A link and a few comments pertaining to 'Christian' news, radio, and commentators

Here's a worthwhile read from Paul Roberts.

Speaking of hypocrisy, add the hypocrisy of the Christian Right...cheerleaders for war when their man is at the helm, critics when their political opponents initiate it.

Yesterday I caught about five minutes of the AFR (American Family Radio) Report. This show is usually one of the worst examples of Christian-Right propaganda. Not only is their commentary irresponsible, deceitful, manipulative and inaccurate, it's often just plain buffoonish and juvenile. Shame on Calvin Beisner a well known name in Reformed circles. He was their special guest yesterday. Even if I agreed with him, which I don't, I question his integrity in appearing on a show that is little more than blatant political propaganda.

Anyway, their take on the Libya business? They often play a little dialogue game...kind of good cop/bad cop type discussion. One guy will play straw-man advocate for the position they don't agree with it. Then when the other host demolishes it, it makes their position look better and they can also pretend they were being fair in representing both sides.

Bottom line on Libya....Obama is helping the Libyan opposition because, yes...they're Muslim. And we should be attacking other Muslim countries where Christians are being persecuted, but we don't because Obama doesn't want to. They don't come out and say that he's a crypto-Muslim, but they imply every chance they get. I don't pretend Obama is a Muslim or a Christian. He's lost, just like the hosts on AFR.

Legacies of Ordered Liberty- The Anglo-Norman tradition on both sides of the Atlantic

It would seem in truth some of the last remnants of Old England are being swept away. The England that endured the Blitz seems a distant dream. After the war the architects of the New Order set about in earnest to make a new England and lo, it has arrived and come into its own.

Christians are now essentially banned from serving as foster parents because of their intolerance of homosexuality. England perhaps longer than any other country in Europe maintained a strong Constantinian tradition well within living memory and now the Blowback, the retribution seems to be taking a severe form.

What happened?

The Good Samaritan Killed To Save the Injured Man…The Constantinian Gospel of Just War

I would imagine some have grown weary of my critiques of Colson. I can’t help it. He amazes me. I’m not going to spend a great deal of time on this. Just a few interspersed comments.

A clever attempt to refute Two Kingdom theology

The author of this post has been receiving quite a bit of attention. To many his argument deals a mighty blow to the advocates of Two Kingdom theology. It's worth a read and consideration. I've left it mostly intact, with a few responses. I have not read the Van Drunen book he is interacting with though I have certainly heard of it and have some familiarity with him. I've listened to some lectures and things and overall I am quite appreciative of where he's coming from.---Proto

The Hypocrisy of Political Warmongering

This is exactly the point I made in my earlier post in reference to the Clintonian Wars of the 1990's.  You can't have it both ways, but watch, they'll try.---proto


Conservative Warmongers Have a Problem

Posted by Laurence Vance on March 20, 2011 03:08 PM

Conservative warmongers that supported the Republican-started wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have a problem, or at least some of them do. Rabid conservative warmongers who never met a U.S. war they didn’t like will consistently be cheerleaders for the war in Libya like any other U.S. war. However, other conservative warmongers who supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but now question the attack on Libya have a problem. Although they would have no problem with the attack on Libya if Bush or another Republican president had done it, they can’t just say they don’t support the Libyan war because a Democrat started it. I predict what we will see are many articles from these conservatives trying to justify their opposition to the Libyan war because it is “different” from when we attacked Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Nobel Laureate goes to war again.

I think Rockwell does a decent job in assessing the Libya situation. I like best his statement:

Is it possible to both oppose Gaddafi and oppose a war on Gaddafi? Absolutely.

In addition to the points he makes about the absurdity of supposed American European moral high ground....in light of their support of brutal dictators in other countries, we could also point out the fact that no one acted during the crises in Darfur or Rwanda as well as other places. Why?

We all know why. It's not about altruistic humanitarian interests, it's about money, resources and power.

NATO in Libya- Part 2

So now we’ll have to wait and see what happens. During the Bosnian War, Russia was down on her knees and dared not oppose the UN resolution that led to NATO bombing and No Fly-Zones. By the time of the Kosovo War in 1999, Russia was getting back on her feet, but Yeltsin though entirely against NATO’s actions did little to oppose them. That was huge…The old Orthodox Axis which had long stood together in the wars against the Turks and Habsburgs seemed to be over.

Evangelicalism's Deistic Response to the Catastrophe in Japan

 I’m used to disagreeing with Chuck Colson, but today really shocked me. I’ve long believed that many Evangelicals are in fact Deists, that is they don’t really believe in Providence. They don’t believe that God is actively governing the affairs of this world. The practical implications of this cannot be overstated.

