The Rest of the Story on The Revolution Settlement of 1690

(For Those Old Enough to Remember Paul Harvey)

In light of the RPNA/RPGM debacle aka fiasco which dissolved amidst a flurry of excommunications and in doing so, precipitated this website at that time in '06 or so, the two lectures linked below should be of interest.

They were given by Rev. Gavin Beers at the annual Free Church of Scotland, Continuing 2021 Summer Family Conference in Kentucky and shed much needed light on the rest of the story regarding the Revolution Settlement of the Church of Scotland in 1690, contra the RPNA/RPGM take on the question in largely ignoring it.

Regardless of the reason(s) for that omission, if the rest of the story on 1690 does not dynamite the historic Reformed Presbyterian justification for separation from the Church of Scotland and its subsequent separate ecclesiastical existence, it certainly gives the RP position a pretty good run for its money.

That is, while the excommunications largely revolved around the respective powers of ordination and jurisdiction, not to mention the existence of an extraordinary ad hoc non resident kirk session acting as a international presbytery, the RPNA/GM considered itself the only lawfully constituted presbyterian church in Britain and the US.

This, because of their claim that the RPNA/RPGM was the only presbyterian body that affirmed the descending obligations of the Solemn League & Covenant of 1643, thereby arguably succumbing to the delusions of grandeur that necessitated the afore mentioned excommunications.

Yet again, the rest of the story on the Revolution Settlement of 1690 begs to disagree with the RPNA/RPGM exclusive claim to be the only true descendants of the Covenanters.

US Presbytery FCC Session 3:  Are We Covenanters? Part 1

A Century of Struggle

1560 - 1638     Erastian Episcopacy                 5:56

1638 - 1660     The Solemn League & Covenant & the Commonwealth                    17:30

1661 - 1680     Restoration of the King and the Killing Times                     24:10

1681 - 1688     The Killing Times                      40:16

Application/Conclusion                    53:09

US Presbytery FCC Session 8:  Are We Covenanters? Part 2

I. The Sad Division of 1690                          1:55

The Protestant William of Orange lands in Scotland and the Romanist King James flees. The erastian Scottish Parliament while recognizing the presbyterian Church of Scotland as the national church, does not acknowledge presbyterian church govt. to be of divine right.

 

II. Subsequent History                              19:00

The three remaining Cameronian Society ministers, Linning, Boyd and Shields, enter the CoS with their protests entered into the record. Two thirds of the Societies also come in having their objections to the current situation and declensions of the CoS also recognized.

The Hamiltonians remain outside the CoS. They do not get a minister, John MacMillan, until 1706 and another minister in 1743 enabling the group to constitute the Reformed Presbytery.

III. Later Reunion                                   50:30

There is a split in Reformed Presbyterian Church with the majority joining the Free Church in 1876

IV Conclusion: Are the Free Church, Continuing Covenanters? Yes.              58:38

All sinful defects aside, the Church of Scotland never rescinded the SL&C of 1643, nor the Westminster Standards 1645-9 and the binding and descending obligations of the SL&C was acknowledged in sermons and acts of the government of the church after 1690.

Furthermore it is highly ironic, if not also erastian, to insist that since Parliament never affirmed the divine right of presbyterian church government in the Revolution Settlement, that this necessarily means the Church of Scotland itself is erastian - which it confessedly and constitutionally is not - as an argument that it is then unlawful to join the CoS. 

This is also to ignore Alexander Shield's An Enquiry into Church Communion (1706) in refusing to join the Rev. Settlement Church of Scotland  on the basis of what he said previously with Renwick in Informatory Vindication (1687) , the circumstances of which no longer applied.

Gillespie on the Power of Order and Jurisdiction

It also must be mentioned that the officers are not to be confused with courts. To deny the presence of the latter is not necessarily to deny the presence of the former. 

