Horton is Wrong … Calvin was Right … Magistrates Should Enforce God’s Law

“And so Calvin didn’t have Servetus burned; the city council had him burned, on the request of the whole Protestant movement. He was going to be burned by the Roman Inquisition, but escaped. So everybody wanted Servetus burned. Now, having said that, you could almost exonerate Calvin from that part, but not what came afterwards. Calvin then wrote a treatise defending—under the guise of defending the doctrine—the idea; he was really defending his action there and the action of the city council. He wrote a treatise on the necessity of corporal punishment for those who deny the Trinity.”

Mike Horton
White Horse Inn

Horton is R2K. As such most of what Mike Horton says when it comes to Church and State matters is just ridiculous and is a matter of providing cover for his classical Liberal worldview. This is a worldview, that by presupposition, will not allow the Magistrate to enforce the first table of God’s law. It is a worldview that remains in contradiction, not only to the revised Belgic Confession 36, but in extremis to the original Belgic Confession 36 which some church bodies still confess. (You really should read the original Belgic 36.)

So, Mike goes all apoplectic that Calvin (who was not R2K) would write a treatise on the necessity of corporal punishment for those who deny the Trinity. Keep in mind that inasmuch as Mike takes up this position Mike is saying that a social order can be just when there are no consequences for those who deny the trinity. Also, keep in mind that in the OT the penalty for blasphemy was death. Clearly, a denial of the Trinity is blasphemy.

But of course, for Mike, and all his R2K buds, the OT has been dispensationalized. They are, in essence, Baptistic New Testament Christians. (It is interesting here that Baptists also swear allegiance to the necessity of a separation of Church and State that Mike champions.)

All this to say that Horton is not classically Reformed on this issue. It is altogether fitting, proper, and just that the Magistrate visit the denial of the Trinity with capital punishment. It is only Mike’s being beholden to the Spirit of the age (he is a man of his times) that finds him rejecting what so many of the Reformers embraced. Horton, later will plead that we must be guided by the confessions here and not any one Reformed voice from the past and yet, as we said earlier, the original Belgic 36 is still followed by some.

Still, here are just a few voices (I could provide many more) that agreed with Calvin on the necessity of the Magistrate to enforce both tables of God’s law;

 “The law of Christ, when perfectly executed, teaches most rightfully how every injustice must be extirpated from the commonwealth, and how those offending against the law should be chastised.”

John Wycliffe

“Kings are not as lords and rulers over the word and laws of God; but are, as subjects, to be judged by God by the word, as they ought to rule and govern all things according to the rule of His word and commandment.”

Heinrich Bullinger

 

“Kings then have not absolute power to do in their regiment what pleaseth them; but their power is limited by God’s Word. So that if they strike where God commandeth not, they are but murderers; and if they spare were God commandeth to strike they and their throne are criminal, and guilty of wickedness that aboundeth upon the face of the earth for their lack of punishment.”

John Knox

These Reformed chaps from history, and many many more like them would have abominated Mike Horton’s idea that the Magistrate should not enforce both tables of God’s law. They would have agreed with Calvin, as the original Belgic 36 does, that;

“Whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt. This is not laid down on human authority; it is God who speaks and prescribes a perpetual rule for his Church. It is not in vain that he banishes all those human affections which soften our hearts; that he commands paternal love and all the benevolent feelings between brothers, relations, and friends to cease; in a word, that he almost deprives men of their nature in order that nothing may hinder their holy zeal. Why is so implacable a severity exacted but that we may know that God is defrauded of his honor, unless the piety that is due to him be preferred to all human duties, and that when his glory is to be asserted, humanity must be almost obliterated from our memories? . . .”

Calvin’s work against Servetus

So, we see in this post that Horton is merely serving up to us Baptistic separation of Church and State pig slop, as well as a dispensational type hermeneutic and because of that the man, along with his R2K tribe, should be abominated. If we lived in orthodox times R2K would be ruled as outside the boundaries of the Reformed faith.

Horton is done yet though … he presses on with his inanities;

“But you couldn’t live in Geneva if you were an Anabaptist. You couldn’t live in Geneva if you were a witch. Calvin’s own stepdaughter was a prostitute and she couldn’t live in Geneva. But that was true in Wittenberg; that was true anywhere in Christendom at that time.

It’s horrible, what Calvin wrote. You know, we talk about Luther—Luther, those horrible things that he said…


BLMc responds,

In the first paragraph above Horton is trying to exonerate Calvin from being a tyrant because he didn’t pursue having the Magistrates bring the death penalty for Anabaptists, Witches, and Prostitutes. However, there is also a tone of lament here that the Reformers were so uptight that they would use God’s law to achieve the disallowing of Anabaptists, witches, and prostitutes to live in Christian society. Of course, Horton doesn’t believe Christian society is possible, so that accounts for why Horton would say we should allow Anabaptists, witches and prostitutes to live in our Natural law governed societies.

