Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺

Aspie, Hebraist, Upstart Linguist, Exegete, and Neuroscience Enthusaist. Postliberal Protestant, Lover of Christ, and Servant of His Church.

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

The guy who runs this Idol Killer account is *badly* overstating his case. It is true that grammatical form is only one part of language. But the idea that it is irrelevant, especially when we are talking about the time in a temporal language like Koine Greek is absurd. Yes, I get that there are instances in which the time element is completely suppressed, but that is the case in any language. In this case, we are talking about a narrative, and this is talking about main events within the narrative. Here in Acts 13:48, you have a compound construction (known in the Greek grammars as a “paraphrastic construction): ἦσαν τεταγμένοι. It is typical of Indo-European languages. For example, I am currently studying Hittite, and in Hittite, you use a form of harkmi (to have) plus the participle to indicate the perfect tense. So:

nu LÚ.KÚR URU.A-ra-u-wa-an-na-aš ku-iš KUR URU.ki-iš-ši-ia-a GUL-an-ni-eš-ke-et na-at me-ek-ki ta-ma-aš-ša-an har-ta

The enemy country of Arauwannas, which the country of Kissiya repeatedly attacked, had oppressed it much.

The last two words translated “had oppressed” are a combination of harta (the verb “to have” and tamaššan, the past participle of “tamaššmi” which means “to oppress.”

The same thing exists in Romanian. In fact, in Romanian, the past tense is typically formed with a form of a avea (to have) plus the past participle. So, for example:

Mihai și prietenii lui au bătut toata limonadă!
Mihai and his friends drank all the lemonade!

Here the past tense “drank” is formed from the verb “to have” (in this case, the third person plural form “au”) plus the past participle of a bea which means “to drink,” bătut). So, this is common in Indo European languages.

Greek does the same thing, but rather than use a form of the verb “to have,” it uses a form of ειμι, plus a form of the participle. Given all the various forms of ειμι and all the various forms of the participles, Greek can express a wide range of tenses using this paraphrastic construction. In Acts 13:48, ἦσαν is an imperfect form of ειμι and τεταγμένοι is a perfect participle. When these two are used paraphrastically, it creates a pluperfect meaning. The idea is “All who had been appointed (prior to this narrative event) believed.” But, if this were a middle, it wouldn’t make any sense. They would had to have appointed themselves to eternal life before this they were preached to in this passage, which makes no sense at all! That is why I find the middle interpretation at Acts 13:48 to in error.

Yes, modern exegesis over emphasizes grammar. But that does *not* mean grammar is unimportant or can be ignored. Yes, it is only a part of the puzzle, but it is an *important* part!

[𝔚𝔥𝔦𝔱𝔢𝔅𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔡 @HwsEleutheroi]

This kind of post should be used to demonstrate how many failures of argumentation you can stuff into a single X post. If you cannot see how this is nothing but rhetoric, not truthful teaching or reasoning, you probably should be spending less time on X, and you should definitely take others with you when buying a used car.

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

Either Lindsay hasn’t’t read Deneen, doesn’t understand Deneen, or is simply being dishonest. He thinks liberalism is *the* American viewpoint. It isn’t. For most of American history it wasn’t even the majority. America was a *Christian* democracy, not a *liberal* democracy for most of its history. While not everyone in America was individually a Christian (Christian tend to not want to deport anyone who disagrees with us, unlike James Lindsay), Christianity was dominant in law and in politics. That changed in the middle of the 20th century. That was a regime change (the very thing Lindsay decries as “subversion”). All we want is a regime change back. Our social and legal order has *already been* subverted by liberal secularists like James Lindsay, and we want to a regime change back to a stable system that can actually make sense out of morals and values. (unlike Enlightenment liberalism).

[James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames]

Listen to Woke Right "post-liberal" thinker Patrick Deneen about his desire for a profound revolution in American politics to a whole new (democratic) regime based on a "party of order," "mixed constitution," and "new aristocracy" based on virtue.

