Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
Dr. Owen Strachan is the Provost & Research Professor of Theology at Grace Biblical Theological Seminary. Dr. Strachan also hosts the “Antithesis” podcast and is author of the book, “Christianity & Wokeness.
Recently on Twitter Strachan lit out after Kinism tweeting;
“I see 2 forms of “Christian Nationalism” today: One that is problematically ethnocentric and traffics in sinful “kinism,” whatever other claims it may make: AVOID.
Kinism. Unblushing. Unhidden. Anti-gospel. Dead wrong.”
Bret responds,
One does wonder if Dr. Strychnine is only upset with white Christian Nationalism or if Dr. Strychnine would fault a Christian Nationalism that was characterized by minority communities and churches. For example is Dr. Strychnine apoplectic over Kinist churches that are uniquely Korean, Hmong, or Black which are also, per Strychnine, problematically ethnocentric or is it only white Churches that are anti-gospel and dead wrong?
I suspect that Dr. Strychnine has only a problem with white Kinism and white Nationalism. I suspect that he would be perfectly fine with minority expressions of Kinism. I know I am. I am thankful for my friendships with minority member Christian Kinists.
However, Strychnine is correct in accusing Kinism as being unblushing. It is true that we are not ashamed of Biblical Christianity.
Dr. Strychnine goes on to say,
A second that is *not* sinfully ethnocentric and that’s focused on God’s law and public good: THINK THROUGH.
The first is associated with Stephen Wolfe’s “A Case for Christian Nationalism” and his broader program, which undoubtedly has “kinist” elements. The second is being pondered by many folks, alongside matters like theonomy, postmillennialism, and the role of the church and state.
Bret responds,
1.) If people become theonomists if they are consistent they will become Ethnocentric, Kinist and Christian Nationalist. Theonomy implies ethnocentrism, kinism and Christian Nationalism.
2.) I am pretty sure that Dr. Stephen Wolfe would be appalled at the notion that he is associated with theonomy. I know that many theonomists are appalled at the notion that they would be identified with Wolfe’s Natural Law project.
3.) Dear reader you need to understand that kinism has become a acid test for Biblical Christianity. Those “Christians” who refuse kinism are to be suspect since somewhere in their DNA they have adopted Cultural Marxist (WOKE) categories. As Achord and Dow’s book “Who is My Neighbor” demonstrates what is called Kinism has been for a millennium Christianity 101. Get the anthology. Look at the quotes from Augustine, Aquinas, and the Reformers. Over and over again our Fathers were what Dr. Strychnine is warning against.
We end this entry by demonstrating Dr. Wolfe’s inconsistencies. Remember, it has been my point consistently that Wolfe’s problem is that he is all over the map on the issue of Christian Nationalism, particularly as it pertains to the ethnic component. We see that clearly in this quote and response;
“And thus while intermarriage is not itself wrong (as an individual matter), groups have a collective duty to be separate and marry among themselves.”
Stephen Wolfe
30 Sept. Twitter
Bret responds,
This is a wee bit confusing because if groups have a collective duty to be separate and marry among themselves then the expectation is going to be that the group is indeed going to insist upon the individuals who are part of their groups the truth that intermarriage is wrong. In doing so the group is taking up their collective duty to insure that their people separate and marry among themselves.
It doesn’t seem to me that one can argue that it is right for a group to act one way while saying that the individuals in that same group are not wrong for acting the opposite way.
Classical Marxists believed that man was Homo Economicus. As such the Classical Marxists understood if man was to be changed, that is, if man was to be a different product than what he was what had to be changed was the Economic pool in which man was swimming. Change the economic swimming pool environment and you will change the man. Man, the Classical Marxists thought, was a economic being and so the Classical Marxists brought their big guns out to attack class, property, ownership, means of production, capital, and capitalism. However, the goal of all that was to produce the new Soviet (Marxist) man. The means was economics but the goal was always to liberate and so change man so that he was no longer in bondage to his Feudal Overlords thus becoming the new Utopian man. Change the Economics and one changes the man.
