Unpopular Opinions

How To Stop the Bastardy Epidemic (with divorce thrown in for good measure)

2012-01-18T10:09:00.000-08:00

Virtue cannot be legislated, but behavior patterns can be reinforced or counteracted. The wise legislator devises laws to encourage responsible behavior and discourage behavior harmful to the individual and the community long-term.

1. No male legally required to provide (financially or in any other way) for the support of a child conceived and born out-of-wedlock.

2. State aid to unwed mothers cut off one year after the birth of the first illegitimate child.

3. In no-fault divorces, full child custody automatically awarded to the father.

4. Illegitimate offspring forbidden by law to receive any portion of the father's estate.

5. The eldest surviving son conceived in wedlock required by law to receive a double portion of his father's estate (Deuteronomy 21:15-17).

Quotation of the Day

2012-01-03T13:52:00.000-08:00

Alan D. Strange writes,

"NL2K [W2K]... seems to be about an absolute dualism that has no integration point, a problem in any system. We must account for both unity and diversity, not simply diversity. I would say that the cosmic Christ who rules over all (and the church in a particular way) is the integration point.

"You may not think that Frame is getting it right, and that he’s all oneness without the proper distinction(s). But the solution is not diversity without unity, because God (who is three persons) is also one in His Trinitarian nature and Jesus Christ is one in the integrity of his theanthropic person in the Incarnation. A dualism that remains a true dualism will never do, any more than Tri-Theism or Nestorianism will.

"This one and many business is difficult stuff, I admit, but the Bible never solves it with an either/or but with a both/and that transcends our reasoning. That Christ is the head and king of the church does mean that He is not the king over all creation. And that the Scriptures teach us the way of justification does not mean that they do not teach us how to live as well (because sanctification is part of our redemption; not part of our justification or adoption, but part of our salvation)."

Unclaimed Territory

2011-11-16T17:45:00.000-08:00

There needs to be lands unclaimed by any sovereign state. Where else will the banished go?

Guilt made Personally Manageable

2011-10-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

In order for Protestantism to work, the gravity of each sin must be flattened out to equal the gravity of every other sin. Though some Protestants hold to "degrees" of sin, for all Protestants every sin must be forgivable through the mechanism of a private act of faith.

In Protestantism, there can be no such thing as grave or mortal sin *normally* requiring the intervention of a higher ministerial / sacramental agency. Nor must forgiveness ever depend upon some consequent act of repentance, much less some restitutive token.

At best, some sort of "memory healing" might be attempted in order that psychological wholeness be restored.

Protestantism has simplified the problem of guilt to what concerns God and the individual alone and what may be managed within the individual's subjective state.

The Protestant project depends for its validity on whether guilt is simply the imputation of personal sin. But if guilt is a condition and more: the state of a community of persons--if guilt is a network of disordered relationships its remedy cannot be applied solely in the realm of private subjectivity.

And here we come to the necessity that faith be not reduced to a movement of a creaturely mind (knowledge, assent, and trust), but must be a public objective reality transcending individual minds.

On Psychiatry

2011-09-23T09:14:00.000-07:00

From Susan Lindauer’s Amazon review of Thomas Szasz’ Psychiatry: The Science of Lies:

...by its own standards of mental illness, psychiatry has arguably become a disease in itself. Its practitioners are marked by symptoms of grandiosity, narcissism, and excessive controlling behaviors to the point of psychotic obsession and delusions of power over other lives. One suspects that beneath the grandiosity lies an essential mediocrity and an overwhelming need to reduce others to a lowest common denominator, so as to assert the superiority of the psychiatrists, and thus overcome their own innate insecurities at having been so ordinary. To compensate for this insecurity, they punish what is different, and plow seeds of self doubt into the consciousness of their targets.

Do you believe in the power of God?

2011-08-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

Or, is your trust in philosophical simplicity, lifeless Greek matter, and the disjunction between nature and grace? Do you shut God up in his heaven because--in the name of human freedom--he must be banished from the world? Has not the Church been turned into a constitutional republic--a usurpation of the Kingdom--in the flight from ecclesiastical tyranny? Is not the contest between high and low church the ecclesiastical equivalent of the neverending conflict between political right and left?

