The Gathering Storm: A Split in the Reformed World

[Reformed Covenanter]

Listening to the video now, the speaker is correct to say that the "woke" crowd are not strictly speaking Marxists (in the orthodox sense), but it is still fair to say that they are buying into aspects of Cultural Marxism and Liberation Theology. The fact that they share many of the same talking points with Democrats and the liberal leftist media is strong circumstantial evidence in favour of this proposition.

 

[RamistThomist]

They still have right theology, unlike those who completely moved to liberal views, but really need to practice what they preach.

It goes beyond that. It's more like they are in ranks with the enemy.

 

[Pilgrim]

It goes beyond that. It's more like they are in ranks with the enemy.

Friel is correct (at least as far as I've seen) to say that they are more or less orthodox when it comes to theology proper. As far as I know, they aren't denying the Resurrection or the Virgin Birth. But the older liberals, and perhaps especially the neo-orthodox, were often able to hide their views until it was too late. Hopefully there isn't much of that going on yet.

I grew up in the liberal UMC. I know what liberal "Christianity" is. For confessional and conservative men to refer to the more "progressive" people as "liberals" without explaining why just makes them look like a flamethrowing fundy to the undecided. There are serious problems, but as far as I know, the likes of Fosdick or even Barth weren't at the last GA. The issues are more subtle. (I know that some have explained why. But many have not.) Various scandals have also resulted in a loss of credibility.

That being said, with TGC et al making their political views "Gospel issues" it appears that some are approximately halfway down the slippery slope to liberal "Christian" moralism, where working in the soup kitchen is preaching the gospel, even if you are a Hindu or whatever. But just screaming "Liberal Liberal" "Marxist Marxist" and doing little else (which is what some are in fact doing) isn't going to do much good. There probably aren't enough older people who remember what real liberalism is in the SBC and the PCA for that kind of thing to work. (I'm going with the assumption that a lot of those who sacrificed to travel to Southern Baptist Annual Meetings from 1979-1990 to vote for enough conservative Presidents in a row so that the liberals could be removed did so without a whole lot more sophistication than "Those professors don't believe the Bible. I know because Adrian Rogers says so.") Apparently many REs don't see the problem, (which I've seen cited as a reason why some strict subscriptionist TEs haven't been able to take their churches out of the PCA) much less the laypeople.

 

[Edward]

Apparently many REs don't see the problem, (which I've seen cited as a reason why some strict subscriptionist TEs haven't been able to take their churches out of the PCA)

I'm not familiar with those happenings, but I'd say that reflects on the TE not fully training their REs, rather than falling on the REs themselves.

 

[earl40]

I'm not familiar with those happenings, but I'd say that reflects on the TE not fully training their REs, rather than falling on the REs themselves.

This may be true in churches which have RE's that are in a startup church. From what I see it is the RE's who "pick" the TE, and that choice arises from the bias they have towards how strict or not they subscribe to the official teachings.

 

[RamistThomist]

I understand that the progressives in the PCA aren't the same as Fosdick. That is to their eternal credit. Nonetheless, they adhere to "Wokism" and Critical Theory, which is Marxist at core. And it is so designed to be a universal acid-drip, both in metaphysics and theology. Read Marx's two critiques of Hegel.

Marx's Hegelian writings are designed to undo all foundations.

 

[RamistThomist]

Here is Marx's sociological ideas in a nutshell. It is a universal acid-drip. If you are using language like "alienation" or similar rot, you are a sociological Marxist. This is what the Radical Orthodox guys call an ontology of violence.

Thesis: Hegel cannot escape an alienation that exists between the people and the state.

Hegel’s logic: the Idea becomes a subject; other concepts, like political sentiment, become predicates of the Idea (Marx 65). Marx will take this and de-essentialize it. The substance now is only a Subject.

As demoniac Herbert Marcuse noted,

The distinction between reason (Vernunft) and understanding (Verstand) is the distinction between common sense and speculative thinking (44).

True thought is a triad (Triplizitat). A dynamic unity of opposites.

S is P.

To know what a thing really is we have to get past its immediately given state (S is S). S is S doesn’t tell us much. If we follow out the process S becomes something else, P, but still retains its own identity.

The earlier Hegelian analyses saw society as one of “ever repeated antagonisms in which all progress is but a temporary unification of opposites” (60-61). Only a universal revolution can overcome the universal negativity.

The alienation of labor creates a society split into opposing classes (289).

