A Conversation On Christians Sending God’s Covenant Seed To The Schools of Baphomet II

Joshua;

I hear your point about secular. I do not understand it to mean neutral.

Happy to replace secular with anti-Christian. Are antichristian governments incapable of providing something good?

Bret responds,

As we start here would you mind telling me how old you are? Are you a school teacher yourself?  Did you (do you) send your children to government schools?

As to your query … Yes, they are capable.

Now, let’s talk about degrees of anti-Christ. What degree of anti-Christ are we currently at in our government schools?

If, we as a people, were only a wee bit removed from Christian education one might argue that one could navigate around the problems. However, if you will do the reading of numerous books I recommended in the last post you would see that it’s not just that we are off a wee bit. The whole agenda is educate in such a way as to create non-thinking clones. It’s all about command and control. If I want children to be free to think as mature adults I will not want them to attend government schools. Indeed, I am of the conviction that to do so is child abuse.

Joshua writes,

This is where your reasoning is taking you. All schools are religious. If they are not Christian they are antichristian. Therefore they do nothing but harm.

Bret responds,

If I threw children in a pond w/ crocodiles some of them might learn how to swim really well. Throwing them all in the pond would therefore not necessarily do “nothing but harm.” But would it be wise therefore to throw them into a pond with crocodiles because some good might possibly come?

You’re argument here is “let us sin that grace may increase.” Because some good might happen let us ignore the 1st commandment and have our children catechized into a false religion.

Joshua writes,

Cue the anabaptists: all governments are antichristian. They can only do harm. Christians should have nothing to do with them.

Bret responds,

Cue the 1st commandment. “Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me.” Current secondary education catechizes children into a false religion and makes them servants of false gods. As such Biblical Christian in this climate should have nothing to do with them unless they want to destroy God’s covenant seed.

Do you really think that God would’ve had the Children of Israel attend the schools of Canaan in order to learn the Canaanite ways?

Finally, virtually all Christian do have something to do with government schools. They support them with their taxes.

Joshua writes,

But if antichristian governments are still a legitimate institution of God, then they can provide things of real benefit to everyone, Christians included. 

Bret responds,

Yep … just like Stalin and Mao provided things of real benefit to everyone, Christian included.

Joshua writes,

The Church has benefited from inventions of the Cainites, Moses and Israel from the learning of the Egyptians, the apostolic church (at times) from the law and order of the Romans.

Bret responds,

Sure… we should plunder the Egyptians because it is all ours to begin with. But as we are plundering them and taking back what was our to begin with we should not become Egyptians.

However, currently Christians don’t have to attend the Baphomet Elementary school in order to access education. Have you heard of this thing called “the information age?” Never have we lived in a time when schools were more unnecessary.

Joshua writes,

To accurately compare public schools and homeschooling, you have to compare how Christian students do at home and how they do at school. A parent who homeschools is going to instill a value for education in their children. But that value enables the same child to do well in public school.

Bret responds,

But I don’t want a child to do well in Government school since that means they will be lapping up a false religion. If Christian children have to attend government school it is my prayer that they will do really really poorly.

Joshua writes,

Your analysis of schools is misguided if you compare children of highly dedicated homeschooling parents with children of parents who don’t care. A large majority of students in schools have parents who don’t care. Every teacher I’ve talked to says that the number one factor in academic success is parental involvement.

Bret responds,

I don’t want government schooled children to have academic success. I want them to do poorly. I don’t want them to learn to think like pagans.

I am awash in a culture filled with professional people, including “Christians” who did well in government schools. I try to avoid them as much as I can.

Do exceptions exist? Absolutely! But I don’t gamble when I know the house is overwhelmingly against me.

Now, you have repeatedly accused me of being Anabaptist. I can only plead with you to cease being pagan in your thinking.

You might want to look up the Reformed doctrine of the Anti-thesis and consider that subject in light of our conversation.

A Conversation On Christians Sending God’s Covenant Seed To The Schools of Baphomet I

Joshua writes;

I hear this argument a lot: government schools only corrupt and indoctrinate. They do more harm than good. It is a sweeping accusation, but is it true?

Bret responds

Yes it is true, generally speaking;

Look, I’m not going to look up all the stats for you on how bad our secondary education is. Here are just a few;

63% of American 12th graders are rated “basic” or “below basic” in reading achievement, the Education Department revealed.

