Jason van Brackel

✝️ Software Guy. Love helping people with hard technical problems.

[Skeletor 🧼🧽🫧 @TheMuppetPastor]

I’m seeing a lot of “Everyone aborts Down syndrome kids, it’s no big deal!” posts.

That is EXACTLY why it needs to be a big deal.

[Alisa Childers @alisa_childers]

As I've pondered this over the last few days, I keep thinking about something Clay Jones wrote. In his book, "Why Does God Allow Evil?", Jones points out that when we think of genocide, we think of demented psychopaths running around on murderous rampages. In reality, genocide is mostly committed by normal everyday people including moms, dads, and sweet grandmas who bake cookies for the bake sale.

Jones writes: "It has been fascinating to me that absolutely every genocide researcher I have ever read (and I’ve read a lot of them) and absolutely every genocide victim I’ve ever read—to a person—concludes that genocide is what the average person does...

Professor and Holocaust survivor Fred E. Katz sums up exactly what kind of person participated in the Holocaust. He wrote that 'only a tiny proportion' of the 'massive killings are attributable to the actions of those people we call criminals, or crazy people, or socially alienated people, or even, people we identify as evil people.' Rather, they were actually 'carried out by plain folk in the population—ordinary people, like you and me.'

Katz asks, Who carried out the plans of the 'Hitlers and Stalins'?

His conclusion: 'Ordinary people, like you and me.'

Then he asks, 'Who provides the intelligence, the brain power, the orderly thinking to translate crazy philosophies into a practical course of action?

Ordinary people, like you and me.'

Finally, 'Who provides the quiet sustained effort, the plain hard work it takes to carry out huge programs of murderous action?

Ordinary people, like you and me.'"

One of the reasons the post below is so chilling and horrifically evil is because it is so casual, ordinary, and "nice."

May God have mercy on us.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

A Letter from a Boomer to Gen Z

I read your letter. I hear your anger. You feel betrayed, and a lot of you have every right to feel that way.
You’re right that it got bad. But let me tell you how it actually happened from our side.

We switched parties more than once trying to get smaller government. We voted for politicians who promised to cut spending, secure the border, and put Americans first. We showed up at the polls. We wrote letters. We trusted the system.

The politicians did what they wanted anyway.
We never voted for open borders. We never voted to ship our factories overseas. We never voted to raid the Social Security lockbox or take the country off the gold standard. Those decisions were made by the generation before us and the permanent ruling class in Washington. They broke the deal no matter which party we sent to power.

We built the interstate system, the power grid, the early internet backbone, the satellite networks, and much of the physical world you live in today. You enjoy the benefits of that infrastructure every single day. We handed it to you in far better shape than we received it.

The suffering you feel, the wage stagnation, the housing crisis, the debt, the broken trust, didn’t fully hit until your generation and the one after. We watched it coming, warned about it, and got called every name in the book for doing so.

We didn’t create this mess. We inherited part of it and then failed to stop it. That’s on us. But pretending we wanted this outcome or voted for it is simply not true.
We still believe in hard work, self-reliance, and building something real. We hope you do too.

The country we grew up in had real problems, but it also had real opportunity. You deserve that same chance.

A Boomer who still shows up and votes every single time

[Jared L Kubin @JaredKubin]

For all the parents out there dealing with a decision... let me give you another perspective

In 2018 my wife and I went in for our 20? week ultra sound at Beth Israel in Boston... the rep was very quiet the whole time, something seemed off. My wife & I were first time parents... didn't have much context. The doctor pulled us into her office and told us our sons nuchal fold was abnormally large... she went on to say there is a significant increased chance of Down Syndrome and even Turner's syndrome... talked about options to terminate the pregnancy. My wife was inconsolable, rightly so ... even thinking about it now brings back a lot of heavy emotions because of how hard of a day it was... hard...

I did a lot of research on the topic ... my wife & I prayed non stop about it. All we could do. The doctors wanted to do an amniocentesis which has its own host of risks..run more tests...

