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Gorsuch: "religion doesn't impact his skill..."

"The Hill" today ran this headline on Pres. Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch:

Catholic? Protestant? Gorsuch's religion doesn't impact his skill

We were so glad to hear it, weren't we?

They added:

According to the U.S. Constitution in Article VI, Section 3, no federal office holder or employee can be required to adhere to or confess any particular religion as a prerequisite for holding their federal office. Curiously, public speculation about the particular confession of faith or adherence of Neil Gorsuch seems to have entirely forgotten about this constitutional mandate. ...the Founders specifically prohibited any religious tests for federal officers. They knew all too well what happens to freedom and liberty when the church and the government are the same. 

Indeed. What does happen when the church and the government are the same? 

Look around. You've been watching it your entire lifetime...


Neil Gorsuch worships someone at a pagan church in Boulder...

Boulder has better churches than St. John's Episcopal Church attended by President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch. Their rector is a priestess and the congregation is committed to embracing sodomites and lesbians as full members with sacramental privileges.

On abortion, CNN reports:

"Despite Trump's pledge to pick a 'pro-life' justice, Leonard Leo, who advised the president on Supreme Court nominees, said the issue was never explicitly raised during their discussions. 'Judge Gorsuch wasn't asked about it, and he's not going to make a commitment on it,' said Leo, who has taken a leave from his job heading the Federalist Society while he shepherds Gorsuch's nomination through the Senate."

This is the man who made it worthwhile to vote for Donald Trump? Seriously?

Were Vice-President Mike Pence and the Federalist Society unable to find and recommend any nominee whose work is inspired by his orthodox Christian faith?

PS: Please click through for some criticisms of this post and my responses...


Preet Bharara: not quite the knight in shining armor...

You want to keep your eye on the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York regardless of who holds the position. Today, the news is everywhere that President Trump asked the office's present occupant, Preet Bharara, to resign and at least earlier today, Bharara was refusing. Bharara did Harvard Law and has made quite a name for himself by avoiding the prosecution of any of the Masters of the Universe who caused the Great Recession while making a big splash by taking down lots of other financial criminals as well as statehouse guys like Sheldon Silver. Bharara has long been known to have in his sights what he refers to as the "three-men-in-the-room" governance he says dominates New York's statehouse.

The hate-Trump-always media are hissy-fitting over President Trump asking for the resignations of 46 U.S. Attorneys who served under President Obama. They don't mention President Clinton cleaned house on all the U.S. Attorneys himself, nor that Bharara is best-buds with Charlie Schumer... 


After sodomy comes bestiality...

ADDED 02/11/17:

ONE READER WROTE: "While I agree with the basic theological point of your post, and it is important to have the discernment to see the stitches on the fastball in our rapidly decaying culture, I am not sure after reading the article you linked to that the judges were being permissive toward bestiality. It seems to me that the point was that they could not prove the case via physical evidence. Given how many fraudulent convictions have been overturned - including people who were sentenced to death only to be exonerated before the execution - I am certainly sympathetic to that argument. If he didn't rape the animal, then he obviously shouldn't be punished for the crime. He should get psychiatric treatment for confessing to a crime he didn't commit, because if he is not guilty he is clearly mentally ill. And even if he is guilty, that guilt has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. I think the decision was that the prosecutors didn't prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, not that what he allegedly did was permissible."

I RESPOND: Independently of each other, two wise Christian attorneys saw this action of the Indiana Court of Appeals to be one more "horrible" example of our unelected judges assisting our culture's bondage to sexual perversions. I think we should take Christian attorneys' word for it concerning what this ruling means. Further, one of these attorneys pointed out that the judges who signed on to Judge Sharpnack's opinion were Republican appointees, one given us by Daniels and one by Pence. He then commented, "An unelected judiciary has been a malignant force pushing sexual perversion for decades now. No surprise that the elected county judge doesn't buy the corpus delicti argument." I will only add that it would be almost incredible for any appellate ruling overturning a conviction for bestiality anywhere in our nation, today, NOT to be hard evidence of a growing sympathy for the zoophile perversion caused by our embracing of the adultery, lesbian, and sodomitic perversions.

Indiana Court of Appeals points the way backward to the horrors of Canaan.

A man confessed to having sex with his roommate's dog, but Indiana's Court of Appeals overturned the man's conviction by abusing the legal principle of corpus delicti.

The dog had suffered no visible damage.

Next it will be babies. They can't testify and they show no damage, so we may expect Indiana's Court of Appeals to overturn the conviction of any man who testifies against himself that he raped a baby.

