Windows Into Worldviews

Of Sanctification In Dog Breeds On A Narnian Like Planet

Once upon a time on a Narnian like planet there were three breeds of dogs. There were the Beagle breed, the Yorkie breed and the Pitbull breed. Now, everyone agreed that these were all dogs but at the same time everyone agreed that they were not all the same kinds of dogs. Only a very few people insisted that the idea of Yorkie, Pitbull and Beagle were social constructs, though those people did exist and lobbied very diligently to force the rest of the world to agree with them that breed really made very little difference since all dogs were the same. These folks were do-gooders and very often Christians who couldn’t imagine that God would create dog breeds to be different. They couldn’t imagine that God would delight in dog breed diversity. They refused to countenance that the Yorkie, the Beagle, and the Pitbull were very different kinds of dogs even if they were all dogs.

Now, the Pitbull over the course of their existence was understood by countless numbers of people to be a mean, aggressive and vicious animal. That was its nature. It is the way God created it. There were even studies done that statistically demonstrated that the Pitbull breed was demonstrably different in its nature than the Yorkie or the Beagle. Despite what was evident to the eye and what was objectively proven via measuring Pitbull crime stats and IQ ability, there were people who insisted that the Pitbull was the same as the Yorke and the Beagle. They insisted that a dog is a dog is a dog is a dog.

These folks also insist when it comes to sanctification for dogs that the sanctifier has an affirmative action program for Pitbulls since they start out further behind in acceptable behavior than the Yorkie or the Beagle before conversion. The sanctifier thus gooses the factor level of sanctification for the Pitbulls knowing that they need a little bit more sanctification juice in order to become equal (the same) with the Yorkie and the Pitbull.

Now, a strange thing happened to some of the individual Pitbulls in the Pitbull breed in this alternate Narnian like universe in which all this took place. In this Narnian like universe all dog breeds could possibly experience ongoing progressive sanctification. For those people who insisted that all dog breeds are the same they concluded that because Pitbulls, Yorkies, and Beagles could be sanctified that therefore the effect of sanctification on Pitbulls, Yorkies, and Beagles would have the same even impact across all breeds so that sanctified Christian Pitbulls, sanctified Christian Yorkies and sanctified Christian Beagles would become indecipherable in terms of disposition and behavior. Many people started taking their sanctified Christian Pitbulls out to hunt rabbits along with the Beagles while at the same time insisting that Pitbulls were just as cute as Yorkies.

For these people the grace in sanctification destroyed the nature of all three Breeds so that they no longer were distinguishable. These believers in egalitarian sanctification thought that the Holy Spirit could sanctify a Pitbull so as to result in a Pitbull being sanctified so as to be the same as a sanctified Beagle or sanctified Yorkie. As it turned out in our Narnian like Universe many of the clergy recited loudly as a chorus of Rev. Dufflepods, “Nature goes away with Grace,” and “sanctification takes away innate dispositions,” and “A Beagle is a Yorkie is a Pitbull not only before sanctification but especially after sanctification.” Rev. Wilson Dufflepod and Rev. White Dufflepod were the most excitable of all the clergy dufflepods in singing;

Imagine there’s no breeds
It’s easy if you try
No innate dispositions in us
Genetics can be liquified
Imagine all the dog breeds bein’ all the same
Ah, ah, ah-ah

Imagine a sanctification
That makes a Pitbull coo
A Beagel’s now a bird-dog
And Yokies, hunt them too
Imagine all the doggies being all the same
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
Pushing a sanctification that’s this much fun

Imagine no innate behavior
I wonder if you can
Everything is malleable
Nothing fixed upon to stand
Imagine all the species becoming now all one
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
Pushing a sanctification that’s this much fun

There were a handful of people who stood up and insisted that there was a boatload of “The Emperor Has No Clothes” reasoning going on as among the egalitarian “all dogs breeds are the same after sanctification” crowd. These folks understood that while Pitbulls could be sanctified they would never be sanctified so as to become the same breed with the same disposition as the Yorkie or Beagle. Sanctification might well make a Pitbull the best Pitbull he could be but it would never make a Pitbull to be a Yorkie or a Beagle. The Pitbull breed, the Beagle breed, and the Yorkie breed would all have to be satisfied that God in His infinite wisdom causes breeds to differ and causes some breeds to have ten talents, while other breeds only have five talents or one talent.

And that’s a good thing since God loves diversity… even after sanctification.

Interview With James Edwards — Political Cesspool 17 May 2025

James Edwards: Please inform our readers about your educational background and provide some details about the church you pastor.

Pastor Bret McAtee:

My educational background is undergrad work @ Indiana Wesleyan University. When I attended there it was called “Marion College.” I graduated with a BS in Political-Science, Religion-Philosophy, and History. While there I did a great deal of work in Worldview thinking and presuppositionalism under the guidance of Dr. Glenn Martin, who was himself a worldwide leader in Worldview thinking and presuppositionalism at the time.

After that I attended Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina at Columbia Biblical Seminary. I received my M.Div there with an emphasis on Cross Cultural ministry which was a natural fit with what I had learned in undergrad in terms of Worldview thinking and presuppositionalism.

Finally, I did Ph. D. work at Whitfield Theological Seminary though I never finished that degree. However, the reading I did there likewise supported the trajectory that I had already pursued.

At each step of the way I was reading tons of theology, history, political theology, economics, comparative religions, Worldview thinking and presuppositonalism.

The Church I ministering at currently is an Independent Reformed Church. We left connected denominationalism six years ago. I have been here 30 years. We are a small but vibrant congregation. The Church itself has existed just over 60 years. We abide by the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession of Faith, and the Canons of Dort believing that they are accurate summaries of the basics of Scripture. We are a bit of a throwback compared to most contemporary Reformed Churches. We are decidedly Reformed in our theology. We are postmillennial in our eschatology, Christian Nationalist and familialistic in our social order understanding, we strongly emphasize the means of grace (Word & Sacrament) and we adhere to a rich covenant theology.

