FlamencoSketches

left curve 😀

[Pastor Rich Lusk @Vicar1973]

"The idea of Christianity and the meaning of reality belong together like lock and key: they make sense together."

-- Herman Bavinck

[G. K. Chesterton @GKCdaily]

It is assumed that the skeptic has no bias; whereas he has a very obvious bias in favor of skepticism.

[G. K. Chesterton @GKCdaily]

I think, as I have always thought, that the only salvation for our civilization is going back; not so much going back to former conditions as going back to First Principles.

[Paul Weston @PWestoff]

If you want to see witless, privileged, astonishingly hypocritical leftist women lost for words and unable to even look at the camera..... I suggest that if you only watch one video on X every year you watch this one. It is unmissably brilliant.

[C. R. Wiley @crwiley1962]

I understand why my thesis that secularism is the last stand of Christendom is difficult to swallow.

For many conservative Protestants secularism has been the Antichrist.

But it isn’t. Here’s why:

Secularism assumes the dignity and worth of individuals. There’s no reason to do that without a vague set of Christian assumptions supporting those notions.

Progress is also assumed, both technical and moral progress. Anyone with a modicum of historical awareness knows this is the exception and not the rule in human societies. And the only place it is assumed is in Christian societies.

Universal human responsibility and rights, once again are assumed, but only because of Christian beliefs working tacitly.

The term “nature” is used to obfuscate. What is really being referred to is Christian insights into creation.

Finally, there is a peculiar understanding that separates eternal things from temporal while retaining the value of the temporal, giving the “secular” a sense of significance not seen elsewhere.

All this is passing away. We can’t play the game of pretending our way of life isn’t based on Christianity.

We can thank the heresy of Leftism in its most extreme form for that.

Secularism was a gambit to avoid conflict.

Well, that’s over.

[Pastor Rich Lusk @Vicar1973]

“For too long, Christians have been characterized by despair, defeat, and retreat. For too long, Christians have heeded the false doctrine which teaches that we are doomed to failure, that Christians cannot win - the notion that, until Jesus returns, Christians will steadily lose ground to the
enemy. The future of the Church, we were told, is to be a steady
slide into apostasy. Some of our leaders sadly informed us that we
are living in a "Laodicean age" of the Church (a reference to the
"lukewarm" church of Laodicea, spoken of in Rev. 3:14-22). 

Any new outbreak of war, any rise in crime statistics, any new evidence
of the breakdown of the family, was often oddly viewed as progress, a step forward toward the expected goal of the total collapse of civilization, a sign that Jesus might come to rescue us at any moment. Social action projects were looked on with skepticism: it was often assumed that anyone who actually tried to improve the world
must not really believe the Bible, because the Bible taught that such efforts were bound to be futile; as one famous preacher put it,
"You don't polish brass on a sinking ship." That slogan was based
on two assumptions: first, that the world is nothing more than a
"sinking ship"; second, that any organized program of Christian
reconstruction would be nothing more than "polishing brass."
Evangelism was an invitation to join the losing side.

This was rooted in…a false view of Spirituality. The unbiblical idea of "spirituality" is that the truly "spiritual" man is the person who is sort of "non-physical," who doesn't
get involved in "earthly" things, who doesn't work very much or
think very hard, and who spends most of his time meditating
about how he'd rather be in heaven. As long as he's on earth,
though, he has one main duty in life: Get stepped on for Jesus. The "spiritual" man, in this view, is a wimp. A Loser. But at least he's a Good Loser.

The teaching of the Bible is very different. When the Bible uses the term Spiritual, it is generally speaking of the Holy Spirit
(which is why I use a capital S). To be Spiritual is to be guided and motivated by the Holy Spirit. It means obeying His commands as recorded in the Scriptures. The Spiritual man is not
someone who floats in midair and hears eerie voices. The Spiritual man is the man who does what the Bible says (Rom. 8:4-8).

This means, therefore, that we are supposed to get involved in life. God wants us to apply Christian standards everywhere, in
every area. Spirituality does not mean retreat and withdrawal from life; it means dominion. The basic Christian confession of
faith is that Jesus is Lord (Rom. 10:9-10) - Lord of all things, in heaven and on earth. As Lord, He is to be glorified in every area
(Rom. 11:36). In terms of Christian Spirituality, in terms of
God's requirements for Christian action in every area of life, there is no reason for retreat.”

— David Chilton

[Pastor Rich Lusk @Vicar1973]

Luther and Nominalism: A Complicated Relationship

The claim that Martin Luther was a philosophical nominalist carries a surface plausibility, rooted primarily in his doctrine of justification by faith alone. According to this view, God “names” or declares sinners righteous by a sheer act of divine will, even though they remain sinners in themselves. This "simultaneously justified and sinful" doctrine stands in sharp contrast to the medieval Roman Catholic teaching that justification requires an actual infusion of righteousness before God can declare a person just. The emphasis on divine declaration, detached from immediate ontological transformation, seems to echo nominalist metaphysics, in which God’s will can impose names or categories without corresponding realities in the created order.

