Hat tip to Jack for noticing a Douglas Wilson comment about Dalrock, posted at
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2018/12/18/gone-fishin-4/#comment-295373
Even better, Wilson answers some other letters that give insight into why the organized Protestant Church is dying on his watch.
https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/so-here-come-the-letters.html
What is “the Dalrock route?.
Keith
Keith, from what I have seen, I would describe the Dalrock route as over-realized patriarchy. This is not the same thing as extreme patriarchy (the toxic kind), and it is not the same thing as my own version of (amazingly balanced) patriarchy. I speak as a man, as Paul might say, and that’s the problem, as RHE might say. Over-realized patriarchy has a tendency to assume that the complementarians who gave away the store (and I agree with Dalrock that many of them did give away the store), did so on purpose. In other words, what they tend to describe as conspiracy, I would describe as a mix of conspiracy from some and confused foolishness from others. This also has had an impact on how Dalrock has interacted with some of my stuff, looping me as one of the conspirators to feminize everything. Since I know that he is persistent in reading me incorrectly, eventually I quit reading him.
Translation, I can’t prove he’s wrong but we should be careful to not be too correct. A typical Churchian statement. Wilson would get more points from me if he’d named some of the complementarians who gave away the store as examples of “the real bad guys”. But the only specific person he criticized was Dalrock.
I.ve been through this argument, “all sins are the same,.with churchmen more times than I care to remember. I gave up arguing some time ago. Now I simply ask, if all sins are the same, why does God assign different penalties to different sins throughout the case laws of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy? And leave it at that. In my time I’ve run with the wild bunch and the church bunch both, and I’m afraid I’ve met just about as many idiots in church as I ever did at the beer joint.
James
James, yes. But at the beer joints they can always blame the alcohol.
That flippant not-answer was a badly missed opportunity for a professional theologian. Given the chance to explain the nature of sin and punishment, Wilson cucked out, so let this amateur blogger do the job instead:
God assigned different punishments to different sins, not different consequences. All sin is rebellion and all sin leads to death… but if all sin was punished by death then we would have no opportunity to learn better and confront our inner darkness.
Therefore, God scaled the punishments in proportion to the specific sin, for the purpose of modifying people’s behavior. That is the purpose of punishing bad behavior, after all: behavior modification.
Today, the modern Church has fallen into the two crimes against justice: punishing the innocent and excusing the guilty. They are actually the same crime. It’s no coincidence that the Church excusing the evils of feral women has led to false accusations by those same women against innocent men.
I.m a brother in Christ from the Minneapolis area that is greatly enriched by your Blog. I enjoyed your article, .The Sin of Flattening Sins.. I’m struggling with the lack of clear messaging from the elders of my church (Bethlehem Baptist Church Minneapolis MN; John Piper/Jason Meyer) as it relates to how Christians should respond when invited to a doctrine of demons ceremony (sometimes called a wedding associated with a gay mirage). The obvious answers to me are: 1. Attend and intensely and vociferously rebuke the evil proceeds (of course almost nobody will do this). 2. Respectfully, kindly, and discreetly decline attending.
A Godly response would be 3. Vociferously refuse the invitation. “What the hell is wrong with you, that you are planning to do this?” I don’t object to #1 except it leaves the opportunity for repentance too late. #2 is not appropriate because you are seeing someone you care about engage in a terrible and self-destructive crime against God and nature.
I was in a small group setting related to our church which was led by an elder. I suggested it was a sin to attend a doctrine of demons ceremony as a silent participant. The elder, visibly upset with me said, .I wouldn’t go either, but it is a conscience issue which we must respect.” At the same moment a couple of members rolled their eyes at me for suggesting such a thing.
I like this guy. He is where I’ve been, not only wondering why there is much evil in the world but why his fellow “believers” are so shy about confronting it. And like me, he decided to speak up about it in public. Education came swiftly to us both, it seems.
“While it is recognized that there are a multitude of conscience issues and we have to be careful we don’t impose our convictions on others…”
Bullshit. We have a God-given duty to impose our convictions upon others, not to mention the practical concern that if we don’t, our enemies will. Faith in God cannot be compelled but you shall not lie, you shall not steal, you shall not murder and don’t even think about putting a Satanist exhibit next to the nativity scene in the name of equality. God’s name is not Equality. You don’t want to follow Christ, fine, but if you choose to defy Him then get the Hell out of my society. We got no use for liars, cheats and perverts.
