Iron Ink

McAtee Contra Leithart On Nationalism

Recently, on the Web-blog of “First Things”

http://www.firstthings.com/tag/globalism

Dr. Peter Leithart, champion of the Federal Vision movement, wrote that Christians are forsworn against being either Nationalists or Internationalists. Leithart wrote that Christians “must refuse the choice,” of embracing either nationalism or globalism, arguing instead that Christians must be “Kingdom First” people. Leithart’s notion is that Christians cannot be either Nationalists nor Globalist because they are Christ Kingdomists and being Christ Kingdomists they must forswear both Nationalism and Globalism.

All in all this article was rather badly put on Dr. Leithart’s part. What I’d like to think that Dr. Leithart was actually arguing is that Christians are forsworn against being unbiblical Nationalists. With this truth every right minded Christian agrees. Biblical Christianity has no more use for the anti-Christ Nationalism of the Alt. Right, for example, than it does for the anti-Christ Globalism of Russel Moore or much of the PCA and the modern misguided Reformed clergy corps.

However, at the end of the day all Biblical Christians are duty bound to embrace a Biblical Nationalism where the Lordship of Jesus Christ and His law are to be bowed to by the Kings of the earth, lest those Kings perish in their way. There is simply no way to get to Leithart’s proffered Biblical Globalism apart from a return to a notion of Christendom where many individuated Nations find a harmony of interests and so a sort of biblical Globalism because they are each, in their own capacity as individuated Nations, bowing to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Naturally, it can be easily agreed upon that as biblical Christians our first commitment is to Christ and His Kingdom but it is precisely because Christ and His Kingdom is our first commitment that biblical Christians are duty bound to champion concepts of Biblical Nationalism. Scripture clearly teaches that God

^{Acts 17:26}made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place

That God supports nationalism is seen in the reality that He has made every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth. If God supported pagan globalism — the kind of globalism that desires to erase all National distinctions in favor of an amalgamated melting pot of an undifferentiated glop of peoples — then He would not have made every nation of mankind and so given people National identities. Clearly already we have an idea that God supports godly nationalism. As such we see that if it is true, per Dr. Leithart, that we must be Christians who seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness we must be at the same time be Christians who advocate biblical nationalism. Any hopes of a biblical globalism — a return to Christendom as it were — is pinned upon a return to biblical nationalism first. In all this we are merely echoing far greater minds who went before us,

“Nationalism, within proper limits, has the divine sanction; an imperialism that would, in the interest of one people, obliterate all lines of distinction is everywhere condemned as contrary to the divine will. Later prophecy raises its voice against the attempt at world-power, and that not only, as is sometimes assumed, because it threatens Israel, but for the far more principal reason, that the whole idea is pagan and immoral.

Now it is through maintaining the national diversities, as these express themselves in the difference of language, and are in turn upheld by this difference, that God prevents realization of the attempted scheme… [In this] was a positive intent that concerned the natural life of humanity. Under the providence of God each race or nation has a positive purpose to serve, fulfillment of which depends on relative seclusion from others.”

-Geerhardus Vos,
Biblical Theology

Dr. Leithart insists that the Church is ecumenical, a worldwide “Abrahamic empire.” And with this we agree. However the Church is ecumenical in the sense that it is Nation of Nations. It is not ecumenical in the sense that it is filled up with jumbled together individuals who have lost all their creational identity markers because they’ve become Christian. It is ecumenical in the sense that Christians in their nations, from every nation comprise the catholic Church.

Leithart goes on to note that, “our deepest brotherhood isn’t with other citizens of our nation but with those who are united with us by the Spirit in the Son.” It is true that we have a deeper brotherhood with those who are united with us by the Spirit in the Son, than we have with citizens of our own nation who are outside of Christ, but we wonder if Leithart misses the deepest of all brotherhood that exists when we are united by the Spirit in the Son with those we are already united with us by blood ties?

Thus while we agree with Leithart that commitment to Christ reigns above commitment to Christless family we still also agree with Charles Hodge when he noted, while commenting on Romans 9:3,

Paul had two classes of brethren; those who were with him the children of God in Christ; these he calls brethren in the Lord, Philip, i. 14, holy brethren, &c. The others were those who belonged to the family of Abraham. These he calls brethren after the flesh, that is, in virtue of natural descent from the same parent. Philemon he addresses as his brother, both in the flesh and in the Lord. The Bible recognizes the validity and rightness of all the constitutional principles and impulses of our nature. It therefore approves of parental and filial affection, and, as is plain from this and other passages, of peculiar love for the people of our own race and country.

Charles Hodge
Commentary Romans 9

Because of this Leithart is wrong when he writes, “we cannot be nationalists,” unless what he means is that we cannot be unbiblical nationalists and must instead be careful to be biblical nationalists.