With the rise of WW I it was seen by some Marxists that this model of change was a failure. WW I announced this failure because the workers of the world did not unite and instead the proletariat from the different nations fought against their other proletariat brothers from other nations. Some of the Marxists learned via the experience of WW I that the proletariat had a higher loyalty to country than their loyalty to class categories. Shortly thereafter some of the Marxists learned that Classical Marxism was not going to gain traction in the victorious Western nations of WW I because the proletariat worker had too much prosperity at his fingertips to be swayed by the notion that revolution would set them free. Middle class workers living a prosperous life are not going to unite in revolutionary fever to throw off the bourgeoise.
A significant number of Marxists thus began to rethink their Economic Marxism model concluding that their premise that man was Homo Economicus was inaccurate. These Marxist from the Frankfurt School, following Antonio Gramsci, began to posit that man was NOT Homo Economicus, but rather should be thought of as Homo Culturae — Man the Cultural being.
Do not miss the significance of this shift. This shift is monumental because in identifying man as being primarily a cultural being what is happening behind the curtain is that man is being identified as a primarily theological being since culture is properly defined as the outward manifestation of a distinct people’s inward beliefs. Culture is theology externalized. As such when the Frankfurt school identified man as being Homo Culturae, they hit the theological nail on the head. A form of Marxism had finally analyzed their problem correctly. The problem was not, sans the classical Marxists one of economics. The problem was one of culture/theology, and the Frankfurt school intended to change the culture/theology in order to arrive at the new Marxist Man.
Remember, Marxism was never ultimately about Economics. Marxism was about creating a new Marxist man, free of the chains that bound him societies that prevented him from reaching Utopia. Because this was true the Cultural Marxist began to abandon the Economic model of Marxism for the Cultural model of Marxism. And with this the Marxist guns were no longer primarily focused upon economic realities. Now the Marxist guns would set their sites on Western Culture with the goal, in Willi Munzenberg’s words “we must organize the intellectuals and use them to make Western Culture stink.” This was all done with the end in view of fulfilling the long primary goal of Marxists; the creation of the new Utopian man.
Just as Classical Marxism sought to save the proletariat from their being alienated from their labor, so Cultural Marxism sought to save Western man from his culture.
The goal remained the same as previously. Liberate and change Western man from his Captialist/Christian overlords. The means now with Cultural Marxism and now WOKEism to liberate and change would be by means of attacking the culture just as Classical Marxism had attacked Capitalist economic models previously.
Some other changes would be made along the way vis-a-vis Cultural Marxism (WOKEism) and Classical Marxism. There was to be not only a new proletariat but also a new bourgeoise.
The new proletariat was needed because this Marxism was no longer focusing on Economics. Remember the focus now is on culture. As such the proletariat of classical Marxism found in the “worker class” is changed out for a proletariat that is comprised of the pervert, the feminist, the academician, and minorities. All of these subgroups fit perfectly for the Cultural Marxist proletariat because all of them could be manipulated into believing that they had been aggrieved by Western man and Western civilization. Every new proletariat then requires a new bourgeoisies and the new bourgeoisie; the new despised and hated class that must be overthrown became the White Anglo Saxon non-pervert, non feminist Christian. Just as nobody wanted to be identified as bourgeoise when the Bolshevik took over in Russia so in the midst of this new form of Marxism does anybody want to be left being identified as White Anglo Saxon Christian.
Because this is true the white race, a lack of perversion, and the embrace of biblical patriarchy are to WOKEism today what the bourgeoise was to the proletariat in days of yore. These are the enemy and they can in no way be allowed to be anything but the enemy. This is so true that new categories have had to be invented in order to lump people in to the new bourgeoise even if they don’t naturally fit. As such we now have phrases like “adjacent white” which is intended to paint, for example, a minority member Biblical Christian as part of the hated bourgeoise. This explains why people like Clarence Thomas, Jason Whitlock, Larry Elder, Candace Owens, and Jamie Castillo, Keon Garraway and others are accused of “acting white” or of being “Uncle Toms,” or of being “adjacent white.”
