Robert K’s Greatest Hits

If you want to learn all the intricacies of the Federal Vision with all its various and sundry nuances contrasted with Reformed theology, then Green Baggins is your blog. It’s owned and operated by Pastor Lane Keister, a PCA man who in the words of the old evangelist has “the mind of scholar, the hide of rhino, and the heart of a child.” And I would add he has the patience of Job. But, understandably, poor Job’s patience has reached its limit and Pastor Lane has implemented a “two strikes your out” rule, after Job’s messengers have afflicted his comments with such superfluous redundancy that boil-like spam has crashed the blog and crushed the saint.

But as soon as Pastor Lane announced his new policy, Robert K., who is arguably the most persistent poster on the net, immediately replied with these two comments, making him a prime candidate for one strike, if not two. Granted, both posts are hilarious, but please, Lane has to filter through truckloads of spam to approve or reject each comment. Let’s give the man some breathing room.

Anyway, since I don’t think Robert K. can last (and I hope I’m wrong), I threw together this tribute to the funniest anti-FVist out there (well, let’s say he’s a half-notch below DaFedSez). I call it “Robert K’s Greatest Hits” and compiling it was sort of like picking out your favorite CCR tune: “Which one is better, ‘Ramble Tamble’ or ‘Keep on Chooglin’’? Tough choice.

So with that qualifier, Robert, this one’s for you.

Robert K. said,
July 31, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Go back to FV circles for awhile and talk about how stupid we all are. You need to recover. Maybe read a Wilson post. Here, I’ll write one for you:

“Given it’s usually only a matter of time before some fine exegete gets his truffles all in a rumple about ‘Jesus done did that dying up thar on ye ol’ cross thar, harummph’ I have to act fast and get something in here before the tar hits the feathers: I hold to the inclusion of the four Gospels in the New Testament. This is not a statement that need be stated with caveat, either, caveat though I will add: granted their inclusion it follows — upon equally validatious biblical warrant — that they need not be believed IN A CONTEXT BEARING ON THEIR INCLUSION SOLELY. There, have I said it loudly and clearly enough to stave off the rakes and shovel handles and the midnight bonfires?”

Robert K. said,
August 4, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Recently reading another horridly dumb Peter Leithart essay I think I saw what is so annoying about Federal Visionists: reading them is seeing post-modern jackass secular academics finally getting to the point where “justification” and “Calvin” are coming off their pens. It took them awhile. They spent a long time with Shakespeare alone (I think at the end Shakespeare became a member of the Village People who was actually a Nazi and an anti-smoker).

Can we perhaps hope that maybe some new subject to riff on like “Global Warming” will be strong enough to pull the Federal Vision intellectuals back into the secular realm? I think not. Once they’ve lost all shame and gotten a taste of ‘taking on God’ there isn’t anything else strong enough to take its place. I suspect we’re going to be seeing them turn Calvin and Owen et al into members of the Village People, or at least trying to, until the return of the King. . .


Robert K. said,
August 5, 2007 at 9:14 am
I’ll say it again, in different words: Wilson (Leithart, et al) knows he is writing garbage; and he know we know he is writing garbage; but he doesn’t care because he has no respect for Christians who hold to the truth, and he has no respect for the truth of God’s Word itself. His sole motivation is the exact same as the secular, dumb, post-modern academic environment he came out of: to defile that which is above him.

Once these guys move brazenly into the realm of apostolic biblical doctrine someone needs to do a study on whether they may be the unique case of sinning against the Holy Spirit. They give the impression they know enough of the truth; they know enough of the truth to be able to defile it. They’ve been given that, so what do they do with it? They defile it.

The dumb professor of English who sneers at the dead, white, male poets of yore and lives to inject into his students his defiling propaganda about those works is one thing. That same intellectual who moves into the territory of God’s truth and carries the same sneer with him is in a whole different game.