Leithart’s problem also comes through when he writes on why the Church cannot be globalist. We agree that the Church cannot be New World Order globalist but the reason that is so is because the Church is a Nation of Nations and to eliminate nations by a babelistic amalgamation would be to eliminate the Church. I agree here with a earlier generation of Biblical Scholars,

“More than a dozen excellent commentaries could be mentioned that all interpret Israel as thus inclusive of Jew and Gentile, in this verse, — the Gentile adherents thus being merged with the covenant people of Israel, though each nationality remains distinct.”

Thus the highest description of Jehovah’s covenant people is applied to Egypt, — “my people,” — showing that the Gentiles will share the covenant blessings, not less than Israel. Yet the several nationalities are here kept distinct, even when Gentiles share, in the covenant blessing, on a level of equality with Israel. Egypt, Assyria and Israel are not nationally merged. And the same principles, that nationalities are not obliterated, by membership in the covenant, applies, of course, also in the New Testament dispensation.”

Martin J. Wyngaarden, The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011), pp. 101-102.

And those national distinctions exist right into the New Jerusalem where we see the nations existing as nations and being healed in their capacity as nations,

The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Rev. 22:2)

Nations, as Leithart rightly notes, retain their national identities – their languages, histories, and customs and so the Church is and remains, as I’ve noted earlier, a nation of nations. Christians must be nationalists because they serve a God who “possesses all the nations” (Psalm 82:8).

The disagreements I have with Dr. Leithart shouldn’t negate the agreements I have. I thought this paragraph by Dr. Leithart to be wonderfully put,

Put it positively: Our internationalist and nationalist instincts infuse and qualify one another. Christian “globalism” acknowledges the goodness of peoples, the beauty in the difference of human experience and culture. The church is polyphonic. We live within political communities and, as Augustine said, we are specially obligated to love our nearest-neighbors. Christian “globalism” will thus exhibit “nationalist” features. Yet Christian “nationalism” is always qualified by our more fundamental attachment to the trans-national church. Christian patriotism will appear suspiciously thin to a true-blue nationalist.

First, it needs to be said that the Church is more intra-national than it is trans-national. Second, I would take exception here to the idea that the unbiblical nationalist is the “true-blue nationalist.” In point of fact it is the Biblical Christian who is the true-blue nationalist because they realize that any nationalism apart from Christ is idolatry and as such will destroy true-blue nationalism.

A true-blue biblical nationalism would never lift the nation above Christ. A true-blue biblical nationalism would never absolutize the nation so that it bears a sacredness above Christ and His Church in other nations. We refuse impure unbiblical nationalism but we enthusiastically embrace, without embarrassment, a biblical nationalism. There is no other option.

Having said that we understand that there is no longer any nation that exists that has pledged, as a nation, its fealty to Christ. As such biblical nationalism goes a beggaring. However, in principle, biblical Christians must work for the day when once again, political leaders of particular nations acknowledge they are servants of a universal King and where fealty to the king is a fealty to one who saw himself as a vassal of Christ. This is our postmillennial expectation.

We live in a time when all the pieces are moving towards a Babelistic New World Order. The media moguls with their Hollywood films, books, radio, and magazines are cramming down our throats the messages of a Globalism that offers an amalgamated, unisex world union as a promised utopia. Likewise Corporations, and Governments are pushing us incessantly towards this nightmare dystopian New World Order vision. Even the modern contemporary Church in the West, both “conservative” and liberal, having reinterpreted Christianity through a Cultural Marxist grid, is pushing this globalist agenda. Leithart’s warnings against nationalism in this climate is like warning against prudery while living in a bordello culture. Surely prudery can be a problem but it’s hardly a real danger in a bordello culture.

Biblical Christians live in a time where they must say “no” to New World Order globalism, as well as to anti-Christ Alt. Right Nationalism, as well as Leithartian scriblings that embraces open borders all the while insisting that we should beware of globalism. If the embrace of open borders is Leithart’s idea of an appropriate nationalism we have problems.

In the end I see what Dr. Leithart is advocating for as a “soft Globalism.” Leithart’s globalism is not the in your face variety found in the Halls of White House or as advocated by Angela Merkle. Instead it is a kinder and gentler Globalism where Nations lose their identity incrementally and where the idea of nations can still be spoken about in theory even if they are eclipsed in practice. Honestly, I see Dr. Leithart, on this monumentally important issue, being a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Beware this leaven.

Who Does the Shaping?

“This is what this election is about — who will have the power to shape our children for the next four to eight years of their lives.”

~Michelle Obama @ the DNC

Men had better be without education than be educated by their rulers

Thomas Hodgskin

1.) I’ll make the obvious but necessary observation that this is an example of the State thinking that it is the State’s role to shape our children. Parents are merely instruments of the State.

