“Tim Keller brought us the woke church. Charlie Kirk brought us to the edge of revival. Choose wisely….The result is that some Christians think the 11th commandment is to be nice and forget the other 10. But others know that God means us to believe and walk out the 10…Speak the truth in a culture of lies. Speak the truth as if our civilization depends on it. Because it does.”
— Bryan Dawson
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“In fighting those who serve devils one always has this on one’s side; their Masters hate them as much as they hate us. The moment we disable the human pawns enough to make them useless to Hell, their own Masters finish the work for us. They break their tools” —
C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, p. 317
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“There are no real personalities apart from God. Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self. Sameness is to be found most among the most ‘natural’ men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerers have been; how gloriously different are the saints.
But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away ‘blindly’ so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality; but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him…Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
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“The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good — anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence the new name ‘leaders’ for those who were once ‘rulers’. We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, ‘Mind your own business.’ Our whole lives are their business.”
― C.S. Lewis, Some Everyday Thoughts
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So much of the debate over interracial marriage is dumb. Interracial marriage is not a sin. Period. We should just leave at that. “Marry in the Lord” – that’s the biblical rule.
Frankly, with marriage rates plummeting, we should be thankful when people marry today, even if it’s across races. We need to encourage more marriages, not put further stumbling blocks in people’s way. But the vast majority of people will rather naturally marry within their own race.
The considerations that apply in cases of interracial marriage are prudential, not ethical. Interracial marriages can face certain challenges if the two persons come from very different backgrounds. But prudential questions apply to all marriages.
But guys online who are strong racial identitarians are trying to create a new of category of something that isn’t quite sin, but sort of is, in order to express their dislike of interracial marriage. It’s weird and stupid and not biblical.
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WCF 25.2 + WCF 28.1 = FV
IYKYK
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Egalitarianism leads to transgenderism because it treats the sexes as interchangeable.
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“Individuals can spend their money more wisely, efficiently and more humanely than can government.”
— Larry Elder
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“The principle advocated is that these “vindictive” Psalms voice the feelings and sentiments that animate Christ in His struggle with the incorrigible enemies of His Kingdom and His determination to punish them. Working on this principle, we feel sure that Psalm-singers will have no reason to complain that there is anything in this great autobiography of Him Who is “the way, the truth, and the life” [John 14:6] unsuited either to their sermons or experience.
Occasions abundantly justifying their proper use are to be found in the history of the Church. There have been times when the children of God have been compelled to fight for their own lives and the cause of truth with carnal weapons. Their bravery on many a hard-fought field is enshrined in the memory of the Church. When the Spanish Armada swept down on the shores of England, pious and patriotic hearts united in that mighty war-song, “Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered, let them also that hate Him flee before Him.” [Ps 68:1] They nerved the heart of an English David and his stern Ironsides to accomplish a work for God and humanity that required men of iron to do. They swept to victory with their spirits strengthened for the shock of battle by these songs. These “Justice” Psalms were needed and used, and used aright, by the persecuted Waldenses, the hunted Camisards, the oppressed Covenanters. Men of every shade of religious belief (the fact is notorious) turned to them in the days of our Civil War. When the awful story of the Armenian atrocities filled the civilized world with horror, righteous indignation sought as its fittest vehicle of expression these Psalms. And can we not find in them passages that we can use with perfect propriety and a spirit of genuine piety to describe the lawless raids of the municipal freebooters of the twentieth century?…
When all is quiet and peaceful the Church may not feel very often or keenly the need of these so-called imprecatory songs, and may study them in a merely academic way; but when the shock of a great battle for the truth and with implacable enemies is upon her, when the storms of persecution rage, when her foes beset her round on every side, when earthly hope vanishes and her faith is tried as by fire, then she turns to these Psalms. They may have been stumbling blocks to her faith in her prosperity, but they prove steppingstones heavenward in her adversity, because in them the Judge of all the earth assures her of the ultimate destruction of her enemies and the complete and everlasting triumph of her cause.”
— J. H. Webster, “The Imprecatory Psalms,” from The Psalms in Worship, J. McNaughter, p. 308f
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“A view quite different from the view set forth in this syllabus is that found in the book of C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms. Lewis has no eye for the fact that the Old and the New Testaments together present a unified view of the relation of God to man, and for the fact that this view is squarely opposed to that of every form of ethics based upon human experience as metaphysically autonomous and ethically normal. Lewis says: “There were in the eighteenth century terrible theologians who held that ‘God did not command certain things because they are right, but certain things are right because God commanded them.’ To make the position perfectly clear, one of them even said that though God has, as it happens, commanded us to love Him and one another, He might equally well have commanded us to hate Him and one another, and hatred would then have been right. It was apparently a mere toss-up which He decided on. Such a view of course makes God a mere arbitrary tyrant. It would be better and less irreligious to believe in no God and to have no ethics than to have such an ethics and such a theology as this.”
In putting the matter this way Lewis makes a caricature of the Christian view and confuses the issue. Whatever some of the “terrible theologians” may have said, simple orthodox theology has always stood by the teaching that truth is true because God says it is true, and right is right because God says it is right. But in asserting this, orthodox, theology assumes or asserts that what God says about truth and righteousness is based upon his absolute holiness and righteousness.
On the other hand, when orthodox thinking rejects the notion that the truth is truth in itself and the right is right in itself independent of God’s assertion with respect to them, it merely rejects the idea of human autonomy.
It was Socrates the pagan philosopher who insisted that he wanted himself to be the ultimate judge of the nature of piety, and that he did not care what God said about it.
Lewis is quite right in stating the issue between Christianity and non-Christianity in the terms he uses. He is, however, quite mistaken when, as an evangelical Christian, he chooses the side of paganism against Christianity.
To be sure, it is because he is committed to an Arminian view of free will that Lewis chooses for the idea of the autonomy of the human moral consciousness as the source and standard of ethical behavior. He thinks that “the doctrine of Total Depravity—when the consequence is drawn that, since we are totally depraved, our idea of good is worth simply nothing—may thus turn Christianity into a form of devil-worship.” 5 In doing so Lewis appears not to realize in taking the side of Socrates, the idea of the self-sufficient moral consciousness, he has virtually renounced the right to appeal to either the God or the Christ of Scripture for either help or light. He must, after this “when the consequence is drawn” hold with Kant that the goal, the standard and the ultimate motive power for ethics are to be found in man as self-sufficient. He may after that, following Kant and such men as Sören Kierkegaard and Barth, project a God who comes down to man, and thus speak of incarnation, but this is of no help. Lewis finds “second meanings” in the psalms, even in what he thinks of as their morally reprehensible features. But the one thing he cannot see is that the psalms, including those that contain awful predications, derive their significance and light from the substitutionary death of Christ. What the psalmists do is to think of themselves as those who are “in Christ.” Christ would come to destroy all the works of darkness. As those who are redeemed by Christ they must have the mind of Christ. They must love what Christ loves and hate what Christ hates. In the book of Revelation the souls of the saints cry out for the vengeance of the Lord upon all those who seek to work havoc with the work of Christ as he purifies the spirits of men from all love of evil.
As noted above, this is not to justify personal vengeance. It is the only cure against the idea of personal vengeance. Throughout the Psalms, including those containing imprecations, the believer has learned to make his thought subservient to the thought of Christ.
One would think he reads a modern humanist rather than an evangelical Christian when he hears Lewis speak of the “devilish” character of the psalmist’s sentiments as, e.g., expressed in Psalm 109. 6 How shall we deal with these “contemptible Psalms?” Shall we leave them alone? We can scarcely do that. The “bad parts will not ‘come away clean.’ ” Somehow they must have been written for our learning. Throughout its history the church seems to have thought so. Moreover, “Our Lord’s mind and language were clearly steeped in the Psalter.”
What then must we do? “The hatred is there, festering, gloating, undisguised—and also we should be wicked if we in any way condoned it … ” We cannot “yield for one moment to the idea that, because it comes in the Bible, all this vindictive hatred must somehow be good and pious.”
In the rest of the book Lewis reinterprets the Psalms to make them acceptable for one who believes that the evolving ethical consciousness of man is, after the fashion of Kant, sufficient to itself, and at the same time to keep his evangelical convictions about salvation by grace from disappearing in the process. The result is confusing indeed. Certainly his approach to the Psalms does not challenge the unbeliever to forsake his sin of human pride and to be saved from the wrath of God to come. With the best of intentions to interest men in the gospel of Christ, he tones down the gospel so drastically that one dreads to think of what would happen if the consequences were drawn.
We must also note that just as certain as it is that the Old Testament requires of the people of God that they shall destroy evil, so certain is it also that they should begin that program of the destruction of evil within themselves. It was within the theocracy itself that God’s holiness was to be manifested. The least bit of infringement of the holiness of God was punished quickly and severely. The least bit of impurity in the theocracy was intolerable in the sight of God. The Jewish lepers had to be driven out of the camp of the Israelites and had to dwell in awful separation, symbolizing the great loathing of God for the impurity of sin. It was not till the Israelites were pure in the sight of God that he could really use them as a scourge for the nations. God was willing even to use the heathen, who were not his people, and to whom he had not given his covenant, to scourge Israel, in order that his own people might become pure. It was not till Habakkuk, the prophet, saw this great truth that he could really understand how it was possible that God should allow his own people to suffer so grievously at the hands of the enemies of the Lord.
Further, what is true of Israel as a nation is true in the New Testament of individuals. And what is true of the Old Testament in an externalistic sense is true of the New Testament in an internalistic sense.
The individual believer has a comprehensive task. His is the task of exterminating evil from the whole universe. He must begin this program in himself. As a king reinstated it is his first battle to fight sin within his own heart. This will remain his first battle till his dying day. This does not mean, however, that he must not also seek to destroy evil in his fellow Christians and in his fellow men while he is engaged in destroying evil within himself. If he had to wait till he was perfect himself to seek to destroy evil within the hearts and lives of others, he would have to wait till after this life, when there will be no more evil to be destroyed. It is true that we all live in glass houses and therefore should never assume a proud attitude. It is true that we all sin again and again and that it will be necessary for us to warn our brother of his sin at one time while it will be necessary for the brother to warn us of our sin at another time. But all this does not absolve us from the sacred duty as Christians to warn one another of our sins.
We must go one step further. It is our duty not only to seek to destroy evil in ourselves and in our fellow Christians, but it is our further duty to seek to destroy evil in all our fellow men. It may be, humanly speaking, hopeless in some instances that we should succeed in bringing them to Christ. This does not absolve us, however, from seeking to restrain their sins to some extent for this life. We must be active first of all in the field of special grace, but we also have a task to perform with respect to the destruction of evil in the field of common grace.
Still further we must note that our task with respect to the destruction of evil is not done if we have sought to fight sin itself everywhere we see it. We have the further obligation to destroy the consequences of sin in this world as far as we can. We must do good to all men, especially to those of the household of faith. To help relieve something of the sufferings of the creatures of God is our privilege and our task.
A particular point is that of the Christian’s attitude toward the abolition of war. Some would hold that since the Bible tells us that there will be wars till the end of time, it would be flying in the face of providence if we should try to outlaw war. But there is a difference between a commandment of God and a statement of what will come to pass. God commands us to be perfect but tells us that none of us will ever be perfect in this life. So it is our plain task to do what we can, in legitimate ways, to lessen the number of wars and to make them less gruesome.
A word needs to be said also about seeking in other ways to ameliorate the results of sin. It is not as common as it used to be to find Christians who think it wrong to call a doctor when they are afflicted with disease. Yet one does not always know whether this change of attitude is due to a deeper spiritual insight or to a more careless attitude. It may be either, in any given instance. It may be that we hold that Christianity really forbids us to seek a doctor in times of sickness, but that we do not take our Christianity seriously enough to live up to it in this respect. On the other hand it may also be that we have learned to see more deeply into the nature of Christianity and have come to see that it does not forbid us to call a doctor but rather requires us to do so in case of disease. Disease is, in general, the result of sin. God has graciously mitigated the results of sin by placing in creation itself the healing powers that reduce the pains of man and prolong his life. It would be disobedience to God and failure to make proper use of his gifts if we neglected to call a doctor in time of need.
Such then is the third aspect of the summum bonum. We have an absolute ethical ideal to offer man. This absolute ideal is a gift of God. And this gives us assurance that our labors shall not be in vain. This gives us courage to start with the program of the eradication of evil from God’s universe. We cannot carry on from the place where God first placed men. A great deal of our time will have to be taken up with the destruction of evil. We may not even seem to see much progress in ourselves or round about us, during our lifetime. We shall have to build with the trowel in one hand and the sword in the other. It may seem to us to be a hopeless task of sweeping the ocean dry. Yet we know that this is exactly what our ethical ideal would be if we were not Christians. We know that for non-Christians their ethical ideal can never be realized either for themselves or for society. They do not even know the true ethical ideal. And as to our own efforts, we know that though much of our time may have to be taken up with pumping out the water of sin, we are nevertheless laying the foundation of our bridge on solid rock, and we are making progress toward our goal. Our victory is certain. The devil and all his servants will be put out of the habitable universe of God. There will be a new heaven and a new earth on which righteousness will dwell.”
— Cornelius Van Til, Christian Theistic Ethics
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For much of history, inside the church and out, the sexes more or less policed their own. Older men mentored and guided younger men. Older women instructed and trained younger women.
Scripture acknowledges this in various places, eg, Titus 2. Obviously, it’s not an absolute rule. Fathers have responsibility for their daughters as much as their sons, and so would be involved in their discipline, teaching, courtship choices, etc. But mothers were expected to bring girls along into mature womanhood.
And of course, pastors and elders are responsible for shepherding the whole body, so the session would oversee women as well as men.
But there is still a great deal of day to day instruction that can and should be handled in sex specific ways. Just as a woman cannot bring a girl into womanhood, teaching all that she needs to know, a man cannot communicate all that needs to be passed along to girls about womenhood.
So look at our cultural crisis this way: If young men are struggling, often lacking a defined mission in life and a sturdy work ethic and the competency to lead, what does that say about our older men? If young women are immodest feminists who do not want to get married and bear children but would rather pursue career, what does that say about our older women? The older have failed the younger. Somewhere along the way, the links in the chain that forge a new generation got broken.
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Just as the invasion of Islam in medieval Europe was a divine judgment on the church’s fall into icon worship, the invasion of Islam in the modern West is a judgment on our political and cultural pluralism.
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Why are gold and silver rising? It’s an ominous sign for the US. It’s hard to think it’s due to anything other than loss of confidence in the US dollar as the world’s currency. And crypto investors should note, it is metals, not crypto that people are flocking to with the dollar’s future status in question.
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From 2/14/25:
Happiness and worldview (including political stance) are very much related. Progressive views are highly correlated with misery and mental illness. Conservatives are more joyful, contented, and stable. Some evidence:
“Young conservative women are three times as likely to report being very satisfied with life compared to young liberal women.”
See ifstudies.org/blog/why-so-bl…
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Radicalized young men today do not pose the threat to the left that they think they do because in many cases they are too much like the left. I don’t think Nick Fuentes is a plant, but I can see why some people would think that.
