The Reprobation of the Democrat Party: The End of a Story or Only the Beginning of One?
Nov 15, 2024 by David Fowler
The post-election finger-pointing among Democrats reminds me of a great word I don’t hear used much anymore: confounded. Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines it this way: “Mixed or blended in disorder; perplexed; abashed; dismayed; put to shame and silence; astonished.” The reason for this condition is damnable in the truest sense of that word. It signals the death of the Party. Other institutions might want to consider those reasons and the wonderful remedy to them before they die too.
Please bear with me as I set up the ground for my assessment. It comes from a commentary on the book of Hebrews by the man who was perhaps England’s greatest theological mind, John Owen. He is relevant because his times were much like ours. He spoke to political and religious leaders—Parliament, Cromwell, and the Westminster Divines—during the revolutionary period in England that contributed greatly to our form of civil government and our jurisprudence.
What We Ought to Know and What Our Knowledge Can’t Reach
Owen wrote the following, and it got me to thinking more about what must be going on in our country if it is true:[i]
As proof, Owen urges his readers to “[c]onsult the writings of them who have most improved the light of nature in their disquisitions after the being and nature of God.” He noted they had “most industriously and curiously traced the footsteps of nature towards its eternal spring and fountain,” namely a divine being. Plato’s Demiurge and Aristotle’s First Cause or Prime Mover immediately come to mind as examples.
However, respecting them he concludes as follows: “Of many things indispensably necessary to be known of God, it knows nothing at all, of the eternal existence of the one individual nature of God in three persons.”
In other words, knowledge of the Triune nature of God is indispensable to knowing God truly and rightly understanding the kind of cosmos we live in. Any other conception of God is, as Paul wrote, “a vain imagination.” Not surprisingly, Jesus says that those who do not believe in who He is as the final revelation of God “worship what you do not know” (John 4:22, NKJV). Sobering words.
Applying the Foregoing to My Assessment of the Democrat Party
Here is my assessment:
And that carries with it certain consequences that can lead to what theologians called “reprobation.”[ii] It comes from a Latin word meaning condemned.
The Apostle Paul explains the steps toward reprobation.
The First Step in the Democratic Party’s Reprobation
The Apostle says the reprobated “knew God,” but “they did not glorify Him as God nor were [they] thankful” (Romans 1:21, emphasis supplied). As a direct result they “became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21 NKJV).
Consequently, “professing to be wise, they became fools” (Rom 1:22 NKJV) This is what their foolishness brings upon them:
When God simply lets go—says, “You want it your way? Have at it”—one is on the road to reprobation.
Applying this verse to the Democrat Party and its leaders, Man is the creature they have put in God’s place and at whose feet they worship.
Increasingly, they believe individuals should go beyond worshiping Man, understood collectively, to each worshiping himself or herself as evidenced by the Party’s belief that transgender and non-binary theory can be “exchanged” for the glory of God in man and woman as made in the image of God. “Live your truth” sums up the deification of the individual.
The Second Step in the Democratic Party’s Reprobation
Then the Apostle explains step two in the process of reprobation, what the first “exchange” and “giving over” comes to if there is no intervening repentance:
Here’s what this stage of reprobation looks like:
Notice the progression from heart to passions to specific forms of conduct. However, all is not lost yet.
Reprobation of the Democratic Reprobation Completed
This is the final “giving over.” The now debased mind leads to a host of other things, which I would sum up as becoming “confounded”:
That seems to me to describe the Democrat Party.
Thus, I believe it is done in God’s sight; put a fork in it. All that’s left is the final nail being put in the coffin by a means of God’s choosing and the dirge.
Application to Republican Party Leaders
The leaders of the Republican Party ought not to gloat over its recent political wins or my assessment of the Democrat Party.
The Republican Party is not far behind in its disdain for God when its platform urges Americans to call on the “Spirit of America” as the way we can return to the glory days that this Spirit is said to have brought us to.
It seems the “light of nature” is so dim among Republican leaders that their Platform didn’t think it important to call on “God,” even if in a generic form.
In sum, I believe the Republican Party is going to be right behind the Democrat party’s funeral march if its leaders do not regain their footing on abortion, same-sex marriage, transgenderism, and homosexuality.
Why Do I Pick on Republican Leaders About These Four Issues?
The reason for my judgment about the Republican Party rests on the fact those four issues most clearly bespeak a worship of Man over God as revealed in the image of God, namely, as man and woman who He created to be fruitful, not sterile. Sterility is the defining feature of all four.
“Sterile Man” is substituted for what it means to be human over what is revealed about God by His Man—Jesus Christ. The Party’s “new man” is substituted for God’s new[iii] man, Jesus Christ, as the object of worship and service.
