Judgment

A loved one passed along a link to this Washington Post piece attacking the "Evangelicals" who gave Donald Trump his victory in South Carolina's primary. The writer is Joseph Loconte, a history prof at Cru's King's College in Manhattan. The noteworthy thing is not where Loconte draws his salary, but that his piece ran in the Post.

Inside the Beltway, there's not one man, woman, or child of privilege who is not gnashing his teeth at the prospect of Donald Trump sitting in the White House, and they can't disguise their hatred for the voters who are threatening to put him there. Sitting in traffic waiting for President Obama's motorcade to pass has been a joy these past seven years, presenting one more opportunity for self-congratulation over the triumph of the college educated over cigarette-smoking, gun-toting, Bible-reading trash. Sitting in traffic waiting for President Trump's motorcade to pass would be beyond infuriating. It would drive the pols and their K Street pimps to gnash their teeth and drop-kick their iPhones.

Now as I've made clear, I'm no fan of The Donald. I consider him the perfect expression of the wicked man described by Psalm 73. As I wrote some weeks back, "Sorry, you who like Mr. Trump. I can't imagine any man who is a worse candidate for President, including Bernie Sanders. And I believe it is a Christian witness to say so." So now, I find abhorent those who put President Obama in the White House and have their fondest hopes set on putting Hillary Clinton there also, yet I do not have the slightest sympathy for Joe Loconte's attack upon the Southern Christians who voted for Trump. It strikes me as traitorous to the Church.

Loconte's approach to getting an oped piece in the Post was to draw an analogy between Pope Leo kneeling before Charlemagne back in A.D. 900 and Evangelicals voting for Trump eleven-hundred and sixteen years later. According to Loconte's narrative... 

Dear Paul,

I was surprised that you wrote to tell us how we should view the end of Tullian Tchividjian's marriage. But since you addressed us publicly on your web site, I thought I'd write back and publicly say a few things that have occurred to me as well.

I must confess that for many years I confused you with your brother Tedd, never being quite sure which of you was the one doing or saying what. Sorry. I know it can sting. Perhaps it's the mustaches... (For years, for us it was the bow ties.)

More recently, I've been clear on the distinction. Tedd wrote the book my mother commended to me years ago, Shepherding a Child's Heart. Tedd was the pastor my friend Stephen Baker trained under. You're the PCA Tripp who's done the counseling for years. So I think I've got you straight, and my appreciation for your family's ministry is real. Moreover, there are people in the church I pastor who remember you from the Alliance church you attended in the 1950s and 60s. 

It's recently struck me that we've lived for years as each other's kind of reverse doppelganger, swooping back and forth across the same landscape like ships doomed to pass in the night. For instance, the church I pastor is attended by a daughter of the pastor who led the church you attended throughout your childhood, and even the granddaughter of that man's predecessor, pastor of that church when you were born. You were a kid together with people I'm approaching senior citizenship with. 

You were born and raised in Toledo, moving to Philadelphia as an adult. I was born in Philadelphia (with ties to Tenth Presbyterian) and moved to Toledo when I was thirty.

You went to college at Columbia Bible College. I went to college at Macalester. You went to Reformed Episcopal Seminary. I went to Gordon-Conwell. You were at Tenth under Jim Boice. I interned at Fullerton Ev. Free under Chuck Swindoll. Your name is Paul David and mine David Jeremy.

I could go on... You wear glasses today like those I wore in my college years. It was the punk rock era; I cut my hair short and found the frames of my dreams at an optical shop that sold safety glasses to industry...

If you’re a Christian and a patriot mourning this week over the unjust weights and balances of our nation’s highest law court, now’s a good time to remember there is one kingdom that will be left standing after all others fall. 

Take comfort this Independence Day in the inevitable, the irrepressible, the inexorable, the indomitable, and the interminable rule of Christ promised us in Psalm 2 (versified for singing by some of our Clearnote musicians).

