R2K (Radical Two Kingdom)

The king’s wrath is like the roaring of a lion, But his favor is like dew on the grass. (Proverbs 19:12)

The Trump haters are in high dudgeon and they may just succeed in giving us one of the best presidents we've had in decades. Years ago, a friend said it's more important you have the right enemies than the right friends. Trump seems almost a genius in choosing his enemies. The pretty girls and boys of Hollywood. The drug-addled, sexually debauched music stars. The intellectually debauched talking heads of the media. All the Demoncrats united in their three-legged platform of grand theft from future generations, sodomy, and the slaughter of one-quarter of our nation's babies. Some gang, huh? 

So I think we've hit the Thomas principle. You remember what they tried to do to Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings? Attack a man relentlessly, trying to keep him out of office, and if he gets the position, you've succeeded in making him your implacable foe. It's bad enough when he becomes a sitting and sitting and sitting and sitting justice of the Supreme Court, but watch out when he's inaugurated the forty-fifth president of these United States...

This is a talk given by ruling elder Ken Patrick at a conference held this past Saturday at his church, Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA), in Ludlow, Kentucky. Titled "Maintaining a Christian Witness in an Increasingly Pagan Culture," the conference's other speakers were Trinity's pastor Chuck Hickey and an attorney from the Alliance Defending Freedom, Jeff Shafer. I attended the conference with my son, Joseph, and his fellow pastor Paul Belcher (both serving Christ Church in Cincinnati). Hope you find this talk as wise and helpful as Joseph, Paul, and I did.

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Maintaining a Christian Witness in an Increasingly Pagan Culture

by Ken Patrick

Before we begin, let me talk about my qualifications to divine the future: I’m not a prophet; I don’t have a “word from the Lord” in the sense that I’m about to share any divinely sourced revelation with you; God didn’t appear to me in a dream.

What I’m going to share are simply observations on what may come to pass if current trends continue, and what I would do if I were in charge. If you find yourself disagreeing with what I say, hopefully you’ll stay until I’m finished. We’ll have a Q&A session where you can ask a question, and of course you can pigeon-hole me afterward.

So, to answer my own question right up front—is there a Christian ghetto in our future?—I think the most likely answer is “of course, yes” at least in an intellectual sense and perhaps in a real, physical way as well. I think it’s very possible that we’ll see both. Before I begin describing what these Christian “ghetto” scenarios might look like, let’s establish why many of us think...

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?  - Psalm 137:1-4

Yes, I voted for The Donald, today. In the final analysis, I considered not voting for President at all, writing in a candidate, or going third party to be roughly equivalent. At this late date nationally, none of them commend themselves to me. Years ago when Joe Sobran was still alive and I had some hope that pastors might start preaching again, the third party option had some credibility. But then we saw a real third party develop in the Tea Party movement and it became apparent third parties provide no solution to the larger problem—which now appears to be permanent.

Our two candidates accurately reflect who our nation is...

This is a very helpful response by Alex Guggenheim to my response to his response to my post. As I said under this comment where it originally appeared, I don't have time to respond to Mr. Guggenheim's latest just yet, but I didn't want readers to miss it. Many thanks to Mr. Guggenheim for his careful and thorough disagreement.

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Tim,

Thank you for the time you took in formulating a post...

Firstly, I completely sympathize and agree with the observation regarding the obliteration of the PCA. Its leadership has been slowly filled with men possessing the skill of rationalization and relevancy and not those of fidelity to sound exegesis and its application. It appears many cannot bear the social consequences of where God’s Word takes us. But I am not responding to that portion, rather to the civic principle being addressed.

We have a theological difference which I believe structures our arguments separately, categorically speaking. Thus, I do not believe that working with separate frameworks will result in effective debate or dialog and this is what I mean, so that you may understand where or how my position originates.

I come from a Lutheranized structure with respect to the church and state...

In response to my post yesterday condemning Judge Tanya Walton Pratt for her religious commitment to the slaughter of babies, a Christian attorney I'm close to wrote, 

The sad fact is that the federal Constitution, as defined by SCOTUS, gives any woman the right to kill her baby.... So a judge has no choice but to apply that rule... I don’t think you can fault a judge for applying even a terrible law. She has sworn to do that.

