Some general topical notes...

I'm going to be on top of this blog.

Regarding the centuriOn/iMonk strife give the iMonk credit for finding a pulse in centuriOn, but the reality is: until centuriOn bans you from commenting at his blog you havn't said anything real or non-lukewarm or non-man-fearing regarding the Faith.

(Everytime I go to centuriOn's blog and click on a comments thread I see a: BANNED BY THE WEBMASTER!!! YOUR COMMENTS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED!!! CRIMINAL!!! OUTCAST!!! POLICE HAVE BEEN CALLED!!!)

No, until the centuriOn and Steve Hays and Pyromaniac types actually ban you you aren't a threat to them and their man-fearing, no-effort, "let's keep it at the level of theory and philosophy" faith. Until they actually ban you you're really just one of them.

It's good, though, to see Frank Turk writing something that brings him some negative reviews. Let's just hope he doesn't commit suicide. With a note about how 'Jared' of the Thinklings can be 'happy now'...

More: What is going on really is there are many students and no teacher. There is no school. There's a trickle of the influence of the school of Geneva. A very powerful school, but a mere trickle of influence today. I notice the individuals at the new blog Pyromaniac mentioned (the one I linked above) have a fondness for A. A. Hodge's Outlines of Theology. Do they know that particular text, widely known and used in the world in its day, was a foundational text for the deeply and widely influential teaching of an individual who they'd think was the most Satanic person on the planet if they'd met this individual? No, they don't know this. Why? Because they've never pursued wisdom beyond the nursery. They fear man. Fear only God, it is the beginning of wisdom.

The practical teaching of the school of Geneva was of a political nature. Calvinists were taught to take down political and spiritual strongholds and create fortresses of freedom which were the strong, dynamic, free republics of western Europe and America. They instituted God's law at foundational levels scholars aren't even able to recognize, such as the laws of economy found in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. The long tradition and respect for and skill at war-fighting that existed in the mountains of Switzerland as well was part of the school of Geneva. War, wealth, and the uncompromised doctrine of the Word of God. The school of Geneva taught a practical level of the faith unique to its time. What was necessary for its time. Strongholds of the devil needed to be taken down and those who came out of the school of Geneva and those influenced by the school of Geneva had practical understanding and ability to effect this.

We live, still, today in the wake of this work done by the school of Geneva, but what is called for from Christians now at the practical level is not was was called for back then. What is called for now is a practical level teaching of the faith that develops Christians internally into the image of God. Prophet, priest, and king. The strongholds that only the practical level of the Faith can take down now are the strongholds within one's inner being. These same strongholds of course existed in Christians of the era of the school of Geneva, but the battle was just different. An external battlefield affords a kind of inner development that is not available in times of relative freedom as we have now (sacrifice is available in the one, suffering in the other). This internal warfare though still calls for understanding of war and wealth and uncompromised biblical doctrine.

Everything I've written in the two paragraphs immediately above are pure nonsense to the ears and eyes of mainstream church Christians... I know, I know, children... It's weird and scary... You live in a comfortable world with TVs and alot of new Christian books to talk about...