Robert K. said,
August 6, 2007 at 1:14 pm
A relevant recent post by Doug Wilson on his blog:

“The most obvious result is that the one discipline [sic] is refused access to the Lord’s Supper, as well as the general communion which that Supper seals. But the offender is not being denied kindness, courtesy, opportunity to hear the Word preached, the duties owed to him by others, or anything else due him according to the law of love. He is merely denied one thing: the right to define the Christian faith.”

Self-awareness level: minus zero.


Robert K. said,
August 8, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Here’s a good analogy for you FVists: in war if you are caught wearing the uniform of your enemy you are shot on sight. Certainly you are not granted the rights of regular POWs. Same with spies, same with traitors. We deal differently with those who oppose us by pretending to be one of us as they work against us. Wear your uniform and oppose us on the field of battle. We can’t respect you until you do this. Right now you are not going to be granted Geneva Convention rights. You don’t deserve them.


Robert K. said,
August 9, 2007 at 2:50 pm
It would be nice if this current subject matter — the covenant of works, the two Adams, probation in the garden, etc. — were not bantered about as if there isn’t quite an ocean of biblically sound and vetted-by-time contributions by Reformed theologians to draw on. The FVists only have mocking for great theologians who don’t give them what they demand (“John Owen was on drugs when he wrote that!”), and they prefer the Alice in Wonderland-type of environment where Leithart and Wilson et al constitute the Great Fathers of the Church. In other words, FVists can only exist in an unserious environment. Try not to accommodate them too much in this sense.


Robert K. said,
August 9, 2007 at 7:28 pm
By the way, would you rather be called Wilsonites or Muscovites? I just assume you’d rather be called Wilsonites since putting the fear and reverence of man above the fear and reverence of God is part of your Wilsonian theology. . .


Robert K. said,
August 9, 2007 at 7:37 pm
. . . . But the bottom line is Adam did not *obey* the command of God. The Covenant of Works was broken. (And, pssst, God knew it would be all along . . . it was kind of part of His plan. The overall Covenant of Redemption. Which is not the plan that says Doug Wilson will engage in Constantinian mass baptisms with guns on his belt hold a southern flag while certain sons of the south polish his shoes. . .


Robert K. said,
August 9, 2007 at 9:18 pm

“Is God putting Adam in a state of glorification an act of God’s free grace? or of something else?”

FVists are forced to become pious fainters when arguing away the Covenant of Works. “Well, sir, I just don’t believe man can ever do anything other than it being solely by the gracious gift of God. I just find is too painfully hard to ever think I or any created being could merit anything based on our little ol’ effort. Ah am about to faint right now just thinkin’ ’bout it, sir. It just so grieves my sensibilities to think that I or anyone could merit anything based on anything other than God’s free grace and his freely giving me ability to do what I do even though I don’t do it but mah glorious God does it in me and freely by his free grace, sir.”

You’re not even an individual?

“No, sir, I could never think of myself as anything other than a mere cell in a corporate visible body of Christ. I don’t even have a brain, sir. I’m convinced of that.”

Yet you say justification is by ‘faithfulness’?

“Well. . .”

Faith and works, works achieving ‘final’ justification?

“Well, sir. . . Just a minute. . . OK, cameras off. Sound off. We’re finished here. You fear me because I represent to you the fact the Satan will persevere and destroy your God. Ah! I’m out of the closet! Are you shaking? Of course you are. Because you fear not only my power but my intellect. I can make you shiver uncontrollably just by staring at you! Ah, that such individuals exist! Yes, we do, and we will soon rule you. Oh, but don’t despair, it can only be the best thing for you!”

OK, Doug, maybe you’d better hit the road. Stop by a pharmacy on your way home maybe. . .


