“The More in Common” Argument Coming From the Evangelical Left

Back in August it all started with the Pope of Moscow;

“I have more in common with a Nigerian Anglican Woman than with my conservative white pagan neighbor” 

Doug Wilson 
Blog & MehBlog

Yesterday on Twitter Andy Sandlin took it up;

“The white American Christian billionaire male has more in common with the poorest Christian sub-Saharan female than he does any of his unconverted countrymen.”

Andrew Sandlin
Twitter

And R. C. Sproul Jr, the Doyen of “being famous for being famous” agrees;

“Hard to believe anyone could question this. I guess those who do have this in common with the woke- believing demographic identity is greater than identity in Christ. Stay strong brother. “

R. C. Sproul Jr.
Responding to Doc Sandlin
Twitter

Clearly we are seeing a Gnostic theme gaining steam here. As such let’s examine this for a moment.

In our examination we will go with the humorous sarcastic lampooning side first. This from my friend Thomas Achord;

“Christianity trumps any marriage. The Christian husband has more in common with his neighbor’s Christian wife than he does with his own unconverted wife. Christian men and women should transcend their individual marriages and embrace the universal marriage ideal.”

Similarly we could add;

“Christianity trumps any parental arrangement. The Christian child has more in common with the Christian parents next door than he does with his own unconverted parents. Christian children should transcend their individual parentage arrangements and embrace the universal Christian parenting ideal, since, after all, they have more in common.”

Pressing on we could note how these statements by Wilson, Sandlin and Sproul 2.0 lack precision. Certainly we can all agree that as it pertains to eternal verities we have more in common with a Biblical Christian version of Richard Nikolaus Eijiro, Count of Coudenhove-Kalergi than I have with my cousins who are outside of Christ. However, when it comes to every day matters like supporting a Burkean like social order, or longing for the good old days of Strom Thurmond’s “Dixiecrats,” or the preference for a good old country Fish Fry, or going Coon hunting or setting a trotline or attending a lecture on Great Southern Generals I suspect that I have more in common with the unbelieving good old boys of South Carolina who lived in the community I once Pastored then I do with Wilson, Sandlin, Sproul 2.0 and their ilk.

Think about it. If I were to draw a 90 mile radius with my congregation in the center I would have within that radius many Reformed Churches. I can guarantee you that except for abstract statements that comprise Biblical, Historical, and Systematic theology I would have much more in common with at least some of those Christ hating in that radius than I would many of those in “Reformed Churches.” Truth be told, I don’t find too much in common with “Reformed” Christians anymore as Iron Ink constantly testifies to.

Also down this line in order for me to talk about all that I have in common with any other Christian we better be defining what we mean by Christian. For example, the presumption of charity requires that I believe that Wilson, Sandlin, and Sproul 2.0 are all Christian but I clearly have a hard time finding common ground with these people. I mean, we would agree on any number of abstract theological statements but we are seeing that when it comes to the concrete — not so much. Or we could take the R2K “Reformed” church in Lansing Michigan. The presumption of charity requires I count the Pastor and staff there Christian but I guarantee you that I have even less in common with those people than I do Wilson, Sandlin, and Sproul 2.0. In point of fact, I think those people with their R2K are treasonous baseborn. But if I can make it into the gates of heaven by God’s grace alone so can they and so I count them Christians that I don’t have spit in common with. Similarly, we could talk about liberal Christian ministers who I used to gather with for confabs. Not much in common with those people either.

All this to say that to go around talking the way Wilson, Sandlin, and Sproul 2.0 talk demonstrates a lack of precision that is embarrassing for a minister and frankly, like it or not, in this environment it does come across as Gnostic and Cultural Marxist all at the same time.

To argue this way, is not to proclaim, contra Sproul 2.0, that I am claiming some common ground with the WOKE crowd over common ground with Wilson, Sandlin, and Sproul 2.0. The ironic fact of the matter is that it is Wilson, Sandlin and Sproul 2.0 who are sharing the common ground with the WOKE crowd. Both the WOKE crowd and the Christianity of Wilson, Sandlin, and Sproul 2.0 are screaming at people that nature either doesn’t exist or isn’t important. WOKE teaches that there is no such thing as nature. Wilson, Sandlin, Sproul 2.0 and their legion ilk are saying instead that grace destroys nature. They are in essence saying that once Christians are converted then who they were prior to being Christians, as considered according to who they were as God created them, is extinguished.

Maleness or Femaleness — In Christ gone.
Italian or Irish — In Christ gone.
Age — In Christ gone.
White, Yellow, Brown — In Christ Gone.

All of this passing as Christianity is not a great deal different from what we did in High School at a party when we emptied every kind of alcohol we could find into one container in order to chug it down.