So now, will our famous Reformed celebrities start promoting the zoophile orientation? Will they tell us the Bible nowhere commands same-species sex? Will they begin to publicize the new section for celibate zoophiles on LivingOut.org? Will Covenant Seminary begin matriculating and providing an M.Div. to those who claim to be "zoophile Christians," but promise they aren't doing it?

If you are angry that I'm asking these questions, you've drunk the Kool-Aid rich and famous Christians are selling you. 


Have nothing to do with Darryl Hart...

Several years ago, my good and wise brother David told me to have nothing to do with Darryl Hart. Since then, I've pretty much left him alone.

Sadly, I have friends who can't break the habit and one of them just forwarded this deposited by Darryl yesterday on his own blog...


On the occasion of Michael Farris leaving HSLDA: thoughts on the church's reformation...

Neither the slaughter of one-quarter of our children we liltingly refer to as "abortion," nor the promotion of sodomy and the denial of First Amendment rights of Christians who object to it, will be repealed in our courts. Any remedy will have to be legislative.

Legislation, though, depends upon the will of the people and at this point we, the people, do not have the will to stop either of these obscenities. Nor very many others.

How might this change?

The history of the early church shows the way. The men who knew Jesus went out preaching, and in time the Roman Empire turned away from effeminacy, sodomy, female rebellion, and child slaughter that was characteristic of their pagan religion.

Now, though, Christendom is in its death throes. Seventy-five years ago, J. Gresham Machen said America was living...


Only lawyers should be ordained to pastoral ministry...

For a few years now, I've been telling men I think a law degree and some experience litigating should be a prerequisite for ordination to pastoral ministry. Seriously.

Where am I coming from?

Think of the reformation of preaching this would produce.

Men who preach would have been trained to say "no" and to speak towards the inevitable judgment. They would understand their purpose and the effect going beyond yes to no would have on the souls under their care. They would have been acclimated to controversy and would view adversity as the necessary environment for truth to be revealed so it may be embraced. For error to be revealed so it may be rejected.

The curriculum of most seminary training today is...


Is there a Christian ghetto in our future...

This is a talk given by ruling elder Ken Patrick at a conference held this past Saturday at his church, Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA), in Ludlow, Kentucky. Titled "Maintaining a Christian Witness in an Increasingly Pagan Culture," the conference's other speakers were Trinity's pastor Chuck Hickey and an attorney from the Alliance Defending Freedom, Jeff Shafer. I attended the conference with my son, Joseph, and his fellow pastor Paul Belcher (both serving Christ Church in Cincinnati). Hope you find this talk as wise and helpful as Joseph, Paul, and I did.

* * *

Maintaining a Christian Witness in an Increasingly Pagan Culture

by Ken Patrick

Before we begin, let me talk about my qualifications to divine the future: I’m not a prophet; I don’t have a “word from the Lord” in the sense that I’m about to share any divinely sourced revelation with you; God didn’t appear to me in a dream.

What I’m going to share are simply observations on what may come to pass if current trends continue, and what I would do if I were in charge. If you find yourself disagreeing with what I say, hopefully you’ll stay until I’m finished. We’ll have a Q&A session where you can ask a question, and of course you can pigeon-hole me afterward.

So, to answer my own question right up front—is there a Christian ghetto in our future?—I think the most likely answer is “of course, yes” at least in an intellectual sense and perhaps in a real, physical way as well. I think it’s very possible that we’ll see both. Before I begin describing what these Christian “ghetto” scenarios might look like, let’s establish why many of us think...


Feminists and libertarians: this is my Father's world...

...for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes. (Matthew 7:29)

Because nature never stops telling the glory of God, authority is everywhere. Keep your eye on the ball.

First, authority is the issue—not sex. Men and women deny the authority of the male of the species not because they prefer authority to be equally shared by men and women, but because they hate all authority. Especially God the Father Almighty in Whom all authority originates and from Whom it is delegated.

Feminists lash out at men because fatherhood is intrinsic to manhood and authority is intrinsic to fatherhood. Patriarchy is not hated because the pater is always a man. Patriarchy is hated because of the arche (rule).

As for rebellion, abdication and rebellion are the same sin even though God demonstrated in his dealings with Adam and Eve that the abdicator always suffers the greater judgment.

Second, although abdicators and rebels think they're making progress when they take the word "obey" out of the bride's wedding vows and preach their wedding homily on "mutual submission," it's a fool's errand. Abdicators and rebels never have removed a single bit of authority anywhere in God's creation because God is the Father Almighty and all nature sings and round us rings the wonders of His sovereign rule. This is my Father's world.

Rebel against authority all you want, but the high point of your success will be the...


Bitterness, crackpots, and Joe Sobran...