Robert K. said,
August 11, 2007 at 11:44 pm
According to Doug Wilson countering him with the truth of Reformed doctrine is not debating him. His currency is to make his followers think all the ‘TR’s are scared to debate him because Doug will flash a Wodehouse reference with one hand and undercut them with a presuppositional shiv with the other, all to oohs and ahhs from his chorus. The power of Reformed doctrine, the power of the Word of God, spoken by the power of the Holy Spirit having no place or meaning in this display. Doug wants to have it both ways, he wants the machismo of a Christian who can quote Nietzsche, while having to live off the necessity of parrying thrusts with effeminate pomo parlor sophistry. “Oh, but mon du, I do believe in justification by faith alone! May I have another pinch of crumb cake to go along with my nuancing of what I just said? Yes, such a faithfulness is what our salvation is built upon. Did I say faithfulness? Of course, I skipped ever so wildly to our final justification! It’s dizzying!”

Macho Doug.


Robert K. said,
August 12, 2007 at 6:33 pm
I wrote above you can’t be afraid to hurt false teachers’ feelings because that is a *big* card they play. Drug addicts and criminals throw that card down fast and often as well. Not with other drug addicts and criminals but with family and social services and potential victims. Usually when they are cornered or not in power or losing power.

It’s also important to recognize that Doug Wilson and the other Federal Visionists don’t need to repent for being confused or ignorant of biblical doctrine at the level Reformed Theology elucidates it (the Spirit is needed to see and understand that), what they do need to repent for, though, is pretending to be something they are not, and for debasing language to affect that they hold to things they don’t hold to. They need to repent for making a putsch on the classic Reformation confessions and catechisms and disingenuously appropriating Reformation and post-Reformation era theologians who would — and did — give them the same treatment Calvin gave Sadoleto.


Robert K. said,
August 16, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Wilson, you don’t answer questions or further discussions (which would mean, for instance, actually outlining and admitting just *why* you say Reformed is not enough and just *why* you call yourself Federal Vision when everyday Reformed Christians have no problem calling ourselves Calvinist and Reformed). Like your comment immediately above you recite like a schoolboy “regeneration comes before faith” as if that is the subject and as if that is a revelation. In the very act of defending yourself pretending your novel doctrine doesn’t exist. You — are — a — troll. A self-published theological dilettante with a fetish for bad, Romanist doctrine and very common, age-old bad doctrine at that. You’ve only managed, as theonomists and now as so-called Federal Visionists, to corral the more ignorant and easily duped (and, unfortunately, the more innocent and easily drawn off the path of the straight and narrow) to yourselves. That is your big accomplishment. Along the way you merely appropriate influences that have nothing to do with your program and that you aren’t worthy of and certainly don’t value.


Robert K. said,
August 19, 2007 at 9:13 am
And, of course, no Reformed person is saying to the FVists: you must believe what we believe. We know the Spirit is necessary to see the truth. What Reformed Christians are saying is: stop the deception of self-identifying as something you are not. This just causes empty mischief. For this reason the Federal Vision doesn’t even have the virtue of providing what positives false doctrine can potentially provide: an attack that necessitates you, and gives you the opportunity, to sharpen up on what you believe. The FV doesn’t even provide this because of this element of you pretending to be Reformed. It forces us to fight you off in a different manner. As one fights off traitors, spies, and terrorists. Fifth columnists. In other words, you are not honorable foes, you are contemptible foes. Notice your reluctance to recognize or admit a discernable battle line. You don’t want that because you couldn’t sustain a battle like that, so you want to fight insidiously from within. So we have to spend all our time and energy exposing you and your tactics rather than a more usual engagement. You know this. You’re not honorable, you’re contemptible.


Robert K. said,
August 19, 2007 at 10:32 am
Doug Wilson’s got that 900-foot baptismal font with the 50-foot-high letters spelling FEDERAL VISION that he’s erecting in Moscow, Idaho, too, which mitigates against him ever coming off his doctrinal path. . .


Robert K. said,
August 20, 2007 at 9:01 am
Wilson, you’re a joke. You talk like you’re a pillar of the Reformed faith. What does that say about all the bodies that have rebuked your age-old Romanist poison? I believe you FVists call them ‘idiots.’