Edwards: The Southern Poverty Law Center, a widely criticized organization, publicly targeted you and your church a few years ago, resulting in significant media attention. Can you share your experience during that ordeal and how you responded to the attacks?

Pastor Bret McAtee:

First of all I have always found it to be hilarious that the #1 hate group in American (the SPLC) has gotten away with being known as that organization that identifies and labels extremist groups in America. It is pretty well known now that man who was the leader of that organization for years himself was tossed because of various unseemly actions on his part towards female employees and minorities as reported by various news outlets.

I would like to say that I handled the attacks with no problem but that wouldn’t be the truth. It was a very difficult time because not only was the SPLC lambasting us but also the Michigan media was splashing our name everywhere with their false and slanderous accusations. So my experience was one of despair at the time. I thought for sure that those people were going to bring myself, my family, and the families in the Church to ruin. That was definitely their intent. As a result of their libelous “reporting” I received multiple death threats. There was also slight vandalism to our church building. I also found myself denounced publicly in the local press by more than a few clergy members in the city in which I live. These clergy members were seeking to burnish their reputations by slandering me. It is interesting that not one of these local ministers ever reached out to me to ask me about the truthfulness of what was being reported. They just believed the constantly repeated errant reports from radio, television, and newspapers.

The way I responded was two fold …

1.) I refused to talk to Journalist, despite the numerous requests for interviews. Those people are never interested in the truth. They are only interested in spinning things to support the false narrative that they are seeking to weave.

2.) I took down my public online activity for a few months until the storm passed. I did that because the media had already been quoting my work completely out of context and I knew that if I left it up during the storm that they would continue with their libelous reporting where they cut and paste what one has written in such a way to make it say what one was not saying.

Edwards: Mel Gibson’s father, Hutton, once told me during an interview on my radio program that, “Tolerance is the last virtue of a depraved society. When an immoral society has blatantly and proudly violated all the commandments, it insists upon one last virtue: tolerance for its immorality. It will not tolerate condemnation of its perversions. It creates a whole new world in which only the intolerant critic of intolerable evil is evil.” What do you think?

Pastor Bret McAtee:

I think that tolerance is the battle cry for the person who uses the idea of freedom as a cover for licentiousness. So, on this point I think Hutton Gibson is correct. Freedom, or liberty, is only as good as that standard by which it is hemmed in and defined. Absolute unrestricted freedom is the kind of thing that the French Revolution era sexual pervert “the Marquis de Sade” advocated for, dreamt about, and practiced. A tolerance for absolute freedom or liberty without any guardrails to define that freedom is a illustrated by a railroad train that is free to travel without railroad tracks, or a goldfish who is free to swim without his goldfish bowl.

This reminds me of what I often say to the people I serve in the Church I pastor. I tell them that the only Taboo that is now left in the west is the Taboo against all Taboos. That is true because of what Hutton observed about where we are at with the issue of tolerance.

Another reality that fits in here is that because of the ascendancy of tolerance we are repeatedly told over and over again that we are not to judge, and of course the reason people insist that we shouldn’t judge is because judging shows a lack of tolerance. Yet, Jesus Himself did say;

“Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”

And elsewhere the Holy Spirit tells us;

Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!

We see thus that Scripture does not teach this idea of tolerance as some kind of supreme virtue. Now Christianity has always taught there are areas of adiaphora — or issues regarding this or that which are indifferent or permissible that not everyone will agree on but not everything is adiaphora.

In the end when you come right down to it, the worship of tolerance is consistent with the central Satanic doctrine of “Thelema” crafted by that most famous warlock of the 20th century, “Aleister Crowley” which explicitly teaches, “Do what thou wilt.“

Edwards: During the madness of the COVID era, you once again consistently demonstrated your pastoral leadership. What was the position of your church during the height of that hysteria?

Pastor Bret McAtee:

We kept our doors open and never closed. We did try to be careful with our seating and the way we distributed the Eucharist. We decided to keep our doors open because I had a pretty good friend who is a statistics guy. It is what he does for a living. Michael was telling me and others that statistically speaking what was being reported as occurring was not statistically possible. Now, I know next to nothing about statistics but I knew that Michael was a man who could be trusted. Second, I caught a long piece by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya online. Bhattacharya, who is now head of the National Institute of Health — and who Fauci, Collins and company tried to destroy during the scamdemic — was clearly communicating that something was significantly off with what was being reported on the scamdemic. So, I combined these two pieces of information with my long established distrust of anything and everything that the Federal Government says and I along with the Elders decided to keep our doors open.

Edwards: Switching gears to a current issue, when asked by a reporter why Afrikaners are getting fast-tracked into the United States, President Trump replied, “Because they’re being killed…it’s a genocide…they happen to be white.” However, a recent NPR headline states, “The Episcopal Church will not settle white Afrikaners, citing moral opposition.” How do you respond to this issue?

Pastor Bret McAtee:

First, I would say that I don’t take the Episcopal Church to be a genuine Church. I have no doubt there are likely Christians in their fellowship but Institutionally the Church long ago left the Christian faith exchanging the truth of Christianity for the doctrines of demons.

Second, President Trump is exactly correct on this matter. What is being done to white farmers in South Africa matches the New World Order’s desire to treat all white people (especially Christians) in all the Western nations in the same fashion. Rev. R. L. Dabney said over 150 years ago that the intent of the New World Order types was to subjugate the Christian white man so there would no longer be any need for the New World Order types “to tremble before the righteous resistance of … freemen.”

Third, I think this also teaches us, what many of us knew back in the 1980s when Apartheid was an issue, and that is that the Apartheid that was practiced in South Africa (which was of a more benign variety than that which is currently practiced in Israel with the Palestinians) was a necessity in order to provide functional social order in that nation. If your readers have any doubt about this have them read Iliana Mercer’s, “Into The Cannibal’s Pot.”