 Gillespie in his Assertion of the Church Government of I:II says further: 

 For the better understanding whereof, we will distinguish, with the schoolmen, a twofold power, the power of order, and the power of jurisdiction, which are different in sundry respects: 

(1.) The power of order comprehendeth such things as a minister, by virtue of his ordination, may do without a commission from any presbytery or assembly of the church, as to preach the word, to minister the sacraments, to celebrate marriage, to visit the sick, to catechise, to admonish {12.b.} &c. The power of jurisdiction comprehendeth such things as a minister cannot do himself, nor by virtue of his ordination; but they are done by a session, presbytery, or synod, and sometimes by a minister or ministers, having commission and authority from the same, such as ordination and admission, suspension, deprivation and excommunication, and receiving again into the church, and making of laws and constitutions ecclesiastical, and such like, whereof we boldly maintain that there is no part of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the power of one man, but of many met together in the name of Christ. 

(2.) The power of order is the radical and fundamental power, and maketh a minister susceptive and capable of the power of jurisdiction. 

(3.) The power of order goeth no farther than the court of conscience; the power of jurisdiction is exercised in external and ecclesiastical courts. 

(4.) The power of order is sometime unlawful in the use, yet not void in itself. The power of jurisdiction, when it is unlawful in the use, it is also void in itself. If a minister do any act of jurisdiction, as to excommunicate, or absolve without his own parish, wanting also the consent of the ministry and elders of the bounds where he doth the same, such acts are void in themselves, and of no effect; but if without his own charge, and without the consent aforesaid, he baptize an infant, or do any such thing belonging to the power of order, though his act be unlawful, yet is the thing itself of force, and the sacrament remaineth a true sacrament.

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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An Open Letter to Andy Williams – Or Just Say No to Noël

[updated 12/23/12]

One was more than a little disappointed to read the current Ref21 website headline article, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Mr. Hays, (which  has since been superseded by an article on the Newton school shooting. Digging around even further, we did find two excellent articles by Roy Blackwood, Reforming Your Bible Study and The Exercise.)

While it is well enough written as far as it goes, it evades the real question regarding the celebration of Christmas among evangelically confessional churches, at least the presbyterian. IOW “invidious associations” of paganism, popery or partying upon  the holiday are not of the essence of a principled concern or objection from Scripture.

Rather  the P&R churches, contra the Lutheran or  Anglican, understand the good and necessary consequences of the Second Commandment to be that ‘whatsoever is not commanded – explicitly or implicitly in Scripture – is forbidden in the worship of God’. In other words, what is called the Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW). Thus the Larger, Shorter and Heidelberg Catechisms on the Second Commandment and the Westminster Confession Chapt. 21 On Religious Worship, if not also the Belgic Confession Art. 32 Of the Order and Discipline of the Church.

Consequently  as the Appendix to the Westminster Assembly’s Directory of Worship states, “Festival days, vulgarly called Holy-days, having no warrant in the word of God, are not to be continued”. “No warrant” as in “uncommanded”.  And if uncommanded, forbidden.

Again, while we are commanded in Scripture to observe Christ’s resurrection  once a week, not once a year at Easter – that is after all the reason for the switch from the seventh  to the first day when it comes to the 4^th commandment – and his death  in the Lord’s Supper, we are never commanded to observe or celebrate his birth whatever the associations it might have for us,  sentimentally or culturally notwithstanding.

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The Problem with Propaganda/Rap

Propaganda's  rap/song is  still making the rounds, as well as waves  these days with  heavyweights like Joel Beeke and Thabiti Anyabwile weighing in either on it or Jonathan Edwards's defense of a fellow slave holding minister. Props considers the Puritans to be hypocrites on slavery and is critical of the modern reformed love for them. Yet the problem with propaganda is just that . . .  it's propaganda.