And again: did my comment about your language trigger any self-reflection on your part? I guess by your non-answer that would have to be no. Once again, level of honesty, level of self-awareness: minus zero.


Robert K. said,
August 20, 2007 at 5:52 pm
I suppose I don’t feel inspired to write a comparison of a Brakel and Wilson on such a thing a baptismal regeneration because such things have kind of been settled. Wilson (and his type) has an invested interest in pretending such things are still to be determined. This is where his ‘disingenuous bewilderment’ comes into service for him. He pretends bewilderment that any Reformed Christians would question that such a topic isn’t still alive. The same for such doctrine as justification by faith alone. As if resurrecting Romanist sophistry to bring off the bottom of the ocean the leaky vessel of works righteousness is something that can be pretended is still a viable, living debate in Reformed Theology.

Working for Wilson and the FVists on their side is what anybody with bad ideas always have on their side: the fact that people are being born every minute and tend to not get educated (or educate themselves) in what has occurred in the past. Even the recent past.

But Wilson and the FVists want to play this game even with people who they know know better. Yes, they want to pretend to be ‘on a level playing field’ with people who make their living knowing biblical doctrine and even the history of biblical doctrine. And they want to make this putsch behind an offensive line of sophistic language. They learned how to do this at the secular academy. Not long ago no one would think some professor would start a campaign to assert Shakespeare was a worthless influence, or at least only the equal of any modern day writer (or substitute Homer or Chaucer or what have you for Shakespeare), but it’s happened. Anything can be debased if you do it at the level of language. All you need is people in places they shouldn’t be reaching a level of personal shamelessness to where they just do it. These same types are now doing the same thing with Reformed doctrine. Attempting it anyway.

There are people who have no respect for anyone or anything other than their own — usually perverse — interests, and these are people you can’t debate or discuss anything with, you can only keep a wary eye on them.


Robert K. said,
August 21, 2007 at 11:16 am
Jeremiah 6:16 — “Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.”

The old paths are valuable because they’ve been vetted by time and experience. They won’t lead you over a cliff.

Influences don’t survive in time by accident. We know the names of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven for a reason. The name Kloppmeister is not known for a reason. His symphonies didn’t survive the tribunal of time. He may have been big in his day, but his work was shallow. Shallow works can be very popular in their time. They’ll be shown up over time though.

And Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven knew the Old Paths which grounded them. Beethoven, for instance, studied Palestrina and Handel extensively. Kloppmeister maybe didn’t think that was worthwhile to do.


Robert K. said,
August 20, 2007 at 4:45 pm
pduggie, are you wearing a pointy hat with a bell at the tip as you write these comments? Pointy shoes as well?

On a more serious note: these FVists unconsciously (but the spirit of disobedience only really works in the unconscious) have the full measure of the devil’s tactics. Let’s see a show of hands: how many Reformed Christians here have had just a twinge of hesitation in referencing a Reformed theologian like a Berkhof, for instance, as a result of these trolls making the names of good, sound Reformed theologians questionable or fit for mockery? How many? Be honest. This is what happens when you entertain devilish fools this long. It’s been too long.

Federal Vision gives the D students in the class power to grade the papers. This is painful to witness.


Robert K. said,
August 22, 2007 at 8:47 pm
It’s also difficult for Federal Visionists to claim the Puritan mantle since they accuse 17th-century Reformed Christians to have gone off the first and second generation ‘authentically Reformed’ rails. They’re going to have as much trouble pulling it off as they’ve had convincing anybody they hold to the Westminster Standards. . .


Robert K. said,
August 23, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Since James B. Jordan has come out from behind his curtain lately he’s thrown down more stupid in ten or twelve comments on Wilson’s blog than I’ve seen at a YouTube self-immolation reunion party.


