Federal Vision’s Mistake On The Nature of Faith

“Calvin, for example, spoke of faith as an ’empty vessel’ in order to stress its character as a receptacle that brings nothing to God but receives all things from Him.”

Cornelius Venema
Christ & Covenant Theology — pg. 338

This is why I have said in the context of the past FV debate that faith does its proper work in Justification by resting in Christ for all while doing its proper work in Sanctification by working out all that Christ works in us.

Failing to think this way makes faith into a work whereby we use to trade in for the better model of Justification. In this direction lies neo-nomianism.

Beware … An Offensive Meme Ahead

The leadership among Evangelical Inc. and the Reformed Deep State would be triggered over this meme as they are out there condemning the whole idea of Christian Nationalism. And if they are not out there condemning Nationalism they certainly are not out there touting it as

But can anyone tell me what is there about this meme that the triune God would inveigh against?

Would God be angry with us Kinists because Nationalists desire to provide for our own and specially for those of our own household? (I Timothy 5:8)

Would God be angry with us Kinists because we desire to give good gifts unto our children? (Matthew 7:11)

Would God be angry with us Kinists because we could wish that we ourselves were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of our brothers, our own flesh and blood? (Romans 9:3)

 

Frederick Douglas’ Role in Harper’s Ferry

When John Brown was captured at Harper’s Ferry, Brown’s carpetbag was captured along with him, and in it were letters from Gerit Smith (One of the Secret Six) and Fredrick Douglas implicating them in a conspiracy (everyone knows conspiracies don’t exist) behind the attack on Harper’s Ferry. Virginia’s Governor, Henry Wise, requested President Buchanan’s assistance in arresting the conspirators, and he left no doubt that the one he wanted above all was “Frederick Douglass, a Negro Man… charged with … inciting servile insurrection.”

E. Michael Jones
The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit — pg. 633

In the aftermath of the Harper’s Ferry uprising, John E. Cook, Brown’s advance man for the raid, ratted out Douglass, reportedly telling authorities that Douglass did not carry out his end of the mission. According to the Richmond Daily Dispatch, Cook informed his captors that Douglass was supposed to arrive with a “large band” of fellow raiders at a schoolhouse near Harper’s Ferry, which Cook had seized on the Monday morning after the Sunday night assault. “I conveyed the arms there for him and waited until nearly night, but the coward did not come,” Cook was quoted as saying.

“Such then was my connection with John Brown, and it may be asked, if this is all, why I should have objected to being sent to Virginia to be tried for the offense charged. The explanation is not difficult. I knew that if my enemies could not prove me guilty of the offense of being with John Brown, they could prove that I was Frederick Douglass; they could prove that I was in correspondence and conspiracy with Brown against slavery; they could prove that I brought Shields Green, one of the bravest of his soldiers, all the way from Rochester to him at Chambersburg; they could prove that I brought money to aid him, and in what was then the state of the public mind I could not hope to make a jury of Virginia believe I did not go the whole length he went, or that I was not one of his supporters; and I knew that all Virginia, were I once in her clutches, would say “Let him be hanged.”

Frederick Douglass

Clearly, Douglas along with the Secret Six should’ve been hung alongside John Brown.

Interesting tidbit … once John Brown was arrested @ Harper’s Ferry, 3 of the secret six fled to Canada immediately (Stearns, Howe, and Sanborn) while a fourth, Theodore Parker, lay dying in Italy. A fifth, Gerrit Smith had himself institutionalized in an insane asylum to avoid being implicated. Only the Unitarian minister, Theodore Parker, didn’t flee or crack.

Critiquing Crawford Gribben Interview on Kinism

I am picking apart a segment of this video because I think it misrepresents Kinism and kinists.

If you want to listen to the section I’m dealing with you must go to the 30-minute mark and start there and listen for appx. 10 minutes.

The person being interviewed is Crawford Gribben who is a  historian of early modern religion, with a particular interest in Calvinist literary cultures. He is connected to Queen’s University in Belfast. Recently he wrote a book titled; “Survival and Resistance in Evangelical America: Christian Reconstruction in the Pacific Northwest,” and in the linked interview above he is speaking on this book.