What does this mean besides a vague call for cultural change and renewal that somehow instantiates political change and renewal? Nobody knows! Even if you read his books! It's just a "reimagining" (his word) requiring an abandonment of the American classical liberal system for a vague "party of order."

Would it replace the American Constitution? Nobody knows!

How would the new "virtuous" aristocracy for the mixed constitution be chosen? Nobody knows!

How would this new "virtuous" aristocracy stay virtuous? Nobody knows!

Would there be a monarch as in the Aristotelian mixed constitutional system he draws upon (blended government by the monarchical one, aristocratic few, and populist many)? Nobody knows!

If so, how would he be chosen or found, and what would his (definitionally un-American) powers be? Nobody knows!

Deneen is personally anti-authoritarian, but how would this system be organized so as not to fall into authoritarianism? Nobody knows!

How will this system define, measure, maintain, and police "virtue"? Nobody knows!

"Reimagining" is fun sometimes, but it's always vague on details! Imagine giving something this vague lots of power!

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

Wrong again! Constitutionalism does not equal liberalism. From the time of Augustine and his great work “The City of God,,” constitutionalism has been founded on two principles: 1. the bridling of the state by God and 2. Checks and balances ( usually written in within the constitution of a country). Liberalism thought it could get rid of the former and still control the lusts of man with the latter. What Postliberals are arguing for is an *abandonment* of the Enlightenment idea that the lusts of man can be bridled by the latter alone. Indeed, that is the standard position in American history. In George Washington’s fairwell address, he said:

“And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

John Adams himself said:

“But should the People of America, once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another and towards foreign nations, which assumes the Language of Justice and moderation while it is practicing Iniquity and Extravagance; and displays in the most captivating manner the charming Pictures of Candour frankness & sincerity while it is rioting in rapine and Insolence: this Country will be the most miserable Habitation in the World. Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition and
Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

This was the common view even before the founding of America. Were there liberals in early America? Of course. Did they disagree? Of course. But Postliberals say that the Enlightenment ideal of constitutional checks and balances independent of the bridling of the state by God has failed, and the liberal nationalism that Lindsay is promoting needs to be abandoned in favor of the *traditional* view of constitutionalism.

[James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames]

The trouble is that post-liberal is actually post-Constitution, especially in light of Deneen's post-liberal book Regime Change, which is being endorsed here, and that's kind of in conflict with a good faith oath of office to defend the Constitution you don't believe in.

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

I think some people might have gotten the impression that I am against resisting tyrants because I was (and still am) against the resist tyrants movement from Covid. The problem I have with the statement “resisting tyrants is obedience to God” is that such a statement is too simplistic. *Some* instances of resisting tyrants are obedience to God. When we resist tyrants we must do so, not on the basis of our own selfish ability to do what we want to do (which results in the destruction of Christian values like the local church and the rule of law), but on the basis of your Christian values that come from scripture. It is these Biblical values that must form the basis of any resistance to tyranny. What makes tyrants to be tyrants is that they violate the word of God and treat their people in a way inconsistent with those values. Resisting tyrants in a way that destroys our Biblical values and morals is actually *disobedience* to God, and leaves us with no basis to oppose tyrants other than our own will. And then, it becomes nothing more than a battle of wills: your will vs the will of the tyrants. But *all men* know God exists, and they know they are obligated to obey Him, because they are created in His image. When you go back to scriptural values to resist these men, you are tapping into the heart of who they are as a human being. I would say this is the only Biblically faithful way to resist tyrants!

[Orbán Viktor @PM_ViktorOrban]

Using an investigation related to Hungary’s National Cultural Fund as a pretext, the authorities have weaponised the justice system against Fidesz. This only happens in dictatorships! Acting on political orders, prosecutors have seized our servers containing personal data, along with our email correspondence. This act bears all the hallmarks of an authoritarian regime, but we will not be intimidated!

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

This is the way. Officials who are asked to do immoral acts simply need to say “no” and resign. If no one is willing to carry out the evil schemes of these liberal elites, then it will end there. This is a good sign for Hungary.