Finally, the Episcopalian Church’s “moral opposition” proves a couple truths. It proves that the Episcopal Church’s morality is the morality of the Marxists. What do I care about the moral opposition of a Marxist organization? Second, it proves that what is called “replacement conspiracy” is not a conspiracy. Clearly, there is a global wide attempt to replace white people.

We should note here that this attempt to destroy white people is, in point of fact, a proxy war on the Kingship and authority of Jesus Christ. The NWO – of which many if not most Church denominations are in league with (even “conservative” denominations) – is going after white people because, historically speaking, white people have been the carriers of civilizational Christianity. Because the NWO so hates Christ, they are seeking to genocide that race which has, by God’s favor alone, been the race to build Christian civilization. Ultimately this is a religious war against Christianity and so penultimately a racial war on whites since whites have uniquely been that race to build Christian civilization across the globe.

Edwards: What is your general stance on immigration, and the alleged sins of “racism” and “xenophobia”?

Pastor Bret McAtee:

At this point in history I am completely against all immigration – legal and illegal. History teaches me that these united States were formed to be a Christian white nation. The kind of immigration that we have taken up since the Hart-Cellar immigration act of 1965 has clearly been destructive of the nation in which I grew up. When I was a boy these united States were populated with 88% of the folks identifying as white. Today that number, is somewhere in the 61% area. The result — especially seen in our cities — is an increasing balkanization of America into tribal fiefdoms. In Michigan, for example, the Muslim Arabs basically own Dearborn and the surrounding area. In some Minnesota cities the Somalia community is overwhelming. The same is true of Lewiston – Auburn Maine. This kind of balkanization – both of race and religion – is a recipe for complete social order breakdown. I am convinced this is intended to the purpose of strengthening the position of a tyrant state. If civil unrest is a constant, the tyrant state believes that it is the only entity that can pretend to bring order. So, all this ridiculous immigration is purposeful and the purpose is ultimately to build a New World Order where nations as defined as, a particular people descended from the same ancestor, are eliminated. From a minister’s perspective that looks a great deal like a revised attempt to rebuild the wicked tower of Babel (Genesis 11). Our New World Order enemies want to build a “United States of the World.” It is just pure globalism.

As to the alleged sins of “racism” and “xenophobia,” as those words are commonly defined and tossed around today, I would say that they are not sins I find in the Scripture. The whole idea of “racism” was popularized by a Marxist (Leon Trotsky) in order to villainize the Slavs for wanting to maintain their distinct culture. The word serves the same kind of purpose today. Secondly, the phoniness of “racism” is also seen in the fact that only white people can be “racists.” If “racism” was really a thing then nobody would have a problem attaching the same label to some non-white person. I mean, it’s not like there aren’t tons of minorities who hate white people.

Racism is conveniently now defined as prejudice plus power. If that is the definition of “racism” then I don’t have any problem being a “racist.” Let me explain. I have a prejudice towards my wife, children and grandchildren. I also have the power to do for them before I do for other people’s wives, children, and grandchildren. I have power plus prejudice and I use that for the good and health of my family. Now if that makes me a “racist” then that is a good thing to be. However, all because I prioritize my people doesn’t mean I hate everybody else. It merely means that since I am a finite being with finite resources I have to prioritize where my resources are to be used. We see this idea taught in the Bible where it says “the man who does not provide for his own household is worse than an infidel.”

In the same way my love for my family, and people doesn’t mean I am xenophobic towards the stranger and the alien. It merely means, to quote Kipling,

The Stranger within my gates,
He may be evil or good,
But I cannot tell what powers control–
What reasons sway his mood;
Nor when the Gods of his far-off land
Shall repossess his blood.

The men of my own stock,
Bitter bad they may be,
But, at least, they hear the things I hear,
And see the things I see;
And whatever I think of them and their likes
They think of the likes of me.

By the way, all of this is Biblical. If people want to read more on the Biblical justification for what I’ve written here on Immigration I suggest they read; James K. Hoffmeier’s; “The Immigration Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens, and the Bible.”

Edwards: In a recent sermon, you spoke about so-called white guilt. What is it about this phenomenon that you think people should know?

Pastor Bret McAtee:,

White Americans as a people are increasingly turning away from the God who called us and blessed us. For Christians this means that increasingly as we rebel against God we are a sinful and guilty people. The only way that sin and guilt can be removed is by looking to Jesus Christ and trusting His death on the Cross as the just payment for our sin and the removal of our guilt. If we refuse to trust Jesus Christ’s death on the cross as the satisfaction in our place for our sin and guilt then that means we continue to carry that sin and guilt.

Now if we don’t bow to Jesus Christ this means that we will forever be seeking to do what only He can do and that is to seek to get rid of the sin and guilt that we know that we are riddled with. In the attempt to rid ourselves of our own sin and guilt we only have two options if we will not place our sins on Jesus Christ. We can either try to carry our sin and guilt ourselves (which is a form of masochism) or we can try to push off our sin and guilt on other people (which is a form of sadism). Now, along come the race pimps and they bombard us with the allegation that the white man is guilty of “racism.” Now, of course that is not true generally speaking, but as the white man is already guilt ridden because he has not owned Christ as his deliverer from sin and guilt he masochistically owns that false guilt pushed on him by the manipulative race pimp and tries to pay for it himself by voting for black people, or by falling all over himself apologizing for whatever it is the race pimps want to blame white folks for. If the white man would trust Christ again, there would be no ability for the race pimps to shove off on the white man all this false guilt. However, since the white man has abandoned Jesus Christ, and as such is indeed carrying true moral sin and guilt it is easy for the white man to masochistically just accept whatever false guilt is thrown his way by the race pimps and then to accept whatever solution to that false guilt that the current race pimps want to lay at their door. By accepting this false guilt, and the race pimp’s solution to false guilt the white man thinks that he can atone for his own sin instead of trusting Jesus Christ as the only means by which true sin and guilt can be removed and forgiveness discovered.

