Iron Ink

From The Mailbag — Pastor, Kinism isn’t a Salvation Issue”

Dear Pastor;

“Kinism isn’t a salvation issue and so Pastor Bret you are in error to make it such an issue.”

Herod Knave

Dear Herod,

Well, as the first heresy that was fought in the NT even and has been fought tooth and nail ever since was Gnosticism and as it is this same Gnosticism that is driving opposition to Kinism I would say you just don’t know what you’re talking about. Alienism vs. Kinism is indeed a salvation issue when you realize that it is a heresy (Gnosticism) that is pushing the opposition to Kinism.

Dear Pastor;

“Kinism isn’t a salvation issue and so Pastor Bret you are in error to make it such a hobby horse.”

Herod

Dear Herod,

Well, as the first heresy, Gnosticism, that was fought in the NT forward (see Colossians and I John, as well as I Timothy) and likewise has been fought tooth and nail ever since and as it is this same Gnosticism that is driving opposition to Kinism I would respectfully say you just don’t know what you’re talking about. Alienism vs. Kinism is indeed a salvation issue when you realize that it is a heresy (Gnosticism) that is pushing the opposition to Kinism.Gnosticism is the disease Herod, and opposition to Kinism is one symptom. St. Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit certainly thought that Gnosticism was a salvation issue.

Next, when we consider that opposition to Kinism is not only Gnosticism but also a Egalitarianism that levels and destroys God ordained hierarchies and distinctions so that eventually the outcome of this will be the destruction of the distinction between God and man I think we must conclude Herod that this is a salvific issue. When considering these matters, Herod, one must not only look where we are but where a particular mode of though will take us. Anti-Kinism will eventually take us, unless manfully opposed, to the destruction of the distinction between Creator and Creature. Alienism (that which opposes Kinism) is a distinction eating world and life view and it is indeed aiming at the destruction of Biblical Christianity. If it were to be given its head there would be no salvation to be seen as necessary.

Thanks for writing,

Pastor

Schlebusch and McAtee Answer A Putative Conundrum by Natural Law Enthusiast Stephen Wolfe

“How do anti=natural law folks contend w/ the story of Abimelech and Abraham (Gen. 20) in God says that King Abimelech had ‘integrity of heart’ (v. 6), and he appears to have a sort of fear of God ( v. 14-15), a degree of civil righteousness (v.4), and clearly had knowledge of justice (v.9)?

Dr. Stephen Wolfe

1.) Dr. Adi Schlebusch answers,

Groen van Prinsterer on the traditional nature of General Revelation:

“Natural law is not known from reason. But, people say, look at much wisdom the ancients had! For sure. But they derived it from tradition. I mean not to say that they had actually seen the Books of Moses, but rather that their wisdom came from that same divine revelation that was written down in Scripture, albeit mediated by tradition.”

2.) Bret continues;

Anti-natural law types do not say that all pagans have zero notions of civil righteousness. Indeed, we would say that any pagan who has zero notions of civil righteousness will need to be locked up. (And given the recent P. Diddy revelations and before that in 2016 the Pizzagate revelations we are now at the point where we desperately need to start locking people up.) Similarly, anti-natural law types do not deny that the pagan will, buffet style, pick and choose that from natural law that can be used to get their Christ denying worldview off the ground and operating. The Christ-hater will use natural law to climb up into God’s lap in order to slap him in the face. So, anti-natural law types note that the Christ-hater is very selective as to what he will “learn” and not “learn” from natural law. For example, the natural law advocate at a early stage of departure from God’s reality may well say “adultery is wrong,” yet, 40 years later, because they have no anchor in special revelation (God’s Law Word) will now have no problem with sodomite marriage. Natural law hasn’t changed over that course of time but the Christ hater, being blown about by cultural relativism have given up that particular notion of natural law formerly embraced. This is because the carnal mind is at enmity with God (Romans 8:7). Luther offered long ago that anything noble that the Christ-hater did should be counted as “splendid vices.”

So, what anti-natural law types deny is that the pagan will be consistent in what he says he learns from natural law. Remember, at every turn the pagan will disallow natural law to instruct him in complete righteousness and so the anti-Christ types natural law like a wax nose that he can accept or not accept according to his liking as that liking is influenced by the cultural around him. The greater the culture becomes unhinged from God’s revealed law word the more likely the garden variety Christ-hater will choose to drop natural law options that he might have previously accepted.