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I did this podcast on Reformation Red Pill, discussing white identity politics:
A comment from an X discussion of the podcast:
Thanks for your kind words to this over-the-hill Gen Xer. Yes, I can remember when the race problem in America was largely solved – except for a few race-baiters and race-hustlers. Then Obama reopened all the old wounds and Biden opened the borders….and here we are.
I think we agree on the problem. I think solving it is the issue. I really like Jeremy Carl’s proposed solutions in his book on this topic.
Even after doing the podcast, I’m still not sure what a “pro-white identity politics” looks like – especially since a huge proportion of whites in America today are actually anti-white themselves. How do you do white identity politics when whites are not monolithic politically? And even if you could, of course, I question that as the best way forward. It could make things worse rather than better.
Enforcing immigration laws, lawfare against anti-white discrimination, ending DEI/affirmative action type programs, curbing welfare, and celebrating America’s heritage seem like good places to start. Raising the marriage rate and fertility rate is another – without children, we have no future anyway. It’s hard for me to figure out what the “pro-white” people are advocating for beyond that — and as I pointed out on the podcast, Trump has attempted to do a lot of this without resorting to racial identity politics. And had he resorted to racial identity politics, there’s no way he would have had electoral success. Before you can use power for good, you have to have power, and in our system as it exists today, that means winning elections – obviously, that’s not the only way to gain cultural power, but it is a significant one.
It’s hard to evaluate the claims because I still do not know exactly what is being advocated for. The cancer underneath all of this is the progressive worldview – and that’s why I talked about persuading progressives (as Charlie Kirk was seeking to do).
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Liturgy is the best form of cradle to grave pastoral care a church can give to her people.
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The church is required to be be catholic, meaning “universal,” welcoming all races and languages of people.
Nations are not required to be catholic. Nations can admit or deny admission to would-be immigrants, based on a variety of factors.
The church is composed of people drawn from all nations. Nations obviously related to other nations in a different way.
This is not to say that the church has no bearing on the nation; it is not to say the church’s presence cannot shape a nation’s immigration policy. My guess is that nations with a strong church presence will seek to be relatively hospitable to immigrants, at least to those who can assimilate.
But the church and a nation have different functions. The church is an international and trans-national body. A nation is under no such obligation.
What should the church do if a believer illegally immigrated into a nation? The church should view the illegal as a brother, and yet in ordinary circumstances, the church can call on the brother to submit to civil law and should not object to the magistrate deporting someone who has broken the law in entering the nation. Being a Christian does not mean one can break the law. Being a Christian does not mean one has immunity to the consequences of law-breaking.
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Marriage is not a 50/50 kind of relationship. It’s 100/100 – it’s each spouse being fully committed to their role within the marriage.
Think of a football team. There are 11 players on the field, but each player is not supposed to think of doing 1/11 of the work. Rather each player is to be 100% devoted to his task on every play. Offensive linemen are 100% given to blocking. The qb, rb, wr, etc., must be given 100% to their task on each play. That’s how marriage works – give 100% of who you are to the duties God has assigned you in the relationship. If both spouses give themselves 100% to the roles God has assigned to each of them, it will be a happy marriage. Focus on your calling, not the calling of the other.
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Paedobaptists who reject paedocommunion have to say either (a) baptized infants are not part of the church, or (b) the Lord’s Supper is only for a part of the church, not the whole.
Neither option is acceptable. Only the paedocommunion view is actually consistent with covenant theology and a Reformed ecclesiology. Excluding baptized children contradicts what we say about the covenant promises and the nature of the church. Old covenant feasts always included the children.
Paedobaptists who reject paedocommunion claim baptism is not enough to admit one to the table — it is a “baptism plus” view. But what is that “plus”? On the anti-paedocommunion view, there is no biblically prescribed ritual for admission to the table, so the church either relies on Jewish tradition from the Talmud (and why should Christians care about that?) or the church has to invent a quasi-sacrament of confirmation (which is odd since the one of the accusations of the Reformers against Rome is that the Roman church invented extra-biblical sacraments).
ADDENDUM: “Doesn’t suspension from the table create a communing/non-communing distinction within the church?”
I do not accept a step of “suspension” from the table distinct from and prior to excommunication. Suspension is not in the OT, not in Matthew 18, and I believe it’s based on a misreading of a couple of Pauline texts.
But even if suspension is part of the church discipline process, it would not be exactly analogous to barring baptized children from the table since children are not in a disciplinary process.
ADDENDUM: “Unless you advocate force feeding infants, only part of the church partakes.”
No, no one advocates force feeding.
What you’re suggesting would be saying, “If someone is home sick with the flu one Sunday and misses church, the Supper is only for part of the body.” That’s not how ecclesiology or church membership actually work. Having access to the meal is one thing; being circumstantially unable to partake is a different matter.
Baptized children have access to the meal; as soon as they are able to eat with the rest of the body, they eat.
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The gospel announces that Jesus has formed a new Israel and a new humanity through his death and resurrection. But since the old Israel and old humanity included children, even infants, the new Israel and new humanity must as well. Our sacramental practices should reflect these realities.
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1 Corinthians 11:17ff does not exclude baptized children from the Lord’s Supper.
Paul has said the children of even one believing parent is holy, which means the children are saints. The liturgical acclamation, “Holy things for holy people” means they are included.
Old covenant feasts carried warnings with them. There is nothing new about the warnings connected with the Supper in 1 Corinthians 11. Old covenant meals included children (Exodus 12:3-4, Deuteronomy 12:12, Leviticus 22:10ff, 1 Samuel 1:4, etc.), and yet there were warnings about unworthy partaking in the OT (Isaiah 1:10ff, Jeremiah 6:20, Amos 5:21ff; cf. 1 Corinthians 10:1ff). The warnings in 1 Corinthians 11:17ff are not admission requirements. They are about how to partake, not who may partake.
This is the key principle: Israelite children were welcome to partake of every meal their parents were welcomed to partake of. The NT does not set up new standards of admission for the covenant meals with regard to age or intellectual ability or even spiritual maturity. If the church is the new Israel, the church’s children must be included in her feast.
Anti-paedocommunion paedobaotists give church membership to infants when they baptism but then take that membership away when they exclude them from the table. They say to baptized children, “Grow big and strong, then we will feed you” — but this is incoherent and contradictory. We cannot demand they grow while withholding one of the key means of growth.
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Anti-paedocommunion paedobaptists say that we should baptize our infants because grace restores nature. But then they deny grace restores nature when it comes to the table.
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Those who exclude baptized children from the Lord’s Supper are guilty of dividing the body of Christ, the very thing Paul is warning about. See this fine article:
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Infants are not “unwillingly” subjected to baptism. As ever psalm-singer knows, covenant infants are believers (Psalm 22).
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We do not earn access to the Supper by attaining to a certain level of spiritual maturity. The Supper is a gift.
The claim I am making (along with other paedocommunionists) is that baptism grants access to the meal. Period. You wash up, then you eat. If someone is not able to ingest the elements because of a physical limitation (being in a coma or being too young, etc.) that does not alter the fact that the person has access. There is no communing/non-communing division in the church. Every member of the body of Christ is welcome to the eat the body of Christ.
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1 Corinthians 10:1ff links baptism and the supper. Whether we group them together and call them “sacraments” is beside the point of my argument. Paul says all who were baptized ate the spiritual food and drank the spiritual drink.
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There was no communing/non-communing member distinction in OT Israel. There is not in the New Israel either.
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Some people really love other people. Some people think they are loving other people when they are really only loving themselves. After you’ve been around someone for a while, you can tell the difference.
Example: Parents who refuse to discipline their children think they are loving their children. They’re really hating their children and loving themselves.
Example: Some people “serve” others but only in ways that are comfortable and convenient, not in ways that actually help others. Their service is actually self-serving, not others-serving.
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“Mercy, detached from Justice, grows unmerciful. That is the important paradox. As there are plants which will flourish only in mountain soil, so it appears that Mercy will flower only when it grows in the crannies of the rock of Justice: transplanted to the marshlands of mere Humanitarianism, it becomes a man-eating weed, all the more dangerous because it is still called by the same name as the mountain variety.”
— C. S. Lewis
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“My contention is that good men (not bad men) consistently acting upon that position would act as cruelly and unjustly as the greatest tyrants. They might in some respects act even worse. Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth.”
— C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock
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“The concept of Desert is the only connecting link between punishment and justice… When we cease to consider what the criminal deserves and consider only what will cure him or deter others, we have tacitly removed him from the sphere of justice altogether; instead of a person, a subject of rights, we now have a mere object, a patient, a “case.””
— C.S. Lewis, The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment
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“Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious.”
— G. K. Chesterton
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I’m usually a fan of Jamie Bambrick’s videos, but not this time:
There’s far more to the Bible’s teaching on usury than is reflected in the video. Jesus is a usurer – see Matthew 25:26-27. The Torah did not forbid usury except in the case of the poor. Calvin (among others) saw this and rejecting the Aristotelian doctrine of the sterility of money led to an explosion of productivity and prosperity in the centuries that followed the Reformation.
Usury is a separate issue from nations living within their means, stopping the unlimited immigration of people groups that cannot be assimilated, a return to sound currency, etc.
I do like the line that in the case of national debt, we have a case “not of kids stealing their parents’ credit card, but parents stealing their kids’ credit card.”
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Many women today happily submit to a therapist/counselor while refusing to submit to their own husbands.
And yet, wives have made vows (or should have made vows) to submit to and obey their husbands – but they made no such vow to a therapist.
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I was asked what I think about this clip.
I think Nick is great at driving clicks.
Nick is a Joab – he’s on the “right side” but isn’t trustworthy and goes off the rails too often.
His message about marrying young would be more compelling if he followed his own advice. If podcasting has made his life dangerous – the reason he’s given in the past for not marrying to this point – then he should find a safer vocation, get married, and build a family. But the reality is there are a lot of married men who have lived with the danger that comes with being in the spotlight. Building a family is more important than podcasting. If he wants to save the white race, he should have some white babies.
But this is not a new message anyway – people have been sounding the alarm about feminism/the sexual revolution pushing the average age of marriage higher and higher for a long time.
This is from over 20 years ago and makes a more compelling and prudent argument than Nick:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2002/09/lets-have-more-teen-pregnancy-frederica-mathewes-green/
One more note: The average age of marriage has never been 14. Reaching sexual maturity does not mean someone is ready to marry. In the Torah, men are considered adults, responsible for military duty and defense of the nation, at 20. I’m certainly in favor of most people marrying young – considerably younger than they do today – we need to use common sense.
ADDENDUM: In the Torah, men were considered adults at age 20
That’s when they became responsible for the defense of the nation
Deuteronomy 24 gives a man a year off military service when he marries, so presumably most men were 20+ when they married
In some cultures, obviously girls have gotten married a few years younger than that, usually in their late teens
We can debate consent laws – some of what we have on the books is incoherent
But our cultural crisis will not be solved by marrying off 14 year old girls
Wise fathers are not going to do that
We should not repeal all age of consent laws – that would send a terrible message
Further, the main reason men in general are dropping out of the marriage market is not because they are afraid of being accused of paedophilia because they really want 14 year old brides
There are many reasons men are checking out, and many of them are related to feminism, but most men are not secretly wanting a 14 year old wife and then refusing to marry anyone at all because they’re afraid can’t have her at that age
That part of it is just dumb
In the American colonial era, men on average got married at about 25 and women at 20
Even in rural early America, the average ages were 23 and 19
The average age actually came down for men as the nation got more prosperous and men could provide at an earlier age – but in didn’t change much for women
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, it was about 22 for men and 21 for women
Why not aim for that if we’re trying to restore the family?
My grandparents, parents, myself, and now all my kids got married in our very early 20s
I think that’d be a great thing to normalize again
But trying to normalize marrying girls who just hit puberty at, say, 14, is more about clickbait than it is actually trying to solve the problem
Even in the Middle Ages, the average ages were about 20 and 17 – only dropping lower during times of crisis
What Nick is calling for would be an historical anomaly for Christendom
Nick is just weird
ADDENDUM: In Alabama, the minimum age to marry is 16
Under 18 requires parental consent
I think that’s sensible enough
Massachusetts’s allows 14 year olds to marry with parental consent or judge consent, so maybe Nick should move there!
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I was asked about good podcasts on womanhood for women – the female equivalent of Collars and Calluses.
I didn’t have much of an answer. Nancy Wilson’s Femina is certainly one. Suzanne Venker doesn’t seem to be recording anymore but the episodes are still up on YouTube. It’s not a Christian podcast, but covers a lot of women’s issues from a traditional/conservative perspective for the most part
My guess is the women who could do really good podcasts on womanhood are too busy doing more important things. And they probably don’t want to be in the public eye.
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I have always thought horseshoe theory – the view that far left and far right ultimately converge – to be ridiculous. The far right would no longer be “right” in any meaningful sense if came to agree with the far left on core issues like marriage, LGBTQ, abortion, etc.
But in the realm of economics, horseshoe theory just might be playing out before our eyes, as many on the far right attack free markets, call for increased government intervention in the economy, seek to outlaw usury, etc. Trump has had the government take positions in public companies, capped credit card interest rates, made heavy use of tariffs, etc. – all positions that would be more associated with the left than the right. Many on the far right are longing for an authoritarian leader and seem to be open to a form of soft socialism, especially when it comes to healthcare. While the far right is diametrically at odds with the left over immigration, the white identitarianism of some on the far right has structural similarities to the left’s critical race theory – it is the racialization of politics. Opposition to Israel and America’s “special” relationship to Israel has typically been more left wing than right wing (though men like Pat Buchanan were an exception), but now it has a strong presence on the right. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the years to come, particularly the 2028 presidential election. It could be that Republicans run a candidate whose economic positions are largely indistinguishable from Bernie Sanders and other Democrats.
One significant counter to my tentative thesis here: On the far right, economic intervention is done on the name of “America first” nationalism and populism, not in the name of equality, as in the left. But it’s becoming increasingly clear, especially among young people on both the left and right, that they no longer believe the current system (which both sides call “capitalism,” although it’s questionable that’s the best label) works for them.
Without mentioning horseshoe theory, David Bahnsen points out some similarities between Trump’s recent economic positions and those of Sanders, Mamdani, etc. here:
ADDENDUM: I asked Grok to assess the strengths, weaknesses, and accuracy of my “economic horseshoe” arguments:
Assessment of the Essay’s Arguments Your essay presents a thoughtful critique of the horseshoe theory—the idea that political extremes (far left and far right) bend toward each other like a horseshoe—dismissing it for social issues but suggesting it’s manifesting in economics. You cite examples from recent U.S. politics, particularly under Trump, and speculate on future trends. I’ll assess the arguments point by point, drawing on historical context, factual verification, and current trends as of early 2026. My goal is a balanced, evidence-based evaluation, highlighting strengths, weaknesses, and nuances without endorsing a partisan view.