Robert K. said,
August 26, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Doug, here is the whacked part of your statement:

“If FV is a false gospel, but not a threat, then why all the books? Why the commotion? If FV is a false gospel, and a threat, and no national representative of the FV critics is willing to debate the issues on the record,”

Who said it’s not a threat? That’s why the books have been written. Any false gospel is a threat. There is a second level to the threat as well when you masquerade as Reformed, Westminsterian pillars.

READ THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH:
Then of course you continue with your position that only standing next to you on a stage in a conference room of a Holiday Inn qualifies as a debate. Right, because that would be taken more seriously than the articles and books. Did Calvin debate Sadoleto? They merely exchanged public letters. Not even directly, in Sadoleto’s case. Yet it is considered one of the major defining debates in the history of the church. And very illuminating. In person Sadoleto probably would have gone all Eck on everybody (Calvin called Eck something like a delinquent sophist when he encountered him in person at some public colloquy).


Robert K. said,
August 26, 2007 at 10:55 pm

“Wilson is not a part of the PCA and apparently is not any personal threat to the angriest posters. I think the pope was trying to kill Luther. So, what gives here?”

Wilson and Federal Vision are part of an long ongoing campaign to infiltrate Reformed Theology itself (not just particular churches or denominations, but wherever Reformed Theology still stands and is held basically to be apostolic biblical doctrine) and to debase the language that communicates Reformed Theology (again sound biblical doctrine) and replace sound biblical doctrine — at critical points such as justification by faith alone — with any of a motley choice of bad doctrine heretics have used since the beginning of God’s revelation of truth. Wilson and Federal Vision are not merely going after the PCA, as you imply, but after such things as the historic Reformation confessions and after magisterial theologians like John Calvin himself by appropriating them using their garbage sophistic language. Yes, they can’t dupe myself or R.C. Sproul or Green Baggins or the others here, but they can dupe innocents and give every fool with an inclination to attack what is true a platform to do it. But even more seriously when language is debased it has real effect, and Doug Wilson and his Federal Vision are very big and industrious and Captain Ahab-ish in their desire and design to debase the language of Reformed Theology and make of it basically nothing so that the devil can hold sway like he does over the Roman communion. If these guys didn’t have a bit of a larger than usual dose of the spirit of disobedience in them (the spirit of the devil) they wouldn’t be able to pull this kind of reaction, so because they are currently a moderate-sized — or influential — force for the devil we who are able to KNOW THE TRUTH must confront them and expose them and let them know God’s own exist to defend what is God’s. We may be a small remnant at times, but we exist, and we will stand our ground to defend what God has revealed and what braver human beings than all of us sacrificed to bring into the light.


Robert K. said,
August 27, 2007 at 12:01 am
To sum up Terry W. West’s comment: “What is truth?”


Robert K. said,
August 27, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Who cares about people who affirm and deny out of both sides of their mouths and who use language like liberal academics? Who cares?

On a similar subject notice Leithart’s reluctance to write a Federal Vision systematic theology. He was asked if he would by Wilkins in the interviews linked above. Notice that just about any level of Reformed theologian can write a Reformed ST and often does write one. Of course Leithart brings a secular academic’s tactical and political thinking to such an endeavor. He’s not going to do anything that will expose his position and threaten his vanity, and he knows if he wrote a Federal Vision systematic theology he would be laughed off any stage he took for the rest of his life.


Robert K. said,
August 28, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Words like this will come out of James B. Jordan’s mouth: “After van Til nobody can think like that anymore.”

Really. . .

As I said: liberals think philosophers and philosophies alter human nature. And they don’t realize biblical doctrine lives at a universal realm that rides above philosophical schools and eras and what have you.

They also don’t realize — or don’t want to acknowledge — Scripture answers anything vain human beings can experience or think up or make up.

Doug Wilson says: “The Westminster Confession of Faith says nothing about evolution, for instance. . .” No, chapter 4 doesn’t touch on that subject at all. . .

