Susan Estrich Say’s We’re Racist If Obama Isn’t Elected

There is only one reason the polls could be this wrong. There is only one reason a contest that is not even close, that is somewhere between clobbered and landslide, could wind up with the other guy on top. Every pollster in America is not incompetent. Every pollster in America is not failing in precisely the same way when it comes to pulling a sample, screening for voters and assigning weights to the various groups.

The only way all these polls could be that far off is if people are lying in numbers never before seen in American politics.

Why would they do that?

You tell me it has nothing to do with race. I’ll laugh. What else could it possibly be?

What else could it possibly be?

It could be that polls are not scientific.
It could be that polls have never had to work in this kind of election dynamic.
It could be that ways have been discovered to cheat in the polling methodology.

It could be that people are so browbeat about racism that they lie to pollsters because they don’t want to put up with false accusations about racism.

While we are at it, if Obama only wins by 3-4 percent in key states it will be because through ACORN he has cheated. His campaign has cheated in its financing. His campaign has cheated in the way that it has propagandized this campaign. His campaign cheated in the Democratic caucus. His campaign has cheated by withholding the birth certificate. And if he carries key states by a small percentage you can bet the bank that he cheated.

R2Kt Virus, Natural Law, And Attacks On Biblical Christianity — Part I

One of the more interesting ways in which theonomy is contra confessional is its Barthian-like rejection of the classic Reformed doctrine of natural law and implicitly it’s skepticism regarding natural revelation.

One of the more interesting ways in which R2Kt virus is contra confessional is its Thomistic Aristotelian Roman Catholic embrace of classic doctrine of two ways to truth and implicitly it’s skepticism regarding the need for special revelation. This can be seen in the way that Reformed people like Van Drunen works with Roman Catholics at the Roman Catholic funded Acton Institute in Grand Rapids Michigan. The Acton Institute was established in honor of Lord Acton, a fanatical Roman Catholic scholar, who fought against the evangelical gospel in England. Confessional Reformed people should be very wary about people who work hand in glove with Roman Catholics to promote a social order agenda that is acceptable to rabid Roman Catholics.

Over the last thirty years or so, many of us have had to wade through the theonomy/reconstruction literature. It is evident from some of the reaction to the post on natural law and homosexual marriage that some of our theonomic brothers haven’t done their homework. It isn’t as if I haven’t provided you fellows with lists of resources on natural law.

Taking seriously a list on the subject of Natural Law as given from Dr. R. Scott Clark would be like trying to take seriously a list on the subject of free market capitalism as given from Karl Marx. If I am going to do research on Natural law theory it is not going to start with a list of reading provided by somebody who hates theonomy.

The WCF opens thus:

Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation.

Note that the divines did not say that the light of nature is “not sufficient” for civil government but for salvation. For the divines, as for Calvin, civil government is one thing, salvation is another. Theonomists confuse these two things far too often.

First, it should be noted here that with this statement Clark has repudiated Van Til who taught that every fact is what it is because of who God is. Clark is insisting, in his always amicable and arrogant way, that facts like civil government, can be interpreted without reference to God. Remember the natural man hates God, flees God and denies God in all of his thinking. His life is committed to suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Scripture teaches that the carnal mind is at enmity (warfare) with God. And yet Dr. R. Scott Clark insists that fallen man is capable of consistently coming to right conclusions regarding natural law.

This reduces to the argument of whether or not natural revelation needs special revelation in order to be read aright. Clark is arguing that fallen man, autonomously starting from himself, while presupposing themselves as God, can read natural revelation and natural law aright.

Now, we are quite glad to concede that because people cannot ever be perfectly wrong they engage in what we call felicitous inconsistency. That is to say that fallen man in greater and lesser degrees do get things right because of the presence of fortunate contradictions that do not follow from their basic presuppositions. In the words of Van Til, pagan man steals enough capital from Biblical Christianity to get his God hating worldview off the ground. Because this is so, we shouldn’t be surprised when the sons of the serpent are sometimes wiser then the sons of light.

1.6: “there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature….” Notice that the divines taught that there are some circumstances “common to human actions and societies” that are ordered by the “light of nature.” The divines did not share the theonomic/Barthian skepticism about natural revelation and natural law. If I remember my history, the divines did not write during the Enlightenment. I think they were Christians and Reformed at that.

Actually, Dr. R. Scott Clark apparently doesn’t remember his history aright. It is commonly accepted that the Heidelberg Catechism breaths more of the spirit of the Medieval Church while the Westminster confession breathes more of the spirit of the Enlightenment Church.

