Iron Ink

Seven Observations for Maundy Thursday

1.) Christ’s “mandate” is commemorated on Maundy Thursday—“maundy” being a shortened form of mandatum (Latin), which means “command.” It was on the Thursday of Christ’s final week before being crucified and resurrected that He said these words to his disciples:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34).

The modern Church has fallen down here because they have cut the word “love” loose from its Biblical moorings. If God’s people are to love one another then that love must have content and the only place it can find definitional content is God’s law. The only way I can know if I am loving someone is if I act in concert with what God’s law requires of me in relation to others. Apart from that reality, we can only blaspheme Christ in our Maundy Thursday celebrations.

Even Christ’s love to us was of a nature that was defined by God’s law. God’s law required blood atonement. If Christ was to love His people as consistent with God’s law then He must offer Himself up for an atonement for their sin. Christ demonstrated His love for His people in a way that was defined by God’s law.

2.) 1When he had said this, Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to where there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered.

On Maundy Thursday Christ overcame temptation in the garden. It was in a garden where the 1st Adam succumbed to the temptation to not be submissive to the Father’s will by taking of the fruit of the forbidden tree of life. In the Gethsemane garden, the last Adam overcomes the temptation to not be submissive to the Father’s will and yields to the Father’s will to mount the tree of death to be the fruit of life to the world.

The Scripture takes us from Garden to Garden. From the Garden of the Fall to the Garden of Gethsemane, to the Garden on that resurrection morning. The fate of man is ruined, restored, and resurrected in a garden.

3.) Only Dr. Luke records the sweating of Christ

“His sweat became like great drops of blood.”

Which Luke describes as agony. The Greek word for agony also is used for “fight” elsewhere. Medically this blood sweat is called “Hematidrosis” and is a rare medical condition. Those suffering from this condition find their capillary blood vessels which feed the sweat glands rupture thereby causing blood to exude from the pores. Such a condition is known to sometimes occur to those who are undergoing unusually significant psychological, emotional or physical stress.

Even here, we are reminded of Christ’s humanity. It is true that Jesus is very God of very God but Luke takes the time to remind us of his very real humanity on the cusp of the cross.

Some scholars believe that when Christ prays, “let this cup pass,” that the cup Jesus is asking to pass is a death that would come from the severe hematidrosis. Remember, Luke tells us that Jesus sweat became like great drops of blood. Matthew mentions that Jesus was sorrowful even unto the point of death. These scholars suggest that Jesus is praying that He will not die before He goes to the cross.

The blood here is perhaps a prefiguring of the importance of the blood shed by Christ on the Cross for without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. The blood in the garden. The blood from the scourging. The blood from the thorn crown pressed upon His brow. The blood from the nails in His feet and hands. The blood from the spear thrust in His side. Our Lord Christ goes from sweating blood to the oozing of blood. Our forgiveness is won from blood unto blood. Well, we can understand why Paul states that the church, (was) purchased with his own blood.

And why Peter can add that

it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life you inherited from your forefathers, 19but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot.

4.) 37 When he returned he found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?

In Matthew and Mark’s Gethsemane account Jesus returns three times to find His three most intimate disciples asleep. Three times Peter denies Christ. Three times Jesus tells Peter to “feed my sheep.”

Were it not for Luke’s account, where an angel is sent to strengthen Christ in His praying we would conclude that the Gospel accounts are emphasizing Jesus aloneness and abandonment. This is a truth that is certainly emphasized later in the accounts of the Cross. Here in Gethsemane, we find our Lord bloodied, stressed, and exhausted and even His little inner circle cannot support him during this time. Perhaps this reminds us that God’s grace is sufficient even in those times when except for the presence of God we really are alone.

5.) 36 he said, “Abba, Father,* all things are possible to you. Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will.

Mark finds our Lord addressing the Father as “Abba,” and is used only in the Gospels in this text. Interestingly enough, the word in the Jewish tradition had never been used to address God. The word is never used in the Gospel except for this one place. At the very moment when Jesus is headed to the Cross, at the moment the tender filial trust between Father and Son is expressed. “Abba” is a word that communicates warm affection and filial devotion.

We find here the harmony of purpose among the members of the Trinity. In the covenant of Redemption, the members of the Trinity entered into covenant from eternity past for the redemption of fallen mankind. The Father sent the Son to be a sin offering. The Son agrees to go the way of a sin offering. The prize given and won is a people of His own choosing.

