Zuidema & McAtee On The Ecclesiasticizing of Christianity

“The ecclesiasticizing of religion necessarily calls into being the profaning of the non-ecclesiastical area …. the ecclesiasticized church calls into being a secularized world… The more church becomes ecclesiasticized, the more it will profane life outside the church and abandon it to profanation… The more the Church profanes life, the less it becomes the humble servant of Christ and his spiritual world dominion… people lament, certainly not without justification, about the ongoing secularization of life in the lands populated and governed by Western peoples. Concurrent with this secularization comes the distressing problem…and oppressive reality of human emancipation as the self-liberation out of the bonds to God and his Word… This is a problem which, unless it leads man to retrace his steps in this emancipation, will irretrievably abandon us to nihilism and the destruction of every last human worth, human honor, human value, and human responsibility…”

S. U. Zuidema

Communication and Confrontation

1.) Ecclesiasticizing of religion = Christianity existing only for the sake of the church. This is the goal and object of Radical Two Kingdom “theology.”

2.) This is merely the admission that if Christianity is to retreat from the public square the consequence will be a vacuum that is filled by some other prevailing religion that shapes and informs the public square. The public square can never be “neutral.” The public square is always the incarnation and thus expression of some religion. The public square only exists as being animated by religion.

3.) It is true that the public square because of secularization becomes increasingly profane. However, the profanation of the secular realm for the Christian is the divinizing or sacralizing of the public square as consistent with the tenets of the false religion that is shaping and informing the public square. In other words the profanation of the public square according to the standards of the Christian religion becomes the sacralizing of the public square according to the standards of whatever religion replaces Christianity. It’s not that the public square is no longer set apart as belonging to the God of Christianity. It is that the public square is set apart as belonging to the god of some other faith system (religion).

4.) Radical Two Kingdom Theology (R2Kt) is doing the devil’s work and as such ministers who imbibe R2K theology are of their Father the devil, intentionally or unintentionally. They are doing the work of the devil because in their work to ecclesiasticize the Christian faith they are de-Christianizing the public square in favor of some other religion which will fill the vacuum that their de-sacralizing the public square has done.

5.) When the Christian religion is ecclesiasticized the consequence is that men are released from the guiding ethos of the Christian faith. Being thus “liberated,” from Christianity in their everyday living because of the clergy’s work to ecclesiasticize the Christian faith men instantly experience bondage to some other false demon god. If men will not have the freedom that comes from living in the constraints of God’s Word then they will live in bondage to false demon gods who promise absolute libertinism. How free is a goldfish who has been set free from their fish bowl? How free is a train that is free from it’s tracks? The R2K false religion, because it ecclesiasticizes the Christian religion is guaranteed to be the greatest engine of bondage ever invented by Satan’s engineers.

6.) Unless the Lord Christ grants Reformation and renewal and delivers us from this sulfur laden doctrine of R2K that ecclesiasticizes the Christian faith mankind will continue to de-man themselves in pursuit of ever greater expressions of “freedom.” This in turn will lead to the nihilism that Zuidema speaks of, as well “as the destruction of every last human worth, human honor, human value, and human responsibility…” If the public square will not be ruled by the standards of a vibrant Christianity that informs and applies to the public square then the consequence will be the loss of true meaning and then the loss of the manishness of man. Finally, the coup de grâce will be the loss of Christianity in the ecclesial (the Church). If all that surrounds the Church is a public square that is being governed by the impulse of a false religion then the inevitable consequence is that the Church itself will fall to the public square god that was given hegemony by a Christian Church that had ecclesiasticized the Christian faith.

7.) This is not some kind of children’s game. If we cannot arrest this demonic work of ecclesiasticizing the Christian religion we will have reached a pivot in the history of mankind wherein we will find a great descent of darkness falling upon mankind.

Quoting Dr. Charles Hodge From His Theological Journal Article; “Emancipation”

Numerous people in “Reformed” “Churches” today are going after a handful of ministers today because they refuse to embrace what we might call “Racial Marxism.” Fathers like Dabney, Thornwell, Palmer, Girardeau, Machen, Rushdoony, and even Morton Smith are currently anathema to modern Reformed thought and so ministers today who advocate, in any measure, what those men advocated are being given the left foot of fellowship.

