The Revolt Against the New Liberal Man

The liberal project, born of the Renaissance and matured upon the blood of the Enlightenment always has had at its heart the desire to set free the individual from the situatedness of life in which people were conceived and birthed into. Liberalism taught its padawans that the greatest freedom was freedom from any identity that wasn’t freely chosen by the autonomous sovereign self. We can hear this theme in the cry of the  sans-culottes; “No God, No King.” Self chosen identity, quite apart from any outside imposed or inherited identity would not be allowed.

With this flight from all situatedness institutional identity markers that had been held for centuries as the cornerstones of the Christian faith were attacked. The liberal vision attacked the natural bonds of family, community, and nation, setting the atomistic self free to rearrange these bonds in any order the new liberal man might see fit. With the flowering of the liberal vision came the end to the trustee family, the end of localism, and regionalism, and the end of the sense of belonging to the land and to the people. All of these were exchanged for the right of the sovereign self to choose his/her own identities. For the new liberal man the glue that would hold new social orders together would be abstractions like “liberty,” “equality,” and “fraternity,” and not a people, a place, and a present informed by God’s Word as it shaped the generations prior. For the new liberal man there would be “liberty leading a generic people” but there would be no fathers who would be heroes, no space which would be Holy, and no concern about leaving an inheritance behind for our children. The liberal demand for equality eliminated father heroes, Holy Space, and inheritance left for those who belong uniquely to us.

Liberalism rearranged reality in order to create a society where the new liberal man was not burdened by any previous situatedness. The new liberal man was a self creating God who could leave behind “belongingness” to pursue the happiness needs of the sovereign self. The new liberal man was a rights-bearing individual who conveniently was absent of any duty-bearing obligations to a prior received situatedness. With every success of the new liberal man came the necessity to push the boundaries even further in terms of how the new liberal man could create his/her own rights and reality.

However, snapback always comes. The pendulum can only go so far before it begins to swing back and it is that swing-back that we are seeing among some of the young men and women of the West who are crying out for an older view that goes behind liberalism. The Trad-West crowd are awakening to understand that reality and social organization predates their arrival and they long for the situatedness for which the new liberal man had such disgust. The young Trad-West crowd are reaching back for a stability that comes with faith, family, and place. Many of the Trad-West crowd don’t understand that only Christianity can give what they desire. They are properly put off with the “Christianity” that has been in service of the new liberal man’s vision of liberty, equality, fraternity and so have an animus towards Christianity.  Part of the challenge for the Christian faith is to communicate that it is Christianity alone which teaches that human beings are not the sum of their autonomous choices. Only Christianity consistently forswears the liberal (and Pelagian) anthropology that insists that humans are defined through acts of individual choice and self-expression alone. Only Christianity teaches original sin, sin nature, and then tells how situatedness can be beautiful for the Redeemed community. Christianity teaches that all men were born into a set of beautiful “givens” and that man is responsible to honor and cultivate that situatedness ordained and bequeathed unto him by God Almighty. Christianity with its covenant theology provides a way to embrace kinship, and descent as norms without family, people, nation or race becoming idolized. Christianity teaches a particularity of people, place, and patrimony which ought to have placed an properly ordered affection that properly prioritizes our people, our place, and our patrimony. All of that is hated by the liberal vision that is constantly bleating about the dangers of “identity politics” or the dangers of “racism” or the dangers of “Kinism.”

The liberal order is ending, though it is kicking and screaming as it is being pushed off stage. Thankfully, we will never go back to some kind of caste system where we are locked into a place that we can never be rescued from because of our family line. However, just as clearly, we are moving away from the liberal vision where the atomistic sovereign self choose and creates his own destiny quite apart from obligations and responsibilities to the situatedness in which he was born. The absolutizing of freedom characteristic of the new liberal man has created a social order where people are isolated, lonely, and miserable. The absolutizing of freedom characteristic of the new liberal man has created a nostalgia for belongingness that is natural and not contrived. There exists now among many a desire to return to thick identities explained by the belongingness that is a consequence of family, place, patrimony, and most of all by the reality that it is God who places men in families.

Liberalism, with its insistence that it would not be satisfied until the last King was strangled with the entrails of the last Priest dealt itself its own death blow as it sought to tear up the very roots of human identity. Liberalism was the vision of rending every natural (and Biblical) source of human belonging into a thousand pieces in favor of unnatural and so disordered affections. Liberalism pitted freedom and order against one another and gave us a freedom that was the worst bondage of all — the bondage of that absence of natural belonging.