Now it is the rush to be not seen as White or adjacent white even that explains why many white people and white churches are in such a hurry to agree with the new cultural Marxist proletariat. When this Marxist music stops, trust me, you don’t want to be left without a chair to sit in. Doubt me? Just as the inhabitants of the Soviet gulags about their version of musical chairs. Today White churches are doing all they can to be seen as card carrying members of the new proletariat.
“Theonomy is a facile hermeneutic that channels an eschatology of triumph. Historically undesirable, it instrumentalizes religion, blurs church-state relationships, and jeopardizes religious dissent. And it proves unnecessary because of how other covenants showcase the benefits of common grace and natural law.”
Andrew T. Walker
Associate Prof. – Christian ethics @ Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center
The Gospel Coalition Article
1.) If the Bible teaches a eschatology of triumph (and it does) then there is no problem with having a hermeneutic that channels an eschatology of triumph
2.) Historically undesirable according to whom? According to Satanist or Humanists or Baptist? But I repeat myself.
3.) Any religion that isn’t instrumentalized is useless as a religion.
4.) Only a Baptist would complain about the blurring of Church and State relations since the Baptist religion requires the Church and State be divorced. As such anyone who disagree with the idea that the Church and State must be divorced is someone, per the Baptists, who are guilty of blurring Church and State relations.
5.) The jeopardizing of religious dissent is a good thing when that religious dissent is dissenting against Christianity. The jeopardizing of religious dissent is only a bad thing when it is Christian dissent against false religions like Baptistianity that is being jeopardized.
6.) Common grace and natural law are myths in the way Walker wants to define them.
Doug Wilson wrote a piece entitled “That Time Virginia Flogged A Baptist,” and in that Piece Pope Doug I argues that it was wrong for the Virginia authorities to flog the Baptist. To which I reply… “Bologna.”
Why would it be wrong for God’s Magistrate to flog a person who was advocating that the public square, by consent of the laws and the Magistrates, should allow into the public square spokesmen of every God and every religion? Why is it wrong to flog somebody for teaching that the Magistrate must serve all gods in an “even-handed way” as opposed to serving the God of the Bible by not allowing advocates of other religions and gods into the public square?
Doug argues that according to Biblical standards it was wrong to flog. However, the Magistrate, Encrease Nowell, in the illustration that Wilson runs with his article (an illustration of a different Baptist being flogged roughly a century prior) told that Baptist (Obadiah Holmes) that he was being flogged because;
“ … it is for your error and going about to seduce the people,”
In this case the Magistrates were following God’s standard as expressed in the original Westminster Confession;
III. The civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the Word and sacraments, or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven:464 yet he has authority, and it is his duty, to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordainances of God duly settled, administrated, and observed.465
Wilson is just wrong in saying that it was wrong for the Virginian Magistrates a century later to flog yet another Baptist. In point of fact any religionist, like Pope Doug I who advocates the traditionally endarkenment line that the public square should be a place where all the gods are treated even-handedly should be flogged. That Baptist minister was advocating that Jesus Christ alone should not be prioritized in the public square and for that it was just, as according to God’s Word, for him to be flogged in the public square.
Look folks, the classical Liberalism that Wilson is championing is dead. It could prosper the way it did because the public square it created — a public square that was a safe place for all the gods — found the only gods in the 18th century in the American colonies being some kind of version of the Christian God being advocated. Even then though, Baptist thinking was creating a portal through which eventually other gods that were alien to Christianity would be treated in the same even handed manner. Because of Baptist theology the god of the Mormons, the god of Islam, the god of the Talmudists, the god of the Hindus are gods who are now free to walk in the public square.