Notice the recoiling and reviling of Horton over what Calvin wrote… over what the Church embraced for thousands of years until the rise of the Anabaptists.

Mike says… “It’s horrible what Calvin wrote.”

More horrible than a million abortions a year? More horrible than doctors cutting genitals off of healthy children? More horrible than Canada’s MAIDS program?

In indicting both Calvin and Luther for those “horrible things they wrote,” we see Mike Horton as a man of his times.

Mike isn’t quite yet finished;

Well, I think that we can’t just say, “Well, they are people of their time, they’re people of their age.” There were plenty of people, including Reformed theologians, who lamented Calvin’s defense of executing anti-Trinitarian heretics: “Isn’t it time to stop doing this? I thought we had a Reformation so that we only used the word of God and not the sword!” There were people of Calvin’s day—highly respected people: Martin Bucer, his mentor, for example—who didn’t agree with it. And so there were plenty of people of Calvin’s day who did not share Calvin’s view. And it’s a blot on his career. And I think it’s so helpful to study the history because you know a little bit more.

Bret responds,

Perhaps we should agree with Mike here and not be allowed to say that “Mike is just a man of his time,” because there are plenty of people, including Reformed theologians, who lament Horton’s R2K. An R2K which disallows the Magistrate from enforcing God’s law. The original Belgic 36 certainly allows the enforcing of God’s law. The quotes from Reformed chaps throughout history allowed for it;

“Though we have clear and full scriptures in the New Testament of the abolishing the ceremonial law, yet we no where read in all the New Testament of the abolishing of the judicial law, so far as it did concern the punishing of sins against the moral law, of which heresy and seducing of souls is one, and a great one. Once God did reveal his will for punishing those sins by such and such punishments. He who will hold that the Christian Magistrate is not bound to inflict such punishments for such sins, is bound to prove that those former laws of God are abolished, and show some Scripture for it.”

George Gillespie — Westminster Divine
Wholesome Severity Reconciled With Christian Liberty

 

Accordingly, in every state sanctified to God capital punishment must be ordered for all who have dared to injure religion, either by introducing a false and impious doctrine about the Worship of God or by calling people away from the true worship of God (Dt. 13:6-10, and 17:2-5); for all who blaspheme the name of God and his solemn services (Lv. 24:15-16); who violate the Sabbath (Ex. 31:14-15, and 35:2; Num. 15:32-36); who rebelliously despise authority of parents and live their own life wickedly (Dt. 21:18-21); who are unwilling to submit to the sentence of supreme tribunal (Dt. 17:8-12); who have committed bloodshed (Ex. 21:12; Lv. 24:17, Dt. 19:11-13), adultery (Lv. 20:10), rape (Dt. 22:20-25), kidnapping (Dt. 24:17); who have given false testimony in a capital case (Dt. 19:16-21).”

Martin Bucer
16th century Magisterial Reformer

Mike has a number of realities that are blots on his career including his R2K “atheism for the public square” theology. In studying the history we see that Mike is the aberration and not Calvin.

 

 

NAPARC & CREC As Over The Falls

The phrase is “over the falls,” as in, “that person is beyond redemption – they are over the falls.” It communicates that someone is beyond hope. I use this phrase often. I think the Federal Government is over the falls. I think Government schools are over the falls. I think Seminaries in the US are over the falls. I think R2K is over the falls. I think that Evangelicalism and Reformedom is over the falls.

One example of the latter is the MAPARC (Marxist American and Reformed Churches) – formerly known as NAPARC (North American Presbyterian and Reformed churches). The MAPARC churches have repeatedly demonstrated that they are of their father the devil with their ongoing witch hunt to go after clergy (and soon to be Ruling Elders) who hold to the same convictions that their North American Presbyterian and Reformed Church fathers held.

We have to extend this jeremiad to the CREC as well. Just a couple days of go I was shown a clip of a CREC Church service and sermon in Hell, Michigan (apropos) wherein the Pastor said (paraphrasing here); “If you are in this congregation and you are hiding your Kinism, I invite you this morning to practice your athletic skills and sprint to the door and don’t come back.”

It has gotten to the point that folks, that if you’re financially supporting a NAPARC or CREC church that is financially supporting their denomination you are financially supporting the work of Hell. God’s people must come out of these Marxist egalitarian nests. These congregations and denominations are anti-Christ.

Find here the latest NAPARC abomination. The Allegheny Presbytery of the RPCNA threatens to sue Sam Ketcham. Do keep in mind that scripture forbids Christians taking one another to “secular” courts. Of course, the RPCNA’s response to that objection would be to say … “We excommunicated Ketcham. He’s not a Christian.”

