Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
“Historian Herbert Butterfield, in noting the different political spirit of Western man since the French Revolution and how he had once, long before 1789, responded to the intractable difficulties of human coexistence & social order, has remarked that men ‘make gods now, not out of wood and stone, which though a waste of time is a fairly innocent proceeding, but out of their abstract nouns, which are the most treacherous and explosive things in the world.'”
M. E. Bradford
We are still the knuckle-dragging idolators that pagan man was. The only difference is that our idolatry is gnostic as seen in how we reify nouns turning them into gods, while the idolatry of the pagans was a mirror opposite animism finding the gods in all things material. The whole notion of progress as understood in a non-Christian plausibility structure is a myth. We simply are too close to our gods to see that they are just as fatuous and just as powerless as the gods that were made out of trees and iron. Our God sits in heaven and he laughs.
The abstract nouns Butterfield was talking about were nouns like “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,” that when reified and so divinized become the kind of idols that kill scores of millions.
“The problem with Christian nationalism is not that some Christians are taking a biblical idea too seriously, but that they are confusing America with Israel under the old covenant. From a biblical perspective, it’s actually heretical. It confuses the law with the gospel.”
Dr. Mike Horton
Training your future Pastors
Heretic at West-Cal
Here is just one problem. If one asserts, as Horton does, that Nations can not be Christian … that it is impossible for a Nation to be Christian then the only other option left is that all Nations are non-Christian. By absenting Christianity from any possibility to so influence a nation that it might be considered “Christian,” is to ensure that Islam, Judaism, Secular Humanism, Shintoism, Confucianism, Taoism, and any other religion you might name to be the governing authority in the various nations. By eliminating Christianity as being the faith force of a nation Horton creates a vacuum that some other religion will finally fill.
Religion as the guiding force for every nation is an inescapable category. We know this because the laws of a nation always descend from and are reflective of some ultimate faith expression. Laws give a nation and its people an “oughtness.” That “oughtness” comes from somewhere and that somewhere is either demon fallen man as God (Legal Positivism) or comes from demon Allah as God (Sharia) or the Jewish demon God as God (Talmud), etc. etc. etc. So, inasmuch as laws are the residual manifestation of some religion in that much the laws of all nations reflect the religious commitment of the nation that crafts and adopts those laws and so declares that nations are hopelessly religious.
So when Heretic Horton says that it is impossible for a Nation to be Christian he is at the same time insisting that all nations must serve some other God or god concept besides the God of the Bible.
The man is at best an idiot and at worst a heretic. He has no business getting within 100 yards of a Seminary lectern or a Church pulpit. His Christianity is damnable stuff.
Is 14:13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
When Moses asked God His name (Exodus 3:13-14), Moses was asking God to define and limit Himself, but as God is He who is the one who defines and is defined by nothing or no one God responded to Moses by merely saying “I am who I am.” This answer communicated that God, being the Creator, could not be contained in the definitional categories of the creature.
When man insists that he is like God inasmuch as he can’t be defined man is seeking to en-god himself and de-god God. We see this when man seeks to strip himself of all the definition which God has assigned to man. For example, when man insists that his gender, race, ethnicity, or genetics are irrelevant man has denied God’s definitional categories in favor of his own definitional categories and by doing so has resolved to be the Most High.
Man’s desire is to be his own “I Am,” and when he reaches to be his own “I am” man destroys himself since for man to reach beyond his limits to be other than who he has been created to be is self-abnegating. It is akin to the goldfish finally achieving his goal to transcend his fishbowl. The success of such transcendence is the goldfish’s destruction.
What we learn from this is that man loses his manishness when he seeks to ascend to the most high. We also learn that God the creator will forever be beyond the creature’s ability to define or delimit God exhaustively.
You think we’re sinful
You fight against our rights
You say we all lead live you can’t respect
But you’re just frightened
You think that we’ll corrupt your kids
If our agenda goes unchecked
Funny, just this once, you’re correct
We’ll convert your children
Happens bit by bit
Quietly and subtlely
And you will barely notice it
You can keep them from disco
Warn about San Francisco
Make ’em wear pleated pants
We don’t care…
We’ll convert your children…
We’ll make them tolerant and fair
Just like you worriеd
They’ll change their group of friеnds
You won’t approve of where they go at night
(to protests)
Oh, and you’ll be disgusted
(so gross)
When they start finding things online
That you’ve kept far from their sight
(like information…)
Guess what?
You’ll still be alright!
We’ll convert your children
Reaching one and all
There’s really no escaping it
’cause even grandma likes Rupaul
And the world’s getting kinder
Gen Z’s gayer than Grindr
Learn to love
Learn to vogue
Face your fate!
We’ll convert your children
Someone’s gotta teach them not to hate
We’re coming for them
We’re coming for your children
We’re coming for them
We’re coming for them
We’re coming for your children
For your children
You’re children will care about
Fairness and justice for others
Your children will work to convert
All their sisters and brothers
Then, soon, we’re almost certain
You’re kids will start convertin’ you!
The gay agenda is coming home
The gay agenda is here!