The modern Church in the West seems to miss much of this. There is, among the modern clergy, a knee-jerk reaction against all that would stand for ordered affections as being distinctly Christian. The contemporary Church in the West is a liberal Church at its core as seen by its disassociating itself with books like “Who Is My Neighbor,” which demonstrates that Christianity has never been in favor of the new liberal man. The modern church — even in its most conservative expression — cringes at the notion that men owe a special allegiance to their own people, place, and patrimony that they don’t owe to the stranger and the alien. And this even after it has been insisted that love for one’s own people does not mean hatred for those who are not one’s own people. The “situatedness” that we are advocating for is essential for what it means to be human. As such we are no longer making mea culpas for advocating a social order that God has ordained and we are no longer acting ashamed because we are no longer adherents to a Christianity that is more Rousseau than it is Jesus Christ.

Different Worlds

The Friday before Christmas 2022 I had what they are now calling a “health event,” and as a result of that I’ve spent some times around mega-medicine. As a result I was impressed, in a way I had not heretofore been, that the world I was born into in 1959 and the world I inherited from those who were born before me is not the world I am living in now. That may seem like a fairly obvious truism but it struck me hard again in the last three days.

I’ve spent some times in hospitals along the way of my journey. I have seen them from the inside so to speak. This time around I was dumbstruck by how different of a people we have become. It is not that the people were not capable. They clearly were. It’s more that there is just a different feel in the way people are leaning into life. It could be this is just a case of the old complaining about the young but it could also be the case that something has gone broken along the way. Besides, the critiques of old people are not always errant. Here is one nobody took seriously from a couple generations prior to me that I’ve always liked. It was completely ignored when it was uttered;

“So the final conclusion would surely be that whereas other civilizations have been brought down by attacks of barbarians from without, ours had the unique distinction of training its own destroyers at its own educational institutions, and then providing them with facilities for propagating their destructive ideology far and wide, all at the public expense. Thus did Western Man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brought the walls of his own city tumbling down, and having convinced himself that he was too numerous, labored with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer. Until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keeled over–a weary, battered old brontosaurus–and became extinct.”

Malcolm Muggeridge
Vintage Muggeridge: Religion and Society

Part of the reason that I am seeing what I am seeing is that very few took Muggeridge’s words seriously at the time he uttered them.

And what is it that I saw?

First, I saw that the multiculturalism New World Order crowd really are winning the day. I saw bulletin boards plastered with information regarding the importance of DEI (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion). Big Medicine, like all other Big everything, doesn’t get this one wrong. Everywhere there were posters proclaiming “Expect Respect, Give Respect.” Clearly, it seemed to me, if one has to make a major add campaign based on this theme than an outsider could conclude that all this Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion doesn’t exactly breed Respect and so we must have a major add campaign that emphasizes how evil any discrimination in any degree would be, thus demonstrating that multiculturalism doesn’t really work unless those at the top hammer everybody into a ideological precast template that is labeled “nice.”

Whenever I see a superabundance of “nice,” I automatically think of C. S. Lewis’ “N.I.C.E.” Lewis uses the word as a acronym for an villainous technocratic movement in his Novel world which is hellbent in re-making the world into a dystopian progressive world where everyone and everything is better for being managed by that technocratic elite. All the naturalness of life is stripped away and in its place comes the managerial world operated by people who are always smiling, always saying just the right thing, and always having “your best interest at heart.” Beware nice.
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I saw that people were just different. It was almost as if I were viewing them as being an alien plopped in their midst. Everyone is so in touch with their emotions and that comes out in their conversations. I was admitted @ 0430 in the morning and the questions I was being asked in order to be admitted left me scratching my head;

“What is it about you that we need to know about you in order to help you get better?”
“Do you feel safe in your home?”
“What is it about you that makes you different?”

The admission questions struck me as more akin to what one might find in a Rogerian psychotherapy session than what one would find in a sick person being admitted to a hospital. I get that they have their reasons but they are as reasons that exist in a different world than the one that I was bequeathed.

One thing I didn’t see much of were white male Doctors – indeed not much of white male anything came across my visual horizon. This takes us back to the victory of multiculturalism. When I was a boy we had foreign Doctors. I had a Filipino Doctor who helped put together my badly mauled right hand whose name was “Furtado.” I also had a Brit named “Warr,” who helped to the same end. I remember each of them as excellent Doctors. However, this time around white, male Doctors were a rare commodity. You wouldn’t think that would be the case in a country that is still somewhere around 62% white.