As I recall, we called that drink, “A suicide.”

The Left’s Invoking of Morality & Examining the Left’s Distinguishing of Patriotism & Nationalism

In the last 24 hours I have seen people on the Left make arguments built upon an appeal to “moral values.” I always enjoy the Left invoking the “moral values” argument because they never tell us where they are getting their moral values from. They invoke moral values and at the same time do everything they can to undermine traditional Christian Western moral values. Were I a cynical person I’d believe that they are cynically invoking a morality that they don’t themselves believe but know that hoi polloi believe and on the basis they expect the hoi polloi to get their minds right.

What is interesting in the two examples I am using for this article is that “moral values” are being invoked to support immorality. Our first examples comes from the French President (Macron) who married someone old enough to be his mother. Bridgette Macron had children her future husband’s own age. Be leery of the moral values of any world leader who marries someone old enough to be his mum.

Anyway, here is the French President’s quote;

“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism…nationalism is the betrayal of patriotism. By saying we put ourselves first and the others don’t matter, we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what makes it great, and what is essential: its moral values.”

Wouldn’t it be helpful here to know where Macron is getting the idea of moral values from? Was is the standard for Macron wherein he derives his moral values? Macron is a strong supporter of Abortion. Macron is a strong supporter of euthanasia. Where do these moral values come from upon which Macron makes such broad sweeping statements? If a nation holds dearest its moral values … if a nation is given life by its moral values … if a nation is made great by its moral values where is Macron finding these moral values. What is the source of Macron’s moral values that allows him to declaim that nationalism is evil?

Of course in asking about this question of where does Macron’s moral values come from – moralism that allows for killing babies and old people but does not allow for nationalism – we do not consider the absolute idiocy of opposing Patriotism to Nationalism.

First we consider the meaning of “Patriotism.”

From French patriote (15c.) and directly from Late Latin patriota “fellow-countryman” (6c.), from Greek patriotes “fellow countryman,” from patrios “of one’s fathers,” patris “fatherland,” from pater (genitive patros) “father” (see father (n.)); with -otes, suffix expressing state or condition.

Now we consider the meaning of “Nation” from which Nationalism comes from;

c. 1300, nacioun, “a race of people, large group of people with common ancestry and language,” from Old French nacion “birth, rank; descendants, relatives; country, homeland” (12c.) and directly from Latin nationem (nominative natio) “birth, origin; breed, stock, kind, species; race of people, tribe,” literally “that which has been born,” from natus, past participle of nasci “be born” (Old Latin gnasci), from PIE root *gene- “give birth, beget,” with derivatives referring to procreation and familial and tribal groups.

Clearly Macron has his head up his southern most aperture if he thinks he can make the word “Patriotism” oppose the word “Nationalism” in their essence of meaning. In other words, Macron is gaslighting people here.

It might be handy to keep this knowledge in your back pocket because it is not only French Presidents who try to pull of this linguistic charlatanism but American “Evangelicals” as well are constantly trying to play Patriotism off against Nationalism. There is even a book out by one Adam Wyatt titled, “Biblical Patriotism: An Evangelical Alternative To Nationalism,” as if Nationalism can’t be Biblical also.

This attempt to play Patriotism (Angels sing) off against Nationalism (Devil’s poke with pitchfork) is just the kind of thing that Doug Wilson or one of his CREC lapdogs (insert Crosspolitic podcast guys here) would try to sell. When one takes off the veneer what one sees is the ongoing attempt to introduce the idea that we love our own kin and family best when we allow the foreigner, stranger, and alien (Macron’s “others”) to eliminate us (White Western Christians) as a people. In Macron’s world and in the world of Evangelical leaders today Patriotism is the word used to describe what it means for White Western Christians to embrace the suicide cult that is now the new definition of Christianity and Nationalism is the word used about the evil vile people who resist the New World Order with its required ethno-masochism, xenophilia, and oikophobia.

To be a good Patriot today means one gets on the trains taking you to the death camps without murmuring. To be a good Nationalist today means taking your children’s and grandchildren’s inheritance and giving it to Pablo, Mohamed, and Sanjay.

Our second example wherein we find one of the NWO elites invoking the importance of moral comes from Jen Psaki.

“This is not normal, moral, human behavior.”
Jen “Circle Back” Psaki
Former White House Press Secretary
Complaining about Conservatives refusal to believe the Paul Pelosi story

 

Now, what standard do you suppose Jen uses to determine “normal, moral human behavior?”

 

I love it when the left appeals to normal, moral human behavior.

Keep in mind this is a woman who believes in abortion up to birth, sodomy, transgenderism and who knows what else. This is a woman who worked for perhaps the most in your face immoral administration that has ever existed and she wants to lecture Americans on “normal, moral, human behavior.”