The denigration of our own culture bears this out. In previous generations in the West, influenced as it was by God’s special revelation, those who were not Christians borrowed capital from Christianity to inform their reception of certain natural law categories — yet without embracing enough of them to be genuinely walk in righteousness as God counts righteousness — while dismissing other natural law categories at their whim.

All of this to say that, as I’ve noted before that what is called Natural Law can be seen as working in a culture highly influenced by Christianity but this is only due to the fact that the larger culture is shaped by special revelation. Natural law in these cases is “seen as working,” but it is not really what is working. What is working is that the Christ-hater is borrowing capital from the Christian worldview. Later, then we turn around and point back and call that “borrowing” natural law.

Contra Joe Boot

“Lies that sound true are always more dangerous. Jesus doesn’t call us to follow the Greek conception of the true, good, and beautiful — he requires obedience to the law of God which includes loving one’s enemies. My people are God’s covenant people from every tribe, tongue, and nation (Mt. 12:48-50). There is a difference between acknowledging the particular familial and civic responsibility I have toward my own immediate family and nation & ‘preferring’ some people over others. The overtones of this are obvious. And frankly it wasn’t Hispanics, who brought abortion to America or Blacks who brought Cultural Marxism, or Asians who brought LGBTQ ideology, or N. American Indians who brought euthanasia, or Arabs who brought the Climate Cult — I’m pretty sure it was ‘our people’ on all counts. Let’s put our house in order.”

Joe Boot

1.) Just for clarification’s sake, it should be understood that “the good, the true, and the beautiful,” are not independent categories that exist outside the reality of the God of the Bible being the precondition for being able to identify “the good, the true, and the beautiful.” In other words, apart from the God of the Bible the adjectives “good,” “true,” and “beautiful” could (and have) just as easily mean “bad,” “false,” and “ugly.” We know what the “good, the true, and the beautiful” are because of who God is. It is not the case that the “good, the true, and the beautiful” are descriptors of God apart from presupposing God.

2.) God’s law does require us to “Love our enemies,” but I would bet the farm that Boot doesn’t understand that one way to love our enemies is by resisting them with all our might. Scripture teaches that we are to “Let love be genuine. Hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good. (Rom. 12:9). We are indeed to love our enemies and sometimes the best way to do that is by giving them justice. The simplest example of this is spanking children. We spank our children because we love our children. Similarly, loving our enemies is sometimes not going to look like love as our enemies might want to define love.

Honestly, I can’t believe that Boot, of all people, is trotting the old “love our enemies” trope in order to prove that we should not have a greater love for our own people than for those who are the enemies of our people and who wish to destroy them.

2.) When Boot insists that his people are Christians from every tribe, tongue, and nation, as opposed to his kin, Boot has confused categories at best and at worst he is involved in a view where grace destroys nature. The fact that I have a very real spiritual attachment to all who rightly call on the name of Christ regardless of their race or nationality does not negate the fact that because of God’s work of creation wherein he has set people in clans, tribes, and nations so that those clans, tribes, and nations can properly be referred to as “my people.”

Why is it that this is so hard to understand? Normatively, I have a greater obligation to my own unbelieving parents than I do two Han Chinese Christians old enough to be my parents who live 1000 miles away. Is this not why we have the fifth commandment?

Look, it is not as if we Kinists do not understand that we have obligations to Christians who are not from our people group. When are the Alienists going to understand that it is fitting and proper to talk about a unique allegiance that we have to our kin?

3.) So, Boot, understands that we have a peculiar responsibility to our kith and kin and yet desires to insist that it would be improper for us to prefer our own kith and kin? This coming from the guy who named his organization “The Ezra Institute?” Man, the irony can’t get much thicker. Hey, Joe, you do realize don’t you that Ezra of all the OT Fathers perhaps more than anyone demanded, under penalty of law, for the Hebrews to put away wives and children who were not kith and kin to the Hebrew people. Joe… Booty man … it sure looks like Father Ezra understood it was proper to prefer one’s own people.

4.) Boot then cryptically drops .. “The overtones of this are obvious.” Now, I can be corrected here but methinks old Joe is dropping the Nazi card here. As if the fact that preferring one’s own people automatically makes one a Nazi. But you know what Joe? I don’t care anymore. You and your Boomer ilk can call me Nazi till the cows come home and I now longer give a tinker’s damn. Of course you won’t mind if I in turn, refer to you and your ilk as Cultural Marxists.