If you’re reading this and you have not trusted Jesus Christ as your alone savior then you will forever being carrying around sin and guilt and you will forever either try to pay for it yourself or you will forever try to pawn off your sin and guilt on someone else. The former leads to self-destructive behavior. The latter explains the incredible increase that we have seen in narcissistic behavior in recent years.

But for the sake of argument let us posit that the white man really is uniquely guilty and sinful as to the black man. (I don’t believe this but this is all for the sake of the argument.) Well, in the Christian world that would be solved by restitution. In the Christian world when one sins against another restitution between people is provided. However, even here the white man has no guilt because the restitution that has been provided for the black man with welfare programs, quota legislation, set asides, and other egalitarian legislation which has more than made up for any restitution that might have ever been required by Scripture.

Edwards: Many churches today are dying because they alienate men, who are the natural spiritual leaders of families. Such churches, with their inconsistent positions on race and immigration, demand that the saving grace of Christ comes attached at the hip with feminized leadership. The famed Southern Presbyterian theologian R. L. Dabney essentially warned in his time that a reasonable person would reject such a ridiculous practice of religion out of hand, meaning the very best people would be alienated from Christianity. Does this even qualify as a gospel, when any sane person must reject the suicidal package offered by these churches?

Pastor Bret McAtee:

No… there is very little Christianity in most of our Churches in the West today. I am thankful that there remain a handful of faithful ministers but to be honest the Church is in sad shape today because the clergy is so brain dead. There is little ability to take the abstractions of the Christian faith and translate them into concrete application and action. R. L. Dabney’s book “Secular Discussions” is worth its weight in gold because of how practical that book makes the Christian faith. R. J. Rushdoony was also another chap who had the ability to show how the abstractions of the Christian faith could be translated into concrete situations. I highly recommend both authors as well as Herman Bavinck who also had this ability.

We do have a problem today with more than a few white folks giving up on the Christian faith because they have witnessed what you describe in the opening question. They look at that and say; “If that is Christianity, I want nothing to do with it.” Frankly, I can’t blame them for looking elsewhere. However, the truth is, is that much of what is currently presented as Christianity is Anti-Christ. I would have nothing to do with a church that has pastorettes or female Elders. I would have nothing to do with a church that diminishes the importance of patriarchy. I would have nothing to do with a church that pushes egalitarianism in any way. I would have nothing to do with a church that hates prioritizing love of family (Ordo Amoris) over love of the stranger and alien. I would have nothing to do with a church that is purposefully trying to push interracial marriages. I would have nothing to do with them because I don’t think they are churches, or if they are churches they are churches that belong to Antichrists.

You would not believe all the phone calls I get from around the US and around the world from people lamenting that they can’t find a church to attend because of these kinds of issues. It breaks my heart as a Pastor. It breaks my heart even more as one who loves Jesus Christ. Why should His church be in such a sad shape? Yet, God has His reasons and our orders are not to despair but our orders are to fight.

Edwards: Rev. A. W. Tozer may have put it best when he wrote, “Religion today is not transforming people; rather, it is being transformed by the people. It is not raising the moral level of society; it is descending to society’s own level and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smilingly accepting its surrender.” Can believers return to a muscular brand of Christianity that served the West well for so long?

Bret responds,

I love Tozer. I read everything he wrote when I was in my 20s. One quote I love by him is; “God raises the prophet up, and the Church mows him down.” Oh, and by the way, Tozer was a Kinist. I have the quotes to prove it.

Being optimistic in my eschatology (I am postmillennial) I do believe that believers can return to a muscular brand of Christianity that made the Christian West the greatest civilization that has ever existed in the history of mankind. On this we have to consider;
.
1.) Scripture teaches that “All those who hate Wisdom (Christ) love death.” I conclude from that, that those fighting Biblical Christianity as thus fighting for death and as death is never a proposition that can ultimately win, since dying means losing, therefore Christianity, which is the only faith upon which a non-death civilization can be built — will be restored.

2.) Scripture teaches that Christ must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. This teaches me that a day will come, before the return of Jesus Christ in His final advent, when the all the nations will be vassal states to the current Dominion of Jesus Christ. This is why the OT Psalm 2 teaches that the Kings must kiss the Son lest they perish in the way.

3.) Further the Scripture teaches us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I am persuaded that our Lord Jesus would not have taught the disciples to pray something that would never come true. Now combine that with Jesus own statement that the gates of Hell would not prevail over an attack Church army and I know with certainty that muscular Christianity will one day be hegemonic once again. Maybe not in my lifetime but before Christ returns.

One thing we have to keep in mind is that we must not despair. Our orders are to occupy until He returns. In that line one of my favorite poems has become;

My Orders are to fight
Then if I win
Or bravely fail
What matters it?
Only God doth prevail

The Servant craveth nought
Except to serve with might
I was not told to win
Or Lose
My Orders are to fight

Edwards: If readers are struggling to find a faithful congregation in their community that has not surrendered to the “woke” agenda, how can they enjoy your Sunday messages, whether in person or online?

McAtee:

Well, live we meet Sunday mornings @ 10:00 am at 421 State Street, Charlotte., Michigan. We also have Worldview meetings on every other Friday evening and we teach covenant classes to the children on every other Thursday. This year is winding down but through this month we have a class on The American War of Independence and another class on Civics/US Constitution and my wife teaches a third class on herbs.

They can watch live on Sundays online at

https://ironsermons.org/

They can also access us through Sermonaudio.com and there are youtube.com sermons online.

I also run and operate both IronInk.com where I give analysis on all kinds of different issues. Finally there is Iron Rhetoric podcasts which can be found on both Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

The Racial Casting Of The Gladiator II – A Film Review (Spoiler Alert)

I am a bit of a film buff. Part of the reason for that is that film is so influential in our culture in shaping worldviews. As such, I like to view films to see what exact paganism is being communicated by writers, directors, and producers in our films.

