Every Citizen in Michigan liked Christmas a lot
But the Gretchen who lived there in Lansing did not!

The Gretchen hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!
Now, please don’t ask why. The insane have no reason.

It could be, perhaps, that her shoes were too tight.
It could be that Nessal wasn’t friendly at night.

But I think the most likely reason of all
Is that Soros told the Gretch to make Michigan fall

But whatever the reason for her Christmas hate
She stood there resolved to erase Christmas’ date

Staring down from Lansing with a sour, Gretchy frown
She was determined she was going to take Christmas down

For she knew every resident in Michigan cities
Were busy ignoring her silly mandate ditties

She fumed that they were gathering in homes far and near
Despising her orders that all should have fear

Then she snarled, with her Gretchen fingers nervously strumming
“I must find a way to stop all these Christmas homecomings”

She knew that Christmas would mean plenty of banter
In Michigan homes on the best way to supplant her

And then! Oh, the blogs!, Oh, the blogs! Blogs! Blogs! Blogs!
There’s one thing I hate! Michigan Blogs! Blogs! Blogs! Blogs!

They’ll go on the net together, with Christmas delight
Writing one and all about the Wretched Gretchy fight

Dear Pastor;

Why do people look for political solutions to moral problems?

Martin
Chalcedon

Dear Martin,

Thanks for your question. It is a legitimate question.

The reason that political solutions are sought out for moral problems is that when God is thrown out of the equation then the only thing left to provide a solution to moral problems is politics.

Moral problems can only be solved by right thinking about God. If modern man won’t have God then he has to look someplace else to fill the God-void in order to arrive at solutions for the moral problems that occur from not bowing the knee to God’s authority. When a theological void is created the only way moral problems can be correctly answered is by politics.

Politics thus takes the place of theology for fallen man. Since fallen man has no sovereign God to turn to for answers to moral problems the only place left to look is to the sovereign state for answers to moral problems.

By the way, Martin, this is why politics has become a blood sport. If it is the case that the state, via political solutions, is going to become the moral arbiter of right and wrong then it is understandable why people go ape concerning politics since politics is going to determine who the God is who is going to solve moral problems. People, on some level, understand that they are voting for God when they vote for President and other lesser leaders. As such, many people, understanding what is at stake, will go as far as using crooked voting machines, enroll dead people voting, and use other nefarious means to get their god elected. For fallen man, politics has taken the place of theology and indeed has become theology.

Fallen man understands that via politics he can use the state as a hammer to social engineer all moral problems in the direction he desires. So, people look to political solutions to moral problems because without the God of the Bible that is one of the places one can find the raw power to set one’s moral agenda in the direction one desires.

Of course, Martin, we have to realize that when politics, absent being informed by Biblical theology and the God of the Bible, the consequence will be the creation of dystopia via social engineering all in the name of creating Utopia. Godless political man can never provide lasting and sufficient answers to fallen man’s moral problems.

However, political solutions do have a place to solve moral problems Martin but only if those political solutions are downstream of God’s revealed Word. Politics, we need to understand, is not in and of itself evil. Politics is only evil in trying to provide solutions to moral problems when the politics in question are taking for their authority some other authority besides the God of the Bible and His Law-Word.

So, in summary, fallen people look to fallen political solutions as answers to moral problems because politics and the solutions it provides have, in lieu of the God of the Bible, become their source of authority.

“It was January 49 BC, Caesar was staying in the northern Italian city of Ravenna and he had a decision to make. Either he acquiesced to the Senate’s command upon him to resign his command and disband his army or risk being declared an “Enemy of the State,” if he decided to disobey the Senate’s command. If Caesar decided to disobey the Senate then his option was to move southward to confront Pompey and plunge the Roman Republic into a bloody civil war. An ancient Roman law forbade any general from crossing the Rubicon River and entering Italy proper with a standing army. To do so was treason. This tiny stream would reveal Caesar’s intentions and mark the point of no return.”