[Bal��zs Orbán @BalazsOrban_HU]

Yesterday, the authorities seized the servers of Hungary’s largest opposition party.

Today, Hungary’s Prosecutor General resigned in protest.

In his resignation statement, he warned that “the prosecution service must not become a tool in the political struggles of political actors” and that it must never become “an arena for daily political interests and power games.”

His resignation comes one day after the unprecedented seizure of the opposition’s servers.

The message is hard to ignore.

https://t.co/aOh9J9kikP

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

I think it is clear that Peter Magyar is not who he presented himself to be. He presented himself as an upgrade to Orbán, having the family policies and other things Hungarians liked without the “corruption.” But, in reality, I wonder how much of this “corruption” was simply things that were necessary for Hungary to not give in to Brussels. Once you give in to the blackmail of Brussels, even just a little bit, they will make you their puppet. The lesson we need to learn from this is that getting out of liberalism will require much more than a country becoming Christian. It will mean Christians have to be willing to be give certain things up in order to not give in to the liberal elites. Yes, Magyar is setting himself up to get crushed next election, and maybe that is why he is pulling this stunt. My best guess is that this information will be used in the same way the classified documents were used against Trump. Either way, it is up to the Hungarian people to put an end to this. They are in the right and Magyar is in the wrong. I definitely stand with the Hungarian people and Viktor Orbán during this difficult time, and hope and pray that these horrible decisions are overturned!

[Balázs Orbán @BalazsOrban_HU]

For those who still don’t understand what is happening in Hungary:

In modern European democratic history, it is virtually unprecedented to see all of the following happen at the same time:

- a President of the Republic removed from office for political reasons;
- political opponents prevented from running in the next election;
- the authorities seeking access to a political party’s internal communications, membership records, and the personal data of its registered supporters.

The line has been crossed. The question now is: how much further will they go?

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

I was thinking the other day about James Lindsay wanting to deport Albert Mohler, and it reminded me that liberalism, for all of its talk of being for “checks and balances” and “sphere sovereignty” is actually very deeply nationalist and sacralist. Nationalism came from liberalism. The liberal solution to the problem of the wars of religion was to make the government a neutral referee which was only to interfere in religious disputes if the religion caused harm to others. In order to make this arrangement work, each religion had to acknowledge, for government purposes, that their religion was *mere opinion* as opposed to knowledge. This meant Christianity and the gospel was only at the epistemic level of *opinion* and not at the higher epistemic level of *fact.* But the neutrality itself was *not* a matter of mere opinion. This was knowledge, and liberals desired no weakness of conviction at this point. This made the state (as neutral referee) ultimate, because all other points of view were simply opinion. Thus, liberalism is a form of nationalism. But it is also a form of sacralism. This religion of liberty became ultimate, and any questioning of liberal constitutionalism was a threat to the entire order of the society. This is why liberalism doesn’t create the two kingdoms of Augustine; it creates *one* kingdom in which membership in the church of liberalism and membership in the state are coextensive, and if you do not submit to the religion of liberalism, you will be deported. That denial of the two kingdoms is *the essence* of sacralism. In many ways, all the Christian Nationalists have done is remove liberalism as the state religion and made Christianity the state religion. That is why they have fallen into sacralism. That is why, for all his rhetoric of “woke right,” James Lindsay is as much a member of the woke right as anyone because of the sacralism and nationalism that liberalism logically demands. This is why consitutionalism must begin with the state being bridled by *God* and *His word.* Any attempt to try to bring about limits to man’s lusts by beginning with “sphere sovereignty,” “checks and balances,” or “the constitution” without the state first being bridled by God and His word will fall into the same kind of nationalism and sacralism that the Medieval period did and that the Christian nationalists in our own day have fallen into.