For this book, Gribben interviewed some Kinists in the Northwest area. I know several of them and so I asked them about Gribben’s observations on this interview.

1.) “The kinists I met love Rushdoony and they did quote some pretty unfortunate statements that Rushdoony made on race.”

I note this one first in order to demonstrate that Gribben should be considered a hostile witness when he makes observations on kinism. I’ve read tons of material by Rushdoony and I have yet to come across a “pretty unfortunate statement on race.” As such, Gribben’s observation on Kinism should be taken with a large grain of salt. Gribben obviously has an ax to grind for Political Correctness if he thinks RJR made pretty unfortunate statements on race.

2.) “The way the kinists presented themselves is that they were cool. They were not hicks from the sticks. They were very cool people.”

LOL … what did he expect? Little gnome-like creatures arising up out of the earth dressed in Confederate Battle flag garments drinking moonshine? Was Gribben surprised that the Kinists were intelligent, well dressed, and practiced hygiene? This is almost insulting in the way that it communicates how shocked he was that kinists were not troglodytes.

3.) “The kinists met for worship in a forest.”
This one is hilarious.  I talked to one of the chaps that interviewed with Gribben and they said all they told him is that the location of where they would meet sometimes to worship was an old lodge in a forest.

Is Gribben by this description reaching for the ancient idea of Jove’s (Dona’s / Thor’s) pagan oak worship in ancient Germanic times? By this description is he trying to tie kinists to those who once worshiped in sacred groves? Never mind that modern elites (Bohemian Grove Society) do themselves gather in forests to worship their deities.

4.) Kinists are very secretive people. Very worried about publicity and very happy to talk but also very concerned about what would happen as a consequence of that speech.

This should not be that surprising given how everything that Kinists say is twisted beyond recognition once our enemies get a hold of it. I myself am happy to talk but am also concerned about where I am going to end up while speaking the truth. My kinist friends are no different. When we live in a cancel culture as being driven by the fruitcake SJW’s, Alienists, and Marxists how could we not be concerned about what would happen as a consequence of our speech?

5.) “Kinists desire to live in monocultural communities.”
Let’s be clear here. The only other option to monocultural homogenous communities is multicultural heterogeneous communities. So, yes, like mankind throughout all time until the last 50 years or so Kinists see cultural homogeneity as a good thing and something that they desire not only for themselves but also for all men. Ironically enough, our enemies also desire to live in monocultural communities. The communities the SJW’s desire to live in are cultures without any people who dare disagree with them. So, desiring to live in a monocultural community is not odd in the least, and if Dr. Gribben thinks it odd he is the one who is odd for thinking that.

6.) “Those Kinists in N. Idaho loved Doug Wilson’s ministry. They just wish he was more consistent.”
Again, per the chap I knew who spoke with Gribben there is no way they would have said they loved Doug Wilson’s ministry. Doubtless, kinists agree that Wilson, from time to time, can get matters correct but to say that they love Doug Wilson’s ministry is just not typically true of Kinists. Instead, they tend to see Doug as someone who waits to see which way the wind is blowing and then hurries up to throw up his position consistent with what the left side of the right is tacking towards.

7.) “I’m not sure when it comes to RJR and the Kinists if it is a case of cause and consequence or merely correlation. I’m just not sure.”
Let’s be honest. The kinists are the only ones who are the natural ideological heirs of RJR. There is cause and consequence here. The others who won’t accept kinism are just poseurs trying to steal RJR’s glory and refusing to accept that he was a typical man of the 1st half of the 20th century, who like all Christian men throughout history (See Achord & Dow’s Book, “Who is My Neighbor”) believed that men should prioritize their own clan, tribe, and nation, above the stranger and the alien.

Alternately, Crawford’s ambiguity on this point could be, in itself, a subtle challenge to the Alienist Reconstructionists. If Gribben is not sure then that means that it might be the case that Kinism is indeed the natural consequence of RJR the cause. If that is the case, then Alienist Reconstructionism is itself the bastard child who has no ideological legacy in the writings of RJR.