- Dismissal of Horseshoe Theory on Social Issues • Argument Summary: You argue horseshoe theory is “ridiculous” for core social issues like marriage, LGBTQ rights, and abortion, as convergence would erase meaningful “right-wing” distinctions. • Assessment: This is a strong point with solid logical grounding. Horseshoe theory, popularized by thinkers like Jean-Pierre Faye in the 1970s, typically applies to authoritarian tendencies or anti-establishment populism rather than issue-specific alignments. On social matters, data from sources like Pew Research (tracking U.S. polarization since the 1990s) shows persistent divergence: Far-right groups (e.g., Christian nationalists) advocate traditional hierarchies and restrictions, while far-left ones (e.g., progressive activists) push for expansive equality and deconstruction of norms. No significant convergence has occurred; for instance, post-2024, far-right policies in states like Florida and Texas have reinforced anti-LGBTQ measures, contrasting sharply with left-wing advocacy for gender-affirming care and abortion rights. Your rejection here aligns with critiques from political scientists like Cas Mudde, who argue horseshoe theory oversimplifies spectra. Weakness: It overlooks niche overlaps, like some far-right and far-left critiques of “corporate wokeness” (e.g., anti-DEI sentiments), but these are rhetorical, not substantive.
- Application of Horseshoe Theory to Economics • Argument Summary: In economics, you see convergence as far-right figures attack free markets, advocate government intervention, outlaw usury, and support policies like tariffs and interest rate caps—traditionally left-leaning. • Assessment: This is the essay’s core insight and holds partial validity, supported by recent shifts, but it’s overstated in scope and causality. • Factual Checks on Trump’s Policies: Your examples are mostly accurate but require context. Trump did impose heavy tariffs (e.g., on steel/aluminum in his first term, expanded in 2025 post-re-election), which economists like those at the Brookings Institution classify as interventionist, akin to protectionist left policies (e.g., Sanders’ anti-NAFTA stance). On credit card interest rates, Trump proposed a 10% cap in his 2024 campaign, and by 2025, executive actions pushed the CFPB to implement limits on late fees and rates, drawing bipartisan criticism for resembling Warren/Sanders-style consumer protections. Government stakes in companies: This refers to initiatives like the 2025 “Strategic Investment Fund,” where the administration took equity in firms like TikTok (post-forced sale) and semiconductor producers via CHIPS Act expansions—echoing state capitalism models seen in left-leaning economies like China’s. • Broader Trends: Evidence supports your observation of far-right economic populism. Figures like JD Vance (VP in 2025) have praised “industrial policy” and criticized laissez-faire capitalism, aligning with left critiques (e.g., Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy influenced by left-leaning economists). Calls to “outlaw usury” appear in fringe right spaces, like Catholic integralists or paleoconservatives, mirroring Islamic or medieval economic ethics but not mainstream left positions. Polls from Gallup (2025) show 40% of Republicans favoring “single-payer healthcare” expansions, up from 20% in 2016, suggesting a “soft socialism” tilt—though often framed as “America First” rather than egalitarian. • Weaknesses: Not all this is “horseshoe” convergence; it’s more a realignment within the right toward nationalism over libertarianism (e.g., Reagan-era free markets vs. Trump’s mercantilism). Left economic intervention often prioritizes equity/redistribution, while right versions emphasize sovereignty/protectionism. Historical precedents like 1930s fascism (e.g., Mussolini’s corporatism) show right-wing statism isn’t new, so this may not be true convergence but parallel evolution. Overlap exists, but it’s selective—far right opposes left staples like wealth taxes or union mandates.
- Authoritarianism and Soft Socialism on the Far Right • Argument Summary: Far-right desire for an authoritarian leader and openness to socialism (e.g., in healthcare) indicates horseshoe dynamics. • Assessment: Moderately persuasive, with empirical backing, but risks conflating populism with socialism. Post-2024, Trump’s administration has centralized power (e.g., expanded executive orders on trade/health), appealing to 60% of Republicans per 2025 YouGov polls who favor “strong leadership” over checks/balances—mirroring left-authoritarian models in Venezuela or historical communism. Healthcare: Trump’s 2025 expansions of Medicare (e.g., drug price controls) resemble Sanders’ proposals, and figures like Matt Gaetz have floated “universal coverage” with nationalist caveats. However, this is “soft” at best; it’s not redistributive socialism but pragmatic populism. Critiques from libertarians (e.g., Rand Paul) highlight internal right-wing divides, weakening the convergence claim. Strength: It captures the anti-elite sentiment shared by extremes, as noted in Levitsky and Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die (2018, still relevant).
- Similarities in Identity Politics (Immigration, White Identitarianism vs. CRT) • Argument Summary: While opposed on immigration, far-right white identitarianism structurally resembles left’s critical race theory (CRT)—both racialize politics. • Assessment: This is a nuanced, insightful parallel with strong theoretical support. Both frameworks essentialize race: CRT (as in Kimberlé Crenshaw’s work) critiques systemic power, while white identitarianism (e.g., in groups like the Groypers or writings by Nick Fuentes) inverts it for majority protectionism. Immigration opposition on the right often frames migrants as cultural threats, akin to left identity politics’ focus on marginalized groups. Evidence: 2025 studies from the Southern Poverty Law Center track rising white nationalist rhetoric in GOP circles, paralleling left academia’s CRT integration. Weakness: Motivations differ—right seeks preservation, left seeks equity—so it’s structural similarity, not convergence. Your point elevates the discussion beyond economics.
- Shifts in Foreign Policy (Opposition to Israel) • Argument Summary: Anti-Israel stances, traditionally left, are growing on the right (beyond exceptions like Buchanan). • Assessment: Accurate and timely, with growing evidence. Historically left (e.g., Chomsky’s critiques), but post-October 2023 Gaza conflict, right-wing isolationists like Tucker Carlson and Vivek Ramaswamy (influential in 2024-2026) have amplified anti-aid sentiments, framing it as “America First.” 2025 polls from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs show 35% of Republicans opposing U.S.-Israel ties, up from 15% in 2016—echoing left progressives. Buchanan was a precursor, but now it’s mainstreamed via figures like Candace Owens. Strength: Highlights horseshoe in isolationism (both extremes distrust “neocon” interventions). Weakness: Right opposition often stems from antisemitism or nativism, differing from left’s human rights focus, so not full alignment.
- Speculation on Future Trends (2028 Election) • Argument Summary: Republicans might field a 2028 candidate with economics indistinguishable from Sanders/Democrats. • Assessment: Provocative but speculative, with plausible traction. As of January 2026, potential GOP contenders like Vance or Rubio emphasize economic nationalism, overlapping Sanders on trade/industry but diverging on taxes/environment. If trends continue (e.g., amid 2025-2026 recession talks), a “Bernie-like” Republican could emerge—think a protectionist with social conservatism. However, this assumes no backlash; internal GOP fights (e.g., between MAGA and establishment) could fracture it. Strength: Aligns with global trends like Europe’s right-populist welfare states (e.g., France’s National Rally). Weakness: Overlooks enduring divides—Sanders’ socialism is internationalist/universal, while right versions are ethno-nationalist. Overall Evaluation Your essay effectively challenges horseshoe theory’s blanket application while spotlighting economic overlaps, making it a compelling read. Strengths include sharp examples, historical nods (e.g., Buchanan), and forward-looking speculation, grounded in observable shifts. It avoids oversimplification by distinguishing social vs. economic realms. Weaknesses: Some claims stretch “convergence” (e.g., right statism isn’t inherently left-like), and it could benefit from more global comparisons (e.g., Bolsonaro or Orban’s economics). Empirically, polarization remains high per 2025 Varieties of Democracy reports, but economic populism is blurring lines—supporting your thesis modestly. This isn’t full horseshoe validation but evidence of a “populist horseshoe” in an era of declining neoliberal consensus. Interesting thesis; it’ll indeed be fascinating to watch 2028 unfold. If you’d like deeper dives on specific points, let me know!
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Who a man marries will be either the best or worst decision of his life. A man’s wife can make him or break him.
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Many Christians continue to fight the culture war as if the church did not exist, or have any role to play. The church is completely left out of their culture war strategizing. But we cannot leave the institutional church on the sidelines during the battle and be faithful. The church is the most potent cultural force there is.
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Progressivism/the Democratic Party platform is basically just John Lenin’s song “Imagine” translated into politics. “Imagine” is probably the dumbest song ever written, but virtually every line describes the progressive worldview, right down to the denial of national borders and it’s Marxist rejection of private property:
Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people livin’ for today
Ah, ah, ah-ah
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothin’ to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people livin’ life in peace
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharin’ all the world
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
Every line of the song, like every aspect of progressivism, is thoroughly anti-Christian. It’s the inversion of the Christian worldview at every point. It’s Satanic.
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While some say they want a Protestant Franco, I’d prefer a Protestant Louis IX.
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With the election of an openly Marxist mayor of New York City (Mamdani), this is a good time to point out that Marxists killed over 100 million people in the 20th century. That’s the warmth of collectivism.
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A woman who wants to compete with a man rather than complement a man will make a bad wife.
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Nisbet on feminism: “The goals have been successfully accomplished with mostly negative results.”
That’s exactly right.
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“The mass of the population, in a Christian society, should not be exposed to a way of life in which there is too sharp and frequent a conflict between what is easy for them or what their circumstances dictate and what is Christian.”
— T. S. Eliot
Is Eliot right? How far should a Christian state go in making the virtuous life “easy”? “There ought to be a law” is not the best solution to every problem — and government policies aimed at curbing vice often have unintended consequences that make the problem worse.
This is where biblical principle and precedent can help us. Some things are obvious: Certain drugs (which might be considered a form of witchcraft) should be outlawed. A good case can be made for outlawing porn and prostitution (both of which would rule out Only Fans). If biblical law criminalized fornication and adultery, surely that includes making and distributing porn. Abortion should be treated as a capital crime. Biblical law gives precedent for criminalizing certain other forms of sexual perversion like sodomy and bestiality. But should the state outlaw Twinkies and Big Gulps? Should the state outlaw credit cards? Should the state take over the means of production and control businesses so no business ever goes bankrupt (though the more likely result would be that they ALL go bankrupt)?
Another way of getting at this: The state can treat its citizens like children who need to be tightly controlled with little freedom, or the state can treat its citizens like grownups who take responsibility for themselves. Which is preferable?
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In a coherent nation, citizenship has to be more than just holding a piece of paper. It has to mean a real connection to the people, place, and history. It has to mean assimilation for immigrants.
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On immigration, anti-whiteness, birth rates, and the Great Replacement:
If whites do not want to be replaced, they should replace themselves – which means white must stop aborting their babies and start having more of them. They must date/court, marry, and have children in much greater numbers than they are doing now.
Some people speak as if immigration is the reason why whites are not getting married and having children. But the birth rate was collapsing long before the borders were opened. Other speak as if a better economy would raise birth rates. But people in past generations had far more babies when economic times were harder and many nations have tried to use economic incentives to raise their birth rates with little to no success.
For the birth rate to rise, people need hope for the future. People who do not see meaning or purpose in life will not have children because, like everything else in their lives, its seems pointless. Nihilism and narcissism go together.
Further, for the birth rate to rise, people have to be willing to live for something other than themselves. Raising children is hard work – it’s the most meaningful and satisfying work in the world, but it’s still hard. Selfish people will not want children because children will cut into their hedonistic lifestyle.
This is why traditional Christians continue to have children at a much higher rate than the rest of the population: Christians have hope for the future, and understand that they want to true happiness is living for something outside yourself.
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A note on prayer:
Going through the day without prayer is like saying to God, “I don’t need you. I can handle everything on my own.”
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“Of all the passions, the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things.”
–C. S. Lewis
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One reason men are hesitant to marry today is that our system has a double standard. Marriage has become highly asymmetrical and imbalanced. Women want equal pay and career opportunities but also want men to pay on dates and buy the engagement ring. They want to be equal to men but want the man to take all the risk by making the first move. No fault divorce and family court policies often strongly favor the woman. The man’s role as provider can be enforced by the state – even if she leaves him, he will still be forced to provide most of the time through alimony and child support. But the woman’s role as submissive sexual partner and homemaker is not enforced by the state. There are consequences for him when he fails to play his role as husband. There are no consequences for her when she fails to play her role as wife. A woman can completely abandon her role while still getting a share of the man’s financial resources. Men have no leverage in the marriage relationship while women have the force of the state on their side. Women are more likely to divorce – 70%+ of divorces are initiated by the woman, possibly because women are more easily discontent in the relationship but also because they have incentives to do so.
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Young man and women suffer from a lack of public role models today. Men have Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate. Women have Taylor Swift. We have to do better.
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Taylor Swift represents what modern feminism has become – she’s fooled around in toxic relationships with men until getting engaged in her late 30s, she is simultaneously empowered and a victim, she dresses in sexually provocative ways, and she has prioritized career over family.
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“And if Christ is really King, exercising original and immediate jurisdiction over the State as really as he does over the Church, it follows necessarily that the general denial or neglect of his rightful lordship, any prevalent refusal to obey that Bible which is the open law-book of his kingdom, must be followed by political and social as well as by moral and religious ruin. If professing Christians are unfaithful to the authority of their Lord in their capacity as citizens of the State, they cannot expect to be blessed by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in their capacity as members of the Church.”
— A.A. Hodge
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“Loyalty in the family is the chief security for liberty in the state.”
— G. K. Chesterton
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“You can build a culture around loving commitments, or you can build a culture around individual autonomy. But you can’t do both.”
— David Brooks
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Erika Komisar on parenting vs. self-care:
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Our culture’s pervasive misandry is starting to get attention:
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“He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a man to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, ‘Give thyself unto reading.’ The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own.”
— Charles Spurgeon on 2 Timothy 4:13
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“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult, and left untried.”
— G. K. Chesterton
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“I have said that inerrancy is the watershed of the evangelical world. But it is not just a theological debating point. It is the obeying of Scripture which is the watershed. It is believing and applying to our lives which demonstrates whether we in fact believe it”.
— Francis Schaeffer
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On race, ethnicity, and inter-racial marriage:
“Race, as a macro-category of broad groupings of ethnic differences, is obviously real; it exists in some meaningful sense. I can’t donate bone marrow to our adopted son.
There are also aspects of race that are socially constructed. “Blackness” and “whiteness” are not purely genetic categories but also refer to a host of cultural patterns, histories, and social realities that are not hard-coded biologically. These differences can also be exaggerated by those seeking to leverage racial grievances within the American political system, which operates as a multiethnic empire. But reducing all biological, macro-ethnic differences to mere social construction is a denial of reality and causes Christians to lose credibility in the race conversation.
At the same time, Christians must also reject the opposite ditch: biological, evolutionary racism. Scripture is clear that all humanity shares a common origin in Adam. Treating human races as fundamentally separate kinds, or as the product of divergent evolutionary paths with differing inherent worth or capacity, is incompatible with biblical anthropology and must be rejected outright by Christians.
Race isn’t everything (“man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart,” 1 Samuel 16:7). It isn’t determinative (“God shows no partiality,” Acts 10:34). It isn’t spiritually meritorious (“there is neither Jew nor Greek… for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” Galatians 3:28). But none of this means it doesn’t exist at all.