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

Folks, a words etymology is *not* its literal definition. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen people make that mistake. It is not hard to find a *plethora* of examples to refute this. Does “nice” literally mean “ignorant?” Does “awful” literally mean “worthy of awe?” Does “bully” literally mean “sweetheart” or “darling?” Does “egregious” literally mean “distinguished” or “remarkably good?” Does “decimate” literally mean “to kill one in every ten?” Does “flirt” literally mean “to flick something away?” Etymological fallacies remain etymological fallacies, and adding the word “literal” doesn’t change this fact!

[William Wolfe 🇺🇸 @WilliamWolfe]

Joel Berry: “Nations are not families.”

The literal definition of nations:

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

Certainly not defending the vile racism we have seen recently from Christian Nationalists, but if a Christian Nationalist cried “deport!” to anyone who didn’t agree with Christian rule, it would be seen as an example of tyranny. So why is it that no one raises the same fury when right wing liberals cry “deport!” to anyone who won’t agree with the rule of right wing liberalism? I don’t expect James Lindsay to know that the roots of constitutionalism are *Christian* in character, going back to Augustine and his “City of God.” Nor do I expect him to know that John Cotton directly plucked laws directly out of the Bible in his “Abstract for the laws of New England.” Constitutionalism *presupposes* Christianity, and the failure of modern liberalism and a constitutional order *without* the bridling of the state by God is proof that Voltaire was wrong: Checks and balances *cannot* work without the state first being bridled by God and religion. But, just like the Marxists that Lindsay likes to criticize, if you question the system, you are gone. The hypocrisy is *disgusting.* Yes, Mohler and I have had major disagreements on delay of marriage and deliberate childlessness, but he is right here, and, in fact, his views are the majority throughout American history and throughout the history of constitutionalism. It is only now that the dominance of liberalism is ending that the statist and totalitarian nature of liberalism is showing its ugly face. It is a sad thing to watch!

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

The “curse of Ham” is total and complete exegetical nonsense. It was the curse of *Canaan,* and the fulfillment of that curse occurs in the rest of the Hebrew Bible when Israel enters the land and makes the Canaanites subordinate to them. And the Bible makes clear that this was not a *racial* issue but a *moral* issue: from Ham seeing his father’s nakedness and not covering it up to the “iniquity of the Amorites” (Gen. 15:16) which the Israelites were not supposed to copy (Lev. 18:26-28). And, in Lev. 18:28, there is an implicit promise (cf Deut. 28:36) that, if the Israelites commit these same abominations (which they did), God would set someone in power over *Israel* (in this case Babylon). As we have said for a long time as Postliberals, liberalism is idolatry of nation. Texts are read, not in the context of values that go back to the nature and character of *God,* but in the context of nation and race. That tends to lead to what is best for the nation being equal to what God has said. When you mess with the ordo amoris and place the nation in an idolatrous position either next to God or above God, you will get this kind of nonsense. There is a reason why we as Postliberals have rejected nationalism, and you can see why here!

[Samuel Sey @SlowToWrite]

Dale Partridge says, because of the “curse of Ham” (a racist myth), Africans should be subordinate to Europeans.

I guess I am going against my superior by saying this, but he needs to stop being subordinate to Satan, repent and submit to Christ.

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

The archaeology of Biblical Sodom is fascinating. Multiple people claim to have found it, but I think that the best candidate is Bab edh-Dhra, associated with the famous archaeologist William Foxwell Albright. It seems to fit the Biblical data the best. I recently saw this documentary by Joel Kramer, an archaeologist mentored by Bryan Wood (who is famous for his work at Jericho):

https://t.co/SNTYRVhJzs

Joel Kramer has done considerable work on these five “cities of the plain,” and he mentions the work he is doing with Konstantinos Politis at Zoora, which is the Biblical site of Zoar (the city Lot fled to). Indeed, this is one of the reasons I think Bab edh-Dhra is probably Sodom is because it is close enough to Zoar to flee to, has a related site called Numeira (which is linguistically related to “Gomorrah”), and is south of Jerusalem. Plus, as Joel mentions, it was likely destroyed by burning sulfur. For more information, you can listen to this interview with Joel:

https://t.co/nJp8YR0xMH

and read this article from Bible and Spade written by Joel’s mentor Bryan Wood:

https://t.co/ic2gKOkfsB

One of the things that I found fascinating is the fact that the skeletons they unearthed at Numeira have been so badly burned by the sulfur oven bath that their bones were warped! It is a testimony to the fact that God takes sexual sin seriously. These cites reek of death and destruction, and the furious wrath of God is quite evident looking at these charred remains and the skeletons burned alive by that sulfur bath. But at the end of his documentary, Joel mentions how the city of Zoar was just as wicked and just as evil as the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and deserved *exactly* the same fate. And yet, God spared it for the sake of one righteous man. In the same way, those who repent of their sexual sin and seek to follow Christ will be saved from the wrath of God because of the righteousness of one man, The Man Jesus Christ. That is the hope of anyone caught in such a horrible sin!

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

Huh? Not foolish at all! Yes, because of liberalism, America has used their government to teach people to do what they want to do in total disregard of the word of God which teaches us to “deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ.” It is in the name of this ideology of liberty that the government rewards people for having children out of wedlock in the name of “welfare,” teaching them that fornication is good, destroying children and families. The embrace of these views of liberty in the church has made it totally inconsistent to preach the necessity of repentance and faith. Telling people that the Divine government requires them to submit everything to the King of Kings is *completely* contradictory, when you then turn around and tell people that they need to be maximally free from government constraints. But teaching that such submission to Christ is what is good and right is *essential* to restoring moral order in America. It needs to be taught in our laws, in our churches, in our families, and in all of society. We need to proclaim the failure of western liberalism and point to Christ and His lordship as the only way forward. The word of God has the power to transform hearts and minds and to restrain the sin of man, and that word of God taught in our laws, from our pulpits, and throughout *all* of society is the *only* hope for western civilization!

[Dale Partridge @dalepartridge]

Such a foolish take.

We do not need mass regeneration to restore moral order to America.

Organized minorities always overthrow disorganized majorities.

Why does everyone get this beside Christians?

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

With “kindness” like this, who needs cruelty?:

“Ottoman economic and fiscal demands rose continuously as the exploitation of the principalities exceeded the level of the late 16th century. The quantities of supplies of all kinds delivered to Constantinople and the fortress along the Danube knew practically no bounds and took the form of a tightened monopoly that, as before, required Ottoman needs to be satisfied before the principalities could export their sheep, grains, and other goods to foreign countries. Whenever supplies grew short, as in 1761 and 1764, the sultan would suspend exports on short notice. In any case, the prices paid to peasants and other producers by Ottoman merchants, who had the responsibility of buying what was needed, were, as earlier, invariably lower than prevailing market prices. Of the state-to-state obligations, the amounts of the tribute and the “gifts” that accompanied every official negotiation grew enormously. To these payments added the sums that candidates for the two thrones paid to the sultan’s treasury and to officials of all ranks to gain their good will and win the coveted appointment. Competition for the throne was such good business for the Ottoman elite that the sultan changed prices frequently. Efficient administration suffered, as Wallachia had eighteen princes between 1730 and 1768, and Moldavia seventeen between 1733 and 1769. Nonetheless, a certain continuity of government was ensured, as some princes were shifted between Bucharest and Iași: Constantin Mavrocordat during this period was prince of Wallachia six times and of Moldavia four times.”

Hitchens, Keith. “A Concise History of Romania.” Cambridge University Press. New York, NY. pgs. 56-57

[Clash Report @clashreport]

Theologian JD Hall to Tucker Carlson:

The Muslim rulers didn't tax churches during the Ottoman period. They were very kind to Christians.

As a matter of fact, they took care of our holy sites. Islamic authorities rebuilt the Church of the Holy Sepulchre three different times over the centuries.

They had a law protecting Christian pilgrims on their journey. Nobody messed with the pilgrims.

