Posted in Christian Life & Experience, Experimental Religion & the Cure of Souls, Free Offer of the Gospel, Redemption Applied, The Free Offer of the Gospel, Vox Patrum | Leave a Comment »
Birth rates are plummeting in the United States and globally, forecasting a political and financial crisis. The most recent estimate predicts the average American woman will have 1.6 children in her lifetime, far below the rate of 2.1 required to maintain a steady population and even further below the 2.5 rate observed in the United States as recently as 1970.
Many cultural and technological factors have contributed to this dramatic decline, and public policies play a role in shaping people’s decisions about whether to have children and how many. Finding the right policy levers for influencing fertility rates, however, has proven very difficult.
Posted in Culture, Family & Family Issues, Motherhood & Childbearing, Secularization | Leave a Comment »
“Did believers in the Lord Jesus more frequently meet in council, in service, in communion, how soon and entirely would the coldness, the party spirit; the jealousies, the erroneous impressions vanish which now, alas! divide the body of Christ, all whose members are ‘members one of another.’ Knowing each other better, they would love each other more; and loving each other more, there would be more ready concession made to the freedom of judgment and the claims of conscience. The clergy of the various sections of the Christian Church stand too wide apart from each other simply because they do not know each other. And if the shepherds are thus sundered, it is no marvel that the sheep are divided! The Church of Christ is essentially one, why should she not be visibly one? Inseparable from Christ, why should we be separated from each other? With an essential unity of faith, why should we not all unite in excluding uncharitableness? Oh! If the Lord’s people—losing sight of every badge but Christian, and of every name but Christ—were to mingle more frequently, confidingly, and prayerfully together, how much more would they find of assimilation, of sympathy, and affection—how much less to sunder, separate, and censure, and how much more to admire, love, and imitate in each other than they had any conception of.”
–Octavius Winslow
Posted in Catholicity, Communion of the Saints, The Visible Church | Leave a Comment »
12. Adam brake the whole frame of heaven and earth: and to the Second ADAM the whole broken and marred lump of the Creation is promised, that he may be the repairer of the waste places. Isa. 49:8. I will preserve thee, and give thee for a Covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages. Ps. 72:16. Under the reign of the Messiah, There shall be an handfull of corn upon the top of the mountains, the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon. Jer. 31:12. Therefore shall they come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together for the goodness of the Lord (Christ) for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock, and of the herd.
1. The Lord made all things at the beginning very good, Gen. 1:31. Heaven, Earth, Sun, Moon, Beasts, Birds, &c. being all made servants to man, were in a manner fellow-Covenanters in their kind with man in the Covenant of Works: As a King covenants with a great Family, his servants and dependers have the benefit of the Kings Covenant peace, all obeyed Adam without jarring: but when Adam sinned, war between the Lord, and between the Master and the servants is denounced, the earth is cursed for his sake, Genes. 3:17, 18. and Lions and wild Beasts rise against him like loose boarders. But in the Covenant of Grace, Hos. 2:18, 19, 20. the beasts of the field, the fowls of the heaven, the Sun which shall not smite by day, nor the Moon by night, Ps. 121:6. are by the Surety of the Covenant brought in a new league: yea the stones of the field, Job 5:23. are compartners of the peace, and Christ the King takes off the forefaultry [forfeit, failure] upon all, and looses the arrestment of vanity that by sin was laid upon the Creation, which was made sick like a woman travelling in birth, Rom. 8:20, 21, 22. Hence are they blessed in Christ to the Saints, Deut. 28:4, 5; Levit. 26:4, 5, 6. and the Angels come in under their Head Christ, Col. 2:10. and serve the new restored heirs, Heb. 1:13. for their Heads sake.
2. God hath appointed Christ the Heir of all things, and, Heb. 1:2. hath given a Charter to Christ and put in bread, garments, houses and all to the Believer in Christ the first Heir: his great evidence is, 1 Cor. 3:21. All things are yours. 3. He makes all things new, Rev. 21:5. This Christ mends the broken gold ring which was broken by the first unattentive and rash Heir Adam; So that now Heavens, Earth, Mountains, Isai. 49:13. Sea, trees, fields, Psal. 96:11, 12, 13. are commanded to sing a Gospel Psalm of joy, because Christ the new King and Restorer of all is come to the Throne: yea let the stoods [stands of trees] clap their hands, Psal. 98:9. and he purposes to purge with fire the great Pest-house infected with sin and under bondage of corruption, Rom. 8:21; 2 Pet. 3:10, 11. that he may set up the new world in Gospel-beauty, the new heavens and the new earth, 2 Pet. 3:13; Isai. 65:17; Isai. 66:22; Rev. 21:1. Oh what a life to have a cottage and a little yard of herbs in that new World, and how base to be but Citizens of this World!
Posted in Earthy Eschatology, Samuel Rutherford | Leave a Comment »
Here is an online classroom version of Tedd Tripp’s great Shepherding a Child’s Heart. This is the go-to parenting book for many in conservative, Reformed circles. I would strongly encourage every parent to read it . . . or at least watch and discuss these videos.
Posted in Family & Family Issues, Family Religion, Fatherhood, Motherhood & Childbearing | Leave a Comment »
This small treatise reflects something of the high watermark the Puritans left the Church in Christian ethics & casuistry, written by the Westminster Divine, Thomas Manton. Access the audio here. He does a masterful job of exposing a subtle, legal attitude so often prevalent in the church, that outward, religious observances must always and without qualification supersede concerns of human life and well-being. A colleague of mine shared it with me during the Covid church closure mess of 2020. It was quite relevant then and remains so today. A must-read for every Reformed pastor if not every serious Christian. And visit the complete audio library here.
Posted in Audio Resources, Conscience & Casuistry, Legalism & Antinomianism, Natural Law, Puritans & Puritanism | Leave a Comment »
I found this an able and persuasive rejoinder to Michael Spangler’s extreme kinism. Vogel is responding to a series of articles originally posted here. In my armchair studies of Christian nationalism, kinism, and the postwar consensus critique, there is quite a range of opinion: the good (or at least, acceptable), the bad, and the ugly. One thing is for sure: Spangler doesn’t fall within the first. Mark him, and avoid him.
Posted in Cults, Cultishness, Heresy, Culture, Postwar Consensus, Nationalism, Race, Kinism, "Race Realism" | Leave a Comment »
West Port Experiment 