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Tuesday 19 November 2024

James White has today made a further series of pronouncements. For one, he has taken the position that the idea of a post-war consensus is meaningless. He has also denonced Stephen Wolfe as being the lens that is distorting what other people are saying. What Wolfe actually does is to probe the soundness of peoples statements by pointing to some of the logical implications. This is something that White can’t take much of as he has one foot in Christian Reconstruction and the other in Baptist pietism and logical implications must be cut short to sustain this. White also weighed in on apologetics. The current backlash against Van Til and presuppositional apologetics is directly related to what we are seeing in the blood and soil Christian nationalist and white nationalist movement. Because what offends Thomists, whether Roman Catholic or non-Roman Catholic – and we have Thomists among Reformed Baptists, OPC [Orthodox Presbyterian Church], PCA [Presbyterian Church in America] they’re there, I can name them – what we see is a rejection of what Van Til said about the absolute primacy and priority of Scriptural revelation in the Garden and from that point forward. That’s being rejected, and that has a major impact in many other areas. Keep that in mind, you are going to see it over and over again as these things happen. Van Til, as I have pointed out, could not allow the absolute priority of Scripture as, according to his theory, we don’t know what it means. This is because of Van Til’s true absolute priority, his ideas taken from Idealism. Nor did Van Til believe in logical implications. Wolfe, on the the other hand, believes that he has a consistent system, so he is ready to probe for consistency and implications as a good method. As I have also pointed out, I do not think that Thomism holds up either. I must admit, however, that much (not all) of the argument against the Thomists in that book is against their Englightenment foundationalism, not so much their Thomism. But this is a feature of the “Thomism” that White has in mind. The problem seems, in part, that Baptists have then to attending Thomist deploma mills and emerged as singulary dogmatic, and historically ignorant, polemicists. My name for this movement is retropapism. There is another thing that is bugging White, and that is a reinterpretation of Reformation history. One componant of this has been to rebuke Van Til and his generation for distorting the thought of the reformers and promoting their own fantasy version of Reformation philosophy. But there is also new general interpretation of the Reformation itself. The best example seems to be Matthew Barrett’s book, The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. I have not myself yet obtained a copy, but it seems a good place to look to see where things are going. It is being puffed by the usual suspects, and the descriptions seem, from my perseptive, to be all the bad stuff that we need to be getting rid of. That is to say, it is not a bad interpretation of the Reformers, but a celebration of all that was wrong in them. White would say that the problem with that is that it is not theology but philosophy. Be “theology” White prequently means Biblical exegesis. And we are miles ahead of the Reformers in the quality of exegesis. This is partly because we have centuries of attemps and corrections to learn from. But the other acpect of White’s narrow view on what is theology is that is makes him unaware of when philosophy and cultural values come into it, for example the post- war consensus.

Monday 18 November 2024

What is the alternative to the gatekeeping that James White and his friends are doing on behalf of the post-war concensus? That could be taken as the topic of the latest Conversations That Matter, with the title “Paul Gottfried on the State of the Conservative Movement”.

Friday 8 November 2024

Now that there is a new opportunity to try to clean the deep state out of the government of the United States, one naturally wonders is there is a parallel opportunity, or even duty, to clean up the church related institutions. That is, all the pastors, denominations, denominational boards, missions, seminaries, colleges, etc. that are in the hands of the woke, the immoralists, the propagandists the left-globalist agenda, in short, all the personalities that we might well call the Satangelicals. There is, however, a major difference here. As currently constituted, these are all voluntary associations. It is not necessary to fight the long battles to attempt to gain control, because one can simply walk away. The reply will be, are we to leave all these institutions with all their funds and real property in the hands of the Satangelicals? There is a good reason to do so. That is that behind many of these institutions is a wrong idea about the nature of the church the nature of the Kingdom, and practical agendas that these institutions are to carry out. Leaving these institutions to the Satangelicals also leaves behind much deluded thinking that is embedded in the organization and function of the institutions. What about all the people who will be "left behind"? These are people who can't be convinced except by the hard knocks of reality. Leaving them will save you the endless distress and wasted effort involved in attempting to coexist with them. Also leaving is the thing that is most likely to get through to them. They will see that you really mean what you say, and the whole burden of supporting evil will now fall on them, so the will feel your decision as well. Also since size and prestige is a leading consideration for such people, they will keenly feel the decline of these institutions.