2.) Look folks, this culture has been cooked for decades. Anybody who has managed to get out of the statist Matrix and on to the good ship Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix reference) and so out of the State conditioned culture are already the exception. It simply is the case already that the State is shaping most Children. One way we know that is that the shaping process means adults remain intellectually children. Only a handful of people would have ever caught Michelle’s words as irregular.

McAtee Contra The American Vision Pyromaniac

Well, the perpetual “foot in mouth” McDurmon, over at American Vision, has done it yet again. McDurmon has once again flashed his Cultural Marxist credentials in order to prove his Social Warrior status by doubling down on his last article that Iron Ink disassembled. We easily dismissed his previous effort at White guilting and we are glad to dismiss this most recent effort by McDurmon to sell the Black Lives Matter narrative to Christians.

Here is the link to Dr. McDurr’s recent attempt to shore up his work as a neo-theo Cultural Marxist,

A consideration of blacks and disproportionate crime

Dr. McDurmon starts his article with a untrue quote that nobody has ever cited and then tries to use this untrue quote to taint all those who cite true statistics about black on black and black on white crime.

Joel McDurmon starting with a self admitted untrue quote wrote,

“Blacks are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. Blacks, who make up only 1 percent of the population, account for 34 percent of drug dealers, 47 percent of robberies, 47 percent of illegal gambling, 82 percent of gangs, and 98 percent of pimps. The most common expressions in the jargon of gangsters comes from black hip hop and rap. These characteristics alone refute the liberal blabber about “equality.”

Bret responds,

Now, Joel will eventually inform us in the article that this quote isn’t a true quote about blacks but instead the quote was from an Nazi war propaganda film about Jews. Joel replaced the word “black” for the word “Jew” and suggested it was a legitimate statistic that people were citing.

Of course the punch in this technique used by the esteemed Dr. McDurmon is that it is the hated Nazis who propagandized with this quote. The intent is to suggest that anyone who cites statistics (even if they are true) that are not flattering to particular people groups must themselves be Nazis.

There are several ways to handle this but I want to start with my own quote. This one is a true quote. It is from a man that has been lionized by the West. This quote is from Winston Churchill and it makes much the same observation regarding Jews that the Nazi propaganda film made but without the statistics.

Churchill wrote in 1937 in the London Herald Tribune

“Most, if not all, of them (International Jews) have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognizable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.”

Now, here is the question for Joel. Since Winston Churchill made much the same point as the Nazi propaganda film does this mean that Winston Churchill was also a Nazi just as those of us are who today cite hate facts and hate stats? Or, is it the case now that those today who cite the “hate” statistics are now themselves the heroes since a hero non Nazi like Churchill made much the same type of point once upon a time about particular problems with particular people groups?

Dear reader, do you see how jejune this technique of McDurmon’s is? Instead of dealing with the statistics at hand, what he does is he rolls out a quote that has nothing to do with anything, except for its ability to paint people who cite the very real statistics as automatic racist Nazis who obviously want to killsixmillionjewsandblacks.

McDurmon writes,

I think we’ve all heard something like this before. While you may note that a couple of the statistics are a bit askew, you’ll acknowledge the general spirit and, to be honest, a close proximity to the actual statements frequently repeated by conservatives, reactions to some claims of movements like #blacklivesmatter, and even the comments on which some people still base their own diatribes and criticisms of “black culture” or “black youth,” or the like.

Bret responds,

The actual statements frequently repeated by non Cultural Marxists are repeated because the actual statements are true, unlike the fake quote that McDurmon started us off with. For example, it is an actual matter of fact that,

FACT 1. Over 1,400 more black Americans murdered other blacks in two years than were lynched from 1882 to 1968.

According to FBI data, 4,906 black people murdered other blacks in 2010 and 2011. That is 1,460 more black Americans killed by other blacks in two years than were lynched from 1882 to 1968, according to the Tuskegee Institute.

FACT 2. Black People (mostly men) commit a grossly disproportionate amount of crime.

In 2012, white males were 38 percent of the population and committed 4,582 murders. That same year, black males were just 6.6 percent of the population but committed a staggering 5,531 murders.

In other words: black people–at just a fifth of the size–committed almost 1,000 more murders than their white counterparts.

The figures above highlight a horrific truth that black racialists and white liberals routinely ignore: Lawbreaking black Americans, young black males particularly, put themselves in close proximity to (mostly white male) police officers at rates sometimes five to 10 times higher than whites. This is a recipe for disaster. Thusly….

FACT 3. Despite making up just 13% of the population, blacks committed half of homicides in the United States for nearly 30 years.

DOJ statistics show that between 1980 and 2008, black people committed 52% of homicides.