The hubris is skull breaking outrageous.

Acknowledgement Page

Expressing gratitude can be a losing proposition because once one begins one is bound to not express enough gratitude to enough people and so one can disappoint those who were instrumental in a project that should not have been overlooked. Forgive me for overlooking you.

The way these acknowledgement pages work, I’ve noticed, is to remind the reader that any insights are the fruit of learning from others more intelligent and wise than one’s self while any errors belong uniquely to the author of the finished product. That is true again in what is now in your hands. I have come up with nothing originally original. Any ability to pick apart R2K is due to the mentoring of Dr. Glenn R. Martin that began in 1977. Dr. Martin taught us to see life as a unity underneath the express authority of Jesus Christ.  I extend thanks thus to this great saint who though now part of the Church at rest, still speaks through me.

I am thankful for the conversation partners Mark Van Der Molen and Mark Chambers. They spent countless hours with me on the phone and in person listening to my rants and adding their important insights. They have both been good friends and fellow warriors in this project and have been pushing me to write this book for some time. Thank you Mark & Mark.

I extend sincere gratitude to Dr. Adi Schlebusch. Dr. Schlebusch connected me with his Pactum Institute and then asked me to write this book. That was a gamble and I am thankful he took it. Thank you Adi also for proof-reading. I likewise am thankful for Ruben Alvarado and Pantocrator press for publishing this modest work.

I shouldn’t forget thanking my R2K enemies. You know who you are. In your contrariness and vitriol expressed against me you only sharpened my arguments and made me more convinced that “Rabbi Bret” was right. Thanks gang. You made this book possible.

I cannot forget to tell the congregation I serve “Thank You.” They have patiently allowed me to pursue this subject. They have listened to numerous sermons and lessons on this subject. Many of them could probably write this book by now since I have banged so hard on the subject over the years. Thank you Saints of Christ members at Charlotte Christ the King Reformed Church.

Then there are my children, Laura-Jane, Anna, and Anthony. Y’all brought the stability into my life that made such a project possible. Y’all were patient while I read late into the night and wrote later into the wee hours of the morning. You put up with me carrying my books to your every event and didn’t mind me (too much) multi-tasking. All of you will never know how thankful to the Lord Christ I am for your presence in my life.

Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to my wife to whom I dedicate this volume. Jane, you have been both my muse and my sounding board. Thank you for your patience with me being distracted while I continued to sort all this (and much more) out. No minister ever had a better woman to be “the Pastors wife.” Thank you seems insufficient but all the gratitude I have is all yours.

And now this portion of the project is complete. More could be said but enough has been said for now. It is my prayer that this book contributes to the destruction of Radical Two Kingdom Theology.

McAtee Contra Mattson on Nationalism

“For my part, I will start by repudiating all of these tired old forms of “post-liberalism.” Because it will not end any differently than it did the last time.”

Dr. Brian Mattson

Substack Article

One of the “tired old forms of ‘post-liberalism’ that Mattson is rejecting is Nationalism. Indeed, the whole article is given over to why Nationalism is evil and how it alone is the reason for two world wars in the 20th century. Of course, in order to conclude that one has to ignore the Internationalism that was seeking to conquer the world in the 20th century. One has to ignore as well that a particular and unique kind of Nationalism arose in the 20th century precisely as a defensive mechanism against the Internationalism being floated by the Bolsheviks. Perhaps Mattson is right that Nationalism has killed its millions but he fails to remember that Internationalism killed its scores of millions. Mattson further fails to remember that all because a wicked Nationalism existed in the 20th century that doesn’t mean that a Biblical Nationalism can’t exist or that those who are now advocating for Nationalism in the Church community are not all members of the Franco, Mussolini, or Hitler fan club. In short Mattson’s “lessons from history” and from Bertrand Russel (of all people) are hardly balanced or well informed.

Mattson sems also to forget in his article that in Genesis 11 the agenda wasn’t Nationalism but it was International Empire and that God’s solution to Babel was on one hand to scatter the effort at Nimrod-ian Internationalism while at the same time to raise up a confederation of Tribes, through the lineage of one man (Abraham) to be a Nation that would be a light to the Gentiles. Mattson likewise seems to forget that Jesus himself sanctions nations — and by extension nationalism — when, in giving the Great Commission, He commands His Lieutenants to “Disciple the Nations.” Mattson again forgets that in the book of Revelation we find it is the Nations in their identity as Nations that are found entering into the new Jerusalem. One can easily imagine Brian saying, as he scans the Nations coming in to the New Jerusalem, “is that wicked or what?”

