Cleared… Well, Kind of…

The following statement is being posted per the instruction of Rev. Charles McGowan, Chairman of the Institutional Personnel Committee.

“The administration and Prof. Peter Enns wish to announce that they have arrived at mutually agreeable terms, and that, as of 31 July, 2008, Prof. Enns will discontinue his service to Westminster Theological Seminary after fourteen years.

The administration wishes to acknowledge the valued role Prof. Enns has played in the life of the institution, and that his teaching and writings fall within the purview of Evangelical thought. The Seminary wishes Prof. Enns well in his future endeavors to serve the Lord.

Prof. Enns wishes to acknowledge that the leaders of the Seminary (administration and board) are charged with the responsibility of leading the seminary in ways that are deemed most faithful to the institution’s mission as a confessional Reformed Seminary.

Prof. Enns expresses his deep and sincere gratitude to the Lord for his education and years of service at Westminster Theological Seminary.”

Translated from political speak and diplomatese to street English,

The administration and Prof. Peter Enns wish to announce that they have arrived at an arrangement whereby everybody involved can save face and wherein nobody will be taking anybody else to court. Those terms stipulate that, as of 31 July, 2008, Prof. Enns will discontinue his service to Westminster Theological Seminary after fourteen years.

This face saving and court avoiding arrangement requires the Westminster administration to say, even if we don’t mean it, that we wish to acknowledge the valued role Prof. Enns has played in the life of the institution, and that his teaching and writings fall within the purview of Evangelical thought. We, Westminster administration, can concede this because in today’s climate “Evangelical thought” includes everything from open theism to evangelical feminism. Indeed, in today’s climate it is difficult for anybody to not be an Evangelical, therefore we are more than happy to concede that Dr. Enns is within the purview of Evangelical thought. We, the Westminster administration admit of this concession in order to surround Dr. Enns discontinuance with warm fuzzies and in order to deliver our fat from the legal fire. The Seminary wishes Prof. Enns well in his future endeavors to serve the Lord, even though we believe his writings cast doubt upon the Lordship of Jesus.

(I mean really, folks, does anyone think that Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd Jones, 25 short years ago, would have said that Dr. Enns teaching and writing falls within the purview of Evangelical thought?)

Prof. Enns wishes to acknowledge that the leaders of the Seminary (administration and board) are charged with the responsibility of leading the seminary in ways that are deemed most faithful to the institution’s mission as a confessional Reformed Seminary, even though Prof. Enns thinks confessional Reformed teaching is all wet as it touches inspiration and inerrancy.

Prof. Enns expresses his deep and sincere gratitude to the Lord for his education and years of service at Westminster Theological Seminary and earnestly wishes that they lose students to the Seminary he will be hooking up with next.

Parable Of The Foolish Fountain Folk

Though it had the natural sentiments in it that all mountain fresh water contained the mountain fresh water was perfectly safe, and yet despite its natural purity the community folk refused to buy it. They drank instead the water they had quaffed for years that they bought from one of two long established fountains. Water, from the first fountain had been laced with cyanide for decades. Water from the second fountain had been laced with strychnine for even longer. Both of these popular fountains were killing the folk, but as ingrained habit is a relentless force they just kept supporting the foul fountains.
All pleading with people to drink the water that was healthy for them fell on deaf ears — even on the ears of people who were by all accounts concerned about their health and the health of their children and neighbors.

The community folk reasoned that since the mountain fresh water would never become the most popular water they needed to drink from the other fountains. They insisted that only by supporting the foul fountains could they influence the amount of cyanide or strychnine that were mixed into the water of the foul fountains.

“Why, if we elected to drink the mountain fresh water who knows how high the level the poison could go in the other fountains,” they said. “Besides” they offered, “if we give up electing to drink from the lesser foul fountain everybody will end up having to drink from the greater foul fountain.”

When it was suggested that they would be better off to drink the mountain fresh water and just break the poisonous fountains altogether if that was necessary they blanched at what they considered a radical idea.