Saturday 2 November 2024

In an Alpha & Omega episode at the end of October, James White took upon himself to ridicule the concept of the post-WWII consensus. On Nov. 1 Andrew Isker, CJay Engel, with Paul Gottfried as a guest, made a podcast on "What Is the Post-War Consensus?" Whether or not intended as such, it is effectively a reply to James White. It could also have other criticisms in mind. James Lindsay made an attack on them in an interview with Sarah Westall on October 21, characterizing them as the "Woke Right". For Lindsay this is an execution of what he himself characterizes in the same interview as the affordability trap, which is a false dichotomy. Either you agree with his secularistic (he is an atheist) ideology, or you are "woke right". It needs to be stated that, while Isker and Engel call their channel Contra Mundum, they have nothing to do with the present website and its preceding publishing activity which has been using the name since 1991, while Isker and Engel are recent pop-ups. Also this matter cmae up in the context of some contention among Reformed Baptists over the alleged views of Joel Webbon. What "Reformed Baptist" means anymore is rather problematic. Webbon has taken on at least nominal Kyperianism, notwithstanding its incompatibility with Baptist covenant theology. See Pascal Denault's excellent, though not perfect, introduction to this theology. White has drawn up the battle lines against this group, though it is not clear where he is coming from. He has taken on the theonomy and postmillennialism developed in one stream of Kuyperianism, though apparently not their theological framework, leaving him in a sort of no man's land. This is both good and bad, in that he could avoid the philosophical errors (as he as also avoided the errors of the neo-Thomist group) but it also leaves him without the theological framework, of which he needs to have some sort. What is behind this controversy? For one side, the post-war consensus is a complex of liberal ideas and values, which are presumed to be necessary to hold to be a good person. Secondly, a Christian must hold this complex of liberal ideas and values in order to have a valid Christian testimony. Thirdly, someone has decided that it is now time to take down the leaders who do not accept this consensus. "Someone" seems to include the more extreme Kuyperians, so that is not the issue in their minds. The basis of the dispute, then, seems to be culture, not theology. No one is talking about the promotion of the Heiser mythology, which is where it seems to me Webbon is dangerous to the Baptist movement. Since for some proment people in this dispute, theology is basic to culture, so the reversal is a great irony. So where is the beef? See the first two and a half minutes of this video, which is the teaser. The substance is behind a paywall.

Thursday 31 October 2024

In a new interview, Karen Kingston covers the next plague and “vaccine” about to be released on the public. This is bird flu (H5N1). Doubtless, the usual evangelical leaders will urge this bio-weapon us as a Christian duty. I have been critical of Joel Webbon for his support of the Heiser mythology. I do not, however, support the current attacks on him from the woke German and various unnamed supposedly well-known evangelical pastors.

Tuesday 1 October 2024

The second edition of Theosophy, Van Til, and Bahnsen is now available in English and Spanish.

Sunday 1 August 2024

Bitchute has up a lecture by G. Edward Griffin, the author of The Creature from Jekyll Island, about Carroll Quigley and the conspiritorial view of history. It seems to be forgotten that this sort of information loomed large within what Gary North was publicizing from his Institute for Christian Economics, even if it did not seem ever to catch fire with the Reconstructionists in general. Did it ever register with his son-in-law Joel McDurmon, now woke and seemingly firmly in the opposite camp?

Wednesday 14 August 2024

A very interesting video interviews various Biblical scholars about the errors and dangers of the theology of the late Michael Heiser. This theology has invaded Kuyperian Baptist circles, especially among those who lately came out of charismania and have not lost all of their old inclinations. I have in mind mainly Right Response Ministries with its Haunted Cosmos series of videos about hollow earth, Atlantis, Understanding the Divine Council and the Nephilim, etc. Of course, there are some roots to this in Kuperianism. (See my Theosophy, Van Til and Bahnsen, or for more depth, Friesen’s, Neo-Calvinism and Christian Theosophy.) Some neo-Kuperians such as Meredith Kline got weird and went a ways in the Heiser direction as well. (There is some discussion of this in A Comparison of Baptist and Reformed Views of the Covenants.) Another video on excess deaths, discussing a recent study is 31 Millon Excess Deaths: What caused them? The study blames surges in deaths to the response to COVID rather than the disease itself. This includes treatments such as intubation. People continue to line up to bash Megan Basham’s book. The people against the book seem to be the defenders of the usual suspects. In the Presbyterian world it is those who claim that Tim Keller was orthodox, among baptists it is the defenders of the Southern Baptist institutional apparatus, and more generally those associated with the Gospel Coalition. A very good recent video by Jon Harris responds to the baptist J.D. Greear’s attempts at self- justification.

