Monk...monk.....the dude calls himself a monk

CT: If I ever teach a class on a postmodern deconstruction of Christianity , and I want an example of a reader-response approach to the creeds and Christian history....you are my poster :-)

So you'd be teaching on a subject you practice yourself, but you'd be teaching it as if its the people who hold to biblical truth who do it, and...did I mention that you put it in a context of you teaching a class... You, teaching? And you're also a pastor of a church? And you couldn't see the devil if he had you by the throat? (or, worse, you want him to have you by the throat, the better to be able to stick your tongue down his throat?)... Did you say, casually, "If I ever teach a class on a postmodern..." Can those words have actually come out of your mouth? Did Pol Pot have people who wore glasses killed? Yes, he did. OK, I'm coming to now, I see you're just playing along in the very well-defined line of satanic chaos artistry that got started in the last century full throttle and will continue until Jesus returns and makes the birds drink blood from your skull... OK.

Notice also there is no mention of the Word of God in what he finds it important to associate with Christianity (history and creeds).

Seriously, do you feel any responsibility to the books and volumes of ink these people wrote that disagree with your particular take on the sacraments?

If you find them saying they believe in baptismal regeneration then they very much do disagree with me - and with the Bible. Short of that any disagreement on issues surrounding baptism, Lord's supper, or church polity is not important because the Bible doesn't make it clear and dogmatic.

You say, "they didn't believe in sacramental regeneration, etc" as if that puts them in your camp on the questions of what are the sacraments and what do they do?

Actually I said 'baptismal regeneration'. Whether beyond that primary point (primary because the Bible makes it primary and certain that baptismal regeneration is false doctrine, and deadly, satanic false doctrine at that) Calvin or the Puritans disagree with me on mode or meaning or type regarding sacraments and church polity is neither here nor there regarding whether I'm a Calvinist or in the same doctrinal/experimental line of the Puritans, because on those issues the Calvinists and Puritans differed among themselves. They are not primary issues because the Bible doesn't make them so.

C'mon. Do I have to list the books by Puritans and Calvinists that contain not twenty words you could stand to read?

List them. How could I 'not stand' to read Calvin or a Puritan writer on infant baptism? I disagree, but it's not a major doctrinal point to me. If an infant baptism proponent veers into promoting baptismal regeneration as doctrinal truth then our disagreement becomes a disagreement of a different nature... You can't, on the other hand, list books by real Calvinists or Puritans that differ with me on issues summed up in the five solas or the doctrines of grace...

As you call me pomo,

Your own words expose you as everything defined by this word pomo.

it appears to me you have, at the same time, adopted a reading of the Puritans and Calvin that no scholar anywhere would amen.

How so? I'm a five solas, doctrines of grace, covenant of redemption Calvinist. Neo-orthodox and atheist scholars of Calvinism and the Puritans would not amen that, so what? On issues of sacraments and church polity Bunyan doesn't amen Calvin, and Owen doesn't amen Calvin, etc., etc.

(I know, they all are living blindly in the fear of men, etc. But ever Terretin, Berkhof and 99% of the WCF signers would find you wrong.

On the issues of the sacraments. On what else? They find those who drew up the LBCF wrong in the same way. So? The Bible gives warrant to such differences. Problem? Is the Bible your authority or isn't it?

Why don't you just say they are wrong and you are right?

On the issues of the sacraments and church polity I've stated my position as: whatever. It's not dogmatic doctrine because the Bible doesn't make it so, so why should I? Men who make it dogmatic - impose clericalism and sacramentalism - do so to assert vain, worldly power into God's domain. Short of the imposition of clericalism and sacramentalism I have no problem with people - especially Calvinists or Reformed - who differ with me on the sacraments or church polity. If they have a problem with me, so be it. My authority is not man, it is God and the Word of God.

I keep repeating this because, it's strange to see YOUR FEAR of being out there without the "Puritan" and "reformed" label, when you know darned well you couldn't be a teaching elder in any reformed church anywhere with your view of the visible church, the ministry or the sacraments. Yet, for some reason, you need to associate yourself with them.

I call myself a Calvinist because I see biblical doctrinal truth in the five solas and the doctrines of grace (and in covenant theology for that matter). Pure and simple. That's why I am a Calvinist and identify myself by that name. I associate myself with the Puritan approach because like them I have a practical approach to the faith, plus they were Calvinists who held to the five solas and doctrines of grace as well. Your use of the word fear in your statement above is typical of a man-fearing cleric who is out of ammunition against an elect of God and is throwing anything including the kitchen sink at this point. If I didn't have anything in common with Calvinism or the Puritans I'd just call myself a Christian and leave it at that. In this age when doctrinal differences matter one must practically identify themselves, and Calvinist and Puritan identifies me.

Those of us who read you understand you clearly: You alone are correct about what Christianity is. Why not just say it? Quit trying to rework the Puritans and Calvin into your image.

I didn't make up the five solas or the doctrines of grace or covenant theology. If I hold to them and you don't I suppose you will think I'm just saying I'm right and you're wrong. So be it. I hold to them because they are apostolic, bibilical truth. See it or don't.

Basically iMonk: you currently can't see the truth. You don't know what the hell the doctrines of grace are, why the Bible teaches them or why anybody would hold to them (as if, you think, anybody even understands them to begin with). You are an unregenerate, proud fool who takes the hall of mirrors illusion of the devil's kingdom you can't see through as the common experience of everyone. As a proud, vain fool who currently can't see God's truth you disdain anybody who holds to the truth of God or even 'affects' to 'know the truth'.

You're a clown as well because you insist on teaching.

In your hysterical claims in this recent comment you are attempting the divide and destroy tactic the devil channels into your hollow being and broadcasts out of your uncontrolled mouth. First you want to divide 'truth' from doctrine. Then you want to divide myself from Christians of the past who held to the same Truth I hold to. Only all you have is the sacraments and church polity as ammunition, and this elect of God knows the truth of those issues and what the Bible says about them. It's all the desperate activity of the devil and his willing servants to muck up the waters and hope to fool God's elect. You can't fool God's elect, though. Sin and rebellion against God is irrational to the core. The only people you can fool are people who have not yet been regenerated to begin with. The moment they are regenerated you will even lose them. Certainly God's elect who are regenerated now can't be fooled by your nonsense, yet you try and try. Irrational. Sin is irrational; rebellion against God is irrational.