This post was a private e-mail sent to me by a friend who thinks Joe Sobran went sour as his age advanced. My friend was responding to a couple recent posts (first and second) and comments made under those posts. I thought the e-mail worth posting on the blog given the movement of many young Reformed into libertarianism of a toxic sort (although I myself believe libertarianism is intrinsically toxic)

It's true that Joe's libertarianism went toxic, tending towards anarchism. A friend who serves as a civil magistrate remonstrated with Joe about this, personally, but seemingly to no avail. Joe remains our hero, but listen to these good warnings from a wise young man.

* * * 

I'll take this opportunity to identify myself as the "young man" with whom Tim corresponded. I agree with about 90% of what he's written about Joe Sobran—maybe more. Joe Sobran’s essays in defense of the faith were rare gems. "Is Darwin Holy?", one he wrote toward the end, is another one that stands out in my mind.

I started reading Sobran on the recommendation of a high school teacher when I was about 16. Reading him disabused me of the notion that a young man could make a good living writing truth. It's one of the reasons I decided to become an engineer, instead. Call me cynical if you wish, but I wanted to be able to support a wife and children...


Trump for dictator...

In 2009, the President of Honduras, Jose Zelaya, ordered the creation of a working group to come up with a new constitution. Presumably the new constitution would do away with certain rules the old one contained that were permanently un-amendable. Among these were several limitations set on the president including the "Prohibition on Presidential reelection" and the president's mandatory four-year term.1

When his attempt to establish this working group was ruled unconstitutional, President Zelaya changed his tactics and appealed directly to the people, ordering a referendum on whether the people were willing to have another referendum to determine whether to establish his constitutional working group. Eventually Zelaya was impeached and arrested for undermining the constitution he had vowed to uphold.2

Here in the United States we still give lip-service to our Constitution. Yet a growing number of us think it ludicrous we should be limited by the rules of such an "ancient" document. "What we really need," we say, "is to be practical and get things done in today's environment." And if that requires breaking some old rules, so be it.

This view is shared by both Democrats and Republicans...


Steph Curry on the All-Star Game: like preachers, like people...

Everyone is congratulating each other over the NBA's supercilious Adam Silver yanking the All-Star Game from Charlotte. He was taking a stand against North Carolina legislators who had passed a law against sexual predators posing as women and using women's bathrooms. People who matter had been Hoosiering the state over its law for a while, now. It took a little longer than expected but sexual debauchery won the day and the NBA canned Charlotte. The scuttlebutt is New Orleans will be the new host city.

People are morally indignant that a man isn't allowed to pee in the Lady's Room in Charlotte so they send their game over to the city where Lent is celebrated by women baring their breasts. This is our country, today—a nation filled with Christians like Steph Curry.

Turns out Charlotte is Steph's hometown... 


The first blast of the trumpet for the monstrous regiment of women...

For the LORD humbled Judah because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had brought about a lack of restraint in Judah and was very unfaithful to the LORD. (2 Chronicles 28:19)

After a slight protest by balloons refusing to fall, the Republican convention lurched to a halt, depositing The Donald stinking to high Heaven on the platform. Samuel Clemens described a train trip seated next to a woman who had not one unuttered thought on her brain. This is The Donald, and if he's elected, the train's left the station for four long years and no one's disembarking. Start sweating.

Think of a man entirely lacking inhibitions with The Button nearby. Imagine him getting into...


Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...

Addition not subtraction. Triangulation. The Third Way. These are terms of political tradecraft. They signify the politician's transcendence above the liberal-conservative divide. Working in government, I see this principle in constant operation. 

A politician can triangulate in the mix of policies he adopts. For example, an "all-of-the-above" energy strategy means the politician supports traditional oil and gas exploration as well as ethanol subsidies, all while paying lip service to renewable solar and wind power. This strategy lowers the decibel level from environmentalist opponents if not neutralizing them entirely. 

A politician also triangulates with rhetoric. He need only strike the right pose and emit the proper buzzword. From illegal drugs to education to welfare, a politician can navigate beyond any seemingly binary framework by talking of and emoting compassion. If he's really sophisticated, a politician utters certain phrases that are seemingly insignificant and benign to almost everyone while being fraught with meaning when decoded by a special interest group. This is what the political class calls...


Homosexual marriage: where are our judges' pastors...

In response to my post yesterday condemning Judge Tanya Walton Pratt for her religious commitment to the slaughter of babies, a Christian attorney I'm close to wrote, 

The sad fact is that the federal Constitution, as defined by SCOTUS, gives any woman the right to kill her baby.... So a judge has no choice but to apply that rule... I don’t think you can fault a judge for applying even a terrible law. She has sworn to do that.