This Just In

But what else is new? If  the essence of propaganda or a half truth is that it contains enough of the truth to convince somebody that it is the whole truth, then good enough buddy, let's go for it. So, lemme see, before we found out that The some Puritans puritans  approved of slavery, if not owned slaves, we learned the same things regarding the Puritans and Ye Burning of Ye Olde Witches. Or Calvin executing  Servetus. With his bare hands no less. (I think the Big P's reference to 'slave ship chaplains' had something maybe to do with John Newton, who was a captain,  not a chaplain, that  eventually repudiated the slave trade.) The point being in all of this, is that  slavery was endemic to the times, just like witch hunting and the civil execution of heretics.

The corresponding and salient distinction lost in all the noise is that while Christians engaged in what are now reprobated activities - and properly so -  Puritanism/Christianity is also  pretty much what got rid of them. Which somehow got left out of the song, due to poetic license, no doubt.  Or is that the license of  propaganda?

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Mirror, Mirror On the Wall, Who’s the Biggest Racist of Them All?

(updated 2/17/12)
Not Ron Paul (unless Voddie Baucham don't have a clue) or even  the Newt Gingrich in the recent Repuglican debate. Rather we know that those who criticize Paul for not reading his 20 year old  newsletters, can't be anybody -- mainstream media or member of Congress -  involved with passing the Patriot Act, the TARP Bailout or ObamaCare, all of which  were "Too Big to Read". In other words, for one, we're talking major mainstream hypocrisy.

More Smoke and Mirrors

Two,  even if Paul or the Newt was the Great Grand Dragon of the Klu Klux Klan  and they're not, the dubious honor of being the biggest racist just might be reserved for the present occupant of the big white house on Pennsylvania Ave. who still hasn't got around to telling anybody what he was doing sitting for twenty years in what could be called the black version of KKK church.

Which  is to say, it just  goes to show how far education in the government schools  has been eroded if the lesson of Edgar Allen Poe's Purloined Letter doesn't cause some lights to go on for the media, which has generally been in the tank for the darling  incumbent,  who is incapable of doing any  wrong. That, while the same  media again has only been capable of smearing someone as a racist if they dare to question their golden boy, if not Goldman Sachs Candidate No.1 - as compared to  Goldman Sachs Candidate No. 2, Mitt "Obamalite" Romney. Which is perhaps why some refer to members of the mainstream  press by the vulgar term of press-titutes.

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The State of the Union According to Tolkien

[Updated  2/11/11]  

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient;

Article II, Section 3 of the United States Constitution

To summarize the recent State of the Union Address Jan. 25, 2011 by the President of the United States of America to a joint session of Congress is not difficult. It was already stated over fifty years ago on the opening pages to J.R.R.Tolkein's classic trilogy, the Lord of the Rings:

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie

In other  words, to translate the latest Saruman speak and WashingtonDC.orc talk: More Big Government as the Savior of all our  Economic Woes and American Sorrows. 

And, of course, upon delivery of this august address, there was great rejoicing all through the House of Congress and the Cable TV Studios. Implicitly it was understood that the Great Ogre of Unemployment with his Hordes of Underemployment would not dare to show their faces within the city limits of  the national version of Mordor on the Potomac. (Likewise faint hearts should not fear, Nationalsozialistische HealthCare for all will still be enforced freely and rationed  as prudently and carefully as every case may require.)  Neither did anyone have the unmitigated gall to interrupt and insist that someone was a liar as has happened in the past, regardless if lies, half truths or inaccuracies prevailed.

Yet as others have asked, is there any constitutional mandate for what was presented as the resolution of the problems that are facing the nation? But to ask is to answer, you silly goose. Perish the thought. May it never be.

Twin Siamese Parties

Still the real problem with all this, is not how does one go about electing a new president, or a new congress, but rather how does one elect a new electorate to replace the old electorate who voted for the incumbents. The same,  who largely, the Tea Party not excepted, promise more of the same old same old that got us here in the first place.  In case we haven't figured it out yet,  what was pretty much a  Republican version of a Stalinist personality cult preceded this administration's version  -  of  the exact same thing. Neither is it mentioned in polite society or  acknowledged by the  corporate bought and paid  for media,  but the two political parties in America are actually Siamese twins.

