God Rest Ye Merry Puritans

 Doug Stabbed You In The Has Got Your Back 

– Or So He Says   
[updated & revised 1/27/19]

God rest ye merry Puritans, 
Let nothing you dismay, 
Doug Wilson is a poser  
Whatever he may say. 

Like it or not, it's that time of year again and come to find out, some of the usual rascals are up to the same old same old.
In other words, what follows is  a somewhat critical review of: 
God Rest Ye Merry, Why Christmas is the Foundation for Everything,
Douglas Wilson, Moscow: Canon Press, 2012, 151 p. 

There are any number of problems with this attempt of an apologetic for a robust Puritan celebration of Advent and Christmas, i.e. the ecclesiastical/church year with its seasons and feastdays in God Rest Ye Merry (GRYM), but the chief one is curious enough. Wilson's idea of a Puritan more resembles what he says  about St. Nicholas of Myra. 

Somehow Nicholas, who supposedly punched an Arian at the Council of Nicea in  325 AD, transitioned from a bishop to an elf to a jolly Dutchman till he finally ended up as  the current occupant at PO. Box 1, The North Pole. “But [what] we must learn from this [is] that if we do not tell our stories faithfully, they will gradually change over time until they become quite unrecognizable.” Moreover, “we have to remember that St. Nicholas probably would have slugged somebody over it.” (p.120). Indeed. As we shall see what Mr. Wilson describes and defines as Puritan defense of Christmas is not just unfaithful to genuine Puritanism, but the exact opposite.  

Puritan and Reformed Preliminaries
Not that we would punch Judy over it or suggest Mr. Wilson seek employment as an Everlast heavy bag, but really.  Mr. Wilson’s not so stellar record on all things Puritan and Reformed include an assault on the reformed doctrine of worship  as a charter member of John Frame's Worship Children and the requisite fundamentalist read of the Second Commandment in common with the crowd he has run with in the past.  The same  bunch which largely morphed into Norm Shepherd's Covenant Children and came up with the theological novelty of  the Federal Vision. Because all Israel is not Israel, our theological sophomores decided baptism is what it signifies,  grace is not irresistable, walking by sight trumps walking by faith  and the visible church is the real church. Until it's not. Or something like that.

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The Queer Variation on The Red Queen's Gambit: Smear, Jeer and Fear

What did I tell you?
The Marriage Equality bunch have no equals when it
 it comes to lying or outspending the bigots
 and  homophobes on propaganda.

Part Deux

As we suspected something was up in the recent Irish election over bicycles are tricycles Marriage Equality vote. From  the Mass Resistance website:

What really happened in Ireland's "gay marriage" election: Massive US-funded “gay" blitzkrieg as never seen before. Are other countries next?

Nationwide vote would have surely failed otherwise. This should be a wake-up call around the world.

POSTED: May 28, 2015

. . . . So to take on the Irish election, the LGBT movement ramped up their effort tremendously over what they did in the U.S. elections.

The total LGBT funding to achieve “gay marriage” in Ireland has been estimated at between $17 and $25 million – roughly 50 times what was raised and spent by the pro-family side. Their execution was planned and focused rather than scattered and haphazard as our side’s tended to be.

The lengthy and intense (and expensive) nationwide propaganda campaign used psychological manipulation techniques to pound the entire country. The average person could barely grasp the force coming at him. And that was just the beginning.

The arguments were not rational or truthful, but completely emotional.
People were told over and over that those opposed to “gay marriage”:

• Are opposed to democracy
• Will damage lives
• Are against human rights
• Will hurt Ireland’s international reputation
• Will hurt Ireland’s economy
• Are in favor of discrimination
• Are against love
• Are hateful and bigoted
• Are stupid and backwards

Sound familiar?

UPDATE:

More to the point are these comments by one Prof. D. Murray in the aftermath of the Irish vote:

Gay marriage is not primarily about gay marriage; it’s mainly about silencing gay consciences. . .  .

(Along with everybody else that might object to "Marriage Equality".)

Murray continues:

The answer lies in Romans 1v18-32, where the Apostle Paul explains what desperate measures that homosexuals (and other unrepentant sinners) take to silence the voice of their conscience. They hear God’s prohibition and condemnation in their consciences, hate it, and do everything they can to shut it up – including, in our own day, getting gay marriage legalized everywhere, even if relatively few ever make use of it. Because, in most cases, it’s not about the right to marry; it’s mainly a vain attempt to muffle the inner voice of conscience by multiplying and amplifying external voices of approval.

