McAtee Engages Rev. Chris Gordon on Eschatology

One problem with Amillennialism is that it ignores that with the victory of Christ over the Cross and with His Ascension Christ has brought in the age to come so that it is rolling back this present wicked age. Amillennial eschatology is old covenant eschatology inasmuch as it is front loaded with the “not yet” (this present wicked age) while ignoring that we are, because of Christ’s victory, living in the “now” ( age to come). For the Amill everything, practically speaking, is still yet to come. The Victory of Christ is only a “Spiritual Victory,” and does NOT impact planet earth except so as to save a person here or there. The Amill insists that planet earth will always be under the tutelage of the evil one until Christ visibly returns to conquer a previously untamed Satan.

Amillennialism (along with Full Preterism) are a Gnostic. Both relegate Christ’s Ascension and Victory and rule to a spiritual realm and deny any impact on culture, nations, lifespan, disease, sin, etc. All the blessings of Isaiah 65 and 66 (end of war, poverty, disease, long life) are spiritualized and relegated to the realm of paradise and the departed saints.  Such eschatology is defeatist.

“The problem with postmillennialism in American today is just that, it’s just too American. To wait eagerly for the second coming and the destruction of all enemies, doesn’t make us pessimists and defeatists with regard to Christ’s victory, it drives us to live in confident hope that Christ’s kingdom victory will soon be realized in glory when he returns on the clouds of heaven.”

Rev. Chris Gordon

And the problem with Amillennialism is that it’s just too masochistic. They long for defeat. They relish the thought of seeing the Kingdom of Christ beaten back. They spend so much time eagerly waiting for the second coming and the destruction of all God’s enemies that they refuse to fight now. Why fight if it is ordained that Christ will not visibly reign over His enemies until He returns? If Christ has promised that He will not visibly reign over His enemies until He returns then per Amillennialism, the postmills are absolutely in disobedience to God’s Word in expecting Christ to have the victory in space and time.

Gordon insists that the Postmill vision detract from preaching the Cross. He apparently assumes that preaching the Cross and preaching the visible victory of Christ and His Kingdom are mutually contradictory.

Amillennialism makes certain that Christianity will forever be in the catacombs or cowering against the might of the State or masochistically enjoying some defeat at the hands of some anti-Christ somewhere.

Next, the whole crap about postmill being “too American” is just beyond silly given that the Reformed Church up until the creation of Westminster was, in its majority report, postmillennial in its eschatology. Postmillennialism is stamped all over the writings of the Puritans and the Southern Presbyterians.  Postmill advocates of varying proclivities include such notables as OT Allis, Athanasius, Augustine, Greg Bahnsen, John Calvin, RL Dabney, Jonathan Edwards, Eusebius, AA Hodge, Charles Hodge, J Marcellus Kik, J Gresham Machen, Iain Murray, John Murray, Gary North, John Owen, RJ Rushdoony, WGT Shedd, Augustus Strong, JH Thornwell, and BB Warfield. I wonder if Gordon notices all the non-American names here?

I loathe militant and pessimistic Amillennials. They are a absolute hindrance to the march of the Kingdom.

Gordon, being on a roll, continued,

“If we were witnessing widespread repentance in America and people falling at the feet of Jesus, then I might be able to take the current popularity of postmillennialism more seriously, but it strikes me as odd that in the midst of the sweeping moral revolution that characterizes our time, all of the sudden the idea of a golden age breaking into America is finding great approbation in certain quarters of the American church. What gives? Championing postmillennialism and dominion victory at a moment in history when the church is on the brink of serious persecution feels more like a desperation cry and a last-ditch effort to save an incompatible eschatology with life in America.”

Rev. Chris Gordon
R2K Fanboy

I can see Gordon that you would have concluded that Christianity was not true were you alive to see Jesus crucified because at that moment it was hardly self-evident that Jesus Christ was/is Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

Per your reasoning, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ would have proven that the claims of Christ were NOT true. Is that the way you come to truth Rev. Gordon? “Well, if it is popular, then of course it must be true and if it is unpopular, well, then, obviously it is not true.”

Do you always judge what is and is not true based on the circumstances of any given particular moment?

But, you know what Gordon … you’re right. Let’s us just surrender and ask for our amillennial bullet in the nape of the neck right now and be done with contending for Christ and His Kingdom. After all, we are going to lose anyway.