Canonizations and Infallibility

2011-08-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

From today's Zenit news story of the same title:
"Therefore it is clear that the consistory does not imply an exercise of infallibility. On the one hand, the Holy Father delegated the declaration to a cardinal; second, it consisted in the proclamation of a date of canonization -- and not in the canonization itself.
"The exercise of infallibility comes only when the pope himself proclaims a person a saint. The proclamation is made in a Latin formula of which we offer an approximate translation:

"In honor of the Holy Trinity, for the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the increase of the Christian life, with the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul and of Our Own, after long reflection, having invoked divine assistance many times and listened to the opinion of many of our Brothers in the Episcopate, We declare and define as Saint Blessed N. and inscribe his/her name in the list of the saints and establish that throughout the Church they be devoutly honored among the saints."

How to Read the Old Testament

2011-08-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

Everything has to be understood in light of the ministry of Jesus. For example, King David is a type of the ultimate Priest-King who was to arise in the Order of Melchizedek. There is much in the Psalms that points to specific details of Christ's ministry. On a purely grammatico-historical reading much in the OT the NT writers apply to Christ would be ruled out as metaphorical language for the spiritual situation of OT Israel/ Israelites alone. The early Church then drew applications for the new covenant ministry by spiritual analogy to Christ's office.

If we presuppose two stages of hermeneutical continuity between:

1) OT type & NT anti-type, and
2) Christ's royal priesthood & the Church's royal priesthood,

many important spiritual applications can be (and were) made for Church order and worship.

We should generally assume that the ancient universal practices in the Church were based on a spiritual hermeneutic we are obliged to ourselves receive and unqualified to reject. This spiritual hermeneutic is none other than the Christian Faith in operation as the Scriptures are opened.

The Dictatorship of Newspapermen

2011-08-18T06:42:00.000-07:00

Bonald writes:

It’s funny the way people assume that a necessary and sufficient condition for being “well informed” is that he follows all the medias latest reports of hooliganism. Knowing about Newtonian mechanics, the Bible, Confucian ethics, etc are all optional, but the New York Times is supposed to be essential. I admit that knowledge of ephemeral affairs is crucial for the functioning of a democracy, but this is just one more reason why democracy is a bad idea. To vote, the citizen must know about current affairs, so he goes to the media and becomes its mental slave. Thus democracy must lead to the dictatorship of newspapermen.

Preach it!

Our Bounden Duty and Service

2011-08-18T06:30:00.000-07:00

According to the Anglican tradition, it is principally during the service of Holy Communion that the people of God offer their collective “sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” to God. After the Sursum Corda, the Presbyter says to the people, “Let us give thanks unto our Lord God.” The people respond, “It is meet and right so to do.” The Presbyter then turns to the Lord’s Table and says, “It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God.” Then, the Presbyter declares an intention to join with the host of Heaven in praise and leads the congregation in recitation of the Sanctus.

Therefore, as Divine worship ascends to the very throne of Heaven, we affirm that it is obligatory, fitting, and proper to render worship in a reverent way, performed to the best of our ability and, where appropriate, to employ fine craftsmanship, artistic excellence, and beautiful music to enhance its expression. We reject any insinuation that Divine worship per se takes food out of the mouth of the poor, serves only to puff up the pride of the Pharisaical, distracts from genuine spiritual worship, or serves as a means to some other end.

Later,on behalf of the congregation, in the Prayer of Oblation the Presbyter says, “we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee...” imploring the Lord to accept “this our bounden duty and service; not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This corporate offering is offered to the Father only in and through the mediatorial intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Church’s great High Priest.

Therefore, we affirm that in the service of Holy Communion the People of God, as a corporate body, offer their lives in service to the Lord through the merits and mediation of the Lord Jesus. We affirm that true personal faith is absolutely necessary in order to receive any subjective benefit accruing from this sacred action. Nevertheless,the objective efficacy of the sacred action is not in any way dependent upon the personal faith, or diminished by the personal sins, of the Presbyter or members of the congregation.

Kingdom or Nation-State?

2011-08-16T16:13:00.000-07:00

My friend Charles Bartlett writes:

Republicanism seems to represent a major shift in history, and perhaps related to this is the problem of modern sovereignty. In writing this essay, I sort woke up to some dangers with classical nationalism v. imperialism. Popular sovereignty and contract theory have done their nasty work in the church. This begins with beliefs regarding the loci of political freedom. Contract theory would start with those inalienable rights belonging to the individual in a fictional state of purine nature which then transfers over to a constitutional governance according to sound reason. In contrast, divine right would begin with the freedom of God who has declared a divine order upon the earth prior to the fall of man where the King fills is given an office in temporal affairs to punish wickedness while acting as a supreme warden in the church. Rather than start with the individual in a state of poetic nature, divine right begins with the order of man as it is willed from heaven, namely, appointed headship.