5.) Now this last bit is precious beyond speaking. We have the likes of Doug Wilson forever insisting how sinful it is to notice the sins of his Jewish ancestors because, well, because, they’ve done lots of good things to that balance the scales. Now, we find Boot putting white people in the dock quite without saying the scales are more then balanced. I’m sure Doug will soon be writing an article lecturing Boot on how inappropriate he was here.

6.) Next, on this same point can we notice that Maggie Sanger, who was the apostle for abortion was aided by Jewish immigrant named Fania Mindell in providing abortions to the public. On October 16, 1919, Mindell, Sanger and her Sister opened the country’s first birth control clinic, located in a tenement in Brownsville, New York. Jewish publications crow crow about this Jewish influence.

https://forward.com/culture/359288/meet-the-jewish-woman-who-helped-lay-the-groundwork-for-planned-parenthood/

Dr. Bernard Nathanson who preformed countless abortions before seeing the light was Jewish. Indeed, the Talmud teaches that abortion is perfectly acceptable since the fetus, in their twisted thinking, is a pursuer seeking to do harm. Now, I don’t deny that more than a few white people (Shabazz Goy) have been involved in the Abortion industry but the idea that somehow abortion arose and developed apart from Jewish influence is untrue.

Next we move to Boot’s bit on cultural Marxism … again, Cultural Marxism while having plenty of Shabazz Goy white disciples was a movement first originating with Jewish people. Jewish Names like Marcuse, Adorno, Horkheimer, György Lukács, and Wilhelm Reich litter the Cultural Marxist beginnings. Surely, Boot knows this, yet Boot decides to lay all this uniquely at the feet of white people.

Sure, white people, have sins plenty to repent of but the idea that Boot so quickly wants to prove that we are all equal because we are all sinners is just a sacrifice offered up to the God of egalitarianism.

Le clergé dans les affaires

“Therefore let the one who thinks he stands firm [immune to temptation, being overconfident and self-righteous], take care that he does not fall [into sin and condemnation].”

I Corinthians 10:12
(Amplified Bible)

I was 16, way back in 1976, when for the first time I witnessed, up close and personal, the crash and burning of a minister (youth) due to sexual infidelity. It was a royal mess and looking back on it over the years my sympathy and compassion for all parties has only grown together with my sorrow for the injured parties and anger at the ones inflicting injury. The Senior minister of the Church was left with the impossible task of trying to hold the work together since people in the congregation had a dozen views of what did and did not happen and who was really at fault. A young marriage with young children was scuttled. The popular youth minister in question, who had a huge influence on a rather large youth group, was out of work leaving behind him a large group of High Schoolers who were more than a little disillusioned with Christianity. I was disappointed, to be sure, but frankly in 1976 I was so trying to survive my own sitz-im-lieben that I didn’t have enough time or energy to get overly distraught by other people’s naughty behavior. Still, I was not so self-involved to not be able to see that this behavior had sent shock waves through the Church.

Since that summer of 1976 I have seen repeatedly, both up close in Churches I was connected to and from far away as more of a spectator the damage that marital unfaithfulness does in the Church when that unfaithfulness is contracted within the church. Now again, with the case of the former Rev. Stephen Lawson the Church is party to having to bear the shame, along with Lawson.

Naturally, when clergy are involved in sexual infidelity the blowback is even more intense. All of us who are clergy have to hear the refrain of “typical clergy, they think they are better than us and just look.”

Perhaps, the first thing that should be said then is, “we are not better than the laity.” The best of us are only unprofitable servants seeking to do what we ought. As you have known for sometime now, as clergy we are marvelous at disappointing you, of not living up to your expectations, and of being in need of grace as much as any of you who are not clergy. St. Paul was not kidding when he wrote, “Here is a trustworthy saying, worthy of full acceptance; Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”

That admission does not excuse Lawson. Neither is it an attempt to do so. The sin of sexual infidelity combined and then dwarfed by the sin of climbing into the pulpit to preach as God’s spokesman while involved in said infidelity is beyond words. Beyond words, but not beyond forgiveness.

The challenge here is how to be, at one and the same time, squarely against sin, while realizing “there but for the grace of God, go I.” After all, Elders are required to be “gentle” and being gentle is a must when a man is repenting. (And it is my assumption here that Lawson has repented and is repenting.) If we only rail about the sin we come across as the self-righteous prigs we so easily can be and too often are. If we elide too quickly past the sin we may treat the sin too lightly and so not communicate the necessary warning to others.