The Education Department also said the statistic that 37% of 12th graders would not qualify for entry-level college courses is accurate if it refers to a particular National Assessment of Educational Progress (or NAEP) test that the National Assessment Governing Board has said can serve as a proxy for entry-level college work.

While looking up the stats, if you want you can also look up how superior homeschooling numbers are to public school numbers.

Now factor in how bad the education is at the teacher colleges of those who get degrees in “education.”

I think the thing for me to do is to recommend a few books so you can get up to speed on the subject.

“The Messianic Character of American Education — R. J. Rushdoony

“The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America” – Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt

“The Worm In The Apple” – Peter Brimelow

Anything by John Taylor Gatto

Anything by Samuel L. Blumenfeld.

Look, I’ve been all over this subject over the years. I’ve read tons of the material. I know what I’m talking about when I say public schools almost universally suck. If you can find a Unicorn among them … congratulations.

Joshua writes

Is every public school like this? I know of homeschooled/Christian schooled kids who went to public high school, and were surprised at how much study they had to do to stay afloat. Surprised too, that the school had rules, and would expel kids for breaking them.

Bret responds,

Anecdotes hold no water. Do the reading and get back to me.

Joshua writes,

The rhetoric resembles Dabney’s (courageous and brilliant man) but he was proud of his secular university education and he taught at another one.

Bret writes,

There is no such thing as “secular.”

And the education given at the University in the early 19th century is apples and oranges from where we are now. You’re making category mistakes.

Joshua writes,

Schools are terribly secular but they are still studying general revelation.

Bret responds,

There is no such thing as “secular.” All education without exception is hopelessly religious.

Since man’s reason is fallen general revelation is only as good as the religious presuppositions that fallen man brings to the general revelation. Currently, those presuppositions are thoroughly anti-Christ and as such the general revelation he will read will confirm his anti-Christ presuppositions.

Joshua writes,

It is better for millions of children to be studying that rather than nothing at all.

Bret responds,

As a Pastor I have told people consistently that they would be better served having their children stay at home not being formally educated at all then sending them to government schools where they will be catechized into a false religion and where they will learn to read general revelation in such a way that confirms the false religion.

Shoot… if you want I can link you to a video where the chap teaches that Natural law (a subset of general revelation) teaches that sodomy is perfectly in keeping with Natural Law.

Joshua writes,

Obviously they would get a lot more out of their studies if they also studied special revelation from a Reformed perspective, began and ended each school day with prayer, etc. But you and I are communicating right now in part because of pagans who have studied the book of nature well enough to make advancements in technology.

Bret responds,

You and I are communicating only because fallen man;

1.) Is never consistent with his Christ hating presuppositions
2.) Borrows from the capital of a Christian world and life view in order to get his Christ hating worldview off the ground and running.

Fallen man gets things right not because he reads general revelation aright but he gets things right despite his reading general revelation wrongly.

You and I are not on the same page about education and neither are we on the same page in terms of worldview and epistemology.

Joshua writes,

But not studying general revelation at all is what Satan and Rome would prefer. You remember the medieval mindset: “ignorance is the mother of devotion”. Uneducated people are much easier to manipulate and control. Rome therefore argued that only the clergy and a few others, in the tight grip of the Church, should have an education.

Bret responds,

LOL … we spend tens of millions of dollars on education and we have to be one of the stupidest peoples on the planet. Do the reading of the books cited above.

Secondly, it strikes me that many, if not most, of those who have terminal degrees are the most easily propagandized and manipulated people I come across. Clergy and Professors are the worst of all. I know very very few educated clergy and almost all of those clergy I know have either Masters or Ph.D’s.

“Education” hasn’t delivered people from ignorance. Putative education has merely made people confirmed in their ignorance. Indeed, I’d say that currently we need to flip your proverb and say, “Education is the mother of devotion.” That is tongue in cheek of course.

Joshua wrote,

And it is just not the case that if the government gets out of education, all parents will step up and work harder than ever to make sure their children get educated. In his lectures defending the establishment principle, Thomas Chalmers points out that education is not subject to the law of demand and supply. The less educated people are, and the less access they have to education, the less they desire it. “Men love darkness rather than light”- including the light of general revelation. Especially when their bellies are full.