In 2013, black criminals committed 38% of the murders. Whites accounted for just 31 percent.

There are five times fewer black people than white people in America and, yet, they consistently carry out a larger share of the crimes? Given this rate, it’s no wonder that there aren’t more assistances where cops kill black criminals.

FACT 4. Chicago’s death toll is almost equal to that of both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined.

There have been almost as many deaths in one American city as there have been in the two major wars carried out by the U.S. military this century.

FACT 5. It would take cops 40 years to kill as many black men as have died at the hands of others black men in 2012 alone.

No amount of bleating innuendos and dissimulations by Joel can change this true narrative. No amount of guilt mongering can change this narrative. No amount of Social Justice Warrior-ing on Joel’s part can flip this narrative so that somehow white Christians and paleo-conservatives are the problem. Joel McDurmon is championing a false template and he knows it.

Joel McDurmon writes,

To be truly candid, we would have to admit that there is still a very firm streak among so-called “paleo-conservatives” that affirms that such statistics form foundational truths about race relations (read: animosities) in American life. Witness the surprising percentage of southern Presbyterians who voted against their denomination’s recent resolution to apologize for its past racism and role in segregation.

Bret responds,

Once again McDurmon dissimulates when he suggests that anybody who takes these real statistics seriously automatically are in animosity to all minorities. It is a out and out subterfuge on his part. A statement he has absolutely no proof of. It is an assertion without any foundation.

Second, the statistics in question do indeed form foundational truths about race relations. Only a fool would deny this. Statistical averages mean something and to not take statistical averages seriously is both careless and foolhardy. For Pete’s sake, Joel’s fellow Social Justice Warrior and comrade in arms, Jesse Jackson himself said, a few years ago,

“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps… then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

Is Rev. McDurmon going to fault Rev. Jackson for taking these “hate” stats seriously? You can bet that Joel would fault Rev. Jackson if Rev. Jackson was white?

Finally, Joel sites the surprising 13% who voted against PCA resolution 43, thus demonstrating he is a true believer who will not be satisfied until 100% of the Church’s doctrine is reinterpreted through a Cultural Marxist grid.

Joel wrote,

Witness the recent story of a slight, about 90-lb black kindergarten teacher wrongfully manhandled by an Austin police officer when she didn’t lock-step as quickly as he liked during a traffic stop. (To its credit, the Austin PD acknowledges that the actions and comments on the part of two officers were wrong—a small victory.) During her handcuffed trip in the back of the police cruiser, the transporting police officer was filmed calmly informing her that people are, yes, afraid of black people, but for good reason: because of their “violent tendencies.” He explained,

“99 percent of the time, when you hear about stuff like that, it is the black community that is being violent.”

Now there’s a striking stat for you.

Bret responds

1.) Let me get this straight. Joel is using a false stat of some half baked cop in Austin in order to dismiss genuine statistics honestly arrived at? He can’t be serious.

2.) Here Joel is giving anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is notoriously bad as evidence of any general overall point. Personally, I’ve had several people tell me, with first hand knowledge, that Joel suffers from torpidity. Does this mean that I should conclude that it is a truism that Joel is torpid? In the same way, Joel, citing an anecdotal example does nothing to support his dismissal of irrefutable statistics that support, to a significant degree, the violent tendencies of some people groups in comparisons to other people groups.

Dr. McDurmon writes,

In fact, you, dear reader, may be among those who think, or even practice, the type of condemnation-by-statistics in the quotation at the start above, whether as a justification for rejecting black-power or black-equality movements, or rebutting the leftism inherent therein, because you always give conservatives the benefit of the doubt, or for whatever reason. The fact is, statistics create a collective umbrella which provides shelter for certain prejudices or sins committed, often routinely, against individuals of that class to whom such stats may or may not apply.

But if so, you have no idea of what spirit of death and destruction you may be partaking.

Bret responds,

Given the statistics that I provided earlier what more justification do we need in order to reject the unbiblical and Jacobin egalitarianism as pursued by Social Justice Warriors like McDurmon? The fact is, statistics this overwhelming mean something even though SJW’s like McDurmon doesn’t like what those statistics mean. Joel, can call these hard stats “hate stats” all he likes but it doesn’t change the facts and does nothing to support his false narrative hawking.

It is Joel McDurmon who is the one who is guilty of spreading the spirit of death and destruction. Police officer Jeff Maples gets at how it is that McDurmon is guilty of spreading the spirit of death and destruction in his Social Justice Warrior-ing when Maples wrote regarding other SJW Ministers currently plaguing the visible Church in the West,

“The fact that their very own hasty rhetoric and judgment contributes to the anger of those who would kill police is apparently lost on them. You can’t perpetuate a false narrative of widespread police racism (or white racism as Joel is arguing) and then in the next breath be shocked that someone believed it and sought to take vengeance. Of course, they’ll call the murder of police officers wrong, they just won’t say that the REASON was wrong. They’ll cry out for justice, for action, for something to be done, and then stand shocked when some depraved, racist cop-hater decides to take justice into their own hands. They’ll pour gallons of gasoline onto the pyre and then act appalled when someone finally strikes a match.”

