“Racism is … about the MATERIALISTIC DETERMINISM that GENES DETERMINE CULTURE.”

Bojidar Marinov
Quote from 2018

God made man body and soul. To insist that man’s genetics alone accounts for his culture would indeed be materialism and so sinful. However, to deny that man’s corporeal existence has any impact upon or determination of culture is just pure Gnosticism. (The opposite error to Materialism.) To say that it is only man’s thinking (never mind the question of how does one think without being corporeal) or what he believes that alone determines culture is a kind of disembodied mysticism (Gnosticism).

Just as we could never agree with the Marxist materialistic determinism, neither can we embrace the heresy that holds that man’s corporeal existence does not work, together with man’s incorporeal reality to create culture. Man is body and soul and so culture is theology (what a man thinketh in his heart) poured over man’s corporeal reality which is ethnically covenantal as well as individually covenantal.

Race is not everything per the materialist, but neither is it nothing per Bojidar Marinov, Joel McDurmon, and American Vision (in 2018).

This sloppy slinging around of 20th century Trotsky created sins (racism) is now the ideology du jour at American Vision (2018). Christians would do well to both quit writing checks and quit supporting American vision until American Vision repents of their strange ideological hybrid Gnosto-Cultural Marxism.

May God have mercy on their souls and grant them repentance.

May we be constantly examining ourselves to make sure we do not mishandle God’s word.

Appendix

Joel McDurmon was released / resigned from American Vision and though AV is not yet fully following the teachings of R. J. Rushdoony it is certainly on a better arc than it was when Dr. McDurmon held court with that organization and we are pleased with that.

This week I received in the mail a tony self-congratulatory brochure from my Alma-Mater; Indiana Wesleyan University. When I graduated there in 1982 they called it “Marion College,” but having vastly upgraded since my days on campus they renamed it “Indiana Wesleyan University,” in 1989. The campus I attended looks very little like the campus that exists today.

I thought that since the College Newspaper once quoted the 1982 Dean of Students to the end that I was, “The most responsible student on campus” I would give a few recollections of my time at Marion College.

I showed up on the fall of 1977 and attended for two years and then sat out for 9 months and earned some money and returned and finished in 1982. Freshman initiation was a pretty big deal in 1977. It was a bit of a culture shock. I remember a Sioux Indian student having to do a rain dance on the dining room table during the student meal as part of his freshman initiation. I remember young ladies being led around on dog leashes and carrying doggy dishes in their mouths. I remember guys having to wear make up and doll up like a woman. Clearly, in 1977 the world had not yet become “Woke,” at Marion College.

The brochure I received in the mail tried to suggest that Marion College / Indiana Wesleyan University has always been a place where one can find diversity. That claim however, is merely window dressing for the political correct. Oh sure, there were a handful of non-Caucasians that went through the turnstiles over the years but when I was there I calculated that roughly .3% of the students and none of the faculty were non-Caucasians. At that time it remained a “school” that was for the children of the Wesleyan faithful. There is nothing wrong with that but diversity was hardly a definitional staple of Marion College. It is disappointing to me that Bitch-goddess of political correctness has so raised its presence that the University now has to reinterpret its past in order to satisfy the lusts of that goddess.

I was not ready for the College experience when I first arrived at Marion College. I was not a good student until my final couple of years there and it revealed itself in my grades. I was pretty good at the memorization and spit back part of the educational process but absorbing the conceptual, theological, and ideological aspects of a good education took some time. Because of this I was a gadabout always chasing whatever “exciting” that was happening, and in Marion, Indiana there were never much exciting happening.

My first year there found me ready to quit because my academic performance was so bad. I remember before an exam in a basic US history course I told the Lord Christ in my praying that I was leaving if I didn’t score at least a “C” on the looming exam. My score on that test was so dismal that I was ready to pack up and go home but when I compared my score to the posted key my score fell in the “C” category. The professor had graded on a curve and though my score was dismal it still was in the “C” range when compared to the other Freshman dismal scores. I took this as a kind of fleece and resolved to press on. I’d like to say that my grades got instantly better but that would be varnishing history.

On the whole, to this day, I have found Wesleyans to be a kind people unless you start picking at their woeful theology. Most of the people I stumbled across at Marion College were kind people coming from homes where their kind-hearted parents had raised them to be kind-hearted people. My peers were very generous with their time and resources. There were many invitations to visit student homes and meet the families of my fellow students.