This is consistent with key findings from a recent survey of hiring managers:

–52% believe their company practices “reverse discrimination” in hiring

–1 in 6 have been asked to de-prioritize hiring white men

–48% have been asked to prioritize diversity over qualifications

–53% believe their job will be in danger if they don’t hire enough diverse employees

–70% believe their company has DEI initiatives for appearances’ sake

This is not a complaint at the ability of the foreign Doctors who were in charge of my care. Even if I could not pronounce their names – names I had never seen before in 63 years of living — I had no doubt that their training and ability was top drawer. However, to be honest, I have to wonder if my foreignness to them is a barrier to how much they might care for me as a patient. Would they not naturally care more for someone with my condition who was from among their people than they care for an aging cis-gendered Christian white male like myself? When one is desperately sick, those issues go through my mind even if scant few think like that today. I want to know my physician cares about me and can’t he care for me more were he a WASP like myself? Wouldn’t he naturally care for me more if he had a WASP name like myself — a name like Pete, John, or Sam, as opposed to a name that looks like it had never met a  vowel it liked?

 

I saw the usual assortment of tattoos, evidence of “alternate” lifestyles (if all lifestyles are accepted now can we really even use the word “alternate” any longer?) It’s all very different from the hospital personal who, even into my twenties, were all wearing pretty white dresses with pretty funny little white hats. (I married a nurse and I still remember her pretty white dresses.) Today they wear color coded scrubs and you might be more likely to be cared for by a very nice butch Lesbian nurse as you are cared for by a cis-gendered Christian white female. This is also very different from the world I remember.

One brief conversation encapsulates what I am getting at. There was a change of shift and the new nurse came in to introduce herself. She said her name was “Jon.” As I was listening with my old 1959 ears I just assumed she said “Joni” having never met a female before with the name “Jon.” I responded by saying, “You can call me ‘Mr. McAtee,’ or ‘Bret’ I don’t really care.” She immediately laughed with a kind of nervous laugh saying “Mr. McAtee,” as if the idea of addressing me that way would be a joke. Whereupon she immediately addressed me as “Bret.” You can see why I say that the “world has passed me by.”

A word to be fair … the people who work in those hospital settings are slammed with working conditions that are over the top. The ER I was in was wall to wall with people. It looked like a triage setting in a MASH unit. I was a fortunate one to have a room. I was fortunate to have been processed as fast as I was. I can envision that many very sick people have to wait a very long time to get care. I did not have to wait.

I realize that the world I inherited is gone and is not likely to return. Like the ante-bellum South after the War against Northern Aggression and like the Russian people after the Bolshevik Jews took over, the world I grew up in is “gone with the wind.” It is unlikely to return. That doesn’t mean something better won’t come. It does mean that the world I inherited, lived in and so presupposed is not going to be seen and so I have to quit being surprised at this different world in which I now live as the alien and stranger.

I Cor. 15:58 — New Years 2023

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
I Corinthians 15:58

“Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. ”  Galatians 6:9

As we come to vs. 58 we see one of St. Paul’s famous “therefore” statements. When we run across these “therefore” statements (and Paul does this frequently in his writing) we must work to remind ourselves of the connectivity between what is about to be said and what has just been said.

And so, briefly, Paul has just argued that Christians can be confident of the coming Resurrection. Christian can be certain of their final triumph and this because Jesus Christ has triumphed. Their resurrection from the death of sin to the life of righteousness is a pledge of your participation in Christ’s resurrection from the grave. Paul says now, in light of all this reality

THEREFORE …

Therefore—because you are sure of the victory—be steadfast,” 

Therefore.–Because all this is so–because there is a life hereafter that we know we will share in–let this life here be worthy of that life to come that we are now participating in by being in Christ.

It should say something to us about Christianity that a chapter which leads us step by step by a irresistible logic  and arresting eloquence into the teaching of the Resurrection and immortality leads to the invoking of a “therefore” that throws all of us back upon the most plain and practical of duty. It should teach us that Christianity knows nothing where teaching is all abstraction and theory with no mention of Casuistry. Any Christianity that severs the life line between the life which is to come from the life that now is should come with signs stapled to it saying “there be dragons here.”

