“The truth is, the United States was born out of a violation of Romans 13:1f.”

Rev. John MacArthur
“The Christian and Government: The Christian’s Responsibility to Government – Part 1”

“So the United States was actually born out of a violation of New Testament principles, and any blessings God has bestowed on America have come in spite of that disobedience by the Founding Fathers.”

Rev. John MacArthur

“By the way, we are the original protesters. We go back 500 years to the Protestant Reformation. We’re still protesting lies and deception for the sake of the truth.”

Rev. John MacArthur
Tucker Carlson Interview 28 July 2020

I want to start off by being clear that I thank the Lord Jesus Christ that Johnny Mac has flipped flopped on this issue. Indeed, this past Sunday Morning in the Long Pastoral Prayer I thanked God for MacArthur’s stand and asked God to strengthen MacArthur in his proper defiance of Gov. Newsome’s tyranny against the Church. It is easy to see that even though many others long ago took this same stand that a rainmaker like MacArthur taking this stand strengthen’s everybody else’s hand.

However, having admitted all that I couldn’t help but whimsically think that this was a case of Rev. John MacArthur being a “Johnny come lately.” As they say though, better late than never.

Still, I think MacArthur is now left in the position of telling us just exactly how he now understands Romans 13:1-7 given this obvious flip-flop on his part.

Now, Johnny Mac could say that he still thinks the founders were in disobedience to the Crown by not submitting but his not submitting is different because it has to do with the State closing down the Church. However, if Johnny Mac did say this Johnny Mac would reveal his lack of understanding of American history. One significant reason for the American war of Independence that most Americans are unaware of is the fact that the Crown intended to place a Anglican Bishop over the Colonies. This would have had one effect of the Church no longer being able to be the Church as the Presbyterians, Dissenters, and Independents understood the Church. (Johnny Mac’s tradition would have fallen in that list.) So, the Founding Fathers were seeking to protect the Church from Government over-reach as it relates to the Church not being under the Parliament’s jurisdiction, just as Johnny Mac is seeking to protect the Church from Government over-reach as it relates to the Church not being under the California State Government’s jurisdiction.

So, Johnny Mac has a significant flip-flop to explain. He could just say he was previously in error but I’d be shocked if he does that.

Just so it’s clear…. Johnny Mac was in deep and serious error when he said this country was born out of a violation of Romans 13. That was a monumentally stupid thing to say. It reveals what we already know about Johnny Mac and that he has no clue regarding covenant theology. When it comes to political covenants Reformed history has long taught, as based on Scripture, that parties to the political covenant arrangement (in Colonial America’s case the parties to the political covenants were the King of England and the people in their respective Colonial charters) are required to be faithful to the covenant and if there is sustained unfaithfulness on the part of the ruling Party (King George III) then the other party of the political covenant (the thirteen Colonies) no longer had any obligation to yield obedience to the Sovereign. Did Johnny Mac know any of this before he shot off his mouth disrespecting the “Black-Robed regiment” ministers of the colonial era time who did support the colonial counter-rebellion and did so on a proper understanding of Romans 13 and Reformed covenant political theology?

This is why, contrary to the Pope of Moscow I cannot look at Johnny Mac as some kind of “Daddy figure” or Prophet for whom all churches in America should be thankful. Instead Johnny Mac’s voice is more like a Step-father’s voice. He’s late to the family. He doesn’t understand the family’s past and because of that he’s always getting family issues wrong.

How can I look at MacArthur as a Daddy figure when MacArthur continues to find glory in standing over the blood of Martin Luther King and standing in the place where James Earl Ray shot MLK? All of this is an attempt to share in a modern version of seeking to gain holiness out of being in a saint’s (MLK) presence. When Johnny Mac tells these stories he suggest that MLK was some kind of hero when in point of fact MLK was a grifter, plagiarizer of epic proportions, whore-monger, and a front man for Communist. How can I look to Johnny Mac as a wise Prophet or having the Daddy voice?

MacArthur implicitly defends the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s which in point of fact it was driven by a Marxist ideology. In this way MacArthur is like many minister of his generation who, swallowing the fake media narrative of the time, completely misunderstood that the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s was funded, guided, and cheered by those who were either bedrock Marxists, fellow travelers, or useful idiots. Sixty years later the fruit of the Civil Right’s movement (BLM, Black family disintegration, Black abortion rates, Black voting patterns) demonstrate that MacArthur’s “wokeness” at the time was a disaster for the black community, the country and for Biblical Christianity.