The Marion Campus was tiny in 1977. There was one “Science” building where most the classes were held. A smattering of classes would also be held in the Administration building, the McCann Chapel, the Library, and even in College Wesleyan Church on campus. Beyond those buildings there was the Baldwin Dining Hall and the three residences for the young ladies (Bowman, Shatford, and Teeter) as well as the one resident building for the men, “Williams Hall.” I don’t remember there being a three to one advantage of women to men but that is the way the on campus resident facilities worked. There were also sundry on-campus housing units. There was also a building they called a “gym.” It was the most ram-shackled thing you could possibly imagine and yet it seemed there was always a pickup game of some sort going on. I actually have some fond memories of the competition that I was involved in, in that falling down old building. I spent too much time there instead of being in a Library or at my desk studying.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday the students were required to attend chapel at 10:00 am. After doing that for about 3 months I had decided that was enough and so decided that I would not be attending chapel in the future. (That decision came back to haunt me as I was eventually required to do chapel purgatory before I would be allowed to graduate a few years later.) A litany of more boring Chapel speakers three times a week one could not possibly imagine. My most vivid memory of chapel was when the College brought a Black Pentecostal choir into sing for the student’s pleasure and suddenly one of the choir members was slain in the spirit. Now, I had never even heard of being slain in the spirit before and after witnessing that I was sure that I never wanted to see such a spectacle again. First she began to jumping preternaturally and eventually as she heated up jumping became running in place and running in place became running out of the building. I was standing in the foyer when all this was going on and witnessed some burly guy who was with the Church choir tackle the excited but slight young woman. The burly chap acted as if he was trying to hold down a Mexican jumping bean and by my observations it didn’t look like he was having much success. That was my first up close exposure to Pentecostalism. The things you learn at college chapel.

A second memory I have of Chapel was the incredible circus like ability of Jeff Holloway to be able to sleep during chapel. Jeff, as seated in one of those hard pews, would lean back and with a hymn book wedged between one knee and the pew in front of him, he would situate himself so that he could fit another hymn book as wedged between his neck and the back of the pew and in that position the man would get an hour of shut eye. It was an amazing skill and to this day I wished I had gotten a photo. Such balance and skill was a marvel to behold. I tried it more than once but I think Jeff was taller than me and so it worked for him and was only a frustration to me.

One more memory of chapel was the polyester “Amen” corner who sat in the front right of the sanctuary. They were called the polyester “Amen” corner because they were comprised of the ministerial students who, unlike the rest of us dregs, did not wear jeans, but instead decked themselves out in only the finest of polyester pants. They would sit up in that corner and like birds chirping on a electrical wire could be counted on making a funny clicking noise with their mouth followed by an exuberant, “AMEN.” When they really got going it sounded like hail on a tin roof. Ministerial students at Marion College were a sui-generis group. We will have more to say of them before this Centennial Celebration reminiscing is finished.

The man who ran the Dining Hall was a man named John Harsha. John cared about the students under his watch and did his best to provide decent food. (I wish I could say he always succeeded … but hey, institutional food in that epoch was what it was.) John was the head of something they called “SAGA” at the time. It was an obvious acronym the true meaning of which I have long forgotten. However, the students fondly said it stood for, “Soviet Attempt to Gag Americans.” Who knew the Cold War extended even to our dining hall? The College dining experience then isn’t like what you find today at Universities. Today, at many Universities, one can pretty much come and go as they like with a Cafeteria that is open 24-7, and even largely order their own meal. At Marion College in 1977 there were three meals a day and they ran a very precise eating schedule. I remember that breakfast was from 0700-0800. I remember because I don’t think I ate three breakfast meals in the 4 years I attended. Neither did many other folks. You could tell who the academic geeks were on Campus by going to breakfast because all 20-30 of them would be there every morning. Everyone else had enough sense to still be sleeping.

The Dining hall, when full, could get pretty uproarious. Upon entering one had to be immediately aware of the danger of flying ice cubes. No meal was satisfactory unless you were getting pelted with ice. But ice was pretty mild compared to the food fights that would occasionally break out. No one has dined well until they have had to duck a generous portion of flying tapioca headed in their direction. There was always the loud invective that could be heard being shouted across the dining hall as one student at one end of the dining hall would remonstrate with another student at the other end of the dining hall. One of my favorites was hearing Randy Sexton admonish Carl Flickinger to “Go gargle some broken glass Carl.” Then there was the splattered pizza on the Mirrors in the men’s Dining Hall restroom. (No, John, I never did that.) Upon entering the restroom the first thing that would go through one’s mind was, “What is there pizza doing on the mirror?” After awhile “pizza on the mirror” became as common place in the restroom as the paper towel dispenser. Indeed, so accustomed did I become to pizza on the bathroom mirror that I began to notice it missing in my home bathroom mirror after I graduated. The guys who had to clean up that mess every time pizza was served should have gotten all their meals for free. Dining at Marion College was not merely a epicurean experience. No, it was full on live roadhouse entertainment.

Next entry — Living In Williams Hall

Was the Apostle Paul a Racist?

Who will you believe? Bojidar Marinov or Geerhardus Vos?