However, the king properly executed is not a tyrant. He is constrained by 1. the laws of God, and, 2. the oaths which his predecessors or himself have rightly pledged. From #2 we derive a sort of constitutionalism which upholds custom and established rights. Yet, #2 would be those rights established over time with various corporations of society. A ‘corporation’ might be a city, guild, manor, or many divers households. What emerges is a graded society each corporation possessing their own rank and dignity, some with more or less freedom/duty plus a fairly complex system of formal and informal law backing such.

Modern nationalism, with its fictional individualism, sweeps this all aside into a single “third estate”, and everyone is given an equal freedom or lack thereof. To me, this is tyranny because 1. it is based upon a false notion of sovereignty (beginning with the nature of fallen man rather than God’s grace) and 2. equality is given without a distinction of precedent, duty, or service, eliminating the possibility of higher freedom. In terms of countries, this makes colonies and dominions equal to Kingdom(s) from which they originate, much as a child might be erroneously treated as a peer to his father. The idea of a graded community is lost. I can see how this principle further translates to the citizenry within the nation-state or even the particular church; hence, democratic social contractions.

In contrast, Empire is maintained upon the principle of households or corporations, ranking the heads of each. Both Israel and the primitive church seem to have functioned upon this model. This allowed the incorporation of both local and universal principles since a “household” was predicated upon a subsidiarity authority (of ‘fathers’) yet nonetheless each was joined to the whole through mediums of greater ‘heads’(sic., barons, dukes, earls, marques, princes, et al.). This allowed a ranking between kingdoms without their elimination as such. I don’t believe nationalism is capable of this because modern or liberal federalism lacks the corporate, subsidarian character– mostly, a’gradedness’ that permits diversity minus chaos. In the church, this ‘empire’ would correspond to ranks of bishops (metropolitans, archbishops, patriarchs, even a ‘pope’) which the old ecclesia had plenty.

Moral Clarity

2011-08-16T08:21:00.000-07:00

Granted, moral truths do not exist in the same *way* as the mundane facts of experience.

They are on a different level; they have a higher status. They are more durable.

I’m *more certain* that torturing human babies is evil than I am about most facts of my experience. Most of the facts I’ve known I've forgotten. Moral knowledge seems to have more “sticking power” in memory than knowledge of mundane facts.

Pascal's Wager

2011-08-11T23:31:00.000-07:00

I will to believe.

You will to believe nothing.

You lose.

Truth Usurped

2011-08-11T23:20:00.000-07:00

The totalitarian ideology of tolerance is an assault on truth and reason itself. Neither Iran, Tsarist Russia, or Tudor England were so audacious as to attempt such a thing.

Tolerance is the false prophet that compels all, the small and the great, to worship human choice as God.

Idolatrous Choice, elevated to the ultimate methodological principle, above truth, where human choice determines truth, where it cannot be said or even thought that the constitution of the natural family is superior to the constitution of a homosexual “family,” or that homosex is inferior to heterosex, is a crime against the world itself.

Through the black magic of tolerance, the safest place on earth–the human womb–transmogrifies into a death chamber.

Tolerance, by inverting choice and truth, assaults Reason.

Liberals instinctively suppress the distinction between the actual and the hypothetical in thought.

How? When choice is God, reality is conceived as the product of the human mind’s operations. The human mind becomes then the Master of Reality, and as soon as the hypothetical is entertained as a possibility, the liberal is so very close to birthing a new world out of his brain.

Will-worship is the original sin: "Hath God said? You shall not surely die, but shall be as gods, determing good and evil."

The Life is in the Blood

2011-08-09T07:54:00.000-07:00

Last week, I laid out the beginnings of a trinitarian account of the human family. I'd like to elaborate a little more on the subject.

Just as it was "not good for the man to be alone" in Eden, the human male desires fellowship with his own kind. And, because he is created in the image of God, he desires to produce offspring in imitation of his heavenly Father.

The Lord God gave Adam a "help-meet" to accomplish this purpose, which purpose is articulated explicitly in the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28-29. The Woman was given to Man to assist him in his work, a common endeavor for the entire human race to fulfill.

As the Holy Ghost proceeds first from the Father, so, analogically, the Woman was drawn from Man's side.