Then there is the factor that leadership is ideally supposed to be held to a higher standard. Paul writes Timothy that the Overseer is supposed to be “above reproach,” and the “husband of one wife,” and Lawson has read himself out of both those qualifications.

Look, I bleed for the man. I know what I am capable of. I bleed for his wife. At this age she is supposed to be enjoying the sunset of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and some kind of slowing down. Instead, she has to deal with this five alarm fire. Then there is “the other woman” who though responsible as well may well have swooned into the illicit relationship based upon some misguided admiration for “the man of God.” Alternately, it is possible that she was and is a real Jezebel. Have we mentioned all the hurt now that his children and grandchildren are dealing with given the devastation this has wrecked? Have we mentioned the congregation he served and the countless others across the nation that may well have looked up to Rev. Lawson? Really, the impact I witnessed first in 1976 remains the impact when this kind of sin bomb goes off. The hurt and shattered lives makes my soul ache. The greatest ache is that the name of the ever glorious God is brought into disrepute.

So, it is with mixed emotions I write about this. Fear, because the ability to write about this kind of event is so fraught with getting it wrong, thus doing even more damage. Sorrow, because of the trail of tears this thing leaves in its wake. Shame, because Christ’s name is dishonored and because I realize that I am perfectly capable of the same thing. Anger, for the obvious reasons. Funny, these are some of the same emotions I had in 1976. All of it makes me fleetingly toy with getting out of the ministry before I do something this wicked.

Some have written on this subject, probing the question, “How could this happen.” On that score, let’s be honest — this kind of thing is getting fairly common. While writing I can think of a half-dozen plus other similar high profile clergy that have been caught in this particular snare over the last 10 years or so.

The answer to the “why” questions are both simple and complex. At the simple end of things man has a sin nature that is only eradicated with his death. Simple explanations also include the truth that “stolen watermelon is more sweet.” The more complex range from living in a culture that drips with perverse sexuality, to the fact that high platformed clergy begin to believe the adulation that they are covered with (they begin to believe their own press clippings) and believing that no longer take heed, to the fact of the ego sizes that are often characteristic of too many clergy (can you say “narcissism?”) I am tempted to also offer as a possibility the lack of accountability but, frankly, it seems accountability anymore only works to keep orthodox men from being orthodox as heterodox men love holding the orthodox “accountable.”

Be sure of this though. Nobody who gets in this situation gets in it apart from a mega dollop of self-deception. The clergy who gets into a strange bed, while simultaneously maintaining the ability to climb into the pulpit week after week, really is a man to be pitied. He has seared his conscience while grieving the Holy Spirit. He has crossed some kind of Rubicon that one wonders how many return from.

But there is grace with God. Our Baptism reminds us that there is no sin we cannot return from if we will only do the grace given hard work of repentance.

Petition God, as I have been, that He will be honored in all this, and keep in mind that there is no reason why this couldn’t be you or I.

“Mother Jones” “TheoBros,” & One Related Tangent

I spent two posts dismissing Rev. Chris Gordon’s dismissal of Christian Nationalism/Post-millennialism, only to read today a “Mother Jones” article that is seeking to warn everybody about the rise of what Gordon says is a dying movement. As odd as it may sound it seems both “Mother Jones” and I agree on something vis-a-vis Chris Gordon.

To Understand JD Vance, You Need to Meet the “TheoBros”

The “Mother Jones” article is worth a read in my opinion. What is most interesting about the “Mother Jones” piece is that this traditionally liberal rag gives the movement that Gordon so eschews a more objective take than most people like Gordon and the ilk from the Reformed-Evangelical world give the movement. Now, to be sure, “Mother Jones” is opposed to the movement and it’s article is seeking to “expose” the movement as something dangerous, but even despite that obvious slant there is in the piece a more even handed approach to what is being reported on then can be found from the likes of Chris Gordon and his R2K/Pietistic Baptist fellow travelers.

