, not a fair fight. He was invisible now. Gollum had no sword…. And he was miserable, alone, lost. A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo’s heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering. All these thoughts passed in a flash of a second…. And then quite suddenly …. as if lifted by a new strength and resolve, he leaped…. over Gollum’s head and escaped.”

Tolkien
The Hobbit

1.) Note that Bilbo in this description is a passive agent. The sudden understanding and a pity wells up with him unbidden. A new strength and resolve lift him. It is as if Tolkien is telegraphing divine agency in this language. Strength, resolve, understanding and pity — each of them are penned as the active agents. There is a power outside of Bilbo which is governing. Bilbo’s actions flow out of the gifts given.

2.) Note Bilbo’s “glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment.” Tolkien’s Christian faith subtly comes through again. Bilbo see’s Gollum much the same way that we might see a prisoner in a Soviet Gulag. Tolkien gives us a picture of man fallen and un-redeemed, ‘tied and bound by the chain of our sin.’

3.) Note Bilbo’s pity and horror. When Bilbo sees Gollum he experiences pity and horror because he understands, “there but for the grace of God go I.” Bilbo sees himself in Gollum and compassion wells up within him. Speaking only for myself, too often the feeling of disgust and outrage attend seeing the sinner in his misery. Tolkien reminds us that pity and horror are also proper responses. Pity because that could have easily been us. Horror because of the power of sin to un-make us.

4.) In this brief passage from “The Hobbit” the theological table is set for for the climax of the later Trilogy. Pity and horror kept Gollum alive throughout the whole story. Pity and horror that often seemed misplaced in favor of Gollum. And yet, that earlier pity and horror shown Gollum throughout the quest saved Middle Earth. If not for that “misplaced pity and horror” extended to Gollum at every turn the ring would have never been destroyed.

Jude 22 And on some have compassion, making a distinction; 23 but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.

Inspired by Fleming Rutledge
The Battle For Middle Earth – p. 27-28

You know you’re a Wesleyan when

10.) Your new 22 y/o Pastor, fresh from College tells you he is entirely sanctified and now no longer sins … and you believe him.

9.) John 3:16 proves Calvinists are heretics.

8.) You’ve been saved four times and sanctified twice.

7.) There are 5 seasons. #5 is “Season of Prayer.”

6.) You hate Pentecostals because they are consistent Wesleyans.

5.) Graduating from a Wesleyan College you remain dumb as a box of rocks. (I can say this because I graduated from one.)

4.) You wonder, “what’s with Churches that don’t have altar calls every week?”

3.) You remember when John Maxwell was just a really hokey Pastor from Skyline

2.) Summer church camp was where you learned about girls and the art of making out. You looked forward to summer camp every year with great anticipation.

1.) You know “DS” officially means “District Superintendent.” You also know that “DS” also has an insider meaning that isn’t quite as flattering though far more accurate.

You Know You’re A Calvinist If,

10.) You’ve ever got thrown out of a Church for quoting Scripture.

9.) You’re constantly walking away from family reunions muttering, “A prophet has no honor in his own country.”

8.) You know what WCF, BCF, HC, LBC 1689, PCA, OPC, RCA, CRC, URCNA, Can-Ref, RPCNA, ARP, mean and use them in your conversation routinely.

7.) You can’t find a Church to attend.

6.) You have so many grandchildren you can’t remember all their names.

5.) Your fantasies include seeing Cultural Marxist Clergy and R2K clergy on two sides of the same spit roasting over an open fire.

4.) You throw parties upon the death of the notoriously wicked.

3.) You know that Imprecation is not a city in Rwanda.

2.) Your wife prefers working under her husband as a covenant head as opposed to some strange male at some strange workplace.

1.) You’ve contemplated how burning down all the Seminaries would be a good start.

“I have just heard the news…. Russians 60 miles from Berlin. It does look as if something decisive might happen soon. The appalling destruction and misery of this war mount hourly; destruction of what should be (and indeed is) the common wealth of Europe, and the world, if mankind were not so besotted, wealth the loss of which will affect us all, victors or not. Yet people gloat to hear of the endless lines, 40 miles long, of miserable refugees, women and children pouring West, dying on the way. There seems to be no bowels of mercy or compassion, no imagination, left in this dark diabolic hour. By which I do not mean that it may not all, in the present situation, mainly (not solely) created by Germany, be necessary and inevitable. But why gloat?! We were supposed to have reached a stage of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crowd hooted.”

At the time of V-E day J. R. R. Tolkien wrote again to his son Christopher;

“It all seems rather a mockery to me, for the War is not over …. But it is of course wrong to fall into such a mood, for the wars are always lost, and the War always goes on; and it is no good growing faint!”

“In these two brief excerpts from Tolkien’s letters we find much of what has gone into the tale of the Ring, and much of what makes it Biblical;

1.) The primary emphasis on compassion.
2.) The tragic sense of the ‘besotted’ human condition.
3.) The sense that all sides are to blame, not just ‘theirs.’
4.) The renunciation of ‘self-righteousness,’ and ‘gloating.’
5.) The necessity of taking extreme action under pressure.
6.) The conviction that all of life is an ongoing battle.
7.) The certainty that the Shadow will always gather strength and return.
8.) The determination to persevere

We find all of this in the story,front and center. And we find something more; the overarching presence of the unseen hosts of heaven, flashing through the work in brief strokes of unforgettable brilliance.”

Fleming Rutledge
The Battle for Middle Earth; Tolkien’s Divine Design in the Lord of the Rings — p. 14-15

War should be avoided at almost all costs. It is a terror inducing phenomenon that results not only in dead but the living dead. However it has happened in history that war is forced upon a people and when that happens then war it must be. And if forced into war then our mindset towards the enemy must be what noted Presbyterian Deacon Gen. Thomas Jackson’s was. When a member of Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s staff asked, “What can we do about this kind of barbaric behavior?”

The Presbyterian Deacon Jackson replied, his voice trembling with rage, “Kill ’em. Kill ’em all.”