All this anti-Nationalism, issuing forth from Reformed-dom and Evangelicalism is a testimony to a profound misinterpretation of history as combined with a profound misinterpretation of the Scriptures. Sometimes it really seems to be the case that we are being led by the dumbest smart people the Church has ever produced.

Just exactly what is it about Liberalism that Mattson is holding on to that a theonomic Christian Nationalist order wouldn’t provide? Does he prefer the vision of the Great Reset as embraced by Klaus Schwab, Pope Francis, Yuval Noah Harari, and the Davos crowd? Does he eschew the Christian vision of Victor Orban’s Hungary because it smacks of wicked Nationalism to him? Or, as I suspect, is Mattson, like so many other of our Churchmen cognoscenti, holding on to Tolkien’s vison of Saruman? — “We’ll be a kinder and gentler Christian version of Sauron.” “Give us that Christian Orc-ian social order.”

 
 
 This is what kills me. We may be living in a time that has never seen a bigger push towards one World Internationalism and these clowns wearing  their Ph.D. degrees like extra large clown shoes are out there hanging on the cord of the clown tocsin shouting;
BEWARE NATIONALISM.

Examining Michigan’s Proposal 3 On Abortion — Part II

Wherein we continue to look at the Dr. Mengle Abortion Referendum being floated in the state of Michigan.

(1) Every individual has a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, abortion care, miscarriage management, and infertility care. An individual’s right to reproductive freedom shall not be denied, burdened, nor infringed upon unless justified by a compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means. Notwithstanding the above, the state may regulate the provision of abortion care after fetal viability, provided that in no circumstance shall the state prohibit an abortion that, in the professional judgment of an attending health care professional, is medically indicated to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual.

Bret responds,

Note that the language is sloppy — probably purposely so.

They keep using the word “individual.”

1.) If it really is the right of every individual then clearly, under this amendment, if passed, the parents of children who are twelve and thirteen who get pregnant would have no voice in whether or not their daughters are allowed to have an abortion.

For that matter, since sex is related to pregnancy what the language of this bill does is overturn all laws about statutory rape. If a 50 year old man wants to lure a 13 year old girl into a sexual relationship, under the language of this bill that is perfectly acceptable since the 13 year old girl and the 50 year old man both have;

“a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, abortion care, miscarriage management, and infertility care. An individual’s right to reproductive freedom shall not be denied, burdened, nor infringed upon…”

If an individual has a fundamental right regarding all decisions relating to pregnancy then that individual (regardless of their age or minor status) has a right to statutory rape, incest and even sterilization.

2.) Note that language above that says,

“the state may regulate the provision of abortion care after fetal viability, provided that in no circumstance shall the state prohibit an abortion that, in the professional judgment of an attending health care professional, is medically indicated…”

Health care professional?

Notice it does not say “Doctor.” A “health-care professional” is a large category. It could mean anything from a Doctor’s Physician’s Assistant to a Dentist, to a Natura-path, to a Masseur. For Pete’s sake people, this is supposed to be language amending your state constitution, not a “to do list.” In other words precision is important.

Proposal 3 offers,

(2) The state shall not discriminate in the protection or enforcement of this fundamental right.

Bret Responds,

If the state shall not discriminate we are back to the state, given this language, serving as the enforcer for abortions as potentially for children. If the State shall not discriminate this means that the state is going to enforce this reproductive “rights” for 30 year olds and 13 year olds. This language allows the State to tell Daddy and Mommy to go pound sand in their opposition to their little girl getting an abortion should the little girl want an abortion.

If this is correct then approving proposal three means that we are allowing the will of the State to trump the will of parents in cases where girls get pregnant.

Do you really want Gretchen Whitmer and Dana Nessel enforcing this right against parents?

Proposal 3 offers,

(3) The state shall not penalize, prosecute, or otherwise take adverse action against an individual based on their actual, potential, perceived, or alleged pregnancy outcomes, including but not limited to miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion…

Bret responds,

The “included but not limited to” language allows for the scenario where a woman decides to give birth to a healthy baby, puts the newborn in a garbage sack, and dumps it in the trash — thus committing infanticide — and then leaves the scene. The language above stops any investigation since such an investigation could easily be labeled as “an adverse action” against “a perceived pregnancy outcome.”

Alternately, what if a woman decides upon the birth of her “deformed” child that she doesn’t want the child and so wants it not to live. As such the “benevolent” Kevorkian type Doctor kills the child thus committing infanticide.  The language above stops any investigation since such an investigation could easily be labeled as “an adverse action” against “a perceived pregnancy outcome.”

The language of this amendment puts the State on the side of those who commit infanticide.

Proposal 3 was written by a lunatic or worse yet someone in the pocket of Planned Parenthood. Vote NO on Proposal 3.