The marketplace of ideas is a false metaphor. What Christians believe is that Truth exists objectively and is knowable, at least in part. Therefore, when you have a group of people with different ideas about how things should be done, first assume a correct answer exists (with the help of Scripture, prayer, etc.) and then test the various ideas to determine which comes closest. Do not pretend that all ideas are equally valid.
…I.m inclined to think this scenario is not a conscience issue, that is, it is a sin for a Christian to attend a doctrine of demons ceremony as a silent participant.
Conscience issues are for the grey areas of Christian life. Scripture is very open-ended about how a society should function. This is how Protestants and Catholics can disagree vocally, even violently at times, yet both be devoted to Christ.
It should go without saying that a Sodomite mockery of marriage is not a gray area.
I’m curious your thoughts on this. It would be refreshing to know that as it relates to the subject matter you have stated from the pulpit in the most severe way possible (with outstretched arm and finger; flushed red face, and veins popping in your temples and neck) .how dare you think of attending such an evil proceeding!. Please let it be so. God bless,
Doug
Doug, I agree with John Piper that we should not attend, full stop. I also agree that we should do what we can to maintain our personal relationship with people trapped in this sin, but that is only done because we want to help them. If we start attending their ceremonies in silent acquiescence, we are no longer in a position to help.having become part of the problem.
You don’t help people who are going off the deep end by pretending they’re “trapped” in voluntary, public depravity. I don’t keep friendships with open homosexuals and within family, relations would be badly strained… they had better not bring their lover to Christmas at Grandpa’s.
Once again, we see Wilson trying to oppose someone without going on record opposing them. He opposed the event of Sodomite marriage but not the participants.
Could you share your thoughts on .Pedogate/Pizzagate.? It has been going around the Internet the last couple years or so. It was the subject of a discussion about so-called “fake news” with the Google CEO at their most recent congressional hearing. It makes me sick even thinking about what is alleged but it also troubles me how quickly people get shadow-banned or kicked off platforms for mentioning anything related to it. There are certainly some outlandish fringe theories around it, but there are also the Podesta emails (specifically from Tamera Luzzato), Tamara’s website, Jeffery Epstein,and James Alefantis’s creepy friends, and his Instagram antics. These seem to get light or no acknowledgement from the press. It seems like when anyone brings it up, they are immediately shouted down and called a .flat-earther,.wearing a tin-foil hat. Thankful for your clear thinking through crazy times.
Joshua
Joshua, I haven’t said anything about it because I am not up on it at all. I only know enough to know (hazily) what is alleged, and also to know that the received wisdom says that it is bogus. But I can say two things. On the one hand, I do believe that there are many in our ruling elites who are capable of such things, and are capable of crushing anyone who wants to bring it all to light. On the other hand, I believe that there are many enemies of the ruling elites who are capable of lying about such things in order to damage or bring down the bad guys. I believe Washington is a dirty town, which means that people live dirty and they also fight dirty. So I just don’t know enough to say anything particular.
Wilson is blowing smoke. Even Christ our Savior was capable of harming little kids. That was not Joshua’s question.
Also, notice his attitude towards the abuse of State authority is not one based on my above concept that Truth is objective and knowable. “Eh, they all fight dirty. Who knows who’s right?” At least try to seek the Truth, Wilson you uninformed fool. Truth is only your deity of choice that you’ve spent a lifetime studying.
Hmm, sounds like a few of the laity are waking up to the Matrix’s existence.
In closing, leaders of a community do not have the luxury of ignorance about the outside world. Priests of God do not have the luxury of pretending that good people can live together with the wicked. The power, status and authority of leadership comes with the price that it must be used for the benefit of God and country… not esoteric theological discussions. Example, only highly placed leaders like Wilson has the resources to face lawfare and entrenched perpetrators of antichristianity. But he won’t fight. He only gives advice calculated to not offend anybody. He spends his time playing with terms like “complementarianism” while not even trying to be informed about systemic child molestation in the halls of power.
This in addition to Wilson’s support for Original Sin that Dalrock has exposed at length.
Wilson, if you don’t want to be a leader then you don’t have to be a leader. Step down, find a sinecure and let somebody willing to fight evil have your position, because you are too busy complaining Dalrock is overly correct about patriarchy to care about the rulers of your society purchasing children from sex slave traders.