For quite some time now a large part of my analysis of films is racial. That is I look for what race is being cast into what role and then ask “why was that racial profile cast into that particular role?” When one does that one can often see how routinely white people are being replaced in our myth telling. Also, white people often play the villain or doofus part in Hollywood films with minorities playing the hero roles who stop the bad guy white man. A classic example of this was the remake of the Magnificent 7 which found Denzel Washington playing the chief good guy minority coming to the rescue of a bunch of sheep white townspeople. Denzel Washington, in that film is joined by a bevy of 3 other minorities (A Mexican gunslinger, an Injun outcast, and a Chinaman knife specialist), along with a coward White Southerner (who finally finds his courage at the very end of the film), a White right hand man who is always picking on the Mexican minority gunslinger and a White Mountain man who is clearly portrayed as a Jesus freak who hates injuns.

Recently, a film that did not receive particularly good reviews, seemed to find a anti-Woke, pro White message. That film was “Gladiator 2.” Once again we find Denzel Washington in a key role in the film but this time Washington ends up playing a villain whose death, at the hands of the white hero of the film, ends up re-establishing the heroic White man as the head of a renewed Roman Civilization.

If one interprets “The Gladiator 2” through this racial prism it is not a wonder that it was given such bad ratings. Interpreted via a racial grid the film suggests that while minorities almost overthrow white civilization in the end they fail after white man embraces his heritage identity.

The film gives us a Rome that has white twin brother Emperors who are both obviously effeminate with one obviously sodomite. These twins are destroying white Roman civilization with their perverted excesses. At one point in the film one brother says of the other brother; “the sickness in his loins as gone to his brain.” Clearly, the message of the film to this point is that the white man has lost his way as seen in this perversion and its wicked colonizing of other nations. As the film opens Rome is attacking Numidia. A famous Numidian of the era “Juguruth” has been cast as a black man and the white Romans make the injured “Juguruth” a gladiator and kill him off in a battle in the Coliseum.

The character that Denzel Washington plays connives to murder the twin white effeminate Emperor brothers so that he might become the ruler of all of Rome. Washington’s character’s (Macrinus) murder of the white Roman emperors is particularly vicious and looks a great deal like the violence we see today by blacks against whites.

The Denzel Washington character (Macrinus) is through and through Machiavellian in his rise to power. First Macrinus outwits a stupid White Senator to get into position to get next to the effeminate Emperors and then he outwits the whole white Senate as well as the effeminate Emperors so as to be on the cusp of ruling white Rome.

Much as where the West is now, the white man in the film has become feminized and minorities look to seize the throne from the white man with his effeminate leadership.

However, hope blooms because there remain some white Romans who retain their heritage white identity. The heroes in the film are two white men and a white woman. The son of Maximus (and Grandson of Marcus Aurelius) from the first Gladiator film, (Lucius Verus Aurelius) is a man of integrity and is opposed to both the white effeminate brother Emperors and the black gladiator entrepreneur (Washington’s character) who is seeking to rule Rome. Joining Lucius in the attempt to stop the bad guy Emperors and Macrinus (the Black character) is a Roman General (Acacius) who has done the bidding of the effeminate white brother Emperors in conquering countless nations but has hated them every step of the way for how they have ruined Rome with their sexual perversion and invading of other nations.

These two men are joined by the mother of Lucius Verus Aurelias and wife of Acacius — a white woman with the character name, “Lucilla.” Like every major character in the film she hates the white effeminate Emperor brothers and she plots their overthrow. Lucilla and Acacius end up giving up their lives in order to overthrow the effeminate Emperors in hopes that Lucius will reign because of his royal bloodline. However neither know that Macrinus is about to seize power. It is left to Lucius to defeat the evil bisexual black man (Macrinus) in order for white rule to be maintained over white Rome. In the mano vs. mano final battle Lucius kills Macrinus while all of the white Roman army looks on waiting for who they will follow.

In this film the bisexual black man (Macrinus) is cast as the chief villain who is seeking to kill off white rule so that he can rule over the white empire of Rome. However, the film, while clearly showing how vile and stupid white rule in Rome has become, still suggests that minority rule can be stopped by the rise of two white men and a white woman who still retain their original white Roman heritage identity.

It is not a wonder why the ratings were so low for this film.

On Building Basic Reality Maps or Striving To Be Epistemologically Self-Conscious

“The only reasonable approach to understanding the world is to read old books, build a basic reality map from the old models, and then use your reality map to navigate the deluge of new content.”

I saw this quoted on TwitteX, though there was no author cited. Of course C.S. Lewis also famously said something similar when he offered the palliative to overcoming the current intelligentsia zeitgeist was;

“to keep the clean breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.”

I basically agree with this though I would like to add a twist. The twist has to do with the opening quote with its talk about building a basic reality map in order to provide a kind of map key to understanding the ongoing conversation.

It is true that reading old books is key to rising above the fog of the current intellectual scheme. However, I would add that not only reading old books is key but every bit as important is reading books that deals with the history and progress of ideas. Some have referred to this as reading widely and deeply in Intellectual and Social History. Old books will present one to new ideas that challenge the current zeitgeist but books dealing with the history of ideas allows one to see the how ideas have arisen and fallen in history and how those ideas have impacted men and historical movements.

Of course any book dealing with the History of Ideas is only as good as the beginning point and Weltanschauung of the author. As such, one will have to read more than a few books by different authors on the history of ideas. Once one begins to understand the workings of ideas and how they influence men and cultures one can find some traction in building a mental reality map that can be used in order to understand other mental maps when one encounters them. By building one’s own mental reality map one reinterprets all reality through that reality grid and is not themselves reinterpreted by unfiltered and unknown ideas that could well be alien to the Christian faith.