The lawyer and I both come from a long line of Presbyterians, so his remonstrance yesterday popped into my mind when, today, I read this headline about Mississippi's judicial battle over the protection of religious freedom:

The Latest: No judges sought recusal from doing gay weddings

Seriously? No judge—not even one? (And only one clerk.) 

So what does this have to do with Presbyterian pastors?

I was under the impression that First Presbyterian Church of Jackson owns the money and leadership of this small capital city (only twice the size of Bloomington, IN) of this small southern state. In fact, what about all the churches in Mississippi...

Forty-three years ago, on January 22, 1973, the laws of forty-six states prohibiting the murder of unborn children were declared unconstitutional by the wicked and cruel justices then sitting on the Supreme Court of these United States. Their decision, Roe v. Wade, was conniving and deceitful, rendering them the laughingstock of the legal profession. We would have to go back to the Court's Dred Scott decision to find an opinion as naked in its ambition to promote injustice and oppression.

Once again this year in its Obergefell v. Rhodes decision, the Supreme Court has shown itself vigilant in its promotion of wickedness, this time not so much the wickedness of bloodshed (although there is that, also, in Obergefell). Rather, our Supreme Court is now vigilant in its promotion of the wickedness of the sexual perversions of homosexuality and effeminacy which God explicitly warned all men against when he burned up Sodom and Gomorrah so notoriously. The justices of the Supreme Court know very well that, because of the slaughter of the unborn and the effeminacy and androgyny they have promoted across our culture, they will be judged by God. They will not escape the bar of God.

Mourning the loss through surgical abortion of at least 60,000,000 helpless babies across our nation since 1973, here is a memorial for them in the form of a sermon preached publicly to the civil magistrates working in Indiana's State House...

[T]he candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.

First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln (1861) 

[Note from TB: This post was written almost a month ago, but somehow slipped my mind so I didn't post it until now. I apologize for the delay.]

What Lincoln predicted in the aftermath of the Dred Scott decision came to pass in the 20th Century with a vengeance. State legislatures, school boards, county governments—none of which have political checks against the Supreme Court—all fell prey to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). Laws against Pornography. Sorry, violates Freedom of Expression, says SCOTUS. Laws criminalizing abortion. No can do, infringes on the Right to Privacy. The death penalty. Nope, cruel and unusual punishment or violates due process or maybe it doesn't or maybe it does under certain (most) circumstances. Laws defining marriage between one man and one woman. Outta here, interferes with the Right to Define One's Own Concept of Existence and the Meaning of the Universe. No matter how long these laws had been on the books or how overwhelming the majorities were that passed them, SCOTUS swung its overruling scythe.

And for some reason Mrs. Kim Davis is accused of subverting the rule of law.... 

There was a wonderful Christian witness tonight from a bunch of men and women who pled with the Monroe County Council members to consider God's hatred of cruelty and the bloodshed of innocents, and to repent of their yearly votes to give our tax dollars to Planned Parenthood. Sadly, though, they have no fear of God and they went on record as being solidly in favor of slaughtering little helpless babies.

God bless County Council Member Mrs. Marty Hawk for once again opposing her fellow council members in this matter.

I can't remember ever hearing such excellent testimonies at a public hearing. Thank you, all who came, whether you spoke and prayed, or simply prayed. What is clear is that the Gospel is the only solution to such spiritual bondage as we saw tonight. Let us proclaim repentance and faith in Jesus Christ everywhere we are in Bloomington. Rescue the perishing!

For over a decade on this blog, I've used the word 'sodomy' to refer to... well... sodomy. One of the first to explain to me that the word was offensive was my seminary advisor, Dan Jessen. Since responding to Dan, I've been forced to respond continuously,1 and do still. On FB this week a young woman faulted me for using the word. She pronounced what I'd written to be "extreme," adding helpfully that "extremism of all kinds is dangerous."

What's really dangerous, though, is sodomy. Sodom shows how dangerous it is. God rained fire and brimstone, executing all the people of the city for their indulgence in "gross immorality." And what are we to learn from this? Jude tells us God killed the Sodomites so they would be "exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire."

But at the time, I'm guessing Sodomites would have laughed at being called "sodomites." They would have thought it extreme and pointed out that extremism is dangerous. They would have been tight with Darryl Hart and David VanDrunen's call for the nakedness of their public square. They liked naked...