My “Bah Humbug” On All The “Bah Humbug Christmas” Types In My Life

I have a couple chaps I know online who I count as friends. We likely agree on 75-80% of theology. Maybe. But when they get it wrong it is like fingernails across the chalkboard.

One such friend is a Baptist clergy named J. S. Lowther. Now Baptists come in all contradictory shapes and sizes and I’ve never met one yet that didn’t have a hitch in their gitty-up. Rev. Lowther is no different. Lowther is good on the Kinist issue, understanding the need to think categorically according to ethnic/racial/family groupings and yet despite that he refuses to Baptize babies because he doesn’t understand that God has placed our children in Christian ethnic/racial/family groupings. Go figure. On one level he understands that the family is the basic social order unit over and above the individual while at the same time by not baptizing babies he proclaims he doesn’t understand that the family unit is the basic social order unit over and above the social order taught by Scripture. He’s like the former Soviet Sub commanders who were famous for their “crazy Ivans.”  (Look it up.)

Rev. Lowther, being both Baptist and a strict regulativist (another odd combination) also is a Christmas hater. Lately he’s been knocking my chops about celebrating Christmas. Of course, the tradition I’ve spent the last 30 years part of (Dutch Reformed) have throughout their history celebrated Christmas. The Dutch Reformed Churches will often be found having a Christmas Eve or Christmas morning Church service. The Dutch likewise love their SinterKlaas. Over the years I’ve learned about their past tradition of stuffing wooden shoes full of goodies much the way that most people stuff stocking. I’ve learned from them about Zwarte Piet,  De Sint, De Goede Sint and De Goedheiligman’s (3 other Dutch names for St. Nick)  helpers. Why a Dutch Elder who is a lawyer even tutored me on the anti-Santa named Krampus.

All that to say, that in the Dutch Reformed tradition, as well as the Hungarian Reformed, the Swiss Reformed, the German Reformed, the French Reformed and others have all celebrated Christmas. I mean, its not as if the Christmas haters have any kind of ability to go about constantly yakking that “this is a papist tradition.” Put a sock in it guys and belly up to the spiked egg nogg and loosen your underwear a tad bit. It will do your pietism some good.

Now to address this issue of Christmas celebration. Look …. I get why the Puritans (some of them) didn’t want to celebrate Christmas. If I had been alive at that time I would have likely agreed with them. But if they were alive today they would agree with me because our problems today are the opposite problems they had. Their world was threatened by the Superstitions of Rome with its Mass and with its every day of the week is some kind of saints day. They had over-enchanted the world. But we don’t live in that epoch. We live in a world that has been disenchanted. There is no longer any sense of the Holy in the way we measure time. And so, I support the small celebrating of Christmas in the hopes that by doing so it will be a small step to bringing back the enchantment of the world.

Second, there is the reality that if we refuse to measure time by a Christians standard we will measure time by a heathen standard. Think about it. Right now Martin Luther King gets as much billing as Jesus Christ in terms of days marked as special. If we dropped Christmas we would allow the heathens to completely bring in their litany of heathen saints. Christmas would be replaced by Rosa Parks day or Harvey Milk day or Trannie day. Folks who want to insist that celebrating Christmas is not pleasing to God are dullards who do not realize what time it is — where we are in history. We need more Christian High days and not fewer. We need to bring back the Lord’s Day especially as a high day.

However, in order to show what a reasonable chap I am, I’ll make a deal with the Rev. Lowthers and Ryan Halls of the world. When the larger culture brings back honoring every Lord’s Day as Holy unto the Lord I’ll be all in on dropping Christmas off the calendar as long all the other pagan saints day are extinguished as well. But as that is not going to happen any time soon, I am celebrating Christmas along with Luther and a punch bowl full of spiked egg nogg. Merry Christmas to JS Lowther and all my Covenanter type Grinch friends. I hope before you die your heart grows 4 more sizes.

A Reading List For Those New To the Christian Faith

Last night, following our annual Christmas carolling in the neighborhood one of the young ladies whose family only recently attended the Church I serve pulled me aside and asked me to give her a list of books to read for someone who want to understand more of basic Biblical Christian theology and doctrine. I am excited to do so. So, what follows is a list of books that are intended to be very basic for someone just learning about Reformed doctrine and theology.

1.) Heidelberg Catechism

There are 52 Lord’s Day here Eleanor. Each Lord’s day typically has 3 questions and answers (though that can vary). Read 1 Lord’s Day every week and over the course of one year (It won’t take more than a few minutes daily) you’ll begin to get a good footing. Then keep doing so for year after year. If you have questions write them down and send them to me. We can have a great conversation.