“Better to have some water source, even if poisonous, then fight for pure water,” they said with one voice.

And so time went on and eventually even those who styled themselves health nuts developed a taste for the poisonous fountains, insisting that they weren’t really that bad. Indeed, so ferocious was their loyalty to the poisonous fountains that they heaped opprobrium upon anybody who dared to suggest that the the folk were killing themselves and their community.

Let those who have ears to hear, hear the parable of the foolish fountain folk.

Obama’s Speech To Be President Of The World

“The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.”

Barack Hussein Obama
Berlin Speech

I don’t know if I’ve read a speech from an American Politician speaking in such a public context that was more explicitly globalist than the speech delivered by Barack Hussein Obama in Berlin last week. It was clear when reading the speech that Obama has his sites set on something quite loftier than President of These United States. Obama clearly understands that if he is elected as President he is literally the leader of the free world.

There is much that troubles me about Obama’s wall deconstruction vision. Obama wants all kinds of walls to fall choosing the fall of the Berlin wall as a metaphor for barriers in society and between nations that he believes likewise need to come down. The problem is that the metaphor doesn’t work well without some kind of enemy named that needs to be defeated. It is true that the Berlin wall fell but it was only because some enemy (communism) was totally defeated and extinguished. It would seem then, that in order for Obama’s other walls to fall what has to first happen is that an enemy has to be identified so that it may be defeated so that the B. Hussein Obama’s walls can fall.

First, what will a President Obama do to make sure that the walls between the haves and the have not countries will fall? What enemy is to be defeated here? Is the enemy the wealthy? Will they be defeated by his entering into some kind of trans-Atlantic socialistic redistribution of wealth where America will “share” (by plunder) its wealth with those designated as have nots? People don’t generally seem to realize that Marxist plans to tear down walls between countries with the most and countries with the least result not in the country with the least being lifted to a plane of equivalence with the rich country but rather the richer country, as an enemy, is brought down to the same level of misery as the country that has not. Socialism never enriches people, but instead gives those who are impoverished the satisfaction of knowing that everyone is as miserable as they were and are. Tearing down walls between the countries with the most and countries with the least when not pursued in the context of genuinely free market incentives only leads to all countries being equally impoverished and results in the enemy of wealth creators being defeated. If Obama does for the poor countries of Europe what LBJ did for the poor people of America in his war on poverty we are certain to move from our current economic twilight to the darkest midnight. If the walls between the countries with the most and the countries with the least are to fall then some enemy in all this needs to be identified and crushed just as the communists were crushed leading to the fall of the Berlin wall. My guess, given what Obama has spoken about concerning his economic plan, is that the enemy is private property not held by the State. This is the enemy that must be defeated so that the countries with the least can become the equal of the countries with the most.

Second, what will a President Obama do to make the walls fall between races and tribes. Who is to be the enemy identified here? Is the enemy that must be destroyed before the walls fall between races and tribes those who find satisfaction in the race and tribes God placed them? Will President Obama have a forced miscegenation program? Will he give tax incentives to people to marry out of their race and tribe? (By the way… what tribes still exist in Europe?) It is clear as Obama’s speech is read in full that Obama believes in the idea of America being a proposition nation.

“What has always united us – what has always driven our people; what drew my father to America’s shores – is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people…

It is his belief that Mongolians, Rwandans, and Venezuelans,et. al. can be genuine Americans if they just believe the same set of ideals. The insistence that a nation is made out of shared culture, shared history, shared sense of homeland, shared religion, and a shared extended family is the enemy that must be destroyed if the walls are to fall between races and tribes. America is to become the universal propositional (set ideal) nation where concrete realities are set aside for abstractions. The walls that come with being a particular people in a particular place with a particular history, religion, culture and lineage must come down. Everyone should understand that the result of the walls falling down between races and tribes is becoming part of one global race and tribe. The pursuit of the erasing of racial, ethnic and cultural distinctions is the pursuit of the Tower of Babel wrapped in soaring egalitarian rhetoric.