You can read the article for yourself if you please. However, there is one point I want to draw attention to and that is the label “Mother Jones” gives the movement. The label “Mother Jones” gives is “The Theobros.” Now, the problem I have with this handle is that it subtly implies that “The Theobros” are brothers who are uniquely operating according to a common theology. The beef here is, is that those who are opposed “The Theobros,” like “Mother Jones” are themselves also Theobros, in the sense that their militant opposition to “The Theobros” is based on a shared theology. It is not as if “The Theobros” are unique in being bonded together by their shared theology. When bond are bonded together a key factor in their being bonded together for a particular cause is a theology that makes them Theobros.

I point this out because I am convinced that underneath this labeling is the idea that people can be scared of “The Theobros” movement for the precise reason that they are caricatured as religious extremists, when in point of fact it is the Marxist Theobros opposing “The Theobros” who are the religious extremists.

If I may, I will only give one critique of “The Theobros.” This critique is not based on the article, though the article, if read closely, I think lends credence to this critique. My critique of “The Theobros” movement is that it is not self-referentially consistent. Now, some are clearly better than others among “The Theobros” but there are many in this movement who are only interested in taking half-measures, half-taken. The remedy that many in this movement are offering will not cure the disease. So, even if they are successful, I do not think that we, as a Christian nation, will be much better off. Oh, we may be better off for a season but the basic trajectory this nation is on will not be altered. The one way I could be wrong on this is if “The Theobros” movement is muting their voices because they know that, politically speaking, they can not say the quiet parts out loud. In brief, I do think that many of them are trying to move the Overton Window but they are not moving it yet past what is still considered acceptable by those on the right side of the left. As I noted, this may be merely a tactic rather than a conviction.

This brings me to a tangent that while unrelated to the “Mother Jones” article remains related to the subject as a whole.

Recently, I was talking to someone I am fairly confident would be considered a “Theobros.” During the conversation he said that he did not like the methodology of Kinism. As someone who knows a little bit about Kinism I asked him if he could be precise as to what this methodology of Kinism is to which he objects.

He replied by noting two things that I would like to spill a few sentence examining.

First he said, “That I don’t like how Kinists say that inter-racial marriage is sin.”

I must admit that I find this flummoxing. It is true that there are some few Kinists who say that all inter-racial marriage is sin. However, there are also even more Kinists who do not say that all inter-racial marriages are sin always all the time. There are more than a few Kinists, like myself, who merely say that while inter-racial marriages can be sin, they are not necessarily always sin but are normatively, as the higher statistical averages on the divorce rate for inter-racial couples bear out, not wise, and so these Kinists strongly counsel against such marriages, stopping short of labeling it as “always sin.”

https://www.thehivelaw.com/blog/interracial-divorce-rates-what-percentage-of-interracial-marriages-end-in-divorce/

My conversation partner’s protest then was not valid on this point.

His second reason for “not liking the methodology of Kinism,” was his being wedded to the theory of Natural Law. He doesn’t like the fact that Kinists, often (though not always) being theonomists, find Natural Law theory ridiculous. I sought to assure him that some Kinists might well embrace Natural Law while still being Kinists. This objection of his to “so called” Kinist methodology is even more non-weighty than his first objection. If one desires to embrace Natural Law while embracing Kinism nobody is going to tear up your Kinist membership card though you may be challenged on that particular point as a side-bar discussion.

What I see has happened is that the word “Kinism” has been turned into a “boogeyman.” Just as people are scared of being tagged with the word “racist,” or “anti-semite,” or “homophobic” so they have been convinced that being labeled with the opprobrium of “Kinist” is the worst thing in the world to happen. However, like the other words just mentioned, people do not realize that they are being manipulated to operate in the world view of those who are slinging the accusations. Since otherwise decent people are being stampeded into avoiding the left hurling these words at them, people begin to operate in such a way as to avoid these empty-minded pejoratives and in their mad rush to avoid these slurs these otherwise decent people operate in terms of their enemy’s world and life view.

Given the world and life view of God’s enemies and our enemies there is not necessarily or automatically any sin in being what they call “racist” or “anti-semite,” or “homophobe” or even “Kinist.” These are just words used to manipulate people into accepting their Cultural Marxist Weltanschauung (Worldview). If we are going to be successful in resisting the Cultural Marxists we need to get used to the way they hurl these words at us and reply with something like;

“Well, I’m sure to someone who is a Cultural Marxist like yourself your accusations make sense, and honestly, were I a Cultural Marxist like you I might say the same, but since I am not a Cultural Marxist, but instead am a Christian, I do not share the premise behind your accusations, and so find your accusations to be folly. I do not take your accusations seriously in the least.”