Saturday 10 August 2024

John Campbell has a discussion on the global excess deaths from a recent study. Of these, 16.9 million are listed as COVID-1-vaccine associated deaths. (Another category is lockdown related deaths.) Starting out rather timidly, Campbell this year has been rather forthright in his reporting. Megan Basham’s new book, Shepherds for Sale, is attracting rather strange commentary. Anti-trinitarians and disbelievers in eternal punishment now want to talk about it and publicize it. The motivation appears to be that they see the book as an embarrassment to orthodoxy. It certainly is an embarrassment to the establishment, but whether the Evangelical establishment can be considered orthodox, when it alligns with George Soros rather than the Bible, is very questionable. Certainly, we see the continuing tactic of trying to discredit the book by finding some minor problems with sourcing or quotation, in order to loudly proclaim “Don’t read or believe the book.” There are various persons and “ministries” putting themselves forward as the critics trying to silence to book. What they will accomplish is to reveal themselves. We are getting a more complete picture of who is for sale. It is Sturgis Motorcycle Rally time again, and the Assemblies of God are once again selling motorcycle washes and blessings. As long as they are selling God’s grace, why not go all the way and sell indulgences? This is another example of the problem of including much too wide a group under the label of evangelical.

Tuesday 6 August 2024

Megan Basham’s new book, Shepherds for Sale, has made a big splash. The internet is full of podcasts interviewing her. A certain Gavin Ortlund is complainingg loudly about being featured in it, and another wave of podcasts have come out for and against Ortlund. Basically Ortlund has taking the summary of the climate chapter as being about him, that is, apparently, he recognizes himself in it. At any rate he applies it to himself, and yet he denies that what Basham says is true about him. What explains this paradoxical move by Ortlund? Perhaps it is that there is no such thing as bad publicity and he is getting a lot of it for himself. But there could be another explanation. The Evangelical managerial elite, that is the faces of Big Eva, have seen something coming. We have had in recent months the big stir over the Moscow Mood. Apparently Doug Wilson and Co. have been saying things that are not the things that Big Eva likes, or not said in the way that Big Eva want them to be said, and Big Eva brought out their big guns to take shots at the Moscow Mood in all the podcasts that were friendly to them. The most notorious case was Ligon Duncan, who mostly managed to make himself look really bad. Wilson is not such a big deal is to warrant the fuss made about him. Anyway, the publicity probably did him good on the whole. Big Eva saw a bigger problem. All this effort was because the woke Evangelicals realized that they were loosing control of the narrative. Something was coming that had to be headed off. Was this something the forthcoming book, Shepherd’s for Sale? Let’s look at the evidence. At the same time as the book was published, another work appeared along side of it, using almost the same cover with Basham’s name as author, but “Notebook For” added above the title. It turns out to be a lined notebook for “anyone needing a tidy writing space”, “written” by a “Lanop B.ladaer”, and published independently. Also at the same time two purported biographies of Basham appeared, as well as another work piggy backing on the topic but consisting of a few pages of enormous print. Obviously there was an expectation that Basham’s book was going to be an enormous best seller and that money could be made by associating with it. Obviously it was well known that something big was coming. If the scammers knew, would not Big Eva have known also? Is Ortlund another one of these taking a ride on the success of the book, or just some twit with his feelings hurt as he presents himself, or is he the point man for Big Eva, taking the place of Ligon Duncan? Speaking of the left, the Democrats announce the selection of Minnesota governor Tim Walz as their candidate for Vice President. Waltz is one of the COVID killer governors, the one with the highest percentage of deaths in nursing homes. This is actually a big test of the Republicans including Donald Trump. Will they go there, that is, will the bring up the nursing home deaths? If not, then it grows harder to believe that “My Beautiful Vaccine” Trump is not also behind the genocide campaign.

Friday 26 July 2024

Some data is available on the different effects of the Moderna vs the Pfizer injections. This is based on the Czech government publishing its database. It turns out that Moderna is 50% more deadly than Pfizer, that is in the time frame for which there is now data. This is interesting in view the reports that the military was administering Pfizer to white soldies and Moderna to the blacks.

Friday 5 July 2024

I stayed up to watch the returns come in from the UK election. I wanted to get a sense of British politics that is unavailable from the reporting, which always comes from the leftist media establishment. Clearly, something different is going on. The media only is talking about the shift from the Conservative to the Labor party, but the Liberal Democrats gained 63 seats in Parliament, from apparently only eight before, and the Scotch party is down 37 seats. Various minor parties of all sorts picked up a few seats. Overall, as I write, Labor gained 214 seats, but the Conservatives lost 252. The really interesting thing though, was to hear interviews with Conservatives who lost their seats. They were eager to point out that it was important that the Conservative party not react to the loss by becoming conservative. One mentioned that the party should not respond to the “conservatives and flag wavers”. It seems that the Conservatives, at least the losers, above all detest conservative voters. Now why is this the case? When abandoning the Conservative party the voters overwhelmingly chose the left. Labor was a big winner, but so was the Liberal Democrat party, which seems to be “Labor without all the corruption.” In Scotland there was a move from the corrupt and self-serving SNP to Labor or the Liberal Democrats. So why is the alternative seen as only the left? It is because there is no longer a Christian vision of culture and therefore there is no grounding for conservative values and people can only understand conservatism in terms of the base motives that the left media projections onto it. This is the direction that the United States is headed. At present the Republican party is full of RINOs who correspond to the anti-conservative UK Conservative party. The RINO control of the Republicans is not as absolute as is that of their corresponding group’s control of the Conservative party. The backbone of the the conservative vote in the United States has been the Evangelicals. But the leaders of the Evangelicals within their denominational structures, institutions, and mega-congregations is hell-bent on taking the people toward the left. The situation we see in the UK is what the Ligon Duncans of Evangelicalism are aiming for. Is it too soon to begin talking about post-Christian Evangelicalism? Not Evangelicalism in a post-Christian world but an Evangelicalism that is itself essentially post-Christian?