The lawyer and I both come from a long line of Presbyterians, so his remonstrance yesterday popped into my mind when, today, I read this headline about Mississippi's judicial battle over the protection of religious freedom:

The Latest: No judges sought recusal from doing gay weddings

Seriously? No judge—not even one? (And only one clerk.) 

So what does this have to do with Presbyterian pastors?

I was under the impression that First Presbyterian Church of Jackson owns the money and leadership of this small capital city (only twice the size of Bloomington, IN) of this small southern state. In fact, what about all the churches in Mississippi...


Federal judges and their bloodthirsty gods...

Yesterday, a female federal judge appointed by President Obama subverted the will of the people of Indiana by issuing a temporary injunction against our new state law outlawing the murder of certain unborn children. House Enrolled Act 1337 passed by our legislature and signed by our governor says a woman may not pay a doctor to murder her child because she doesn't like the child's sex, race, or handicap. The law also requires mothers and the doctors they pay to murder their child to dispose of the child's body respectfully, by cremation or burial. No longer will they be allowed to throw their murdered children into the dumpster or down the sewer.

Indiana's attorney general issued a statement telling citizens to respect Judge Tanya Walton Pratt's decision because the ability to "question the constitutionality of the statutes is an important safeguard in our system of checks and balances."

No, I will not respect this decision, nor the judge who made it, nor the President who appointed her, nor the law school profs who trained her, nor the family members who eat dinner with her each evening. She is a moral monster. She is also a judicial poser operating entirely outside the rule of law. The rule of law begins with the protection of those at the margins of society who are unable...


Pastors and rules of professional conduct...

Should pastors and theologians be held to at least the same ethical standards as lawyers? 

Scrupulous fidelity to truth and the meaning of words is not normally the first quality one associates with a lawyer. An undergraduate faculty advisor referred to my decision to go to law school as getting a "license to steal." The fictional law firm Dewey, Cheatham & Howe entered an appearance or two in a civil procedure professor's hypotheticals in the first year of law school. You'll also find the entry "Lawyers, Derogatory Names for" in a legal usage dictionary. Along with old standbys like "ambulance chaser," "hired gun," "pettifogger," and "shyster," other epithets like "latrine lawyer," "mouthpiece," and "Philadelphia lawyer" abound. This last one—"Philadelphia lawyer"—can bear either a positive or negative sense. It can mean either "an ultracompetent lawyer who knows the ins and outs of legal technicalities" or "a shrewdly unscrupulous lawyer."1

Because of this sadly deserved unsavory reputation, because of the awesome responsibility they have for the lives and property of their clients, and because of the complexity of the law even before it exploded like a supernova in the 20th century, lawyers must submit themselves to well-settled rules of professional conduct. One of these rules demands candor to the court.2 This rule requires...


SCOTUS: Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord...

So the Supreme Court has ruled against restrictions on abortion passed into law by the legislature of the state of Texas.

So what? We're supposed to be interested in what these bloody ghouls vote and write? One could be thirty years deep into a persistent vegetative state and still correctly predict the court would overrule any effort to slow down their slaughter. It's the central narrative of our nation's political life.

Joe Sobran used to point out that...


Bathroom wars: North Carolina sues, gender is out, and sex is back in...

Here are a few excerpts from North Carolina Gov. Patrick L. McCrory's lawsuit filed earlier today against President Obama's version of these United States. For a long time now, I've been convinced I'd never hear the word "sex" used again to refer to anything other than physical intimacy. But hey, along come the bathroom wars and look what we find...


Justice Roy Moore and the scheming, conniving Southern Poverty Law Center...

The Southern Poverty Law Center should rank above the ACLU in the list of the wicked tormenting the righteous whom we wait upon God to judge. But it's not just that they are wicked. It's also that their marketing scheme is a bald-faced lie. Despite the "Poverty" in their name, the Southern Poverty Law Center has nothing to do with "poverty." What they give themselves to is not helping the poor, but promoting rebellion against God. They depend upon rich liberals' filthy lucre to litigate against truth, righteousness, and justice.

Typical of their abuse of law to further the rich and persecute the poor is their recent persecution of Roy Moore, Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. An earlier post told how the SPLC filed suit against Justice Moore for opposing the United States Supreme Court's Obergefell ruling—a ruling as elitist and privileged and powerful and wealthy and educated as any this court has ever issued. But they market themselves as the Southern Poverty Law Center, so a reasonable man will ask what promotion of gay marriage has to do with fighting poverty?

If you search online for comparisons of per capita and household income of homosexual and heterosexual couples, three things are quickly apparent...