Having a well functioning mental reality map also helps in knowing how to frame an argument. I have often thought it is like a surgeon knowing which size scalpel (blade) to use for a necessary incision. If we have a understandable reality map and if we know how different ideas work then we are prepared to analyze almost any argument we encounter as well as knowing how to best frame an argument.

However, none of this does any good unless we first have our own mental reality map by which to navigate the wild seas of the intellectual zeitgeist. To try to be somewhat concrete here I am arguing that as Christians we have to have the mental reality map that can identify someone advancing, for example, Mysticism, Romanticism/Transcendentalism, Deism, Monism, Nihilism, Gnosticism, Darwinism, Spencerism, Existentialism, Phenomenology, Postmodernism, etc. This sounds intimidating and of course it does take some time and practice but it really is not as difficult as it might first sound to build a Christ honoring reality map.

It helps to know at the outset that once worldviews are boiled down to their essence there exists really only two worldviews, though there are countless variants to those two worldviews. There is the Christian World and life view and there is the Humanist world and life view. There are only two and there can be no others, though, once again, the variations can be endless. For example, within Christianity the different variations are Reformed, Lutheranism, Baptist, Holiness Churches, Pentecostal, etc. The purest version of the Christian World life view is non-Baptistic Calvinism. All other variations are weakened because they have in their systems some admixture of humanism and so are inconsistent and often incoherent. Still, a epistemologically self conscious Pentecostal is going to have a worldview that they understand is on a collision course with Existentialism (for example). Well, at least I think they would. I’ll let you know if I ever meet an epistemologically self-conscious Pentecostal.

As we keep building our basic reality maps over the course of our lives (and it is a lifetime adventure) we become better equipped to demolish arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and to take every thought captive to obey Christ.

It should to without saying that this basic reality map cannot be restricted or contained to any one sphere of thought. Basic reality maps are by necessity totalistic. That is, basic reality maps map out every area of life. Of course this means that all “Christian” dualisms that arise are going to be ruled as a basic reality map that is spurious. (Yes, R2K, I am looking at you.)

When we begin to get our basic reality map down then every book we read, every lecture we listen to, every conversation, every bit of music becomes both subject to our basic reality map and potentially a new bit of information to add to our basic reality map.

Now, returning to old books, they can be helpful in all this because they are going to be written according to a reality map that we likely are not going to see much of any longer, though, and this is important, old books can easily be just as full of errors as recent books — only as coming from a different direction than what we might be used to seeing in our own thought conditioned age. For example, reading Aquinas might be profitable for someone with a muscular basic reality map, but it will ruin someone whose reality map is not yet mature. (I’ll get in trouble for that observation.) Still, even if you don’t like my example, you can think of other examples that might prefer. A more acceptable example might be spending time reading Lyman Beecher — who if taken seriously would really scrooge up anybody’s basic reality map.

In the end, it is not the age of the book that matters so much as the ideas that are being presented. The advantage of old books is that they could well present to us ideas that are now obsolete given the fact that idea grids come and go in terms of popularity.

As an aside here, it is because basic reality maps are now in flux and changing that accounts for so much of the conflict in what is thought of as being the conservative church. The basic reality map that guided the era of the Enlightenment, advancing in muscularity so that it found its greatest strength in what is now called “the Post-War consensus,” is being ripped up by a younger generation who has come to see the falsity of many aspect of that basic reality map. Naturally enough, I see some of that as exceptionally good and some of what is being offered by way the new reality maps replacing the old as horrid.

Good old books that help in building good basic reality maps;

Augustine – The City of God
Augustine – De Magistro
Athanasius – On The Incarnation
Francis Turretin – Elenctic Theology (3 volumes)
Jean-Henri Merle d’Aubigné – History of the Reformation
John Calvin – Institutes of Christian Religion
Johannes Althusius – Politica
Samuel Rutherford – Lex Rex
Martin Luther – Bondage of the Will
John Owen – The Death of Death in the Death of Christ
Erasmus – In Praise of Folly
John Bunyan – Pilgrim’s Progress
John Milton – Paradise Lost
Three Forms of Unity / Westminster Confession

Authors tracing the history and/or impact of ideas that help in building good basic reality maps

Harold Berman – Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (Two Volumes)
Gordon H. Clark -Thales to Dewey / A Christian View of Men & Things
C. Greg Singer – From Rationalism to Irrationality
Stow Persons – American Minds: A History of Ideas
Glen Martin – Prevailing Worldviews of Western Society Since 1500
Francis Nigel Lee – Communist Eschatology
Erik Von Kuehnelt-Leddihin – Leftism Revisited: From De Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot / Liberty or Equality: The Challenge of Our Times
Henry Van Til – The Calvinistic Concept of Culture
David Naugle – Worldview; The History of A Concept
J. Gresham Machen – Christianity and Liberalism
Cornelius Van Til – The New Modernism
R. L. Dabney – Secular Discussions
R. J. Rushdoony – The One & The Many / Institutes of Biblical Law
Colin E. Gunton – The One, the Three and the Many: God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity / The 1992 Bampton Lectures
John Frame – History of Western Philosophy and Theology
Carroll Quigley – Tragedy and Hope

Clearly, I can’t give an exhaustive list and there are many other books that need to be on these lists.

Addressing the Issue of Worldview With Jon Harris; A Conversation That Matters

We pause in examining the Mahler vs. Rosebrough debate to consider a 12 minute video that Jon Harris put out. Harris is a somewhat popular Christian podcaster and author that has joined the recent wave of Natural Law chaps to tut tut against the concept of worldview. In this video that I am responding (it’s on TwitteX) Harris explains why he no longer uses the term “Worldview” and in explaining that he is at the same time advocating to others that they perhaps should also give up on the reality of Worldview thinking.