So, interracial marriage is not sinful. But like any life decision, it must be weighed prudently. The bringing together of distinct cultures and backgrounds often introduces real social challenges, as any serious undertaking does, and that cost must be counted by all participants, just as with anything else big and complicated in life. This is common sense.
As Christians, we can recognize the reality of racial groups without being hateful, hasty in judgment, or weird about it.”
— Alex Kocman
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The average man is willing to date an average woman. The average woman is not willing to date an average man. That sums up the dating crisis.
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Jesus is the true Israel, the true Son of David and son of Abraham.
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How would the Apostle Paul describe the Somalians and their culture?
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Who you are under pressure is who you really are.
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The Obergefell ruling did not just redefine marriage, and therefore family. It also redefined male and female. Or to be more accurate, it eviscerated the categories of male and female of all content. If maleness and femaleness do not matter in marriage, they do not matter anywhere. Obergefell made androgyny the law of the land.
We have not still come to grips with all the implications of this vile, disgusting, insane decision. It’s an attempt to tear apart the very fabric of reality. It is an attempt to recreate the world according to a demented ideology. It is pure paganism.
It is crucial to the future of our nation that this travesty of a court ruling be overturned.
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Men and women are equal in dignity and depravity. But otherwise, we are quite different from one another. Denial of these differences is a denial of reality, a denial of the God who deisgned us differently.
We can reverse engineer the sexeds from function to design. IF tells the man to function as the head of his marriage, we can conclude from that God built and designed men for leadership in ways he did not design women. If women are told to function as keepers at home, we can reverse engineer that and conclude that God women to be nurturers, helpers, and glorifiers.
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“There are many good people who are denied the supreme blessing of children, and for these we have the respect and sympathy always due to those who, from no fault of their own, are denied any of the other great blessings of life. But the man or woman who deliberately foregoes these blessings — such a creature merits contempt as hearty as any visited upon the soldier who runs away in battle.”
— Theodore Roosevelt, in a speech to the National Congress of Mothers (1905)
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Lord of the Rings has interesting implications for identity politics.
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“In this world suffering and disease are indeed ‘normal,’ but their very ‘normalcy’ is abnormal. They reveal the ultimate and permanent defeat of man and of life, a defeat which no partial victories of medicine, however wonderful and truly miraculous, can ultimately overcome. But in Christ suffering is not ‘removed’; it is transformed into victory. The defeat itself becomes victory, a way, an entrance into the Kingdom, and this is the only true healing.
Here is a man suffering on his bed of pain and the Church comes to him to perform the sacrament of healing. For this man, as for every man in the whole world, suffering can be defeat, the way of complete surrender to darkness, despair and solitude. It can be dying in the very real sense of the word. And yet it can be also the ultimate victory of Man and of Life in him. The Church does not come to restore health in this man, simply to replace medicine when medicine has exhausted its own possibilities. The Church comes to take this man into the Love, the Light and the Life of Christ. It comes not merely to ‘comfort’ him in his sufferings, not to ‘help’ him, but to make him a martyr, a witness to Christ in his very sufferings. A martyr is one who beholds ‘the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God’ (Acts 7:56). A martyr is one for whom God is not another-and the last chance to stop the awful pain; God is his very life, and thus everything in his life comes to God, and ascends to the fullness of Love.”
–Alexander Schmemann
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Clary does to Ellul what Rigney did with Friedman – a nice Christianized summary.
Social media and AI put propaganda, conspiracy theories, etc. in warp drive.
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The only way to fix anti-white, anti-male discrimination on our culture is to challenge the way progressives think about justice. we also have to change the way they think about American history. And we have to keep in mind all of this stems from the broad scale feminization of society.
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This a wonderful description of the joy of the gospel — it is the fairy tale made fact:
“The peculiar quality of the ”joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a “consolation” for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, “Is it true?” The answer to this question that I gave at first was (quite rightly): “If you have built your little world well, yes: it is true in that world.” That is enough for the artist (or the artist part of the artist). But in the “Eucatastrophe” we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater—it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world. The use of this word gives a hint of my epilogue. It is a serious and dangerous matter. It is presumptuous of me to touch upon such a theme; but if by grace what I say has in any respect any validity, it is, of course, only one facet of a truth incalculably rich: finite only because the capacity of Man for whom this was done is finite.
I would venture to say that approaching the Christian Story from this direction, it has long been my feeling (a joyous feeling) that God redeemed the corrupt making-creatures, men, in a way fitting to this aspect, as to others, of their strange nature. The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: “mythical” in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable Eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the Eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the Eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the “inner consistency of reality.” There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.
It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be “primarily” true, its narrative to be history, without thereby necessarily losing the mythical or allegorical significance that it had possessed. It is not difficult, for one is not called upon to try and conceive anything of a quality unknown. The joy would have exactly the same quality, if not the same degree, as the joy which the “turn” in a fairy-story gives: such joy has the very taste of primary truth. (Otherwise its name would not be joy.) It looks forward (or backward: the direction in this regard is unimportant) to the Great Eucatastrophe. The Christian joy, the Gloria, is of the same kind; but it is preeminently (infinitely, if our capacity were not finite) high and joyous. But this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused.
But in God’s kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small. Redeemed Man is still man. Story, fantasy, still go on, and should go on. The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the “happy ending.” The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty with which he has been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation. All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know.”
–J. R. R. Tolkien
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Althusius on family life:
“Moreover, there are two kinds of private and natural domestic association. The first is conjugal (conjugalis), and the second is kinship (propinqua). The conjugal association and symbiosis is one in which the husband and wife, who are bound each to the other, communicate the advantages and responsibilities of married life. … The director and governor of the common affairs pertaining to this association is the husband. The wife and family are obedient, and do what is commanded….
The advantages and responsibilities are either proper to one of the spouses, or common to both. Proper advantages and responsibilities are either those the husband communicates to his wife, or those the wife communicates to her husband. The husband communicates to his wife his name, family, reputation, station in life, and economic condition. … He also provides her with guidance, legal protection, and defense against violence and injury. … Finally, he supplies her with all other necessities, such as management, solicitude, food, and clothing….
The wife extends to her husband obedience, subjection, trust, compliance, services, support, aid, honor, reverence, modesty, and respect. She brings forth children for him, and nurses and trains them. She joins and consoles him in misery and calamity. She accommodates herself to his customs, and without his counsel and consent she does nothing. And thus she renders to her husband an agreeable and peaceful life….
There are also common advantages and responsibilities that are provided and communicated by both spouses, such as kindness, use of the body for avoiding harlotry and for procreating children, mutual habitation except when absence may be necessary, intimate and familiar companionship, mutual love, fidelity, patience, mutual service, communication of all goods and right, … management of the family, administration of household duties, education of children in the true religion, protection against and liberation from perils, and mourning of the dead.”
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Chesterton on the mutual interdependence of the sexes and the folly of a “battle of the sexes:”
“We men and women are all in the same boat, upon a stormy sea. We owe to each other a terrible and tragic loyalty.”
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Feminism has used public policy to explicitly try to destroy the very kind of family many young men today want to form – a family with the husband as sole breadwinner and a wife who stays home to raise the children. The destruction of male earning power has been very intentional. “Smashing the patriarchy” was always about smashing any dependence of women on men; it was always about smashing fathers as providers and smashing marriage as an economically viable institution. Because feminism cuts against the grain of human nature and design, it requires a powerful state to prop it up.
Here’s the story:
https://intellectualtakeout.org/2019/05/the-silent-killer-of-marriage-and-family/
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The problem white identity politics is trying to solve is a real problem. It goes like this:
Whites are subjected to a colorblind meritocracy. Everyone else gets to be tribal and serve their own racial or ethnic group. Whites are excluded by “diversity” – while every other group gets to include and favor their own.
In fact, it’s even worse. Whites, especially white men, are actively discriminated against, which should be illegal, but there are no legal consequences when it happens.
What’s the solution? We need to find one, because solving this problem is absolutely necessary.
Making race a political identity in and of itself will always be problematic. In some areas, whites have been actively discriminated against and can legitimately fight back. For example, DEI initiatives in college admissions or in the military are illegal and should be ended (as the Trump administration has been trying to do). But a lot of the anti-whiteness in hiring practices is voluntary. In some cases, it make be obviously illegal since some employers have openly said things like “whites need not apply for this position.” There’s also the H1B program, which been used to displace whites from jobs in order to higher non-Americans who will work for less. But a lot of it is more subtle and harder to challenge (if it can be challenged at all). A lot of older whites in high ranking positions (positions in which they would do the hiring) go out of their way to hire non-whites — which is the opposite of what other ethnic groups are doing, who look out for their own. These upper crust whites hire non-whites because they pride themselves in promoting “diversity.” It’s a way of virtue signaling. It’s a way of assuaging white guilt. It’s a way, in their minds, of atoning for America’s racist past (and perhaps present).
In many ways, solving the problem of anti-whiteness comes down to convincing white progressives that they have it all wrong. “Diversity” is not our strength. America is not a racist nation. And there is nothing virtuous about intentionally discriminating against white job applicants.
I do not any neat and clean way to legally impose hiring practices on companies that do not want to hire whites. It does seem that an “affirmative action for whites” program would be viable. Sure, in some cases whites who have been discriminated against can fight back with lawfare. But in many cases explicit discrimination would be hard to prove. So we are stuck until we can persuade progressives to completely abandon their worldview and narrative.
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“The more financial and social support that the state directly provides for women and children, the more marginalized the father becomes in the family unit. And having a father in the home is still the number one way to help children stay out of poverty.
Women have a unique and irreplaceable role in the family; only they can carry and nurse a child. By contrast, fathers’ commitment to mom and baby comes voluntarily, and it involves support that is indirect: provision and protection. A minimal safety net can help women and children stay out of extreme poverty, but the goal should always be to create the unique male-female partnerships—marriages—that are the natural, divinely ordained, and most effective means of nurturing the next generation. We should be looking for policies that facilitate household formation, getting fathers into the lives of their children, rather than those that inhibit it, subsidizing fatherlessness. When the welfare state grows in size, it tells men: “you are expendable in your role as father.”
A minimal social safety net is here to stay, and conservatives are generally happy to make peace with it. But the future flourishing of the human race depends on the family. And the health of the family increasingly depends on our ability to force large bureaucracies to leave families alone, letting married partners live out their common life together and care for one another in humane and personal ways.
In the long term, if we are to flourish as a people, we need to become less isolated and more interrelated. We need to find not autonomy, but solidarity. And solidarity comes first through that original social institution: the family.”
— David Talcott
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Modern feminists want contradictory things: equal treatment when it suits them and special treatment when it suits them. Modern freedoms for her, traditional responsibilities for him. Better jobs than men in the workplace but dating/marrying a man who earns more. Feminists can never be happy because what they want is impossible.
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Somalians are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.
Is that a fair statement?
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Trump is the kind of man who says, “I have principles…and if you don’t like them, I have others.”
Abortion is murder. There can be no “flexibility.” Trump is wrong to ask for it on the Hyde Amendment.
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While I have identified with Christian nationalism, there is a biblical and historical case to be made for Christian imperialism. God set up empires in the old covenant world (see Daniel). There have been Christian empires in history. Pax Romana set the stage for the spread of the gospel early in the new covenant age. Pax Britannia set the stage for the spread of the gospel to distant lands in the early modern era. If America was in better shape spiritually, Pax Americana could be a great blessing to the world. Sadly, that’s not where we are. Colonialism had more more pros than cons (see Bruce Gilley’s work). But we are in no position to colonize other parts of the world in a helpful way right now. We have too many domestic problems too deal with.
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Yes, heaven will be diverse with people drawn from many nations. But hell will be equally diverse.
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“The cardinal difficulty,” said MacPhee, “in collaboration between the sexes is that women speak a language without nouns. If two men are doing a bit of work, one will say to the other, ‘Put this bowl inside the bigger bowl which you’ll find on the top shelf of the green cupboard.’ The female for this is, ‘Put that in the other one in there.’ And then if you ask them, ‘in where?’ they say, ‘in there, of course.’”
— C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength
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The “baptism of the Holy Spirit” is….baptism. There’s just one baptism in the new covenant, and that baptism includes the sign (water) and the thing signified (the Spirit).
To put it another way, 1 Corinthians 12:13 is talking about “water baptism.” The Spirit works through the water. Water baptism is Spiritual.
ADDENDUM: A sacrament by definition is the union of the sign and thing signified. God works through the sign to give the thing signified.
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I’m not really a fan of identity politics, including racial identity politics. But this is worth a listen:
As I’ve said before, ideology always ends up trumping identity categories like race, even for leftists who supposedly build their whole platform on identity-based grievances. Of course, it’s also the case that attacking a particular group, e.g., white males, almost inevitably means that group will end up having to engage in some form of counter-identity politics. If a group can be attacked as a group, expect them to fight back as a group.
But I’ve still never heard a good definition of white identity politics. The best solutions to anti-white bigotry I’ve seen come from Jeremy Carl and he did not really advocate white identity politics as a response to anti-whiteness.
Further, what does it mean to engage in white identity politics when (a) a lot of the anti-white bigotry actually comes from other whites, as the Jacob Savage article showed, and (b) whites are pretty ideologically split down the middle between left and right. How can you unite a group around race when race is the *only* thing they share? It seems to me that, at most, what MacIntyre is calling for is for conservative whites to unite as conservative whites as a block. But we already have that, even if the racial component is downplayed. To get to the point: I don’t think conservative political candidates are missing out on a huge voting block by not racializing their platform. I don’t see any net gain to doing white identity politics. It’s possible that conservative politicians do not engage in white identity politics because studies show it simply does not poll well or help electability. It doesn’t add anything to the coalition we already have. It’s not like you are going to have a bunch of white leftists start voting for white conservatives because those conservatives had added whiteness to their campaign messaging.
Finally, as MacIntyre admits, race is generally too thin of a category to build a platform upon. It’s not a healthy fixation. Identity politics does not actually improve the overall condition of the identity group. Feminism – gender identity politics – has not made women happier. Black identity politics has not restored the black family or made blacks a more productive block. Sure, they get their candidates elected – but to what end? It doesn’t help them, unless we define “help” as welfare that subsidizes the destruction of the black family, more murdered black babies, etc.
I would argue there is one kind of identity politics that will and should work: Christian identity politics. The Christian faith obviously provides a very thick sense of identity. Christian political theology has the potential to solve all our other social ills because it carries real content, in terms of ethics, policy, etc. And it gets to the core issue: The “great replacement” is not about replacing whites per se, but about ending historic Christian civilization. We are not about defending “whiteness” (which has no meaningful definition) but about defending and rebuilding Christendom. This is what “Christian nationalism” is all about.
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The progressives, secularists, and neopagans (but I repeat myself) are increasingly bullying Christians into a timid silence. We are being steered because we are easily intimidated. We self-censor out of fear of reprisal.
We fear if we stand against sodomy and “gar marriage,” we will be called intolerant.
We fear if we stand against transgenderism, we’ll be labeled bigots.
We fear if we stand against open borders or CRT, we’ll be called racists.
We fear that if we stand against antinomianism and actually apply the Bible, we’ll be labeled legalists.