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

I don’t think Solzhenitsyn was promoting tyranny, considering he lived in a gulag for many years, experiencing first hand what communist repression looks like. He is getting at the same thing Mather is getting at. Freedom to do what is right means man must be taught that repentance and faith are good things, and once man has repented and believed, he must learn this self-restriction by the power of the Holy Spirit. We call this “sanctification.” Sanctification and growth in wisdom is the key to *true* liberty. Man is not born free. He must *learn* what it means to be free. Thus, freedom is not a matter of mortal man’s “will to power;” it is a matter of self-restriction according to what is right as defined by God his creator in His word. My prayer for my Theonomic brothers is that they abandon the “resist tyrants” view of liberty as a failure, and go back to the view of liberty expressed by the early Theonomists like Cotton Mather and anti-Communists like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Mixing libertarian views of liberty together with the law of God has been a disaster, producing movements like CN. It has to go if Theonomy isn’t going to collapse into a Nietzschian- like NAZI struggle of survival of the fittest.

[1]Cited in Emmons, Libby. Trans Lives Matter occupies Oklahoma Capitol to protest bill criminalizing genital mutilation of minors.“ The Post Millennial. Feb. 7, 2023. Available at https://t.co/O7f9I0D9CQ

[2]Deneen, Patrick. JS Mill and the Despotism of Progress. Unherd. May 1, 2023.

[3]Any text of Marcuse’s essay will be sufficient to prove this. You can read it for yourself here: https://t.co/d7w2AsnQHA In many ways, Marcuse is *building* on Mill’s telos of liberty, using tolerance as a means to push Mill’s revolution through.

[4]Richardson, Angelique. “Darwin, Mill, and the End of Essentialism.” Critical Quarterly 53(4). December 2011.

[5]Mather, Cotton. Magnala Christi Americana. Cited in Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America, trans George Lawrence. Harper and Row. New York, NY. 1969. p.46

[6]Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations. Found in the collection of essays From Under the Rubble. Regnery Pub. 1989.

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

The Failure of Covid’s “Resist Tyrants” Ideology, and the
Rise of NAZI Ideology

No one will ever forget the chaos Covid caused: Mask mandates, vaccine mandates, social distancing. I remember having to have my temperature taken *every day* before work. In response to the left’s bid to be free of getting Covid (and making a little money off of it so they could further do what they wanted), many people in the Reformed Evangelical world embraced a mixture of Enlightenment views of liberty and Christianity. John Stuart Mill’s “Free to do what I want to do, so long as what I do does not harm my fellow man”became “Free to do what I want do, so long as what I want to do doesn’t contradict the commandments of God in His law.” Indeed, any government that would impose these laws requiring “face diapers” are “tyrants” and “resisting tyrants is obedience to God.” Just as the left got churches shut down due to their desire to be “free,” so these Reformed evangelicals yelling “resist tyrants” split churches, and got good conservative, Bible believing churches shut down simply because they were too small to be able to handle the church split. I remember sitting at the last church service of Faith Presbyterian Church in Akron, Ohio, and watching as people were half in tears and taking pictures to remember the church. It was the oldest PCA church in Ohio, started by the Theonomist Dr. Carl Bogue. But this tiny church ended due to a church split over COVID mandates.

It was about that time that I found out about the Reformation in Hungary, and how many of the Augustinian churches in Europe were abandoning these views of liberty. I remember finally reading Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed, and understanding why I was so disgusted by both right and left during Covid. While they disagree on many things, their understanding of liberty, freedom, and rights unite them. While they have different means of *achieving* this liberty (the left achieves it by the use of government force to remove external constraints, and the right tries to limit government in order to free man from external constraints), the goals were the same, and that is why the results were the same from both right and left during Covid: the shutting down of churches and the destruction of the rule of law.