Bret responds,

I’ll place my bet on parents. I’ve seen and know what Government education looks like. I have known countless secondary school teachers. I’ve yet to come across one that was intelligent. Now, I’ve known a few University types who were sharp but not so many that I have concluded that they are the norm.

That men loved darkness rather than light is true. It explains why they are so comfortable piling up degrees.

Joshua writes,

Christian parents will try to educate their children no matter what, but when they do it themselves, the results are mixed. Homeschooling advocates point to high SAT scores of homeschoolers, but that’s only counting the ones that actually take the SAT. I know of many burnt out homeschooling parents and half-educated children who resent the fact that they are studying well into their 20s, while working a full-time job, to get the education they should have gotten in their teens.

Bret responds,

I’m not interested in your anecdotes. I have anecdotes also that are different then your anecdotes.

Believe me … those home educated children you’re talking about should instead thank their parents that they didn’t send them to a place where the interest is not in education but in reinforcing societal command and control mechanisms. You can’t really believe that the secondary schools have any interest in educating can you?

Read the sources I posted. If you believe that you’re deluded.

Joshua writes,

I want to see a Christian nation as much as you. But to convince others, we have to steer clear of bad arguments. One argument against government schools sounds Anabaptistic:

The government must be secular and have nothing to do with religion (or education)
Therefore the government (schools) will be anti-Christian.
Therefore the Christian should have nothing to do with government (schools).

Bret responds,

You’re first premise is faulty. There is no such thing as secular. That means your 1st conclusion is faulty since unless schools are explicitly Christian they will by default be anti-Christian. There is no such thing as neutrality.

However, per the 1st commandment your conclusion is true.

The anabaptists believed that anything outside of their community (“the world”) was evil. I’m not arguing that. I’m arguing that what is not Christian is evil to one degree or another and government schools are not Christian … nor are they neutral (secular). They are hopelessly religious and the religion that they advocate and teach is NOT the Christian religion. Our current Christian schools are not the “secular” schools that Dabney would’ve attended. They are the kind of schools that the Marquis de Sade would’ve built.

Can you understand that distinction?

Joshua writes,

But if government, Christian or not, is a divine institution, then it can provide good things. Its secular nature does not mean everything it does will be harmful. This includes education. Texas University Professor Dabney would agree.

Bret responds,

Governments that are not Christian are by definition anti-Christian. Neutrality is a myth. There is no such thing as secular. That is a classical liberal mindset. One that I do not share.

If Dabney were alive today he would agree with me. Read his stuff on Education as can be found in his “Secular Writings.”

Look Joshua, you strike me as a bright chap with a sharp blade but your blade is set at the wrong angle and though sharp, is cutting wrong with every cut.

Thanks for the conversation. I don’t think we are going to make much progress though as we are each beginning at very different starting points.

Cheers

Remarkable Providence #3

I have begun an intermittent series where I am recalling those times where God has visited me in remarkably gracious ways. I do not use the word “miracle” for these events because I believe miracles ended with the close of the New Testament canon. It is my conviction that miracles are defined as those happenings wherein God immediately interrupts nature in order to accomplish that which cannot be explained except for the moving of the finger of God. They have as their purpose to confirm either the presence of God or His mark of approval upon His messengers. Because we know have God’s final word as spoken in Christ as in the Scriptures, miracles, as defined above have ended.

However, there can be no doubt that God still works in ways the Puritans described as “remarkable providences.” In the working of these remarkable providences we avoid a Deistic mindset that teaches that God created the world and then became remote to it, allowing it to run uninterrupted according to the laws of nature and nature’s God. There are times in our lives that God works in such an extraordinary way that we can only refer to it as a “remarkable providence.” I have had several of these in my life, two of which I’ve already chronicled here.

The one I write of now occurred in the summer of 1974. I was about to begin my Freshman year of High School and was daily participating in summer football 2 a day practices. Looking back, playing football was fantasy. At that age I weighed 90 pounds soaking wet. However, great are the dreams of a 14 year old.