We have to get over our fear of namecalling. Sticks and stones and all that. Who cares what slurs or slanders they bring against us? Why does it matter? Many godly people have been called names and slandered throughout history. If it happens to us, we are in good company.
When you fear man rather than God, you end up offending God and emboldening the wicked. Wickedness goes unchallenged.
Be very careful whom you fear offending. Your fears make you easy to control. Fear of offending men is the fear of man and it produces cowardice. Fear of God is not only the beginning of wisdom, it’s the beginning of courage.
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“Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, and you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. When you go to church you are really listening – in to the secret wireless from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going….
The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden – that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time. In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs.”
— C. S. Lewis
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You can be gay or you can be a Christian, but you can’t be a “gay Christian.”
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The founders designed the American system as a republic, so the rulers would be accountable to the ruled. Today, our rulers have virtually no accountability to the ruled, and the ruled are completely accountable to their rulers.
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“There are people who seem to think that the world owes them an awful lot, but who feel no need to explain what they have contributed to the world that led to this great debt.”
— Thomas Sowell
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“What is more scary than any particular candidate or policy is the gullibility of the public and their willingness to be satisfied with talking points, rather than serious arguments.”
— Thomas Sowell
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A plausible theory on the septum ring trend:
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Raising covenant children well is a work of faith. Faith is the missing element in a lot of teaching on Christian parenting. All Christian parenting should build on the promises — starting with “I will be a God to you and to you children.”
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This is really good – a summation of every pastor’s worst nightmare:
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“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.”
— George Orwell
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Many wives are experts in their husbands’ weaknesses:
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If you think men can get pregnant, you’re just a damned fool. I mean that literally. There’s no other way to describe it.
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The future is male and female. There is no future without the union and communion of men and women. The “war of the sexes” is the death of civilization.
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Abortion is murder.
Men and women are gloriously different.
A man cannot become a women and a woman cannot become a man.
Gays cannot marry.
The church is the new and true Israel.
Only the Lord Jesus Christ can forgive sins.
Embracing this handful of simple truths would radically transform and heal our crumbling civilization. Literally, this is all would take to fix everything.
ADDENDUM TO SIMEONE ACCUSING ME OF “REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY”: Nothing in my post makes a future conversion of the Jewish people to Christian faith impossible. In fact, I expect that. The same passage you are quoting – Romans 11 – tells us that Jews who reject Jesus are branches that have been broken out of the covenant tree. They can be grafted back in by coming to faith in Jesus, the one and only Savior.
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Many of our afflictions today and due to how we handle our incredible prosperity and comfort. We live amazingly luxurious lives compared to past generations. For most of history, life was incredibly hard for most people. Today, life is relatively comfortable.
We worked very hard to build a comfortable civilization. But now we are so comfortable we no longer know how to work hard.
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The dating/marriage today market is a mess and here’s one reason why (of many reasons): Most are agreed on what men should do: they should pay for the date, they should assume the role of protector and provider, etc. But what should women do? What is their role? What do they offer men in return? That’s the problem – men are generally still bound by the traditional norms, but women have no real norms at all.
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This is a good overview of the sexual revolution:
And this is a good overview the travesty of feminism:
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The “baptism of the Holy Spirit” is….baptism.
To put it another way, 1 Corinthians 12:13 is talking about “water baptism.” The Spirit works through the water.
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Satan loves Gnosticism because it is a heresy. But Satan is not a gnostic. He works with the material creation – through illicit entertainments, pagan sacramental meals, psychedelic drugs, excess alcohol consumption, etc. We really cannot explain how Satan and demons work in our world to tempt us – but we know that they do. Satan cannot create anything, but he can pervert God’s good creation.
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Our whole salvation is contained in the crucified and risen Christ. The risen Christ IS the gospel. He is our election, our righteousness, our regeneration, our redemption, our sanctification, our glorification. He is our everything, our all in all. Everything we need is in him, and outside of him is nothing we need.
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Biden put a $25 million reward on Maduro’s head. Does Trump get to claim it now?
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“We are living in a condition of permanent revolution… revolutions are here to stay and will grow much worse in scope and intensity unless men can be persuaded to return to Christianity, to practise its precepts and to obey the gospel in its full implications for human life and civilized society. Barring such a revival, the future would belong to socialism and communism, which on this view were but the most consistent sects of the new secular religion. To Groen, therefore, the political spectrum that presented itself to his generation offered no meaningful choice. “In terms of his analysis, the ‘radical left’ was composed of fanatical believers in the godless ideology; the ‘liberal centre,’ by comparison, by warm believers who warned against excesses and preached moderation; while the ‘conservative right’ embraced all those who lacked either the insight, the prudence, or the will to break with the modern tenets yet who recoiled from the consequences whenever the ideology was practised and implemented in any consistent way. None of the shades or ‘nuances of secular liberalism represented a valid option for Christian citizens.” Groen called for a rejection of the entire available spectrum of political positions, calling for a “radical alternative in politics, along anti-revolutionary, Christian-historical lines.”
— Henry van Dyke, summarizing the work of Groen van Prinsterer
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One angle on the socialism question: Can the state commit theft? The 8th and 10th commandments presuppose private property. If the state takes what it does not have a right to, it is stealing.
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Socialism is statism:
“The individual is nothing; the collective is everything.”
— Stalin
“The interests of the individual must be subordinated to the interests of the collective.”
— Mao
“Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”
— Mussolini
“We’ll replace rugged individualism with collectivism.”
— Mamdani
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“The law is divine and holy. Let the law have his glory, but yet no law, be it never so divine and holy, ought to teach me that I am justified, and shall live through it. I grant it may teach me that I ought to love God and my neighbour; also to live in chastity, soberness, patience, etc., but it ought not to show me, how I should be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell.
Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teacheth me, not what I ought to do, (for that is the proper office of the law,) but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me : to wit, that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel willeth me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consisteth.
Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.”
–Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians
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The cross reveals how much God hates sin at the very same moment it reveals how much God loves sinners.
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I don’t have to say “black lives matter,” because I never believed they don’t matter.
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There is an assumption that the kind of young men who listen to and support Nick Fuentes and other alt right figures are all losers living in mom’s basement. That’s true is in some cases, but certainly not all. There are definitely some very successful young men who do not have a victim mentality, are not looking for an online father figure, are not incels, and yet like the messaging of the alt right. The alt right includes some very successful, even high profile, young men.
Why is this? What’s the attraction?
A few things are going on. First, a lot of what Fuentes and others have to say is actually true, and anyone paying attention can see it. Fuentes is diagnosing real problems. We live in an anti-white, misandrist culture. A lot of successful young men are just happy to hear someone speak truth about the wider cultural situation, even if they navigated that situation successfully.
Second, a feature of masculinity is disagreeableness. Men are drawn to other men who are willing to say what no one else will say. It’s transgressive and edgy, but also compelling. Men appreciate courage wherever they find it, and the alt right has it. A lot of other sins can be overlooked when a man is boldly saying the unsayable.
Third, men want battles to fight. Men want to do something heroic, and the world today provides men very few opportunities to do something heroic. If men want meaningful battles to fight, fighting progressivism and the longhouse fit the bill – even if a man has succeeded personally, he may get satisfaction from fighting a larger cultural battle on behalf of other men. Men want to make the world a better place, and fighting feminists, globalists, etc., is a way to do that. The alt right feels like “the front line” in a larger battle.
Finally, even without a victim mindset, men want someone who understands their struggles and will give encouragement. Many men find this is the alt right world. The alt right gives men a virtual band of brothers – men who recognize what they’re each up against, give each other a pat on the back, and provide a sense of camaraderie. We have destroyed all other male spaces; the alt right’s online presence fills that void for a lot of men. If men want to fight a battle with other by their side today, they have sports teams (which ends for most men after high school), they have the military (though only since Hegseth ended DEI), and alt right online spaces. What do you expect to do? Where do you expect them to go?
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Back during the Christmas season, I preached a sermon on feasting. A listener who’s health condition prevents them from feasting asked some very good questions about how a sermon like that applies to them. My response:
You raise good questions, and I’m not sure I have all the answers for you, but I will give as much counsel as I can. Obviously, you should enter into and enjoy the kinds of things I mentioned in the sermon as much as you can. But you are right, it’s a fallen world and nothing will be perfect this side of the resurrection. We are indeed sorrowful even as we rejoice.
To the degree that we are deprived of things like feasting and community, we have to look ahead to the fullness of those things in the world to come. Your situation in hearing a sermon on gifts you cannot fully enjoy is not all that different from a single person who wants to be married hearing a sermon on the blessings of marriage, or a barren couple hearing a sermon on the blessings of children. It can be very hard. I fully recognize that.
As you say, taking shelter in God’s love is the best thing to do because it’s the only constant. God’s love is always our North Star, guiding us to our eternal home in the new creation.
But I would add a few things in addition to all of that. First, gratitude for whatever you are able to enjoy is essential. Thanksgiving is the key to the enjoyment of any gift. Thanksgiving is the key that unlocks joy. When we are suffering, the great temptation is to think God isn’t good, meaning he isn’t generous, he doesn’t love us, he doesn’t have our best interests in view. This is how Satan tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden; would they trust God loved them even as he withheld something good from them? This was also Job’s great test; would he cling to the goodness of God even when all experiential evidence of his goodness was lacking? Thanksgiving is a way of recognizing God’s goodness even in the midst of hardship. Satan wants us to believe God is miserly, stingy, and hates us. We have to resist those lies. Thanksgiving is proof we are clinging to the truth about who God is, and thanksgiving always produces both joy and enjoyment. When we are thankful, we can be content in any circumstances.
This is why the Eucharist is so important – Jesus gave two prayers of thanksgiving, one over the bread, another over the wine, in order to reprogram us into gratitude. Adam ate without giving thanks; we double up the thanksgiving at the Lord’s table to train us in this virtue.
Also, when we are deprived of a gift, whether feasting, friendship, marriage, children, whatever, it is crucial to remember that these gifts are indeed good even if we miss out on them. We may not enjoy these gifts ourselves, but we can be happy for those who do get to enjoy them. We cannot adjust our theology to fit our experience; we must interpret our experience through the lens of our theology. I have seen women who did not get married become feminists and start to argue that marriage is an oppressive institution, that no one should get married, etc. They’re not married – so no one should get married. I’ve seen people who have never really succeeded financially decide that all rich people are evil, wealth is always corrupting, etc. This is just envy. It’s an immature and destructive way of trying to cope with loss. It’s a sinful strategy for dealing with real pain. Instead of taking that pain to God and giving it to him, it becomes a source of bitterness. So this would be my counsel: If you cannot feast fully or enjoy other blessings the way you once did, and the way others around you do, you have to stay committed to the truth that all those things really are still good gifts and rejoice in the freedom others around you have to enjoy them. Enter into their joy as much as possible. Be happy for them. Don’t envy them – thank God for what they get to experience, even if you are deprived (for now). Who knows? Perhaps God will even restore your ability to enjoy some of these things in the near future – don’t give up hope!
To put it another way, even if you cannot feast the way I described in the sermon, 1 Timothy 4:3-5 are still true. Ecclesiastes 9:7 is still true. Isaiah 25:6 is still true. God’s creation is still good. Feasting is still good. Food and drink are still glorious gifts from our Heavenly Father. Don’t change your theology just because you cannot fully partake.
Likewise, health and physical strength remain good gifts, even if you are deprived of them. You may not be able to thank God for your own strength in the way you once could because you have lost strength, but you can thank God for the health and strength of those around you – just like a single person could thank God for others’ happy marriages and a barren couple can learn to be thankful for all the little children running around the church. Thanksgiving reminds us we are not in competition with others. We are part of a shared kingdom, a body, and thus we all share in the blessings of the other members of the body, even as we in some way share in the sufferings of others.
The temptation of the sufferer is always to curve in upon himself – to think his suffering is somehow unique. Anyone who suffers faces the temptation to become a narcissist, to think their own suffering is special. Only one person can say, “No one has ever suffered like me,” and he died on a cross 2000 years ago. What keeps us from getting curved in ourselves in the midst of suffering is remembering, and clinging tightly to, the truth that our trials are assigned by God for our good. But trials only do good in our lives when we respond to them in this way, with faith, fear of God, and thanksgiving. When we do not mix trials with faith, trials make us angry, bitter, and envious. When we respond to trials with faith, we can count them as joy, as James 1 says.
One thing I mentioned in the sermon yesterday [1/4/25] is that suffering does not automatically sanctify. Suffering can either harden our hearts or soften them, depending on how we respond. When suffering persists over a long time, it can be very difficult to keep trusting God. But that’s what we are called to do. And as we do so, trials change us for the better.
We are not justified by our suffering. Being a victim does not make us righteous. We are justified by faith in the suffering of Jesus on our behalf. But suffering can have a sanctifying effect on us when we suffer in faith. God has designed our lives like an obstacle course. The trials we have to run through are part of his plan to mature and strengthen his people. Our trials are a curriculum; we get a passing grade by continuing to trust in God and rest in his goodness no matter how bad life gets.
I have seen people suffer with terminal cancer and get progressively more spiteful, angry, despondent, bitter, and hopeless. I have seen others suffer with terminal cancer and become so full love and joy, it’s as if they glowed, even as they were physically wasting away. The difference is the faith and gratitude (or lack thereof) in the sufferer. It’s up to each of us to decide what to do with our trials. But the results of the choice we make become evident over time. Suffering in unbelief embitters; suffering in faith produces an inexplicable joy and peace.
Or, to give yet another way to think about it, the same trial can be experienced as a Satanic temptation, or a God-given test. The same experience can be viewed from two different perspectives. All trials are fire, but what kind of fire? Satan is an arsonist trying to burn you to the ground with hellfire. God is a goldsmith, burning away your dross so the remaining pure gold can be fashioned into a crown. Satan hates you and tempts you as a way to destroy you; God hates the dross and wants to burn it off because he loves you and wants to glorify you. Or, as Augustine put it: “When you are put into the furnace of affliction, will you come forth as gold or grass?”
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Thanksgiving is the key to the enjoyment of any gift.
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The church has fitting greetings for Christmas and Easter. We say “Merry Christmas!” throughout the Advent/Christmas cycle. We say “Christ is risen!” with the response ” He is risen indeed!” at Easter.
But we don’t have a good greeting for Epiphany which is unfortunate. I suppose something like this “Happy Epiphany!” would work. Or maybe, “Christ is baptized!” with the response “He is baptized indeed!”
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Follow up to my sermon on 2 Samuel 2:
Joab is proof it’s possible to be on the right side and yet be in the wrong. Joab is on the right side but he isn’t right. He serves David, but not in David’s way, and not in God’s way.
A good example of a modern day Joab would be Nick Fuentes. Fuentes is on the right side on many issues – and yet he isn’t right. He serves many good causes, but not in a good way, certainly not in God’s way.
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Christmas celebrates something that happened in the “fullness of time” (Galatians 4).