Now, I am a convinced believer in the reality of Worldview. I was first exposed to the idea when I was a Freshman in Undergrad and I have pursued it and studied it and employed it ever since. I’ve read a great percentage of the material written on it as coming from the various Worldview schools and naturally enough I think Harris is dreadfully wrong here. Also, naturally enough, I have an interest in repudiating the dreadfully bad arguments that are now routinely raised against it. I am convinced that Worldview thinking is an inescapable reality. That is to say that I believe that this is the way that all people think.

I would submit the following few volumes that demonstrates convincingly that Worldview thinking is inescapable;

Thomas Kuhn — “Structures in Scientific Revolutions”
Vern Poythress — “Science and Hermeneutics”
Peter Novick — “That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity Question’ and the American Historical Profession”

First, Harris complains about the teaching in Worldview thinking that there is no such thing as a bare naked fact so that all facts are interpreted facts. Jon just doesn’t think that is true. The classic examples that suggests Jon is in error here is the discovery of a fossil as made by a two man team comprised of a Darwinian Evolutionist (DE) and a Christian Creationist (CC). The DE looks at this fossil they both discovered and concludes that this fossil is 100s of millions of years old and is a classic proof substantiating Darwinian Evolution. The CC, on the other hand, looks at the very same fossil and concludes that this fossil demonstrates that the earth is young and that God created in 6 days all good.

Now, the fossil is the fossil. It has not changed. What the difference between this duo of paleontologists is not the fact of the fossil they have before them. The difference is the different Worldview that each man adheres to before they were introduced to the fossil. The fossil is a fact to be sure but it is a different fact depending on the Worldview of the person examining the fact. Thus, we see that Jon is wrong and that all facts though they are facts in and of themselves can only be be facts as they are indeed interpreted as facts in keeping with the Worldview grid that appraises them.

Now, we are faced with the problem of “common notions,” that Jon brings up. Jon seems to think that both believers and unbelievers can have common notions. It is surprising to me given the cultural atmosphere that we live in that Jon would want to argue for common notions because if ever a time existed to prove that the idea of common notions should not be over-much banked upon, these are those times. Take for example, the once common notion that it was not possible for a woman to be born into a man’s body. Fifty years ago we could have rightly said, “now there’s a common notion if ever there was one,” and yet we all know today that in the West we are awash in people denying this common notion and insisting that, “yes men can be born into the body of women.” What about the notion that seemingly should be common that surgeons lopping off teen girl’s breast and prescribing testosterone to women because they are really men caught in the woman’s body? At one time the great common notion medical motto was “Do No Harm,” and yet we are living in a time where that common notion is no longer universally common and so is disputed. What about the common notion that was once more widely accepted that “women carrying babies in their wombs should understand that what they are carrying are indeed yet to be birthed babies?” As you know, this is no longer a common notion but instead what women are carrying are no longer un-born babies but instead are fetuses. We could give Jon a dozen more once common notions that are no longer common. How about the once common notion that it is boys can’t marry boys and girls can’t marry girls? How about the once common notion that we don’t provide litter boxes for furries (humans insisting that they are animals) in Government schools?

The reason that these notions are no longer common is because of the Worldview shift in the West. These once common notions were once common because the culture in the West was one where those who were not Christian in the West were still influenced by Christian categories and so had, with felicitous inconsistency, adopted Christian capital (assumptions / givens) into their thinking so as to assimilate in their thinking in line with a Christian Worldview. However, as the West has departed from its once Christian basis more and more people have become consistent in their anti-Christian Worldview and in doing so have deleted a good share of the Christian capital they once embraced with the result that common notions are getting less and less common, thus disproving Jon’s insistence that Worldview thinking is not true.

Jon also suggests that there are some bare essential truths (common notions) that come through to all people. Here we say that Jon is correct but only in a very constrained way. It is true that some bare essential truths come through but notice how the Confession phrases this when it writes about the Inadequacy of the Light of Nature;

There is, to be sure, a certain light of nature remaining in all people after the fall, by virtue of which they retain some notions about God, natural things, and the difference between what is moral and immoral, and demonstrate a certain eagerness for virtue and for good outward behavior. But this light of nature is far from enabling humans to come to a saving knowledge of God and conversion to him—so far, in fact, that they do not use it rightly even in matters of nature and society. Instead, in various ways they completely distort this light, whatever its precise character, and suppress it in unrighteousness. In doing so all people render themselves without excuse before God.

Similarly, Jon has against his notion of common notions Zacharias Ursinus in the commentary Ursinus wrote on the Heidelberg Catechism he wrote;

“Furthermore, although natural demonstrations teach nothing concerning God that is false, yet men, without the knowledge of God’s word, obtain nothing from them except false notions and conceptions of God; both because these demonstrations do not contain as much as is delivered in his word, and also because even those things which may be understood naturally, men, nevertheless, on account of innate corruption and blindness, receive and interpret falsely, and so corrupt it in various ways.”

Zacharias Ursinus

Commentary on Heidelberg Catechism

If fallen men, because of innate corruption and blindness, receive and interpret falsely notions and conceptions of God from natural demonstrations how much more so will men, because of the same innate corruption and blindness, receive and interpret falsely notions and conceptions about all other reality?

Now, in this video presentation of Jon’s, Jon suggests that Worldview thinking can make men lazy and instead of doing the leg work research that needs to be done on various subjects, instead just rely on a Christian Worldview to answer all subject matter. Here, Jon may be on to something. Once a Christian Worldview is firmly in place one does still has to do the research but here we would hasten to add that the research includes not only looking into the historical record of this or that event (as one example) but one also has to research the worldview of the people that they are researching about this or that historical event. So, when I do the leg work of researching the French Revolution (as one example) I am not only reading various historians on the French Revolution but I am also extraordinarily aware of the Worldview that the historian has who is chronicling the French Revolution. For example, I should trust the account of the Christian Hillary Belloc more than I would trust the account of Jaures who in his title tells us he is giving a Socialist view of the French Revolution. So, by all means, we agree with Jon that even once one has a Christian Worldview in place they must still do the research on any given subject in order to have a familiarity with the subject. Still, having a well based and thought out Christian Worldview is going to give one a ladder up in being able to quickly analyze all kinds of sundry information because they can read that information and instantly spot the Worldview that is undergirding the information in question. For example, if I know before I read a piece on hermeneutics (as an example) that the author in question embraces the Higher Critical Methodology I know that the author and I are likely going to disagree at significantly fundamental points. Similarly, if I read a piece on the Russian Revolution written by a Trotskyite, I know in advance that I am going to take exceptions to the history I am about to read. So, Worldview thinking can make one lazy I suppose, but it can also make one not have to work as hard wading through all the different perspectives on a host of different subjects since he knows rather quickly upon picking up any book, where presuppositionally speaking, the author is coming from. I know from the beginning the way he arranges his “facts” are going to be in accord with his Worldview.

