Jacob Bluebaugh

WASP since 1618. Midwesterner now in South Carolina = URCNA ➡️ ARP. Lived in Kyiv, Ukraine, 2017-2021

[Jacob Bluebaugh @profjblue88]

@mralangentry @WVPitt Very irregular. It’s as if the “URC seminary” of Mid-America sent their president to achieve this end…

[The Jolly Brawler @TheJollyBrawler]

There is a lot that could be said about this clip.

1. I've met Chris on a number of occasions. I've visited his church several times, attended business meetings with him, and have known men shaped by his preaching. I've always come away thoroughly unimpressed.

2. You'll notice that we never heard his trembling voice at the microphone when the infamous scandals in his own backyard were unfolding. For example, when URCNA pastors were:
-Secretly paying others to write their sermons.
-Brutally abusing their wives.
-Caught masturbating in their church offices.
-Abusing young Reformed families in their congregations.
-Driving a pastor out of the denomination for rejecting R2K theology.
-Exploiting loopholes in the church order to punish innocent pastors while shielding guilty ones.

I never heard Chris stand up and whine into a microphone over the quiet divorce of Michael Horton and his wife, nor the fact that Horton has continued in ministry to this day despite the disqualifying destruction of his household.

3. No, you won't find videos of him publicly wringing his hands over any of those scandals. The urgency and outrage are reserved for something else: pressuring NAPARC to issue a statement condemning @PerfInjust so it can be used as a bludgeon against members of his own congregation who attended the @New_Christendom conference. Because... racism.

4. Many have pointed out the age of the men in this room. While I generally expect elders and pastors to be older, I think the observation raises a legitimate point. I've noticed that, much like dispensationalism, R2K theology and the URCNA as a whole seem to have very little appeal among people under 40.

If your church ends up embracing gay liberalism, libertarianism, and R2K theology, what's the point? Why should it exist? I can hear the same talking points from Boomer commentators on network television.

5. You hear Folkerts crying about the "CREC churches" spreading like "wild fire" across our nation. I think that this reveals his incredible ignorance on this subject:
-Stephen Wolfe is not CREC.
-The Ogden Church/Conference are not CREC.
-The CREC is actually closer to Folkerts' view on race
-If these guys think that the CREC is a problem....they honestly have no idea what is coming.

6. I've thought back to the first time I met Folkerts. I visited his church the Sunday after he became a U.S. citizen, when it was still meeting in a funeral home.

That moment has stayed with me as somewhat emblematic of how I view the broader NAPARC movement, and particularly the URCNA. It felt like foreign-born leaders lecturing American men about “racism” while gathered in a building surrounded by the dead.

7. These 3 families may very well be in for a struggle session when they return to Idaho. I would encourage them to reach out to @riemersonck. He is a faithful Pastor in their area, and can help them.

[Pastor Mathis @ShawnMathis1972]

NAPARC churches must encourage the young men who see their collective future disintegrate before their eyes. Instead, they cover for feminists (like Justin Holcomb of Horton's White Horse Inn) or excuse same-sex attraction and critical race theory. Time is short. Act now.

[King Edward IX @rexsubdeo]

To wit, they are Pharisees. If there was sin, they could and should have already dealt with it by the standard of scripture, but they require new commandments to condemn without cause or warrant of scripture (and perhaps to alleviate their burdened consciences in doing so).

[Jacob Bluebaugh @profjblue88]

Points 2 and 4 strike me the most. To see ministers or office bearers so careless about worship, weak in confessional familiarity (or “taking exceptions), and empty of comprehensive intimacy with Scripture is grievously all too common.

[The Daily Genevan @DailyGenevan]

Watching again the pure grotesqueness of Alan Strange’s speech at the URCNA—a very special kind of repulsive blend of worldliness and manipulation seen in the fake piety of Reformed church courts—I’m struck this morning with some reflections from my life among the declining Christian “conservatives”:

First: how overtly disingenuous many ministers are. Many are actually fakes and frauds (among libs and conservatives alike). They cover for each other, depending on what they’re trying to accomplish for themselves. Pharisees and Sadducees all over again. I’ve got a long list of those who’ve ended up in jail, committed suicide, fallen into drug addiction, abused children and women, wrecked their families, apostatized, lost all their children, and so on. This isn’t normal. Stop thinking this is normal. None of the varieties (the showmen of the Baptists, the nerd-club, factious Presbyterians, or the TED Talk evangelicals) are doing well at authentic maturity, stability, and integrity.

Second: it is the lukewarmness, fear of man, forgetfulness, love of money and pleasure, sexual compromise, lack of zeal for worship and the Lord, family disorder, and so forth among the godly that allows for this slow, fussy decline. A spiritual anemia among men makes them concerned about things they should ignore and thoughtless about the most important things. We become mere reactive navigators and managers of difficulties, lacking a deeper foundation for action. Personal compromise means we no longer live out of truth with clear heads and clear eyes.