In the divine economy (not to be confused with what theologians call the "Economic Trinity") the Spirit of Love proceeds (or spirates) outward from the Father and cooperates in the generation (or filiation) of the Son. Here, I'm not sure whether it's correct to say the Holy Ghost participates in the activity of filiation. The Son then returns adoration to the Father by sending the Spirit back to the Father.* The circle is thus complete, but the process continues as paternal gift eternally giving and filial response eternally returning ever ascend in joyful fellowship.

[*This may well aid us in understanding the NT teaching that the Son is the express Image of the Father's Person (cf. 2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3) illuminated and reflecting back the Father's glory.]

As I wrote last week, in the human economy "the natural constitution of the human race is familial. It was originally thus, and so it will always be until the end of time. The normal transmission of human heritage (goods both material and immaterial) has been from parent to offspring, especially from the father to his firstborn son. It is hoped that the bond of blood energized by the synergy of paternal love and filial adoration, will provide the medium for the successful transmission of parental aspirations and values (duties and rights). In this way, a family spirit is spirated (produced through spiration) and perpetuated within the family community."

As the human mother is the biological link between the human father and his offspring, so the mother is the medium and embodiment of familial love. The mother is the glory of the human family; she is the heart of the home. Meant to forever dwell in the bosom of her husband, in intimate fellowship with him, her body that both housed and nurtured her children remains the symbol of self-giving love that forever inspires their undying affection and loyalty.

There is a beautiful proportionality here. The child loves his father through his mother; the father loves his child through his wife. The woman finds her completion, her fulfillment, in the synergy of paternal-filial love; the man-father accomplishes his created purpose to be a father; and in the child-offspring a new life with new potential enters the world.

This new potential is twofold. Together, the father and mother watch with pride as their male offspring initiates a new process of paternal spiration and filiation. Together, they look on with happiness as their daughter, who they have given to another, realizes her feminine destiny of embodied love. In these ways, human love is conserved and perpetuated in humanity, and shared with other human families. Thus, the command to be fruitful and multiply is accomplished.

This is life! This is joy!

Postscript: During Holy Communion last Sunday I had opportunity to consider anew the gift of the blood of Christ. It seems to me that reception of the blood of Jesus makes us literally part of his natural family, i.e., of his blood, through a mysterious spiritual action effected by the Holy Spirit. The Son of God assumed our flesh that he might sustain us by his Life, the same Life that was shared in the divine Trinity since before the worlds were created.

The Dust of the Ground

2011-08-08T11:07:00.000-07:00

The Lord God said to Adam: "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." (Gen. 3: 17-19)
"And the Lord God said to the serpent: 'Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and the beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.'" (Genesis 3:14)

Some "food" for thought here. God didn't curse Adam, he cursed the ground. He decreed a fate for the man; Adam was consigned to toil in futility and return to the ground. Because of Adam, the earth was made into a realm of death.
The serpent is cursed also. He is to crawl upon the earth and eat dust. The serpent's portion is to dominate and ingest the dead. The dead are given to him for his food.
Hell is not the prescribed punishment for sin simpliciter (there may be an additional penalty worked by the wrath of the Mosaic Law); death is. Hell wasn't made for man; it was prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41).
If a release is secured enabling the dead to escape the belly of the dragon before he (the dragon) is cast into the lake of fire, there doesn't seem to be a strict requirement of justice demanding eternal punishment for sin in itself.

The curse of death and the curse of the Law don't seem to be the same thing; they appear to refer to different penalties.
Perhaps this is how we ought to read Romans 5:12-14:
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, etc."
Questions to consider: Is there a difference between sin and imputable sin? What makes sin imputable?

Quotation of the Day

2011-08-08T10:08:00.000-07:00

A hermit once said, "Life without limitations is not for human beings... Life needs a frame. Everyone has limits, with good reason. You need some spirituality to understand and accept that."

Illegitimate but Valid: The American Founding

2011-08-02T13:36:00.000-07:00

In the previous post it was asserted:

“The liberal order is illegitimate, but valid. Every power that exists is dependent upon divine sovereignty as manifested in the rule of Christ the Lord. All governments reign at the will and sufferance of Christ.”

To explain my meaning, legitimacy is here construed as the regular transmission of ancestral patrimony to successive heirs. In a word, legitimacy is summed up in continuity, the maintenance of the horizontal link to one’s origins. Within this continuity, the universal fatherhood of God (Cf. Luke 3:38) operates in a beneficent, sustaining way.