How can I look at Johnny Mac as a “Prophet” when he doesn’t understand the Scriptures? Getting covenant theology wrong means that everything else the Baptist Johnny Mac touches is going to be wrong in one way or another. The man is a walking contradiction by embracing both Reformed theology and Dispensationalism. (It’s ok Johnny Mac… most ministers are walking contradictions today on that score what with the rise of R2K Reformed Dispensationalism.) Despite Pope Doug’s suggestion that Johnny Mac not baptizing babies is not a big deal, it is a big deal and it doesn’t fade into the background when Johnny Mac gets right telling the California Governor to go pound sand.

However, as said at the outset, we are thankful that Johnny Mac got this one right. It will indeed make it easier to defy disobedient authorities when someone of Johnny Mac’s stature is in defiance also. We are also thankful that Johnny Mac has, in the past, taken on the loopy Pentecostal continuationist movement. These are matters in which Johnny Mac has been most helpful.

But Johnny Mac as the country’s Daddy or the Church’s Prophet per Pope Doug? That’s almost as absurd as saying that Federal Vision amber ale is inside the Reformed brewery.

“Ignore Anyone Who Says Marxism Is A Threat”

Dr. Scary Gary North

This is a arresting statement on the part of Dr. North’s. Clearly, cultural Marxism remains perhaps the greatest worldview threat to Christianity and Western Civilization today. Yet, Dr. North tells us to dismiss Antonia Gramsci’s school of thought as a Marxist threat.

It seems that Dr. North is a purist who wants to insist that Marxism, as he defines it, is no longer a threat. Part of the problem here though is that since the days of Marx the Marxists themselves have been ripping each other apart over the definition of Marxism. And honestly, given the nature of the Marxist dialectic it probably is not possible to ever arrive at a completely stable definition of Marxism. This is especially true if, as neo-Marxist Antonio Gramscis insisted, the Marxist dialectic is to be applied to the Marxist dialectic itself.

Infighting on the meaning and definition of Marxism continued on into the 20th century where we see the Leninists, Stalinists, Trotskyites, Maoists, Titoists, Hoxhaites, Fabians, and Jucheistas all called each other aberrational from Marx’s true way. Then there were the anarchists who often claimed the mantle of Marx as well as the followers of Bakunin. Marxism has always been somewhat of a moving target.

Antonio Gramsci was another theorist who certainly thought his thinking was Marxist, or at the very least neo-Marxist as did the Frankfurt school that was founded on the Gramscian principles. The disciples of Frankfurt all considered themselves Marxists of one stripe or another, whether one is talking about Marcuse, Adorno, Gary Habermas, Max Horkheimer and others. If the Frankfurt school was and is Marxist then Dr. North is embarrassingly wrong since cultural Marxism is perhaps the major worldview threat to Christianity and Western civilization today.

Now, to be sure Gramsci knew he was playing with and altering Marx but he would have insisted that his thought was merely a variant of Marxism. (Hence the title on Gramsci as “neo-Marxist”) Now the true believer Marxists of Gramsci’s time howled about the change but all Gramsci did was change Marx’s preoccupation with Economics as the center discipline that needed to be conquered to Culture as the center discipline that needed to be conquered. While Marx had been preoccupied with economics Gramsci wrote on political theory, sociology and linguistics. As such Gramsci attempted to break from the economic determinism of traditional Marxist thought. Because of this Gramsci became yet another variant form of Marxism much like all those noted earlier. So when Dr. North tells us to ignore anyone who says that Marxism is a threat all he has told us is “ignore anyone who isn’t a Marxist as I define Marxism because they are not a threat.”

Cultural Marxism isn’t purist Marxism the way North would define it and so it is defenestration for Cultural Marxism by North’s standard despite the fact that Cultural Marxism retains many of the same goals as classical Marxism.

To summarize by pulling together the strands earlier mentioned in this post, Gramscian Marxism differed in the following ways from classical Marxism,

1.) Gramsci changed out Economic determinism as the key to Marxist thought and replaced it with cultural determinism. Marx was preoccupied with matters like the “means of production,” “the worker being alienated from his work,” “the bourgeoisie stealing the value of the proletariat’s labor,” etc. Gramsci didn’t disagree that economics were important but he believed that there was a bigger matrix that needed changed if totatalistic Revolution was desired. That larger matrix was culture.