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We will know America back on track when we elect a man with a beard as president. It’s been a while (since Benjamin Harrison in 1893, to be precise)
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As David is rising to the throne in 2 Samuel 2-4, he has to deal with sabotage from within and without. From within, Joab’s recklessness threatens to make a united kingdom impossible. From without, Abner’s missteps create obstacles in David’s path. The reality is that leaders will always have to deal with Joabs and Abners. Leaders should expect sabotage, and then navigate it deftly when it happens. It’s impossible to do anything worth doing in a fallen world without facing obstacles and opposition. Good leadership is never easy.
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“Where does the DSM-5 talk about progressive sanctification?”
— Matthew Everhard
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“Women often claim that if their husbands loved them as Christ loved the Church, they would have no problems submitting to them. Well, women, Christ loves you so much He died for you, yet you are unwilling to submit to Christ and live in submission to your husbands as He commands.”
— The Transformed Wife/Lori Alexander
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Some Protestants have made up sacraments, just like Roman Catholics – the altar call and confirmation being obvious examples.
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We can argue about the justice of women’s suffrage. But what doesn’t need to be argued – because it is so obvious – is the disaster it has wrought in Western nations.
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Auron McIntyre has some interesting notes on ethnic and racial identity politics in a high immigration society here:
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Israelite children were not required to meet with the elders and pass an exam or go through a confirmation class before eating the Passover or the manna from heaven, both of which were sacramental. The Bible teaches paedocommunion.
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For a Christian man, sanctification means growth in true masculinity.
For a Christian woman, sanctification means growth in true femininity.
Sanctification is not an androgynous process.
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The prayer of a Christian:
“Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.”
Note this prayer combines forgiveness (“mercy”) and transformation/sanctification (“incline our hearts…”). These are the dual benefits of our faith-wrought union with Christ.
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These verses from Zechariah 3 have implications for how we understand justification and sanctification:
[4] And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” [5] And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the LORD was standing by. [6] And the angel of the LORD solemnly assured Joshua, [7] “Thus says the LORD of hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here.
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Ronald Wallace summarizing John Calvin’s program of cultural transformation:
“His program could be described as one of social sanctification rather than of social reconstruction. A transformation first had to be brought about in the personal lives of Geneva’s citizens. This was to be achieved chiefly by two means: through social discipline, and through the sacramental power of the Word of God.”
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Our whole salvation is contained in the crucified and risen Christ. The risen Christ IS the gospel. He is our election, our righteousness, our regeneration, our redemption, our sanctification, our glorification. He is our everything, our all in all. Everything we need is in him, and outside of him is nothing we need.
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“Every American alive today benefits from centuries of risk taking by previous generations.”
— Edwin Friedman
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One of the best things you can do in the new year is commit to reading old books. Read the dead guys.
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Paul calls the husband the “head” of his wife. There are debates over whether head means “authority” or “source.” Besides the fact that a husband is not the “source” of his wife, consider the context:
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”
Wives are commanded to submit and note the reason why – note the “for” and “therefore” in verses 23 and 24, which provide grounding for the command to submit. She is submit to her husband and be subject to him in everything because he is her head. Whatever a head is, it is something that can and must be submitted to. The fact that a wife is commanded to submit to her husband indicates her husband has authority over her, and the word Paul uses to describe that authority is “head.”
Further consider the analogy Paul uses: a man is head over his wife Christ is head over the church just as a husband is head over his wife. In a marriage, the man takes his cues from Christ and the wife takes her cues from the church. We can certainly say Christ is the source of the Christ; he creates the church through his death and resurrection. But Christ is also the ruler of his church. His church must submit to him. This is the point of contact in the analogy – her submission to his rule and leadership.
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Nick Fuentes is a Joab.
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Progressives cannot ever be happy because they are at war with reality. They constantly complain because they are rebelling against the way the world works. Male and female natures don’t change. The laws of economics, including scarcity, do not change. The poor we will always have us. Prosperity requires hard work. Penalizing the productive in the name of equality kills productivity and still doesn’t make everyone equal. The races will always have different strengths and weaknesses. Etc.
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“Chinese world history courses, unlike ours in the West, emphasize patriotism…Western global history, by contrast, displays no loyalty to Western societies or traditions; quite the contrary..Western global history is often, indeed, actively anti-Western.”
— James Hankins (https://www.compactmag.com/article/why-im-leaving-harvard/)
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“If you think about the received wisdom about poverty among educated people in wealthy countries, it tends to emphasize structural explanations. Many people, particularly those with college degrees, have absorbed a steady message that poverty is primarily the result of unfair systems, inequities, and forces beyond individual control. There is some truth to this. We do not live in a perfectly fair society.
Still, in rich countries today, individuals have more influence over their economic outcomes than at almost any other point in history, and certainly more than in most societies past or present. When someone has been taught that poverty is caused almost entirely by external constraints, encountering poverty up close can be destabilizing. Seeing people repeatedly make self-defeating or irresponsible choices clashes with that moral framework, and for many observers, the tension between structural explanations and individual behavior can be genuinely unsettling.”
— Rob Henderson
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A few quotes from a very good article by Justin Lee on the “Groyper problem”:
“The “serious” Right’s performative denunciation and deplatforming of Fuentes and his interlocutors has predictably backfired, because it neither takes their grievances seriously nor offers an authentically masculine alternative. A lasting solution will recognize Fuentes as a symptom, not the problem itself. It must also take into account the hyperreal nature of digital discourse by emphasizing the world outside the screen, which is the only way to reestablish common referents in the real.”
“[We must] comprehensively destroy the power structures that police masculinity, privilege only feminine modes of conflict, and pathologize “whiteness” and heterosexuality. The Trump Administration’s war on DEI is a good start, but it must be extended. DEI is only the latest manifestation of the cancer that blossomed from the 1964 Civil Rights Act. More will grow unless we reform the source. We need to dream of a world without HR.”
“The way to beat Nick Fuentes and what he represents is to give guys like him the opportunity to win as men: dismantle the systems that generate their ressentiment, and offer a vision of life more robust than groyperism. The hyperreal irony is that Fuentes may actually agree.”
This article echoes my own thoughts. While Groyperism isn’t the answer – it’s a dead end – the grievances of young white men are legitimate. No one is throwing young men a rope. No one who can help is doing so; instead they either ignore the problem, make it worse, or attack young men for being “radicalized,” which only back fires. Rolling back DEI is necessary but only a start. Young men must be given a world that can navigate and succeed in as men, and must be trained in how to do so. The Longhouse must be smashed, but we also have to have something positive to replace it with.
The good news is that if young men will learn to exercise agency and persevere through the suffering being inflicted on them by the anti-white, misandrist, affordability-crisis culture in which we live, they will be tougher than steel and ready to do great things when they come to maturity. The future will belong to them and they will be prepared to leave a better world to their children than was left to them.
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This article by Devin Foley deserves more attention than it has gotten:
https://1819news.com/culture/devin-foley-what-is-culture-war
Several things stand out.
First, most Christians think of the culture war in terms of persuasion, not power. Of course, it has to be both. But Foley brings the power dimension to the fore. Obviously, we would like nothing more than to convert our culture war opponents to the Christian faith. This is what Charlie Kirk was good at doing. We’d like to persuade progressives of the folly of their worldview and the truth of the Christian worldview.
But no matter how successful our evangelistic and apologetic ministries are in the culture war, the element of political power – who has it, how they use it, and what ends it serves – will not go away. And as Foley says in the article, much of the current culture war boils down to power: Can we use power to force those who reject or attack our way of life to submit to our cultural vision? We may not be able to persuade the pro-choicers that abortion is murder, but we can outlaw and criminalize abortion. We might not be able to convince the sodomite that his lifestyle is an abomination, but we can send LGBTQ+ back into the closet. We might not be able to persuade the open border globalists that God ordained nations and authorizes them to restrict immigration in various ways, but we can close the border, deport illegals, tax remittances, and make those involved in welfare fraud pay for it.
The left understands how political power relates to the culture war much better than the right. They have used political power, in the form of changes to the law and judicial activism, to impose their will on the rest of us in many areas of life. The right should not use all the same tactics as the left (since many of them are dishonest), but we should also recognize that the culture war cannot be won by men who are “nice guys” – it will be won by thick skinned warriors who are determined to win it and will make sacrifices to do so. We have to be willing to use the power of the state’s sword to “compel our enemy to do our will” in the culture. The sword cannot change hearts, but it can change behavior. It cannot change taste but it can change what is acceptable in many areas of the public square.
Not all culture war issues can be solved with political power, of course. Not every aspect of the common good is subject to legislation. But Aquinas and many other Christian political philosophers have rightly argued that the civil law can tutor citizens in basic morality, ingraining in them a sense of right and wrong. Winning the culture war will take more than political activism. But it will also take more than evangelism. The kind of transformation of culture Christians seek requires a combination of many things – the use of political force; evangelism and apologetics; the production of ennobling art, music, and stories; and so on. The once beautiful culture of the West has been trashed. We once had Bach; now we have Taylor Swift. We once Rembrandt; how we have Jackson Pollack. We once built cathedrals; now churches worship in strip malls. Not only is the “common good” contested; the very concept of good and evil is called into question by postmodern relativism and nihilism. The ethos of a people cannot change overnight because it is rooted in character and character is developed on time, with training.
The culture war is a comprehensive battle for the soul and direction of our nation. Foley hits the nail on the head:
“A culture war, therefore, may be considered a non-traditional war waged over the ethos or guiding beliefs which inform and shape the collective actions of a people, nation, or even civilization. It’s a war over the very foundations of society, law, morals, and customs, and in some ways, reaches much deeper than many traditional wars.
The objective of a culture war is the destruction and replacement of one ethos and its culture for another, but not through the means of a conquering army or a traditional civil war fought with opposing armies. It is far more subtle and takes place internally, with the proponents of change spending decades hollowing out and taking over cultural institutions such as media, entertainment, and education. If they meet with success, they begin seizing the levers of power in government, giving them the full use of force against their enemies.”
Foley recognizes that political activism is necessary but insufficient by itself. We need to win elections and legislative battles, but we have to do more. The left has scored many victories by dominating entertainment, academia, and the arts. Christians need to work much harder at breaking through in these fields, even if in many cases it means creating alternative platforms.
Finally, Foley recognizes that trying to be a culture war pacifist is bound to backfire. If someone breaks into your home and threatens to kill your family and steal your property, a “live and let live” or “just leave me alone” response will result in disaster. As Foley puts it:
“The proponents of change took the fight seriously, and when they seize power, they use that power “without compunction.” Whereas the opponents of the egalitarian nihilism eating away at the fiber of our people have been far too kind and “tolerant.””
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Earlier feminists fought for women’s right to enter the workplace. Later feminists fought their right to complain about it.
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“A pastor who does his job well has the hardest job on the planet. A pastor who does his job poorly has the easiest job on the planet.”
— Bebo Elkin
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“After decades of women’s studies, what do we have to to show for it Definitely not a generation of women that is freer and happier, that’s for sure. But we do have a dictionary of new terms.”
— Hannah Speier
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I want a big church and a small civil government.
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“The suffering of the Mediator does not date from the end of His stay on earth…. The blood of the Savior’s circumcision is as much atoning blood for us as is the blood shed on Golgotha.
His entire life was a continual suffering.”
— Geerhardus Vos
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Circumcision and baptism are related but not the same. Circumcision divided Jew from Gentile (Gen. 17). Baptism unites Jew and Gentile in Christ (Gal. 3).
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Baptism does not “replace” circumcision. God weakened Abe by requiring him to be circumcised in Genesis 17 right after he tried to bring the promised seed into the world in his own strength in Genesis 16. In the book of Genesis, male circumcision corresponds to female barrenness – they both have to do with demonstrating the promised seed will be brought into the world by the power of the Spirit, not the flesh. Circ was a threat to Abe – “try to bring the promised seed into to the world in your own strength again, and I’ll cut the whole thing off!” Of course, Paul picks up on the implied threat of castration in the book of Galatians.
Circumcision was not about male headship as such; it was the way in which God had promised to bring the messianic seed into the world. Baptism fulfills circumcision, but it’s not a direct replacement because they have very different meanings. It’s not like God just swapped out one sign for another and everything else remained the same. In some ways, circumcision and baptism have opposite meanings – circumcision divided Jew from Gentile, whereas baptism unites circumcision unites them. You could also argue circumcision distinguished men from women since it is tied to the different roles men and women play in redemptive history – the woman gives birth the the male seed (“she will be saved in the childbirth,” as 1 Timothy 2 puts it), while the male seed sheds his blood to bring cleansing (circ was a form of sacrifice).
Of course, just as baptism unites Jew and Gentile in Christ, it unites men and women in Christ. It is interesting that when a woman gave birth to a son, his circ shortened the time of her uncleanness (Leviticus 12), indicating that when the promised seed finally comes, the shedding of his blood will bring cleansing to women as well as men. Paul calls the cross Christ’s circumcision made without hands in Colossians 2. In terms of baptizing women, remember, all men, women, and children were baptized many times in the old covenant. The book of Hebrews refers to these Levitical washings as “baptisms.” Every infant was baptized after birth in the old covenant – infant baptism as such was not new in the new covenant. Women had to be baptized regularly to wash away various forms of uncleanness – so of course, no one is going to argue the church should stop baptizing women. Men also got various baptisms under Levitical law.
New covenant baptism fulfills all of these old covenant baptisms and rolls them into one (unrepeatable) baptism. New covenant baptism is a kind of super-baptism that does away with the need for all of the old covenant washings because it fulfills them all (just like the Lord’s Supper rolls all old covenant feasts into one meal that fulfills them all).
We could also argue for the inclusion of women in baptism from other old covenant typological baptisms. The ark got baptized, and since it was a household baptism, it included women (1 Peter 3). The Red Sea crossing was a baptism – and it included women and infants (1 Cor. 10). Etc. So I don’t think it’s very difficult to make the argument for baptizing women. There are actually numerous lines of argument that point that way.
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The point of circumcision as the sign of the Abrahamic covenant was to demonstrate that the promised seed would come not by the power of man’s flesh but by the working of God’s Spirit. The coming of the Messiah and his salvation would be a divine gift, not a human achievement. God cut off the flesh of man in a symbolic castration (equivalent to female barrenness) to prove that point that the coming of the promised seed of the woman/Abraham/David would be sheer grace.
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Circumcision pointed to savior who would come and the blood he would shed. Baptism unites us with the Savior who has come by the work of his Spirit.
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Baptism does not “replace” circumcision.
God weakened Abe by requiring him to be circumcised in Genesis 17 right after he tried to bring the promised seed into the world in his own strength in Genesis 16. In the book of Genesis, male circumcision corresponds to female barrenness – they both have to do with demonstrating the promised seed will be brought into the world by the power of the Spirit, not the flesh. Circ was a threat to Abe – “try to bring the promised seed into to the world in your own strength again, and I’ll cut the whole thing off!” Of course, Paul picks up on the implied threat of castration in the book of Galatians.
Circumcision was not about male headship as such; it was the way in which God had promised to bring the messianic seed into the world.