We came to the conclusion, which was not easy... it didn't matter... no amnio, no more tests.... I felt in my soul the Lord's plan was perfect and if our son was going to have Down Syndrome we would love him and shepherd him through this world the best we could. We get what we get. Anything from the Lord was a BLESSING and I was not going to point my finger at Him

Fast forward to today... our son is going to be 8 in the fall. He is perfect. Just hit a homerun the other day... a much better baseball player than I was at his age. My best friend

I share this deeply personal story for nothing more than to give just ONE parent hope... the Lord's plan is perfect... stay the course

[Jason van Brackel @JasonvanBrackel]

@thee_ppd @exjon @grok take the photo from https://t.co/c1IY6qh835 but put him in Colonel Sanders suit

[Jason van Brackel @JasonvanBrackel]

That reads like a very poor, egalitarian handling of Gal 3:28

I would argue that that and the previous paragraph of Gal 3 relate to the relation of peoples to the law, and to grace. It has 0 to do with their relation to their nation in the flesh, but to their citizenship to the church invisible.

To use the logic as I see it here would require a twisting of logic that Paul uses in Romans 9

[Jason van Brackel @JasonvanBrackel]

@ibuildthecloud You're like the inverse Cramer of technologies.

[JD Vance @JDVance]

If the fraud rate is really as low as Democrats claim, why are they fighting so hard to hide the data? Why not just work with USDA to audit and validate where the money is going? Their resistance to us going after fraud is part of why these programs ballooned in the first place.

[Dave Greene @GreeneMan6]

This is an interesting study in female “word casting”.

This woman’s tone and delivery are perfect. She’s also fluent in Christianese, where “gift from God” is the good-good word and “idol” is the bad-bad word.

In this moment, said woman feels good about young women pursuing careers, bad about young women waiting for marriage.

Therefore marriage (a literal sacramental gift from God) is an idol, and pursuing materialism in the marketplace (a literal idol) is a gift from God.

White is black and black is white, because this women’s isn’t communicating theology, she is communicating how she feels.

[Zachary Garris @ZacharyGarris]

A notable problem here is the PCA's Larger Catechism teaches that the magistrate is to “oppos[e] all false worship” and “remov[e] all monuments of idolatry” (WLC 108).

[Zachary Garris @ZacharyGarris]

According to the PCA's CN Report...

(1) Religious pluralism is "entirely consistent" with the 1788 Westminster Standards:

"Some...mean...that Christian piety (per WCF 23.2) is best promoted and protected when the civil magistrate promotes and protects the free exercise of all religions. This position is entirely consistent with the PCA’s constitutional standards." (p. 2721)

(2) But views held by the Reformed Orthodox and even some American Presbyterians are "out of accord with the Standards":

"An officer who believes that the civil magistrate has the duty to suppress heresies... holds a view that is directly contrary to the text of WCF 23.3 as adopted by the PCA.... In the judgment of the Ad Interim Committee, such an officer is out of accord with the Standards on this point." (p. 2721)

"A candidate who argues that the state should enforce the specific penal sanctions of the Mosaic judicial code (like capital punishment for idolatry, blasphemy, or heresy) has, in our judgment, crossed a boundary that the General Assembly has already established." (p. 2724)

[Timcast News @TimcastNews]

TONIGHT on Timcast IRL | J. Chase Davis
@jchasedavis

Watch LIVE at 8pm EST on Rumble, YouTube, X & Facebook

[neodominion @dokimazete]

I wanted to test whether a formal report makes guilt-by-association moves that have been weaponized in evangelical and Reformed circles using AI. I used it as a constrained aid: I grounded it strictly in Scripture and the Westminster Standards. Here is what I found.

[Jon Harris 🌲 @jonharris1989]

“One excruciating problem faced by single women is caused by the unwritten rule of our society that allows men the freedom actively to pursue a marriage partner while women are considered loose if they actively pursue a prospective husband.

No biblical rule says that a woman eager to be married should be passive. There is nothing that prohibits her from actively seeking a suitable mate. On numerous occasions, I’ve had the task of counseling single women who insist at the beginning of the interview that they have no desire to be married, but simply want to work out the dimensions of the celibacy they believe God has imposed upon them.