So… my most recent evidence is Rev. Ketcham’s reporting that NAPARC has sent him a letter threatening to sue him;

“My former presbytery has threatened to sue me for $150,000 if I show you the recording of the trial at which they excommunicated me.

Why are they so afraid the public might see this trial recording? Because evil is done in darkness. Truth is done in the open—John 3:19-21. (It is a very good audio/video recording btw).”

This is just the most recent proof that NAPARC is over the falls. Folks, it is time to pull out of these denominations. It is time to start new works, mindful of how badly denominations have worked for the last 100 years or so. All of this will not change until the NAPARC and CREC denominations are hit in the pocketbook. They are not going change by reasoned argument. They are not going to change by producing 1000s of pages of church history. Most importantly, they are not going to change by Scriptural arguments. Why?

Because they are over the falls.

Look, I’ve said this before on Iron Ink, but I will say it again here. What the argument between Athanasius and Arius on the Deity of Christ was in the third century … what the argument was between Luther and Cajetan on the issue of Justification by faith alone in the 16th century is today what the current argument is between the Marxist egalitarian Reformed and the Biblical Reformed. It’s that important. If the church follows the Marxist voices the visible church will become an institutional and established anti-Christ church. NAPARC and the CREC will become in the US what the The Three-Self Patriotic Movement is currently in China – a mere organ of the State and/or a egalitarian cult that has more in common with Mephistopheles than it does with Jesus Christ.

Abandon ye all hope who enter into a NAPARC or CREC church.

What Kind Of Christian Nationalism Are We Aiming At?

“There is no question of ever accepting Nazi representatives in the Austrian cabinet. An absolute abyss separates Austria from Nazism … We reject uniformity and centralization. … Catholicism is anchored in our very soil, and we know but one God: and that is not the State, or the Nation, or that elusive thing, Race.”

Kurt Schuschnigg
Chancellor – Austria

Prior to Anschluss – 1938

Chancellor Schuschnigg was one of those chaps who was pro-German but anti-Nazi. Schuschnigg believed Austria to be a German state and he believed Austrians to be Germans. He was Chancellor atop a the rightist Christian social party.

Schuschnigg’s view above offers an interesting insight into Christian Nationalism. No one would have accused Schuschnigg of not being a Christian Nationalist. However, Schuschnigg (like the Chancellor before him who was assassinated by the Nazis) held a particular kind of Nationalism that was at vast variance with the National Socialists in Germany. That variance was so vast that Schuschnigg labeled it an “abyss.”

Now, part of the abyss was accounted for by the fact that Austria was Roman Catholic and Schuschnigg believed that the Germany he resisted was primarily Prussian Protestant. Schuschnigg rightly understood that a Roman Catholic people and a Protestant people can never mix. (The Nazis solved this by creating a “gottgläubig” category.)  Gottgläubig  was a Nazi religious term for a form of non-denominationalism and deism practised by those German citizens who had officially left Christian churches but professed faith in some higher power or divine creator. By creating this category the Nazis were able to make the Germans Nazis first and Christians second. In conjunction with this the Nazis created a Reichskirche and appointed Ludwig Müller as the first Reichsbischof (Bishop for the Reich). The role of Müller was to keep the Churches in line with serving the Party.

Now, it must be said here that the Churches at this time in Germany were, generally speaking, not historically orthodox . The Protestant churches had been shot through with Liberalism and a creeping Barthianism. Bonhoeffer, and Niemoller, for example were both trained at Seminaries that were anything but orthodox. Niemoller himself, had been a supporter of the rise of the Nazis for quite some time before re-thinking his position.

So, the Christianity in Germany was slammed together under one Nazi umbrella. This Nazification of the Church and the whole German people was to the end of what Schuschnigg lifted his voice against. In this Nazification was the aim of uniformity, centralization and the turning of the State/Party and Race into a God (idol).

However, it still remains the goal to have a Biblical Christian Nationalism. All because unbiblical expressions of Nationalism might exist, doesn’t mean that a Christian nationalism that is characterized by unity in diversity among one distinct people, and as governmentally decentralized can’t be championed. A Christian Nationalism that understands Biblical  jurisdictionalism/subsidiarity should be the goal of every Biblical Christian.

Also, we should add here that it is possible to prioritize one’s ethnicity/race without lifting one’s ethnicity/race above God as an idol. Schuschnigg writes of “that elusive thing, Race.” However, keep in mind that Schuschnigg wasn’t living in the multi-cultural/multi-racial hell that we are being forced to live in. Race, is not quite so elusive when you’re part of a people who are being sought out to be replaced.