Many of them think that God sort of lets the world be, and intervenes from time to time. Some go even further and would believe that God actually keeps adjusting the details of His plan to keep it compatible with the choices that people make. The overall plan stays the same, but it’s as if God has to keep compensating for our actions.

It’s no surprise that Open Theism has taken root and become quite popular. For those unfamiliar this is the quite rational idea that God doesn’t actually know the future as a certainty. He reacts to our actions. It’s really just a logical conclusion of the aforementioned position.

It’s a rational response; it just happens to reject what the Bible teaches concerning God’s government of the universe.

A wrong turn made long ago....The Dutch Reformed Tradition

This is a good quote which demonstrates why Dutch Reformed Theology can sound so good and convincing, but at the same time can be so mistaken.

Read it carefully.........

Scripture is the Book of the Kingdom of God, not a book for this or that people, for the individual only, but for all nations, for all of humanity. It is not a book for one age, but for all times. It is a Kingdom book. Just as the Kingdom of God develops not alongside and above history, but in and through world history, so too Scripture must not be abstracted, nor viewed by itself, nor isolated from everything. Rather, Scripture must be brought into relationship with all our living and with the living of the entire human race. And Scripture must be employed to explain all of human living.


Herman Bavinck

Did you catch it?

Westboro Baptist, Hyper-Calvinism and Constantinianism versus Means Theology and Biblical Pluralism

or Why I'm thankful for the First Ammendment to the United States Constitution.

The people of Westboro Baptist Church are thoroughly deceived.

Many aren't aware of it, but they're actually a bunch of extreme hyper-Calvinists….and thorough Constantinians. These two points are what drives them to do what they do.

Not interested in truth

Today someone told me that a family friend who had a difficult delivery and a premature baby was being sent home from the hospital early...why?

Because of Obamacare.

For those unfamiliar with conservative-speak, that's the Obama health care reform legislation.

This is exactly the kind of stuff I'm talking about. The person who told me this is a FOX news fan and very hardline political conservative. This person also professes to be a Christian.

Now the issue to me is not whether or not I'm conservative or liberal, whether I like Obama or not, nor what my position is on the whole health care debate.

The issue is....is it true?

What Theological Liberalism Demonstrates: Unbelievers cannot understand the Bible

I heard this sad and outrageous interview today. It reminds me of several I've heard in the past. It just goes to show that unbelievers absolutely cannot grasp the message of the Bible.

A response to some Two Kingdom Concerns

I’ve run into some recent critiques of Two Kingdom Theology that I’ll be interacting with over the next few days. Here’s the first. I’ve linked the title below to the original website. I’ve included the post and the couple of comments that were available at the time.

I appreciate this man’s concerns and his sincerity, but I’m afraid he has not grasped the meaning of Two Kingdom theology nor its implications.

Why do I care? He’s a pastor and this article is pretty typical of the material I keep encountering. Those who oppose Two Kingdoms are starting to become very vocal and some cases hostile, and while I don’t want to be hostile I want to be equally fervent in denouncing the error and dangers associated with Dominionism and all its variants.

NATO in Libya- What is says about the UN and Russia

I'm not sure yet how the whole Libya affair will fall out, but yesterday I was thinking about all of the Christians who are so afraid of the United Nations.


Many view it as this powerful and sinister globalist entity that seeks to remove national sovereignty from the United States and become the basis for global government.

Ecclesiology #6- A note on the Age of Accountability

With regard to the Age of Accountability, not only is it absent from Scripture but it raises a couple of points to consider.

Ecclesiology #5- Means Theology, a review

I have been in the process of trying to clean up some of the older posts. Back in June and July I laid out some of my initial ideas. I explained this a few posts back.

In light of the present discussion regarding Means, the following posts may or may not be helpful.

I wrote them quickly and didn't always explain my terms. I assumed quite a bit from the reader. Some of you will be familiar enough to benefit, others may end up being quite lost. If you're interested and you find yourself confused over a term or a name, email me and I'll explain.

I know I'm completely losing some of you on these theological points but as always I'm trying to challenge. If you don't agree that's fine, but thinking about these things will only enrich your Bible reading. And if you don't agree it will help you to understand why some people believe as they do and perhaps even help you to argue against people like me. I hope that's not the case but I'm certainly willing to take the risk.

Here are a few relevant posts that I've cleaned up. Again, it's all pretty much the same idea, but perhaps explained a different way, it may resonate in a way the recent posts have not.

http://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2010/06/8-hermeneutical-key-from-augustine.html

http://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2010/06/9-augustine-and-hermeneutics-part-2.html

http://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2010/06/10-hermeneutics-continued.html

http://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2010/06/11-dialectical-hermeneutics-continued.html

http://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2010/06/more-on-visible-church.html

http://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2010/06/dialectical-theology.html