Word Games

The Marxist left has been doing this as long as I’ve been alive.

They are masters at controlling our language. They somehow manage to be the “word police,” dictating to us what words or phrases can’t be used. Control the language, and one controls what is societally acceptable and unacceptable, not only in terms of speech but also in terms of behavior. When the left forces us to use their language and their words they set up a hegemon over reality by controlling the way we speak. Keep in mind that the way we speak controls the way we think and when we are controlled in the way we think we are controlled in the way we behave.

The illustrations of this are abundant. Just recently we saw this logomachy at work when the chap who is serving as President spoke of, in his  State of the Union address, “an illegal immigrant,” who had murdered a young lady.

The following morning after the speech our handlers (the Lugenpresse / Corporate Media) was outraged. Were they outraged by the murder of this young lady by this illegal immigrant? Were they outraged by the border policy that allowed this illegal immigrant to be here? No, what the Lugenpresse was furious with the President about is that he referred to this murderer as an “illegal immigrant,” as opposed to their required “undocumented worker.” You see, if one uses the phrase “illegal immigrant,” per the Lugenpresse’s dictates one is a “racist,” or is suffering from xenophobia. If one uses the phrase “illegal immigrant” one is a social outcast, not fit for civilized company. So, by the constant drumming of this idea, the enemies of Christendom take from the friends of Christendom a perfectly good phrase that carries a perfectly fine concept. Over the course of time, we lose the conceptual category of people who are here in our country who have gained entrance in a criminal fashion.

Now our elite handlers are not playing games here. Eventually, those who retain the phrase “illegal immigrant” will be socially shunned. They may even experience forms of cancel culture. The left always seeks to put the bite on those who will not conform to their lexical tom-foolery.

Of course “illegal immigrant” is just one example. Other examples abound. Another example of a word that can not be used anymore is the perfectly fine word “sodomite.” Sodomite was long ago replaced by the word “Homosexual” which likewise was finally changed out for the word “gay.” The reason for this logomachy switcheroo is that the left understood that sodomite was such a graphic word that people found the word and the concept attached to the word instantly revolting and so it was changed out for the word “Homosexual.” In time the word “Homosexual” developed a negative connotation and so the masters of the Universe villainized that word and insisted that the word “gay” be used instead. The wicked brilliance in all this is admirable. Who would have ever thought that a word (gay) that meant jovial, and happy would be attached to such a disgusting lifestyle as sodomy? The cultural Marxist left is good at this game.

The marvel is, is that the Church follows right along. I challenge anyone to attend a denominational meeting and bring up the problem of “sodomites” and the need to resist sodomy as a policy without finding out very quickly some stuffed clergy telling you about how improper it is to use that word.

We could continue to multiply the examples of how our speech is governed. American Indian is now “Original Peoples” or “Indigenous Peoples” and don’t get caught using the word “Indian” among certain leftist group-think. A word like “patriarchy,” is now villainized and is verboten to use in a positive sense in certain Ivy League company. Indeed, in order to cleanse our minds of patriarchy we now have gender neutral hymn books and bible.

The concepts of B.C. & A.D. have been replaced by BCE and ACE in order to eliminate the taint of Christianity. Even putative Christian academics are now using this language in their academic treatises.

Of course the technique in changing our language and so changing our thinking and behavior is to villainize, scandalize, and berate our previous words, phrases, and concepts as being filled with the guilt of not being acceptable to our Cultural Marxist masters. Further, those who refuse to get their minds right are visited with being outcast. You see, our language is run through a worldview that competes with Christianity and seeks to overthrow it and the result is words and phrases are dropped in order to satisfy the standards of a worldview that is in competition with Biblical Christianity. Slowly and inexorably we, as a people, are changed from the inside out and become a different people that our Christian ancestors would not recognize.

Another example is the word “Kinist.” Kinist is a word coined in the mid-1990s to communicate what WASP Christians had believed for millennium on race relations (See Achord & Dow’s, “Who is my Neighbor,” and Storen’s “A Survey of Racialism in Christian Sacred Tradition.”) However, the cultural Marxist left, along with their clergy allies (I’m looking at Moscow) has villainized and scandalized this word so that it can no longer be used without people becoming somewhat timid concerning what might happen to them if they are known to be compatriots with someone who uses this dreadful, vile and scary word. And this, in spite of the fact, that I have bent over backwards in order to specifically point out what I am and am not saying.

An example of this treatment was seen online recently. Rev. Michael Shover gave an excellent sermon, and in that sermon Shover pointed out the dangers of the 1st amendment being embraced as more important than the first commandment. A firestorm erupted. What was interesting is that in this firestorm a bloke named Keven Johnson flung at Rev. Shover and Shover’s sermon, the epitaph “Kinist Pastor” in order to vilify anything Rev. Shover might say on any subject.

So, what is to be done about this? Well, we could invent new words (Oikophillia — “Love of One’s own Household”), we could just use old words (ethnonationalists, race-realist,) but of course you have to realize that whatever word we use the cultural Marxists are just going to scandalize, villainize, and fill with calumny any word a Christian reaches for in order to communicate this set of ideas. We cannot win by playing according to the left’s rules.