Yet this interpretation is ultimately misleading. It is true that Luther was trained in the scholastic nominalism that was popular in his time. But he did not uncritically adopt nominalism, and in fact reacted against it in various ways. A closer examination of Luther’s thought reveals significant counter-evidence that either refutes the charge outright or, at minimum, greatly complicates any straightforward link between the Reformer and nominalism.

Luther’s Suspicion of Philosophy

First, Luther was notoriously unphilosophical—and at times overtly anti-philosophical. His central concern was that philosophy tends to exalt autonomous human reason above the authority of Scripture. The gospel, after all, is “foolishness to those who are perishing” (1 Corinthians 1:18). Luther did not reject reason wholesale; he insisted that it must be subordinated to faith and the Word of God. Human wisdom had subjected the “foolishness” of the cross to its own distorting categories, producing a theology more Aristotelian than apostolic.

This conviction appears forcefully in Luther’s early work. His 1517 Disputation Against Scholastic Theology—a kind of prelude to the Ninety-Five Theses—directly assaulted the integration of Aristotelian philosophy into Christian doctrine. Among its theses we find:

Thesis 41: “Virtually the entire Ethics of Aristotle is the worst enemy of grace.”
Thesis 43: “It is an error to say that no man can become a theologian without Aristotle.”
Thesis 50: “Briefly, the whole Aristotle is to theology as darkness is to light.”
In his Table Talk, Luther’s critique grew even sharper: “Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word.” He famously called philosophy “the Devil’s whore.” These statements reflect not a nominalist philosopher at work, but a theologian determined to let Scripture judge every human system. Reason, rightly used as a servant of faith, has its place; as an autonomous authority, it is a dangerous idol.

Realist Elements in Luther’s Theology

Second, important strands of Luther’s theology are positively anti-nominalist. He affirmed natural law, which presupposes a created order with fixed essences and a shared human nature. “All men have a certain natural knowledge implanted in their minds,” he wrote, “whereby they naturally perceive that they ought to do unto others as they would have others do unto them. These and other such opinions, which we call the natural law, are the foundation of human right and of all good works.” Such statements assume real universals and objective moral structures grounded in creation, not arbitrary divine naming. In particular, Luther's view of the sexes was very much rooted in nature, that is, God's creational design. Even though Luther believed that all the baptized share in a common priesthood, he held that wives are to be in subjection to their husbands and women cannot hold pastoral office, as matters of propriety and good order in the family and in the church.

Even more telling is Luther’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. He insisted on the real presence of Christ “in, with, and under” the bread and wine. The elements are not merely named Christ’s body and blood as empty symbols; they truly convey Christ’s body and blood to the believer. While Luther rejected the Aristotelian metaphysics underlying transubstantiation, his position remained realist rather than nominalist. The sacrament effects a genuine participation in Christ, not a linguistic fiction.

Justification: Not a Legal Fiction

Third, and most decisively, Luther’s mature doctrine of justification is not actually nominalist, nor is it a “legal fiction” in the dismissive sense often alleged. It is true that Luther taught believers are declared righteous by faith even while they remain sinners in themselves—simul iustus et peccator. Yet this doctrine is no arbitrary divine whim; it is a direct echo of Scripture: “God justifies the ungodly” (Romans 4:5) and "calls things that are not as though they were" (Romans 4:17).

Luther had indeed been shaped by the nominalist tradition of his education, particularly the teaching of Gabriel Biel, but he reacted vigorously against its semi-Pelagian tendencies. His positive doctrine of justification transcends nominalism through the believer’s union with Christ. Faith does more than receive a bare declaration; it unites the soul to Christ as a bride is united to her bridegroom. In this “happy exchange,” Christ takes the believer’s sin and bestows His own righteousness. As Luther beautifully expressed it:
“Faith not only justifies, it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom. At this point, a contest of happy exchanges takes place… Christ, the rich, noble, and good bridegroom takes the poor, despised, wicked little harlot in marriage, sets her free from the devil and all evil, and decks her out with all sorts of good things.”

The righteousness by which the believer is justified is alien in the sense that it is not native to us, but it is nevertheless truly ours because we possess Christ by faith and therefore possess all that is His. God’s declaration is no mere name; it is a reality grounded in our mystical union with the risen Christ. We really are righteous in Him, legally and covenantally.

Of course, this declared righteousness is inseparable from the practical righteousness of a transformed life. The same faith that unites us to Christ for a new legal standing and a right relationship with God also produces the fruit of repentance and obedience. But while our practical righteousness remains incomplete in this life, our righteous status is complete the moment we are joined to Christ by faith. Hence, for Luther, the Christian life is a matter of the believer growing into what he already is; having been declared righteous in Christ, he now grows in practical and lived righteousness, so that when our salvation is finally finished in the resurrection, we have become in the end what God declared us to be in the beginning.