Joel is a irresponsible pyromaniac playing with matches in a gasoline dump when he writes this tripe.

Finally, it is true that statistics don’t tell us about every single individual. We agree that anyone who would automatically dismiss all people based on statistics concerning their people group would be unwise. Just as it would be unwise to not heed these statistics at all as the earlier quote from Rev. Jesse Jackson suggests.

McDurmon writes,

Just one more fact for your consideration:

That quotation above—the one about the blacks being disproportionate in crime—yeah, I edited it a bit. I adapted it to fit modern discourse and more contemporary expressions.

Yeah. The original quotation is not recent, and it is not about blacks. Here’s the original:

The parasite nation of Judah is responsible for a large part of international crime. In 1932, the Jew, who make up only 1 percent of the world’s population, accounted for 34 percent of the world’s dope peddlers, and 47 percent of robberies; 47 percent of crooked games of chance, 82 percent of international crime organizations, and 98 percent of dealers in prostitution. The most common expressions in the jargon of international gangsters and criminals stem from Hebrew and Yiddish words. These physiognomies refute the liberal theory of the equality of all who bear a human countenance.

The quotation comes from the Nazi propaganda film, The Eternal Jew, which was produced in 1940 in an effort to demonize Jews in Nazi Germany and justify their opposition to the Jewish race….

Bret responds,

Is Joel suggesting here that the current statistics we have are the same kind of propaganda as was embedded in the film he cites? Is Joel saying that anyone who believes the statistics he clearly doesn’t like are just like the Nazis? Is this an example of the “Ad Hitlerum” logical fallacy? It sounds to me like Joel is saying here, “Agree with me or you’re just like a Nazi.”

Really, has this what rational argumentation has come to?

Joel should have just written that, “crime stats are for Nazis.” The End.

Joel writes,

Even if the stats were accurate, it would not justify either the spirit of fear and derision, or the castigation of any given individual as if those stats pertained to them—despite their appearance or race. Yet the use of crime statistics was a prime piece of evidence used to turn the hearts of an entire nation against a race. It’s a powerful force. And it has had undeniably powerful effects. Contradiction much Joel?

Bret responds,

1.) Joel finds himself free to upbraid Whites for their “spirit of fear” of being raped, robbed, beaten, or killed by Blacks as “vile racism” and “damnable heresy,” yet Social Justice Warriors like him affirm Blacks’ fear of cops as innocence and righteousness. Whites and Blacks are judged by two very different standards. SJW’s like Joel maintains fear is sin for Whites, but grace for Blacks.1

2.) Does Joel have concrete examples of Christians castigating individual blacks because these statistics?

3.) The stats that JM references did not turn Germany against the Jews unless Joel is suggesting that Churchill was a liar.

Joel wrote,

If we don’t fight for our basic constitutional rights for everyone, all the time, we undermine them for ourselves. We destroy our own liberty and future.

If we don’t love the Samaritan, we don’t love our neighbor. It’s that simple. The moment we start down the other road, we start to imbibe this demonizing spirit of the Nazi. You need to assess whether you’ve started down that road or not, and if so, how far.

Bret responds,

1.) Joel has yet to establish as truth that, currently, constitutional rights are being held, in a discriminatory fashion, against any sole particular people uniquely. Joel has bought into a false worldview that pushes that narrative but Joel agreeing with the Cultural Marxist false narrative does not make it so.

2.) Joel is the one not loving the Samaritan. He is hating white people who he is implying are racist who dare disagree him, and that without a shred of proof or evidence. If you don’t agree with Joel’s Cultural Marxism he does not treat you like a good Samaritan. Instead, like the Priest and the Levite in the Good Samaritan pericope, Joel passes by those who have been beaten up falsely as racist and who are are laying at the side of the road dying from the libel and slander of Social Justice Warriors like Joel McDurmon.

Physician heal thyself.

1 = Conversation with Ehud Would

What Is Left of Biblical Christianity When Penal Substitutionary Atonement is Eliminated?

The Penal Substitutionary teaching of the Atonement (sometimes referred to as the Forensic theory of the Atonement) following Scripture, insists that Jesus Christ, consistent with the Covenant of Redemption, by His own choice, became obedient unto the sacrificial death of the Cross. In the doing of so, the Lord Christ satisfied, as a substitute, the just penal demands of God’s law against elect sinners with the consequence that the punishment that should have fallen on elect sinners is understood to have been fallen upon Christ. The whole idea is encapsulated in Peter’s phraseology that, “Christ died for sins once for all; the just for the unjust.”