Could it be that Magistrates in the 17th and 18th century understood the implications of Baptist Christianity better than Doug Wilson does today? Perhaps those Magistrates from long ago understood the danger of Baptist theology to the idea of a Christian Nation. Perhaps those Magistrates from long ago understood the danger that Baptist theology is to a distinctly Christian social order? I mean, if Roger Williams is sending a searing letter in defense of Obadiah Holmes orthodox Reformed people ought to reason that if Roger Williams is against the flogging of Obadiah Holmes that is a good reason to be for it.
It was because our Fathers didn’t keep flogging Baptist ministers in a good Christ honoring way that we are now in the place where Baptists officially champion the right of the followers of Allah to build a mosque by filing an Amicus Brief with the courts in Muslim group’s favor.
So, here’s a vote to keep flogging Baptists until they give up on the freedom of all religions to occupy the public square. This is not freedom at all for the Christian because it takes away the freedom of the Christian to have Jesus Christ alone named as King of the public square and forces Christians to abide with false gods claiming equality in sovereignty with the God of the Bible.
We are where we are in America because Roger Williams Baptist thinking won the day. Because of that we are on the edge of a time where only people who say that Jesus Christ is Lord of the public square are the ones who are now going to be flogged.
I wonder if Doug will put a good word in for us when that time comes?
We have been seeing here that Paul Gottfried is just in error when he argues that Marx is not WOKE.
And frankly, no amount of egghead nuancing is going to save Gottfried from this error because as we have been seeing WOKE is Marx and there is nothing in WOKE that can’t be traced back to Marx in principle.
PG writes,
The end goal of wokeism is universal equality, which is to be brought about through a universal state. It opposes particularity, at least in the Western white world, and works to obliterate anything that is specifically Western.
Bret Responds,
And this also has been the goal of Marxism from jump.
1.) ”What will be the attitude of communism to existing nationalities?
The nationalities of the peoples associating themselves in accordance with the principle of community will be compelled to mingle with each other as a result of this association and hereby to dissolve themselves, just as the various estate and class distinctions must disappear through the abolition of their basis, private property.”
~ Frederick Engels in “The Principles of Communism”, 1847
2.) “The equality of races and nations is one of the most important elements of the moral strength and might of the Soviet state. Soviet anthropology develops the one correct concept, that all the races of mankind are biologically equal. The genuinely materialist conception of the origin of man and of races serves the struggle against racism, against all idealist, mystic conceptions of man, his past, present and future.”
—Mikhail Nesturkh, Soviet anthropologist, 1959 “The Origin of Man” (Moscow)Mikhail Nesturkh, Soviet anthropologist, 1959:
3.) “The aim of socialism is not only to abolish the present division of mankind into small states and end all national isolation; not only to bring the nations closer together but to merge them….”
Vladimir Lenin The Rights of Nations to Self Determination — pg. 76
4.) “… Just as mankind can achieve the abolition of classes only by passing through the dictatorship of the proletariat, so mankind can achieve the inevitable merging of nations only by passing through the transition period of complete liberation of all oppressed nations, i.e., their right to secede. “
Vladimir Lenin The Rights of Nations to Self Determination
5.) “Even the natural differences within species, like racial differences…, can and must be done away with historically.”
K. Marx’s Collected Works V:103,
As cited in S.F. Bloom’s The World of Nations: A
Study of the National Implications in the Work of Karl Marx, Columbia University Press, New York, 1941, pp. 11 & 15-19:
6.) “Full-scale Communist construction constitutes a new stage in the development of national relations in the U.S.S.R., in which the nations will draw still closer together until complete unity is achieved…. However, the obliteration of national distinctions and especially of language distinctions is a considerably longer process than the obliteration of class distinctions.”