Application to Protestant Denominations
I could not make this assessment but for what I say about myself under the next heading, but I believe some of the “evangelical” institutional denominations and their “independent” groupings may not be far behind these two political parties if they do not recover their “first love.”[iv]
I’m not speaking about an emotive type of love one might have for a police officer who lets you off for breaking the law, God being the great Policeman in the Sky.
I’m talking about the love that arises from and matures in those who are “known by Him” (Galatians 4:9), not those who think they do because of all their religious service. Jesus said he didn’t know those in the latter group. See Matthew 7:21-23.[v]
The love I am talking about is that which increases in proportion to the increase one has “in the knowledge of the Son of God” (Ephesians 4:13; Ephesians 1:17, Philippians 3:8, Colossians 2:2; 2 Peter 1:2-3, 8; 2 Peter 1:8, 3:18), as revealed in the person and offices of Christ (too many verses to cite).
Now here’s the hard part—application.
Let me suggest that pastoral teaching that does not go beyond Christ’s office as priest pertaining to salvation is not teaching the “whole counsel of God.” Acts 20:27. Abstract, contentless declarations that God is sovereign are insufficient.
Moreover, to “search the scriptures” only for moral and ethical rules of behavior befitting a Christian descendant of Abraham, which the Jews were guilty of doing, is not the gospel. Rather it receives the rebuke of Jesus for missing the whole point of the whole revelation of God from Genesis 1 forward! See John 5:39, NKJV ("You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.”). All of who Jesus is is the point of the story from beginning to end, as I explain at the end of the next section.
I believe denominations that increasingly fall captive to this kind of limited, narrowly defined “gospel” may find themselves headed toward death like the church at Ephesus absent a sweeping and cleansing repentance.
How God Marked “Closed” on My Road to Reprobation
I am impelled to speak so forthrightly about these admittedly hard things for one reason: I was raised in good and honorable churches, yet I did not realize I was well on my way to reprobation until this happened about 5 or 6 years ago:
Please do not look lightly over what is said here. The light contributed nothing to its coming into existence or shining.
I speak so plainly about reprobation and about my experience, because I can’t bear the thought that any would think that the work of God’s mercy and grace comes about in any person any differently, whether filling a pulpit, sitting in a pew, or reveling in “a den of iniquity.” That God’s command brings about something that wasn’t there is the whole point of the preceding analogy.
I know from experience that the road to reprobation can be made easy by padded pews and worship bands. On the flip side, God can command His light to shine into a dark den of iniquity.
A Directional Sign on the New Road
All that can be done by those upon whom God has shone this light is to humbly give thanks and then worship and adore Him. That’s a sign one is on a new road.[vi]
And why this response? Because they know God is graciously working to restore the image of God in them as they are “formed” (Galatians 4:19) by the indwelling Holy Spirit into the image of Christ “who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). It is the restoration of Adams and Eves.
I’ve got a long way to go in this process of restoration, but in great mercy, God marked my road to reprobation “closed.”
But here is the larger point: this restorative work of God is the gospel, short and simple.
Why Write So Straightforwardly Knowing Many Will Be Offended?
I write so boldly only because of what we are told in Acts 17 of the response Paul got when he confronted the false beliefs held by the wise men of his day:
That small group who wanted to know more and others like them were used by God, in due time, to bring Christ to the Roman empire. And in that way God, not effective politics, changed the empire.
So, I’m praying some, whether presently Democrats, Republicans, Pastors, Priests, or pew-sitters, may find themselves wanting to be likewise used by God in our country.
While FACT will continue to work on legislation at the State Capitol, I will begin working fulltime toward this larger end in the new year. If God stirs in you a heart for this, contact me at senatorfowler@gmail.com.
Please bear with me as I set up the ground for my assessment. It comes from a commentary on the book of Hebrews by the man who was perhaps England’s greatest theological mind, John Owen. He is relevant because his times were much like ours. He spoke to political and religious leaders—Parliament, Cromwell, and the Westminster Divines—during the revolutionary period in England that contributed greatly to our form of civil government and our jurisprudence.
What We Ought to Know and What Our Knowledge Can’t Reach
Owen wrote the following, and it got me to thinking more about what must be going on in our country if it is true:[i]
It is true, that the being, nature, and properties of God, may be known by the light of nature, and from the consideration of those works which are the certain product of his power and goodness.
As proof, Owen urges his readers to “[c]onsult the writings of them who have most improved the light of nature in their disquisitions after the being and nature of God.” He noted they had “most industriously and curiously traced the footsteps of nature towards its eternal spring and fountain,” namely a divine being. Plato’s Demiurge and Aristotle’s First Cause or Prime Mover immediately come to mind as examples.
