Iron Ink

Rev. Mathis, Rev. Allberry, & Rev. McAtee Discussing Sodomy

“I am same-sex attracted and have been my entire life. By that, I mean that I have sexual, romantic and deep emotional attractions to people of the same sex. I choose to describe myself this way because sexuality is not a matter of identity for me, and that has become good news.”

“Rev.” Sam Alberry
Editor — The Gospel Coalition

“11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. 12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.” Ephesians 5

Over here,

Does The Gospel Coalition Believe in the Heinousness of Homosexuality?

Rev. Shawn Mathis dissects precisely the problem with Rev. Allberry’s statements and legitimately asks why the organization “The Gospel Coalition” is supporting this kind of material.

Per the quote above and per the refusal of anybody at “The Gospel Coalition” to put the brakes on this mindset clearly, this kind of mindset has become acceptable in the conservative Reformed church. Some might even say that such a position is admirable if only because it comes across so sensitive. But change this just a wee bit and ask yourself if it should be applauded and ask yourself why it is being applauded.

“I am heifer-sex attracted and have been my entire life. By that, I mean that I have sexual, romantic and deep emotional attractions to cows. I choose to describe myself this way because sexuality is not a matter of identity for me, and that has become good news.”

Rev. Allberry is trying to tell us that while same-sex attraction can be equal to romantic and deep emotional attraction to the same sex, same-sex attraction can not be equal to sin. This is like saying that having attraction to someone else’s wife is ok because, after all, the sexual attraction is characterized as a deep emotional attraction.

Why is Rev. Allberry talking about to whom he is attracted if sexual identity isn’t important to him? It is obviously important for him to identify who he is, in relation to his attractions. Why does he, as a Christian, find it acceptable to publish this?

You see, it is simply because sodomy has become mainstreamed and even dare we say “glamorous” so as to become acceptable in our thinking that such a quote as Rev. Allberry’s above fails to raise a firestorm of protest. Can anybody imagine John Calvin or Martin Luther or John Knox or Charles Spurgeon or Thomas Chalmers or C. F. W. Walther sitting on “The Gospel Coalition” board and not raising a hue and cry over this?

Rev. Allberry’s quote reveals the Gnosticism that much of the contemporary visible Church is riddled with. That there is a creeping Gnosticism here is seen also in this quote from Rev. Allberry,

“Our sexual affections can no more define who we are than our class, race, or nationality.”

The thing is, is that our class, race, and nationality, as well as our sexual affections, do define who we are as embodied beings.

In Platonic language Rev. Allberry is trying to tell us that even though he has the accidents of sodomy (sexual, romantic and deep emotional attractions to people of the same sex) those accidents don’t affect the essence of his identity. And yet here he is, in the context of denying this identity, admitting that he has all the markers that make up an identity. It’s like saying … “Milk is white but whiteness isn’t an accident of Milk.” One might observe that dealing with your sin tendencies by saying they aren’t a part of who you are is not a good, or successful, coping mechanism.

Now, of course, all error comes with those willing to make a ready-made defense and we find one Mr. Isaac Arthur defending Rev. Allberry by attacking Rev. Mathis and his article linked above. Mr. Arthur writes,

“Articles like this sacrifice understanding in the name of “discernment” and risk literally shutting the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces.

As long as the mere suggestion that a person can be same-sex attracted and yet live a faithful Christian life causes people to doubt one’s commitment to Scripture, as long as the same-sex attracted are “them” vs. “us,” as long as the Church remains ambivalent towards the same-sex attracted (other than to castigate and label), as long as partnering with the same-sex attracted is a liability, I guarantee you the church will continue to lose ground and do untold damage to countless souls — souls bought with the very blood of Jesus. I don’t know Allberry well, and can’t vouch for everything he may have said or written, but I wonder: In trying so hard to not become desensitized to sin, are we becoming desensitized to the Gospel?”

This kind of “defense is pretty standard fare on this matter and as such, I take a few minutes to unwind this pottage of confusion.

1.) Since the Gospel is the cure to sin how is it possible that a sensitivity to sin will work in us a de-sensitivity to the Gospel?