2.) Gramsci move from economics to culture necessitated a change in the definition of who constituted the “proletariat” and the “bourgeois.” In classical Marxism those roles were filled by the workers and the owners of capital. For Gramsci the new proletariat was constituted by the disaffected “victims” of Christianity and the new bourgeois was constituted by those who were the gatekeepers of (Christian) culture.

3.) Cultural Marxism turned Marx’s dialectical method on the dialectical method. The Frankfurt school retained the dialectical method but only as it was relativized vis-a-vis the putative errant work of previous Marxist dialecticians. Dialectics must be allowed to self-correct. This was just a way of throwing off the iron hand of classical Marxist. However, this move of critical dialectical theory ended up rejecting the previously accepted historicism and materialism of classical Marxism. The classical materialistic dialectic returned to Hegel’s dialectism.

4.) Gramsci moving from economic-centrism to cultural-centrism changed the definition of who constituted the “proletariat” and the “bourgeois.” In classical Marxism, with its economic-centrist push those roles were filled by the workers and the owners of capital. For Gramsci the new proletariat was constituted by the disaffected “victims” of Christianity and the new bourgeois was constituted by those who were the gatekeepers of (Christian) culture.

However, despite these alterations Gramsci maintained aspects of classical Marxism,

1.) Marxism economic theory remained but as tucked inside a larger theory about culture.

2.) The Marxist theory of dialectics was retained in terms of being the vehicle by which progress is achieved. Gramsci and the Frankfurt school retained the dialectical methodology of thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis. However the Cultural Marxist usage of Marxist dialectics was conjoined with Critical theory as a means of insuring Marxist notions of “progress.”

3.) The Frankfurt school (Cultural Marxists) retained the tool of terror as a means of takeover and control. This was seen in the work of the founder of the “Institution For Marxism” (Frankfurt school), Georg Lukacs. Previous to founding the school to advance the theories of Gramsci Lukacs had been in 1919, the Deputy Commissar for Culture in Bela Kuhn’s short lived Communist Hungary. Lukacs introduced cultural terrorism as Deputy Commissar in the attempt to de-Christianize the Christian culture of Hungary. Lukacs put policies in place that,

a.) Stripped Christian sexual ethics from Hungarian youth
b.) Attacked the patriarchal family
c.) Attacked the influence of the Hungarian church

These same techniques would be used again when Luckacs cultural terrorism rooted throughout the West.

When the Marxist Lukacs founded his “Institution for Marxism,” he said,

“I saw the revolutionary destruction of society as the one and only solution. A worldwide overturning of values cannot take place without the annihilation of the old values and the creation of new ones by the revolutionaries.”

4.) The Cultural Marxist have retained the classical Marxist conceptual teleology of a Utopia achieved by violent Revolution where the necessity of the State withers with the arrival of Cultural Marxist hegemony.

So, you see, Dr. North is quite wrong when he insists that Marxism is not a threat. Even if we were just talking about Classical Economic Marxism 1 billion Chinese suggest that Dr. North is quite in error. That is another post for another time.

One final small rabbit trial.

One should be careful drawing to hard and fast of a distinction between Classical Marxism and what we have come to know as “Capitalism.” (It would be better termed “Finance Capitalism,” or “Corporatism.”) Classical Marxism could not have come to ascendancy around the world without the work and aid of what is unfortunately now known as “Capitalism.” The Bolshevik Revolution would have been strangled in its crib if it had not been for the Western Capitalists. Anthony Sutton has chronicled this in many of his books, most notoriously, “Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution.”

“Joel McDurmon recently asked what conservatives would have done if Obama had ordered the deployment of federal agents to scoop protesting citizens into vans during the night. They would have gone nuts, that’s what.”

Doug Wilson Article

I continue to be mystified by this kind of reasoning on the part of McDumbon. I’ve seen it elsewhere from other people.

The idea seems to be that if conservatives would have been upset at the thought of Obama scooping up conservative protesters therefore it is perfectly legitimate for Marxists to be upset at the thought of Trump scooping up Marxists into vans during the night.

I don’t get it… really, I don’t.

The fact that genuinely conservative Christians (and one can’t be conservative without being a Biblical and dissident Christian) would get upset about their people being illegally arrested by Obama the Marxist doesn’t require them to join the Marxists about being upset when Marxist people are being inconvenienced by being arrested by a President who is legitimately seeking to uphold the law.

This kind of thinking is a “we need to be fair to everyone and treat them all the same,” reasoning. However, it is not unfair when Marxists, anarchists, and fascists are arrested for rioting, pillaging, and burning but conservatives are not arrested for not letting, by dint of force if necessary, the Marxists, anarchists, and fascists from burning their homes and their neighborhood’s down. Similarly, it is not fairness when Black Lives Matter participants are arrested as long as those who are resisting BLM are arrested as well.