Suetonius
“Life of Julius Caesar” — Paraphrase

People have asked what I think will happen on 20 January 2021. They want to know if I think that Trump will cross his own version of the Rubicon. They want to know who I think will take the oath of office for the Presidency of these united States. The answer to this is dependent upon who one thinks Trump is. Is Trump really a MAGA civic nationalist who is opposed to the globalist deep state or is Trump a Judas-goat agent of the deep state in order to bring America down so that the New World Order can cripple America by civil conflict so that the NWO can pursue its egalitarian “Build back better” agenda?

If the NWO and their Bankster agents are pulling the strings the question reduces to, “Could the NWO better pursue their agenda via the conflict that would rage in these Us with a Trump presidency, or would a Biden presidency more easily result in the securing of the Globalist dream? You see, one does not need to believe that Trump is what he says he is in order to believe that Trump still might become President in January.

Trump, who has railed against the idea of Socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Occasional Cortex and yet has pursued a fiscal policy that would make a drunken sailor proud. Trump was the one who first locked down the country under the pretext that “social distancing would flatten the curve” — a decision that has gone a long way towards bankrupting small businesses thus paving the way to Corporate socialism. These policies could hardly be described as America First or as a model of civic nationalism.

Of course, by all surface appearances a President Biden, as combined with a Democratic Senate and House would be far more disastrous in terms of a lurch towards open minority and sexual pervert Marxism. As such, anybody who wants the coming socialism to be of the more diluted variety will desire Trump to take office in January.

It is my conviction that Trump will remain President. Many people will insist that such a conviction is, unlike the electoral votes from several states, certifiable. They insist that there is nothing that is being reported that points to that conclusion. However, people need to keep in mind that these kinds of things that I’m seeing are not typically those types of things that receive a lot of press. For example, In the run-up to WW II there was all kinds of intense skullduggery that was going on beneath the surface but not seen by the public, or if seen by the public it was explained away as other than it really was. Wm. Stephenson and Roald Dahl were two Brits who were tasked with skullduggery in order to drag the US into the war. Roald Dahl was originally tasked with planting pro-British and anti-Nazi stories in the American press in the hopes of rallying a reluctant United States to join World War II, the spy network worked after the bombing of Pearl Harbor to counter the significant isolationist sentiment that still remained in the country and ensure the United States remained in the fight. Dahl’s assignment included blackening the names of those championing the America 1st movement. All this to say that we must not assess what is happening now surrounding election 2020 by what we see on the surface or by what is explained by the press. There is, I believe, a great deal of WW 2 type prelude skullduggery going on below the surface.

Such as,

1.) Trump is not giving any indications that he is going to concede. We are now just a few days short of a month before Trump is scheduled to leave and yet all we get from the Don is more tweets about how Election 2020 was a cheat.

2.) There are rumors swirling that even SCOTUS justices are yelling at each other behind closed doors about Election 2020 and their role in resolving it. Of course, Snopes says this story is false but nobody has proven for me yet that Snopes is worthy of my time listening.

3.) There is the sudden articulation for how the line of succession is to work for the Secretary of Defense should he be incapacitated. Why now? Does this portend anticipated conflict?

4.) Defense Secretary Miller has denied to the Biden transition team any cooperation from the Pentagon on transition issues.

5.) If one reads Trump’s Executive Order from 2018

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-imposing-certain-sanctions-event-foreign-interference-united-states-election/?fbclid=IwAR0ZEUHzLr9Oj_B9f758XZJWnzxdO5U-1VdHDrRgWDT1vxL4AHKiK8RympA

It looks like it was written especially for the current situation in which we find ourselves.

6.) Then there is the reality of the Insurrection Act which can legitimately be invoked.

A further probing might ask a few more questions…

7.) Why did Bill Barr quit now? Is he playing some kind of possum or is he really some kind of Judas to Trump?