Before we leave Jon’s insistence that there exists common notions as between believers in Christ and unbelievers in Christ let us ask ourselves what shared standard the Christian and the non-Christian has in order to share common notions? I mean, in order to have common notions, two people first have to agree that the standard by which they share the idea of “common” is indeed shared. What we see here is that the Christian and the heathen can not even have common notions about common notions since they each are living by different noetic standards. Jon is just wrong here.

Jon, in this video, insists that more often Christians need to gather data and do analysis in order to come to conclusions on this, that or the other. However, the problem is that this assumes that “the data speaks for itself.” I have no problem with the necessity to gather data. I do have a problem with thinking that data gathered is data that is Worldview independent. We refer to our fossil example above. The fossil is data gathered but that data gathered by itself does not inductively push us towards a conclusion that isn’t already deductively influenced.

Next Jon insists that too often what passes for a Christian Worldview among many is instead merely a cultural disposition that Worldview is being (wrongly) used to support. Jon is saying here (and I think rightly) that too often Christians use the idea of “Christian Worldview” to support cultural preferences that they have become accustomed to. This is a danger for all of us. It is the case that all of us want to bend God’s Word and the Worldview that extends from God’s Word so as to agree with our predisposition. I see the same thing Jon sees here. I see that many Christians have embraced the classical Liberal order and have overlaid that classical Liberal order with the authority of “this is supported by a Christian Worldview.” However, that just isn’t so. The classical liberalism that built the West and was largely a product in many respects of the Enlightenment project was never, at all points, consistent with a Christian Worldview. For example, the pluralism, that is inherent in the classical liberal social order is not Christian in the least and to be honest isn’t even genuine pluralism. Similarly, it can be easily argued that the first amendment is contrary to the first commandment. There is no freedom of speech to blaspheme God as just one example.

However, overturning this faulty Worldview “thinking” that Jon identifies that finds people coating their errant cultural dispositions with the authority of a Christian Worldview has to be challenged by a truthful and Biblical Worldview as opposed it being attacked in a piecemeal fashion. It is the totalism of a Christian Weltanschauung that must oppose the totalism of the errant classical Liberal Weltanschauung that is masquerading as a Christian Worldview.

Unfortunately, Jon chooses the 2nd amendment to question the Christian-ness of the Christian Worldview. Jon seemingly thinks that it may not be as important to have a 2nd amendment provision in a Christian worldview, thinking as he does, that the 2nd amendment provision arose as being unique to an Anglo-Saxon culture. Unfortunately, as we have argued on this blog, I do think the duty to protect one’s self, one’s kin, and one’s castle is something that we find in Scripture and so needs to be part of a Christian Worldview among all peoples. However, there are other issues we have currently flying under the banner of “The Christian Worldview” that should be excised from a benuintely Christian Worldview. One example of that I would say is how what passes for a Christian worldview today insists upon egalitarianism. I am convinced from God’s Word that egalitarianism is diametrically at odds with a Christian Worldview and yet a major percentage of Churches and clergy in the West embrace egalitarianism in one form or another as definitively Christian.

Towards the end of the video Jon accuses those who embrace Worldview as being “Gnostic.” I take great umbrage at this characteristic. No one who is Worldview savvy is suggesting that salvation is dependent upon knowing the ins and outs of a Christian Worldview and in order to be Gnostic that is what we would have to be saying. Jon knows better than this. Instead, what Worldview thinking pursues is consistency across disciplines. Those of use who embrace the idea of Christian Worldview thinking understand that those who hold to a Christian Worldview are never as consistent as we’d like to be but we are striving to take all thoughts to make them captive to Christ and in making them captive to Christ we believe that there should be harmony that exists across the board in various disciplines.

Jon ends by suggesting that the fault of Worldview thinking is that it is too universalistic. Jon insists that he is too much of a particularist to embrace Worldview thinking that is singular, broad, and universal. We would note here that not all Worldview thinkers insist that one Christian Worldview has to be the same in all cultural expressions. We get, along with something Abraham Kuyper said long ago, that Christianity is going to have different expressions as existing among different people’s and cultures. They was a Samoan culture expresses a Christian worldview is going to vary somewhat from the way a Shona people own a Christian Worldview. One thing that the Kinists I run with understand is that since God is both eternally One and Many therefore there is going to be a Oneness and Mannyness temporally. There will be different variants of the one Christian World and life view as existing among different peoples and cultures. As such, we are along with Jon, particularists. We don’t expect all Christian peoples and cultures to be exactly the same. We do not insist that there is only one way of understanding the application of God’s Law in only one Christian World and life view. However, we also believe there will exist a singular Christian World and life view wherein there is found a harmony of interests as among the different expressions of that one singular Christian World and life view.

Jon is very congenial and insists that he is not pushing his views on dropping usage of “Worldview” on other people but clearly that is the effect of Jon publishing his reasons why he is dropping the usage of the word Worldview. He doubtless thinks that other people would be wise like himself if they would drop the usage of the idea of “Worldview” just as he has.

I merely disagree strongly with Jon and took the time to have a conversation that I hope matters.