WILSON: “The reason we must alter the confessions and reformulate Reformed doctrine is because modernity and the Enlightenment rewired how human beings think. We are no longer of the time and culture of the apostles. . .”

JORDAN: “That’s exactly right, Doug. And to even make the point more gory just think of this: prior to van Til nobody even had a concept for ‘culture of the apostles.’ What van Til did for us is to open up a part of our brain matter we weren’t even using so that we could see for the first time things the apostles and Christians since the apostles to the time of van Til couldn’t see. Of course we need to reformulate Reformed doctrine.”

WILSON: “We’re riding around in buggies.”

JORDAN: “And Satan owns the road, so we’d better get better equipped.”

WILSON: “Fast.”


Robert K. said,
August 29, 2007 at 4:10 pm
In the fall-out of this thread: pduggie’s quiet flame-out with the Fisher catechism; another Federal Visionist swimming the Tiber, and in the midst refers to Rome as the Emerald City, a statement of deep, unintended truth-telling:

The Wizard is one of the characters in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Unseen for most of the novel, he is the ruler of the Land of Oz and highly venerated by his subjects. Believing he is the only man capable of solving their problems, Dorothy Gale and her friends travel to the Emerald City, the capital of Oz, to meet him. Oz is very reluctant to meet them, but eventually they are granted an audience. Every time the Wizard appears in a different form, once as a giant head, once as a beautiful fairy, once as ball of fire, and once as a horrible monster.

Eventually, it is revealed that Oz is actually none of these things, but rather an ordinary, American man who has been using a lot of elaborate magic tricks and props to make himself seem “great and powerful.” —Wikipedia

Robert K. said,
August 30, 2007 at 11:02 pm
One more time:

There’s a reason the Beast called the Roman Catholic church burned the Word of God and kept it from people on pain of torture and death but called everybody to ritual baptism all day long. . .


Robert K. said,
September 3, 2007 at 12:01 pm
DOUG WILSON WRITES:

“But to the point. The FV guys have been maintaining that the FV is a conversation, a shared set of questions, not a movement, and so on. Some of the critics have insisted on the opposite — that we are a well-oiled, deeply-funded machine, set to infiltrate and take over the federated Reformed witness in North America. The FV is the Death Star.”

Wrong, oh mendacious one. We have said you are a motley group of mischievous leaders and unschooled followers with a bizarre ability to yank chains and get reactions from people more serious than you, which can only be ascribed to you having a largish dose of the spirit of disobedience coursing through your souls and movement. Using the Popular Front, fifth column tactics gives you leverage beyond your size and strength as well.

DOUG WILSON WRITES:

“Okay, then. One comment on a blog somewhere made me realize what may be coming next. Once it becomes obvious that the FV is not the movement that it was claimed to be, the spin doctors will immediately claim that it used to be a movement, but that it blew up. The opposition was victorious! Good thing we acted vigorously!”

Identifying you as mere liberal, and rent-scam theologians doesn’t mean the egragore (see above) you become never existed. It’s good that we’re talking in tones of epilogue now though.


Robert K. said,
September 3, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Now that the tension is gone in all this I might visit Moscow, Idaho myself, looking for that 600-foot Fantabulous Baptismic Waterslide. . .

I picture it as a kind of going back in time, a Raintree County kind of feel, and that man with the hot air balloon rides (“ten cents to see as far as St. Louis!”) is none other than that dreamer Doug Wilson. . .


Robert K. said,
September 17, 2007 at 8:04 pm
James Jordan just accused D. Hart of “sneering” at the Word of God. This on day one. The Federal Visionists, you see, are nothing if they are not the ones who actually value the Word of God. . .


Robert K. said,
September 19, 2007 at 3:37 am
Barlow pulls off the first Federal Vision triple backflip with a half-twist in the discussion over at De Regnis Christi.

The Bible doesn’t pit faith against works [he is confronted], ok, so then the Bible does pit faith against works, then at the end of the same paragraph Barlow agrees with himself in his original statement that the Bible doesn’t pit faith against works buoyed by an appeal too NPP doctrine for the half-twist.