However, respecting them he concludes as follows: “Of many things indispensably necessary to be known of God, it knows nothing at all, of the eternal existence of the one individual nature of God in three persons.”
In other words, knowledge of the Triune nature of God is indispensable to knowing God truly and rightly understanding the kind of cosmos we live in. Any other conception of God is, as Paul wrote, “a vain imagination.” Not surprisingly, Jesus says that those who do not believe in who He is as the final revelation of God “worship what you do not know” (John 4:22, NKJV). Sobering words.
Applying the Foregoing to My Assessment of the Democrat Party
Here is my assessment:
I see little to no evidence that the leaders of the Democratic Party (or, for that matter, many of its members) have come “by the light of nature” (or otherwise) to understand and appreciate “the being, nature, and properties of God.”
And that carries with it certain consequences that can lead to what theologians called “reprobation.”[ii] It comes from a Latin word meaning condemned.
The Apostle Paul explains the steps toward reprobation.
The First Step in the Democratic Party’s Reprobation
The Apostle says the reprobated “knew God,” but “they did not glorify Him as God nor were [they] thankful” (Romans 1:21, emphasis supplied). As a direct result they “became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21 NKJV).
Consequently, “professing to be wise, they became fools” (Rom 1:22 NKJV) This is what their foolishness brings upon them:
Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (Rom 1:24-25, NKJV, emphasis supplied)
When God simply lets go—says, “You want it your way? Have at it”—one is on the road to reprobation.
Applying this verse to the Democrat Party and its leaders, Man is the creature they have put in God’s place and at whose feet they worship.
Increasingly, they believe individuals should go beyond worshiping Man, understood collectively, to each worshiping himself or herself as evidenced by the Party’s belief that transgender and non-binary theory can be “exchanged” for the glory of God in man and woman as made in the image of God. “Live your truth” sums up the deification of the individual.
The Second Step in the Democratic Party’s Reprobation
Then the Apostle explains step two in the process of reprobation, what the first “exchange” and “giving over” comes to if there is no intervening repentance:
For this reason God gave them up to vile passions.
Here’s what this stage of reprobation looks like:
For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. (Romans 1:26-27)
Notice the progression from heart to passions to specific forms of conduct. However, all is not lost yet.
Reprobation of the Democratic Reprobation Completed
This is the final “giving over.” The now debased mind leads to a host of other things, which I would sum up as becoming “confounded”:
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful… (Romans 1:28-31 NKJV)
That seems to me to describe the Democrat Party.
Thus, I believe it is done in God’s sight; put a fork in it. All that’s left is the final nail being put in the coffin by a means of God’s choosing and the dirge.
Application to Republican Party Leaders
The leaders of the Republican Party ought not to gloat over its recent political wins or my assessment of the Democrat Party.
The Republican Party is not far behind in its disdain for God when its platform urges Americans to call on the “Spirit of America” as the way we can return to the glory days that this Spirit is said to have brought us to.
It seems the “light of nature” is so dim among Republican leaders that their Platform didn’t think it important to call on “God,” even if in a generic form.
In sum, I believe the Republican Party is going to be right behind the Democrat party’s funeral march if its leaders do not regain their footing on abortion, same-sex marriage, transgenderism, and homosexuality.
Why Do I Pick on Republican Leaders About These Four Issues?
The reason for my judgment about the Republican Party rests on the fact those four issues most clearly bespeak a worship of Man over God as revealed in the image of God, namely, as man and woman who He created to be fruitful, not sterile. Sterility is the defining feature of all four.
“Sterile Man” is substituted for what it means to be human over what is revealed about God by His Man—Jesus Christ. The Party’s “new man” is substituted for God’s new[iii] man, Jesus Christ, as the object of worship and service.
Application to Protestant Denominations
I could not make this assessment but for what I say about myself under the next heading, but I believe some of the “evangelical” institutional denominations and their “independent” groupings may not be far behind these two political parties if they do not recover their “first love.”[iv]
I’m not speaking about an emotive type of love one might have for a police officer who lets you off for breaking the law, God being the great Policeman in the Sky.
I’m talking about the love that arises from and matures in those who are “known by Him” (Galatians 4:9), not those who think they do because of all their religious service. Jesus said he didn’t know those in the latter group. See Matthew 7:21-23.[v]
The love I am talking about is that which increases in proportion to the increase one has “in the knowledge of the Son of God” (Ephesians 4:13; Ephesians 1:17, Philippians 3:8, Colossians 2:2; 2 Peter 1:2-3, 8; 2 Peter 1:8, 3:18), as revealed in the person and offices of Christ (too many verses to cite).
Now here’s the hard part—application.