The natural constitution of the human race is familial. It was originally thus, and so it will always be until the end of time. The normal transmission of human heritage (goods both material and immaterial) has been from parent to offspring, especially from the father to his firstborn son. It is hoped that the bond of blood energized by the synergy of paternal love and filial adoration, will provide the medium for the successful transmission of parental aspirations and values (duties and rights). In this way, a family spirit is spirated (produced through spiration) and perpetuated within the family community.

This, I believe, is the authentic meaning of Leviticus 17:11 when it says, “The life of the flesh is in the blood.”

The family precedes the state. Fathers, mothers, offspring, and the institution itself all precede the state. The state does not create the family, nor is the state the overseer of family affairs. The family is the first state and does not cede its original integrity to derivative integrities.
Parallel sovereignties don't work. The only way to preserve the independent integrity of the family is to raise it above the state, where it belongs. This is the genius of hereditary monarchy: the father of a particular family embodies his nation’s patrimony in concrete form above positive (man-made) law.
The American patrimony is more than the proposition “all men are created equal,” which is true in a particular sense only. There is a whole American way of life: “mother and apple pie.” Without a First Family embodying and transmitting these aspirations and values from generation to generation, the continued survival of the national spirit is much less assured.
Artificial communications media driven by the supply and demand of commercial interests seem a paltry substitute for the bonds of blood and natural affection.
The American Founders appealed to a direct vertical relationship that exists between every individual person and God. On this view, sovereignty is dispersed throughout the mass and is not located in any particular office or institution. The people are free to organize themselves in whatever way they think best to secure collective peace and happiness.

Completely left out of this arrangement are the prerogatives of family written in the law of nature. The family as an institution with its own constitution is dissolved into the “People” or subjected to their synthetic instruments of power. The fundamental composition of the human race is subverted or, at best, marginalized.

The Lord Jesus reigns from Heaven. Law and order issue from his throne. He has direct dealings with every individual person. Earthly justice prevails to the degree individual lives are able to exert horizontal moral influence upon the community. Divine justice is operative only in a vertical way. Yet, to this point God has blessed America with relative order, peace, and prosperity.
The government of the United States is valid as long as it continues to provide order and security to its citizens. But, legitimacy has never really been established. Integral divine justice (on the horizontal historical plane) is lacking.
The American spirit disembodied as it is, has disintegrated and will disintegrate further. As the politicians, lawyers, and media celebrities who guide this country drift further away from faithful service to the original ideal, it will become clear that the center has hollowed out, dispersed into the ether. Eventually, the center will be unable to sustain the allegiance of the citizenry, and a nation for which no one is willing to sacrifice is not long for this world.
It is my belief that a revival of the American spirit is only possible through a new engagement of national life with familial life. The American spirit must be adopted into the human family and partake of its life, which is in turn sustained by the fatherhood of God operative in both nature and grace. We Americans must learn to honor our fathers so that we may live long in the land our divine Father has granted us.

When our Side Commits Atrocities

2011-07-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

On July 22, 2010 terrible acts of terror were perpetrated against the people of Norway. The individual who committed these horrible acts will not be named on this web log. May his name be blotted out, but may we never forget his atrocity.

At this writing, seventy-six people, mostly young people, are dead. Please join me in prayer to God for the repose of their souls.

These murders were evil in the sense that all murders are evil, but they do not rise to the level of unadulterated irrational evil either. I have never considered the 9-11 terrorists to be evil in this sense. They are enemies who must be taken seriously and effectively dealt with (killed).

I respect my enemy enough to want him dead if he refuses to live at peace with me.

The shoe is on the other foot now. Although, really, it's always been. It's difficult to explain when the folks on your side, who generally favor the same cultural program and even the same religion, commit atrocities.

Back in 1995, I was stupid enough to think that the person identified as responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing might have been framed. I was disgusted (and still am) by the sanctimonious and saccharine memorial ceremonies that followed. I did not feel the memory of the slain were best honored in these ways. Plus, it's hard to take seriously any proceeding officiated by Bill "I Feel Your Pain" Clinton.

Regardless, the Oklahoma attack was committed by one of our own. It is pure delusion to think otherwise.

After the 9-11 attacks, which I saw as an attack on all Americans, regardless of ideology or religious commitment, I was much more disposed to participate with my fellow citizens in mourning. I am an American and am loyal to my government and nation.

Persons who happen to be Muslim aren't the only people capable of cruelty and lawlessness. Patriotic Americans and even (choke) Christians are also capable of these things.