8.) Is Durham with his report playing the same kind of possum game? Or will we yet see the Durham report in some other capacity as damning evidence against members of the deep state?

9.) John Ratcliff as DNI has reported that there was foreign skullduggery involvement in election 2020. This report is per the requirements of Trump’s 2018 Executive Order that allows Trump to cross the Rubicon. Ratcliff’s report has said to be delayed for a few days which will chronicle China Iran and Russia’s injurious involvement.

10.) Then there remains the high octane tweets and communique of powerhouse attorneys L. Lin Wood and Sydney Powell. Are we really to believe that these two people are willing to ruin their careers in order to screech like banshees on amphetamine highs in order to say false things about election 2020 and the various participants therein?

In the context of all this, we must keep in mind the players and their connections. Senate Majority leader, Mitch McConnel for example, is married to Elaine Chao — Secretary of Transportation. Recall that Chao has deep connections to China and the Chinese Communist party through her family. It is not a surprise therefore that “The Turtle” McConnell would support Biden as President-elect. Now combine this with the recent Congressman Eric Swalwell Chinese circus as well as the Sen. Diane Feinstein Chinese spy chauffeur and gofer for the past twenty years. Add one more layer of Chinese spying during the Clinton administration and one begins to see that Communist China has been the #1 global threat to American interest for 30 years now. China’s money is everywhere from Hollywood to the NBA, to Washington DC. It is not an accident that Trump went after China once he became President.

So, these are some reasons that I think that Trump will cross his version of the Rubicon in January. The person who reads the above closely will easily see that I myself remain conflicted as to who Trump really is. Is Trump really MAGA man — a civic Nationalist fighting the New World Order — or is Trump controlled opposition being used by the NWO to advance a preset agenda? I’ve been looking at him now for four years and it is hard to say who this lifelong Democrat (until 2016) is.

If you search engine “The Gospel Coalition Cult Christian Trumpism,” you will find what I am responding to here. This is part II which examines Michael’s reasons for his assessment on the rise of Christian Trumpism. I’m not linking TGC to my site because I don’t want to increase their traffic. The points below speak to the article in question starting with Michael’s reasons and follow the flow of the article from that point forward — generally speaking.

Michael’s three points for the rise of Christian Trumpism are;

1.) Christian Americanism
2.) End-Times Conspiracy
3.) Prosperity Gospel

Michael writes on #1

Christian Americanism is the narrative that God specially called the United States into being as an extraordinary—verging on miraculous—providence. Passages from the election of Israel in the old covenant are lifted out of context and applied to America.

BLM responds,

First, I should offer that I do not buy into the whole notion of American exceptionalism or the American Manifest Destiny. When I read US History I find chapters and chapters that are necessary to weep over. However, the chapters I weep over are the chapters that the Left tends to exult over (The War Between The States, entry into WW I, WW II, Yalta, The Civil Rights Movement, etc.), and the chapters I exult over the Left gnashes their teeth over (The Southern Confederacy, The 1924 Immigration Act, Freedom of Association, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, etc.). Because, as a Christian, I read history different than those of the “Christian Americanism” stripe there is a sense that I will agree with Michael here. However, as a Christian, I also read American history differently than Michael and his happy band of R2K Pilgrims read history and so there is also a sense in which I will vociferously disagree with the man.

However, having said that I still believe that God specially called these united States into being by an extraordinary providence — yes, even verging on a “remarkable providence” footing. (The Puritans preferred “remarkable providence” over “miraculous” since they believe that miraculous was a word saved for what happened in the Scripture.) Any dedicated reading to the founding of America forward demonstrates repeated remarkable providences in the formation of this country.