Third, a President Obama would tear down the walls between native and immigrant. Consistent with our approach so far, we ask, where is the enemy that needs to be defeated before those walls can fall? I suspect the enemy is the native who cherishes his way of life and how his culture and society is organized and doesn’t desire to pay for his own destruction through confiscatory taxation so as to prop up the, more often than not, illegal immigrant. Immigration in America is being used to destroy what is left of what little remains of Christendom and the lingering memory, kept alive in out of the way lacunae, of what it means to be uniquely American. America’s globalist imperial elite have decided that they desire a constituency that is anything but American and so the walls must fall between native and (illegal) immigrant so that we can achieve status as a universal nation.

Fourth, and perhaps most troubling is that a President Obama desires to tear down the walls between Christians, Jews, and Muslims. And so we ask, who is the enemy that needs to be defeated so that these walls can fall? The answer to that question is any adherent of these particular faiths who take their God and faith seriously. In order for the walls to fall down between these faith expressions the content of these faiths systems must be watered down so that the respective gods in the systems are made subservient to the new faith system that will unite the global village where the distinctions that come with economic variance, race, tribe, homeland, culture, or religion are completely eclipsed. What is ironic here is that the pursuit to tear down the walls between Jews, Christians and Muslims, could conceivably unite them in order to oppose a one world religion.

Obama’s speech in Berlin was boilerplate globalism. He understands that the next epochal move for humanity, as directed by the religion of humanism, is to reconstruct Babel. Before that can be achieved the walls that keep the unitarian and unipolar world from being achieved must be destroyed. This is a different vision from Christianity. Christianity sees a world where walls fall because false religions (Judaism, Islam, humanistic globalism, etc.)are destroyed through the proclamation of the Gospel and Spirit wrought regeneration but where the diversity of races, tribes, and culture is retained and treasured. The vision of the Christian faith and the vision of unipolar humanistic globalism is the difference between heaven and hell.

Dear Pastor — Thank You

Dear Sir,

I’ve bee reading through your R2kt virus posts. I can’t tell you how important they are to me. I started attending a PCA church infected with this perspective and it took a long time and a lot of studying to realize where all this was coming from (Westminster West it turns out). I’m now running a mile from the place thankful that the Lord opened my eyes when he did.

Thank you for taking the time to write on this subject.

Blessings,

Name Withheld

The Banner

“We’re no longer going to be united by the Form of Subscription binding us to the confessions. We’re only going to be united by subscription to The Banner.”

Heard from a Calvin Theological Seminary Professor
At the Christian Reformed 2008 Synod

I’m somewhat confident that this was said tongue in cheek. I am also somewhat confident that it was a case of half in jest all in earnest.

Personally, I think this is already true to a large extent. As doctrinal preaching continues to be in decline in all American Churches including the Christian Reformed Church that which binds the CRC denominational membership together is the one thing that they have in common and that one thing they have in common, denominationally speaking is The Banner.

I am fairly confident that one reason why the decision was made to send The Banner free to the home of all CRC members was that it might serve as a kind of touchstone for its membership. If The Banner is the one thing in the denomination that everyone reads then The Banner becomes a kind of literary glue holding the denomination together while serving at the same time as an ideological information guide on what to believe.

This is disconcerting. In the nearly 14 years I have been associated with the Christian Reformed Church The Banner has been a publication that reflects the mainline liberal influence in the denomination. A denomination, thus united by subscription to The Banner will be a denomination that is characterized by the pursuit of a politically correct multi-cultural agenda. Anybody who disagrees with The Banner will certainly be free to do so, but because The Banner is serving as that which glues the denomination together the person who disagrees with The Banner will automatically be seen as the one out of step with the denominational consensus.

Ever since I’ve pastored a CRC church people would tell me that I shouldn’t worry over what The Banner reports because, after all, that’s just The Banner. I thought they were wrong before and I think they are wrong now. The Banner is monumentally significant in the life of the CRC and the sooner everybody realizes that the sooner people might be more concerned about what does and doesn’t get printed in The Banner.