Because of this technique of emptying us from our language through the process of villainization and scandalization of perfectly good words, we have nothing to do but to play the man and to use all of our language and words doing all we can to violate the speech code that the left increasingly seeks to press down upon us and we do this as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. Of course, we have to be wise in how we go about all this, but if we just allow the left to determine what language we can and cannot use we will eventually find ourselves owning a diluted Christianity. I mean how much Christianity can there be left in someone who constantly plays by the left’s logomachy rules?

A closing word has to be added. We need to realize that we are in a war. The left has successfully taken over the role of cultural gatekeepers. This means that when we violate the code of the cultural gatekeepers there is the possibility of consequences the cultural gatekeepers will press upon us. For example, just this morning I learned of a chap who has already been sentenced to 10.5 years in prison for peacefully protesting an abortion clinic. He’s looking at an additional 10.5 years because he did the same at a second abortion clinic in the same area. By all accounts there was nothing at all violent in what he had done. However, he did violate the code of the cultural gatekeepers and he is now in staring at 21 years prison time, which amounts to a life in prison ruling given his age.

All of us, as Christians, who refuse to play by the rules of the cultural gatekeepers need to count the cost. We need realize that we are living in 2024 and not 1984 or even 2000. Matters have changed drastically and it is just a fact that anyone who wears their Christianity too boldly is going to run afoul of the cultural gatekeepers.

May the Lord Christ give us courage for the days ahead.

Francis Roberts Arguing that the Noahic Covenant is a Gracious Covenant

While this (taking the Noahic covenant as a common grace covenant) is a common construction among many today (think R2K) (17th century Puritan) Francis Roberts rather understands the Noahic covenant as an ‘expressure’ of the Covenant of Grace. Roberts will write of a double covenant made with Noah, one before the flood, in which God covenanted to save him and his household, and one after the flood ‘superadded’ to the former covenant. In this second instance of covenanting, several things are noticed that indicate not common, but special saving grace. The first is the occasion of it, that God ‘smelled the sweet savor’ of Noah’s sacrifice, as the outward moving cause of it, which indicates an appointment to Christ and His sacrifice, the inward ‘moving cause’ being God’s ‘mere grace and commiserating mercies’ to Noah. Second, the parties covenanting are the appeased God on the one hand, smelling that ‘savor of rest’ and second, Noah and his sons, and their ‘seed.’ Third, the matters covenanted consist on God’s part that He will not again destroy all flesh. For Noah and his sons, on their part, and especially in reference to the ‘seed,’ to believe God’s gracious dealing in this promise, but more to believe in Christ, the true sacrifice as the one who appeases God’s wrath and restores rest to the perishing and cursed creature, preserving God’s gracious design. Fourth, the token of the covenant, the rainbow in the cloud, concerning which Roberts declares, ‘So then the rainbow which physically and naturally denotes rain theologically, supernaturally and by institution signifies fair weather and security from rain and flood.’ ”

God’s Covenants: The Mystery & Marrow of the Bible Vol 1 — p. 36
Rev. Dr. Todd Ruddell — Preface

McAtee Challenges Dr. W. Robert Godfrey’s Amillennialism

“We must never lose sight of the real inheritance, which is not cultural influence. The real inheritance is the eternal kingdom that Jesus brings with him when he returns in glory.”

Dr. W. Robert Godfrey

Is the church in America idolizing politics and placing freedom above theology?

Abounding Grace Radio

1.) Keep in mind that culture is theology externalized. Since that is the definition of culture, Godfrey here is complaining that our desire for the externalization of Christian theology (culture) is not our (Christians) real influence. Does that make sense that a Christian theologian would say such a thing?

2.) Technically, Godfrey may be right that cultural influence is not our key inheritance. Technically speaking cultural influence is our key command as seen in Christ’s final words that we are to disciple the nations. (See Mt. 28:16-20)

3.) Note that Dr. Godfrey, in typical Amillennial fashion, sees the eternal Kingdom of Jesus as only being future. For Godfrey the eternal Kingdom is all not yet. There is no now. And yet Jesus said that He came to give life and to give it abundantly. The Kingdom, while having a not yet component also has a now component that the saints currently have. That our inheritance of the eternal Kingdom of Christ is explicitly taught in Scripture in Colossians;

“He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.”

4.) The optimistic eschatology of postmillennialism could never utter such words as the Amillennial Dr. W. Robert Godfrey. The whole statement breathes surrender and pessimism.

5.) Abounding Grace radio is an arm of R2Kism.

6.) We have to admit that it is possible to make an idol out of politics.

7.) Would Abounding Grace radio insist that the “Black Robed Regiment” during the run up to the American counter-Revolution was guilty of making an idol out of politics when it preached freedom from Reformed pulpits all across the colonies? I suspect had they been alive then they would have indeed censored those Reformed Pastors.

8.) The idea of placing freedom above theology is a non-sequitur since for Christians freedom is defined by theology. Freedom is defined as the ability to be obedient to God’s law Word. In other words if freedom was prioritized over theology than the freedom that might be achieved would not be freedom.