2.) Since understanding is part and parcel of discernment how can understanding be sacrificed in the name of discernment since they each imply the other? Of course, Mr. Arthur’s point is that Rev. Mathis has neither a true understanding nor a genuine discernment. This is just a fancy way for Mr. Arthur to say, “Nuh Uh.”

3.) No one denied that a person attracted to the same sex or to cows or to children can’t yet live a faithful Christian life. What has been denied is that the impulse for the same sex or for children or for cows is normative. What is being denied is that said impulse should be suggested as being normative.

4.) The Church (Rev. Shawn Mathis in this case) is being anything but ambivalent towards same-sex attraction. It is precisely because Rev. Mathis loves the sinner that he is not letting Rev. Allberry’s irrationality pass un-noticed.

5.) For 20 centuries the Church has not lost any ground in its full-throated opposition to sodomy in all of its expressions from the sodomite desire to the sodomite following through on the desire. It is just an inaccurate statement that the Church is going to lose ground by opposing all expressions that would make sodomy normative.

6.) Responses like this from Mr. Arthur only serves to literally shut the gates of the Kingdom of heaven in people’s face.

The crux of Rev. Allberry’s article is the question, “Has our theology morphed to blend in with our pagan environment?” Tragically, for the majority of self-described Christians, if they possess a scrap of personal insight, the only honest answer is, “Yes, absolutely.”

Vult-Right

What the Vult Right is

Over time it has become painfully obvious that what is called “the Alt-Right” should be in reality called “the Alt. Left.” As such some wags have come with another alternative to the “Alt-Right” called the “Vult-Right.” The Vult-Right has the aspiration of being a genuinely conservative option to the left as expressed in movements such as Cultural Marxists, New World Order types, Progressives, Neo-conservatives, Leftist “Christianities,” multiculturalists, postmodernists, the Alt-Right, Utopians, and other assorted expressions of the Jacobin left, whether National or International in its expression.

The Vult-Right is uniquely and substantively the expression of worldview Christianity. Below is the vision of the tiny minority of those who would label themselves Vult-Right.

1.) The Vult-Right is of the right as the right is defined by Scripture. The Vult-Right assumes if one is of the left they are operating in contradiction to Biblical Christianity. The means that the Vult-Right understand themselves as distinctly Christian and as advocating for a distinctly Christian social order wherein the God of the Christian Bible is glorified.

2.) The Vult-Right serves as an option to the Alt-Right and Libertarian movements for Christians who care not to be in bed with the leftist National Socialist who comprise much of the Alt-Right and who understand that movement Libertarianism is merely the flip side of the coin of movement socialism.

3.) The Vult-Right believes that Western Civilization has been the apex of human civilization and that the heights of Western Civilization has been due to the shaping influence of Biblical Christianity, particularly the Christianity as expressed by the Reformed faith. As such, Western Civilization has been known as “Christendom.”

4.) The Vult-Right believes that any syncretistic admixture with Biblical Christianity and Christendom means the adulterating of that unique and summit Civilization. This means trying to reach back to golden ages such as the Rennasiance or pagan Rome or Greece are retrograde movements. This means that trying to add counsel from other religions such as Talmudic Judaism or Koranic Islam is a retrograde movement for Christendom and civilization.

5.) The Vult-Right believes in decentralization and diffused governments that stretch across Family, Church, and State. This means any notion of “Christian Socialism” is anathema to adherents of the Vult-Right.

6.) The Vult-Right believing in decentralization and the diffuse governments also believe that regionalism in social order and Confederacy in politics are preferred expressions in a Christian world and life view. This vision is often referred to as Agrarianism, Jurisdictionalism, and Sphere Sovereignty.

7.) The Vult-Right, as it practices attackagetics in its apologetics, and as it exists in a milieu where Christianity and Christians are being asked to surrender at every turn, refuses to be on the defensive and so is seen by its enemies as unreasonable, arrogant, and triumphalistic. To the contrary, it sees itself as the only reasoned course to take, as holding out life to a dying culture, as working to end the spiral of defeat Christendom and civilization have been in since the Endarkenment.