We lived in the rural part of Sturgis, Michigan and if we wanted to go into town for just about anything it was a matter of hopping on the bicycle and pedaling into town. Prior to 1974 that really wasn’t a big deal was we were only about 2.5 miles outside of down. However, around this time the city Fathers decided to shut down our direct road into town in order to expand the city airport. That meant a much longer ride into town that included having to ride about .5 mile on a busy two lane highway (US 12 that runs between Sturgis and White Pigeon). These were the days before Jimmy Carter reduced the speed limit to 55 on these two lanes. In 1974 the speed limit on US 12 was 70.

As it turned out on this day I was riding my brother’s brand new 10 speed which he had won in a raffle. My bike was broken and we routinely mixed and matched rides. My brother would never get a chance to ride his raffle winnings. He also would never wear his special bowling shirt again because for some reason I was wearing that short-sleeve bowling shirt that day.

I was returning from football practice that day. I was going to grab a bite to eat at home and turn around and ride back for the next practice. It was a hot summer day and the traffic was zooming by as usual. It was not unusual for a semi to roll past us so closely that the wash of the suction he created would propel us forward with great delight.

I just pedaled past the Harding’s Grocery story. I was about half way to where I would hang a right to be on a comparative back rode that would take me home without much traffic. The last thing I remember was hearing someone laying on the horn. I remember not thinking much about it as drivers were often expressing their disgust  with having to navigate around a bicycle — even if we were careful to keep on the burn of the road.

However, this time there was impact after the horn. A young female driver hit the back of my bike and sent me flying. Later I learned that she was traveling between 55-70 miles an hour.  I’m pretty sure most people would agree with me that the kid on the bike doesn’t typically walk away from this kind of incident. Here is where the remarkable providence comes in.

I do remember cascading through the air. I remember hitting the ground the first time. After that I remember nothing before regaining consciousness. Upon regaining consciousness I lay perpendicular to the highway. My right arm was outstretched over my head. My left arm was at my side. I went to stand up and suddenly realized that the automobile had stopped on my right hand. As I looked in front of me I saw the back passenger side tire sitting squarely atop my right hand — 18 inches away from my head.

I heard the driver crying hysterically and I began screaming at her to get back in the car and put the vehicle in drive to inch off my hand. I have no idea if she heard me. I have no idea how that vehicle got off my right hand but it quickly did. Naturally, my first response was to stand up and start screaming ruddy murder. Everything is fuzzy after that. They tell me that another person had stopped and immediately sought to control me and get me to sit down. Blood was everywhere. My hand was a mangled mess and there was a substantial cut somewhere in my head that was driving more concern for the medical personnel than my hand. I did not feel that wound at all. I only felt my right hand on fire.

Of course the remarkable providence is that I wasn’t killed that day. Now, some cynic would immediately say something like, “If you’re God works such providences why did He ordain the accident to begin with.” My standard answer to these kind of questions is to quote the prophet who said, “Whom God would heal, He first wounds.” God loves His people and all that enters into their lives is through the hand of a sovereign God who loves them for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, God delivered me from sure death that day. On my calendar it was a remarkable providence. There was several surgeries after that to get my hand working again. There was frequent hospital time. A couple skin grafts and tons of stitches. There was all kinds of occupational therapy. Tons of coco butter applied to the hand to keep my hand supple from the scarring.

That is just one more of those remarkable providences in my life that I look back on and see that God loves me for reason all His own. One more remarkable providence where my Father has told me again that He will never leave me nor forsake me. One more part of my own personal recital theology that I recite when I am again in a situation that looks hopeless.

The God of the Bible has indeed been to me over the decades, “Jehovah Jireh” — the God who provides. As Francis Schaeffer once wrote, I have found to be true experientially, “He Is There, And He Is Not Silent.”

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Addendum

What I have taken from all these remarkable providences is that I should not be fearful or worrisome in the service of my master. Now, my wife will tell you that I am bad to worry at times but I try at those times to practice my recital theology. The Lord Christ has demonstrated in my 66 years that He is faithful and if it be the case that He be so faithful then it would be shameful to be cowardly in His service. My recital theology gives me courage and is the cure for my disposition to worry.  I only wish I was more brave and less of a worry wart.

 

The Future is Now … Eschatology, Soteriology, & Christology

Colossians 1:13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

In this passage we see a classic example of the future being injected into the present. We are placed in a Kingdom that while “yet to come” is, at the same time, present to us as we now live in that future to come Kingdom.