Nikita Khrushchev
Bret continues to respond to PG
So, in light of these quotes, how can Gottfried say that Marx was not WOKE? Marx is the father of WOKEism and WOKEism is the faithful child of Marx. Oh, sure, maybe WOKEism has a different hair style than its Father, and maybe it dresses slightly differently but underneath the cosmetics of WOKE is the leering ugliness of Karl Marx. Both WOKE and Marx are about having as their end goal universal equality brought about through a universal state. Both WOKE and Marx oppose particularity. Both WOKE and Marx work to obliterate anything that is specifically Western because both WOKE and Marx understood that that what was specifically Western was specifically Western because it was Christian and both WOKE and Marx intend to destroy Christianity.
PG writes,
Indeed, wokeism offers the example of a thoroughly unhinged left that Communist governments and parties, as well as the Cold War in the West, all kept in check. Wokeism privileges those with deviant sexual appetites, anti-Christian and antiwhite fixations, and repugnance for bourgeois institutions, groups whom the Communists quite properly kept from rising in their parties and governments. The Communists held generally traditional moral views even if they practiced tyranny.
Bret responds,
Note the implication here is that Communist government and parties were respectively conservative institutions when compared to the unhinged WOKE left. This is hilarious. Tell the scores of millions slaughtered by Communist governments and parties that they were slaughtered by a comparatively rightist institution. Honestly, one could make the case that it is WOKE that is comparatively right when compared to Communist governments and institutions since WOKE has only queered the world as opposed to the torture and slaughter that Marxism brought.
Secondly, however it is just not true that Marxism kept deviant sexual appetites in check as seen in the encouragement found in the Soviet Government for the loosening of morals between men and women so that adultery and illegitimate birth rates sky-rocketed with the initial burst of Marxist pride in Russia. (See previous reference to the work of Alexandra Kollontai). The only difference between WOKE and Marxist sexual deviance is that WOKE has just followed through with the Marxist sexual deviancy principles taking those principles to their logical conclusions.
Finally, this statement of PG must be the worst and most laughable sentence of the whole ridiculous piece;
“The Communists held generally traditional moral views even if they practiced tyranny.”
This is like saying that Madonna held generally traditional moral views even is she was an accomplished whore. It’s like saying that Timothy Leary held generally traditional moral views even if he dropped more acid than a classroom of clumsy freshmen in a Chemistry 101 class. It’s like saying that Satan held generally traditional moral views even if his goal was to overturn all traditional moral views.
How anyone can connect the idea of Communists and the idea of traditional moral views while conceding “even if they practiced tyranny” has to be one of the greatest gaslighting sentences written in the history of all mankind regardless of epoch, culture, or race.
PG writes,
Unfortunately, the post-war conservative movement became so obsessed with “fighting Communism” that it failed to notice the far more dangerous enemy gathering its forces domestically. And by the end phase of the Cold War in the 1980s, neoconservatives were frequently making the charge that Communist regimes discriminated against homosexuals. This charge was perfectly true because in comparison to leftward-drifting Western countries, Communist governments were, in some sense, more socially conservative.
Bret responds,
Here we find another knee-slapper. The post-war conservative movement fighting communism? Well, maybe with Sen. McCarthy but not so much after McCarthy’s diminishment and certainly not at all by the end phase of the Cold War. With the move of the Cultural Marxists into the America (Columbia University) with their fleeing of Germany upon the German pursuit of the Frankfurt school America embraced nascent WOKEism.
And as the neo-conservatives that PG complains about where themselves Marxists of the Trotskyite stripe it is not a wonder that the Marxist neo-con Trotskyites were complaining about their more staid classical Marxist brethren about the Communists discriminating against sodomites.
If Paul Gottfried wants to assert that Classical Marxism in comparison to Trotskyite Marxism is more socially conservative then so be it. However, I still find that to be a case where the sixth level of hell is being compared to the seventh level of hell and then concluding that the sixth level of hell is much more comfortable.