There's gambling in this establishment? Yes, the world never lets you down

There is a lot of deception in environments where self-identified Calvinists (or Reformed) Christians reside.

When I first started seeking out such environments I ran into many stealth types pretending to be Reformed but who were really Federal Vision or Theonomists. It took awhile to realize what was going on. One doesn't tend to associate such deception with doctrine that we discern, by the Holy Spirit, to be biblical. Of course false teachers though seek to destroy the truth, attacking it from the outside as well as from the inside, but to find such explicit deception was a bit of a surprise for me.

I've come to another realization (I'm kind of slow to come to these realizations simply because I find it difficult to associate deception with people who claim to hold to Reformed doctrine, other than the most cartoonish of false teachers who are obvious).

This new realization is the simple fact that most Reformed seminary professors and similar types within the various Reformed communities are basically boilerplate political and social liberals. Which of course means also that they not only value what is wicked, but they are ignorant of the issues on top of that. They are common left-wing liberals. The type you find in any academic setting. They of course know that they have to hide this fact to *some* degree, so in their rhetoric there is a lot of winking and gentle mocking and such things as "now, don't get me wrong, I'm *all for* [fill in the blank], I'm just saying that..."

Examples are R. Scott Clark, and D. G. Hart. Michael Horton would come to mind as well, though I havn't read enough of his more informal writing. The type that gets revealed in blogs. (Of course there are 'Reformed' academic types at other seminaries that are more publically known for their liberal biases, so my examples are people one would not necessarily associate with obvious left-wing nonsense. I mean, saying Peter Enns is a liberal type is not saying much that would surprise anyone.)

Of course they will protest and have a practiced response to clear them of such charges, but it's all said with a half-grin and a mocking tone. They are left-wing liberals. They fear man more than they fear God. They are liberals on the Word of God as well (which is always a giveaway). Accuse them of that and they will silently shift the argument to say they are conservative regarding the versions they don't have to humble themselves to (the modern constructed versions with the authority of scholars in them rather than the authority of God in them), but they refuse to humble themselves to the *received* Word of God and even mock it. They fear the opinion of the world. They value what the world 'holds dear.'

These guys are left-wing liberals. They aren't regenerate. Regeneration makes such worldly values and nonsense strike one's senses as the average bacterial infection strikes one's senses. They like that smell.