This understanding of justification has substantial patristic precedent, even if sometimes obscured. For example, Augustine, though his doctrine of justification was not as sharply forensic as Luther’s, clearly distinguished forgiveness from inward renewal while holding the two inseparably together in the Christian life.

The challenge of Luther to the medieval church was both simple and profound: Can we, with Paul, say that justifies the ungodly? Can the believer know with certainly that his sins have been forgiven? Can the Christian be confident that he is a right relationship with God even as he continues to struggle and wage war against his remaining sins?

Conclusion

Luther’s doctrine of justification certainly broke with the dominant theology of the late medieval church. Yet it cannot fairly be reduced to philosophical nominalism. The Reformer’s deep suspicion of autonomous reason, his realist commitments to natural law, his view of the sexes, his theology of the sacraments, and—above all—his richly Christological account of justification rooted in union with the Savior, all point in a different direction. Luther was first and foremost a biblical theologian who let Scripture critique and reshape the categories he inherited. In the end, his teaching on justification magnifies the glory of Christ and the wonder of the gospel: the ungodly are not merely called righteous—they are righteous in the One who is their righteousness.

[Jon Harris 🌲 @jonharris1989]

The South perceived intuitively that the new radicalisms of Europe represent a final assault upon society as that term has been understood in Western civilization.

Society implies a structure; it consists of centers of authority, degrees of power and prestige, and an inevitable system of ranking even where representative government is in effect.

But the tendency of the nihilist revolutions in Europe is toward the destruction of this and the substitution of the formless mass manipulated by a group of Machiavellians.

Distinctions in society, however invidious they can be made to appear by doctrinaires, are what gives richness, variety, and freedom to the life of a people, and the exchange of them for some extreme equalitarianism results in regimentation with authority ledged ultimately in a dictator.

Centralism always points to an alliance between the mass as such and a single leader purporting to be their champion; and, conversely, decentralization leaves the way open for local authority and provides opportunity for individuals to express themselves as such.

Richard Weaver 1944 (The South and the Revolution of Nihilism)

[Pastor Rich Lusk @Vicar1973]

Rubio understands the issues at stake in the battle against leftism/Marxism/progressivism. It comes down to envy and resentment.

[Douglas Wilson @douglaswils]

Along All the Wires
“Apart from Christ, the electric crackle of envy runs along all the wires. Everything is hooked up to this particular grid. The current flows from Gentile to Jew, Jew to Gentile, white to black, black to white, short to tall, fat to skinny, and so on—mimetic desire and carping envy are absolutely everywhere and in everything. People who dismiss this with a wave of the hand do not understand the Scriptures, and they are blind when it comes to identifying one of the mainsprings of all unregenerate human action. The prohibition of envy and covetousness (‘of anything that is your neighbor’s’) is in the Ten Commandments for a reason” (American Milk and Honey, p. 5).

[G. K. Chesterton @GKCdaily]

Humor is meant, in a literal sense, to make game of man; that is, to dethrone him from his official dignity and hunt him like game. It is meant to remind us human beings that we have things about us as ungainly and ludicrous as the nose of the elephant or the neck of the giraffe.

[Zachary Garris @ZacharyGarris]

If you are a Christian, especially in the West, there’s a good chance you come from a long line of Christians.

Some of these were only nominally Christian or part of corrupt traditions, but God still used such things to pass on the faith you now hold.

The God who keeps covenant works through Christian peoples and Christian nations to save the elect.

[G. K. Chesterton @GKCdaily]

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

[Pastor Rich Lusk @Vicar1973]

Evangelicals did not invent the culture war in the last thirty years. Christians, at least mature Christians, have always understood that the Christian faith is an embodied, and therefore culturally incarnate, faith, and that the kingdom of God’s conflict with the kingdom of Satan can be manifest in historical, political, and cultural ways. Consider a brief historical survey of the culture war:

Jesus established the culture war in new covenant form when he gave the Great Commission. Discipling the nations means doing battle with the false gods of the nations. It means converting nations and teaching people how God’s Word applies to all of life. To back away from the culture war in order to save souls (merely) is to truncate the Great Commission, robbing it of its greatness. It fails to do justice to the authority over heaven and earth that has been granted to Jesus. Why engage in the culture war? Because Jesus is Lord. And because he told us to. A culture war is the inevitable result of the church undertaking the Great Commission.

