The Duty to Study and Love Creation
/A great quote from the Puritan Stephen Charnock:
Study God in the creatures as well as in the Scriptures…. The world is a sacred temple; man in introduced to contemplate it, and behold with praise the glory of God in the pieces of his art. As grace doth not destroy nature, so the book of redemption blots not out that of creation…. The least creature speaks to man, every shrub in the field, every fly in the air, every limb in a body; Consider me, God disdains to to appear in me; he hath discovered in me his being and a part of his skill, as well as in the highest. (Quoted in Wallace Marshall, Puritanism and Natural Theology, 72)
Causes of Social Instability (How the West Will Soon Fall)
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From Peter Turchin’s End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration:
And popular immiseration breeds discontent, which eventually turns to anger. Popular discontent coupled with a large pool of elite aspirants makes for a very combustable combination. (12-13)
Our analysis points to four structural drivers of instability: popular immiseration leading to mass mobilization potential; elite overproduction resulting in intraelite conflict; failing fiscal health and weakened legitimacy of the state; and geopolitical factors. The most important driver is intraelite competition and conflict, which is a reliable predictor of the looming crisis. Other factors are usually present, but they are not universal. (30)
Fertility
/A very interesting discussion about fertility rates in the West, and what that means for the future.
The Christian Right
/I think C. Jay Engel is one of the two best current Christian political thinkers. Here’s what he says about the left, the centre, and the right.
The Left wants to deconstruct the West, the Liberal center wants to deny to the state the ability to defend the West, and the Right wants to employ institutional and political resources to reassert the hegemonic character of the pre-World War II socio-political order.
Superstitious If You Don't Quote Heathen Authors
/John Calvin commenting on Titus 1:12.
From this passage [Titus 1:12] we may infer that those persons are superstitious, who do not venture to borrow anything from heathen authors. All truth is from God; and consequently, if wicked men have said anything that is true and just, we ought not to reject it; for it has come from God. Besides, all things are of God; and, therefore, why should it not be lawful to dedicate to his glory everything that can properly be employed for such a purpose?
What Kind of Church Are You? Part 2
/The greatness of tradition.
What Kind of Church Are You?
/A high-commitment, rightwing, Protestant Church?
The Total State
/Very recently I gave a talk in Church Ed. about who are the nefarious ‘they’ in Andrew Isker’s Boniface Option.
To explain ‘they,’ I relied heavily on my favourite political commentator’s new book, The Total State (Auron MacIntyre).
A few days after that, I saw this tweet from Doug Wilson:
I know that in the past I have said that various books are a "must read," but I must now ask you to put those books at the end of the line and pick up @AuronMacintyre new book, The Total State. Deeply alarming, totally bracing, and genuinely encouraging.
If you’re looking for a great intro to Auron MacIntyre & his The Total State, this is a very good place to begin:
Judgment Must Begin at the House of God
/We have been sold out by our evangelical leaders:
Raising Children Worthy of Empires
/Johann Kurtz has an excellent article about the unnatural and despicable practice of very wealthy men giving away their wealth to various charities and leaving their own children with nothing.
The central contention of the essay was that the root cause of the twisted practice of giving away one’s children’s inheritance is a failure of parenting: the failure to raise children worthy of stewarding great wealth.
How do we raise our children worthy of stewarding great wealth? One of Kurtz’s six points of counsel:
Impress upon your children your family’s identity, mission, responsibilities (and, at times, adversaries);
The Alfred Option & Local Christian Nepotism
/This is an absolutely fantastic discussion about where the church now finds herself in Western nations, and also ends with some very practical application - screening out saboteurs by front-ending controversial views, and pursuing local Christian nepotism.
The discussion is based off of this great article in American Reformer.
Leadership & Emotional Sabotage
/This is an excellent, fantastic discussion, highly recommended (except for the criticism of anon Twitter accounts)!
Darby & Dispensationalism
/This is a fascinating discussion about Darby, who is considered the father of dispensationalism. There are lots of interesting things revealed in this talk, including that modern dispensationalism probably owes far more to Scofield than it does to the thought of Darby. Also, if you listen to the very end, you’ll learn that the legacy of the great Puritan John Owen has been white-washed; he was probably involved with underground militia groups to overthrow the government!
Defenders of the West
/This podcast was a fantastic discussion about the Crusades:
God Gives Them Wicked Rulers
/One of the subjects I have been fascinated by recently is Italian Elite Theory, which essentially means that society is always shaped and governed by a small minority who hold power.
Therefore, when God wants to have mercy on a society, He does so by raising up a good ruler (a Christian Prince, a Protestant Franco).
But the opposite is true as well: “When God wants to judge a nation, He gives them wicked rulers.” That quote is often attributed to Calvin. According to one man’s research, Calvin didn’t say exactly that. But it is a good, pithy summary of what Calvin did actually say.
What Calvin actually said:
They who rule unjustly and incompetently have been raised up by [the Lord] to punish the wickedness of the people…. a wicked king is the Lord’s wrath upon the earth.
A wicked prince is the Lord’s scourge to punish the sins of the people.
Institutes, 4.20.25 and Commentary on Romans, 13:3
Doug Wilson on Tucker Carlson!
/Lots of good stuff in this interview. It’s amazing to me that men like Doug Wilson are getting fairly mainstream attention. Vibe shift?
Church & State Intended to Mutually Uphold One Another
/In our Church Ed. classes we are going through the Westminster Confession. And last Sunday we looked at WCF 20.4, which states, “the powers [church & state] which God hath ordained, and the liberty which Christ hath purchased, are not intended by God to destroy, but mutually to uphold and preserve one another.”
And then this week I was reminded of this quote from a pastor during America’s founding:
The immediate ends of the magistracy and ministry are different, but not opposite: They mutually assist each other, and ultimately centre in the same point. The one has for its object the promotion of religion and the cause of Christ; the other immediately aims at the peace and order of mankind in this world: Without which, there could be no fixed means of religions; nor the church have a continuance on earth, but through the interposition of a miraculous providence, constantly displayed for its preservation. Hence the church of Christ will have no fixed residence, where there is no civil government, until he, whose right it is, shall take to himself his great power, and reign king of nations, even as he is king of saints.”
Elizur Goodrich, quoted in Stephen Wolfe, Case for Christian Nationalism, p. 288 n. 36
Grace Perfects, Restores Human Nature
/For to the extent that we may be Christians, we do not cease being humans, but we are Christian human beings. So also we must state that therefore we are bound by Christian laws, not that we are consequently released from human ones. For grace perfects nature; grace does not, however, abolish it. And therefore with respect to the laws by which nature itself is sustained and renewed, grace restores those that have been lost, renews those that have been corrupted, and teaches those that are unknown.