Second, speaking of history, we must understand that the appeal to natural law theory by
Divines happened in the context of a vibrant Christendom. The reason this is important is because the very belief by Christian men in natural law only makes sense in a social order and climate where the operating assumptions are Christian. Where there exists theological and ideological harmony, as informed by a common faith and shaped by a shared religion there we should not be surprised by a corporate assumption that all men will come to see the same self evident truths.

It is a self evident truth that the confidence of the Westminster divines in Natural law was driven by the reality that a stable Christendom allowed them to assume some things that allowed them to come to certain conclusions regarding the “light of nature” that those of us who grew up in a culture of existentialism, and post-modernism can not share.

It’s worth noting how often the divines speak about “the nature” of this or that, including the human nature of Christ (ch. 8). Yes, special revelation teaches us a great deal about the human nature of Christ but not everything. Scripture assumes, as do the divines, that, if our sense perception is working correctly, we perceive with them truth about human nature. Scripture doesn’t teach us what an arm or a leg or skin is or even how to eat. Indeed, Scripture doesn’t teach us a great many things about daily life or natural human existence. It doesn’t intend to teach us those things. It intends to teach us about sin and salvation. How do we know what sort of humanity Jesus had, that he is really consubstantial with us? We know it because we know from experience what humanity is and we know from Scripture that he was like us in every respect, sin excepted. If we become skeptical about “nature” as a genuine source of knowledge we risk our Christology.

Here again Clark is giving up on Van Til. This same kind of assault was often leveraged against Van Til. We gladly agree that Scripture doesn’t explicitly “teach us what an arm or a leg or skin is or even how to eat.” No presuppositionalist has ever taught such a thing. What presuppositionalist have insisted upon is that since every fact is what it is because of who God is therefore if we are to be consistently right about arms, legs, skin or eating we must either explicitly presuppose God or for those who are not Christian they must embrace enough Christian capital in their worldview that allows them to get things about arms, legs, skin, and eating correct.

Second, Clark’s problem here is what appears to be an appeal to some form of common sense realism. Van Til destroyed Scottish common sense realism as a way of knowing. What seems to be happening here is that the R2Kt virus types are advocating presuppositionalism in the spiritual way to truth but deny presuppositionalism and embrace sense perception ways of knowing that explicitly do not presuppose God as it pertains to truth that isn’t spiritual. This would be just one more dualism.

Reformation Day

The need for Reformation in our culture is seen at every turn. The Church has turned into a version of mental and emotional burlesque performance where any appeal that is made is made upon the basis of emotions or experience or the fear that the secret rapture might happen tomorrow. With the emasculation of the Church the rest of the culture has followed into eclipse. The family, when it is successful, has become merely a place for bed and boarding as opposed to a place for education and training. The schools continue to churn out slaves. The State keeps tending towards tyranny. The law is built upon relativistic sand. The arts produce ugliness that communicates that there is no such thing as beauty. In our economy we continue to punish those who save and reward those who build debt. The need for Reformation in our culture is seen at every turn.

The need will not be answered by attempt at renewal that is only moral at its base. What is wrong with our culture is theological and will not be altered by merely treating the immoral symptoms that pronounce the presence of theological disease. No, if we desire to heal the immoral symptoms we must destroy the theological disease from which all moral and cultural sickness emanates. The cure must be theological.

The need will not be answered by attempts at renewal that seek to alter people’s emotional responses. Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity — the 800 pound guerrilla in today’s Christian expression — will not answer our need for Reformation. Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity is more problem then it is solution. Indeed, one way we will know that Reformation is taking hold when we see the influence of Pentecostalism abate. With its theology of emotion and excitement Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity combined with its anti-intellectualism hasn’t what it takes to withstand the tidal wave of paganism that has drenched all of us, nor does it have the ability to provide the lasting answers to the larger questions that all cultures demand. Without Reformation we will die in our emotion.

The need will not be answered by appealing to people’s experiences. All the rage these days is “narrative theology,” which if handled rightly could be effective. However, “narrative theology” as it is handled by most of the Church is merely a celebration of everybody’s different life-stories. It is nothing more then Schleiermacher on mescaline. This can not and will not bring Reformation. Without Reformation we will die in our experience.