Socialist Parties
Tweedledum and Tweedledee   may be separate entities for tax purposes,  but by and large, they are still both firmly  rooted in the trunk  of  the Dire Necessity of More Big Government  Management/Control of the Economy -  whether indirect, through corporate collusions and  cartels (fascism) or direct, through  actual ownership of business, i.e. Government Motors (communism). In other words, whether direct or indirect, government control of the  economy is  of the  essence and definition of socialism, however it escapes the talking heads. Ben Gleck can't understand that Social Security is a socialist program, however much that Jon Stewart  Leibowitz might chide him about it on the Daily Show because at the least, both of them are really in  favor of the fascist version of socialism,  with respective emphases  on either warfare or welfare. But it's all ice cream, regardless of the flavor.

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Of Pimps, Prostitutes and Prima Donnas: The PCA and the Federal Vision

(updated 1/31/11)


A Report from the Friends of the First Amendment Society
As the Federal Vision more and more is starting to resemble a  theological gong show, no doubt the Larger Catechism on the Ninth Commandment will be permanently drug  (sic) out of  cold storage and "hurt feelings" will be the de facto response to anything resembling plain and blunt speech, which in its turn will be labeled  intemperate "hatespeech" and consequently dismissed via Geo. Orwell's memory hole. Even those who oppose the FV run the risk of being sucked in, as the following items might indicate. 


Likewise, the title above has already transgressed the thin red line for the discerning reader, but we takes our chances in these days of declining literacy, theological or otherwise. That Scripture itself refers to heresy, idolatry or apostasy in terms of whoring around is, of course, completely beyond the pale of modern moderate calvinism and the finer sort of tea parties to which brazen faced women are seldom invited. But to continue.


The Green Hobbit Society

Over at the Green Baggins website, there was a discussion, entitled  Misdirected Apology?,  concerning  what passes for an apology by Mr. J Meyers to the Missouri Presbytery (MOP) of the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA). This,  regarding his previous utterances, public and private as per  the Federal Vision theology currently perturbing the modern P&R churches - which incidentally, MOP absolved him of all connection  -   in that the PCA, along with the majority of other N. American P&R churches (NAPARC), has declared the FV to be off limits.

Nevertheless Mr. Meyers in 2007 signed the Joint Federal Vision Statement, which makes for a prima facie case that Prov. 30:20 contains the substance of Mr. Meyers's apology, if it does not contain, at the very least, a wholesale, full scale repudiation of the JFVS - which it did not:

Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.

Likewise any discussion or critique of that same apology is misdirected/mistaken if it fails to aknowledge the obvious. To put it very mildly. Which is pretty much what happened at Bilbo's blog.

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Plainly and Simply Crazy

Further Remarks on Frank Schaeffer’s
Impatience with Fundamentalism and 
Infatuation with Mysticism
Due to Studied Ignorance of the  Protestant Reformation

While this is not a complete book review,  just an examination of the Prologue  which can be read for free on the internet,  to Frank Schaeffer's latest book, some things are still a dead giveaway. Schaeffer still tells us what he thinks as  bluntly as he used to in the old days when, as “Frankie”, an angry young evangelical, he wrote A Time for Anger, The Myth of Neutrality in 1982.

Yet for those who appreciated his father, the well known Christian pastor, theologian, philosopher  and best selling author Francis Schaeffer, even as separate and apart  from his  political activism with Frank in getting the Religious Right started and Reagan elected in 1980, these have not been happy days since Francis died in 1984.   Among other things, Frank ended up joining the Greek Orthodox Church in 1990. 

 

Unfortunately that means when he is not voting for or playing the Byzantine  sycophant to Barack Obama - see for example his Open Letters to the Republican "traitors"   and the President -   he’s been busy castigating both his parents  and his past involvement with   the Religious Right. Ergo his book  Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back (2007).