6.) Betrayed by a Kiss

His betrayer had arranged a sign with them, saying, “The man I shall kiss is the one; arrest him.” 49 Immediately he went over to Jesus and said, “Hail, Rabbi!” and he kissed him.

In the near Eastern culture of the 1st century, a kiss was the traditional way to greet one another. That which was to be a sign of intimate friendship was the signal to betray one’s long-held “Rabbi.” It seems only appropriate that hell would betray heaven with a kiss.

7.) Whom are you looking for?” 5 They answered him, “Jesus the Nazorean.” He said to them, “I AM.” Judas his betrayer was also with them. 6 When he said to them, “I AM,” they turned away and fell to the ground.7So he again asked them, “Whom are you looking for?” They said, “Jesus the Nazorean.” 8 Jesus answered, “I told you that I AM. So if you are looking for me, let these men go.

John’s Gospel contains the great seven “I am” sayings of Jesus. It is a theme that John plays on. In chapter 8 of John Jesus says of himself, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Naturally enough, this claim of “I am” that runs through John in connection with Jesus is a claim of divinity since in the Old Testament God defines Himself as “I am that I am.”

Here the claim of “I am,” is a claim of dread and fear. They who have come to arrest God fall before His feet at the sound of His name. It is as if before the drama can be played out all the players have to realize their place. The idea that man will arrest and arraign God is surreal to consider and yet in Jesus self-identifying as “I Am” that is exactly what we have.

Wherein MD and BLMc Have a Conversation on Trump, Politics, and Worldviews

A chap named MD stopped by with a comment on my “Trumpism as Religion” post and left some comments. I’ve decided to post his comments here and interact with those comments since they are revelatory of the way Worldviews work as well as how language gets distorted depending on what worldview context in which the language lies. I don’t know who MD is, and so far as I know I’ve never interacted with MD before.

MD writes,

Bret, I disagree with you almost completely on religion and politics, but I think you’re on to something here, though not the something you have in mind. So please allow me to offer an alternative explanation.

Bret responds,

I am humbled that you would read here at Iron Ink MD, though you disagree with me almost completely on religion and politics.

MD writes,

In general, for most of the past 50 years (since Nixon’s southern strategy), the conservatives have run on resentment — it’s the fault of the blacks, the Hispanics, the immigrants, the gays, etc. — whereas the liberals have run on optimism — we can give you health care, a good social safety net, and otherwise improve your lives.

Bret responds,

I am of the age now where I can actually remember the campaigns of the last 50 years with greater and lesser clarity. 1968 and 1972 remain a bit fuzzy.

Already though we see the imposition of worldviews. MD has it in his worldview that conservatives have run campaigns on resentment while the liberals have run on optimism. Of course only a liberal with a non-Constitutional world and life view could reason like that.

I, quite to the contrary of MD would insist that it is his liberals who have consistently run on resentment since 1968. Those student riots during the Democratic convention in 1968 sure looked like resentment to me as well as the riots at the Trump rallies during 2016. Democrat resentment swelled against Nixon’s law and order campaign and against Trump’s law and order campaign in 2016.

Indeed Democrats have campaigned on resentment against our social order, resentment against previous mores and taboo boundaries long established, resentment against law and order, resentment against our 2nd amendment rights, resentment against women as seen by their forcing them out of the home and into the workforce and they have done all this while labeling this resentment as “optimism,” and casting those who were running on optimism as those who run on resentment. This reminds of the scripture,

²⁰Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

I would go so far as to say that the Democrats are the party of resentment but as they think their resentment is the norm everyone who disagrees with their resentment are those who are filled with resentment.

MD writes,

There have been exceptions, and the GOP has used coded language rather than stating it as bluntly as I just did, but I would say that’s generally true. You yourself proved my point in your third-t0-last paragraph in which you offer a list of things you’d like Trump to do. Every single one of them involves doing bad things to people you don’t like. There wasn’t a single line item on it in which you wanted him to do good things for people; it was all nasty things you wanted him to do to people.

Bret responds,

Here is another worldview example. It is true I don’t want the Government to do good things for people. Being a Constitutionalist and believing in the 9th and 10th amendment I do not think it is the role of the Federal Government to do people “good.” The role of the Federal Government is limited to those matters which are enumerated and delegated to the Federal Government powers. The Government does not exist to do people good in the way MD thinks. The good the Federal Government does is to stay out of the affairs of the American people except where enumerated and delegated by the US Constitution.