2.) Knowledge of the Holy — A. W. Tozer
3.) Knowing God — J. I. Packer
4.) The Pleasures of God; Meditations On God’s Delight In Being God — John Piper

The Christian faith starts with what is called “Theology Proper,” and Tozer, Packer and Piper do a good job in these books explaining in understandable terms the character of God.

5.) Knowing Scripture — R. C. Sproul

This will help you to know how to read the Scripture. It will help you to understand how we know what we know.

6.) What The Angels Wish They Knew — Alister Begg
7.) Putting Amazing Back Into Grace — Mike Horton

These two books will give you a good handle on knowing the content of the Gospel.

8.) The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance — Leon Morris

This book will help you understand the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross and why the Cross is at the center of our Christian faith.

9.) Who Is The Holy Spirit — R. C. Sproul Sr.

Modern Christians have low views and understandings of the person and work of the Holy Spirit. This book begins to teach who the person of the Holy Spirit is and what His role and work is in our Christian life.

10.) Every Thought Captive: a Study Manual for the Defense of the Truth —
Richard Pratt Jr.

This book will give you confidence in what you believe as it teaches you how to defend what you believe when people come around trying to belittle the Christian faith.

 

Alienism & Kinism … Some Considerations

Recently, the Alienism that stems from accepting the principles of Cultural Marxism has found itself trying to sweep Kinism off the scene by pejoratives. One podcaster did a podcast titled, “Kinism; Luciferian and Wicked.” Another “clergy” member in the RPCNA spent 56 mindless minutes haranguing and screeching his congregation in a sermon titled; “Against the Heresy of Kinism.” We definitely have their attention and personally I am flattered that they find us so dangerous that now they have to go to these silly extremes in order to try and quench the prairie-fire that is endangering their post-Endarkenment consensus “Christianity.”

I am actually hoping these harpy clergy continue on this path. Their rants are so mindless and so absent any substance that their arguments against Kinism are actually providing arguments for Kinism for those who aren’t completely brain dead. Their argument by vacuous assertion and impressive straw men, as well as their steady refusal to deal with all the quotes from Church Fathers and Church history can only strengthen the position of Biblical Christianity. Sooner or later the Alienists are going to have to deal with quotes like this recent one I just came across thanks to Dan Brannan.

 We see here that St Isidore of Seville (6th century) argued that it was within the fundamental rights of a nation to prohibit miscegenation as recorded in his Etymologies (Origins) of Isidore of Seville;

vi.) What the law of nations is (Quid sit ius gentium) 1.) The law of nations concerns the occupation of territory, building, fortification, wars, captives, enslavements, the right of return, treaties of peace, truces, the pledge not to molest embassies, the prohibition of marriages between races. And it is called ‘law of nations (ius gentium) because nearly al nations (gentes) use it.”

In light of all this condemning Kinists to the deepest level of hell the question has arisen as to whether one can embrace Alienism (born of Cultural Marxism and the polar opposite of Kinism) and still be considered Christian. Now, of course distinctions have to be made here. We concede that while Alienism is, by definition, not Christianity, it certainly is likely that many Alienists are Christians. God’s grace reaches beyond all of the lack of sanctification that is doubtless characteristic of all of us.

We also have to make distinctions between the Alienists who are ideologues and so true believers –that is they who are epistemologically self conscious about their Alienism and those others who are merely useful idiots for the Alienists. We have great hope that many of the useful idiots for the Alienists are indeed Christian despite their useful idiot status. For example, I have great hope that Drew Poplin (the chap who preached that “Kinism is Heresy”) is indeed someone who, despite his utter and embarrassing nonsense is in Christ. I say this despite at the same time insisting that he has no business being within three blocks of a Reformed pulpit.

However, having said all that we Kinists still must insists that all those who are Alienists — epistemologically self conscious or useful idiots — that what they are espousing is NOT Christianity. And they must be told … “Shall we go on sinning that grace might abound? God forbid!” The doctrinal position of Alienism is anti-Christ. It is against the Christian faith and where consistently held to it is anti-Gospel inasmuch as tears at the structure of the Creature-Creator distinction with its egalitarian norms. Such egalitarian norms are either a consequence of a monism that is birthed by denying the Creator-Creature distinction or alternately is certain to lead to the eventual denial of the distinction between God and man. If there is no distinctions between creatures, born of monism, eventually there will be a energetic denial of the distinction between God and Man. The distinction between Creator-creature cannot survive a mindset that levels all God ordained distinctions between creatures. So whether the denial of all distinctions between creatures leads to denial of the Creator-Creature distinction or whether all distinctions between creatures is the consequence of the denial of the Creator-creature distinction the result remains a monism that in no way can co-exist with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One can not be a Christian while embracing a monism that denies the Creator-Christian distinction. How deep can one be in this error and still consistently hold to the Gospel is not something I know the answer to. I do know that it is all Christian’s responsibility to say that “Alienism and the Gospel cannot consistently co-exist together.”