Jesus said, "Love your enemies," and "Bless those who persecute you." These commands are obligatory for all Christians, all who name the name of Christ. Yet, they presuppose the possibility that actual enemies exist.

"Peter, put up thy sword."

I agree with the Norwegian terrorist that liberals are enemies of Christian civilization, but Christian civilization was rejected over two centuries ago. Christendom has effectively been quarantined at the Vatican.

Liberals are the genuine heirs of the revolutionaries that fashioned a new civilization ("Western Civilization") out of the materials of the old Christendom, and are now unintentionally destroying it from within through the consistent pursuit of openly avowed principles.

The difference between liberals and radical Muslims is that liberals aren't engaged in open war upon the current Western order, in fact they are its true proponents. They believe that their way will secure lasting justice, peace, and prosperity. In this, they are mistaken.

I am afraid as the situation in Europe deteriorates further, there will be more bloodshed. More lawless men will arise, driven mad by the irrationalites and injustices of the liberal order, who will take matters into their own hands. Their activites will only serve to destabilize authority, law, and order. Who knows what will become of our nations and peoples?

The liberal order is illegitimate, but valid. Every power that exists is dependent upon divine sovereignty as manifested in the rule of Christ the Lord. All governments reign at the will and sufferance of Christ.

Christian brothers, do not give way to wrath. Let us work diligently together within the confines of the established order to secure legitimacy and peace by lawful means alone.

"Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law...

"For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself...

"Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."

The Difference between Social Conservatism and Christianity

2011-06-02T09:32:00.000-07:00

"Neither the slaughter of the unborn nor sodomy nor egalitarianism are 'social' issues. Rather, they are at the heart of the Devil's attack upon the souls of our world, today, and the pastor who believes his silence on these matters demonstrates a superior gift of contextualization is ignorant of the basic attributes of those men called and set apart by God to warn their flocks 'day and night, with tears.'

"Warnings against such wickedness are throughout the prophets and the letters of the Apostle Paul. Men think of these things as 'social' issues because they haven't a clue about the sins of the souls who are members of their churches... and so they believe to pray and warn and call for confession of these sins is to do politics, to be 'socially conservative.'

"...The man who refuses to address the sins seducing and destroying souls within his congregation may well be a social conservative, but he's no pastor and should be no model for other pastors."

-Tim Bayly

The Family and the Commonwealth

2011-04-29T09:46:00.000-07:00

A COMMONWEALTH may be defined as the rightly ordered government of a number of families, and of those things which are their common concern, by a sovereign power...

[Here, Bodin includes three elements in his definition of a commonwealth: 1) families, 2) things of common concern, and 3) sovereign power. See below for his development of this idea.]

A family may be defined as the right ordering of a group of persons owing obedience to a head of a household, and of those interests which are his proper concern. The second term of our definition of the commonwealth refers to the family because it is not only the true source and origin of the commonwealth, but also its principal constituent.

Xenophon and Aristotle divorced economy or household management from police or disciplinary power, without good reason to my mind [here the abridgement leaves out Bodin's argument]...

I understand by domestic government the right ordering of family matters, together with the authority which the head of the family has over his dependants, and the obedience due from them to him, things which Aristotle and Xenophon neglect. Thus the well-ordered family is a true image of the commonwealth, and domestic comparable with sovereign authority. It follows that the household is the model of right order in the commonwealth. And just as the whole body enjoys health when every particular member performs its proper function, so all will be well with the commonwealth when families are properly regulated.

The law says that the people never dies, but that after the lapse of a hundred or even a thousand years it is still the same people. The presumption is that although all individuals alive at any one moment will be dead a century later, the people is immortal by succession of persons, as was Theseus' ship which lasted as long as pains were taken to repair it. But a ship is no more than a load of timber unless there is a keel to hold together the ribs, the prow, the poop and the tiller. Similarly a commonwealth without sovereign power to unite all its several members, whether families, colleges, or corporate bodies, is not a true commonwealth.

It is neither the town nor its inhabitants that makes a city state, but their union under a sovereign ruler, even if they are only three households. Just as the mouse is as much numbered among animals as is the elephant, so the rightly ordered government of only three households, provided they are subject to a sovereign authority, is just as much a commonwealth as a great empire. The principality of Ragusa, which is one of the smallest in Europe, is no less a commonwealth than the empires of the Turks and the Tartars, which are among the greatest in the world. ...