He goes on to state the obvious.  Peace of conscience does not come from crusades for marriage equality  contra homophobia, but rather from the cross of Christ, which is the only basis upon which any  sinner can be  forgiven.   Full article here.

 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;  because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.  For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:  because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.  Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.  Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.  

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.  And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Romans 1:18-32

The Queer Variation on The Red Queen's Gambit: Smear, Jeer and Fear Trump Any Reasonable Debate

Or: Marriage and the New AbNormal 

in Cuckoo – Land USSA

[If that to whom much is given, much is required, it certainly tarnishes the witness of the American evangelical church, along with portions of the presbyterian & reformed, if it can’t keep one creation ordinance (the 4th commandment) straight all the while the world is busy perverting another creation ordinance (the 7th commandment). For that reason something like Naptali Press’s reprint of the Puritan N. Bownd’s True Doctrine of the Sabbath (1606) is appropriate as the nation continues its descent into moral madness. Whether the evangelicals in love with the world will bother reading it, is another story.  

That said, the excuses given to justify overturning a pre-political institution that not only precedes the state, but without which there can be no state borders on the preposterous, never mind insane whether one argues from nature, reason or history.]

The Current Cultural Love Affair with "Equality" or the Revolt Against Nature

It is with all due respect that we note that America’s very own civil magisterium, if not Delphic oracle in DC, the American Supreme Court is in the midst of conducting a search for the Most Holy Grail of Political Correctness, if not the Ark of the Constitutional Covenant in attempting to find justification for marital rights for sodomites and lesbians in the 14th Amendment. This,  under the excuse  of “Equal Protection” along with some noise about "Marriage Equality".  As such it confirms not only the ongoing cultural revolt against reality/nature, but also our Coercive Cognitive Elites' enthusiastic participation in the same.  

 "Off with their homophobic heads filled with 
  hatethink, before they can  use their common sense
   to call nonsense by its name commit a hatecrime 
  of shameless and unadulterated hatespeaking. 
  And let crows pick their bones after Big Brother gets 
  through abusing  the carcass."

Neither is our confidence encouraged in all this after we saw how the créme de la créme of the judiciary were able to construe via verbal legerdemain, the metamorphosis  of a penalty for not buying medical insurance,  into a  mere tax on a commercial transaction – no doubt interstate – that one can be legally coerced into making. This in that Congress only  has the constitutional power  to levy taxes, not penalties. Who knows what will be dreamed up yet.

Separation of State From the Religious Idolatry of the State
 Much more that since the worship of the State is now the prevailing ethos in the secular realm,   the new demi-god of Civil Rights and the corresponding Mortal Sin of Discrimination has come to the front of the civil pantheon  presided over by the Deity of the All Wise and All Knowing Benevolent Big Government. As a consequence,  the holy homosexuals are the new sanctified minority and the latest  anointed members of the elite class, if not the current privileged victims. (And those "homophobes" who would merely question this recent deification inversion know who they are.)

But just as the passive aggressive advocates for gun control vehemently advocate the firing squad for those who disagree as exemplified when gun rights conspiracy nut advocate Alex Jones appeared on the liberal  Piers Morgan television show/circus, so too the holy homosexuals and their advocates want to physically force and coerce others to abide by their way of thinking. To be sure, modern tolerance is anything but hypocritical. And violence at the hands of the civil magistrate’s  PC SWAT team preserves the innocent little darlings of soiling their own delicate little human monkey paws in dealing with the "haters".  

The Monochromatic Diversité of Liberté, Égalité and Fraternité  
In other words, this is not about equality in any sense of the word reasonably or historically considered, at least as regards American history.  Rather it is all about redefining equality, i.e.  "equality before the law" or "equal opportunity" - as in freedom of opportunity -  to mean "equal results" or "equal outcome". In other words, this is all about egalitarianism with a vengeance or what amounts to  the French Revolution's  'Liberty of Fraternity in the lowest common denominator of Equality'. In a word, it is a vicious and stupefying sexual egalitarianism with political overtones.

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Can The Center of A Square Circle Hold?

 Or Does One Have to Be Cross-eyed To Make It Work?

There are more than a few problems with the latest conversion testimony lite article “Does The Center Hold?” running at the Called To (Candide) Confusion website, masterminded by a philosophical Doctor Pangloss who is obsessed with proving ad hoc that the Roman Church is the best of all reasonable, infallible and true churches in the  performatively nominal noumenal world. That is when we aren’t repeating our self and he isn’t begging the question.