Previous to our entering the future we dwelt without division in “this present evil age” but now upon our union with Christ we have been delivered from the present evil age. The consequence of this is that we walk in two realities at the same time. On one had we are citizens presently in the future age to come, while on the other hand while not being citizens in this present evil age we still navigate as living among those who remain citizens of this present evil age. We live, at one and the same time, in two ages — both in this present evil age and also in the age to come.

I think Tolkien captured some of this when he wrote about his high elves who could walk in two worlds at the same time.

Note he also the Apostle’s triangulation of soteriology, eschatology, and Christology. Our redemption is anchored in Christ who is Himself the future Kingdom. This triangulation was underscored by Dr. Richard Gaffin in his “In The Fullness of Time,” when Gaffin wrote;

“The center of Paul’s theology is determined by the triangulation of his Christology, soteriology, and eschatology.”

I have a friend who often will say, “Christians suffer from not knowing who they are.” This passage teaches us that we are the redeemed ones (soteriology) belonging to Christ (Christology) now living in the age to come (eschatology). If we combine this idea with the reality that Christ is King it is not a far leap in the least to understand that our role is to live so as to expand the age to come, in which we dwell, so that it overtakes and vanquishes this present evil age.

Being in Christ is not a passive affair. Being in Christ and so in the age to come means following our great Liege Lord into battle so that all of the earth is redeemed and so experiences what it means to live in this “age to come” reality.

My Order are to fight
then if I win
or bravely fail
What matters it?

God only doth prevail

The Servant craveth naught
Except to serve with might
I was not told to win
or lose
My orders are to fight

Be Of Sin The Double Cure; Save From Wrath and Make Me Pure

Because of Christ’s finished work and out of our Union w/ Christ arises a two-fold benefit. One benefit is completely forensic, declarative, and judicial. This benefit is completely outside of us. It is the benefit of having Christ for us the Hope of glory. In this forensic benefit we have our sins gratuitously removed and we are imputed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ because of His sin bearing work in our stead and on our behalf. This we call justification/adoption.

The second benefit is renovative, transformative, and renewing. What God’s freely declares us to be, by His poured out Spirit He works in us to increasingly become. Incrementally and increasingly, though never perfectly we put off the old man of sin and put on Christ. This we refer to as regeneration/sanctification.

Both of these benefits imply the other. There is no salvation that is not constitutive of Justification (what Christ does for us outside of us) and Sanctification (What Christ does for us inside of us) but the relation between the two is important to think rightly about.

Justification leads to sanctification the way a rock thrown into a clear, glass like pond leads to ripples in the water. The ripples in the water are not the cause of the rock being cast into the water but those ripples are the necessary and inevitable consequence that the rock has indeed splashed. So sanctification is only a necessary aspect of justification the way that ripples are a necessary aspect of a rock being cast into the water.

Rome’s mistake here is that Rome wants to make the ripples in the water a contributing cause of the Rock being splashed. This is to place works in our justification and yield up a legalism.

The opposite error is to champion for a justification that minimizes sanctification. For example, Mike Horton has said that sanctification is just getting used to your justification. That is a minimalist approach that degrades both justification and sanctification. This is to absent works from our salvation and yields up a anti-nomianism.

In the past 15 years or so we have had, in the Reformed world, a donnybrook of a fight between the legalist error as embraced by Federal Vision theology and the anti-nomian error as embraced by Radical Two Kingdom theology. These two warring parties were each insisting that they alone were the keepers of the Holy Grail of Reformed orthodoxy when in point of fact those who were truly orthodox was wishing a pox upon both their houses. Neither one of these ugly extremes were correct and yet it seemed that everyone was taking up for one side or the other. The warfare between the two parties has subdued somewhat but it still is seething under the surface.

There is another error that enters in here and that is called “neo-nomianism.” Neo-nomianism reduces the demands of God’s requirement and then tells Christians that they can merit favor with God by the ability to achieve these now reduced and achievable requirements. Oddly enough, neo-nomianism is both legalistic (it teaches that God’s reduced law can be met) and antinomian (it teaches that God’s law requirements are lessened) at the same time.

The impact of the Gospel works outside of us and inside of us. We are never forensically declared righteous where we are not also transformed by the Spirit who was given us as a guarantee of that which is to come. Similarly, there is no interior renewal without a complete leaning upon Jesus Christ alone and His works imputed to us so that we might be pleasing to God.