Notice also, before we get to the meat of the matter how St. Paul starts here. He addresses these Corinthians as “beloved.” This word is derivative of the Greek Word Agape. It is the tenderest and most resilient of all type of loves possible. I only bring this out to note how gentle Paul could be. If there ever was a Church that was populated by sundry and various rapscallions it was the Church in Corinth. Why, it was almost as bad as the modern Western Church. And yet, St. Paul calls these vexatious Christians… “Beloved.”

It would do well for all of us to pray that God might give us this kind of love for those in the Church who are troublesome, vexing, irritating, and downright distasteful. Paul was not being hypocritical here. He calls the Corinthians “Beloved” precisely because he loved them. May the triune God enlarge our  own hearts so that we both genuinely love all the saints and so that we realize it is we ourselves who really are the worst of all rapscallions.

It really is a matter of discernment here on our parts. Calvin said that God has given the minister two voices. One voice to drive off the wolves and one voice to gather the lambs. We have seen, on repeated occasions where St. Paul has used his “drive off the wolves” voice. Here we see his “gather the lambs” voice.

So the inspired Apostle writes,

Therefore — that is — “Seeing that you ought not to despair, but to share in this confidence of triumph.” —

Be Ye Steadfast.

The idea here is they were to be firmly fixed in your own conviction

Paul will say something similar in Colossians 1:23 where he writes that the Colossians are

not (to be) move(d) from the hope held out in the gospel.

And the singular mind of God speaks again as John says in 2John 9

9 Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.

The duty that St. Paul enjoins upon the Corinthians in light of the Doctrine given them in chapter 15 is to “be ye steadfast.”

steadfast
ἑδραῖοι (hedraioi)
Strong’s 1476 — Sitting, seated; steadfast, firm, fixed. From a derivative of hezomai; sedentary, i.e. immovable.

St. Paul is calling for the recipients of his letter to not easily change.

Steadfast people are people who are implacable and because of that they are single minded. Steadfast people will not be moved. If the immovable that  comes next has to do with not being moved by others, steadfast would refer to not turning aside ourselves.

St. Paul is telling them to be laser-focused… single minded… hell bent for leather in the Christian life.

St. Paul understood that this Christian virtue of steadfastness was necessary for the Christian life. He had enough experience with those who had been the opposite of steadfast. Let’s call the opposite of being Mr. steadfast “Mr. Change with every wind of doctrine.”

If you remember St. Paul had to deal with men in his ministry who had abandoned him. There was Demas. There was Alexander the Coppersmith. There was, to his mind at least, even John Mark. To the contrary, St. Paul himself was the epitome of the steadfastness for which he is calling for. Perhaps no Christian throughout the annals of time was more steadfast than St. Paul.

For decades now steadfastness has been comparatively easy for a Christian but the time is  coming and now is wherein we are going to discover how difficult and at the same time how necessary this steadfastness  is. I suspect that the times are upon us when the Christian life is going to require a good deal of grit. Steadfastness is one component of the grit that is going to be required.

And remember, the steadfastness that is being called for is derivative of the confidence that we have that the victory as seen in the doctrine of the Resurrection which St. Paul had so thoroughly discussed. Our steadfastness is the byproduct of our certainty that we share in Christ’s victory. St. Paul, in order to anchor their steadfastness, points to the sinless Man – to the fulfilled idea of Christ. His argument previously, which all could understand, is summed up in the words, “Ye are Christ’s, and Christ is risen.” Your resurrection from the death of sin to the life of righteousness is a pledge of your participation in Christ’s resurrection from the grave therefore, because all that is true, be steadfast.

Well, fellow Christian, will your resolve right now again, that you won’t back down and that you will stand your ground? Will you resolve to be steadfast in light of the victory we have in Christ?

Being steadfast is not one of those particularly glamourous virtues. It just means remaining certain in our Christian convictions in a long direction. It means not being fickle or indecisive.

In a post-modern age this kind of steadfastness can be hated even as among our own midst. I had a Christian minister friend once who told me he how he was chided once by his leadership because in the pulpit he came across as “too certain about the matters of Faith” The complaint in essence was that he was too steadfast. What a strange world we inhabit when ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are chided for being too steadfast regarding our undoubted catholic Christian faith.

Well, in 2023 let us resolve to continue to be steadfast.