But to the article at hand. The author demonstrates, happy picture of the wife and seven children notwithstanding:

1. An overweening drive to walk by sight, not by faith. If the one holy apostolic catholic church is not one, it can’t be any of the rest. Visible unity is the sine qua non of the true church that trumps all else.
2. A subsequent noticeable absence of interaction with Scripture ensues. Which is not surprising considering, but whatever.
3. The scandal of division to the point again of where unity overrides the other marks of the holy, apostolic catholic church.
4. In the end he plumps for the Roman church because it can hold the center, which,  other than visible unity, is pretty much undefined.

All in all a theology lite effort in order one supposes to join the evergrowing throng of believers streaming back to the Roman church.

Yet we fear that all that glitters is not fools gold. Scharbach has only traded for an appearance of truth and unity, which his simplistic analysis fails to comprehend,  even if the visible unity of the church trumps all as he seems to think it does.

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Old Book Review of New Book on Old Heresy/Modern Evangelicalism

No Place For the Truth or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology? David F. Wells, Eerdmans  1993, 318 pp.

[This is an old  “well yeah, but” affair. While we didn't read No Place for the Truth until 1999, it is still getting quite a bit of notice in some circles. Suffice it to say in our opinion, it didn’t quite live up to its reputation then or now. The following are the lightly edited and unpublished comments to  another venue in ‘99.]

Sociology or Systematic Theology?

If the back of No Place For the Truth tells us that Wells is the Andrew Mutch Professor of Historical and Systematic - Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. South Hamilton, Massachusetts, the larger presbyterian and reformed world which has given the book so much acclaim, has been conned well. There is not much, if any, historical or systematic theology in it. Rather Mr. Wells implicitly dismisses even the possibility that the roots of present day problems in evangelical  theology have anything to do with historical or systematic theology at all, much less that of days gone by. Some how we remain unconvinced of his thesis that in the main, sociological  reasons led to the demise of present day evangelical theology.

While Mr. Wells correctly deplores the social science mentality and methodology that has supposedly eviscerated contemporary evangelical theology, by the same token and despite his insights, No Place for the Truth is shot through with the same. He tells us confidently that "Once confession is lost, reflection is cut loose to find new pastures. Once it has lost its discipline in the Word of God, it finds its subject matter anywhere along a line that runs from Eastern spirituality to radical politics to feminist ideology to environmental concerns (p.101, it. add.)." 

Well yeah, but  this is subsequent to Chapter VI on the ministry, entitled "The New Disablers," where Wells refers to the minister, six times in terms of either "his or hers" (pp. 221, 232, 251, 256) or "he or she" (pp. 234, 247).  As they say, somebody's slip is showing. If that in the quest for contemporary practicality "the ministry has becoming a profession (p.112}," ie. timeservers and hirelings; those who say what men want them to say and not what they need to hear, we would agree with Wells. But we would only add, to the detriment of our interpersonal skills,  "Physician,  heal herself himself thyself."

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The Westminster Assembly, The Singing of Psalms and The Sleight of Slight Arguments

The question is whether the Westminster Assembly's Confession of Faith (WCF) in Chapter 21:5 Of Religious Worship  and the Sabbath Day, when it mentions the "singing of psalms with grace in the heart", is  referring to the 150 psalms of the canonical variety or were the Westminster divines  rather talking  about psalms in the broader sense of any religious song of praise, even uninspired song. We mention this because the  latest two commentaries on the Assembly's Confession  by Fesko and Van Dixhoorn  - as well as other presbyterians who should know better when framing the question? -  conclude the latter. (As to whether one agrees with the Westminster Assembly is another question. The first thing to determine is what did the Assembly actually set forth in its documents.)

Yet there seems to be no due diligence in thoroughly examining all the primary sources. This means not only the Confession and the Catechisms,  but also  the Directory for Public Worship (DPW) and the Form of Presbyterial Church Government (FPCG) along with the Minutes of the Assembly and what eventually became the Scottish Psalter 1650, or the Assembly's revision of Rouse's psalter over and above Barton's.