This is the same kind of issue that Machen was facing in the 1920s except then the issue was not Alienism born of cultural Marxism but rather the issue was Liberalism born of denying the transcendence and supernatural character of God (Actually, that stemmed from a monistic impulse as well.) Machen never tried to give a person by person examination as to just how deep the infection of liberalism was too deep in order for one not to be Christian. Instead, Machen wrote and preached that Liberalism was not Christianity … just as Alienism is not Christianity and cannot coexist with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We see St. Paul do the same kind of thing in his epistles. He makes it clear in Colossians and in the Timothys that Gnosticism is NOT Christianity and is against the Gospel. Now, as to how much Gnosticism was too much Gnosticism in every individual case was not something we get in his writings. What we get is the Gnosticism is anti-Christ and so can not exist consistently with the Gospel.

We all know of congregations are flat up full of Cultural Marxism and the Alienism it produces. We would not blink an eye in saying “those people need to hear the Gospel.” On the other hand we know of congregations that are less infected and to those places we might say, “Well, while I don’t doubt that there may well be Christians among them, it is still the case that what they are holding in principle is against the Gospel and if given its head will overturn the Gospel in that place.”

What we believes about the whole of the Christian faith matters and this tendency to want to somehow cordone “the Gospel” from the totality of the whole Christian faith is not healthy and is unwise. The Christian faith is an organic whole and a severe error in one place is going to warp the Gospel — and warp it enough in some cases to drain the Gospel of being the Gospel.

So, on one hand we want to be generous with people in their confession of personal faith in Jesus the Christ, but on the other hand we do not want people to think that doctrine is unimportant so that “it really doesn’t matter what you believe about Christ as long as you believe.” God is not egalitarian and egalitarian Christianity if given its head means that a Gospel defined by Alienist/ egalitarianism is not a Gospel that can save.

A Post-modern Epilogue To “A Christmas Carol

It was just a few weeks after Ebenezer’s Scrooge’s wondrous transformation and finally Ebenezer’s former fiance, Belle, finally got wind of the change in her former beau. Upon hearing the report Belle had to see for herself so she secretly put herself in the way of Ebenezer’s acts of kindness to see for herself.

Having witnessed it all, she was drawn back to the enchantment she once had for Ebenezer and this enchantment increased the long endured  misery she had with her current husband. Life had been hard since she had spurned Ebenezer. Her husband was so generous towards orphans, immigrants, and the Oliver Twist types in London that she and the children often went around in rags and sometimes went hungry. She had tried to talk sense into her husband but he always responded with… “Hey, we need to love everybody the same.” Her husband had used the same type of reasoning for his dalliances with other women. “Now, Belle, honey, it’s hardly right or Christian, in light of the fact of the ‘Brotherhood of all men’ that I should favor you above all the other Sheilas.” And so Belle had spent her married life in misery constantly thinking that being married to a miser like Ebenezer could have been any worse.

And now Ebenezer was a changed man and her own Eberhard remained so unchanged. Belle couldn’t help but wonder why three spirits had not visited her husband … why Eberhard could not have been transformed just as Ebenezer clearly had been.

The children were all grown now and Belle was left alone with this spendthrift that she had grown to find repulsive. If Ebenezers later years could be lived as a changed man then why couldn’t her life also be changed from what she had endured all her life?

Belle decided not to wait for an extraterrestrial visitation from a syndical of Spirits. She would take matters in her own hands.

And so Belle began to plot. It all began with her separation and divorce from Eberhard. She had proper reasons to do so for decades but now with the possibility of returning to a transformed Ebenezer and a life lived of comparative comfort the iron was hot for such a divorce from Eberhard.

When Belle told Eberhard of her intentions, he merely shrugged and reminded her that he had plenty of other phillies in the pasture.  Belle rejoiced at this response. Now, she had to set the hook for Ebenezer.

On Christmas Eve day of the year following the visitation of the Spirits Belle put herself in the way of Ebenezer in the best dress she had left, along with all the feminine accouterments that she thought would be necessary for Ebenezer’s next transformation. Belle thought of herself as the Spirit of Christmas Femme-fatale. “And why not” she thought, “after all Ebenezer will be even happier after he sweeps me off my feet.”

And just as Belle planned Ebenezer remembered all that was past when all of Belle was present again before him. In no short amount of time Ebenezer had “wrenched” out of Belle her “story.” The sympathy for Belle swelled to levels not seen since that same sympathy had swelled for Tiny Tim almost a year ago.