Now as to Michael’s disagreement with the idea of passages from the OT taken out of context and applied to America by our forefathers we must have a few words. First, let’s just admit that this is a hermeneutical disagreement and that Michael does not have the high ground here. Plenty of European Christians handled the idea of covenant in relation to their nation the same way America’s founders handled the idea of covenant. We could start with those who created and signed the Solemn League and Covenant. We could mention the Boers as they settled what we now know as South Africa. We could mention Oliver Cromwell and his Roundheads. Actually, Michael refusing to see an application of the Covenant to a Nation is a feature in Michael’s R2K “theology,” and so the sine of this move is hardly as obvious as Michael wants to suggest it is.

Second, we need to keep before us that Michael’s “theology” does not allow him to even consider the possibility of any nation being a Christian Nation. Michael’s R2K “theology” rules that category out of bounds as a beginning presupposition. So, given that fact, it’s not surprising that Michael whines about applying Scriptural covenantal categories to any nation. Because of this reality, we are not surprised by Michael’s hand-wringing over this.

2.) Michael then tells us that he believes that the better lights of the founding Fathers were the reputed non-Sectarians. Michael will surely allow me to see Patrick Henry as preferable to his James Madison. We have noted numerous times on this blog that non-sectarianism is a myth and so I won’t take the time to refute that silly notion once again.

3.) As noted earlier Michael’s R2K does not allow him to speak of a ‘holy nation.’ We must understand that is completely sui generis to R2K, and their fellow travelers the Anabaptists, Lutherans, and Libertarians like Roger Williams. It is not a historically Reformed position and frankly, I resent Horton and the R2K Pilgrims constantly insisting that this idiotic position is the Reformed de ri​gueur position. Clearly, it is possible for nations to be covenanted and so be set apart as uniquely belonging to God. Indeed, as God is sovereign over all and has entrusted Kingship to His Lord Christ it is the case that all nations as being owned by Christ must take plights of allegiance to the Lord Christ lest He be angry and those nations perish in the way.

4.) Nothing that is said in #3 contradicts the reality and the role of the Church that Michael sets forth in his article as untrue. I would only insist that God’s Kingdom consists of those individuals gathered in their nations around “the lamb who was slain,” and that God has “ransomed peoples for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” in their tribes, languages, peoples, and nations to be a kingdom and priests to our God.

5.) Michael next, once again, reduces Christianity to his narrow definition of the Gospel. I have no problem saluting his narrow definition of the Gospel. However, it is definitely the case that Michael has a problem with a definition of Christianity that is totalistic in scope. Christianity certainly offers the good news not only of Justification as found in the Lord Jesus Christ freely given to the elect but Christianity also confers, by the working of the Holy Spirit in redeemed men, an ever-increasing becoming of what they have been freely declared to be in Christ. This means that men, by God’s grace alone, increasingly conform to the image of God’s dear Son. This sanctification means man goes from Christlikeness to Christlikeness and this Christlikeness is measured by walking in terms of God’s authoritative Law Word (see Heidelberg Catechism Q. 91). This means that there is good news in the reality that Christianity, like salt and light, preserves and improves man and all the Institutions, Disciplines, and reality that redeemed man touches. Holy men, in sufficient numbers, will create holy families, holy education, holy law, and yes, even holy nations.

6.) Michael then offers,

Yet in scrambling for political privilege, the church loses confidence in the Spirit’s power working through this gospel and communicates to the world that it requires worldly supports for its success.

I’ll let Calvin’s sermon from I Samuel 8 repudiate Michael here,

“The Lord does not give Kings the right to use their power to subject the people to tyranny. Indeed when Liberty to resist tyranny seems to be taken away by princes who have taken over, one can justly ask this question; since kings and princes are bound by covenant to the people, to administer law in truest equality, sincerity and integrity; if they break faith and usurp tyrannical power by which they allow themselves everything they want: is it not possible for the people to consider together taking measures in order to remedy the evil?”

Was Calvin communicating to the world that he was looking to the world for worldly success in his admonishment for people to consider taking measures in order to remedy magistrate evil, the result of which would certainly mean political privilege for Calvinists?