Third: the people of God are largely hungry for the blessings of various streams of Christianity without a real life drawn from their roots. The consumer model of Christianity—and a sense of “winning” or “progress”—is clearly the psychological root of what Christians end up supporting. What is your particular itch, obsession, feel, style, brand preference, or lifestyle ambition? What sense of self do you desire? There is a church for you, or you can make one. Gross.

In Presby/Reformed sects like the URC and OPC, it is usually that we are the “most correct” and therefore “need to make a statement,” even as we go judiciously down the same path of downgrade that everyone else has always, every time, gone down. We’re just a fussy, slow version of modernity’s rejection of biblical and natural reality at this point.

Fourth: there is a lack of vital dependence on, love of, and duty toward the person of Jesus Christ and his will as revealed in Scripture. Everything becomes politics, psychology, and preferences dressed up in the language of Christianity. It is as if people no longer really believe Jesus is real and his Word is true. Instead, they are concerned with their place in the flow of history, their immediate pleasures and pains, and their sense of self in a shifting, chaotic world. Hurting the eccentric brand and its place in the marketplace becomes the biggest sin. Breaking rank with the brand or sect becomes the new heresy and apostasy. Jesus and his commands become window dressing, adjusted to the moment and employed as needed to justify what people already desire.

The cynical adoption of nonsensical statements about race arises from the same roots, in my opinion.
#naparc #opcga #reformeddowngrade

https://t.co/yiTOJGW62v

[Jacob Bluebaugh @profjblue88]

@SamuelHolden_ “That will carry a lot of weight…”

I imagine it will be telling to those three families but not in the way he imagines.

[Jacob Bluebaugh @profjblue88]

@mralangentry Brian Lee - massive R2K guy with a church in DC of all places. 😂

[Jacob Bluebaugh @profjblue88]

I continue to point out a massive tell: NAPARC has moved faster and more “unified” on this single issue than any of the following in the last 20 years:
-R2K
-Revoice/Greg Johnson
-COVID
-Socialism creep via Keller
-Egalitarianism/Women office bearers (shadow or in name)

[Alan G. @mralangentry]

Chris Coleman of Peace United Reformed Church (Vancouver, Washington) thinks the URC needed to adopt the ARP statement, contrary to our CO, because “It is an issue in our churches.” I guess that depends on what your definition of “it” is.

[Jacob Bluebaugh @profjblue88]

@DailyGenevan That requires deliberation and the work of being wise…it’s “easier” to just craft new statements that relieve those burdens and give you an easy broad brush.

[Jacob Bluebaugh @profjblue88]

@ptomer Why does Strange (OPC) have the floor of the URC synod as if he were delegate?? That seems very irregular - when I attended Classis, other denoms would send fraternal greetings but they never weighed in on deliberations.

[Psalm Warfare @PsalmWarfare]

Men started waking up to the evil amongst them.

Men, with seeing this evil, and everything going downhill, don’t know where to turn so they seek Christ, and therefore, want to go to church.

Men start going to church, and immediately get called the same things they were called by leftists.

The church puts out statements condemning racism, Kinism, and antisemitism, all while they see seeing their erasure.

Sad.

[memetic_sisyphus @memeticsisyphus]

Can you believe Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of lentils? Seems a bit far fetched to me…

Boomers: look at all the wonderful food diversity brings!

[William Swollace @WBS_Meme_King]

It's cool how right as Muslim invaders are attempting to behead peaceful White folks, black protesters are calling for the death of all White folks, and Sikh invaders are stabbing peaceful White folks...

... major Protestant denominations in the US are taking the opportune time to condemn kinism and race realism.

[Jacob Bluebaugh @profjblue88]

@riemersonck @braxton_mccoy Our local post office was robbed at gun point last fall. Homeless regularly take up residence in the PO Box section.

[Jacob Bluebaugh @profjblue88]

@GeoffVScott @spanglermt @SeanRussellBook Thank you for four tremendous episodes wading into this.

[Jacob Bluebaugh @profjblue88]

Correction: Justice will only be served when a capital sentence has been carried out.

Life in prison only means that Metcalf's family must subsidize the life of a murderer.

[Nick Sortor @nicksortor]

🚨 MAJOR BREAKING: KARMELO ANTHONY HAS BEEN FOUND GUILTY OF MURDERING AUSTIN METCALF

Justice has been SERVED!

Thank GOD!

Karmelo supporters are absolutely LOSING IT in the parking lot

Pray for Texas tonight

[Jacob Bluebaugh @profjblue88]

@nicksortor Correction: Justice will be served when capital punishment is carried out.

[Andrew Duggan @dugganap68]

The fact of the matter is the Confession & Catechisms are clear on what the teaching of Scripture is on this subject already.

They just don't like what it says.

Just like with Creation, except this time they won't allow the truth to at least be an "acceptable" option.

[Jacob Bluebaugh @profjblue88]

@spanglermt They could have received the predictable outcome for free...

[Jacob Bluebaugh @profjblue88]

@DailyGenevan My assumption is that this will be quickly approved at the ARP synod tomorrow. One element people are passing over though is that this report says believing these things violates membership vows. That is new - last year's statement was only binding to office bearers.