“God’s decree is not exclusively concerned with individuals but also comprises nations and establishes the bond between generations. The destiny of a nation is weighed by Him, as is the destiny of a person. There is not the slightest interest, indeed is completely impossible on Reformed grounds, to deny national election or whatever it may be called.”

Geerhardus Vos
Dogmatic Theology Vol 1. — pg. 111

Of course you can’t have national election if you don’t have nations.

—–

“The more Christianity gains ground, and the more Christians become with their religion, the less cultural differences we will see in the world. In the final day of history, every place on the planet will have the same covenantal views of God, man, law, judgment, and future, and therefore every place on the earth will have the same cultural practices informed by the Christian faith.

In short: people choose their religion, their religion determines their culture. When the world as a whole accepts the Christian religion, the world will be one culture.”

– Bojidar Marinov

_______________

Bret Responds,

1.) Throughout History the European Protestants formed distinct Protestant and national cultures. The Swiss Protestants were different from the English Protestants who were different from the German Protestants, who were different from the Dutch Protestants. Is Marinov telling us that some or all of them were in sin and that postmillennialism requires us to eliminate the differences between Bavinck and Warfield — between Kuyper and Hodge? Between McAtee and Marinov?

2.) Also we need to ask why is it, given the few cultures that have been considered Christian, by any reasonable estimation, have not all been the same throughout history? If all Christian culture will look the same why didn’t the Christian culture of Charlemagne look the same as the Christian culture of Calvin’s Geneva or why didn’t Calvin’s Geneva look like Puritan New England?

3.) Marinov has not taken into considerations the likelihood that Theonomists in one Christian country will come to a different understandings of how the law of God applies in different settings and situations. The reality of this almost certainty has the explanation power to demonstrate why there might remain legal – jurisprudent differences between two nations in the Protestant Postmillennial Kingdom fully flowered.

4.) Marinov has lost the Many in his search for the One. His God (and so his view of culture) is the view of the Unitarian. Marinov, channeling U2, actually does believe that all colors will bleed into one. Marinov has embraced unity and no diversity now remains. Rushdoony pointedly warned against this.

5.) Marinov’s vision runs face flat into the wall of God’s Word where we find the Nations as Nations still existing in the New Jerusalem. In Revelation 5:9, 7:9 and in 22:2 we do not find the presence of an amalgamated Babel nation in the New Jerusalem, but rather the distinctions of the Nations remain. Marinov has lost the understanding that Grace restores nature and has exchanged it for the understanding that Grace destroys nature and replaces it.

6.) Marinov’s vision is the same vision of Saruman who started off with the best of intentions in resisting Mordor but who, because of his desire to save the world, became as evil as Sauron in trying to save the world. Marinov in seeking to save the world from Marx is actually in competition with Marx seeking to out Marx … Marx.

“Though the partisans of arbitrary power will freely censure that preacher who speaks boldly for the liberties of the people, they will admire as an excellent divine, the parson who teaches that the magistrates have a divine right for doing wrong, and are to be implicitly obeyed; men professing Christianity, as if the religion of the blessed Jesus bound them to bow their neck to any tyrant.”

Rev. William Gordon (1794)

Over at the Hideblog Dr. R. Scott Clark is holding court on the Wuhan narrative, Church’s defying State mandates that churches closes, and masks in general. I don’t have time to laugh at Clark over everything he says but I thought I would lift some of these quotes for your daily comic pleasure.

“God’s Word alone (sola scriptura) is the unique and final authority for the church’s theology, piety, and practice. The Lordship of Christ over his church, however, does not free the church as an institution from obligations common to human society. GCC seems to be unaware of Calvin’s distinction of a “twofold kingdom” (duplex regimen). We submit to Christ’s saving Lordship in the church and his general dominion in the shared, common realm of public life. Those things intersect whenever the church gathers visibly.”

R. Scott Clark

Bret responds,

1.) This whole point presupposes Clark’s R2K. If one laughs at R2K then one will laugh at this point of Christ’s “general dominion.” Clark’s point here is that Christ’s Lordship over the common realm of public life is not specific but is mediated via Natural law to all peoples. If one doesn’t agree with R2K one isn’t going to agree with the way Clark sets this whole piece up. (And one shouldn’t since R2K is heterodox.)

2) If Clark believed that in the common realm Christ’s Lordship is specific then we could appeal to Clark that Grace Community Church did not err in defying the California state orders not to gather since God’s law teaches that we are not to bear False Witness and that no Magistrate can forbid the Church from gathering because of this fake Wuhan narrative and neither can the State force Christians to wear masks because such mask wearing is a false witness. Therefore because we cannot bear false witness we must defy the States order not to gather and gather not wearing masks. We must obey God rather than man.