However, the views that these men held when it came to the issue of race were not unique to the men of the South, but were held by Reformed theologians of the North, including a giant of the Reformed faith, Dr. Charles Hodge. In a theological Journal before the War Against The Constitution the great Charles Hodge wrote on page 549;

“Another feature of that plan (to compensate slave owners for their freed slaves) was the expatriation of the liberated blacks. This also when feasible is wise. There are natural laws which forbid the union of distinct races in the same commonwealth. Where the difference is slight, as between Saxons and Celts, or the Teutonic and Romaic families, the different elements are soon fused. But even here we find that they often refuse to combine and remain apart for ages, the weaker constantly sinking, and the stronger constantly advancing. We have examples of this in the French payans of Canada, and Louisiana. The effect of the amalgamation of distinct races is seen in the physically, intellectually and socially degraded mongrel inhabitants of Mexico and South America. In these cases the chief elements were the Spanish and Indians, elements less widely separated than the Anglo Saxon and the Negro. The amalgamation of these races must inevitably lead to the deterioration of both. It would fill the country with a feeble and degraded population, which must ultimately perish. For it is a well ascertained fact that the mulatto is far more frail than either the white man or the negro. We read in the disastrous physical effects of the amalgamation of the blacks and whites, a clear intimation that such amalgamation is contrary to the will of God, and therefore is not an end which statesmen ought in any way to facilitate.”

Dr. Charles Hodge
Reformed Theologian – Old Princeton
Article — Emancipation 

Now, the point here is not necessarily that Charles Hodge was correct in this view. The point here is that this view was considered consistent with the Reformed faith and nobody was screaming for Hodge to be excommunicated for this view.

This compels us to ask; “Does truth change?” If it was taught for centuries that race was/is real and that certain considerations must be made because race is real (as the two books “Racialism in Sacred Tradition,” and “Who Is My Neighbor” clearly demonstrates) then how can “Reformed” denominations today be seeking to cast out clergy who hold to comparatively thin versions of what the Church has believed for millennium– and that in all times and in all places? Isn’t this demonstrating a kind of cultural or historical relativism where these “Reformed” denominations are saying that truth is culturally conditioned and so what was true for one generation is a lie and offense for another generation and so cannot be allowed?

The warfare in Reformed denominations (ARP, PCA, OPC, etc.) has to end lest these denominational bodies be seen as fighting against God.

 

The Difference Between Christian Beliefs And Popular “Christian”, Non-Christian Beliefs

If you’re clergy and you agree that the Christian faith needs to work diligently at hearing the voices of minorities because white Christians have been tone deaf on the “racism” issue chances are that you are a Marxist and not a Christian.

If you’re clergy and you think that women in the Church need to be given leadership positions in order to be “fair” chances are you are a feminist and not a Christian.

If you’re clergy and you are actively seeking out ways to get more minorities to attend your Church for the sole reason that they are minorities odds are that you are a cultural Marxist and not Christian.

If you’re clergy and can’t see the serious problem with the way the corporate lugenpresse as well as Hollyweird films, as well as politicians are force feeding us egalitarianism with the way that miscegenation is forced down our throats odds are you believe in the “Tower of Babel” project of Gen. 11 and so not Christian.

If you’re clergy and you think that Uncle Adolph is the worst person who has ever lived but you are clueless about the crimes of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao that make Uncle Addie look like a piker as well as being ignorant of the  2000 year historical conflict between Bagels and Christians I’m leaning towards the fact that you are either a member of the Communist party or are a member of the Synagogue of Satan and so are not Christian.

If you’re clergy and you “know” all about the 6 gazillion Bagels who allegedly had their fat made into soap, or their skin made into lampshades, or their bone made into fine bone china but you know nothing of the mass slaughter by the American forces of over a million unarmed Germans after WW II ended or nothing about the forced return of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers who fought against Stalin in WW II to be murdered by Stalin, (as well as civilians who had not lived in Russia for generations) you may still indeed be Christian but you’re also just downright stupid and no more belong in a pulpit than a puppy belongs in the middle of a four lane highway during rush hour.

McAtee Contra Dr. Clay Libolt On The Penal Substitutionary Doctrine Of The Atonement

On his Blog former CRC Pastor Dr. Rev. Clay Libolt begins to explore the idea that all those who hold to the Penal Substitutionary teaching of the Atonement as recorded in Scripture are advancing the idea that God is mean.

I sometimes browse Dr. Libolt’s blog (“The Peripatetic Pastor”) because;

1.) Libolt was my assigned “mentor” when I began to date the CRC. New chaps dating the CRC, according to their book of Church Order have to be assigned mentors, presumably to help the newbee wade into the denomination. This “relationship” between Clay and I was a comedy of theological/ideological explosion. It was the classic example of when an immovable force meets an unstoppable object. Clay was and remains so far left that it is difficult for me to imagine how anyone could get more left. He was in his time the Robespierre of the CRC. Of course I was and am a touch to the right. In our few meetings we would invariably, within seconds, be debating as if the world’s future depended upon convincing one another of their error. To this day, the fact that I was assigned Clay Libolt as a mentor is proof to me that the thrice Holy God has a sense of humor.