Secondly, only a liberal would see this list I cite as “doing bad things to people.” Here is the paragraph from the last Iron Ink entry which MD questions,

“If Trump were to cut the budget, kick sodomites out of the military, bar women entry into the military, turn off all loans to Israel, kick out the United Nations, turn off funds to states and cities who claim sanctuary status, implement their own version of Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback,” or any number of other sundry things I would say … “I was wrong about Trump. He really is anti-NWO.”

Let us review these,

1.) Cut the budget — This would be doing good things to people since the when the government subsidizes negative behavior the consequence is more negative behavior. Cutting the budget would go a long way to re-introducing personal and individual responsibility for one’s actions. That is a monumentally good thing.

2.) Kicking sodomites out of the military — This would be a good thing to people who are not sodomite since they no longer would have to survive the advance of sodomites in the military. It would also be a good thing for the nation as a whole because the presence of sodomites in the military cannot help but weaken the moral fiber of the military.

3.) Barring women from the military — Again this is good for the military because women in combat positions decrease the fighting ability of the military. Also, it is good for women since they will not be killed in battle.

4.) Turn off all International loans — This would be good for the American people since that money could either be returned to their pockets or that money could be used to pay down our national debt.

5.) Kick out the United Nations — The UN idea has forever been connected with the Marxist New World Order dream. It is a Marxist organization carrying out a Marxist agenda. It would be good for the world as well as the US to be done with the UN.

6.) Turn off funds to States and Cities that claim sanctuary status — As the presence of illegal aliens reduce wages for Americans, increases pressure on the social safety net, increases the national deficit, and contributes to the elimination of the middle class, it would be good for US citizens to have the FEDS turn off funds to States and Cities.

7.) Implement an Eisenhower version of “Operation Wetback.” See above #6.

So, while MD sees me advocating doing bad things to people I don’t like. I see me advocating following the law and doing a good thing to people who likewise are following the law. MD wants to do good to illegal immigrants, sodomites, feminists, Marxists, citizens of other nations, etc and the reason MD calls what I advocate bad is because his liberal worldview calls those things bad. Again,

²⁰Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

So, it is only in a liberal (cultural Marxist) worldview where the things I advocated which MD complains about as “nasty,” are seen as nasty. The question that needs to be asked of each of us is — ‘by what standard is nasty, counted as nasty?’ I would contend that MD’s worldview forces him to call what is good by a scriptural account as nasty.

So MD as proven my point. He advocates for nasty things to be done to people and calls the good things I call for “nasty.”

²⁰Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

MD writes,

It reminds me of the guy who found a genie in a bottle. The genie said, “You can have anything you want but your neighbor gets twice as much.” The man thought for a minute and said, “Can you make me blind in one eye?”

Bret responds,

And MD reminds me of the guy who found a genie in a bottle. The genie said, “You can have anything you want.” Whereupon MD said, “I want perversion to be normalized. I want the Marxist utopian dream to come to pass. I want women and men to be non-distinguishable. I want the Federal Government to be an ever-present Genie always doing what I want.” Finally, the Genie stopped him and said …”Dude, even reality has boundaries.”

MD wrote,

And what happened with Trump’s election is that everything aligned just right so that we now have a president whose entire administration is based on the politics of resentment. He’s not a Judas goat so much as the culmination of fifty years of conservatives running for office on a platform of resentment. And your real quarrel with him is that your list of people you want punished doesn’t precisely match up with his, though you’re certainly getting more from him than you would have from Hillary Clinton.

Bret responds,

The politics of resentment MD according to how your worldview defines resentment. Had the Hilda-beast been elected the politics of resentment would have really gone into high gear. Christians bakers, florists, and photographers would have been continued to be resented. Resentment against any idea of limited Government would have been overthrown. Resentment against heterosexual marriage would have continued to be exercised. MD thinks that he can demonize conservatives by characterizing them as practicing the politics of resentment when in point of fact it is the left which created the whole category of resentment and envy. The left could not exist if it were not for its practicing the politics of resentment. Yet, the left is crafty, and like the terrorist who is being chased by plainclothes law officers, the left turns and screams while pointing at the law officers and says, “the Terrorists are trying to get me. HELP.”