To give in to this Wuhan narrative and not gather for worship and to wear a mask is to violate the 9th commandment which was articulated again recently,

“Those young and healthy people who currently walk around with a mask on their faces would be better off wearing a helmet instead, because the risk of something falling on their head is greater than that of getting a serious case of Covid-19.”

Dr. Beda M Stadler — MD
Swiss Immunologist

Here is another gem from Dr. R. Scott Clark,

“For the sake of discussion, let us say that the ordinary masks worn by most Americans (as distinct from the N95 masks, personally fitted and worn by trained medical professionals) are utterly ineffective against the spread of Coronavirus and are nothing but a salve, a sop to make worried Americans feel better. In other words, let us say that, like the strong Christians in Corinth, the anti-maskers are right on the substance of the issue, that like the pagan gods, a mask is nothing. In light of that truth, should the anti-maskers say to their worried brothers and sisters in the congregation, who perhaps have friends, relatives, or co-workers who have died from Covid, or who have vulnerable people in their house: “Man up! Stop being such a sissy! Masks are utterly ineffective. Trust God. Get over your unreasoning fear!”? Granted the analogy between masks and the gods and between maskers and the weaker brothers in Corinth, we know what the answer is. No.”

Dr. R. Scott Clark
Seminary Smart Guy teaching future Pastors


1.) The masks are not mandated to make worried Americans feel better. The masks are mandated to make Americans fearful. However, even if they were to make worried American’s feel better the question would have to be, “Better about what?” Better about being conned by the lying State officials? Better about being stampeded into tyranny? Better about being sheep being led to the Revolutionary slaughter? Better about showing their allegiance to the God State?

2.) But the masks aren’t nothing as Dr. Clark says. You can see them there on the faces. The masks, unlike the pagan God’s are corporeal. They are having an impact. They are a control mechanism. Would St. Paul have wanted the pagan gods to have social control over the Christians Scott?

3.) The masks aren’t nothing. They are a positive health impediment to the weak and strong Christians. Masks lead to health problems. Wearing the mask thus is a violation of the 6th commandment. R. Scott Clark is advocating our violating both the 6th and 9th commandments.

4.) In light of the three above truths that refute Clark’s flimsy analogy argument, should the pro-maskers be allowed to continue in living by lies and so violating the 9th commandment? Should the anti-maskers be allowed to think that the masks are really protecting them when in point of fact they are not protecting them from a virus that masks can’t stop? Shall we go on masking that lies may abound? God forbid? Should the anti-maskers say to the pro-maskers: “Go on, continue to be deceived. Continue to endanger your health by wearing masks. Continue to bear false witness. Continue to live by lies. God finds it pleasing when His people violate the 6th and 9th commandments?”

Clark again,

“We take it for granted that food is secular, i.e., that it is not religious or it has not ordinarily been put to a religious use (with the exception of Kosher and Hallal food) before we buy it. Things were not quite that way in the Greco-Roman world. Paganism was the state-religion and it was pervasive. The pagans had claimed every square inch for the gods and they dedicated the food to them.”

Dr. R. Scott Clark
Seminary Smart Guy Teaching Future Pastors

Bret responds,

1.) So, I take it from Clark’s smart-arse use of the Abraham Kuyper quote, “the pagans had claimed every square inch for the gods and they dedicated the food to them,” that Christians are not supposed to pray over their food at meal time, thus dedicating their eating to God, since, after all, food is secular?

2.) Am I to infer that when St. Paul says,

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God. R. Scott Clark thinks St. Paul in error? I Corinthians 10:31

I mean if food is secular how can I eat something inherently secular to the glory of God?

3.) Of course Clark is wrong about food being “secular.” If food were really secular Christians would eat live animals like the Chinese do. Neither would we shrink from eating companion animals, or for that matter, dead humans. Unless food were religious cannibalism would be just fine.

4.) Clark says that food has not normally been put to religious use. I wonder if Scott would say Bread and Wine as upon the Lord’s Table are also secular food and drink?

Rather, it (Scott’s post) is a plea for Christians on both sides to stop trying to use the visible church as a lever in the culture war. The visible church, the institutional church, is not a soldier in the culture war for the right or the left.

Dr. R. Scott Clark
Seminary Smart Guy Teaching Future Pastors

Bret responds,

So, when Jesus says “Whoever does not gather with me, scatters,” and “You cannot serve two masters,” He had in mind exempting the Church from speaking out on the State forcing its citizenry to violate the 6th and 9th commandment?

And keep in mind that Scott himself is guilty of using the visible church as a lever in the culture war. Clark himself is using the visible church, the institutional church, as a soldier in the culture war for the left. That this is so is seen in Scott’s insistence that the Church follow the left and mask up. Masking up is part of the leftist agenda and here is Scott using the visible church as a lever to advance the left’s Marxist agenda.

You can’t make this kind of myopia up.