And for the trilogy Gordon adds;

“Postmillennialism has, as of recent, become the rage in online discourse and in popular books like Stephen Wolfe’s “Christian Nationalism.” This has been curious to me as a pastor in the Reformed tradition due to the fact that most Christians recognize that we have come to the end of Christendom in America.”

Rev. Chris Gordon
Really Chrissie?

Most Christians recognize that we have come to the end of Christendom in America? Even were that true, how does that alone prove that postmillennialism shouldn’t be advocated for in books? Oh, and is it your habit to come to truth by counting noses? Do you always reason in such a way; “Most Christians recognize that governments schools are good for their children therefore governments schools are good for their children?” This is a very odd way for clergy to assess truth… or maybe not so odd given the quality of our current clergy?

And Gordon, did you slip there by implying that at one time America was Christian? After all, Christendom in America can’t end unless it at one time Christendom in America really did exist. But you can’t mean that because R2K does not believe that Christendom as a category is even possible.

Finally, Pastor, did you take a poll so as to know that “most Christians recognize that we have come to an end of Christendom in America?”

Tim Keller’s Preference For Democracy

“I’d rather be in a democracy than a state in which the government is officially Christian. Instead of trying to take power, I think what Christians ought to be doing is trying to renew their churches.”

-Tim Keller, Wall Street Journal
02 September 2022

1.) Understand what Keller has said here. He has said he’d rather be under a government that is non Christian than under a government that is officially Christian. Tim would rather have his magistrates be Christ-haters than have magistrates who are in submission to Christ.

2.) Tim talked about how Christians shouldn’t “try to take power.” The question is “take power from whom?” Presumably, in Tim’s world Christians shouldn’t try to take power from non Christians and should be happy to be ruled by Christ hating pagans.

3.) You know Tim, it is possible to both try and renew our Churches and in godly ways seek to take power.

4.) Tim’s statement above implies that there is something automatically wicked about Christian’s wielding power. Yet, here is Tim seeking to wield his power as a highly platformed Evangelical voice in service of keeping Christians from pursuing power.

What Matt Walsh And Stephen Wolfe Have In Common

Question from the audience for Matt Walsh;

Is it wrong to want to preserve our heritage? The country our ancestors founded — European?

Matt Walsh the cultural Marxist Answers;

“I don’t believe our unifying principle was ever race, skin color, ethnicity. Our unifying principle was essentially a doctrine. It was a doctrine of human rights… It (the questioner’s position) sounds like bigotry.”

John Jay (One of the founders) tells Matt Walsh he is a man whom wisdom have forever chased but never caught;

“With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people–a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.”

For Pete’s sake, is Walsh so stupid that he flies right past the language of the Constitution where they talk about “for us and OUR POSTERITY.” Just exactly whose posterity were they talking about?

Look, while no one can doubt that Walsh has done some fine work with this response it is clear that Walsh is the enemy. Walsh is a neo-con and the kind of propositional Nation that Walsh believes in is not the unifying principle of the nation as it was founded. Walsh is an idiot and as long as he holds this view he will never defeat who he thinks is his enemy since at the end of the day they share the same foundational worldview principles.

Some of you think that the “Daily Wire” is a conservative redoubt. I am here to tell you that the “Daily Wire” is just another Trotskyist neo-con webzine.

Matt Walsh is not our friend, or is at least only intermittently our friend.

All of this reminds me of some analysis that I read by Darrell Dow when wrote an article that in part was dedicated to explaining Stephen Wolfe’s view of Christian Nationalism. Dow’s analysis of Dr. Wolfe offered this;

“In two additional chapters, Wolfe discusses the Christian nation.  Rather than a historical analysis he offers a phenomenological approach to the nation, focusing on the lived experience of everyday life.  Ethnicity is therefore something primarily (but not exclusively) experienced subjectively through shared manners, stories, and rituals rather than defined by blood.  Common social norms and customs along with attachment to place are foundational, says Wolfe, to the highest aspirations of earthly life.  What “…is most meaningful to our lives and what is required to live well is particularity and sharing that particularity with others.”

Now, if Dow’s analysis is correct in the paragraph above, we see Wolfe making the same kind of mistake that Matt Walsh makes above. Walsh would have no problem saluting the idea that “ethnicity is therefore something primarily (but not exclusively) experienced subjectively through shared manners, stories, and rituals rather than defined by blood.” Indeed that is the very point that Walsh is making above. Walsh insists the shared point of unity is allegiance to common propositions, while Wolfe insists that the shared point of unity is shared manners, stories, and rituals. However both agree that the point of unity in a nation/ethnicity is not blood.