8.) “The Kinists we talked to were the most up to date on Frankfurt school theory.”
Well, this means that the Kinists are the most epistemologically self-conscious because they alone are familiar with the designs of the enemy against the Christian faith.

Honestly, if Gribben is accurate here this speaks badly of the rest of the Alienist Reconstructionists camp. If they are not the most up to date then they don’t realize what they are facing and in a battle that means annihilation.

9.) “The Kinists I talked to believed in racialism and not racial supremacy.”
This is just to say that the kinist thinks all men from varying races should have their homeland and live among their own people. Kinists do not believe that anyone people group is universal supreme in every area. Kinists do not believe that anyone people group should be ruling all the rest. Unlike the Alienists and Marxist we are not advocating that all people bleed into one.

A Flurry of Rapid & Brief Observations on R2K

1.) David Van Drunen, the malevolent genius behind R2K was trained at a Jesuit Educational Institution where he learned the classical Roman Catholic philosophical divide between nature and grace. He then, quite obviously took that Thomist divide learned at his Jesuit Roman Catholic school and created a Reformed expression of it in his creation of R2K.

Personally, I am of the conviction that one cannot be Christian and R2K even if their Reformed soteriology is perfect.

2.) R2K teaches that Education, Law, Politics, Art, etc. are all common realm phenomena that are ruled by Natural law. However, if one pauses to think about this just a moment one realizes that these (Education, Law, Politics, Art, Family, etc.) are abstractions. These things do not exist concretely apart from people as Educators, Lawyers/Judges, Politicians/legislators, Artists. So, R2K, concretely speaking is teaching that men as lawyers/judges, men as Educators, men as Artists, etc. are not to be governed by God’s revealed Word. These flesh and blood people are not to be guided in their respective fields by God’s special revelation but instead are, in agreement and consultation with concrete Hindu Educators, Jew Judges, Atheist Artists, and Satanist Legislators to come to a consensus on natural law ao that they as Christians can be governed by in these respective fields.

Such Princeton Tower Club “thinking” is shocking and yet our pulpits are filled today with morons who are touting this god-forsaken theory as truth.

3.) R2K is a theology perfectly cast to avoid confrontation with Idolatry and false religions. Whereas earlier Missionaries would challenge the false gods in public demonstrations R2K says, “The idols in the common realm are not to be addressed and defied by the Institutional Church since that would be to get clergy out of their lanes.”

 

R2K is heresy. When is some denomination going to stand up and say “R2K is heresy?”

4.) R2K teaches that the Jurisdiction of King Jesus and His revealed word is limited to the Church realm. Any Jurisdiction that King Jesus has in the common realm is present by a common grace, a common providence, and a common (Natural) law. R2K thus is teaching that in the common realm Jesus has delegated His rule to an abstraction called Natural law.

5.) R2K teaches that there exists a statist orthodoxy as taught in Government schools that the Church Institutional should not raise its voice against even when the statist orthodoxy is contrary to Christian orthodoxy.

6.) R2K loves to talk about a common kingdom where people of all faiths meet and have social intercourse around a common set of shared values as all based on Natural law.

However, the problem here is increasingly clear. As sodomites are now marrying and adopting children, as queers show up for Drag Queen story hour to read to our children, as women have to compete against biological men in women’s sports, where is this so-called common realm where Christians can enter into a common kingdom?

Clearly, the R2K project has never existed in a time where its fruit is seen to be more absent. Natural law as defined by R2K as a governing mechanism upon which law orders for whole peoples has never more gloriously failed than the failure it is undergoing now and yet there is David Van Drunen, Mike Horton, D. G. Hart, and R. Scott Clark still thumping for it like they have concrete examples where R2K has worked as positioned in Christ-hating social orders. There they are all thumping for R2K like adolescents for the first time having a young pretty thing speak pretty things in their ears.

If this is true (and it is) why are R2K churches and ministers still being supported?