But besides sovereign power there must also be something enjoyed in common such as the public domain, a public treasury, the buildings used by the whole community, the roads, walls, squares, churches, and markets, as well as the usages, laws, customs, courts, penalties, and rewards which are either shared in common or of public concern. There is no commonwealth where there is no common interest...

Jean Bodin (1530–1596) was a French jurist and political philosopher, member of the Parlement of Paris and professor of law in Toulouse. He is best known for his theory of sovereignty.

Bodin lived during the Reformation, writing against the background of religious and civil conflict - particularly that, in his native France, between the (Calvinist) Huguenots and the state-supported Catholic Church. He remained a Catholic throughout his life but was critical of papal authority in temporal governments and was sometimes accused of crypto-Calvinism. Towards the end of his life he wrote a dialogue between different religions, including representatives of Judaism, Islam and natural theology, in which all agreed to coexist in concord.

An abridgement of Bodin's most famous work, The Six Books of the Commonwealth, may be downloaded here or read online here.

Saying Goodbye to the Neo-Reformed

2011-04-12T22:16:00.000-07:00

I gladly admit becoming interested in theology because of Rush Limbaugh. Through Limbaugh and his fellow "conservative" radio commentators, especially Dennis Prager, I was awakened to the threat of the left. Opposition to abortion and the normalization of sexual deviance played a role. Encountering the arguments of non-Christians and anti-Christians in informal discussion provided additional impetus.

C.S. Lewis and Gordon H. Clark (a lesser known Presbyterian thinker) equipped me with accessible tools to defend the intellectual respectability of Christianity. In time, their salutary influences led me to reject the world- withdrawing tendencies of the theology of my youth (the original dispensational premillennialism of John Nelson Darby) and to embrace a form of Christianity with better historic bona fides: Presbyterian-Reformed Protestantism. At least classical Protestants make an attempt to show they are true heirs of the Medieval and Ancient faith.

The transition from dispensationalism to covenant theology was easy to make because of perceived important continuities between what I was raised to believe and the older religion. Dispensationalists are Protestant after all.

In time, I grew to appreciate more fully the less controversial and more foundational elements of the faith.
I spent five years in the Reformed fold attending a Neo-Reformed church. [For those not in the know, Neo-Reformed Protestantism is a moniker for a particularly toxic blend of solafideism, anti-Evangelicalism, anti-theonomy, and defeatist amillennialism which characterizes the theology of whiz kid Michael Horton (and associates).] I had no idea I was getting sucked into another dispensational religion in disguise—a form even worse than traditional Dispensationalism because it rejects the perpetual election of ethnic Israel.

For purposes of full disclosure, it must be said that toward the end of this time, I even spent an abortive year attending the institution best known for propagating the Neo-Reformed agenda. I am not proud of my academic performance that year, and freely admit that disillusionment with Neo-Reformed ideology played only a small part in dropping out of the seminary.

The champions of divine sovereignty always seem to have problems affirming corporate election along with personal election.

The unregenerate mind doesn’t seem capable of grasping how even though a corporate body is elect, and all its members therefore elect while remaining in it, that God is free to grant final perseverance (as well as other spiritual blessings) to some only—if he so chooses.

Those who are vitally dedicated to denying the possibility of real corporate election deny the calling of Israel, and therefore serve a different god than the God who called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These same must also deny that the Church on earth is the same Church that will be glorified at the second coming of Christ.

These destroy by dividing, or, as they call it, by “distinguishing.” These confess two different churches: a visible church and an invisible church. These divide the sacraments. These divide Christ.

Thank God, the Neo-Reformed are not in control of the Reformed churches. Please God, may their influence be short-lived. But let the Reformed fight their own battles; I am done with them.

Marriage in the Resurrection?

2011-04-12T18:57:00.000-07:00

Readers who are interested in this subject should be sure to visit this site and download the paper entitled, "A Positive Case for the Continuation of Familial Structures into the Eschatological Age."

The paper is written from an evangelical and premilennial perspective, but is helpful for those of us who have other ecclesial commitments and eschatological perspectives. The paper has a fine discussion of Christ's teaching refuting the Saducees' objection to the Resurrection (Matt. 22:23-32; Mk. 12:18-27; Lk. 20:27-38).

Whether familial structures *might* persist into the eternal state is an important question that bears upon questions of continuity between the old and new creations, the supposed temporal value of marriage and family, and even--monarchy.

For instance, does Mary the mother of Jesus retain a maternal connection with her son? Is Jesus still the son of David? Is Jesus ethnically Jewish? Is Jesus presently reigning as King of Israel?