Patience with God
Now however, in his latest title of 2009,    Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism), while Frank is beyond being crazy for God,  he’s still crazy -  as in irrational. (But that’s  OK because it’s part of being both religious and experience oriented according to Frank.) His latest tells us of his irritation with and  rejection of both evangelical and the secular “New Atheism” fundamentalism as opposed to his fascination with Kierkegaard’s philosophical existentialism, if not again Eastern Orthodoxy, which always hovers in the background.

In other words, his thesis is that these two mysticisms, philosophical and theological,  thoroughly refute  the various contemporary fundamentalisms, religious or otherwise. Uncertainty, paradox and experience are the ultimate truths that rebut those who arrogantly claim to know different  ultimate truths. While this makes for a  bizarre and eclectic  melange of a substitute for those same evangelical fundamentalist  certainties, it comes at the expense of the genuine Reformation alternative. Hence the following.

Mr. Schaeffer is either genuinely ignorant of,  if not that he deliberatively chooses to ignore, Biblical Christianity,  at least  as it was understood and confessed at the Protestant Reformation in the Reformed Faith by the Presbyterian and Reformed churches in concocting his rebuttal of fundamentalism. Of course, Mr. Schaeffer is entitled to his opinion on these matters; that is beyond question. That his arguments are new, of substance and persuasive is an entirely different matter. Consequently an examination and critique of both  evangelical fundamentalism on the one hand and existentialism and Eastern Orthodoxy on the other is in order, as below and  in contrast to Mr. Schaeffer's evasion of the orthodox and Biblical solution to the issues he raises.

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8/10/01 A Reply to Credenda Agenda

Leithart, Schlissel, Wilson  and Hal Lindsey  vs. 
The Westminster Assembly, Ursinus, O.T. Allis, R.L. Dabney and John Knox 

[Something else grubbed up from the archives and  formatted for the web, in light of Mr. Schlissel's latest confusion on the RPW.]

Letter to the Editor
Credenda Agenda
Mr. Doug Wilson
August 10, 2001

Dear Sir,

In order to forestall any incipient prelacy in the New World order, Moscow, Idaho style, the Credenda Agenda, if not its good Editor, need to stop hem-hawing around and clarify its position on worship. Specifically this means explicitly affirming the historic reformed exposition of the Second Commandment commonly known as the Regulative Principle of Worship (the RPW hereafter): "Whatsoever is not commanded in Scripture is forbidden in the worship of God."

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6/25/01 A Reply to Messiah's Update on the Four R's:

Romanism, Reconstructionism, the RPW and Rom. 3

1/11/10
As was alluded to in the previous on Mr. Schlissel's latest, been there, done that  is the short hand response. Of course, shortly after the old letter below  was mailed, our active and congenial acquaintance with the mailing list for  Messiah's Community Church Update ceased and desisted.

Along with worship issues, the  influence of N.T. Wright's covenantal nomism can also  be seen developing in Mr. Schlissel's gloss of Rom. 3 as not applying to the Jews, at least not as totally depraved according to the classic view of reformed theology and the confessions. The gospel is all about the covenant or ethics or ecclesiology; not justification, how a man might be right with God. Now of course the Federal Vision is in full blossom; Schlissel, Wilson, Jordan, Lusk, Barach and Wilkins all came out of the closet at the Auburn Avenue Pastors' Conferences beginning in 2002.

June 25, 2001
Messiah’s Update
2662 East 24th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11235

Dear Mr. Schlissel

A few comments regarding past Updates that the generosity of Messiah’s has deposited in our mailbox.

If we are going to insist that Romanists are in the covenant but unfaithful to its terms, informing them of those terms includes informing them that Rome has apostatized from the covenant. Funny how that got left out of the April 2001 letter. And if we’re going to quote Calvin in the first place, go on to include his concluding remarks in the same chapter. “But, on the other hand, because those marks, which we ought chiefly to regard in this controversy, are obliterated, I affirm, that the form of the legitimate Church is not to be found either in any one of their congregations, or in the body at large (Inst. IV:2:12).” The differences between Rome and Protestantism were worth dying for at the Reformation. And still are.

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