But you don’t have to worry
’cause there’s nothing wrong with
Standing by our side
Get on board in a hurry
Because the world always needs
A bit more pride
But you don’t have to worry
’cause there’s nothing wrong with
Standing by our side
(The Gay Agenda)
Get on board in a hurry
Because the world always needs
A bit more pride
(The Gay Agenda)
Come on, try a little pride!
We’ll convert your children
Then we’ll turn to you
Giving up the fear inside
Is freeing like you never knew!
“We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups, in your movie theater bathrooms, in your army bunkhouses, in your truck stops, in your all male clubs, in your houses of Congress, wherever men are with men together. Your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us.
Women, you cry for freedom. You say you are no longer satisfied with men; they make you unhappy. We, connoisseurs of the masculine face, the masculine physique, shall take your men from you then. We will amuse them; we will instruct them; we will embrace them when they weep.
Women, you say you wish to live with each other instead of with men. Then go and be with each other. We shall give your men pleasures they have never known because we are foremost men too, and only one man knows how to truly please another man; only one man can understand the depth and feeling, the mind and body of another man.
All laws banning homosexual activity will be revoked. Instead, legislation shall be passed which engenders love between men.
All homosexuals must stand together as brothers; we must be united artistically, philosophically, socially, politically and financially. We will triumph only when we present a common face to the vicious heterosexual enemy.
If you dare to cry faggot, fairy, queer, at us, we will stab you in your cowardly hearts and defile your dead, puny bodies.
We shall write poems of the love between men; we shall stage plays in which man openly caresses man; we shall make films about the love between heroic men which will replace the cheap, superficial, sentimental, insipid, juvenile, heterosexual infatuations presently dominating your cinema screens. We shall sculpt statues of beautiful young men, of bold athletes which will be placed in your parks, your squares, your plazas. The museums of the world will be filled only with paintings of graceful, naked lads.
Our writers and artists will make love between men fashionable and de rigueur, and we will succeed because we are adept at setting styles. We will eliminate heterosexual liaisons through usage of the devices of wit and ridicule, devices which we are skilled in employing.
We will unmask the powerful homosexuals who masquerade as heterosexuals. You will be shocked and frightened when you find that your presidents and their sons, your industrialists, your senators, your mayors, your generals, your athletes, your film stars, your television personalities, your civic leaders, your priests are not the safe, familiar, bourgeois, heterosexual figures you assumed them to be. We are everywhere; we have infiltrated your ranks. Be careful when you speak of homosexuals because we are always among you; we may be sitting across the desk from you; we may be sleeping in the same bed with you.
There will be no compromises. We are not middle-class weaklings. Highly intelligent, we are the natural aristocrats of the human race, and steely-minded aristocrats never settle for less. Those who oppose us will be exiled.
We shall raise vast private armies, as Mishima did, to defeat you. We shall conquer the world because warriors inspired by and banded together by homosexual love and honor are invincible as were the ancient Greek soldiers.
The family unit-spawning ground of lies, betrayals, mediocrity, hypocrisy, and violence–will be abolished. The family unit, which only dampens imagination and curbs free will, must be eliminated. Perfect boys will be conceived and grown in the genetic laboratory. They will be bonded together in a communal setting, under the control and instruction of homosexual savants.
All churches who condemn us will be closed. Our only gods are handsome young men. We adhere to a cult of beauty, moral and esthetic. All that is ugly and vulgar and banal will be annihilated. Since we are alienated from middle-class heterosexual conventions, we are free to live our lives according to the dictates of the pure imagination. For us too much is not enough.
The exquisite society to emerge will be governed by an elite comprised of gay poets. One of the major requirements for a position of power in the new society of homoeroticism will be indulgence in the Greek passion. Any man contaminated with heterosexual lust will be automatically barred from a position of influence. All males who insist on remaining stupidly heterosexual will be tried in homosexual courts of justice and will become invisible men.
“We shall rewrite history, history filled and debased with your heterosexual lies and distortions. We shall portray the homosexuality of the great leaders and thinkers who have shaped the world. We will demonstrate that homosexuality and intelligence and imagination are inextricably linked, and that homosexuality is a requirement for true nobility, true beauty in a man.
“We shall be victorious because we are fueled with the ferocious bitterness of the oppressed who have been forced to play seemingly bit parts in your dumb, heterosexual shows throughout the ages. We too are capable of firing guns and manning the barricades of the ultimate revolution.
Tremble, hetero swine, when we appear before you without our masks.”
Some might wonder why I am all in on the whole same-sex attraction buzz working itself out in the PCA and the larger Reformed world. The answer is multifaceted. Let me limn that out somewhat before reviewing another interview I listened to by Dr. Greg Johnson today.
First, I’ve seen the sodomite world somewhat closely. Not as close as some but close enough. A couple of my better friends in (Christian) college were sodomite and ended up as part of my wedding party though I did not know they were sodomite until after the wedding when right after having a photo taken of each of them simultaneously giving me a kiss on the left and right cheek they informed me they were “gay.” One of those chaps I even lived with for a summer in between my sophomore and junior years. Only afterward after becoming a little more worldly-wise do I look back and realize that he may well have been hitting on me that summer of 1980. I was 20 and still quite naive about all things sexual.
