Divine Mercy

"Divine mercy is given for the removal of our defects, not for permitting our attachment to them."

-- C.C. Pecknold

Comforts

Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds. — St. Teresa of Avila

Becoming part of the story

"Scripture is, at its heart, the great story that we sing in order not just to learn it with our heads but to become part of it through and through, the story that in turn becomes part of us."

-- N.T. Wright 'The Case for the Psalms"

Help to duty

I Cor 10:31. 'Whether therefore ye eat or drink, do all to the glory of God.' A gracious person holds the golden bridle of temperance; he takes his meat as a medicine to heal the decays of nature, that he may be the fitter, by the strength he receives, for the service of God; he makes his food, not fuel for lust, but help to duty.


-- Thomas Watson, 'A Body of Divinity'

Good Rule

"Rulers are suns who make a land flourish or turn it to desert. A test of good rule: Is the land Edenizing or wildernessizing?"

-- Peter Leithart

Divine Right?

"The world you want can only be found in a world where Jesus is acknowledged as King."

-- Reverend Steve Wilkins

Exercise and Study

"Exercise and severe study have a composing effect upon the character." - Thomas Chalmers


A variation of "Eat, Pray, Lift" that I have been focusing on lately

Reconciled

"Once sin has been overcome and man's harmony with God restored, creation is reconciled, too."

-- Benedict XVI 'Jesus of Nazareth'

Transformation

"The goal of the Spirit is transformation into the image of God as expressed in Christ's humanity, so that believers become progressively more truly and fully human."

--- Sinclair Ferguson 'The Holy Spirit'

Review: Baptized Patriarchalism: The Cult of the Family

Baptized Patriarchalism: The Cult of the Family by Gary North

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This book should be required reading for anyone who likes or has read R.J. Rushdoony. This book chronicles his changes in orthodox protestant theology in the 1960's to that of Anabaptist/family cult theology by the 1990's. He went from a classical view of the Church to a racist low-church ecclesiology that made the blood of the family equal to the covenant. Dr. North shows John Calvin's doctrines to contrast Rushdoony's views of the Church.

Rushdoony came to believe that marrying someone of another race is prohibited and equivalent to marrying an unbeliever - something that goes in the face of us being an adopted family of God by the waters of baptism, where there is neither Jew nor Greek. He also came to believe that fathers should baptize and give the Lords supper to their children, and that family patriarchalism is the way to combat state power. This leads to Warlordism/Mafiaism. If every father is a priest and the absolute ruler of his own miniature home church, making his own laws, and refuses accountability to anyone above him, how is this not different from the concept of the Roman paterfamilias, where the father controlled the life and death of the entire family?

The answer is that the Church is central to community life, with accountability to elders. Only the Christian Church can combat both the ancient pagan heresy of racial/family patriarchalism and the all powerful civil state. The blood family is not eternal, and it should not be made a cult. The adopted family of God though, is eternal through the blood of Christ. The water of baptism is thicker than blood.




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