From that point on, the old flame of the old romance was kindled. Just as Ebenezer had been transformed by the Spirits of the previous year, so Ebenezer was transformed by the  Spirit of Belle and in July a Christmas wedding was planned.

And for the few years that Belle and Ebenezer had left together Ebenezer never treated her as if she was “just another woman.” Ebenezer prized her above all women and even treated Belle’s children as having a unique relationship to him. All the egalitarianism of Eberhard was gone from Belle’s life and her life was now transformed.

Drew Poplin Preaches 56 minute Sermon Against Kinism — What a Spectacle (I)

It boggles my mind that some young torpid clergy member would take 56 minutes to preach a sermon against Kinism and yet that is exactly what one Drew Poplin did in a RPCNA church in Durham, NC.

Below are from his posted notes.

“Defining the Term: Kinism is a heinous and heretical philosophy rooted in four general principles: (1) Race is narrowly defined and focused upon skin color and ancestral heritage rather than recognizing the reality of present societies; (2) Kinism holds to the permanence of race, following false evolutionary premises; (3) The belief that the intermarrying of races and peoples is immoral; (4) At the root of this is the abominable belief of white supremacy.”

Rev. Drew Poplin

1.) Kinists do not reduce race to the idea of skin color as if skin color is the only factor in race.  Kinists do recognize Ancestral heritage believing as they do in the simple reality of real live biological genetics. God has made peoples to differ and part of that difference is encoded in particular gene patterns that end up making up different races.

Now, as Poplin continues he says that Kinists don’t understand the differences between ethnicity and race but it is really Poplin who is playing the thick one here. Kinist’s understand that ethnicity exists and that different ethnic peoples exist as belonging to distinct races. We get it Drew, that there are Germanic, Anglos, Saxons who are distinctly ethnic peoples but we go on to say that a broader category exists wherein each of these fall and the broader category is called “race.” Germans, Anglos, and Saxons are ethnic groups who belong each to the broader category of White people just as Hutus, Ndebele, Shonas, and Zulus are particular ethnic peoples who belong to a shared race. And all of them Drew belong to the largest category of the human race.

2.) Poplin makes a false assertion when he insists that Kinists follow evolutionary philosophy. Sigh. Poplin seems not to realize that long before the rise of Darwin or Evolution people examined the issue of races. Shakespeare examined the theme in some of his plays. Shakespeare’s dates predate Darwins. The Early Church Fathers wrote about race. Here is just one example;

“The ancient fathers… were concerned that the ties of kinship itself should not be loosened as generation succeeded generation, should not diverge too far, so that they finally ceased to be ties at all. And so for them it was a matter of religion to restore the bond of kinship by means of the marriage tie before kinship became too remote—to call kinship back, as it were, as it disappeared into the distance.”

Augustine – (A.D. 354 – 430)
City of God, book XV, Chpt. 16:

Hey Drew … not everyone who believes in the reality of race is sniffing around the remains of the really dumb evolutionary theory. What other really dumb assertions do you want to toss from the Holy Desk Drew?

Indeed,  Drew, Kinists don’t even hold that race is permanent understanding that over enough generations one line can go from one race to another race. However, this also proves that race is real as that breeding has moved a line from one very real distinct race to another very real distinct race.

Are you following me Drew?

3.) Kinists agree with all the Church fathers prior to 1950 or so that interracial marriage is at the very least normatively unwise and can often be sinful and immoral. I could give you a gazillion quotes but here is one from Machen’s friend, defender and colleague Dr. Clarence MacCartney;

“Love imagines that it can overleap the barriers of race and blood and religion, and in the enthusiasm and ecstasy of choice these obstacles appear insignificant. But the facts of experience are against such an idea. Mixed marriages are rarely happy. Observation and experiences demonstrate that the marriage of a Gentile and Jew, a Protestant and a Catholic, an American and a Foreigner has less chance of a happy result than a marriage where the man and woman are of the same race and religion….”

Dr. Clarence MacCartney – Presbyterian Minister
1879-1957

Does it give you any pause Drew that you are peaching from a pulpit a doctrine that no Church fathers, save possibly the heretical Anabaptists, taught or believed in? Any pause at all?

4.) Poplin again makes a dumb assertion when he ties Kinism with White supremacy. I know many non white people who are Kinists. Muhammed Ali (he was a famous black Boxer Drew) held Kinist principles, insisting that blacks should only marry blacks.

But, I will say it is true that Whites are supreme in some areas while clearly inferior in other areas. For example, I have concluded that modern day whites named Drew are vastly inferior at being Presbyterian clergy.