Get out, before you experience a Sodom and Gomorrah type of visitation from God.

7.) In the way that R2K treats the Bible, the Bible becomes ecclesiasticized — trapped inside the four walls of the Church — and even there the Bible is not allowed to speak to public square issues outside the Church.

8.) Because R2K insists that the Institutional Church is not allowed to speak to civil Institutions such as education, family, law, arts, international relations, etc. the consequence is that Christians attending R2K churches become bipolar in their thinking. In the Church realm, they are Christian but in the so-called secular realm (a realm created and sustained by R2K type thinking) the Christian can be a humanist in education, a Sharia fan in law, or even a polygamist in family life. If God’s word does not speak to the common realm as stated from the pulpit then the laity may come to any conclusion they like in these realms as long as they can in some creative way attach their positions to Natural law.

9.) When God’s word is ecclesiasticized so that it cannot be applied to all of life (per R2K) the Church immediately becomes politicized as the laity become vectors for various humanist thinking diseases that descend from theologies and gods that are not Christian.

So, R2K’s attempt to cordon God’s special Revelation from every area of life finally leads to a politicized church where each member votes and advocates and does in the public square what is best in his own eyes.

10.) R2K excels at thumping the formal authority of the bible. This is the authority that teaches the infallible, verbal plenary inspiration of the Bible. However, R2K fails in embracing the material authority of the Bible. This is the authority of the Bible wherein its applicability to all of life is embraced. Another way of saying this is that R2K holds the Bible as abstractly authoritative but it is horrid in concrete application.

11.) Whenever R2K starts up with the idea that there is no such thing as “Christian stir-fry,” or “Christian plumbing,” or “Christian diaper-changing,” they are at that point advocating, contrary to Christian thinking, that there is indeed such a thing as neutrality. R2K when it argues this way is saying in essence, “See, all of the common square is neutral and so we should not insist on Christian law, or Christian Education, or Christian family, seeing those matters as just as neutral as stir-fry, diaper changing, and plumbing.

First, we should note that suggesting that Christian law does not exist because Christian diaper changing does not exist is a leap of magnificent proportions that only a very stupid person could make.

Second, we would argue that there is such a thing as a Christian diaper changer. Imagine if non-Christian parents changing out dirty diapers didn’t apply diaper rash medicine with the result that the child in the diaper is miserable having a severely burned bottom. Would that baby complain, if he could, about his parents not practicing Christian diaper changing? Would not failing to apply diaper rash medicine in the context of changing the diaper not be a violation of the 6th commandment?

Neutrality is a myth and that is as true about diaper changing, plumbing, and stir-fry as it is about Law, Education, and Business.

12.) R2K cuts off the story of Redemption with Christ crucified. They fail to see that the resurrection, ascension, and session of the Lord Christ continue the Redemption narrative in terms of absolute Kingship. Jesus Christ is not only our Great High Priest but He is also a Great High Priest who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords over every principality and power. To give a Gospel that so wrongly centers on the Crucifixion so that it only tells the story of a dis-empowered Great High Priest who is not ruling as the Mediatorial King as very God of God is to do a great disservice to both our soteriology and our doctrine of Jesus Mediatorial Kingship.

R2K gives us a Jesus who is a Gnostic King. In R2K thinking Jesus rules over our spiritual lives but Jesus dare not flex His authority in culture, family, education, law, politics, etc. R2K has divorced Jesus’s office of Priest from His office as King. That is a grave sin when pointed out and still continued in.

13.) In our sins we seek to alienate God’s creation from Him. R2K “theology” supports our work of alienating God’s creation from Him as R2K refuses to allow Christians to be Christ’s Kingdom people joining in the work, under Christ’s Kingship, of taking every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. In R2K every thought is not brought captive because many thoughts are never intended to be brought captive and as such, all of creation remains alienated from God. R2K turns Christ’s Kingship into the Kingship wherein His people don’t live and move and have their being in light of Christ’s ascension and session and as such God’s creation remains alienated from Him except in some Gnostic sense.