8.) The Vult-Right rejects all Internationalism. Following the model of Scripture, it is Nationalist. This means that the Vult-Right rejects the concept of propositional nationhood. As such the Vult-Right embraces distinct borders, distinct culture, distinct ethnicity and distinct language, and shared History as the definition of nation. This means the uniform and universal rejection by the Vult-Right of all plans for New World Order whether or not such plans are hatched by “Christians” or by pagans.

9.) The Vult-Right embraces a teleology wherein the nations of this world become the nations of the Lord Christ. As such the Vult-Right is postmillennial in its eschatology and is Missiological in its intent to see all the nations bow to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. All nationalisms will one day be Christian nationalisms.

10.) The Vult-Right embraces the nomology of God’s Law as the standard which all Nations are to use to provide a just justice in both their legal order and so in their social order. Without and apart from God’s law all Nationalisms will be vile, ugly, and inhuman.

11.) The Vult-Right rejects all ambitions of modern egalitarianism. The Vult-Right accepts two equalities. The Vult-Right accepts that all men from every tribe, tongue, race, and nation are created as imprinted with the Imago Dei and so are equally Image bearers of the God of the Bible. The Vult-Right accepts that all men are to be equally adjudicated before God’s law in terms of justice per their stations and places wherein God has placed them.

12.) The Vult-Right embrace Biblical hierarchy and patriarchy. Children are to obey their parents in the Lord. Workers are to please their employers in the Lord. Wives are to submit to their husbands. Laymen are to honor their Elders in the Lord. Citizens are to obey their Magistrates in the Lord. Biblical hierarchy and patriarchy are the norms for all National social orders.

13.) The Vult-Right is familial-centric. The Vult-Right believes that Christian covenantalism means that the family and not the individual is the primary building block in a Christian social order.

14.) The Vult-Right believes that Theology leads to cultures (family, church, and civil-social) which in turns leads to identity which in turn leads to the social order which in turn leads to the various civil social Institutions.

15.) The Vult-Right is anti-Scientism. The Vult-Right understands that Science is only as good as the theology upon which it is built upon as a foundation. As such the Vult-Right understands that all science is always in the service of some theology. The Vult-Right embraces science as science is the consequence of Christian theology as opposed to being the consequence of some other false theology. Science is never neutral and is always the servant of some god or god concept. Theology remains the queen of the Sciences.

16.) The Vult-Right rejects all Thomistic two paths (reason and faith) to truth. The Vult-Right understands that reason can never get underway apart from faith commitments.

17.) The Vult-Right being Regionalist and Nationalist is opposed to Empire building wherein differing peoples and nations are controlled and subjugated by a “Master Race.” Consistent with this the Vult-Right is opposed to Empires seeking to amalgamate and adulterate differing people into a new “Master Race.”

18.) The Vult-Right being Nationalist is opposed to multicultural social order understanding the proximity + diversity = conflict. The Vult-Right understands that modern expressions of multiculturalism are in pursuit of a monoculturalism that amalgamates and adulterated all various peoples into one new people with one new universal culture.

19.) The Vult-Right in its opposition to multiculturalism understands that part of multiculturalism is multifaithism and multiracialism and is opposed to each since each, as in the hands of the Cultural Marxists, is in pursuit of one universal non-Christian faith and one universal non-Christian people. The Biblical Christian faith is the ultimate target of each.

20.) The Vult-Right, believing in borders, nations, and culture rejects a Libertarian International free trade that requires the International free movement of peoples across borders that International free trade brings in its wake.

21.) The Vult-Right as existing among a Christian White people favors the continuation of said Christian White people and their faith, gene-pool, cultures, customs, traditions habits, and laws as those are reflections and incarnations of God’s Law-Word. The Vult-Right expects other peoples of other Nations will have the same desire and that desire should be honored as other people’s serve under the authority of the Kingship of Jesus Christ.

22.) The Vult-Right is opposed to standing Armies and preemptive strikes. When War must be waged the Vult-Right holds that it is waged either in defense of hearth and home or in the protection of other Christian peoples under assault from pagan peoples seeking to overthrow their Christian faith and nation.