Now, we can agree that blood relations as being the foundational point of unity for a nation/ethnicity can indeed be and has been in history fetishicized and/or idolized. But it is no fetishicizing or idolizing to recognize that the primary point of unity that makes a people a people and a nation a nation is having a common blood inheritance in conjunction with a shared faith. To place blood relations in a secondary role as if it is an afterthought to other considerations like shared propositions or shared experiences is to give up the idea of ever living in a nation or sharing an ethnicity.

It really is no different than family. Nation/ethnicity is merely family said at a broader level. If someone were to ask what was the shared foundational point of what makes my family my family the answer is a shared blood inheritance in conjunction with a shared faith. Now, there might be exceptions to that idea but it serves as the general rule. My family finds unity not primarily in shared propositions nor in shared experiences (though those will likewise be present in a secondary manner). My family finds its primary unity in having a common ancestor.

Wolfe and Walsh are just in significant error.

Natural Law Conversation Continues

“For Christ did not come into the world to teach precepts about (civic) morals, which man already knew by reason, but to forgive sins, in order that he may give the Holy Spirit to those who believe in him.”

Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560)
Commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics

“Reason cannot precede faith or consist of clearer knowledge, and as such, reason cannot be the foundation of faith.”

– Gisbertus Voetius (1589-1676)

Voetius shows that reason comes after faith because reason makes inferences from one proposition to the next, and therefore reasoning cannot get started unless there is already a proposition to reason from. This includes any reasoning about any area of life since any reasoning about all areas of life is a reasoning that is faith conditioned. Once reasoning about Jurisprudence or Education or Art or Politics is a reasoning that comes after some faith commitment. So, this teaches us that Melancthon was just in error.

Now Francis Turretin, who would share Melanchthon’s Aristotelian  premises offers;

“If various wicked laws obtained among the heathen, repugnant to the natural law (such as those sanctioning idolatry, human sacrifices, permitting theft, rapine, homicide, incest), they do not prove that no light of reason was granted to men by nature… Rather they prove only that men with *leisure ill employed* have wickedly abused the conceded light and, by struggling against and striving with all their might to extinguish it, were given over to a reprobate mind.”

Turretin
IET 11.1.19

I don’t disagree that Natural Law was against the wicked laws among the heathen. Neither do I disagree that the heathen have wickedly abused the conceded light. What I do disagree with, as pushed by Natural Law afficiandandos, is that the heathen ever do not struggle against and strive with all their might to extinguish what Natural Law teaches. Now in different non-Christian social orders will fluctuate in their opposition to what Natural Law teaches due to the waxing and waning of the salt and light influence of Christianity. However, as the antithesis works itself out ever more consistently Natural Law is interpreted as as to teach the very opposite of what it does indeed teach when read through the lenses of special revelation.

The reality that Natural law is a myth, as an independent tool by which to organize social orders did not hit until the 20th century in the West because prior to that Christendom was largely presupposed. When Christendom is no longer presupposed Turretins can’t and won’t get traction no matter how much they bleat about “the light of reason.”

Wherein Joe Sobran and John Rocker Agree

“I think the target of all this (multiculturalism / political correctness) is not the white man as such. I think the target of all this is Christianity.”

Joseph Sobran

Lecture — The Bigotry of Tolerance (30:30)

I have been saying this for years now. Imagine my relief to know that a far greater mind than mine observed it 20 years ago.

Note also that there is no way that we can fight this without at the same time defending the White Christian and Western Christian civilization. We cannot defend Christ from this clever backdoor attack unless we are willing to shut the backdoor by insisting that White Christian civilization has been a singular blessing of God given in the fullness of grace.

The Baseball pitcher John Rocker was excoriated for noticing this way back in 1999. In an infamous interview with Sports Illustrated, Rocker made controversial comments about New York City. He directed abuse at the cultural and ethnic diversity that the city had and said that the presence of “foreigners” in the city was distressful:

“The biggest thing I don’t like about New York are the foreigners. I’m not a very big fan of foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?”

He would also add previously that he would rather retire than play for the city’s two most decorated teams.

“I would retire first. It’s the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the [Number] 7 train to the ballpark, looking like you’re [riding through] Beirut next to some kid with purple hair next to some queer with AIDS right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It’s depressing.