This kind of statement needs to be made because I have been privy myself to chaps who want to make some kind of hero out of the Austrian Corporal. I have been privy to men who speak in glowing terms about National Socialism. This reveals a profound misunderstanding of history. The mustachioed Schicklgruber was no hero. Yes, we can cheer them for fighting the Bagels (who declared war on Germany first) but they hardly provide a role model upon which a Biblical Christian should aspire.

The creation of “Positive Christianity” by Germany in order to give a generic (neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant) theology provides one example as to why a Biblical Christian can not be a supporter of a renewed National Socialist Kingdom. In 1937, Hans Kerrl, the Reich Minister for Church Affairs in Germany, explained that “Positive Christianity” was not “dependent upon the Apostle’s Creed”, nor was it dependent on “faith in Christ as the Son of God”, upon which Christianity relied; rather, it was represented by the Nazi Party: “The Führer is the herald of a new revelation”, Kerrl said. No lover of Jesus Christ could ever embrace such a monstrosity.

By all means let us pursue Christian Nationalism. By all means let us vigorously practice the Ordo Amoris. By all means let us ora et labora with the purpose of ending the “White Replacement”project. However, we must not fall into the thinking of C. S. Lewis’ Dwarf character, “Nikabrik,” from Lewis’ novel “Prince Caspian.” Nikabrik, as you will recall, becomes so desperate to win out against the evil Telmarines that he calls on black magic to summon up the evil White Witch in order to deliver old Narnia from the Telmarines. Nikabrik’s pursuit is a warning against embracing past evil in order to fight off present evil.

The Protest Filed Against An OPC Overture by Ruling Elder Andrew Duggan

MAPARC (Marxist American Presbyterian and Reformed Churches) are at it again. Recently the OPC, feeling left out for not being as Marxist left as the RPCNA, ARP, and PCA, had a Presbytery file an overture that said; “Racists bad… We Marxist clergy good.”

There was one Ruling Elder named Andrew Duggan who was having none of the Marxism of his OPC Presbytery.  Duggan filed this protest with the Presbytery. This will mean that the powers that be in the OPC will be going after RE Duggan.

“I the undersigned respectfully protest the action of the Philadelphia Presbytery of The Orthodox Presbyterian Church in approving the following overture:

‘condemn without distinction any theological or political teaching which posits a superiority of race or ethnic identity born of immutable human characteristics and…call to repentance any who would promote or associate themselves with such teaching, either by commission or omission.’

The Scriptures referenced in the grounds do not support or teach a doctrine of broad equality. Acts 17:26 can no more be teaching an equality of nations by virtue of being of one blood than the equality of men and women who are also of one blood, and in marriage are one flesh. Furthermore neither 1 Corinthians 12:13 or Galatians 3:28 by including “bond and free” a necessary unequal relation with other men and other Christians cannot support a universal relation of equals vis a vis the 5th Commandment. Furthermore Galatians 3:28’s inclusion of “male and female” cannot serve as the ground of equality, which are by creation not equal, as the Apostle Paul elsewhere uses the superiority of men based on the order of Creation, Adam being formed first to establish the reason why women are to remain silent in the church. The logic of these grounds are the same as the enemies of the Gospel use to ordain women in their “churches”. Furthermore this condemns our fathers in the Faith and of The Orthodox Presbyterian Church most notably J Gresham Machen who not only privately expressed his segregationist views in a letter to his mother, but expressed his view of White Supremacy in his article “Mountains and Why We Love Them” published on OPC dot org.

‘There, in that glorious round spread out before you, that land of Europe, humanity has put forth its best. There it has struggled; there it has fallen; there it has looked upward to God. The history of the race seems to pass before you in an instant of time, concentrated in that fairest of all the lands of the earth. You think of the great men whose memories you love, the men who have struggled there in those countries below you, who have struggled for light and freedom, struggled for beauty, struggled above all for God’s Word.’

The superlative of ‘humanity has put forth its best’ speaking of Europe can mean nothing other than White people. This overture goes beyond the teaching of the Scriptures and our secondary standards, and binds the consciences of our members officers and church courts contrary to the Liberty we confess in the 20th chapter of our Confession of Faith.”

Accordingly I respectfully but most forcefully protest the overture to our General Assembly.”

Andrew P. Duggan

An Ode to Sage Tea; With apologies to Joel Barlow

Quatrain 1a

I sing the bitter I know, the taste I meet
My enduring of the potion my taste buds greet
The bitter of Sage Tea. Come dear mug
Flow down my throat, and serve as drug
The herb within thee, still angry at being picked
Come work thy magic and this illness evict
Thin my phlegm with thy noxious taste
And leave no malady that might be traced