23.) The Vult-Right is opposed to the current Immavasion and Refugee and Asylum abuse understanding that this continues to be an attempt by the pagan left US Federal Government to overthrow the indigenous citizenship in favor of a more controllable people.

24.) The Vult-Right believes that the Universal Church is comprised as a Nation of Nations. Christians of every tribe, tongue, race, and nation are Spiritual brothers and sisters in Christ who retain their creational markers of ethnicity, gender, family, and clan as given by God. These creational markers glorify God and are not to be eliminated. The New Jerusalem is inhabited not by individuals except as those individuals are present in their nations.

25.) The Vult-Right rejects both the Materialism of Marxist thought and the hatred of the corporeal as expressed in Gnostic thought. The Vult-Right embraces both nature and nurture while understanding that Grace restores nature and that regeneration reorients nurture.

A good deal of the above would be abhorrent not only to the Jacobin left but also to what is called the Alt-Right. The Vult-Right is the only expression currently that belongs to the Right.

Twin Spin From A. A. Hodge & B. L. McAtee

“Millenarian missionaries have a style of their own. Their theory affects their word in the way of making them seek exclusively, or chiefly, to conversion of individual souls. The true and efficient missionary method is, to aim directly, indeed, at soul winning, but at the same time to plant Christian institutions in heathen lands, which will, in time, develop according to the genius of the nationalities. English missionaries can never hope to convert the world directly by units.”

A. A. Hodge
19th Century American Reformed Theologian
Missionary to India

1.) Note that Hodge is faulting here, by way of implication, R2K “theology.” R2K would discipline Hodge for daring to plant “Christian Institutions,” since Institutions by definition can not be Christian per R2K.

2.) One can’t help but wonder, following A. A. Hodge’s logic whether or not all missionary efforts geared to exclusively or chiefly the converting of individual souls is, by definition, “millenarian.” A. A. Hodge’s Postmillennialism did not allow him to either accept premillennial or amillennial efforts at Missions to be considered normative.

These two observations above set the table for seeing that R2K is really nothing but a stalking horse attempting to institutionalize amillennial thinking as being equated to the Reformed position. R2K is seeking to broom postmillennialism off the Reformed ecclesiastical scene. A. A. Hodge would have had nothing to do with R2K.

3.) Hodge’s desire to plant Christian Institutions as combined with his criticism of a Missionary effort that focuses on individuals only indicates that Hodge understood that the task of the Christian church is to disciple the Nations. Modern theology, whether R2K or Reformed, in general, has become Baptistified. It is Baptist thinking that accounts for thinking only of building the church by means of individuals while missing the covenant implications of Biblical Christianity. The paedo Reformed Church you’re attending is most likely just a wet baby Baptist church. The Reformed Chruch, as R2K indicates has forgotten how to think covenantally.

4.) Hodge’s quote indicates that he understood the whole idea of the one and the many. Hodge understands the importance of the many by rightly noting that individual souls must be evangelized. However, Hodge also understands the importance of the One by insisting that the Nation as a whole must be converted and discipled via the planting of Christian Institutions among nations.

5.) Note Hodge says that the method of Missions that seeks to only evangelize individuals is doomed to failure. As most missions agencies apply just this very method it calls into question supporting those mission agencies. Is the Lord Christ honored by a missionary effort that eschews His command to convert and disciple whole Nations?

6.) Pay attention to Hodge’s respect for nations. Obviously, Hodge has no vision for a multicultural global Christian world that is absent of the distinct genius of distinct nations. This whole idea that God desires a Christian New World Order where nations are eclipsed is utter nonsense.

7.) Hodge understood that non-postmillennial eschatology does missions in a way that does not expect to convert the world. That this is true for premillennialist is seen in the fact that they do not believe that the Kingdom of Christ will come until Christ returns. Therefore nations will not be converted and so Christian Institutions are nonsense. That this is true for amillennialists (especially R2k which is merely consistent amillennialism) is seen in the fact that they believe the Kingdom of Christ is spiritual and exactly equivalent to the Church. As such Nations, Institutions, Cultures, Families, Education, Law, etc. cannot be converted and so cannot be Christian. Hodge would have found such thinking execrable.