In other words, to suggest that "psalms" in the Westminster Standards means something other than the psalms, hymns and songs of David, Asaph and Korah in the Old Testament's Sepher Tehillim or Book of Praise,  is either disingenuous or incompetent to the question. That psalmody may or may  not be popular these days in or outside the P&R church is again, beside the question as to what the Westminster Assembly actually taught according to the primary sources. Likewise whatever  the common use or meaning of the term "psalm"  might be, whether today or in the Assembly's day is immaterial;  the Assembly's use pre-empts the common usage, if not dictates how we are to understand the term, at least when it comes to the Westminster Standards, the animus imponentis of contemporary presbyterian churches notwithstanding when it comes to their affirmation of the  WCF.

In other words, let there be no mistake about it. The overwhelming, if not unanimous use of the term in the Standards,  along with the Minutes and the Assembly's Psalter, categorically  refers to the 150 Old Testament psalms. The same, written in part by David, "the sweet psalmist of Israel" who said "The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. (2 Sam. 23:1,2)".

Singing of Psalms and the Westminster Assembly's Directory for Public Worship

While the DPW is the main emphasis below,  the FPCG does explicitly consider the “singing of psalms” to be one of the "Ordinances in a particular Congregation". Under the 9th head under the 9th rule in the "Rules for Ordination", we are told that "singing of a psalm" is to conclude an ordination service.

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More World Vision Division, Diversion and Perversion

There has been more confused scribbling on the World Vision brouhaha, one of which is  a post over at the Federalist entitled “For World Vision, is Sexuality More Important than Theology?”  The  obvious  question in response would be, “Is perverse sexuality more important than humanitarianism, never mind natural theology or natural law?”  with the answer being no.

If not that, one is reminded of the opening lines in the first of  Garet’s trilogy in The People’s Pottage,  “The Revolution Was”. 

There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them.

 Or  Codevilla’s remark that:

. . . the uncomfortable question common to all who have had revolutionary changes imposed on them: are we now to accept what was done to us just because it was done? (The Ruling Class, p.65)

Likewise Codevilla's previous remarks that the lure of power and acceptance co opts and confuses those who should be opposed to the revolutionary changes – illegally –  imposed upon the America,  but yet we are supposed to acquiesce and accept them as legal (cf. p.15). So  we  take Lee's comments on World Vision.

Church vs. Parachurch

There is no question that the work of the church and the work of a humanitarian organization such as World Vision are not the same thing. Yet that WV purports to be a Christian organization, albeit humanitarian or no is in part, the crux of the unrecognized issue. Would Pastor Lee quarrel with WV if they offered  abortions, if not abortifacient drugs as part of the medical plans they provided their employees? And if not, why not? (We understand there is a legal minimum wage in America – Congress knows better than the free/open  market what that should be – but we didn’t know that mandatory health care/birth control pills was also necessarily included in the definition of "wage".)

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Living - And Then Marrying - In The Real World

 Updated 4/10/14

A recent  Ref 21  post by Prof. Carl Trueman compares the World Vision flip flop on homosexual "marriage" and the firing of the  Mozilla CEO because he donated to California's Prop 8 in 2008 which supported  traditional  marriage. His conclusion is that the sword of economic boycott works both ways and Christians shouldn't complain, but realize that's how the cookie crumbles in the real world. (World Vision reminds us  of Zondervan and their  gender neutral NIV. Public outcry put the last on hold, but Z had its way in the end. Any guesses on how long WV holds the line?) Besides evangelical doesn't really mean evangelical when it comes to evangelical para church organizations  or  businesses. So now we know.

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Hold the phone, Leon. This Just In.  Due to the moral leprosy that literally oozes from pores  of ex Mozilla CEO and inventor of javascript  B. Eich, the usual raft of amoral refugees, self righteous homophiles  and homosexualist twits  will be announcing their boycott of javascript real soon now on twitter. Along  with their boycott of the internet, because the internet  uses javascript indiscriminately and won't quit anytime soon. Uh, huh. Stay tuned. More late breaking fairy tales to come.
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The Stacked Deck
There are a couple of objections. One, there is not a level playing field out there. The main stream moron media, the courts, the schools  and the other elite powers that be, are all pushing for marital rights for sodomites and lesbians despite the fact that  the LGBTQ@#%?  whatever  contingent  in society is a marked minority. The Kinsey Report notwithstanding (Judith  Riesmann among others,  dismantled  that fraud and egregious propaganda long ago), at most we are talking about  1 to 3 percent of the population.  (Even 5 percent would be hopelessly  optimistic in our opinion, but in la la land, one never knows what the  progressives will dream up next.)

