New Calvinism’s Anti-American Propaganda
In our most recent conference update Susan and I spoke of how the New Calvinist movement is attempting to recreate Christian reality. As part of this campaign, their overt rewriting of church history staggers one’s imagination in regard to audacity. It goes something like this:
The church was in a dark age. And the Reformers saved mankind from Catholicism. Then the children of the Reformers came to America and established its religious roots. But American capitalism and individualism has become a god and is destroying the piety that the precious Puritans brought here from Europe.
Hardly. First, the “church,” more correctly, “assembly of Christ” which adds Christ to the unbroken concept of “assembly” in both Testaments continues to be built by Christ and no darkness has ever prevailed against it—not even temporarily. The whole Dark Ages thing and its relationship to the “church” is a Western perspective. The world is bigger than Western culture.
Secondly, the philosophy of Socrates and Plato continues to dominate Western thought and culture to this very day. From Plato’s Academy, and his magnum opus, The Republic, Western thought moved forward in two directions: secular and religious. In the secular, it took the form of communism. In the religious, the identical ideology formed the foundations of Catholicism and Protestantism. The Reformers were merely “moral” philosopher kings.
And Plato didn’t come up with anything original. The cradle of humanity only had two religions: Friends of God and Spiritual Caste. And when you are God’s friend, He copies you on everything because you are morally responsible for the sum and substance of your own life, “the life that bears your name” (John Immel: TANC 2012). God doesn’t have an elite minority that rules over the unenlightened masses on his behalf. If the enlightened philosopher kings tell us to sacrifice our firstborn to the sun god, we protest because we didn’t get the memo.
And though we are to serve others, the sum and substance of our life is not defined by our contribution to “the group.” The Bible tells us to bear our own burdens as much as we possibly can. Individualism is not a sin. The demonizing of individualism is where New Calvinism and Communism play together in Plato’s sandbox. Don’t take the words of others for it, study history for yourselves; European religion has always been in bed with Fascism and Communism. Their like ideology spawns their common lust to control the masses.
And together, they despise the children of the Enlightenment that saved the American colonies from the tyranny of European religion. The Salem witch trials were a miniscule remnant of the bad seed. No country has ever flourished like America nor done good to the world in the same degree. Europe has never been a friend to God’s elect nation, but Israel has never had a better friend than America. America has never been a Christian nation per se. But there is immense power in even implementing God-given common sense….
….upholding individualism.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Reblogged this on Clearcreek Chapel Watch.
LikeLike
Can you get an amen?
Yes…for that, I believe you can.:-)
Well said
LikeLike
“The Reformers were merely “moral” philosopher kings.”
I don’t agree with that at all. The Reformers hated morality.
LikeLike
“Politics,” for the most part today, is whoring after false gods. It will not save us. Our country is turning into Hell because the church in America has forgotten God (Psalm 9:17) and refuses to kiss His Son (Psalm 2.) See, please, 2 Chronicles 7:14ff for the way to get our land healed.
John Lofton, Recovering Republican
Editor, JohnLofton.com
Also: Archive.TheAmericanView.com
Active Facebook Wall
JLof@aol.com
LikeLike
John,
“Politics” is merely the fourth tenet of philosophy. It’s how we communicate what we believe. The Bible has much to say in regard to how we communicate. Recognizing the practicality of government politics and its importance in the real world is not a replacement of a Chrsitocentric stargate to all reality. Reality is not EITHER all Christ OR something else. What the church needs is a return to interpreting reality grammatically. Government politics does not = “whoring after false gods.” At any rate, God used the Enlightenment to save America from Plato’s children dressed in pious garb. get over it.
LikeLike
My post dealt with “politics” TODAY, NOW….And Scripture makes it clear that that ALL civil governments/magistrates are under the rule of Christ and must obey/administer/apply/enforce God’s Law. Furthermore, America was founded (early 1600s) by Protestant, Reformed, Calvinistic Christians. Read, please, Barry Alan Shain’s “The Myth of American Individualism.” For-the-record: You may communicate what you believe through “politics.” I do not, thank you. “Politics” is not my religion.
John Lofton, Recovering Republican
Editor, JohnLofton.com
Also: Archive.TheAmericanView.com
Active Facebook Wall
JLof@aol.com
LikeLike
John,
Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, and Reformed elders have no authority here. America was not founded by the Puritans. They were a pathetic lot that couldn’t muster up enough innovation to venture more than 20 miles from where they landed. Their first major contribution to Americana was the Salem Witch Trials. Furthermore, half of them didn’t even understand Calvin’s soteriology as Anne Hutchinson did–that’s why they persecuted her. Furthermore, if I want to learn more about history, I am not going to get it from a Reformed hack like Shain.