Baptism fulfills circumcision, but it’s not a direct replacement because they have very different meanings. It’s not like God just swapped out one sign for another and everything else remained the same. In some ways, circ and baptism have opposite meanings – circ divided Jew from Gentile, whereas baptism unites circ unites them. You could also argue circ distinguished men from women since it is tied to the different roles men and women play in redemptive history – the woman gives birth the the male seed (“she will be saved in the childbirth,” as 1 Timothy 2 puts it), while the male seed sheds his blood to bring cleansing (circ was a form of sacrifice). Of course, just as baptism unites Jew and Gentile in Christ, it unites men and women in Christ.
It is interesting that when a woman gave birth to a son, his circ shortened the time of her uncleanness (Leviticus 12), indicating that when the promised seed finally comes, the shedding of his blood will bring cleansing to women as well as men. Paul calls the cross Christ’s circumcision made without hands in Colossians 2.
In terms of baptizing women, remember, all men, women, and children were baptized many times in the old covenant. The book of Hebrews refers to these Levitical washings as “baptisms.” Every infant was baptized after birth in the old covenant – infant baptism as such was not new in the new covenant. Women had to be baptized regularly to wash away various forms of uncleanness – so of course, no one is going to argue the church should stop baptizing women. Men also got various baptisms under Levitical law. New covenant baptism fulfills all of these old covenant baptisms and rolls them into one (unrepeatable) baptism. New covenant baptism is a kind of super-baptism that does away with the need for all of the old covenant washings because it fulfills them all.
We could also argue for the inclusion of women in baptism from other old covenant typological baptisms. The ark got baptized, and since it was a household baptism, it included women (1 Peter 3). The Red Sea crossing was a baptism – and it included women and infants (1 Cor. 10). Etc.
So I don’t think it’s very difficult to make the argument for baptizing women. There are actually numerous lines of argument that point that way.
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Circumcision, baptism, and Acts 15:
Jewish Christians continued to practice circumcision even after the Jerusalem Council. They just couldn’t require the circumcision of Gentile believers. The verdict of the council was that Gentiles did not need to become Jews in order to become Christians. The council said nothing about Jews being forbidden from continuing to practice circumcision.
The issue was not, “Must Jews stop circumcising since they are baptized?,” but “Must Gentiles get circumcised and become Jewish in order to be saved?” It’s as if some Jewish believers wanted Gentiles to get circumcised as a prerequisite for getting baptized and the Council rejected that view.
Interestingly, I’d argue Paul does answer your question in Galatians 3. The whole chapter deals with the question, “Who are the children of Abraham?” And Paul answers not “the circumcised” but “the baptized.” See 3:27-29: All those who are baptized have put on Christ and belong to him; and if you belong to Christ, you are Abraham’s children.
Going back to Acts 15, it has bothered me that the Council did not tell Jews to stop circumcising altogether since circumcision no longer marks out the covenant community. Why continue using a bloody sign after the cross? But the apostles (wisely) determined that if Jewish believers wanted to continue circumcising as a cultural/ethnic thing, they were free to do so. They just couldn’t make it a test of fellowship for Gentile believers.
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On circumcision, baptism, and faith:
- circumcision was the sign of the righteousness that comes by faith, but that did not prevent infants from receiving it.
- Psalm 22:9-10 indicates that the normative pattern for covenant children is to have faith from the womb and to grow up never remembering a day when they did not trust the Lord.
- The requirement of faith to receive the blessings promised to Abraham’s children is not a new covenant thing — faith has always been required. And yet that requirement did not mean children were excluded.
- I develop arguments for the faith of covenant children in much more detail in my book Paedofaith.
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The Abrahamic covenant was all about bringing the promised *male* seed of the *woman* into the world. When a boy was circumcised, the blood shed brought cleansing to his mother (see Leviticus 12). So women “participated” in the circumcision of their sons.
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The NT essentially says baptism fulfills and transforms what circumcision pointed to in Col. 2:11-12 and Gal. 3:27-29. But baptism fulfills a lot more than just circumcision’s meaning. All the old covenant washing rituals and water events pointed to new covenant baptism as well.
More importantly, in the NT, Jewish Christians are never told they must stop circumcising their children; the issue is whether Gentile converts needed to be circumcised as well. Baptism is not brought up in the circumcision debates such as Acts 15 because it’s just not relevant to actual topic at hand. The debates over circumcision in the NT have nothing to do with excluding children and everything to do with including of Gentiles. Jewish Christians knew Gentiles would be baptized; but believed they ALSO needed circumcision. The question at issue was whether or not Gentile believers had to be circumcised in order to enter Abraham’s promised family.
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The circumcision in view in Colossians 2 is “made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh” and can rightly be linked with Deut. 30. But the reason for telling them their hearts have been circumcised is to counter the arguments of the Judaizers who are pressuring them to receive physical circumcision. And so it’s very crucial to note that he immediately goes on to talk about baptism. They do not need physical circumcision as a sign of covenant membership because they already received the physical sign of covenant membership when they were baptized. That’s the logic and flow of his argument:
- You don’t need to be circumcised because you have what circumcision pointed to through to Christ, through his crucifixion, which was the cutting off (or putting off) of the flesh.
- You don’t need circumcision because you have been baptized, through which you are united to Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection.
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The issues addressed in Galatians and Colossians are similar. And Paul does exactly what you say – he says baptism has replaced circumcision: “in him you were circumcised, having been baptized.”
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Baptism as covenant sign is a matter of good and necessary consequence, a plain inference. Baptism is our entrance into the covenant community, the visible church.
The argument for paedobaptism does not rest on the circumcision/baptism link, but the link is there in Colossians 2.
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“Dissimilarity of stock [ὁμόφυλον] is also conducive to factional conflict, until a cooperative spirit develops. For just as a city does not arise from any chance multitude, so it does not arise in any chance period of time. Hence those who have admitted joint settlers or later settlers [of different stock] have for the most part split into factions.”
— Aristotle, Politics 5.3 (1303a)
“Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one”
— The Apostle Paul (Ephesians 2:11ff)
Ephesians 2 is about the church not civil society, but it is an historical fact that the union of various people groups in the church’s community eventually transformed civil society, eg, what we eventually came to know as Europe/Western civ. Likewise, Paul did not eradicate the institution of slavery, but he did plant seeds that would eventually grow into emancipation in Christian societies. The gospel does not abolish nature or natural affections, obviously. But the gospel does expand our affections beyond the natural, as the NT shows.
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“I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs, but by how high he bounces when he hits bottom.”
— George S. Patton
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Feminists like to say well-behaved women rarely make history – but they do make excellent wives and mothers!
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The Great Commission:
Satan had his turn discipling the nations under the old covenant. In the new covenant, it’s Jesus’ turn to disciple the nations.
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The Lord of the Rings trilogy exposes the bankruptcy of identity politics.
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“War is just a shot away.”
–Mick Jagger
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If young white men will persevere through the suffering being inflicted on them by the anti-white, misandrist, affordability-crisis culture in which we live, they will be tougher than steel and ready to do great things when they come to maturity. Persevere! The future is yours.
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“I like the old RUF better than the new RUF.”
— Bebo Elkin
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A note on the CREC vs. the PCA on covenant objectivity:
Questions about covenant objectivity, sacramental efficacy, who can be called a Christian, and even apostasy, are really all fundamentally questions about the church. In fact, I would say this entire discussion boils down to who really believes what WCF 25.2 says about the church. But I’ll unpack that a bit.
WCF 25.2 says the visible church is the kingdom, house, and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.
WCF 28.1 says baptism admits the party baptized to the visible church — the kingdom, house, and family of God.
Note that everyone baptized enters the visible church.
That means every person baptized, including children, should be regarded as members of the kingdom, house, and family of God.
It’s just WCF 25.2 + WCF 28.1 — that’s sum total of the CREC view.
And that means that if someone abandons the faith and gets excommunicated, they have lost their membership in the kingdom, house, and family of God. We don’t have to say anything specifically about their regeneration (since that term has a variety of meanings in our tradition).
If we could just agree on those simple statements from the confession, I think everything else pretty much resolves itself and falls into place. That’s really all I would ask for: treat covenant/baptized children as members of the kingdom, house, and family of God. (As for paedocommunion, I’d just say we need to connect the dots: if baptized children are kingdom members, the kingdom feast is theirs; if baptized children are members of God’s family, surely their Heavenly Father will feed them; etc. But we can set thjat debate to the side for now.)
My concern with the PCA on these issues is that, in general, they simply do not uphold the language and categories of their own confession and catechisms. I spent a lot of years in the PCA and rarely if ever heard the sacraments referred to as “effectual means of salvation” the way WSC 91 does. I rarely heard the threefold answer to WSC 85 articulated. I rarely heard the visible church described as “the kingdom house, and family of God.” The category of “common operations of the Spirit” in WCF 10.6 — operations of the Spirit common to covenant/church members who persevere and those who do not — was generally ignored.
Maybe I’m wrong, or things have changed since I left, but when I was in the PCA, most pastors objected to calling a newly baptized baby a member of God’s kingdom and family, even though the plain language of our confession demands it. I think this is because most of them are Baptists at heart, so what counts is not membership in the visible church, but some kind of conversion experience later on. That’s foreign to the the confession’s way of thinking.
As for calling baptized babies “Christians” the men who wrote the Confession, the Westminster divines, also produced a Directory for the Publick Worship of God (available here: https://thewestminsterstandard.org/directory-for-the-publick-worship-of-god/). In that Directory, in the section on “The Administration of the Sacraments,” they state, “Before baptism, the minister is to use some words of instruction, touching the institution, nature, use, and ends of this sacrament, shewing….That the promise is made to believers and their seed; and that the seed and posterity of the faithful, born within the church, have, by their birth, interest in the covenant, and right to the seal of it, and to the outward privileges of the church, under the gospel, no less than the children of Abraham in the time of the Old Testament; the covenant of grace, for substance, being the same; and the grace of God, and the consolation of believers, more plentiful than before: That the Son of God admitted little children into his presence, embracing and blessing them, saying, For of such is the kingdom of God: That children, by baptism, are solemnly received into the bosom of the visible church, distinguished from the world, and them that are without, and united with believers; and that all who are baptized in the name of Christ, do renounce, and by their baptism are bound to fight against the devil, the world, and the flesh: That they are Christians, and federally holy before baptism, and therefore are they baptized…”
Note that last line: According to the Westminster divines, covenant children are to be called Christians even before baptism — and are to be baptized for that reason. But how many PCA pastors would say they are baptizing a Christian when they baptize a baby?
The divines also apply the language of Matthew 18, Jesus saying covenant children belong to the kingdom of God, to infant baptism. Again, are we willing to say “for of such is the kingdom of God “ about our covenant children?
Basically, the CREC vs PCA debate over these things is high church Calvinism vs. revivalistic Calvinism. But the Westminster divines, whatever shortcomings they may have had, were definitely not revivalists.
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An explanation of how I left the PCA:
I was licensed by the South Texas Presbytery in in 1996 while serving at Redeemer Presbyterian in Austin, TX. I renewed that licensure a few years later while still at Redeemer, then got ordained in the Louisiana Presbytery in 2002 after being called to an assistant pastor position at Auburn Avenue Presbyterian in Monroe, LA. I left the PCA in 2004 when Evangel Presbytery blocked my transfer, after I received a call from Reformed Heritage Presbyterian in Birmingham, AL (now called Trinity Presbyterian). The church left the PCA, reissued my call, I got permission to transfer out of the PCA, and the rest is history. I will note a couple things here: In terms of the church and me leaving the PCA, everything was done according to the book (the PCA BCO), in good and decent order. There was no animosity or bitterness on our side.
The following is a slightly redacted email I sent to some friends on October 24, 2004 to explain the situation and why the church and I both left the PCA:
Sorry I have not been able to give an update earlier. I spent 12+ hours in the car Thursday driving to Alabama and back, and I’ve been swamped with work and family issues since I got back. Here’s the whole story.
Just to give some background, for those who don’t know, Reformed Heritage (PCA) in B’ham, AL (Peter Leithart’s old church) called me to serve as pastor.
Knowing how Evangel Presbytery works, I knew it would be a long shot to get in. But RHPC is such a great church and represents such a great opportunity that I moved forward anyway. I figured it’d be worth any risk involved. Of course, the REs at RHPC were also well aware of the difficulties they might have in shepherding me through presbytery. They have a history of needing a couple of presbytery meetings to get “their guy” in (as Peter can attest to). They’re really marginalized in their presbytery.
I had a preliminary meeting with some members of the examinations committee and the presbytery back in early August to discuss some issues. I got very negative vibes. Interestingly, the key issues were infant faith and paedocommunion. They didn’t really want to discuss baptismal efficacy, perhaps because I demonstrated right off the bat that I could say everything I wanted to say about baptism in Westminster’s language and they really didn’t have an answer (“Oh yeah, it does say that, doesn’t it? I never noticed.”) I’ve written a lot of non-traditional things about justification and the covenant of works, as you guys know, but they were apparently quite satisfied with the way I navigated those issues in discussion — especially exegetically. It was really infant faith that they wanted to focus on. I think they saw this as the weakness in my overall theology. I think they saw this as underpinning not only my view of baptismal efficacy, but also paedocommunion, which is detestable to them.
The committee promised to be in touch with me after that August meeting so that we could discuss issues leading up to the presbytery meeting in October. I was scheduled to be examined by committee on Oct 21, and then by presbytery on Oct. 26. As weeks went by, I would occasionally contact the chair, Mike Honeycut to see if I could do anything to expedite the process. He’d always assure me they were going to start up the discussion soon, but it never happened. The REs at RHPC also tried to get some kind of discussion going with some folks, but got a rather cold reception by some of the men involved. We figured, the more discussion the better, but it never happened. I even wrote up a short paper (“Paedofaith” — some of you saw it) and got permission to share some very positive remarks Jack Collins made on the paper with the committee. I still never got any discussion from them like they promised. Collins’ favorable words really didn’t have any effect.
The examination itself was not too bad, as these things go. I had about a 3.5 hour exam. The entire examination committee was there (including Frank Barker, Mike Honeycutt, and a few other men), as well one very hostile (theologically speaking) pastor in the presbyery (Alan Carter, an old friend of mine) and one very sympathetic pastor (Stewart Jordan — the only like-minded guy in the presbytery and another good friend). The RHPC REs were allowed to attend but not speak until the very end. Even though Alan was not part of the examinations committee, he got to be an examiner. Stewart Jordan was allowed to speak as he wished, serving as my advocate. I know, I know — this is all very strange for a pastor in good standing simply hoping to transfer, but this is the way they set things up.
They had 3 designated areas they wanted to examine me on — apostasy and perseverance, sacraments, and justification. The exam itself went very well, in my opinion. Stewart and the RHPC REs also seemed to think I did very well. I was able to answer all their questions from the Bible and confession. One of the REs on the committee had started off hostile in August but by the end of the exam last Thurs., he expressed “90%+ agreement” with me, in his words. I never really stumbled over anything — all the questions were bascially what I anticipated and prepared for. There were hardly any surprises. Again and again, I admitted that my views were in the minority and I hoped to hold them graciously, without imposing them on anyone else as tests of orthodoxy. I tried to give every impression of being a peacemaker and not a troublemaker. Again and again, I admitted that nothing I said was “definitive” or “final” on these controversial topics and I wanted to be open to further discussion, correction, and revision. I wanted to be a part of an “iron sharpening iron” process. At several points along the way, I conceded absolutely as much as I thought I could without being dishonest. I think all who were there can attest to the fact that I was patient, charitable, and by the grace of God, even winsome on occasion. Surprisingly to me, I wasn’t ever nervous or anxious at any point during the exam. It all came easy, even if there were a few frustrating moments (usually because I didn’t understand what my questioner was getting at — some questions were very sloppily formulated).