9.) Taken as a whole these two quips are really bad theology driven by bad R2K militant amillennial eschatology.

Heidi Complains That Christian Nationalists Believe Rights Come From God

“The thing that unites them as Christian nationalists, (not Christians because Christian nationalists are very different), is that they believe that our rights as Americans and as all human beings do not come from any Earthly authority. They don’t come from Congress, from the Supreme Court, they come from God,”

Heidi Przybyl
Guest on Talking Head MSNBC Show

Imagine my effrontery to believe that I am endowed by my Creator with certain inalienable rights, and as such do not have to wait, hat in hand, for some government, steeped in humanism and owning allegiance to Man as God said loudly, to determine for me what “rights” they will piece meal out to me.

The stupidity of this woman is a new low but it is revelatory of the mindset of our enemies. These people really do believe that “in the state we live and move and have our being.” These people really do embrace that since we have no god over us, the State is therefore god.

Of course, she really doesn’t believe that it is a problem for people not to believe rights come from the State. If the state took away the right to abortion, for example, can you imagine how loud Heidi’s screeching would be that “the Government has no right to do that?” Would Heidi, at that point, suddenly become a Christian because she would be acting in a way as to demonstrate her belief that “rights come from something higher than the state.”

Now, keep in mind in all this that R2K agrees with Heidi that rights don’t come from God — at least not directly. R2K believes that all rights come from Natural Law. So, Heidi and David Van Drunen have in common that Christians should not be appealing directly to God but to some other agency for human “rights.” Heidi believes the appeal should be made to the State. David Van Drunen believes the appeal should be made to Natural Law.

My Day At The Mall

Today I spent the day with my Grandchildren who live 2.5 hours North of us. We met them half way in Saginaw, Michigan. Saginaw is a city of 46K, and has all the accouterments of a city that size including malls, which, is where we met up with our daughter and the grandchildren.

The first thing that hit me was how empty this large mall was. That was followed by being shocked by how many venues (storefronts) were unoccupied. The next thing I wondered is how any of the stores which were still operating could make enough revenue to stay open.

I don’t get out, in this kind of context, often and so all of this was a bit of an education for me. I can remember the days when malls were hopping. I even worked as a night security/janitor in a mall once upon a time in my college days and cleaning up at night was busy work because the mall had had so much traffic during the day.

Of course that was before online services basically gutted the shopping mall model.

However, while the traffic at the mall was slight, it remained interesting and I found myself wondering if malls now doubled as circuses. While at the mall today I saw a clown. I don’t think the person intended to be a clown but I don’t know what else you would call what I saw. This clown made me do a triple take to make sure I was seeing what I had seen with the first take and then the second take.

This was, I think, a blond hair male of about 23 years of age, who stood about 6 foot tall… or would have stood 6feet tall if he had not had on 6 inch black platform tennis shoes. His blond hair had been spray painted with streaks of pink and he wore a tight black t-shirt with black tights. Over his t-shirt and tights he wore something that approximated a blue ballerina tutu, or maybe it was a short mini-skirt. I was desperately trying not to stare. Across his shoulders he carried a hiked up back pack that was shaped like a pink kitty cat. This is not the kind of thing I see every day. Bring in the clowns indeed.

The circus like effect was augmented by the fresh pile of dog crap that lay in the middle of one of the walk ways. I mean, if one goes to the circus one expects animal droppings. The problem here, beyond the obvious, is it seemed like people delighted in stepping in it and smearing it all over the mall.

There were of course the various other freak shows you find at a circus. Bearded ladies, and the tattooed woman, and ears with giant holes in them. In one store the employee working behind the counter had a kind of pea-green colored hair with one of those upside down horseshoes in her nose, accompanied by boldly colored eye shadow and  screaming colored lipstick. I must admit, I found myself asking, “What was it that found those who interviewed her for the job compelled to say to themselves; ‘Yep, she’s what we are looking for as our face to the public.'”

I’m not done yet.

There was a store dedicated to sell clothing for women who are of ample size. Nothing wrong with that…. except when you advertise your product by putting a life-size photo of a very large woman on your store front window as regaled in a bikini that has far less cloth than she has flesh. I must admit I found myself admiring that model, if only for her courage. It had to take a great deal of courage to submit for that photo shoot knowing a photo that looked like that was going to be the storefront window display for this company chain. It brought back memories of 

There were some encouraging aspects. I saw a Tim Keller book on the “we really want to give this away because nobody will buy it” priced table. That was a balm for my soul. We saw a sign for sale that said, “Christ Alone is our only Hope.” I think it was buried behind the other “a witch and warlock live here” signs, and the “He ain’t Heavy, He’s my Mephistopheles” signs and the “We get drunk every day here at 5pm,” signs. BUT it was there.

I bought a scarf for my daughter. The check out clerk scared me. I tried to be extra polite because I didn’t want to give her a reason to snarl at me. I’ve had plenty of experience with angry pit-bulls and I care not to have any further experiences.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my grandchildren, but they are growing up in a very different world than the one I grew up. May God protect them from our current insane culture, and may he give me the equilibrium to never see any of this as normal.