9.) Hodge understood that while Christian Institutions can’t convert, what Christian Institutions can do is, by God’s grace and providence, provide a contextual background against which their individual Christianity and confession can make sense. For example, when individual converts have a law order that applies Christianity to the social order a contextual background is provided wherein their Christianity is supported. For example, when individual converts have an Education order that educates in the context of presupposing the God of the Bible then a contextual background is provided wherein their Christianity more easily makes sense.

10.) When Hodge says, “A style of their own,” he is indicating that Millenarian “thinking” creates a different kind of Christian. “A style of their own” can only arise out of a “thinking of their own,” and a “thinking of their own,” indicates a different kind of Christian. Anybody familiar with the premill vs. postmill or the amill vs. postmill debate realizes that the people holding these respective positions lean into life quite differently. Indeed, I would say that this observation is so true that differences on eschatologies make for different kinds of Christians as much as differences on soteriologies. Just as Arminians and Calvinists are different in their character and personality because of what they believe so the same is true with people who hold varying eschatologies. They are indeed each a people of their own.

8.) So we learn from this one quote, per Hodge,

a.) That premillennial missions is not Biblical
b.) That R2K “theology” is not Biblical
c.) That disrespect for nations as nations is not Biblical
d.) That Institutions can be Christian just as they can be Heathen
e.) That nations as nations are to be discipled
f.) Converting the world is our goal
g.) That the One and the Many must always be kept before us
h.) That the Western Reformed world has largely suffered Baptistification
i.) That differing eschatology makes for different kinds of Christians and so different versions of Christianity.

“The proposal of a non-religious basis (for education) is something novel not found anywhere in the experience of the past. To carry the theory out the language itself will have to be revolutionized and the dictionary itself expurgated; for its terminology, as well as that of the law of England is full of religion. And is it not a significant fact that in our great American Encyclopaedia there is no article on the word ‘God?’ If you ask how far I would advocate religious training, I reply, that the best practical system I have known was the old Scottish parochial system, though it is to be feared that, instead of getting back to that, things, as with the New England schools, are going in the opposite direction. Christianity should be recognized publicly by this country. Christ should be recognized in the law of our land as the Supreme Ruler of our nation. I am a member of a society striving for this end; the principle is right, whatever our success may be. We should insist that if the State has a right to educate she must not educate in infidel history and philosophy, but, in assuming the educator’s function, must obey the Scripture injunction regarding that function — to train the young in the ‘nurture and admonition of the Lord.'”

A. A. Hodge (1823 – 1886)
19th Century American Reformed Theologian
Missionary to India

1.) There are whiffs of presuppositionalism in this quote by Hodge. Note how he implicitly refuses the idea of neutrality.

2.) R2K boys are advocating for something that, per Hodge, did not exist before the mid 19th century. Do you want novelty? Become R2K.

3.) Can you imagine what a storm of protest would be raised in a R2K Presbytery would be raised if a candidate for ordination up and said, “Christ should be recognized in the law of our land as the Supreme Ruler of our nation.” I shudder to contemplate it.

4.) The implication behind the insistence that “Christ should be recognized in the law of our land as the Supreme Ruler of our nation,” is that all nations are theocratic. Some God or god concept is going to be the Supreme Ruler of each nation whether lawfully recognized in a de Jure sense or recognized in a de facto sense. The whole notion, per R2K, that a nation can be a-religious and a-theocratic is nonsense, and only gains traction because of Anabaptist Roger William’s success in Rhode Island so many years ago.

Presuppositional Methodology

Bret,

“I have the humility and wisdom to avoid imposing my faith and beliefs on others. You have neither virtue. You are an absolutist.”

John Rolfe

John,

And yet here you are trying to impose your faith that all men should have a faith that allows for all kinds of faiths in the public square and further per your faith you are saying that no faith but your faith (which has a god who demands his followers to squash the impulse of other faiths to be ascendant) be ascendant. AND you are doing so absolutely. Go figure.

You’re a confused man John.