Let us push on here because we are also called here to be

 

Unmoveable. By others (Ephesians 4:14). Abounding in the work of the Lord. Doing diligently and ungrudgingly the work of your lives, which is his work. That your labour is not in vain. The thought of the verse is the same as that of Galatians 6:9, “And let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”   4. A fourth point to be observed is the wisdom with which St. Paul holds himself aloof from speculative fancies, he does not, like Plato, appeal to the doctrine of “reminiscence” (anamnesis), or of unfulfilled ideas. He does not, like Kant, build any argument on man’s failure to obey “the categorical imperative” of duty.

steadfast
ἑδραῖοι (hedraioi)
Adjective – Nominative Masculine Plural
Strong’s 1476: Sitting, seated; steadfast, firm, fixed. From a derivative of hezomai; sedentary, i.e. immovable.

St. Paul is calling for the recipients of his letter to not be easily changed.

Steadfast people are people who are implacable and because of that they are single minded. Steadfast people will not be moved. If the immovable that is comes next has to do with not being moved by others, so steadfast would refer to not turning aside ourselves.

St. Paul understood that this Christian virtue of steadfastness was necessary for the Christian life. He had enough experience with those who had been the opposite of steadfast. If you remember St. Paul had to deal with men in his ministry who had abandoned him. There was Demas. There was Alexander the Coppersmith. There was, to his mind at least, even John Mark. To the contrary, St. Paul himself was the epitome of the steadfastness for which he is calling for. Perhaps no Christian throughout the annals of time were more steadfast than St. Paul.

For decades now steadfastness has been comparatively easy for a Christian but the time is  coming and now is wherein we are going to discover how difficult and at the same time how necessary this steadfastness  is. I suspect that the times are upon us when the Christian life is going to require a good deal of grit. Steadfastness is one component of the grit that is going to be required.

And remember, the steadfastness that is being called for is derivative of the confidence that we have that the victory as seen in the doctrine of the Resurrection which St. Paul had so thoroughly discussed. Our steadfastness is the byproduct of our certainty that we share in Christ’s victory. St. Paul, in order to anchor their steadfastness, points to the sinless Man – to the fulfilled idea of Christ. His argument, which all could understand, is summed up in the words, “Ye are Christ’s, and Christ is risen.” Your resurrection from the death of sin to the life of righteousness is a pledge of your participation in Christ’s resurrection from the grave therefore, because all that is true, be steadfast.

Well, fellow Christian, will your resolve right now again, that you won’t back down and that you will hold your ground? Will you resolve to be steadfast in light of the victory we have in Christ?

St. Paul also calls them to be immovable

[and] immovable.
ἀμετακίνητοι (ametakinētoi)
 Strong’s 277 — Immovable, firm. Immovable.

If the call to be steadfast was in reference to one’s self, this call to be immovable is likely in reference to not allowing one’s self to be moved off the dime of truth by others. So steadfastness is self directed and immovable is directed to the negative influence of others.

What is expressed here between the two then is the idea of Christian perseverance in general, under the figure of standing firm.  The Greek word here presents the perseverance more precisely as unseduceableness being in opposition to the possible seductions through the deniers of the resurrection.

Here St. Paul is calling the Corinthians, when it comes to the matters of what we know we believe and why we believe it to be pig-headed. If the call here is to be unseduceable it is because there are so many out there who are seeking to seduce. It was the case in the 1st century, and it remains the case now that it is huge marketplace of ideas. These different ideas — like the denial of the resurrection — look so shiny but St. Paul calls them to be immovable.

We are to be steadfast and unmovable on the doctrines of the Christian faith, one of which is the reality of the resurrection. We would of course note there are others such as the Deity of Jesus Christ, the idea of substitutionary atonement, the centrality of covenant, the importance of the visible Church as Institution where one can receive the means of grace. Currently cutting edge doctrines of the Christian faith that we must be steadfast and unmovable on is the idea that grace does not destroy nature but that grace renews nature and the exhaustive Sovereignty of Jesus Christ over every area of life.

So what has St. Paul said here? He has said we Christians are to be the stability of our times. We are to be steadfast and unmovable. Cinder blocks of truth that are not going to budge.

Now, if we are to be those cinderblocks of truth that are steadfast and unmovable then we need to be consumed with a desire to know the truth and upon knowing it, not to be moved from it.

Paul is not quite yet done. The man is always completely thorough in his arguments. He now gives the “do this” side that compliments his do not be moved side. He writes these Corinthians to be;

“always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” I Corinthians 15:58

Always
πάντοτε (pantote)
Adverb
Strong’s 3842: Always, at all times, ever. From pas and hote; every when, i.e. At all times.

