Uncategorized – Page 52

Blackstone & McAtee On Marriage & Voting

“The husband and wife are one person in law; that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband; under whose wing, protection and cover, she performs everything.”

Judge William Blackstone

This provided one argument against women’s suffrage. The woman didn’t need the vote because she voted in the Husband. When the husband voted as covenant head the wife voted by her covenant head proxy. Did women ever lack the vote then? No, not in Christian history. She always voted in her husband. As it stands now the wife “votes” in a way that technically separates her from her husband. So what else was women’s suffrage but an incremental declaration of universal divorce? The institution of marriage was weakened in all existing and future marriages as women were encouraged to act apart from their husbands.

When the woman is allowed to vote it potentially strips the husband of the leadership in the home as a wife can potentially negate her husband’s vote. Further, when women vote, statistics demonstrate that the weight of their vote is for paternalistic statist policies supported by politicians. Women are created to desire protection and security and because of that, the weight of their vote will be (and historically have been) for candidates who promise protection and security, even at the cost of liberty. Ironically, when women vote, they tend to vote for candidates who promise from the state what their husbands ought to be but often are not providing.

So, we see, that women having the vote aids and abets in the destruction of the Biblical family unit as women in voting have an independence from their husbands that was never present before women were given the vote. Women voting also has the unhappy consequence of hardening women as they are forced to enter the coarsening world of politics. Biblically, we see the woman’s role as creating hearth and home as well as nurturing children. It is not without reason that women were once referred to as the “fairer” and even the “gentler” sex. As we have pressed women into both the voting booth and workplace the effect has been a coarsening of the “fairer sex,” so that she is just as bawdy and just as full of rough and tumble as the guys. We lose some of the feminines in our women when they become masters of the political realm.

We no longer think that women not voting is”fair.” There is a reason why we no longer think that fair and that reason is that we hate biblical covenantalism, we hate God’s law, and we hate God’s law order. Further, the reason we think this is not fair is that we have so reinterpreted “equality” that we think that if members of both sexes can’t do the same exact thing that they, therefore, are not “equal.” However, because a woman might not be allowed by law to vote, does not mean that therefore said woman is not equal to her husband. It merely means that she is different than her husband. As a man, I am not able to give birth to children. That does not lead me to conclude I am not equal to women.

Of course, this is a much older way of thinking as the Blackstone quote demonstrates and so I do not expect it to be very popular or to be cheered in the streets.

One more practical note we need to add here. If Biblical Christians kept their wives from voting given the current arrangement then obviously the statists would even have a higher proportion of the vote. Because of this, my recommendation is for husbands and wives to sit down and converse before going to vote in order to make sure that both will be voting for the same slate of candidates. This is what my wife and I have done for decades now. To my knowledge, my wife has never canceled my vote with her vote.

Structure & Direction — And Why R2K Sucks as Theology

As Christians, we must keep in mind the distinction between what has been called ‘structure,’ and ‘direction.’ When we think about who Christ really is he is the ‘Son of God. This is where the Apostle John begins in his Gospel; “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” St. John introduces us, as he continues, to the fact that the person of Christ is both divine and human. So, from John, as inspired by the Holy Spirit, we learn that the Word (Christ) is the creator (cmp. Colossians 1:16-17) as well as the Redeemer. Now we tend to think in terms of cross-centered Christianity as Christians, and we know what the heart behind that is (that we believe that Jesus died for our sins) but we don’t see that the resurrection, the ascension, and the session of Jesus Christ in the seat of authority is as important for our salvation as His death on the cross because Christ is the Creator as well as the Redeemer and those two realities while distinguishable can never be separated and divorced from one from another. This is important because His redemptive work is about restoring the creation that was alienated from Him. You see, it wasn’t just we as a people who were alienated from God by our sin. In our sins we now seek now to alienate God’s creation from Him. Because of this the structures and norms that God has established for creation — everything from what we call laws like ‘law of gravity,’ or the ‘law of 2nd thermodynamic,’ through to matters such as the norms for marriage and family,– to cite just a few concrete examples that God has established — these are the structures that God has established at creation.

Now, these norms, in our sin and rebellion fallen men, seeking to be consistent with his hatred of God and God’s order are seeking to obliterate. (Though increasingly fallen man is trying to play with the more impermeable category of the fixed laws of creation) We see this today of course in the attempt to completely redefine marriage so that people of the same sex can marry and we see this in the Tranny movement as men and women seek to rip off their gender identity appointed by God, we see this in our putting women in front line military and first responders positions, we see this by the Church putting women in the pulpit. In all this, you have a war on God and His law-word for man’s personal and social order. All of this overturning of God’s order is an attempt by fallen man in his alienation from God to work to the end of alienating God’s own creation from God Himself. It is just a visible expression of fallen man’s resolve that “we will not have God rule over us.” We see therefore we have these parallel tracks in creation. First we have these creational laws and norms and those laws and norms are inescapable and so impinge on everybody’s lives every day.