2.) I also browse Clay’s blog because it is a handy dandy way to keep up to date on the latest boneheaded theory being advanced by the “Christian” left. Clay reads a good deal of the garbage put out by the “intellectual” left and so it is a way to keep up with the latest WOKE theology. One way to keep one’s mind sharp is by knowing the enemy’s strategy and thinking.

Not that Clay or anyone else cares but I seriously doubt that Clay is a Christian in any historic or Biblical sense of the word, and yet he Pastored one of the CRC flagship churches for decades and by his own accounting had a considerable influence in the denomination, being a voice for the “progressives” as they largely solidified their hold over the denomination during the time he “served.”

Libolt, as noted above, believes that the idea that Jesus Christ, serving as the penalty bearing substitute for the elect makes God mean. Clay writes,

“‘Is God Mean?’ And, in line with the direction of my Bad Theology series, to ask whether a mean God leads to mean politics. (The answer is yes.)”

As you can see in one fell swoop, Libolt has indicted historical biblical theology and contemporary politics as being mean.

Of course a question arises that Libolt does not answer and that question is “Mean to whom?” Certainly, it could not be argued that God is mean to the elect for whom Christ was their substitute, nor I shouldn’t think it could be argued that God was mean to the reprobate who only received what they earnestly desired. I mean is it “mean” to give to people what they want and/or what they deserve?

I would say that in the Penal Substitutionary atonement the only person that God could possibly be seen as being mean to is Himself. Now, I don’t believe that but if we use Libolt’s logic then as it was God Himself in the God-Man Jesus Christ who took on His own punishment for sin then there is no meanness to anyone else since there can be no being mean to those who were substituted for nor for those who weren’t substituted for since they didn’t want to be substituted for and since they received what they deserved.

In the OT we see that what Libolt is advocating just isn’t true. In Genesis 15, God enters into covenant with Abraham and whereas traditionally both parties to a covenant would walk between the slain bodies of the covenantal sacrifices in order to communicate that if the covenant agreement should be violated what had been done to the covenantal sacrifices would be done to the party that broke covenant. However, at this crucial part of the covenant ceremony the God of the Bible who is never described as “mean” chooses to put Abraham to sleep and takes on the full weight of the covenant punishments on himself walking alone between the bodies of the slain animals.  This is a “non-mean” covenant of grace.

Then, 2000 years later, in light of the fact that Abraham and his descendents repeatedly violated covenant, God, in the incarnate Jesus Christ, does take upon Himself the covenant curses for Abraham and the true sons of Abraham. And Libolt wants to call that mean?

To the contrary, of course, it is Libolt’s theology that creates for a mean God. Libolt would have us believe a God who does not punish sin thus showing a meanness to those who have had sin visited upon them by those who are mean. Libolt’s “non-mean” God means the judicially innocent never are avenged. The countless millions abused, tortured, and slain by the Soviet and Chinese communist gulag system are told “sucks to be you.” Libolt’s “non-mean” God means is unrighteous. A sovereign God who is also not righteous is a mean God. Libolt serves a mean God and because of that Libolt advances mean politics.

Honestly, this kind of talk (writing) by Libolt has to be considered blasphemous. I continue to pray that Libolt and his leftist legions repent and so discover for the first time the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. I also pray that God would remove this kind of theology and its adherents.

Setting the Record Straight … I Was Right Then, And I Am Correct Now

 Four years ago at this time I experienced the height of slander and libel from several different media outlets. Below I quote from the Lansing State Journal online reporting. In the section I have chosen from this article I am accused by one Rev. Reggie Smith of the Christian Reformed Church of allowing the spreading a false rumor in the church I serve.

“McAtee’s sermon was like ‘any other traditional church until the prayer time came,’ (Reggie) Smith said, and a woman in the crowd of about 20 asked for prayers for the white people living in South Africa.

‘There was this supposedly false rumor that white people were being killed by Black people in South Africa, which was totally untrue,’ Smith said.

Smith said McAtee ’embraced’ her sentiment.

‘That’s when I knew this was not what I thought it would be,’ he said. ‘There’s something wrong here.’

Lansing State Journal 
Online Edition 
19 February, 2021

And now I post a testimonial from a white woman in South Africa who was 8.5 months pregnant when her husband was murdered before her very eyes, thus substantiating both the prayer requests that Smith laments and my embrace of the sentiment.

Rev. Reggie Smith was gaslighting people when he said what he said in the quote above. This is proven by the link below.

https://rumble.com/v6jwyzp-wife-of-murdered-white-south-african-farmer-calls-on-americans-to-stop-igno.html