Division of labor: the process of separating various economic activities into specialized and delimited fields (290).

Key argument: Since the individual, on either Hegelian or Marxian lines, is a “Universal,” then the proletariat can only exist “world-historically;” therefore, the communist revolution is necessarily a world-revolution (292).

Summary: as long as we are milking perceived grievances and positing alienation between power structures (or more particulary, a structure of violence between Rich Capitalist CIS male and Woke PCA Blogger), then we are engaged in Cultural Marxism.

Q.E.D.

 

[Pilgrim]

I understand that the progressives in the PCA aren't the same as Fosdick. That is to their eternal credit.

And that makes it all the more dangerous since those who are attracted to it can point to their bona fides on some issues. "Hey, they affirm inerrancy, unconditional election, the Huffington Post says they are still homophobes and want to put their laws on women's bodies, etc so they can't really be liberal." It's the kind of thing that caused the FV debate to go round and round. "They're nice guys. They went to the denominational seminary and believe in the resurrection, etc. Don't they have a point about revivalism? Can't we all just get along?"

This is the kind of thing that caused Martyn Lloyd-Jones to say that Catholicism was more dangerous than atheistic Communism, something that a good many evangelical and Reformed people still seem to disagree with. (My guess is that something like 2/3 of the people screaming about Russell Moore would strenuously disagree with the statement.) MLJ meant that the error in atheistic Communism was much more obvious to nominally or largely untaught Christian Westerners in the 1950s than Roman Catholicism was. The errors in the latter are much more subtle, especially to those who are largely untaught in theology.

 

[Dachaser]

And that makes it all the more dangerous since those who are attracted to it can point to their bona fides on some issues. "Hey, they affirm inerrancy, unconditional election, the Huffington Post says they are still homophobes and want to put their laws on women's bodies, etc so they can't really be liberal." It's the kind of thing that caused the FV debate to go round and round. "They're nice guys. They went to the denominational seminary and believe in the resurrection, etc. Don't they have a point about revivalism? Can't we all just get along?"

This is the kind of thing that caused Martyn Lloyd-Jones to say that Catholicism was more dangerous than atheistic Communism, something that a good many evangelical and Reformed people still seem to disagree with. (My guess is that something like 2/3 of the people screaming about Russell Moore would strenuously disagree with the statement.) MLJ meant that the error in atheistic Communism was much more obvious to nominally or largely untaught Christian Westerners in the 1950s than Roman Catholicism was. The errors in the latter are much more subtle, especially to those who are largely untaught in theology.

There is gaining momentum it would see a strange gathering of those who state that they maintain Conservative view on doctrines, and yet have a social agenda very liberal at same time.

 

[Dachaser]

Friel is correct (at least as far as I've seen) to say that they are more or less orthodox when it comes to theology proper. As far as I know, they aren't denying the Resurrection or the Virgin Birth. But the older liberals, and perhaps especially the neo-orthodox, were often able to hide their views until it was too late. Hopefully there isn't much of that going on yet.

I grew up in the liberal UMC. I know what liberal "Christianity" is. For confessional and conservative men to refer to the more "progressive" people as "liberals" without explaining why just makes them look like a flamethrowing fundy to the undecided. There are serious problems, but as far as I know, the likes of Fosdick or even Barth weren't at the last GA. The issues are more subtle. (I know that some have explained why. But many have not.) Various scandals have also resulted in a loss of credibility.

That being said, with TGC et al making their political views "Gospel issues" it appears that some are approximately halfway down the slippery slope to liberal "Christian" moralism, where working in the soup kitchen is preaching the gospel, even if you are a Hindu or whatever. But just screaming "Liberal Liberal" "Marxist Marxist" and doing little else (which is what some are in fact doing) isn't going to do much good. There probably aren't enough older people who remember what real liberalism is in the SBC and the PCA for that kind of thing to work. (I'm going with the assumption that a lot of those who sacrificed to travel to Southern Baptist Annual Meetings from 1979-1990 to vote for enough conservative Presidents in a row so that the liberals could be removed did so without a whole lot more sophistication than "Those professors don't believe the Bible. I know because Adrian Rogers says so.") Apparently many REs don't see the problem, (which I've seen cited as a reason why some strict subscriptionist TEs haven't been able to take their churches out of the PCA) much less the laypeople.

It seems that being known as being acceptable to all peoples groups and behaviors, and to be seen as being social conscious overrides maintaining real Christianity.