__________

Note here in this exchange,

1.) I did not allow the conversation to be carried on, on the basis of Mr. Rolfe’s presuppositions. Mr. Rolfe presupposed that he was not imposing his faith and beliefs on others when in point of fact that is exactly what he was doing. The presuppositional methodology forbids reasoning on the ground of your opponent’s presuppositions.

2.) I demonstrated that Mr. Rolfe was guilty of the very thing he was accusing me of… being an absolutist. Of course being an absolutist is inescapable. Even if one is a relativist one is an absolutist about his relativist position.

3.) We have to understand that “freedom of religion” is a myth. All social orders organize themselves under the umbrella of a singular religion. The singular religion of America is pluralism but it is a pluralism which insists that its tenets of plurality in the public square be ascendant vis-a-vis the tenets of any other religion being ascendant. So, our singular religion has the one god who says that all gods are welcome in the public square as long as none of the gods and their commands are taken more seriously than the god of pluralism and its commands. As such we are back to Rome where any god was allowed in the public square except those gods whose adherents refused to offer up incense to Caesar. In a pluralistic arrangement, it is the god who limits the other gods who is the god of the public square and it is that god’s religion that is followed in defiance of all the other religions. That god is the State in who we live and move and have our being. This is where pluralism always ends up. Pluralism is a myth.

In the end John, all faiths and belief systems are absolutist in nature. Those which feign to be absolute in their inclusion of all other faiths and beliefs are simultaneously absolute in their exclusion of Christ and His exclusive claim of Lordship and His exclusive law-order and His demand for a faith that excludes the presence of all other faiths.

The Magnificent Seven & It’s Politically Correct Cultural Appropriation

Bloggers Warning — This article commits the sin of noticing. If you are offended by the sin of noticing you will not want to read this post.

Increasingly we are told that “cultural appropriation” is, at the very least, in bad taste and at the very worst exploitative. White people wearing cornrows, white people twerking, white people wearing black face are all considered in bad form. Team names like the “Cleveland Indians” or the “Washington Redskins” outrage some people and brings the accusation of cultural appropriation. Recently, “Victoria’s Secret” sent model Karlie Kloss down a runway in a fringed suede bikini, turquoise jewelry, and a feathered headdress—essentially a “sexy Indian” costume—many called out the underwear company for insensitivity to Native Americans.

Now, while I personally would not be disappointed if nobody did cornrows, twerked, or went around in blackface (this not being in keeping with my fashion tastes) it is considered a sin on the part of white people to culturally appropriate in this fashion. Just up the road from me in Lansing, Michigan students recently protested because of the cultural appropriations of the Native-Indian dress on the Michigan State campus.

However, moving in the opposite direction does not seem to be a problem. Increasingly minorities are culturally appropriating Western Culture and I read only a few people pointing out the inconsistencies. In 2014 we had a remake of “Little Orphan Annie” that found the role of Daddy Warbucks and Annie being played by Minorities. The 2017 release of a new King Arthur film finds the presence of Minorities sprinkled throughout the Ancient Arthurian Kingdom, including the mentor of the future King Arthur and the noble leader of the resistance to wicked King Uther. A third example of this cultural appropriation moving in the opposite direction was the remake of the Magnificent Seven.

In this remake, the hero role is played by Denzel Washington who is given the name “Sam Chisolm.” Of course, the name “Chisum” was a minor American Western white cowboy hero of the 19th century. “Chisum” was also the name of a 1970’s film with the title role of “Chisum” being played by John Wayne. Denzel Washington would be culturally appropriating both an American Western legend and a film legend known for his Westerns if it were possible for cultural appropriation to move in a direction contrary to whites culturally borrowing from minorities. Denzel Washington is the new John Wayne.

So, in the new “Magnificent Seven” we have white sheeple townsfolk looking to a black law officer for redress of grievances against a White evil Robber Baron. How often do you think that this would have occurred in the 19th century Western America? Keep in mind here that in the original “Magnificent Seven” it was a community of Mexican sheeple who were appealing to the Magnificent Seven for help against bad guy Mexican Bandoleros. We have gone from the incarnation of evil being a Mexican Bandolero to a white Robber Barron and we have gone from a community of Mexican peasants being sheeples to the American farmer and merchant Christian white people playing the sheeple. We need to throw in here that the cowardly white sheeple are led by one brave soul out for justice but settling for revenge. This brave white soul is a woman homesteader whose husband was killed by the bad guys as the film opens. This character (Emma Cullen) played by amply endowed Haley Bennet who’s breasts and cleavage is credited with a co-star billing.