Note here that we are to be always abounding in the work of the Lord. The call is not to be always abounding in the work of the Lord when we are in the grace realm while always abounding in the work of Natural Law when we are in the common realm. No, we are, as Christians, to be always and at all times to be abounding in the work of the Lord. There are not some areas we walk in where we are not to be abounding in that area in the work of the Lord.

excel
περισσεύοντες (perisseuontes)
Strong’s 4052; From perissos; to superabound, be in excess, be superfluous; also to cause to superabound or excel.

Now the question might be raised … “What is the work of the Lord in which we are to be abounding?

And our catechism answers that question;

Question 91: But what are good works?

Answer: Only those which proceed from a true faith,5 are performed according to the law of God,6 and to His glory;7 and not such as are founded on our imaginations or the institutions of men.8

One more observation;

Knowing your labor is not in vain.

Why does the Apostle write this? It is really quite simple. He writes this because that is what he is fighting against. He is fighting against a people who might be concluding that their labor unto Christ is in vain since it has been argued that the resurrection was past. No, Paul says, your labor is not in vain. You good works will follow you. You will hear the “well done thou good and faithful servant.”

There is a temptation always in this life to say “What’s the worth.” Vanity of vanity all is vanity.” Paul steps up to the mic here and says, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “You labor is not in vain.” As Francis Schaffer used to say… “No little people. No little places.”

Here we are tucked in Chartucky Michigan or in other like places. It might be easily to conclude that our labor is in vain. But of course it is not. We must not let the enemy discourage us. We must not let our own diminutive statures convince us that our labors are in vain. God has told us our labors are not in vain therefore we know that to be the truth.

Because all this is true, therefore, let us take these for our New Years Resolutions for 2023

1.) I will be steadfast
2.) I will be immovable
3.) I will be always abounding in the work of the Lord
4.) I will remind myself at every turn that my Labor is not in vain

 

 

 

What Reformed Luminaries Are Saying Regarding What Constitutes The Essence Of Christianity

“Luther understood that the Christian life was a life of suffering. The essence of Christianity is to see one’s rights trampled and not demand them. To stand up and say I demand my rights, as a Christian, is precisely the violation of everything the gospel is about.”

High Profile Reformed Leader
Reputed to be a Pillar in the Church

I must admit that this drives me mad. I become unhinged at these kinds of statements.

1.) The Christian life is indeed characterized by suffering but the suffering arises out of Christians pressing for the crown rights of King Jesus in every area of life. Inasmuch as what we are contending for is consistent with the teaching of Scripture there is nothing evil about Christians demanding to be treated in the ways Scripture says that all men should treat one another.

2.) I am currently dealing with 3 marriages where one spouse is just being horrid to another spouse. Is the counsel I am supposed to give the spouse that is being tyrannized; “You know, Jesus loves it when you gladly accept the tyranny of your spouse. Indeed, The essence of Christianity is to see your rights trampled aby your spouse nd not demand them. You are most like Jesus when you are gladly embracing the tyranny of your spouse.”

3.) By this reasoning all the warriors of the Christian faith from Martel to Don Juan to Sobieski to Cromwell were all acting in a non Christian manner by standing up for their rights.

4.) St. Paul appealed to his rights as a Roman citizen in Acts 22-23.  Are we to believe that Paul missed the essence of Christianity?

5.) Luther himself stood up for his rights when he said “Here I stand. I can do no other.” He stood up for the rights of all Germans/Christians against Rome’s malfeasance. Indeed, the very reason Rome hated Luther, the Reformers, and the Reformation so much is that the Protestants were standing for their rights as revealed in Scripture. It was Rome who would have argued that the very essence of Christianity was to see the rights of the Reformers trampled. It was Rome who argued that the Reformers should just be quiet about their rights as taught by Scripture. It was the Reformers who wanted the right of letting the Bible speak without the Magisterium.

6.) This quote is the language of every tyrant.

7.) This kind of reasoning is the result of both Pietism and Amillennialism. No Postmillennial would ever talk like this. Amillennialism expects defeat in space and time and so they develop their theology so as to guarantee the defeat that their theology demands them to expect. Pietism on the other hand is a retreatist disposition that believes that Christians shouldn’t get involved in worldly things. Saying that Christians shouldn’t insist upon how God insists that they should be treated is consistent with both Amillennialism and Pietism.