We are all creatures of God as God’s image-bearers and as living in God’s creation. Mankind lives Coram Deo – before the face of God – and living before the face of God he can not – try as he might – escape God’s realities of social order laws and norms. Everything about us is oriented towards our creator and sin can be defined as that attempt of fallen man to reorient himself away from God as creator. Because of all this God’s creational structures and norms despite our sin do not go away. We see this in marriage as just one example. People can redefine marriage all they ruddy well like but Jesus spoke of God’s creational norm for marriage when He cited God’s work in the garden and man’s re- definitions cannot undo that norm. These are all God’s structures and those structures and norms as they fell from God’s hands are very good.

The problem comes then not from the structures and the laws and norms that go with God’s creational structures. The problem enters in, in what we are calling direction. Here you have these God-ordained and given creational structures, laws, and norms but fallen man seeks to pervert these structures by the God dismissing way he desires to direct them. So, for example, God made sex as one of the structures of man, and sex as a structure is good but man wanting to de-god God and en-god himself as god moves that structure in a sinful direction via porn, the LGBTQ movement, adultery, pedophilia, etc. that sullies the whole structure.

However, the structure qua structure remains very good. The problem is not the structure but the direction that fallen man has taken the God-given creational structure. In all this malfeasance with God’s structures, man is serving himself as the creation having given up God as the Creator (Romans 1). So, we see that when man refuses to worship God the Creator he worships himself as the creator, and in doing so he absolutely poisons all the creational structures, norms, and laws as they fell from God’s hands. Still, those creational structures, norms, and laws, qua creational structures, norms, and law, remain in themselves “very good” because they were given and established by God.

Now, we connect all this with Christ as Creator and Redeemer. When Christ comes His purpose as Redeemer is to restore all that He established as Creator. It is not that Christ only restores fallen man (which He certainly does) but in restoring fallen men He restores the direction fallen man pursues in these creational categories of structure, norms, and laws as they originally fell from His hand. Because of this man, as redeemed, is now Christ’s agent in restoring all these structures, norms, and laws back to their original intent as redeemed man handles these structures, norms, and laws, in submission to His Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The shorthand language for this is that redeemed men seek to walk in terms of God’s Kingdom. Because of this family life is renewed once again under Christ’s authority for structures, norms, and laws, civil life is renewed once again under Christ’s authority for structures, norms, and laws., education is renewed once again under Christ’s authority for structures, norms, and laws, the law is renewed once again under Christ’s authority for structures, norms, and laws, and as this happens across the board all of culture as a whole is renewed once again under Christ’s authority for structures, norms and laws as converted men are set on a redeemed and reconciled direction. We cease then to be a people who are seeking to alienate God from His creation and instead become a people who are no longer alienated from God and His creational structures.

Now, please notice the difference between this understanding of Christianity vis-a-vis the understanding of Radical Two Kingdom theology (R2K) that is predominantly taught in our Seminaries today. R2K explicitly says that the structures are common and in being common there is no such thing as a particularly Christian direction as compared with a pagan direction. R2K, contrary to the vision briefly outlined above insists that it is not possible to have Christian culture, Christian art, Christian nations, or Christian anything as that anything lies in the common realm.

If culture is defined as the public expression of a people’s worship so that one can identify the God that the public is worshiping by looking at its culture then the effect of the spread of Christianity will be a change of direction in terms of the culture and with that change of direction, there will be a change of culture.

Jesus Christ does not reconcile and redeem fallen men without that reconciliation and redemption altering the trajectory of culture so that the creational structures, laws, and norms as they fell from the hand of God are once again pursued in Christ-honoring direction.

Optimistic Eschatology is Superior to Pessimillennialism of all Varities

The more I study the work of Jesus Christ via his Life, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, and Session, the more I am convinced that the impact of that work was to inaugurate a new creational Kingdom that is entered by way of regeneration (regeneration being naught but a Person being caught up into the Resurrection reality that Christ established) with the purpose of incrementally and progressively expanding the already fixed Crown Rights victory of the Lord Christ.

Christ’s Resurrection inaugurated the new creation and let loose a divine New World Order Kingdom. Through the finished work of Christ the age to come has arrived in principle and having entered into this present wicked age it is rolling the present wicked age back as Sunlight rolls back the morning fog.

Eschatologies that refuse to embrace a full-orbed optimism are eschatologies that run against the grain of the Scriptures. Contemporary Eschatologies, in our current Evangelical defeatist’s climate, that complain about the danger of one’s eschatology being over-realized is like someone warning about the dangers of too much joy taking place in a morgue.

On this point, we would secondly observe that Christ’s resurrection is referred to as “first fruits” to show not only that his resurrection is the first of more to come, but also that the additional future resurrections must necessarily come because they actually belong to Christ’s resurrection itself. That the first fruit would resurrect without the later fruit also resurrecting in due season would be an oxymoron of the grossest variety.