LikeLike
JOHN 18:36 re: Christ’s Kingdom being not of this world does NOT mean what you seem to think it means, that Christians, while in the world, should do nothing. In the first volume of his “Institutes of Biblical Law,” Dr. R.J. Rushdoony quotes B.F. Westcott as observing that what Christ means in John 18:36 is that His kingdom “does not derive its origin or its support from earthly sources.” In other words, says Rushdoony, “Christ’s kingdom is not derived from this world, because it is of God and is over this world.” In volume two of the “Institutes,” quoting from the Berkeley Version which says “But really the source of My kingdom is not here,” Rushdoony says:
“To deny that Christ’s kingdom is in this world is to alter the faith to either a neo-Platonic idealism or a Manichean dualism. In either case, the world and history are rejected and are handed over to the devil. Not surprisingly, such people who hold this view are insistent on seeing Satan as the prince of the physical universe and become implicit Satanists in the powers they ascribe to Satan. From such a perspective, the Church has little to do with history other than to rescue lost souls and then wait for the end (amillennialism and post-tribulation pre-millennialism).” And not just so-called Christian Reconstructionists share this view of Scripture. In a footnote to John18:36 in his “Study Bible” (New American Standard Version], Charles Caldwell Ryrie says that our Lord said what he said to Pilate to indicate that His kingdom was not “a rival political kingdom to Rome,” that Jesus’ authority is “not of human origin.”
In his commentary, Matthew Henry says of John 18:36 that it means that Christ’s kingdom “is not from this world.” Commentators Robert Jamieson, Andrew Fausset and David Brown point out: “He does not say ‘not over,’ but ‘not of this world’ – i.e., in its origin and nature.” And in his excellent book “Toward A Biblical View Of Civil Government” (Moody Press, 1974), Robert D. Culver writes, concerning John 18:36:
“The words ‘of this world’ translate ek tou kosmou toutou, that is, out of this world. Source rather than realm is the sense. . . . The future consummation of the kingdom of Christ cannot rightly be said to be beyond history. No indeed! It will occur in history and is history’s goal….So Jesus very clearly is making no comment on either the nature of his kingdom or His realm, rather on the power source of its establishment. This agrees with the very highest expressions of Old Testament Messianic prophecy, for it is there written of Him that: ‘The government shall be upon His shoulder… of the increase of His government… there shall be no end, upon the throne of David… The zeal of Jehovah of hosts will perform this’ ” (Isaiah 9: 6 to 7).
In his “Systematic Theology,” Charles Hodge says: “The kingdom of God, therefore, as consisting of those who acknowledge, worship, love, and obey Jehovah as the only living and true God, has existed in our world ever since the fall of Adam. It has ever been the light and life of the world. It is the salt by which it is preserved. It is the leaven by which it is ultimately to be pervaded. . . . ‘And of His kingdom there shall be no end’ ” (Luke 1:31 to 33).
Noting that “it is the kingdom which God was to establish on earth in distinction from the kingdoms of men,” Hodge emphasizes that all power in heaven and earth has been committed to Christ’s hands (Matthew 28:18); God hath put all things under His feet (Ephesians 1:20 to 22); in that He put all in subjection under Him, He left nothing that is not put under Him (Hebrews 2:8); and “God hath highly exalted, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth” (Phil. 2:9 and 10).
Hodge says: “This is a perfectly exhaustive statement. All in heaven, all in earth, and all under the earth, include all rational creatures. The person to whom they are to bow the knee is Jesus, not the Logos, but the God-man. And the acknowledgment which they are to make is [His sovereignty.] It is in this sense also that the Apostle says (Heb. 1:2), that God hath appointed the Son heir of all things. It is in virtue of this dominion over the universe that Christ is called Lord of lords and King of kings, i.e., the Sovereign over all other sovereigns in heaven and earth.” And he adds, quoting First Corinthians 16:22, that “if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha.”
In his “Word Studies In The New Testament,” commenting on Revelation 1:9, the reference to Christ’s kingdom, Marvin Vincent says this refers to “the present kingdom.” He says: “It is the assurance of being now within the kingdom of Christ – under Christ’s sovereignty, fighting the good fight under His leadership – which gives hope and courage and patience. The kingdom of God is a present energy, and it is a peculiarity of John to treat the eternal life as already present.”
Quoting Romans 8:37 which says that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us,” Vincent says: “This may go to explain the peculiar order of the three words; ‘tribulation’ and ‘kingdom,’ two apparently antithetic ideas, being joined, with a true insight into their relation, and ‘patience’ being added as the element through which the tribulation is translated into sovereignty. The reference to the future glorious kingdom need not be rejected. It is rather involved in the present kingdom.
“Patience, which links the life of tribulation with the sovereignty of Christ here upon earth, likewise links it with the consummation of Christ’s kingdom in heaven. Through faith and patience the subjects of that kingdom inherit the promises.” And Vincent quotes another commentator, Richard of St. Victor, who says: “Rightly he (John) says first ‘in the tribulation’ and adds afterwards ‘in the kingdom,’ because if we suffer together we shall also reign together.”