MD writes,

And the reason he’s (Trump) going to make the GOP, and conservatism, irrelevant is that people are now actually seeing what a government based on spite looks like. Before, it was all theoretical. Now, it’s playing out in practice.

Bret responds,

This is really quite bad political analysis. As anyone can tell you who knows me I carry no brief for the GOP, or for modern conservatism (so-called). However, the GOP and modern conservatism most certainly will not be seen as irrelevant because the electorate finally sees what a Government based on spite looks like. That thinking is a liberal fairy-tale. The GOP and conservatism will be seen as irrelevant because the politics of resentment and envy which is characteristic of the left’s cultural Marxist base will finally have overwhelmed traditional Americanism in terms of sheer numbers. Our political landscape is now almost completely dictated by demographics and it is the weight of these demographics and the resentment the cultural Marxist left has seeded in those demographics which will finally make the GOP and modern conservatism irrelevant.

MD writes,

And now that people are actually in danger of losing their health care and social security, they’re running for the exit. Maybe in 2018 and 2020 they’ll give optimism a chance.

Bret responds,

Only in a twisted liberal Worldview could the centralized bureaucracy and Governmental Tyranny required for the euphemistic malapropisms called “universal health care” and “social security” be considered “optimism.” It is so surreal that the only response it can be met with is a hearty belly laugh were it not for the case that so many people have swallowed this bilge. Over and over again in the 20th century, we’ve heard the utopian promise that if we will just give optimism a chance then we will be able to get something for nothing and over and over again the Government has placed its long ugly tentacles in the fiber of our lives only for the citizenry to be sickened and jaundiced by governmental remedies and cures found in government programs like government healthcare and government social security.

And how did the liberals get people to believe in these fairy-tale promises? You guessed it … by practicing the politics of resentment and envy. By placing words in the left’s upside down, inside out, and backward worldview with the result that honoring the mores and taboos of the past end up being labeled as practicing resentment. Semantic and linguistic deception were birthed by the left.

MD writes,

Now, here’s where I split from your conclusion: When Trump got the GOP nomination in 2016, I knew he would destroy the Republican Party and conservatism. I just didn’t realize he’d have to get elected first. And because I don’t agree with using government to punish people, I just hope he doesn’t drive the country itself off a cliff first. I would really hate for the next Democratic administration to spend all four years doing little but clean up the mess his incompetence and cluelessness will leave. Candidly, that may be part of the GOP strategy — to make a mess so big that the Democrats’ energy once they return to power will all be spent on that rather than on actual governance. Perhaps we should have this conversation again in 2021.

Bret responds,

1.) It is my prayer that both the Republican party and the Democratic party implode as they are really just different words for the same establishment.

2.) You really need to examine the past few election cycles at the State levels. The Democrats have been getting their heads handed to them. I think it is just as reasonable to argue that the Democrats are on the edge of extinction as the Republicans are.

3.) You do believe that government should punish people. You just think that when the Government is punishing Christian cake bakers and florists and photographers that does not really count as punishment. You either know this and so are lying to advance your cause, or you don’t know this and so are just one of the useful idiots that Lenin talked about.

Anabaptist Leveling

A harmonious, complementary, interracial marriage between a believing husband and a believing wife is nearly a perfect microcosm of God’s cosmic purpose for the church. Paul does not explicitly make this connection, but in following his logic it seems to be a beautiful implication of his thinking. The nations are brought together in Christ, and in Christ, the church is gathering various ethnicities into one Body. Husbands and wives are a microcosm of the Spirit-filled church unity.

Therefore, local churches should be quick to celebrate a husband and wife with diverse ethnic heritages who are living out a harmonious complementarian marriage under Christ. Such a marriage is an especially beautiful picture of the powerful work of Christ, and of his intention for the church and the cosmos

Tony Reinke
Content Strategist
Desiring God Ministries
Minneapolis, Minnesota

_________

Similarly,

A harmonious, complementary, same-sex marriage between a believing husband and a believing husband is nearly a perfect microcosm of God’s cosmic purpose for the church. Paul does not explicitly make this connection, but in following his logic it seems to be a beautiful implication of his thinking. The sexes are brought together in Christ, and in Christ, the church is gathering both sexes into one Body. Husbands and husbands are a microcosm of the Spirit-filled church unity.