Clearly, Michael Horton’s “theology” that protests Christian Americanism must be rejected just as much as the idea of American Exceptionalism or Manifest Destiny must be rejected.

7.) Next, Michael tees up his objections to End Times Conspiracy. I don’t have much disagreement here though I do discover a rich vein of irony when Michael complains about how End Times Conspiracists had a “biblical prophecy (that) was a Manichean dualism between “the planet Earth” and “Heaven.” The irony is found in a dualist complaining about other people’s dualism. Horton and his merry Pilgrim R2K acolytes have a “theology” that is besotted with dualisms. Indeed, one of their prophets even calls the R2K life the “hyphenated life.” It is true that Michael doesn’t draw a dualism between heaven and earth the way the Dispies he complains of do, but it is also true that Michael has a dualism between what he calls “the Common Kingdom,” and “the Grace Kingdom.” These dualisms of R2K are most grossly expressed in R2K dualisms of Natural law vs. God’s Law and Common Realm vs. Grace Realm.

8.) Oh, and Michael… I far more prefer the John Birch society than to your Democratic party.

9.) I completely agree with Horton on the Prosperity Gospel issue, though I must note that Michael’s R2K uber-pessimistic amillennialism is bound to itch more over the Gospel having success than what you’ll find in Biblical Christians who own a biblical eschatology. I also will add here that nobody (not even Michael) rolls his eyes more over the like of Eric Metaxes, Hal Lindsey, Jim & Tammy Baker, the Crouch’s, etc. One doesn’t have to be an R2K nutcase to find these other nutcases to be disturbing.

10.) Michael ends by writing;

“Blend these three ingredients––with a generous dose of hucksterism, self-promotion, and personality cult—and it’s not surprising that we have the cult of Christian Trumpism. Though it has nothing to do with serious politics or serious Christianity, it’s the culmination of many decades of exploiting both. And the end result is a dangerous enthusiasm that opposes both.“

Much the same could be written of R2k “theology.” There is plenty of hucksterism, self-promotion and personality cult in R2k. Doubt me? Just try disagreeing with R. Scott Clark. Doubt me? Just attend a PCRT conference. Doubt me? Just attend an R2K church for a month and see all the self-promotion of R2K.

As far as I’m concerned R2K and Christian Trumpism deserve one another. One can only hope that God will clear them both from our sight.

If you search engine “The Gospel Coalition Cult of Christian Trumpism,” you will find what I am responding to here. It is another hatchet piece by Mike Horton. I’m not linking TGC to my site because I don’t want to increase their traffic. The points below speak to the article in question and follow the flow of the article — generally speaking.

Michael Horton is the J. Gresham Machen professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Westminster Seminary California and if J. Gresham Machen were alive he would kick Horton’s backside out of his endowed Chair since Machen would not have agreed with a ruddy word Horton says in advocating surrender in the common realm.

1.) Please understand that I have absolutely zero tuck for the lunatic Evangelical “conservative” movement. I would rather gargle glass than being caught dead in a photo with some whack job blowing a shofar or standing listening to some unexploded Dispie pimple explaining that Trump is God’s answer for America. I have never voted for Trump because he is not a conservative and I certainly don’t think he is some kind of Protestant version of the coming Mahdi. So, unfortunately, I have to agree with Michael a little bit on the whack-a-doodles who show up at these rallies. But unlike Michael, I don’t label these people as Christians unless there is a category of “Christian dupes.” Michael seems to think that anybody who says “Lord Lord,” ought to be considered a Christian.

2.) However, unlike Michael, I don’t dismiss the idea of Christians supporting Trumpism as an ideological movement that includes the ideas of Nationalism, (MAGA) isolationism, and hatred of Globalism and I don’t think that somebody who supports that set of ideological convictions to be members of a cult, and I don’t think that if one attended such a rally that therefore that said person is automatically an idolater. He may simply believe that “Thou Shalt Not Steal” applies to election 2020 and that Trump is the genuine President.