It’s going about just as one would have predicted over there.


Robert K. said,
September 22, 2007 at 9:15 am
Wow, the merry-go-round of the FVists (and the “I’m no FVist, but I really admire their distaste for Reformed, biblical doctrine!”). Once again John Calvin is being used to defend justification by faith and works. Jonathan, you either have no shame, or you simply have a problem following this nonsense.

The subject is WHAT IS THE GROUND OF JUSTIFICATION. Not, does Christ’s resurrection have any connection with his perfect righteousness vis-a-vis the justification of God’s elect.

Leithart wants to DIVORCE Christ’s righteousness from his resurrection. He does this for the same reason he wants to wipe the Covenant of Works off the slate and the same reason he wants to take the spine out of Federal Theology by not recognizing the parallel between the first and the second Adam.

He’s a liberal Lutheran that knows enough about Reformed Theology to be able to defile it towards Romanist doctrine. He’s a liberal Lutheran that has decided he wants to be a Romanist (that he wants to give his soul to the Beast), but being where he currently is he has decided he can do some damage for the Beast before he makes the transition to Rome in a public way. All of these Federal Visionists will be in Rome in no short time. ALL of them. Not one will not end up in Rome. They all have the spirit of disobedience in full measure. They can’t NOT go to Rome publicly. They are only doing fifth column damage within the camp that holds to the truth prior to making their way to the Beast.


Robert K. said,
September 22, 2007 at 9:27 am

“Jesus’ resurrection is the ground of our justification. . .” — Peter Leithart

Leithart says this for the same reason FVists deny the imputation of the active obedience of Christ. Their target always is justification by faith alone. Their demand always is to put man front and center and IN CONTROL, and to tell God that Satan has defeated Him. Irrational? Of course it is. Hallucinogenically irrational. Rebellion against God is irrational to the core. They’re called false teachers, apostates, and reprobates. And they want you in hell with them. (If one has to assign a motive to such losers it is this: the devil has convinced them they will be the ‘aristocracy’ of hell. The leaders in hell. This is enough to motivate them to pull as many dupes as they can hook along with them.)


Robert K. said,
September 22, 2007 at 12:49 pm
In this thread James Jordan reveals that there is a girl called Alice, and there is a place called Wonderland, and James Jordan is going to stand by that, by giddy, until tar nation.

Notice a by-product of these threads over at De Regno Christi: Doug Wilson is demonstrating in real time his necessary android-like tactic of not only never criticizing any Federal Vision colleague, but not even giving a rhetorical wary side-glance to their most silly pronouncements being made right at this left and right shoulders. . .


Robert K. said,
September 22, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Another good thing about what is going on at De Regno Christi is it is getting Peter Leithart to come out of the closet and show his real character. Leithart likes to put on a front of goofy, modest, ‘just bein’ a professer’ persona; but one can’t engage in what he has been engaged in without having dark, vain, and prideful elements active within. This is coming out in exchanges like this one.


Robert K. said,
September 23, 2007 at 5:01 pm
WILSON WRITES: “Darryl, believe it or not, I can accept this. But because our Reformed fathers overwhelmingly saw the COW as basically gracious, this means that it follows that those in the modern Reformed tradition who insist that the COW be understood in terms of raw merit have not erred on an incidental point, but have rather overthrown the whole system. Would you agree that a non-gracious COW requires folks to revise and reconstruct everything to make the claim coherent?”

This is just, at this point, sheer stupidity. This is the dumbest students in the class getting up and demanding to teach the class. . . . At this point you just pat the boy on the head and send him off. “OK, Doug, you go on back to your church, the Jehovah’s Witnesses go back to their churches, the Mormons go back to their churches. God is in control, and there’s a reason you all exist. . .”