8.) With this statement this leader condemns the Dutch resistance against Catholic Spain in the 16th-17th century. With this statement  he condemns action of the English Protestants against King Charles I. With this statement  he condemns Knox’s contretemps with Queen Mary. With this statement he condemns the American war for Independence. Per  our Reformed leader they all missed what the “gospel is all about.”

9.) This is doormat theology. The Christian is most holy when they are most abused. Certainly, Christians suffer. Certainly, Christians see their rights trampled when there is nothing they can do about it and they gladly suffer for Christ and the Kingdom when there is nothing they can do about it. However, to say that expecting that Elders, Magistrates, and Husbands, should never be resisted when they are trampling on the privilege afforded to Christians per God’s Word is just complete and utter bunkum.

And I don’t care the credentials of who says it.

Touching DeMar’s and Burgess’ Conversation on Consistent Preterism

OK … I’ve listened to the first two parts of Gary DeMar’s interview with consistent Preterist Kim Burgess.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gary-demar-podcast/id1500969161

See the episodes;

1.) One Diamond, Many Facets
2.) Dissection or Vivisection

So far, nothing has been said that is necessarily a red flag. However, there are some questions that need to be asked.

Kim uses the Murray model of Redemption accomplished and Redemption Applied. Kim insists that the Redemption accomplished is an objectively completed act finding its final act in the events of AD 70 and Jesus judgment coming against Israel. There Israel’s OT eschatology was fulfilled as they had their long promised “Day of the Lord.” However, their remains a not yet in fulfillment (redemption applied) that is applicational in nature.

The question that needs to be put to Kim is whether or not his Redemption Accomplished model means that the following have been completed;

1.) Great White Throne Judgment

2.) Christ’s 2nd Advent that is promissory of a resurrected world
3.) Resurrection of the saints
4.) Casting death into hell

Now, I have chatted with Kim in the past and he has insisted that there is no resurrection of the body though there remains a resurrection of the person to receive a body befitting them.

We can subscribe to Kim’s model when it provides, for example, the current reality of positional sanctification (redemption accomplished), while at the same time insisting on progressive sanctification in terms of redemption applied. We can subscribe to Kim’s model when it provides an already, now, and not yet as definitive, progressive, and eschatological in terms of time markers. I even had no necessary problem with saying that the Old Testament eschatology of Israel was fulfilled with the first advent of Christ.

The problem arises with the seeming denial of this part of the Apostle’s creed;

I believe (Jesus) will come again to judge the quick and the dead.

And

I believe the resurrection of the body.

I don’t believe those are small matters that can be swept aside. Indeed, the denial of these confessional article strike me as approaching a denial of the Christian faith.

It would also help if Kim would explain how his position isn’t the position of Hymenaeus and Philetus. These two men had departed from the truth. They had said that the resurrection had already taken place, and they destroyed the faith of some.

If Kim’s position is that the resurrection that was referenced in the NT was the spiritual resurrection of Old Covenant Israel How does Kim’s explanation avoid Hymenaenism? The resurrection that Hymenaeus was denying certainly wasn’t Old Covenant Israel’s resurrection.

I also don’t agree with Kim’s sneering dismissal of systematic theology and his favor of Biblical theology. It seems he should take his own advice and see these two in a “both and” approach as opposed to the “either, or” he seems to be advocating. I would note that Biblical theology as a discipline really didn’t come around until the 19th century and was only rescued from Liberalism by the work Geerhardus Vos. So, compared to Systematic theology, Biblical theology is a Johnny come lately. Also, I would note that in my estimation Biblical theology can’t even begin to get traction without Systematic theology categories. It is systematic theology that give us categories of sin, righteousness, salvation, covenant, etc. Biblical theology says it is just beginning with the text but every beginning point I would contend begins because of some previous systematic presupposition. I say this as someone who loves Biblical theology. I’ve read tons in both categories. I quite agree that systematic theology needs Biblical theology but I also insist that Biblical theology needs systematic theology. In my estimation, it is a matter of “both, and.”

I do agree with Kim that too many ministers/theologians read the Scripture too one dimensionally (too flat). I also continue to insist that Kim has a certain brilliance and so he should be heard out. I can seriously say that I wished I could make all the connections in Scripture that Kim makes. Keep in mind that I could say much the same of J. Stuart Russell’s work “The Parousia,” though I think him wrong when he goes all Full Preterist.