Pietism’s Eternal Failing

 Again, I’m still not leaving the Reformation to become Roman Catholic - which you always seem to have to clarify up front.  But when it comes to the universal Christian Church impacting the world, nobody in the world notices when the PCA, or any other conservative Reformed denomination, elects a new moderator. But everybody notices when Rome chooses a new Pope. And it isn’t per se due to compromise, or because the Pope is the Antichrist. It’s two thousand years of consistent existence, within physical space, and whatever good has come out of it in spite of all the bad, both doctrinally and morally.

The fact that the CREC has grown and is making the impact it is is due to years of consistent, faithful plodding, and a refusal to confine salvation to the church building, the interior working of God in men’s hearts, and the family.

Pietism will always want to linger because of what it gets right. It will never fully flourish because of what it gets wrong.

The Trump Statue

 Honestly, the golden Trump statue reminds me more than anything else of the Ronald McDonald statues at the franchises when I was young. And I think it would have been surprising to have made it through the Trump era, given his ego, without a statue or two. To his credit, at least it wasn’t something he commissioned. I suppose having a Trump arch and a Trump ballroom has been enough to keep him occupied architecturally. That isn’t to say I don’t find it troublesome. The golden calf comparisons are being made, which are somehow not being brought into consideration when addressing the matter of Obama’s “presidential library”. How often people are thrown off by mere aesthetics. Perhaps it’s because we have the Tower of Babel to compare Obama’s monstrosity to. Either way, Biblical typology tells us they’re all the same thing - edifices and images to the glory of man, all of which will one day crumble and return to dust. The glory of God against whom they compete will prevail, no matter how hard man may strive.

Israel’s Harlotry and Idolatry

 Explain Ezekiel 23:20, a friend asks - 

It’s a metaphor for Israel’s repeated harlotry with the foreign nations and their false gods, turning away from Yahweh their true husband toward other lovers in idolatry. And what is true on a national or corporate level metaphorically - adultery - is true on an individual level, as shown from the golden calf incident at Sinai on forward throughout Old Covenant Israel’s history.