Therefore, local churches should be quick to celebrate a husband and husband with the same sexual heritages who are living out a harmonious complementarian marriage under Christ. Such a marriage is an especially beautiful picture of the powerful work of Christ, and of his intention for the church and the cosmos.

Tony Rumprun
Content Strategist
Desiring Perversion Ministries
SanFrancisco, California

A harmonious, complementary, interracial marriage between a believing husband and a believing 6-year-old is nearly a perfect microcosm of God’s cosmic purpose for the church. Paul does not explicitly make this connection, but in following his logic it seems to be a beautiful implication of his thinking. The generations are brought together in Christ, and in Christ, the church is gathering various generations into one Body. Husbands and child brides are a microcosm of the Spirit-filled church unity.

Therefore, local churches should be quick to celebrate a husband and child wife with diverse generational heritages who are living out a harmonious complementarian marriage under Christ. Such a marriage is an especially beautiful picture of the powerful work of Christ, and of his intention for the church and the cosmos.

Pervous Paidosfililia
Comet Pizza Strategist
Desiring Children Ministries
Washington DC

Regarding the kingdom of God (which is spiritual) there is no distinction or difference between man and woman, servant and master, poor and rich, great and small. Nevertheless, there does have to be some order among us, and Jesus Christ did not mean to eliminate it, as some flighty and scatterbrained dreamers [believe].”

John Calvin
Sermon on 1 Corinthians 11:2-3

Trumpism as Religion

I was thinking about the tenacity of many of Trump’s followers to not let go of Trump. As a result of my cogitations, I have concluded that Trumpism is not Falsifiable. Trumpism is a religious faith system that cannot be falsified. Any fact that would disprove and so falsify Trumpism is thrown over the Trumptard’s shoulder into the sea of impossibility. Here is are some examples of random Trumptard reasoning,

“In an omnibus Trump has the discretion on how money is spent if not mistaken. He can build the wall using defense money with Army corps of engineers. If he couldn’t win it politically maybe he won it with wording in the bill.”

Trump wanted money for the military and felt he had no choice. He was betrayed by his own party pukes and the horribly flawed process they used to create the bill. I wish he’d have vetoed it, but maybe he can steal money from the military crap to build the wall. If that happens, I’ll feel better & will be waiting to see what he’ll do on the next spending bill.

So, here we find Trump signing a massive omnibus budget bill that has Democrat leaders Pelosi and Schumer as excited as two toddlers on a sugar high on Christmas morning and we are being asked to believe that Trump has “whooped em again Josey. ”

If Hillary Clinton had been elected with a Republican House and Senate such a bill likely would have never gone to Hillary to sign. It is unlikely that Hillary Clinton could have never gotten such an omnibus bill past a Republican House and Senate if only because a Republican House and Senate would not have wanted to give a Democrat that kind of victory. However, the Republican President has accomplished what a Democrat would have found almost impossible to accomplish.

Even if it were possibly true, that Trump hoodwinked the Establishment those asserting that possibility have no real evidence upon which to believe that. Believing that such a thing is true amounts to a faith in faith. How can we ever trust someone who is always running a cloak and dagger game on his own base? How could we possibly know that there wasn’t some kind of double agent matrix occurring? I’d rather stick with the “Trust but verify” mindset. I’d rather say that without verification I refuse to embrace a politician’s wink and a nod.

Now having said all that, I would be delighted to be wrong and have it found out that Trump really did “whoop em again Josey.” I’d be delighted to see Trump take the money allocated to Defense and put in place to fund a policy to return all illegal immigrants to their homeland of origination and then station the military to guard our border, but asking me to believe that or something similar to that is what Trump is going to do is like asking me to believe that the New World Order has been defeated and fooled by a Johnny-Come-Lately to the political pool party. It’s like asking me to believe in the big rock candy mountain.

Now, some might counter that I am guilty of the crime of not allowing any falsification of my conviction of Trump is possible. However, that just is not true. To the contrary, my doubt in Trump is falsifiable. If Trump were to cut the budget, kick sodomites out of the military, bar women entry into the military, turn off all loans to Israel, kick out the United Nations, turn off funds to states and cities who claim sanctuary status, implement their own version of Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback,” or any number of other sundry things I would say … “I was wrong about Trump. He really is anti-NWO.”