McDumbon is hinting at the idea that law, equally applied, means all protesters, regardless of political and military tactics, needs to be arrested in order to be fair and that all people, regardless of their street tactics should be outraged when anyone at all is scooped up in vans and arrested. But that is a non-sequitur. BLM is an admittedly Marxist organization. When their protesters begin to act like they’ve been consistently acting they need to be scooped up in Vans. When those protesters opposing BLM use force to stop BLM it is wicked to scoop them up in a van and arrest them.

So, that I would have gone nuts (per McDumbon) over conservative protesters being scooped up in Obama Vans and arrested does not make me a hypocrite when I start daydreaming about fleets of vans coming to scoop up and arrest the violent BLM protesters (read rioter).

However, there is yet another dynamic here to be considered. When BLM protesters (better said “rioters”) decide that Western civilization as a whole is racist and must be ripped up — root, twig, and branch — then BLM protesters shouldn’t be surprised if they are no longer treated in ways consistent with Western Civilization and its law order. If BLM is successfully rioting against racist Western Civilization then BLM shouldn’t expect to have the niceties of Miranda rights, due process, and habeas corpus be part of the response to BLM rioting. I mean, if you want to get rid of Western Civilization that means getting rid of the necessity of a judge, jury, and sentencing guidelines. It’s so much easier just taking a random rioter behind the burnt down courthouse and put a bullet in their brain pan.

I’m guessing that suddenly racist Western Civilization doesn’t look so bad to the thoughtful BLM rioter. (I know, I know, that bit about ‘thoughtful BLM rioter’ was a oxymorn.)

In Joel McDumbon’s world it makes sense to imply hypocrisy on the part of conservatives. However, in a world ungoverned by Western Civilization who gives a tinker’s damn about hypocrisy?

Ok … now I’m seeing the “Mark of the Beast” Dispies going nuts about masks. As Dispies have done my whole life they are ‘Chicken Littles’ running around like their heads are cut off screaming, “The End is Near, The End is Near.” That is because they think the mark of the Beast is the mask, or the chip, or the vaccine or tattoo tracers or whatever and it all means in their cataclysmic minds that we are entering the Great Tribulation.

A brief primer so as to dismiss those well intended folks.

1.) The Mark of the Beast is not necessarily a literal mark, whether a mask, a chip, or a tattoo and it does not necessarily need to be stamped on our right hands or foreheads. If we read the Revelation passage in context (13:17) we find that there is also a mark of the Lamb in Rev. 14:1. That mark is the name of the Lamb and the Father on the foreheads of God’s people. Now the Dispies get hyped about the Mark of the beast on evil people but I’ve never heard anyone talk about having a literal mark of the Lamb on the good guy saints in this supposedly future contest between good and evil.

2.) So, the mark of the beast is likely a prophetic metaphor which was future to the readers of Revelation but is past to us. As to the symbolic nature of the mark it merely symbolizes total dominion and control over a population, however that may occur. The fact that John writes that the mark of the beast is on the right hand and the forehead is merely telling us that the thinking of those under the Beast’s sway will be controlled as well as all their doing. Throughout history Tyrant states have sought this kind of control, whether one is talking about Stalin or King Cetshwayo’s of the 19th century Zulus or Abraham Lincoln.

3.) The time references in Revelation force us to conclude that the threatened Mark of the Beast was future to John’s readers but is past to us today. We are not looking for a “Mark of the Beast” that has any connection to some “this has to happen before Jesus can come back” prophetic timeline. Nearly all of the time marker references in John’s Revelation are references that bespeak an imminent occurrence in the lives of John’s audience. After all, John repeatedly writes of the events under consideration as the time being near, Rev 1:1, 3; 22:6, 10. If we are still looking for John’s “time is near” events then time stamps are useless.

4.) Who John’s book is written to (audience) forces us to dismiss the idea that all that John writes of remains future to us. John was not writing to warn us about a “Mark of the Beast.” John was writing the seven persecuted Churches (Rev. 1:9) of the 1st century to warn them about the “Mark of the Beast.” It would have done precious little good to warn the seven Churches of Revelation about a Mark of the beast that wouldn’t take place for 2000 years.