Tuesday 25 June 2024

Here is an example of telling the truth: the Dividing Line program of June 24. This is something that the leaders of the evangelical denominations and instututions, the bureacrates employed in them, and the leaders of the megachurches by and large cannot bring themselves to do. See the Friday 21 post below for the list of ten topics they do not like to touch. The people generally embrace the woke agenda to some degree. They avoid speaking against evil on various pretexts. The pretext might be the “spirituality of the church” idea, or Radical Two-kingdom theology, or some similar excuse that it is “divisive” or not-my-job. These people are willing to stay quiet about genocide, and not merely genocide aimed at some other group, but against their own church constituents. By this time none of them can claim ignorance. Also the “spirituality” excuse is falling apart. Those who are not openly woke may stay quiet on some topics but when it comes to points 2 and 3 below, which amount to key elements of Christian nationalism, they do not remain silent but come out on behalf of the Satanic agenda. It needs to be acknowledged that evangelicalism on an institutional level is no longer Christian. The leaders can no longer contend for Christianity without at some level attacking themselves because of the positions that they have already taken. There also some people who are still trying to slide around the issues by advocating a sort of “Christian nation” without nations, a Christian state without a people. I think that they are going to have to give it up and either go woke or not.

Friday 21 June 2024

Carlo Maria Virganò, who has been summoned to Rome by the Inquisition, has released a statement. What interests us is that he speaks the truth about some matters in a way that is rare among evangelicals. We quote part of one paragraph, that contains the points that are significant. It is necessary for the Episcopate, the Clergy and the People of God to seriously ask themselves whether it is consistent with the profession of the Catholic Faith to passively witness the systematic destruction of the Church by its leaders, just as other subversives are destroying civil society. Globalism calls for ethnic substitution: Bergoglio promotes uncontrolled immigration and calls for the integration of cultures and religions. Globalism supports LGBTQ+ ideology: Bergoglio authorizes the blessing of same-sex couples and imposes on the faithful the acceptance of homosexualism, while covering up the scandals of his protégés and promoting them to the highest positions of responsibility. Globalism imposes the green agenda: Bergoglio worships the idol of the Pachamama, writes delirious encyclicals about the environment, supports the Agenda 2030, and attacks those who question the theory of man-made global warming. He goes beyond his role in matters that strictly pertain to science, but always and only in one direction: a direction that is diametrically opposed to what the Church has always taught. He has mandated the use of experimental gene serums, which caused very serious damage, death and sterility, calling them “an act of love,” in exchange for funding from pharmaceutical companies and philanthropic foundations. His total alignment with the Davos religion is scandalous. Wherever governments at the service of the World Economic Forum have introduced or extended abortion, promoted vice, legitimized homosexual unions or gender transition, encouraged euthanasia, and tolerated the persecution of Catholics, not a word has been spent in defense of the Faith or Morals that are threatened, or in support of the civil battles of so many Catholics who have been abandoned by the Vatican and the Bishops. Not a word for the persecuted Catholics in China, with the complicity of the Holy See, which considers Beijing’s billions more important than the lives and freedom of thousands of Chinese who are faithful to the Roman Church. Here he notes: 1. The destruction of civil society 2. Ethnic substitution. 3. Integretion of cultures and religions. 4. Globalism with sexual perversion. 5. The green agenda. 6. Enviromental propaganda. 7. Support of anti-Christian fake science. 8. COVID-19 genocide. ‘He [the pope] has mandated the use of experimental gene serums, which caused very serious damage, death and sterility, calling them “an act of love,” in exchange for funding from pharmaceutical companies and philanthropic foundations.’ 9. The DAVOS religion. 10. Ignoring the persecution of Christians. Now consider the woke-controlled “Evangelical” denominations and their leaders. How many of these things would they speak against? Take Ligon Duncan, for example. Would he oppose 2, or 5, or 8? Aren’t today’s Evangelicals - the ones who hold power in their institutions - dangerously close to Pope Francis in the public stands? Put another way, how is it that Evangelicals do not have ethics? How long has this been the case, and how deeply embedded is this in the general Evangelical world-view? Who does have ethics? Some states’ Attorney Generals apparantly do. See the news about the lawsuit filed by Kansas and supported by several other states against Pfizer.