The centrality of this doctrine is so important that any denial of the Forensic theory of the Atonement leaves us with a Christianity that is completely redefined. Indeed, this is so much true that those who profess Christianity yet deny the penal substitutionary doctrine of the atonement profess a different Christianity than those who profess Christ while affirming the penal substitutionary atonement. A different Christianity ensues when the Forensic doctrine of the atonement is deleted.

This also means that all who affirm a hypothetical universal atonement whereby Christ dies for all in theory but where the intent of the hypothetical universal atonement is limited by sovereign man confess a thoroughly different Christianity than those who submit to the Scriptures teaching of Penal substitutionary atonement where the intent of the atonement is limited by our Sovereign God.

Now, felicitous inconsistency sometimes keeps these different expressions from coming into the collision that they rightfully should be involved in but at the end of the day Christianity with a penal substitutionary atonement and Christianity without a penal substitutionary atonement are both Christianity the same way that Marxism without a Hegelian dialectic is the same as Marxism with a Hegelian dialectic.

As Dabney noted on this score,

“This issue is cardinal. As the Churches of all ages has understood the Scriptures, the whole plan of gospel redemption rests upon this substitution of Christ as its corner-stone. He who overthrows the corner-stone overthrows the building. The system which he rears without this foundation may be named Christianity by him, but it will be another building, his own handiwork, not that of God — another gospel.”

The cash value of this observation is that non Reformed churches (Holiness Churches, Lutheran Churches, Roman Catholic Churches, Eastern Orthodox Churches, Pentecostal Churches, and assorted Free Will Baptist Churches) teach a different Christianity than Reformed Churches. People would be do well to be aware of this

In the next few paragraphs I hope to explain why this is the case. I want to zero in on the impact upon other historic Christian theological doctrines that a denial of penal substitutionary atonement necessitates.

When we examine Theology proper we note that a denial of the Forensic doctrine of the atonement calls in to question God’s distributive justice. No substitutionary atonement means that God is not just and He is not just because the penalty that sin requires is never fully leveraged. If Christ is not on the Cross bearing the just and exact penalty required due to the breaking of God’s law then God is not just in letting sin go unrequited as promised. God’s perfect holiness is also called into question. If sin is not visited with its just penalty then the character of God is seen as accommodating sin. Sin is not seen as sinful as it really is where sin is not visited with the full measure of penalty as taught in the penal substitutionary doctrine as it reflects Scripture. All of this in turn calls in to question God’s immutability. If God was a perfect being in His justice, and holiness and then transmuted into a God who was not perfect in His justice and holiness as seen in not visiting sin with its full penal consequences then God’s un-changeableness is automatically called into question.

All of this then diminishes both our estimation of the majesty of God and the sinfulness of sin. The consequences of playing with the penal substitutionary doctrine of the atonement results in a diminished God and a lowered conception of sin as an infinite evil, which in turn results in exalted views of man and a correspondingly higher estimation of man’s goodness and his abilities.

As we look at the connection to soteriology we again see the hollowing out of Christianity by denying the penal substitutionary doctrine of the atonement. When one denies that Christ paid the definite sin for a particular people, in the sense of Christ being the sin bearer, by way of imputation, for an atoned for people who were objectively justified by the finished work of Christ’s atonement one affirms a Messianic death that is uncertain and incomplete short of some necessary addition to complete that, at best, partial atonement. If it is denied that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to a particular people because of His penal satisfaction then original sin as imputed to sinners must also be denied. We know this because St. Paul teaches that one implies the other in Romans 5.

Also, as hinted at above, if the penal substitutionary doctrine of the atonement is denied than Justification must also likewise be denied. If Christ is not filling the laws demands for a particular people by His satisfactory death then Justification is a mirage and some other mechanism, besides Christ’s Forensic death, is the means by which we are redeemed.

Next, we would have to say that if Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement is not true then the idea of faith alone is transmuted. In historic Christianity faith operates in salvation as entirely receptive and so not contributory. If Christ’s death is not penalty bearing, satisfactory, and substitutionary then faith is required to do work that is other than receptive. Indeed, our faith itself, as a work, as opposed to Christ’s righteousness, likely becomes that which is imputed to us as the ground of our justification.

The theological doctrine of Adoption becomes perverted when the Forensic doctrine of the Atonement is denied. If it is not Christ’s satisfaction that is the ground for our Adoption then it needs be that it is our performance that becomes the ground for our Adoption into the family of God.