The apostles involved themselves in a culture war by directly challenging the pretentious claims of Caesar. Their announcement, “Jesus is Lord,” was a direct threat to Caesar’s claim to lordship. This is why they were accused of treason against the empire (cf. Acts 17). When Peter declared in Acts 4:12, “Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we may be saved,” he was actually paraphrasing the decree of Augustus Caesar, who declared in 17 BC, “Salvation is to be found in no other but Augustus, and there is no other name given to men in which they can be saved.” Peter obviously substituted Jesus’ name for Augustus’ name. And no doubt, Peter had a different understanding of the kind of salvation in view. But Peter’s announcement makes no sense unless he understood that Jesus is Lord over all. And precisely because he is Lord over all, all of culture and all nations are to be discipled in terms of his Word. You could say Peter was firing some of the first shots in the culture war between God’s kingdom and Satan’s kingdom, a war that continues down to the very present. If you were to ask Peter if his message was religious or political, he would not have understood the question; the religious was totally intertwined with the social, cultural, and political.

The early Christians in the post-apostolic era were persecuted because they would not burn a pinch of incense to Caesar. They did not conform to the customs and ways of the Roman Empire, particularly when it came to sex and money, which made them easy targets. But had they wanted to avoid persecution, they could have done so by downplaying those issues that made them stand out. They could have avoided persecution by becoming culturally invisible. They were not persecuted because they worshiped Jesus; the Romans cared little about which gods were worshipped in their empire. They were persecuted because they were against worshiping the state. In other words, they were early Christian culture warriors, and stood firm on the issues of the day, even if it cost them their lives.

Augustine’s City of God is one of the greatest works of cultural apologetics and cultural warfare in the history of the church. Augustine wrote to expose the moral corruption of Rome, rooted in its idolatry, and to defend Christians against the charge that they were to blame for the collapse of the empire. Augustine wrote as a critic of Rome, starting with its founding myth, showing that a society built upon fratricide could never be stable, or serve as a source of peace and justice. It is interesting to consider the balance of Augustine. He wrote Confessions to tap into the heart of Christian experience at the personal level. In City of God, he complemented Confessions by looking at the big, historical, cultural, and political picture, examining how God has worked across the generations to establish his “city” over and against man’s “city” (which is really Satan’s city). Every society is based on a common good, and a common good requires a common love. Augustine explains Rome is fraying because the empire is divided against itself. As Augustine explains, the city of man is organized around the loves of fallen man. The city of man seeks to satisfy man’s disordered lusts. By contrast, the city of God is rooted in love for God, and a desire to satisfy his will. Augustine believes men will always “become what they love.” Thus, the conflict of the ages is a conflict of loves. Augustine sees the two cities as locked in a comprehensive battle — a totalizing culture war — that will endure until the last day. Augustine’s work undoubtedly marks him out as one of the greatest culture warriors in church history. His work gives us a paradigm for understanding all cultural conflict.

The Reformers were culture warriors. They were wrestling for the soul of Christendom. But their battles were not just theological or liturgical. They were cultural and political and social as well. For example, Martin Luther very clearly saw his marriage to Katie as an act of spiritual warfare. When the former monk married the former nun, Luther said he gave “a roundhouse kick to the devil in the snout.” Calvin addressed his Institutes to the King of France. He was not only writing a systematic handbook of theology; he was writing a work of political theology with wide-ranging cultural ramifications. The heirs of his project in the new world implemented his principles in the War for American Independence. The formation of America happened largely because Christians were willing to turn a culture war into a hot war, with real fighting and real bloodshed. They understood that the Christian faith cultivates a love for freedom and a hatred of tyranny.

By historic standards, American evangelicals of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have been pretty tame culture warriors.

[G. K. Chesterton @GKCdaily]

The Declaration of Independence, once the charter of democracy, begins by saying that certain things are self-evident. If we were to trace the history of the American mind from Thomas Jefferson to William James, we should find that fewer and fewer things were self-evident, until at last hardly anything is self-evident.

[G. K. Chesterton @GKCdaily]

There is a kind of work which any man can do, but from which many men shrink, generally because it is very hard work, sometimes because they fear it will lead them whither they do not wish to go. It is called thinking.

[Humble Flow @HumbleFlow]

This is what forgetting Christianity does to a civilization:

“The modern world imagines that it has outgrown religion. It has done nothing of the kind. It has merely forgotten it. And because it has forgotten it, it no longer understands itself.

Men do not realize that the whole framework of their moral judgments, their political habits, and even their intellectual methods were formed within a Christian society and cannot exist long outside it. When that framework breaks, they will not find themselves enlightened, but bewildered; not free, but enslaved; not rational, but confused.”

— Hilaire Belloc, Europe and the Faith

[Pastor Rich Lusk @Vicar1973]

Conservatives and Christians use technology. Progressives worship technology.

Conservatives see technology as having trade-offs. Progressives see it as the key to ushering in utopia.

[Pastor Rich Lusk @Vicar1973]

The truth of this quote plays out almost daily:

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats."

-- P.J. O'Rourke

[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.