As it is, it is becoming clearer and clearer that Trump is a Judas Goat, assigned the task by his masters of leading whatever little remains of any possible resistance to the Internationalist Globalist dream down a path of irrelevancy. One simply does not fight one’s enemy by giving one’s enemy everything they could possibly hope for in terms of budgetary desires. One does not defeat the enemy by funding the enemy. Trump has funded the enemy by signing the omnibus bill.

Trump is not a Cyrus. Trump is Julius Rosenberg.

A Short Consideration on Conspiracy Theory and History

John 11:53 — “So from that day on they plotted to kill Him.”

Again, we are forced to consider from this text the reality of two very popular notions that are increasingly coming to the fore in our times; the deep state and the reality of conspiracy.

Those who plotted against Jesus would be what we call the deep state. The Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees were the power brokers of that time. They were moving behind the scenes in order to, in many respects, create the reality which Jesus had to face. They were the ones that worked on the arrest. They were the ones who bribed Judas for their plotting purposes. They were the ones that manipulated Pilate- i.e. — “If you release this man you are no friend of Caesar”. They were the ones who ginned up the crowds to cry out “crucify Him… crucify him.” The idea of a deep state manipulating the perception of reality has been with us forever. And of course, all this speaks of conspiracy. There was a conspiracy to put Jesus Christ on the Cross. The recognition of that conspiracy or the pointing out of conspiracies, in general, does not necessarily mean that we think conspiracies are sovereign over God. We can point out conspiracies realizing that God is conspiring to overturn the conspiracy of wicked men. The fact that conspiracies exist doesn’t mean that those who understand those conspiracies do not believe God is not sovereign. It merely means that they recognize that God often governs the affairs of men through the conspiring of men. To recognize conspiracy does not mean that we think those who conspire are sovereign. Even in their conspiring, they act according to God’s predestined purposes, which is exactly what God points out in the book of Acts,

²⁶The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ.’ ²⁷For truly against Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, had gathered together ²⁸to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done.

The beginning of putting Jesus to death was the conspiring against Him.

History in its large moments doesn’t typically happen by random chance. It happens often at its significant points (like the crucifixion of Christ) in the context of wicked men conspiring. But behind those who conspire is the God who conspires against the wicked and their conspiracies by His predestinating word. So we have wheels within wheels. Men conspire, but the conspiracies of men are the result of God conspiring against the very same men so that even the conspiracies of men both reveal and serve the purposes of God for those with eyes to see.

Consequently, we would be foolish to not take into consideration the reality of conspiracy theory as a penultimate and secondary means for how God moves history forward to His destination. The idea that the first history we get in journalist accounts, or the history we read by the official court historians or the history we learn in our History 101 course in college is anything but some kind of humanist historicism to be accepted on face value is not wise.

Having said all this it is well recognized that conspiracies are not easily sniffed out and identified. Understanding historical events is often a matter of conjecture and probability and then seeing how matters conveniently fit together in a pattern that is other than what the court historians offer. One particularly well known American believed much the same,

But when we see a lot of framed timbers (sub-events of the same historical event), different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance — and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few — not omitting even scaffolding — or, if a single piece be lacking, we can see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared to yet bring such piece in — in such a case, we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first lick was struck.

In this paragraph, Abraham Lincoln is representing the Dredd Scott decision as the consequence of a long series of conspiring by prominent men to arrive at a long predetermined decision. The point here isn’t that Lincoln was right on this point. The point is that Lincoln saw history here as a conspiracy. We agree and we agree that we likewise must look at the timbers (the individual historical exigencies) to see if they were framed by plotters to exactly fit.

People who believe that large historical events happen randomly or by chance or “they just happened” are beyond incredulous. People who believe that the court historians give the unvarnished truth are likewise beyond incredulous. As men as power broker did so with the crucifixion of Jesus, men as power brokers continue to do so today to plot and conspire and then to cover up the truth. Here those who believe in the conspiracy theory of history invoke, “It is the glory of those who think they are Gods to conceal a thing: but the honor of God’s people is to search out a matter.”

Men are seldom going to be unified on any one account of a historical happening or the kind of conspiracy that might or might not have driven the event. At the very least though, men might begin to agree that wicked men do plot and conspire and that at the very least God’s people should closely examine all official accounts that come to us by wicked men who have a vested interest to bend reality in their direction.