Let me suggest that pastoral teaching that does not go beyond Christ’s office as priest pertaining to salvation is not teaching the “whole counsel of God.” Acts 20:27. Abstract, contentless declarations that God is sovereign are insufficient.
Moreover, to “search the scriptures” only for moral and ethical rules of behavior befitting a Christian descendant of Abraham, which the Jews were guilty of doing, is not the gospel. Rather it receives the rebuke of Jesus for missing the whole point of the whole revelation of God from Genesis 1 forward! See John 5:39, NKJV ("You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.”). All of who Jesus is is the point of the story from beginning to end, as I explain at the end of the next section.
I believe denominations that increasingly fall captive to this kind of limited, narrowly defined “gospel” may find themselves headed toward death like the church at Ephesus absent a sweeping and cleansing repentance.
How God Marked “Closed” on My Road to Reprobation
I am impelled to speak so forthrightly about these admittedly hard things for one reason: I was raised in good and honorable churches, yet I did not realize I was well on my way to reprobation until this happened about 5 or 6 years ago:
[T]he God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, shone in [my] heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6, NKJV).
Please do not look lightly over what is said here. The light contributed nothing to its coming into existence or shining.
I speak so plainly about reprobation and about my experience, because I can’t bear the thought that any would think that the work of God’s mercy and grace comes about in any person any differently, whether filling a pulpit, sitting in a pew, or reveling in “a den of iniquity.” That God’s command brings about something that wasn’t there is the whole point of the preceding analogy.
I know from experience that the road to reprobation can be made easy by padded pews and worship bands. On the flip side, God can command His light to shine into a dark den of iniquity.
A Directional Sign on the New Road
All that can be done by those upon whom God has shone this light is to humbly give thanks and then worship and adore Him. That’s a sign one is on a new road.[vi]
And why this response? Because they know God is graciously working to restore the image of God in them as they are “formed” (Galatians 4:19) by the indwelling Holy Spirit into the image of Christ “who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). It is the restoration of Adams and Eves.
I’ve got a long way to go in this process of restoration, but in great mercy, God marked my road to reprobation “closed.”
But here is the larger point: this restorative work of God is the gospel, short and simple.
Why Write So Straightforwardly Knowing Many Will Be Offended?
I write so boldly only because of what we are told in Acts 17 of the response Paul got when he confronted the false beliefs held by the wise men of his day:
And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, "We will hear you again on this matter" (v. 32, emphasis supplied).
That small group who wanted to know more and others like them were used by God, in due time, to bring Christ to the Roman empire. And in that way God, not effective politics, changed the empire.
So, I’m praying some, whether presently Democrats, Republicans, Pastors, Priests, or pew-sitters, may find themselves wanting to be likewise used by God in our country.
While FACT will continue to work on legislation at the State Capitol, I will begin working fulltime toward this larger end in the new year. If God stirs in you a heart for this, contact me at senatorfowler@gmail.com.
[i] His comment pertains to Romans 1:19-20, NKJV (“because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown [it] to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible [attributes] are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse”).
[ii] Reprobation is given little treatment in churches today. Many pastors today subtly and perhaps unwittingly make the sovereignty of man ultimate over the sovereignty of God. Those who like to reserve to man some sovereign control often do so by twisting the doctrine of reprobation to mean God “changes” certain people into sinners or “elects” certain persons to be sinners destined to Hell, which, if true, would make God the Father mean and cruel, even into the Devil. So, to “save” God, they effectively rob him of sovereignty by saying we choose God. But that is necessary if only ultimate causation (God) is recognized, and secondary causation (Man) is denied. Our actions are real causes, but because God’s being is distinct from space and time, He is free to work with, against, or beyond what we do. This denial of real secondary causes is consistent with pantheism and its non-religious counterpart, evolution, but it cannot be reconciled with a belief in the inspiration of the Scripture as the real Word of God. The ultimate cause for Scripture’s infallibility is that all of it is God-breathed,” but all of it was written by men as the secondary cause. The story of Pharaoh’s hardening should also be instructive regarding this fallacy.
[iii] 1 Corinthians 15:45, 47, NKJV (“And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. ... The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven.”). Christ is God’s “new man.”
[iv] Let me suggest that consideration be given to the forewarned judgment given to the church in Ephesus which, to me, it seems to remain under. Revelation 2:4-5, NKJV ("Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.”).
[v] Mathew 7:21-23, NKJV ("Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'”).
[vi] Isaiah 35:7-8, NKJV (“The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water; in the habitation of jackals, where each lay, there shall be grass with reeds and rushes. A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, But it shall be for others. Whoever walks the road, although a fool, shall not go astray.”) (emphasis supplied).