As time went by it was clear what the sodomite lifestyle had done to them. The gross immorality accompanied by the revolving door “relationships” led to broken spirits, broken health, and personalities that are no longer integrated. There is nothing glamorous about the sodomite lifestyle. The bacchanalian hedonism was over the top and the “gay bar” scene had to be seen to be believed. (On a dare I went to one with my friends one night even then not realizing that they were daring me for a reason.) In the words of Three Dog Night,
“I seen so many things I ain’t never seen before Don’t know what it is – I don’t wanna see no more”
Second, I was associated once with an ecclesiastical movement that was populated by sodomites. Debates raged more than once about this issue in the context of those meetings and it was clear that while they claimed Christ theirs was a different faith than mine. To this day I am convinced that I had fallen into an ecclesiastical sodomite nest. I don’t mind admitting that the mannerisms and the “logic” used by those people gave me the creeps.
Third, as a Pastor, I have seen what the sodomite lifestyle has done to people and families. These people don’t live well and they don’t live long. My observation is that they are perpetually miserable and find very little meaning in life. As a Pastor one sees a great deal of brokenness in people’s lives and it breaks one’s heart in two. Little brokenness is more broken than what I’ve seen among the sodomite and lesbians’ lives.
All of this means that I am saddened for them and the trap they have created for themselves. The most loving thing I can do for them is to resist the same-sex attracted movement as Johnson wants to move into the Church while at the same time trying to remain sympathetic to those like Johnson who are confused on issues at hand.
All that tees up the brief review that follows on another interview I listend to today done by Dr. Greg Johnson. It is clear that Johnson sees himself as a kind of visionary seeking to pull the Church into a reality that he believes it is denying. This interview was 45 minutes long and centered on how John Stott (especially) as well as C. S. Lewis, Billy Graham, and Francis Schaeffer were early proponents of what Johnson is now championing.
Now, we should note out of the gate that Lewis though at times intriguing and so sometimes quite helpful was hardly orthodox. The same is true of Billy Graham who was straight-up Arminian. John Stott had a huge streak of early on SJW’ism in his theology and had low thoughts on the seriousness of sin as seen in his doctrine of soul sleep. That leaves us with Francis Schaeffer who also had streaks of SJW’ism in him. So, this foursome is an interesting quartet for Johnson to be appealing to in his new book.
Johnson likes the story about an encounter between Francis Schaeffer and Jerry Falwell wherein Falwell and Schaeffer are reputed to have had a conversation about sodomites. Falwell asked Schaeffer what he thought of sodomites and Schaeffer gave a nuanced answer whereupon Falwell responded; “If my dog did to other dogs what those men do to each other I would put him down.” Per Johnson, Schaeffer reputedly told his son about their departure from that conversation; “That man (Falwell) is disgusting.” Now the reason I found this now twice accounted conversation (in two different interviews) interesting is that putting down men who engage in this kind of behavior is exactly what God required in His law upon the testimony of two or three witnesses.
“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.” Leviticus 20:13
This made me realize that Johnson has low views of God’s law. Johnson sees God — if we are to learn from how enamored Johnson is with this Schaeffer and Falwell conversation — as being disgusting. God, like Falwell, told His people to put such people down.
Another thing that comes out from this interview is that Johnson is on a crusade against reparative counseling, or the “Ex-Gay movement.” Johnson is absolutely convinced that same-sex attraction does not go away. This seems to suggest that Johnson believes that people are born sodomite or lesbian. I don’t believe this. If people were born sodomite the way they are born left-handed there could be no sin in sams sex desire and the Scripture would not label it “contrary to nature,” as it does in Romans 1.
Also, Johnson’s view of the 1st use of the law I think is under question. For Biblical Christians, the belief is that the work of the law is to convict of sin before the Gospel can provide for relief for that conviction. There is in Evangelism then the reality that those apart from Christ have some hard things to hear that will quite unsettle them before a solution comes to relieve them of that fear and righteous condemnation. It seems to me that Greg wants to step over that portion of Evangelism where the law must do its work. Greg seems to opt instead for a kind of friendship evangelism model where if people see their sin they see it not in terms of God’s righteous wrath against sin but rather in terms of a kind of psychological model where people discover what they are pursuing is not good for their human flourishing. The former finds people repenting because they realize that God is opposed to them and they understand that they can only find relief under the wings of the Son of God who paid their penalty. The latter finds people repenting because they realize that their behavior is getting in the way of their best life now. It doesn’t take much to understand that there is a world of difference between these two types of repenting.
Greg says in this interview that same-sex attraction when it flares up in him must be mortified as sin. So, in Greg’s mind, there seems to be a distinction between the active temptation of same-sex attraction which must be resisted and mortified, and the ongoing reality that one will never be other sex attracted (heterosexual). This distinction allows him to talk about being a “same-sex attracted” Christian. The problem I see here is that there seems to be just a matter of factness about all of this reality in Greg’s mind, instead of a crying out to God to be delivered from this same-sex attracted reality which is contrary to nature. In brief, Greg is too comfortable with being “gay.” None of us as sinners should be comfortable with who we once were in Adam.