5.) The purpose of the book of Revelation forces us to dismiss the idea that all John writes of in his Apocalypse remains future to us. John wrote Revelation with the purpose of speaking to the promised coming judgment upon Israel (Rev 1:7; 11:1–2, 8) for her unfaithfulness. The threatened judgment on Israel was fulfilled in AD 70 a time near to the time of the writing of Revelation. (The dating of Revelation is a hotly disputed subject.)

Now, having said that, no one denies that Marks of dominion, and control on the part of future tyrants may well be future to us but such future marks of future beasts have nothing to do with the prophetic “Jesus is coming back” clock. The contemporary masking is indeed a sign of dominion and control and so will be any vaccines or chipping and Christians should be in the front rows of opposition due to the Kingship of Jesus Christ. However, none of that is relevant to the prophecies of Revelation. We may even see the day again where some lunatic, like Nero of old, has divine aspirations and desires worship. If we do though, we will, of course, oppose it as Christians but it will have nothing to do with the prophetic clock.

So, a Biblical hermeneutic insists that the “Mark of the Beast,” in Revelation likely refers to the attempt by Nero to have absolute dominion and control — even unto the point of being worshiped — as other populations were under the shadow of Rome’s hegemony and correspondingly has nothing to do with Jesus coming back in 2020.

1.) Inasmuch as face masks remove the communication abilities found in subtle facial gestures in that much the mask is a de-humanizing instrument. That it is also de-humanizing is seen in how the masks eliminates our distinctive humanity in favor of giving us all an egalitarian flavor by the sameness that it enforces upon the hoi-polloi. Looking over a crowd one no longer sees individuals. Only only sees the occupants of the anthill or the beehive. The masks strip away our individual humanity.

2.) The mask also, much like Baptism, serves as a sign and seal of ownership. Whereas in Christianity Baptism marks out a person as being owned and named by God, in our current religious humanism climate that mask is becoming a sacramental sign and seal that the wearers belong to the State, in who they live and move and have their being. The mask as sacrament to the God state is a sign of the wearer’s ownership, subjugation and enslavement to the God state.

3.) I’m learning from my reading that the proposed “RNA vaccine” will alter human DNA. (Of course the NWO Medical community is denying that.) If human DNA is altered doesn’t that mean that the one receiving the RNA vaccine is no longer human? And if no longer human then no longer an Image Bearer of God and no longer a Image Bearer of God than no longer protected by the 6th commandment? If human beings end up being patented because of the changes wrought upon them by a RNA vaccine does that mean whoever owns the patent on the human being RNA vaccinated is now the owner of the RNA vaccinated?

Does it change Lord’s Day #1 of the Heidelberg Catechism?

Q — What is your only comfort in life and death?

A — That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul,both in life and in death, to my faithful patent owner Bill Gates

4.) Whereas Christianity teaches the “fellowship of the saints,” Covidianity teaches the distancing and alienating of the ‘saints.'”

5.) New Church Signs (Not making this up)

a.) Mask it or Casket
b.) “Jesus wore a thorn of crowns. You can wear a mask.”

6.) Like all religions the humanist state has created “clean” and “unclean” categories. If you refuse to wear the mask then you are unclean and must be treated as such.

The idea of marking people out by clothing has historical precedence. Most people know of the Yellow Star Jews have been required to wear at different times in history to mark themselves out as Jews. However there have been other incidences of this as well. In England, under legislation in 1697, paupers in receiving parish relief were required to wear a cloth symbol of blue or red cloth on the shoulder of the right sleeve in an open and visible manner. This was done to discourage begging and worked since there was a public shame associated with begging.

In early Rome the toga eventually became a sign of the Prostitutes as the Roman Matrons moved to the stola as their form of dress.

In the 13th century after the Cathars had been put down by the papal crusade against them Pope Gregory IX required Cathar penance by the wearing of a Yellow Cross on their clothing in order to be identified as penitent Cathars once convicted of the Albigensian heresy.

Even here in colonial America, during the 17th and 18th centuries New Englander Puritans required people who were convicted of sexual perversity to wear cloth letters of “A” or the letters “AD” for adultery on their persons. There were even those required to wear the letter “I” when convicted of Incest.

So, in a slight twist of all this it is going to be the non symbol wearers (non Maskers) who will be singled out as uncivilized and unclean.

7.) Just as in Muslim countries where impugning the Imam and his interpretation of the Koran can get you killed or at the very least shunned, so in Wuhan America impugning the Medical Imam’s and their interpretation from on high will get you shunned, maced, and thrown out of stores.

“There is only one God and Wuhan is His name and Fauci is His Prophet.”