John Lofton, Recovering Republican
Editor, JohnLofton.com
Also: Archive.TheAmericanView.com
Active Facebook Wall
JLof@aol.com
LikeLike
“”To deny that Christ’s kingdom is in this world is to alter the faith to either a neo-Platonic idealism or a Manichean dualism.”
In otherwords, heresy. But I would say the real heresy is in pretending that Christ’s kingdom is some kind of visible organization when He Himself says otherwise “The kingdom does not come in visible form as if you can say “Here it is” or “There it is” for the kingdom of God is inside you.” (Luke 17:20b-21) This is one of the points on which (despite their rhetoric or the visible church versus the invisible church) the magisterial or Augustinian Reformers failed to comprehend, while the Radical/anabaptist reformers caught the meaning fairly well.
The kingdom that Jesus envisions is a 4th Maccabees type of kingdom. I’d encourage you to go read 4th Maccabees. I’m sure Jesus had read it, and the apostles too. The author sets out to prove “that religious reason is sovereign over the passions.” Having told a very touching (howbeit graphic) story of the martyrdom of seven brothers in succession, and finally the martyrdom of their mother as well, he explains the concept of God reigning in the mind of the individual through “religious reason.” A Christian might call it the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. But it certainly has nothing to do with your Calvinist conception of a tyrannical kingdom that persecutes; that more resembles the Greek governor who martyred the 7 boys and their mother!
LikeLike
Don’t care what 4th Maccabees says since it is not canonical thus not the Word of God. And “tyranny” exists where God’s Law does NOT rule. And I said NOTHING about Christ’s Kingdom being, in any way, “some kind of visible organization.”
John Lofton, Recovering Republican
Editor, JohnLofton.com
Also: Archive.TheAmericanView.com
Active Facebook Wall
JLof@aol.com
LikeLike
“And I said NOTHING about Christ’s Kingdom being, in any way, “some kind of visible organization.””
Then you must not have said anything at all since that’s the only meaning I could discern in your Calvinist rantings.
“And “tyranny” exists where God’s Law does NOT rule.”
What’s funny to me is that by “God’s Law” you don’t actually mean the Law at all, but Calvinist speculations. By “God’s Law” you mean the tenet that doing right is a sin, that improving morally proves you to be damned, that real Christians are all morally lazy and add sin upon sin to prove they are trusting in faith alone through grace alone, and that everyone who dares take sanctification seriously be condemned as a worksist even when begging and pleading you to acknowledge that they do believe in justification by faith alone but not that we should stop there and never move on to sanctification through the spirit. By “God’s Law” you Calvinists mean your own tyrannical anti-morality legalism by which you outlaw “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” of which Paul wrote “against such there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22) By “God’s Law” you lovely pious “Reformed” types mean that anyone who confesses with Paul (Galatians 5:23) that “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” is to be labelled a Pelagian heretic. Your law is Satan’s law.
LikeLike
ZZZZZZZZZZZZ……….zzzzzzzzzzz……..ZZZZZZZZZZZZ……….zzzzzzzzzzz……..ZZZZZZZZZZZZ……….zzzzzzzzzzz……..ZZZZZZZZZZZZ……….zzzzzzzzzzz……..ZZZZZZZZZZZZ……….zzzzzzzzzzz……..ZZZZZZZZZZZZ……….zzzzzzzzzzz……..ZZZZZZZZZZZZ……….zzzzzzzzzzz……..ZZZZZZZZZZZZ……….zzzzzzzzzzz……..ZZZZZZZZZZZZ……….zzzzzzzzzzz……..ZZZZZZZZZZZZ……….zzzzzzzzzzz……..ZZZZZZZZZZZZ……….zzzzzzzzzzz……..ZZZZZZZZZZZZ……….zzzzzzzzzzz……..ZZZZZZZZZZZZ……….zzzzzzzzzzz……..ZZZZZZZZZZZZ……….zzzzzzzzzzz……..
John Lofton, Recovering Republican
Editor, JohnLofton.com
Also: Archive.TheAmericanView.com
Active Facebook Wall
JLof@aol.com
LikeLike
I seem to agitate you John. That’s a good thing. makes me feel good.
LikeLike
Yes, so much so that I fell asleep during your most recent rant…….but, rage on! I love it when heathens like you rage…makes my day!
John Lofton, Recovering Republican
Editor, JohnLofton.com
Also: Archive.TheAmericanView.com
Active Facebook Wall
JLof@aol.com
LikeLike
I’ll take that as an admission that you know your concept of “God’s Law” is in fact as far from having anything to do with God as can be.
LikeLike
No. Regardless, I find your observations worthy of evaluation.
LikeLike
I meant Lofton…oh well, you guys seem confused to me about who’s saying what.
LikeLike