Listen and be wise…

With thanks to Phil, Jake, Nathan, and Nate

[Download the audio free at Noisetrade]

Songs of death, Hell, and judgment used to be common. Some from the Colonial times are astounding in their directness. It was not only Jonathan Edwards who preached of Hell; the hymnody did, also. We live in an decadent age, though, and church music demonstrates that decay has corrupted our songs, also, and not just the songs of the Devil explicitly so like Imagine, Sympathy for the Devil, and Highway to Hell. Where is any mention of Hell or the Devil equivalent to Luther's "and tho this world with devils filled" and "the prince of darkness grim" in the CCM industry today?

The classically trained musicians who lead our Clearnote Church worship wrote an antidote and here it is. Spread it far and wide. Download it and get your sons singing it while they draw pictures or shoot their slingshots at the rabbits and squirrels.

Therefore pride is their necklace; The garment of violence covers them. Their eye bulges from fatness; The imaginations of their heart run riot.  - Psalms 73:6, 7

A short interview filled with wisdom. The pride of intellectuals. The difficulty of backing down from public positions. The burning horror of the memory of one's past wickedness, leading others astray. And the fear of God.

The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, That one may avoid the snares of death. (Proverbs 14:27)

The Church is starving for want of pastors who preach the fear of God; who proclaim original sin, the Law, death, judgment, and Hell. God's grace to a man begins with the man being scared.

(TB: On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I post this sermon preached yesterday, Sunday January 27, 2013, at Clearnote Church, Bloomington.)

* * *

The Lord'€™s Throne Is in Heaven

(For the choir director; a psalm of David.) In the LORD I take refuge; how can you say to my soul, "Flee as a bird to your mountain; for, behold, the wicked bend the bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string to shoot in darkness at the upright in heart. If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" The LORD is in His holy temple; the LORD'€™S throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence His soul hates. Upon the wicked He will rain snares; fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup. For the LORD is righteous, He loves righteousness; the upright will behold His face. (Psalm 11:1-7)

Forty years ago this past Tuesday, on January 22nd, 1973, the Supreme Court of these United States issued its infamous ruling, Roe v. Wade, in which the Court declared that a mother's intentional killing of her unborn child was a fundamental right guaranteed under our Constitution. Since that ruling, it has been a commonplace to observe that Roe v. Wade, the Court's repeal of the laws prohibiting abortion on the books of all fifty states, was simply the exercise of raw judicial power with a legal justification based upon a mist and a vapor--€”or as the Court itself might put it, emanations from penumbras.

Our Supreme Court: intentionally conniving at murder...

Since 1973, no one has made a name for himself defending Roe. v. Wade’s history, biology, ethics, logic, or justice; and only a few have been foolish enough to claim this ruling will stand the test of time...

At 7:08 ET on this 31st day of July, 2012, the leading text on the Google news page is from ABC News: "The firestorm ignited last week after Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy said that those who support gay marriage are 'inviting God's judgment on our nation,' is not over."

Indeed, the firestorm is not over, but it's not the firestorm ABC News is fulminating over.

The people of these United States call evil good and good evil. We have hands covered with the blood of our own and our neighbors' unborn babies and elderly parents. Our conferences and megachurches multiply offerings and mission trips. Yet there is no fear of God in our Land.

In just such a time, the prophet Isaiah bore this message...

You know, wherever the apostle Paul went, there was a revival or riot. Everywhere I go, they serve tea. - an Anglican cleric

What happens when you attack an idol?

On Friday, April 13th, the college ministry of Clearnote Church sponsored a lecture series on the Bloomington campus of Indiana University called Sexual by Design. Indiana University is a notorious party school in one of the most gay-friendly towns in America. It's also the home of Alfred Kinsey and the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.

So we invited Pastor Doug Wilson to Bloomington to address God's design for sexuality on campus. We wanted him to join us in our attack on the idols of our community and to aid us in the work of seeing souls saved from eternal destruction. As you can see from the sneak peeks above, chaos ensued.

Doug spoke to a hostile crowd of 350-400 people...