Throughout, the real focus of the exam was infant faith. We probably spent at least a third of the exam on this topic — which is bizarre to me, since it’s not even really a confessional issue, as I pointed out time and again (WCF 10.3 is open ended). Alan Carter asked most of the questions along these lines, which was also the case at the August preliminary meeting. Again, I think they saw this as my “weak link.” Of course, this was also connected to my paedocommunion exception. They were basically trying to trap me. If I say infants do not have faith, then I am wrongly saying they should get communion. If I say they do have faith, I am redefining faith (since infants do not have knowledge, assent, and trust). My admission that infant faith had an element of mystery was worthless. In fact, this was used against me in the end — admitting mystery meant I was “unsure” of my views. It was the same when I admitted I had not said the “final word” on some topic I had written on. This seems to be a common trend in interaction with our current critics: humility can and will be used against you in a court of the church. You better be willing to say you’re sure you’re right, I guess.
Furthermore, when I tried to connect paedcommunion to the covenant membership of infants (focusing on their status rather than their faith, in order to deflect attention away from unanswerable questions about paedofaith), I was met with further resistance. Several of men just could not comprehend the idea of “infant Christians.” I appealed to all the usual stuff (e.g., the Westminster Directory of Worship), but it never seemed to make any headway. Frank Barker thinks the covenant is only with the secretly elect, not everyone in the visible church, and he wouldn’t even acknowledge my view had historic standing in the Reformed church. I think he’s just not aware of our heritage on these things. Again, I was surprised Collin’s comments did nothing to soften up thier opposition.
At another point, one guy made a clever, though I think fallacious, argument against my view of the covenant. This was probably the one time I was at a genuine loss for what to say. He claimed the confession only acknowledges two categories of people: those in a state of grace and those in a state of nature (he read some sections from the confession that use these categories). This was pressed particularly hard when it came to the topic of apostasy. I was asked: are temporary believers (covenant members who will eventually apostatize, as I had described them) in a state of nature or a state of grace? They were trying to trap me on the horns of dilemma. I tried to show there was more to it than that — the confession also acknowledges the reality of the visible church, which is the kingdom, house, and family of God. It’s a place a of grace, but also a place from which one can fall. There’s got to be another category besides the two “state” categories since we have to take history and historical transistions seriously. We have to take what the confession says about the visible church seriously. But I was told that this didn’t work — it had to be state of nature or state of grace in some static way, since that’s how the confesion speaks (talk about overdoing decretalism!). I finally bit the bullet and said, ultimately, future apostates are in a state of nature, even though they’ve experienced “common operations” of the Spirit (which are certainly gracious!). But obviously I was not going to satisfy their line of reasoning on this point. They wouldn’t accept my nuances. This was a good example of the old cliche: he who frames the question wins the debate. And they were framing the questions.
Frank Barker repeatedly insisted that baptized children were not Christians and were not to be treated as such until they made a mature profession of faith — which in his view cannot happen before at least age 9 (that was the figure he threw out). When I sought to appeal to WLC 177 — improving one’s baptism — as a basis for dealing with our children, it was simply ignored. Passages like Psalm 22, Matthew 18:1-14 and so on were mangled. Ps 22:9-10 is poetic, not literal. Mt 18 is about spiritual children only, not physical children, apparently. Barker spoke rather freely of an age of accountability. He said infants could not have faith because “we all go astray from the womb” — as though infants couldn’t be both believers and sinners at the same time! They suggested my view of covenant children contradicted total depravity.
Bascially, it is simply impossible for Barker and these other men to imagine a child “growing up Christian.” To treat baptized childen as Christians feeds presumption. Of course, in their view, once the children have a conversion experience, they must be told they can never “lose” their salvation. Everything hinges on that one time conversion experience; before that happens, our children are regarded as pagans and a mission field, after that they are assumed to be “born again Christians.” Anything that violated this model was not allowed, at least by Barker and Honeycut. It was almost surreal to see how Barker was so adamant about his position in the face of what I think are incredibly strong biblical arguments for my position. And he never really made a counter-argument, just assertions (such as, “well, I know MY children weren’t regenerate from the womb!”).
I also got the typical questions about Spirit baptism vs. water baptism. That was easy enough. I thought I exegeted the end of Romans 2 pretty well on the fly. A lot of questions just assumed frameworks that I do not use, such as inner vs. outer blessings, and so forth. But I did the best I could with them, answering on their terms as much as possible.
I got some Lig Duncan-type questions on the New Perspective, but I thought they went fine. I had talked through some issues with Frank Thielman (prof at Beeson in Bham and member of Evangel) earlier in the week and he basically affirmed what I wanted to say about those things. In fact, he said, “If they reject you, then I probably need to tell presbytery what I believe because we’re following the same track.” They really couldn’t argue or pursue any NPP stuff because none of them know anything about it. Everything they asked about merit, James 2, Romans 2:1-16, future justification, and so forth went fine as well. This stuff wasn’t really a problem, from what I could tell. We sped through these questions pretty quickly.
I got some questions on covenant and election, of course. To keep things simple, I used Frame’s historical vs. eternal election distinction quite a bit. I explained how “historical election” is not merely a judgment of chairty, but a real, gracious, covenantal relationship. Of course, I also used this historical election/decretal election distinction in dealing with questions about apostasy. That seemed to go fine also, assuming they understood me. Of course, it’s relevance to children of the covenant seemed lost on them.
At several points along the way, they thought I was redefining terms and used this against me in the end; I tried to show many of these terms have flexible usage in our tradition, and the confessional usage does not always line up with the biblical usage. I’m not sure how much they all really got this point, though it’s rather simple. At the end, one guy accused me of having multiple meanings for terms that have fixed definitions in our tradition (“You have two meanings for faith, three for regeneration, etc. — how are we ever supposed to know what you’re talking about?”) . I guess he missed what I was getting at. Again, it was a collosal failure of theological imagination — there’s only one way to speak orthodoxy in their view. Using terms in ways other than theirs is dangerous and confusing.
Again, my responses were usually not met with counter arguments (except for stuff on infant faith). Most often they didn’t try to refute anything I said, but just moved on to the next question.
After the exam was complete, the chair asked for closing remarks. Alan spoke very forcefully against me and said he thought my committment to infant faith was problematic because [1] I couldn’t define it; and [2] I clearly was not willing to define it the same way the Reformed tradition defines faith (knowledge, assent, trust). He saw this as creating all kinds of instabilities and confusion in my theology. He said if I was unsure of how to define faith, I must be unsure of almost everything since faith is central to Reformed theology. He said my use of terms was outside accepted norms in the PCA. In the exam, I pointed out several times that infant faith was just not a confessional issue to begin with and couldn’t be a test of orthodoxy one way or the other. I was willing to distinguish infant faith from adult faith.
One of the REs from RHPC, David Smolin, did a great job with his closing remarks. He said to everyone [1] after hearing the exam, he was more sure than ever that I was the right man for the job at RHPC. I had answered all the questions from Scripture and the Confession, and had done so with grace, humility, and confidence. I was really encouraged by these comments. [2] The terminological problems would not be an issue at RHPC because they’re already a liturgical, covenantal church and are accustomed to this kind of language (e.g. speaking of covenant children a certain way without presuming their eternal salvation, come what may). [3] Infant faith is simply a theological problem we have no good solution to. It’s an open question. He pointed out that no one could answer the kind of analytical questions I was getting without creating very difficult tension points within their larger theological system. For example, is infant salvation an exception to sola fide? (Barker had already answered “yes” to that question.) [4] He reiterated that RHPC stood behind my theological views. They had carefully examined me, both through dialogue and reading my writings and believed I was orthodox, as well as being a good fit for their church. He basically tied in my theology to RHPC’s theology — a very gracious move on his part. [5] He reminded them that Peter had once been their pastor and they had basically held these views for years. They hadn’t changed. If these views were suddenly unacceptable, it must be due to some change in Evangel.
After that, we were dismissed so the committee could deliberate. I felt very good about how I had done, but also had a wierd feeling about what they might do. The RHPC REs seemed very excited about how well things had gone. Stewart told me he thought I had done wonderfully. But I didn’t really think I had convinced Barker or Honeycut of anything.
After only about 3 minutes (!) of deliberation we were called back in. I was told matter of factly that the committee “did not feel comfortable recommending me to the presbytery.” David S. asked why, but Mike H. (the chair) said he really couldn’t answer that question. When pressed for a reason for refusing to recommend me, he said he’d have to get the committee back together to answer that question. So, we were left with no rationale for the committee’s action. They decided so quick, it was obviously a very easy decision — but shouldn’t that have made the rationale easy to cite? Strange.
It was obvious afterwards that the whole thing had been something of a ruse. I never had a chance. As Stewart pointed out, it wouldn’t have mattered what I said — I was not going to get their approval.
For my part that, by God’s grace, I really have no bitterness or animosity. I think the men who voted me down are good men and they meant well, however misguided they may be about the issues. For my part, if I had to do it all over again, I can’t really say that I’d do or say anything differently. I have no regrets about how I handled the process, or how the men from RHPC handled things.
David Smolin pretty much summed up the theological issues this way in an email to me earlier today. I don’t think he’d mind me sharing this portion of it:
“I know you had said many times that this was a “baptistic” Presbytery,
but I didn’t really understand that until the exam. I think of the
covenant as being central to reformed theology, but the men seemed to
grant virtually no credence to either the covenant or the visible
church. They accept a covenant between God and the elect, but
everything else just drops out. They literally sounded like baptists to
me–baptists and evangelicals. Yes, they baptize babies, and yes their
doctrine of salvation is Calvinist, but everything else is just
evangelical and “baptist.””
It seemed that most of the men view baptized covenant infants and
children below, say, 9 (Frank Barker’s choice) as being totally outside
of Christ. These children are viewed as a mission field in the same
way as non-Christian adults would be, with the possible exception that
they may be under an age of accountability that gives them some kind of
break. They are not to be accounted as Christians until they attain the
age to understand sermons, hear the word there, and then go through a conversion experience.
This analysis is exactly right. I don’t think they realize how far they are from what the confession actually says (much less Calvin). I appealed to the definition of the visible church in WCF 25.2 again and again, but it just didn’t seem to matter.
A few more anecdotes:
After the exam, while we were waiting on the committee’s decision, I wanted to follow up on the infant faith issue with Alan. Stewart did as well. I asked Alan, “What about looking at the issue from the other end — can an Alzheimer’s patient exercise faith? Suppose a Christian develops Alzheimer’s — would you stop giving him communion?” He thought for a moment, then said, “I don’t know.” Stewart said (beating me to the punch!), “How can you require Rich to answer questions when you can’t answer those kinds of questions yourself!?” I didn’t get to follow up anymore because we were called back in to meet with committee so quickly.
At the very end of the whole ordeal — after the brief deliberations by the committee were over, and I was called back in and told I wasn’t recommended, and we had discussed it as much as we were going to — they asked ME to close the meeting in prayer! I thought that was odd gesture. I managed to not pray an imprecatory prayer, but it was tempting!!
I’m sure some will treat my non-recommendation as a precedent for the “FV” or “AAPC theology” or whatever name it goes by these days. I don’t think that’s accurate at all. It really won’t matter much as far as Evangel presbytery is concerned — there’s really no other church in the presbytery that would call one of “us” anyway. Since the committee refused to give a reason, I really don’t see how it can be used as a precedent of any sort. I’m just a guy that got turned down. No one really talked about a “movement” during the exam, though I was asked to comment on excerpts from the writings of a few other associated men like Wilson and Schlissel.
I had already told the REs at RHPC that if I didn’t get the committee’s recommendation, there’s really no way I’d want to go before presbytery (if that’s even possible — I’m not sure — Evangel’s clerk said it wouldn’t be), and afterwards they agreed we should just cut our losses (Lk. 14:27-32). It would be a waste of time to go further down this track and it would only make things worse for everyone involved. There’s no way the presbytery would cross Frank Barker and the committee by overturing their decision. And there’s no need for us to force the issue when there are peaceable alternatives.
What next?
Please keep this confidential for now, but I think it’s probably ok to share this much. The RHPC REs are going to present a plan to the congregation for withdrawing from the PCA. They took not only the committee’s decision as a rejection of me but as rejection of their church — and rightfully so, after David framed his closing comments in those terms. We made every effort on our part to make things work within the PCA. We gave ourselves every possible opportunity for success. There really wasn’t anything else we could have done. We would be willing to tolerate their views, but they are not willing to tolerate our views. And so they’ve basically excluded us. This was a very difficult conclusion to reach, but it’s where we are.
I met with the RHPC REs for a while after the committee meeting was all done so we could talk about various options. The RHPC REs and I felt this was a case where BCO 25-11 could legitimately be brought to bear. Evangel (through the committee) has obviously declared itself out of sympathy with our views. They denied RHPC the opportunity to call the pastor they wanted and didn’t cite a reason.
Obviously, the good folks at RHPC will have to vote to make something happen. But we all fully expect them to withdraw from Evangel and the PCA next Sunday. I will then ask for my release from Louisiana Presbytery and fulfill my original call to pastor RHPC, Lord willing. We’ll look at connecting as soon as possible with another Reformed body that is willing to accept our positions. This seems to be the most peaceful path. We can leave on good terms as I see it. The PCA is not the only Reformed denomination out there and I have always thought of denominational loyalties rather loosely anyway (holding tanks of sorts until we recover genuine catholicity).
Assuming I leave the PCA, it will be bittersweet. It’s not necessarily what I would have chosen. But I think I can do so with a good conscience, as can RHPC. In a variety of ways, it has communicated to me that my views — particularly on covenant children, it seems — are not welcome, at least not in this sector of the denomination. I trust God will still keep many in the PCA who can bring reform in this area and others. And they might be able to do so more easily without my involvement anyway.
I have a lot of friends in the PCA, of course, and imagine some of them will think I’m crazy for leaving. But, again, I think this is a choice that was forced upon us, not a choice we made. We were really left with no alternative.
The one guy I feel really bad for is Stewart Jordan. I was really blessed to have him on my side, working for me through the whole process from the beginning. He went to bat for me and struck out. He put his neck on the line for me and got his head chopped off. Since he has closely identified his views with mine, I’m not sure what my rejection means for him. It would be too much to expect our presbyteries to act with any kind of consistency, of course. But Stewart is left in a quite lonely place. I’m not sure what he’ll do — or what they’ll do to him. He’s a great pastor with a great church, so I trust God will take care of him. We were looking forward to being in the same presbytery. Oh well.
So that’s where things stand.
Blessings,
RL
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