Robert K. said,
September 25, 2007 at 10:35 am
JEFFREY MEYERS CAUTIONS:

“It’s great to be precise and make clear distinctions. That’s just good communication. At the same time, we need to be careful to confess that God’s way of communicating with us in the Bible is the highest form of communication and therefore flawless. We ought not to try to bring God’s language and categories in line with Aristotle’s ideal of systemic clarity. Rather, we should be concerned that our way of speaking and communicating does not water down or otherwise distort the divine way of communicating with us in the Scripture.”

Yes, Jeffrey, Reformed Theology missed this. We must go back and re-do it all. (The entire thread highlights the Arminian aspects of the DNA of the Federal Visionists. They’ve got a lot of elements in their DNA, none of it Reformed.)


Robert K. said,
September 25, 2007 at 10:21 pm

“Congrats! You WERE teachable. Well done. . . good show. Was Owen on drugs? I dunno. I still like him.”

A slogan for the Federal Vision: Bored With Berkhof.

Another: Too Cool for Louis

For the record the John Owen/drugs line came from Mark Horne.


Robert K. said,
September 26, 2007 at 4:17 pm
On R. Scott Clark’s blog Doug Wilson stumbled into an admission that he’d never read Berkhof on the subject of the visible/invisible church. This is meaningful in that it was in the context of Wilson pronouncing his redefining of that particular Reformed doctrine.

And it wasn’t just Berkhof. Wilson admitted he didn’t know the Reformed position on the doctrine of the visible/invisible church.

In street language Wilson was talking out of his you know what.

He still is.

Tim states: “It’s fair to think, David, that serious-minded men who’ve been ministering for many years have read FAR more that you and I put together, young bucks that we are.”

Read what? What does “ministering for many years” have necessarily to do with knowledge and understanding of biblical doctrine? You call them “serious-minded men”, but their sophistical language suggests they are a bit less than serious.


Robert K. said,
October 4, 2007 at 10:13 pm
In answer to whether he believes in the imputation of the active obedience of Christ James Jordan writes:

My answer to Machen would be my essay in *The Federal Vision.* In terms of the dialogue, God’s second question would be more like this, “Well, then, did you remain faithful as a priest and mature to the point of undergoing deepsleep and resurrection at the Tree of Knowledge, thereby moving into the new covenant royal phase of existence?” And the answer would be, “No, but Jesus did, and in union with Him I have been given deepsleep and resurrection at the Tree of Knowledge and now rule with Him.”

My question is: was Jordan wearing a World War I helmet on his head when he wrote that?


Robert K. said,
October 12, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Wilson and crew got pulled over in full cross-dressing glory over at De Regno Christi. (Jordan was weaving in the lane; designated driver Wilson must have had a few himself otherwise he wouldn’t have allowed that to happen).


Robert K. said,
October 15, 2007 at 10:52 am
Xon and Jared, teach the world. . . “. . . there is “salvation” and there is salvation. . .”

Jared, are you “saved” or are you saved? Please answer the question.


Robert K. said,
October 30, 2007 at 12:27 pm
FVists are the same people who in academia read the Iliad and declared that it’s about feminism.


Robert K. said,
October 30, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Let’s put an end to this current night of the living dead outbreak here on this thread of the notion that the critics of Federal Vision don’t understand them. We understand you like we understand Shelby Spong.


Robert K. said,
October 30, 2007 at 6:36 pm

“But I think this statement not only false, but crazy false. Now what do we do?”

Consult the signal coming in through the filling in James Jordan’s tooth.


Robert K. said,
October 30, 2007 at 9:19 pm

“The complaint that FV proponents are not being clear is understandable to some extent. The problem is that FV proponents are being perfectly clear. You just need to learn to think in terms of their theological categories if you are to properly understand them. Their ‘handish’ is impeccable. However, the feet are still listening to them as if they were trying to speak ‘footish’, but they are not. If they were they would not be able to say what they want to say the way that they want to say it.”

FV scholarship in action.

Thank you, Robert K., you positively slay me.