The need will only be answered by thinking rightly about God – or we could say by a Holy Spirit driven restoration of right Theology. That which the Church and culture is dying of is the disease of thinking wrongly about God. This wrong thinking about the God of the Bible is the disease that produces all of our foul immoral symptoms. The first place that our wrong thinking about God reveals itself is in our worship and doxology. Thinking wrongly about God we worship wrongly. Worshiping God wrongly we reinforce wrong thinking about God. Reformation in the Church, in the family, in the schools, in the law, in the economy, in the political order, and in the arts — Reformation that will heal wherever it flows — will first be seen in the repair of our theology and doxology.

The battle that we face today in our times and in our culture hence is not primarily between Republicans and Democrats. It is not primarily between Islam and Secular Humanism. It is not primarily between Liberals and Conservatives. The battle that we face today in our times and in our culture is the Battle of Theology. The question that confronts us is, “How Then Shall We Think About God.” Here is where the battle lies and should we answer this question wrongly, or allow people who have answered it wrongly to be our ecclesiastical and cultural gurus we shall die.

As a people then, we will suffer increasingly or decreasingly to the degree that we get our Theology wrong. The more a people think wrongly about God the more they will inflict themselves with all kinds of neuroses, psychopathic and sociopath behavior, and just plain strangeness. To the contrary, only Reformation can cure the ecclesiastical and cultural malaise that is characterized by these kinds of maladies.

As we turn to II Kings 22-23 we see Reformation as the remedy for what ails people who have embraced a culture of death.

I.) Sola Scriptura – Formal Principle Of Reformation (vs. 22:11)

Josiah realized that God’s people had disregarded the authoritative source of God’s rule over His people and such a realization led to deep anguish. The Reformation that washed over ancient Israel occurred because the Scripture was restored, and with the Scripture restored people began to think rightly about God.

In the Reformation in the 16th century this idea of Scripture alone was thought of as the “Formal Principle” of the Reformation. It was referred to as the “Formal Principle” because in returning to the Scripture alone as the authoritative source of theology much that was sloppy and inferior in thinking about God was challenged and removed.

This idea of Sola Scriptura is part of what we confess as a Reformed Protestant body of believers,

“We believe that [the] holy Scriptures fully contain the will of God, and that whatsoever man ought to believe unto salvation is sufficiently taught therein…Neither may we consider any writings of men, however holy these men may have been, of equal value with those divine Scriptures nor ought we to consider custom or the great multitude, or antiquity, or succession of times and persons, or councils, decrees or statutes, as of equal value with the truth of God… Therefore, we reject with all our hearts whatsoever does not agree with this infallible rule” (Belgic Confession VII).

Before the Law was rediscovered in the II Kings account and before the Scriptures were rediscovered in the Reformation it was no longer the case in most quarters of the Church that the Scriptures were the authoritative source of theology. What had happened is that autonomous reason and tradition had been lifted above the Scriptures.

The Reformation was the Reformation because it made a serious effort to allow the Scripture to have pride of place in and over the Church and thus in and over the lives of God’s people.

Now if we are to have another Reformation again something like this has to occur again. It needs to occur again for in much if not most of Christianity in the world what has happened is that the Formal principle of Scripture is no longer Sola Scriptura. In Pentecostal quarters for example the formal principle is Scripture and direct revelation from the Holy Spirit. In Roman Catholic quarters for example the formal principle remains Scripture and tradition and autonomous reason. In Anglican or Episcopalian quarters for example the formal principle remains Scripture, Church Authority, and autonomous reason. In Emergent Church quarters for example the formal principle remains experience plus culture.

Unless God is gracious to give us a return to Sola Scriptura our Churches will continue to ape our pagan culture. Unless God is gracious to give us a return to Sola Scriptura we will continue to think wrongly about God.

Now, here we must have a word about what Sola Scriptura isn’t.

If there was a temptation once upon a time to over privatize Scripture in the hands of the corporate magesterium, there is in our time a temptation to over privatize Scripture in the hands of the individual, so that Sola Scriptura becomes Solo Scriptura. We must say that just as no group of people can stand over the Bible dictating to it what it says, so no single individual is allowed to stand over the Bible dictating to it what it says. If it was wrong for the Church to wrest Scripture away from God’s people, it is equally wrong for individuals to wrest Scripture away from the Church.

This is simply a plea to realize that as individuals we must read the Scriptures with the Church.

II.) Sola Fide — Material Principle Of Reformation (22:13)

“Our Fathers have not obeyed the Words of this book.”

Here the implicit idea is that God’s people, through their disobedience had defamed and defrauded God of that which was rightfully His – that is Glory.