The good news of resurrection also begins now however as we who are in Christ have already been given an inaugurated resurrection. We currently partake of resurrection life and are already citizens of the New Creation Kingdom. As such, under the tutelage of the Spirit, we walk in terms of God’s law-word, putting off the old man, and putting on the new man who now lives in the heavenlies w/ Christ Jesus. We live in the heavenlies because the heavenlies, as the age to come, now resides in this present wicked age as it goes from victory unto victory in pushing back this present wicked age.

We have not yet resurrected to all that we one day will, but we are resurrected more than we once were.

Brief Observation of the Logic of Gun Control

“False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

Cesare Beccaria

If it is the case that we have to control tools (which is all guns are) that can cause grave and serious harm then I propose that we also practice,

“Teacher control”

“Minister control”

“Lawyer Control”

“Doctor Control”

“Shrink Control”

“Social Worker control”

“Friend of the Court control”

I guarantee you that teachers, ministers, lawyers, doctors, shrinks, social workers, and friends of the court have each and all done far more harm to people as tools that are out of control (they are the tools of the humanists) than guns have done over the last 35 years.

In point of fact, if it is our desire to ban tools that can cause grave and serious harm then why not just ban Humanism, Marxism, Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Nihilism, Existentialism, Post-Modernism, etc. and all forms of nutcase occultism? (Let’s throw in Roman Catholicism, Pentecostalism, R2K’ism, Dispensationalism, and Baptist-ism just to be really safe.)

Of course, tools are only as good as the people handling the tools and with some tools, unlike guns, (see list in paragraph above) it is not possible to handle them safely. I’d rather my grandchildren go hunting with the two nutcases that shot up Columbine High School (if that were possible) than sit in a classroom with a typical University educated school teacher or sit in church under a typical Seminary-trained minister. I’ll take my chances with the guns.

Solzhenitsyn, McAtee Warn Against Propositional Nationhood

“But the world had never before known a godlessness as organized, militarized, and tenaciously malevolent as that practiced by Marxism. Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin, and at the heart of their psychology, hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions. Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy; it is not a side effect, but the central pivot. To achieve its diabolical ends. Communism needs to control a population devoid of religious and national feeling, and this entails the destruction of faith and nationhood. Communists proclaim both of these objectives openly, and just as openly go about carrying them out.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Harvard Address

The Soviet Union was the first propositional nation of the 20th century and its chief proposition that was required of all men to believe was, “There is no God,” and its second was like unto it, “There is no nationality.” The Communists denied race. They denied ethnicity. They denied religion. The new Soviet Man had allegiance only to the Soviet State and its propositions. There were no Estonians … No Ukrainians, No Georgians, No Muslims, No Christians … only the Soviet Comrade existed. Above the Soviets “was only sky … and no religion to.”

A propositional nation, is, by definition a slave colony because if it is required of you to believe the propositions of the said propositional nation you are no longer free to have loyalties that are contrary to the propositions to which your primary allegiance belongs. A propositional nation is a slave colony because in a propositional nation you are not allowed to have any loyalties higher than the state. Whatever propositions the state advances, even if they are propositions that are counter to your religious convictions about the nature of Marriage (Obergefell vs. Hodges anyone?) –as just one example — you as the slave are obligated to embrace those state-sanctioned propositions or risk not being thought of as a member of the propositional nation. If your loyalties to your family, or your place, or your faith are higher than your loyalties to the propositions that make up the propositional nation then you are for all intents and purposes outside the law. In a propositional nation, one is a slave to the propositions that the state seeks to advance or one is for all intents and purposes an outlaw.

Solzhenitsyn wrote about the phenomenon of the “non-person.” These were the people who dared disagree with the Soviet propositions. They were also the people who were sent off to the Gulag Archipelago. Only once one was in the Gulag did the idea of identity by propositions waned;

“Before the camps, I regarded the existence of nationality as something that shouldn’t be noticed—nationality did not really exist, only humanity. But in the camps one learns: if you belong to a successful nation you are protected and you survive. If you are part of universal humanity—too bad for you.”

This teaches us to beware anyone who comes to you insisting either explicitly or implicitly that a chief truth — a chief proposition — about Christianity that must be believed by all Christians everywhere is that for the Christians all their previous identities of race, family, and national religion disappear once they are converted. This is just Communism going under the brand of Christianity.

One cannot be a citizen of the world. Identity is local. Identity is the characteristic of a people who have inhabited a land over a sustained period of time, who have developed certain collective habits, evident in such realities as their religious bonds, their manners, their dress, the feasts they collectively enjoy, their language, their High days, their statuary, poetry music, and art, and the premium they put on teaching their children to think like them.

Rudyard Kipling captures this,

God gave all men all earth to love

But, since our hearts are small

Ordained for each one spot should prove

Beloved over all …

When the neo-cons and their barely educated clergy corps in America blather about this being a propositional nation, just keep in mind that they are serving up the same dish as Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. Next remember that the propositions, and their interpretations of them, are exactly contrary to Biblical Christianity.