3.) Michael seems also to miss the Schaefferian idea of co-belligerence. Francis Schaeffer taught that people from other expressions of faiths can come together to support particular issues or candidates as long as they understood that their agreements only went as far as the particular issue or candidate at hand. This means that sacerdotal brained Roman Catholics and comic book eschatological Dispies, as well as glossoholic Pentecostals, can hold hands with dour Reformed types and together support an issue or a candidate at a rally without surrendering their conviction that the other chap is an idolatrous son of a mother without a father — religiously speaking. Why, even humorless R2K theologians like Michael could attend one of these rallies he laments without having to worry about being painted as an idolater all because other looney-tune idolaters were at the same rally with their shofars, prayer beads, and Mahdi obsessions.

4.) Michael invokes Rod Dreher, Beth Moore, and David French as profound gurus.

And Michael wants to complain about Evangelical asylum escapees at these rallies? Michael … Dude… something about casting stones while living in a glasshouse.

5.) Here’s a question to ponder. Why is it that Michael and the R2K wonder boys never punch left. It seems to me that these theological tykes are forever punching right but seldom if ever punch left. This would fit my theory that the R2K boys are in point of fact leftists wearing the brilliant disguise of Karo syrup piety.

6.) One chief problem of R2K is it seeks to reduce Christianity to “the Gospel,” (Horton’s ‘good news’ in the article) as if Christianity has nothing else to say to Christians except as it pertains to learning that Christ will receive sinners. Doubtless “the Gospel” is the centerpiece of Christianity but to suggest, as R2K consistently does, that Christianity = narrowly defined Gospel is a gross reductio ad absurdum. So, while the good news, narrowly defined is certainly not a Christian society or any political system as Michael says, that doesn’t mean that the good news of Christianity does not multiply so that it has far-reaching implications that touch the issue of Christian social order, or Christian political systems.

7.) Michael says in the article,

“The Lord gave us Christian freedom to vote our conscience.”

Is Michael really suggesting that Christianity as a faith system has nothing to say about the wickedness of Totaltairan Socialist political systems? Is Michael saying that voting for a Totalitarian Marxist is acceptable for a Christian since doing so would not violate their conscience? And this man has the chutzpah to complain about Dispies blowing shofars?

8.) Michael doesn’t say it explicitly here but the implications of what this child theologian is saying is that the third use of the law is mute. Now, Michael would say here that he supports the third use of the law but not as applied to the civil realm. The third use of the law is for Christians in their personal individual lives but Christians should not apply the third use of the law to the public square. This is a feature of R2K’ism and is one reason why R2K is heretical.

9.) Horton proclaims his credentials as a minister in order to speak out against idolatry. Who will speak out about Horton’s and R2K’s idolatry of allowing for other Kings in the common realm other than King Jesus? Dr. Michael has eyes full of beams while complaining about sundry motes elsewhere.

10.) Michael complains about Evangelicals marching on Washington to perpetuate a cult. But what of the R2K cult of which Michael is a leading guru? How many Reformed churches have wannabee Hortons in their pulpits because of the pablum being spit out at Westminster West and like Seminaries across the country?

11.) Michael’s leftism comes out with this statement;

We might have ignored this as a spectacle, a performance by a handful of voices in opposition to the Constitutional system of our republic.

Opposition to the Constitutional system of our republic? Has Michael given up on the Eighth Word? Why isn’t Michael writing articles about how God hates theft, cheating, and chicanery? Instead, we get from this Boy Wonder a statement that suggests that what is happening in Election 2020 has anything to do with the Constitutional system of our republic.

Michael Horton then gives three reasons why this spectacle has arisen within the Church of Christians being political in a direction he does not like. I will deal with those three reasons in part II. Can anybody tell me what Michael wrote when America’s cities were burning down this past summer as pursued by the Christian left?