The Big Lie
Two, the campaign for  "equal rights/protection" is a lie. While it  purports to be another way of saying everyone is equal before the  law, all it really is  about is the French Jacobin notion of égalité, i.e. the egalitarian  perversion of equal opportunity to mean "equal outcome" or "equal results". And since both male and female homosexual liaisons don't measure up to  the historic definition  of marriage, ergo  we need to do some meddling, preferably by  the coercive power  of the state, so that everybody can get "married"  and live happily ever after. See. Wasn't that easy, boys and girls?

After all, it is not just the  pursuit  of happiness that is constitutionally guaranteed, but the attainment of happiness. Which is to say government guarantees, if not supplies an education, a job, healthcare and a marriage. If not  also children, if homosexuals are allowed to adopt. (I  know.  It's not loving to forbid homosexuals to love children. Therefore they must be allowed to adopt them.)

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Crooked Arrows and Analogies,

All The While Spray Painting Targets  And Snipe-hunting For Protestant Fish In a Roman Barrel Full of Cloistered Monkeys

[corrected  2/4/14]

Well, the  combox zeitgeist over at Old Life Theological Society for Callers Cognitive Dissonance seems to have moved on to discussing the quality of home made vs. Safeway pastry. Still  it does provoke us to quietly weep a few crocodile tears for the eminent first commenter (as always) and his denial (as always)  on these kinds of posts at OLTS. 

Particularly since the same interlocutor has just given us "Clark, Frame, and the Analogy of Painting a Magisterial Target Around One’s Interpretive Arrow " in which he attempts to frame confessionalist RS Clark in his own words, of committing the same crime as Clark accuses biblicist John Frame to be guilty of: Setting oneself up as the interpretive authority over Scripture. 

As in do tell, William Tell.

The gentleman goes on at length – thankfully not quite as eye glazing as usual – in appealing to the Prot reader's private judgement in order to demonstrate the solipsism of that same private judgement and the subsequent necessity of privately judging that the sacred magisterial authority of the pope alone can break the solipsistic stranglehold. Circular pleading indeed, if not sophistical solipsistical.

Oblio's Obligatory Obfuscation/Inexcusable Ignorance

As for  Harry Nilsson, where is he  when we need him? You know, the singer  of the song  about "Me and my Arrow, taking the high road". Of integrity, honesty, credibility, stuff like that. Of correctly characterizing the Prot Roman paradigm if you are going to critique the Prot  Roman paradigm? (But  Protestants  paradigmatically eschew  paradigms/the Holy Father hasn't given them one, so no worries?)

As in the reformed confessions never claim to be above correction from Scripture, contra our protagonist's assumption/accusation. In short the whole "norma normans, norma normata" paradigm. The  Scripture is the infallible rule that rules; the norm that norms all other norms, while the creeds are rules that are normed/ruled by Scripture. And this Mr. Cross, as someone with an M.Div from Covenant Theological Seminary, (PCA) an ex-P&R churchman* ought to know. But doesn't. Or at least won't admit for all practical public purposes of his popish propaganda.

Just as he ought to have known that the Mormon claim to Joseph Smith's apostolic addition to Scripture in the Book of Mormon was contra Scripture as WCF Chapt.1 "Of Holy Scripture" confesses. And answered accordingly when the Utah missionaries knocked on his door. Instead, this incident supposedly precipitated his capitulation to Rome's claim to apostolicity  in order to resolve the existential torment, if not ecclesiastical angst that resulted from the encounter with the disciples of the  Mormon Apostles.

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From The FWIW Department: Scripture vs. the Shroud of Turin

Over at Triablogue regarding Is It Sinful To Produce Or Want Evidence Like The Shroud Of Turin? the same thing  John Bugay  was complaining about regarding the CtC site happened – at  TB.
As below, we couldn’t even get a “Your comment is awaiting moderation”.
Guess we don’t rate like John.
Oh well.
The discussion was going along swimmingly and then blip.
Out like a light.
Whatever.
There are any number of problems with the post, but the chief one is the one that closes the "awaiting moderation" comment  below. 

(T)he argument from John 20:29 is:

Blessed are all those who have believed the evidence written in Scripture and believed in Christ.
But the Shroud of Turin is not one of the evidences written in Scripture.
∴ Those who believe in it are not blessed.

Another passage of Scripture and a new argument is needed to prove that the Shroud of Turin is a good thing.

 The full comment replying to the italicized reads:

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