The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is made raw by a denial of Christ substitutionary death. If Christ has not paid the full and complete penalty for our sins then there is no guarantee to bank upon that our continued status as “in Christ” means anything more than our continued merit worthy performance.

If Christ’s death is not penal, but only remedial, as some suggest then the whole doctrine of eternal damnation must be rejected. This kind of thinking insists that God’s love cannot allow for punishment and, by definition, can only be remedial. Thus Christianity becomes the handmaiden for Universalism as well as a faith system that disallows even eternal perdition for Satan and his fallen minions.

We therefore see that a Christianity that denies the Penal substitutionary doctine of the Atonement yields a Christianity where God is not Holy, Just, or Immutable. It yields a Christianity where sin is not awful, and God is not big. The denial of the Forensic death of Christ — the just for the unjust — moves us from a theocentric soteriology to an anthropocentric soteriology. Without the truth of the penal substitutionary atonement we lose gracious justification, gracious adoption, and gracious perseverance of the saints. Without the truth of the forensic doctrine of the atonement we embrace Universalism.

Now, as was said at the outset, there are many who do not embrace the penal substitutionary atonement who because of felicitous contradiction end up orthodox in areas where they should not be. Still the truth is that if people were consistent with their denial of the Forensic atonement they would be practicing a Christianity that would be filled with a content different than the Christianity of the Bible.

MacDonald and McAtee Contra McDurmon on Police Racism

Over at this link,

Study shows cops tase blacks more often than whites

McDurmon, the leader of the formerly Theonomic American Vision contends that white people have a problem with subconscious “racism.”

In this response I present evidence again that institutional theonomy and reconstruction is dead. Here we have the President of American Vision (Joel McDurmon) being reconstructed in the direction of Cultural Marxism.

JM writes,

It is a working thesis of mine that we still have a major problem with racism in this nation, and that since conservatives (and especially Christians) perpetually refuse to address the problems of race and power with both empathetic and biblical solutions, leftists continue to gain power through Marxist, class-warfare-type tactics in regard to race.

Bret responds,

Note that Joel’s great “working thesis” is the very same “working thesis” propounded by Al Sharpton, the Black Lives Matter terrorist organization, George Soros and his multitude of paid agitators, as well as every garden variety Social Justice Warrior one cares to name.

So, Joel’s great “working thesis” is the thesis of the left and Joel is telling us that unless we adopt his and the left’s great “working thesis” the result will be that the left will eventually win. So… in order to stop the left from winning we must let them win by adopting their “working thesis.”

JM writes,

Regarding the enduring racism: I believe a good amount of this is subconscious. In other words, one can exhibit racist behavior and do racist things without being a conscious or even secret racist—although some of these certainly exist, too. But the subconscious element works on several levels, and even pervades institutions, in my opinion.

Bret replies,

1.) The whole theory of “subconscious” itself is, at the very least, questionable, but I’m willing to go with it for the sake of argument.

2.) One could easily contend that all that Dr. McDurmon has given us thus far, is a menu of Cultural Marxism as influenced by his subconscious. I don’t think that Dr. McDurmon is a self conscious Cultural Marxist but I do think he can exhibit Cultural Marxist behavior and does subconsciously hold Cultural Marxist convictions, and all of that because there is a subconscious element of Cultural Marxism at work in Dr. McDurmon on several levels. This is so true that I have concluded that it even pervades the institution of American Vision in my opinion.

JM writes,

Nowhere is this clearer than in criminal justice. This week, a report was released that showed yet another small window into this problem. In the first study of its kind, the facts show that police in Connecticut employ tasers more often against blacks and Hispanics than against whites.

State and police officials noted that many of the stun gun incidents occurred in urban areas, where minority populations are higher.

According to one review, the report “found that black men were about three times more likely to be Tased than simply warned. . . . For white men, the chance of being Tased or warned were about the same.”

Indeed, when wielding Taser against whites, only warnings were given in 40 percent of cases. When involving blacks, however, the number drops to only 19 percent.

In other words, whites get off with only warnings more than twice as often as blacks. With blacks, the vast majority of incidents—81 percent—go straight to tasing.

So whites get verbal warnings first, and blacks get something more like a hair-trigger. Shoot first, and let the Fraternal Order of Police lawyers answer questions later.

Bret responds,

If you probe into this Connecticut study you learn some interesting factoids.

1.) State and police officials noted that many of the stun gun incidents occurred in urban areas, where minority populations are higher. That being true one would expect a higher incident rate of stun guns being reported in these settings.

2.) Researches said it was likely the numbers were under-reported because many police departments did not report all uses of a taser. This suggests that the study cited by Dr. McDurmon is incomplete and is not completely reliable.

Now I’m going to appeal to the work of author Heather MacDonald who has written a well researched book titled, “The War on Cops: How The New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe.” I am doing so in order to dismiss Dr. McDurmon’s leaps of logic regarding racism in police forces around the nation.