Just a brief word on our white Robber Barron villain. I do believe that the modern Corporatist is a major villain in our culture but the Left’s narrative tends to cast anybody who makes money as being an evil capitalist. That holds true for this film.

In this latest version of the Magnificent Seven, we have four minority members. We have already mentioned Denzel Washington’s lead role as Sam Chilsom. Likewise, we have an outcast American Indian (Red Harvest), a knife-wielding Oriental (Billy Rocks), and an outlaw Mexican (Vasquez). Of the three white Magnificent Seven, we have the coward Southerner, (Goodnight Robicheaux) the slightly nutty and Scripture-spouting Mountain man (Jack Horn) and cheating gambler (Joshua Faraday).

Of the four Magnificent Seven who are killed as heroes in the end in the battle against the bad guys (who are all white except one Indian) only one is a minority (the Oriental knife wielder). The rest are all the White guys. The coward is cast as the lone Southerner. In the end, the White Southerner redeems himself but he still plays the coward.

In the end, all the bad guys are white people except for one Indian played by Jonathan Joss as Denali, an exiled Comanche warrior. However, we are relieved by the film-makers decision to have the good guy Indian (Red-Harvest) be the one who kills the bad guy Indian after the bad guy Indian kills the God-talk spouting Mountain Man. Can you imagine the outrage if a white Magnificent Seven good guy had killed the bad guy Indian? And what a coincidence that the particularly Christian good guy Mountain man who the film reveals was no friend of Indians in his life is killed by the heathen Indian.

The film repeatedly slights the white man beyond what I have already noted. When the good guy Indian (Martin Sensmeier) shows on the scene all the white Magnificent Seven are pensive and apprehensive but the minority leader of the Magnificent Seven reaches out and makes friends and asks the Indian to join their hero-posse. The character played by Chris Pratt (Joshua Faraday) mocks the Mexican for being Mexican. The film reveals that the character played by Lee Byung-hun (Billy Rocks) has been mistreated by white men. Ethan Hawke’s character (Goodnight Robicheaux) informs the viewer that a bar “didn’t want to serve Billy’s kind.” Billy, the diminutive Oriental cowboy, is taunted to fight by a white cowpoke with “come on you scum sucking runt of a man.” Billy himself tells us that his friendship with the Southerner Goodnight Robicheaux is one where “Goodnight helps me navigate the white man’s privileges.”

As the film progresses this multicultural crew is able to set aside their natural cultural, ethnic, and racial animosities and congeal together to be a force who is stronger than a thousand white hired gun bad guys.

There is also a subtle subtheme in this film regarding Christianity. When the film opens the sheeple townsfolks are meeting in a Church to discuss the problem of the Robber Barron Bogue who wants to cheat them of their land. Robber Barron Bogue shows up and in this opening scene, the Church is burned with a shell of it remaining. That shell of a church provides an inclusio for the end of the film where the lone female kills the bad guy (Bogue) under the cross as he is being forced to pray for forgiveness by the Sam Chisolm character. So, as the film opens the Church is the place where the cowardice of the white townspeople is revealed and in the closing, the Church is the place where a white man not interested in asking for forgiveness is being forced to beg for forgiveness for his sins by a minority and finally being killed by a white woman as he is, in an underhanded sneaky fashion, trying to kill the minority who is choking him to death for his past sins against Chisolm’s people. In the opening, the Church fails to provide resistance from white people. In the end, the Church failed to provide any solution for the redemption of the white man’s sins.

All of this worldview malfeasance crammed into a delightful Western. It really is a classic Western on the surface complete with gun fights, quick draw exhibition, the gambler theme, the lone cowboy heroes, and the plucky Western homesteader wife. However, scratching below the surface this is yet another piece of both cultural appropriation and an attack on the heroes and history of the Christian white man.