We could say that by and in their disobedience they had attempted to de-glorify God.

Now this brings us to what was referred to as the Material Principle of the Reformation.

Material Principle = The central doctrine in a theology taught by that theology.

In the Reformation there was subtle disagreement on the Material principle.

Lutherans – Justification by grace alone

Reformed – The Glory Of God

The teleology or the end or goal of the Material principle for Reformed people has always been the exaltation of God. As Reformed people we look at the Material principle of Lutherans and what we tend to see is a theology that finds its final destination in man. We prefer instead to see justification by grace alone as serving the higher principle of God’s glory all the while insisting that justification by grace alone isn’t the end but rather is the means to the end of living to glorify God in all that we do. Reformed people insist that when God saves us through faith alone in Christ alone it is always for the end of God’s glory alone. God does all that he does, including saving His people, for His glory.

As we turn to the II Kings account we see that God’s people had failed to give God glory (22:17).

III.) No God But God – The Consequential Principle Of The Reformation (23:5f)

One way we will know that Reformation has come to us is when we begin to tear down the false gods that give meaning to our times, our cultures, our churches and our lives.

Here in II Kings we see how the gods are toppled. The account is straightforward but I think we little appreciate the cultural upheaval that is communicated in this text.

In order to get a sense of that we must realize that cultures find their meanings and definition from the religions and gods that define them. When Josiah attacks these gods and religions he is, as we would say, attacking their way of life – their mode of existence. Josiah is not merely assaulting the gods, he is assaulting the web of life in which the Israeli’s lived. He was attacking their cultural paradigm.

The same kind of destruction to false religions and gods happened in the Reformation. You can hardly read a history of the Reformation without coming across statues and religious art being destroyed because of the idolatrous nature that it was associated with in the minds of the people. Historical accounts record how people thronged into churches to bring out the Holy art and destroy it.

Indeed so great was the horror of the Reformers for the idolatry that many believe they over-reacted in becoming icon-phobes. But given the superstitious era in which they lived one can understand their reaction.

We, in our times, have lived through the kind of “way of life” assault on a culture that Josiah brought against the “way of life” of his people.

The nearest thing to this that has happened in our lifetimes is what happened in the iron curtain countries after the fall of the iron curtain. The people were rejecting the faith that had been foisted upon them and what Lenin and Stalin had pursued was visited upon their own heads as their statues and images were ripped town from city squares.

Anyway … you’ll know if in your lifetime you see Reformation because when Reformation comes the old gods are going to fall in such an obvious way you won’t be able to miss it. You’ll know if Reformation comes in your lifetime because your way of life will drastically change just as it drastically changed for the Israelites in II Kings. 23 and just as it drastically changed during the Reformation.

How Wrong Can Ted “Chappaquidick” Kennedy Be?

“…our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same … Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset … Contrary to the charges in some quarters, S.500 will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and economically deprived nations of Africa and Asia. In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think.”

Senator Ted Kennedy
Supporting the 1965 Immigration Act

S.500 has put us in the position that by 2040 whites of European heritage will no longer make up a 50% plus majority of the American population. In 1960 five short years before S.500 was passed whites of European heritage were nearly 90 percent of the population. Everything that Teddy “Chappaquidick” Kennedy said was wrong.

Now some in the Church have said that this is good. The world is coming to us and so we have the opportunity to evangelize — so the argument goes. Now, if the Church were genuinely evangelizing our immigration nation I would embrace this reasoning but what is happening instead is that the Church is being evangelized by the different faith systems that are washing up on America’s shores. The result of our immigration nation has not been the extension of Biblical Christianity into these various cultures but rather the result has been the extension of multiculturalism, and multi-faithism (sometimes referred to as postmodernism). What’s more that multiculturalism and multifaithism is increasingly coming into the Church and being defined as Christianity.

A nation, like a family, is not defined merely or only by propositions. A nation is defined by shared faith, shared family ties, and shared attachment to the land. In the immigration policy we are pursuing we are becoming an alien nation, festooned with alien faiths, populated by alien families. The result of such a policy can only be eventual balkanization where theological, social and cultural homogeneity will be replaced with tribal enclaves each characterized by their own unique theological, social, and cultural homogeneity. In short the immigration policy we are pursuing now will eventually result in the war of all against all.

In my opinion we have no will to change course and so the die is cast.

Tune in tomorrow for some more cheery news that will make you happy and carefree.