(Podcast notes, etc).

Warning: rambling ahead.

Today I listened to a podcast episode from the Paleo Protestant Pudcast hosted by a Presbyterian, Lutheran, and..Anglican) (google). The cast helped me to understand what I have read from Tim Challies about what he calls “recent report of a quiet revival” (Challies, Pudcast). The Pudcast (I am not sure how it got this name, haha) mentions interest in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy from ‘upwardly mobile’ people; interest in the aesthetics of these, and what I think could also happen is that people who are less upwardly mobile or who may be considered middle class (I guess I can be upwardly mobile and middle class too)
– but someone who’s coming from a background of public institutions could perhaps be more interested in a message of speakers or authors more close to or favorable unto a practice or idea shared in Roman Catholic or Eastern orthodox contexts simultaneously supporting cultural change (Paleo Protestant Pudcast).
These people could find interest in changing political policies or having a
Christian belief impact government or even want to be able to say they have a christian government, as people in a context of a public institution could be more directly impacted in some way through the government or some trend such as forcing people to celebrate what’s called ‘gay pride month,’ whereas someone who starts or is in a separate institution may be able to get away from that more – not that someone who is in public school cannot resist but that the result may look different.

Perhaps someone such as Doug Wilson could be appealing to lower
 income people who are seen through the lens of someone who can afford to send their kids to a classical school or homeschool
or fund their own business, and self-righteousness could play a role here,
whereas Doug Wilson’s kids are raised and he could appeal to a sense such as Trump appealed to – that I am with the people, I am suffering with them, and rather than just blaming them I am also angry about evil;
 I believe that this is relevant in the context of who Jesus is,
 not as someone who has unrighteous anger (his anger is righteous) but who is “full of grace and truth” and suffered for his people

, including taking God’s wrath for them (esv, kjv).

 I do think that there is something positive in the Reformed tradition of focusing more about being “salt and light” versus just starting one’s own thing but then I think we can learn from the Lutherans who have, like the Dutch Reformed, had their own schools, and also had a strong sanctity of life emphasis (esv, kjv). As believers live life together we can celebrate that there is a once for all sacrifice “for the complete forgiveness of all our sins” – that Christ has made definitively in the past – and which informs and fills our lives in the present, including through the gift of communion that we share with one another from week to week; this is not only a gift of bread and wine on Sunday, but “the communion of saints” every day as we wash one another’s feet, literally and figuratively, and wait for the new heavens and earth we have been promised – by who (Apostle’s Creed, liturgy @Cliffwood) ? God – and he will surely do it. He is our mighty fortress and our strength, an ever present help in trouble. As a member of a Presbyterian church I have been blessed to celebrate who Jesus is every week with my brothers and sisters in Christ, including other younger Christians, some of whom have come from a Roman Catholic or charismatic-denomination background such as the “Church of God denomination”. For all those in Christ, we are “new creation(s)”: the new has come , the old has passed way, and we are being remade in the image of Christ even as we learn from past generations and compare this to the Word that God has given us for our sanctity and growing in grace (esv, kjv). And we celebrate and value the other means of grace he has given us – such as the ordinance or sacrament of communion, the fellowship of believers, and the gathered church. All of this is because of Christ. All who are in him are in the church of God – the Bride he has “bought with his own blood”, “from every people, and nation, and language” throughout the earth; he is preparing her for the day when she “will see him” as he is (esv, kjv). Until then we feast with him and on the gifts he has given. We are given not to only have ourselves , but to share with others. The gospel of grace is to be “published abroad” (Ye Servants of God, Your Master Proclaim). And being published abroad, the amazing story of the gospel unfolds for “future generation(s)”, that they may bless his name, and blessing, be blessed (esv, kjv).

Works Cited.

@Cliffwood PCA

Hymn: Ye Servants of God, etc.

Google.

P.S. – “those people” and “these people,” who are in Christ are members of the body I am in! We are one. And the people I referred to in this article as “these people” can be me – or for those in Christ they are members of me.

Apostle’s Creed.

Pudcast – https://www.podengine.ai/podcasts/paleo-protestant-pudcast

Tim Challies. https://www.challies.com/articles/satan-can-stage-a-quiet-revival/

King James Version.

English Standard Version. Good News Publishers, Crossway Bibles, 2001.