After a few questions and answers, the scenario usually repeats itself: the young woman begins to weep and blurts out, “But I really want to get married.” When I suggest that there are wise steps that she can take to find a husband, her eyes light up in astonishment as if I had just given her permission to do the forbidden. I have broken a taboo.

Those seeking a life partner need to do certain obvious things such as going where other single people congregate. They need to be involved in activities that will bring them in close communication with other single Christians.”

- RC Sproul

[bendell werry 🌲 @bendellwerry]

You should NEVER talk about methods you use to train your children, on the internet.

I don’t care if it’s discourses among friends, I don’t care if you’re the most gentle parent in the world.

There are sick people on the internet who will try to ruin your life.

Don’t do it.

[Zachary Groff 📖 @ZGroff]

Catching up this AM…

My good friend @ZacharyGarris, his sweet family, and his wonderful congregation deserved better treatment from Rio Grande Presbytery.

It is astounding to me that the men responsible for pastoring the regional expression of the PCA in New Mexico decided to bar a preacher from fulfilling his calling and rob a church of their minister over what amounts to banter on @X. I’ve seen the supposed victim of said banter post far worse (i.e., malicious) things online.

It is hard to conclude anything other than Rio Grande Presbytery chose vindictiveness over equity in finding Zach guilty and then levying a censure of indefinite suspension. This result is prima facie so incredibly over the top, out of balance, and inappropriate. But I confess that I don’t know all the facts of the case, and I’m certain that more of the story will be told on appeal to the PCA’s Standing Judicial Commission of the General Assembly.

May Christ’s honor and ministry in His Kingdom prevail over all folly and wickedness in His Church.

God bless the PCA.

[Jon Harris 🌲 @jonharris1989]

The Rio Grande Presbytery has made itself the laughing stock of the PCA.

Everyone can see through what they’re doing to Zach Garris except the hard woke crowd.

[Michael Foster @thisisfoster]

I’m not the only one who has been warning about this kind of lawfare being deployed in the PCA, but these recent cases are exactly what many of us have been talking about.

Consider two examples: Burke Parsons and @ZacharyGarris.

I would be surprised if either suspension ultimately stands if appealed all the way through the process. But that is exactly the problem.

The process is long. In the meantime, these men are suspended from office. They are sidelined from pastoral ministry. Their churches are disrupted. Their people are left without their shepherd. Even if the suspension is eventually overturned, the process itself becomes the punishment.

That creates a dangerous incentive structure. Men can use the courts of the church to temporarily remove pastors over charges they likely know will not hold up under final review. The accusations are often tied to elastic applications of ninth commandment violations, claims of “harshness,” or other highly subjective standards.

Take Garris. He was suspended for poking fun at Dr. Anthony Bradley by saying there are some things so complex that even a PhD cannot understand them. Frankly, that is funny. Dr. Bradley regularly invokes his credentials in ways that invite that kind of jab. To have a church lose its pastor, even temporarily, over something like that is absurd.

This kind of judicial maneuvering does real damage.

It chills ordinary pastoral speech. It rewards strategic accusations. It destabilizes local churches. And it sends a clear message to younger men: enter this denomination, and you may find yourself sidelined for months over charges that will eventually be overturned.

If the older conservatives in the PCA do not step up and use their authority to stop this sort of procedural abuse, younger men are going to ask a very reasonable question:

Why would I come into, or remain in, a denomination where the process itself can be weaponized against faithful pastors?

This is not mainly about whether these particular men win on appeal.

It is about whether constitutional process in the PCA will be used to secure justice or to exercise ideological control by other means.

#SavethePCA

[J. Chase Davis @jchasedavis]

The men who level these charges against Garris would find all their forefathers in the Presbyterian tradition guilty.

These men are exactly what Jesus meant by blind guides.

[J. Chase Davis @jchasedavis]

Make no mistake: if you embrace Offensive Christianity, the church courts will seek to punish you.

Rev. Garris was generous to endorse my book. I stand by him.