MacDonald offers about this about some of this research that Joel refers to and calls it “junk science.” Heather MacDonald offers,

The Obama Administration is now pushing a concept of implicit bias training on officers across the country. This is complete folly. It is based on junk science that has been recently completely disproven by a study, an extremely sophisticated study out of the University of Washington that found that cops actually hesitate longer to decide to shoot armed black suspects than armed white suspects and are less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects than unarmed white suspects.

This recent study blows apart the pre-existing implicit bias junk science, and yet the Obama Administration is now demanding that officers get sent to this training that is a waste of time because officers want good tactical training….

Heather MacDonald
Author — The War on Cops: How The New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe

JM presses on,

The nature of the study is also disarming of the common retort that, well, blacks just commit more crimes than whites, so obviously they have police interactions more often. Nope. This argument is wrong on so many levels, but is busted in this report because the data are presented as percentages of interactions within each race to begin with. In other words, all else being equal, the cops were more than twice as likely to give a warning to a white man as opposed to a black, and much more quick to use tasers when engaging blacks than whites. These are percentage rates, not bare numbers.

That statistic is damning no matter how you slice it.

Thus it reveals that there is some fundamental difference in how the same group of trained professionals (even our “finest,” after all) think, decide, and act in regard to blacks versus whites. Thus, whether these decisions are conscious or not, there is a pure racist element in our criminal justice system.

Bret responds,

Heather MacDonald counters McDurmon here on his whole “That statistic is damning no matter how you slice it,” quip.

“Well, let’s look at some of the numbers…. A larger proportion of white and Hispanic homicide deaths are the results of police killings than black homicide deaths. That is, 12 percent of all whites and Hispanics who die of homicide are killed by police officers. Four percent of all blacks, homicide victims, are killed by police officers. So if we’re going to have an Anti‑Cop Lives Matter movement it would make more sense to call it White and Hispanic Lives Matter.”

Heather MacDonald
Author — The War on Cops: How The New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe.

If Dr. McDurmon’s statistics are correct (a big if) then it can be easily suggested that the reason that the taser is used more often on blacks as opposed to whites is so that a handgun doesn’t have to be used. Personally, I would rather be tasered than shot. Regardless, this quote from MacDonald demonstrates that the racism that McDurmon is so concerned about just isn’t born out.

JM offers,

And this is only considering one narrow window of information: the use of tasers.

Bret responds,

And MacDonald gives us a broader window of information that contradicts Joel’s more narrow window.

JM adds,

The greatest irony of all in this study is perhaps the fact that we might look down upon those who got tased, whatever their race, as criminals who deserved it, when the only sure fact about lawbreaking that jumps out is in the reports themselves: there were some police departments who either underreported, or did not keep records at all, as the CT law demands! In at least one case, a department neglected (conveniently?) to report one taser incident in which a young man who was tased and happened to die from it.

In other words, the only clear admissions of lawbreaking here were on the part of the police departments—who also face absolutely zero consequences for their failure to follow the law.

If lawlessness exists in police department behavior, what makes you think anyone is safe, let alone a less-empowered minority?

Bret responds,

If the records where not kept at all then the study is hardly scientific. One cannot come to proper conclusions without all the data. The reasons that McDurmon gives for some departments not reporting are nothing but speculation on McDurmon’s part.

As McDurmon is trying to make the case that the Police are inherently racist, being themselves part of a racist culture let us consider these stats that speak against that narrative that Joel’s trying to spin,

“If we’re going to talk about race and policing, let’s talk about cop killings. Over the last decade, black males made up 40 percent of all cop killers, even though they’re six percent of the population. It turns out… that a police officer is 18-and-a-half times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is likely to be killed by a police officer.”

Heather MacDonald
Author — The War on Cops: How The New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe

And McDurmon suggests that we have a problem with white racism?

McDurmon finishes by citing a book he’s read that supports his conclusions and then extrapolates from that book’s bad solutions to the conclusion that Christians better respond to the problems of white racism lest socialism is forced upon us by those who demand it. The problem here is that Joel is suggesting that we better give in to socialists demands or socialists will win.

If you want to read that section you can access the link provided at the begininng. Suffice it to say, that I don’t agree with the narrative that the left and McDurmon is trying to spin on this subject.

McDurmon insists that if we end up with more socialism that it will be our fault because as Christians we did not answer the problems of racism and segregation. The problem with McDurmon’s appeal is that his metanarrative is not established as unquestionable. MacDonald suggests, and other publications, like “The Color of Crime,” agree that our problem with racism is a black on white racism.

McDurmon has bought into the Cultural Marxist narrative. It is not a narrative that Christians should be buying into.