However, shortly after Covid, I started hearing rumblings about Christian Nationalism. The Postliberals in Europe were especially concerned about it, and (I would say rightly) argued it was not the answer to open borders and the destruction of the country. Most of us argued that nationalism is idolatry of nation, and that the history of nationalism has actually resulted in the *destruction* of cultures in the name of what is good for the nation. In nationalism, what is good for the nation becomes what is ultimate rather than what is right in the eyes of God as recorded in scripture. These fears were confirmed when we started hearing rumblings of NAZI ideology making a comeback within the CN movement. I first heard of the revival of NAZI ideology when Vladimir Putin mentioned it as a popular ideology in Ukraine in his interview with Tucker Carlson (Denazification of Ukraine is one of the main things Russia wants in any peace deal to end the Ukraine war). Apparently, NAZI ideology hasn’t died out in Germany either, and it has been imported to the US. Just recently, there was a conference in Ogden at Refuge Church in which you had fliers saying “Thank you for shopping Pro White.” Also on this flier was a website https://t.co/BwgiSqvIq7, a pro-NAZI website. Antelope Hill publishers, a NAZI publishing group, was there selling books containing selected speeches of Adolph Hitler.

[Adam Blauser 🇺🇸 🇷🇴 🇭🇺 @HebrewSdnt]

Mather words could have been written directly against both those crying “resist tyrants” during Covid as well as the CNs of today. He says that these views of liberty are inconsistent with authority (destroying the authority of the elders of local churches, the rule of law, and ultimately, if consistently applied, the authority of God Himself) and are impatient of all restraint (law can’t restrain them, the authority of elders can’t restrain them, and, if they are consistent, neither can God, His law, or His creative decree restrain them). By this view of liberty we *are* all inferior, as we are reduced down to following our lusts wherever they may go just like the beasts. It *is* the grand enemy of truth and peace (the disturbances I saw at stores in which people were shouting that they had their rights and were not going to wear a mask, the disturbance of churches, and the ultimate destruction of truth in the name of “liberty” and “rights”), and yes, *all* the ordinances of God are bent against it, because, consistently applied, these views of liberty would *destroy* the ordinances of God in the name of “liberty.” But Mather’s devastating critique of the “resist tyrants” views of liberty does not leave us without hope. He presents us with a better, more Biblical and scriptural way by giving us a much more Biblical and scriptural view of liberty.

Notice how Mather does not say that this better view of liberty is merely private and ecclesiastical. He directly connects this liberty to the “federal” and the “civil” spheres as well. But this liberty isn’t the freedom to do what we want to do. It is the freedom for *only* that which is just and good: the freedom to do what is *right.* And notice, Mather is very careful here to say that this liberty is “the proper end and object of authority.” In other words, on this view of liberty, the government cannot just do what it wants to do either. When Mather speaks of “what is just and good,” he is speaking as a Puritan, and in Puritanism (as in other branches of Reformed thought), the word of God defines what is just and good. Therefore, every government action must be for the good as defined by scripture. The government doing things for its own self-interest is *clearly* out of bounds.

Indeed, from what Mather says here, it is easy to see how these views of liberty *protect* against tyranny. If liberty is the freedom to do what we want to do, and it is the job of the government to protect our freedom, then state power is going to grow to allow everyone to do what they list: to use the bathroom of the gender they want, to have sex with who they want, and even to murder those they want. Individualism and government power grows at parallel rates because it is the government that guarantees the individualism. And what evil can be done in the name of “protecting people’s rights?” The abuses of the LGBTQ revolution? Abortion? As we said earlier, even Covid mandates could be argued to fit into this category. And all of these evils done in the name of “protecting liberty” can be done for self interest. In the end, the “resist tyrants” view of liberty is a Machiavellian dream!

But liberty as the freedom to do what is right as defined by scripture is the remedy for this nightmare. The word of God faithfully taught in our laws, in our churches, and in our families transforms the heart of man so that he disciplines himself according to what is right. Once man learns to discipline himself according to what is right, self-interest goes out the window. Self-restraint is the opposite of self-interest, and is at the heart of the Christian understanding of liberty. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said:

After the western ideal of unlimited freedom, after the Marxist concept of freedom as acceptance of the yolk of necessity - here is the true Christian definition of freedom. Freedom is self-restriction! Restriction of self for the sake of others[6]!