You see the point.

A Question for our Readers:

2011-04-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

Is it possible to have a sovereign power that is not absolute?

The Convocation Book 0f 1606, i.2

2011-04-12T07:44:00.000-07:00

TO him that shall duly read the Scriptures, it will be plain and evident that the Son of God, having created our first parents, and purposing to multiply their seed into many generations, for the replenishing of the world with their posterity, did give to Adam for his time, and to the rest of the patriarchs and chief fathers successively before the flood, authority, power, and dominion over their children and offspring, to rule and govern them ; ordaining by the law of nature, that their said children and offspring (begotten and brought up by them) should fear, reverence, honour, and obey them. Which power and authority before the flood, resting in the patriarchs, and in the chief fathers, because it had a very large extent, not only for the education of their said children and offspring, but likewise for the ordering, ruling, and governing of them afterwards, when they came to men's estate. And for that also it had no superior [authority, or power, over, or above] it on earth, appearing in the Scriptures, although it be called either patriarchal, regal, and imperial, and that we only term it potestas patria ; yet, being well considered how far it did reach, we may truly say that it was in a sort potestas regia ; as now, in a right and true construction, potestas regia may justly be called potestas patria.

CANON I.

If any man shall therefore affirm that men at the first, without all good education, or civility, ran up and down in woods, and fields, as wild creatures, resting themselves in caves, and dens, and acknowledging no superiority one over another, until they were taught by experience the necessity of government ; and that thereupon they chose some amongst themselves to order and rule the rest, giving them power and authority so to do ; and that consequently all civil power, jurisdiction, and authority, was first derived from the people, and disordered multitude ; or either is originally still in them, or else is deduced by their consents naturally from them ; and is not God's ordinance originally descending from Him, and depending upon Him, he doth greatly err.

PLACET EIS.

***

"Adam, the son of God"

2010-11-19T12:44:00.000-08:00

Back in 2006 I began to study the Epistle to the Hebrews. One of the prominent themes in that book is the concept of sonship. Both Hebrews and the Pauline corpus have developed theologies of sonship; for instance, they both oppose sonship to servitude. Through these studies I became convinced of the deep spiritual unity of the entire New Testament. Different emphases may be present in different writers, redemptive historical events may be organized and presented variously, but the substance is the same. The entire New Testament testifies to the divine Sonship of Jesus Christ.

In researching the genealogy of Jesus, I noticed for the first time the remarkable culmination of St. Luke's genealogical sequence: "Adam, the son of God." Adam was the first son of God to be born in the world. In biblical cosmology, firsts and lasts are always highly significant. The Lukan genealogy outlines the entire range of human development from its historical alpha, the first man, to its eschatological omega, the last Man.

Through his creative acts the Creator God introduces concrete principles into the world and superintends their development toward their appointed ends. These ends cannot be thwarted, though they can be delayed by creaturely free choice.

Adam was created after the divine Image, the eternal Son, and the created image, though defaced, was never effaced. Immediately after the first sin, the Lord sought out the man and his wife. God’s wrath is primarily directed at the serpent, though Adam and Eve must suffer the consequences of their sin. Chief among these consequences is the sentence of death that came upon them and all their posterity. And though Adam and Eve were banned from Eden, this was for their protection (Gen. 3:22-24). Our first parents were driven from Eden, while being simultaneously directed to hope in the Seed God would raise up to crush the serpent and, by implication, destroy death.

Cain, the first son of man to be born, was born outside of Eden. He was also the first murderer, committing the first act of fratricide. Following the first sin, these creaturely acts introduce other—alien—principles into the world. A necessary consequence of these is that the promised deliverer had to come through a younger son. The eschatological blessing was taken away from the eldest and devolved to a younger (though it must be maintained that natural inheritances still pass to the eldest unless forfeited).

We know Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God, and therefore the First; Adam and his race must then be sons only derivatively by way of participation in Him who is the incarnate divine Image. Jesus is also the younger Son of Man, born not by a (human) father’s will but through a Virgin. Jesus is the Seed of the Woman that was promised.

Jesus was born into the world as God’s beloved Son. The inheritance of all things predestined for him he possessed by right potentially, if not (yet) in actuality, by virtue of his Person. Jesus demonstrated the reality of his sonship by performing acts of filial piety culminating in the sacrifice of his life, but he never positively performed some work that meritoriously upgraded him all the way from the status of disfavor (non-sonship) to the status of favor (sonship) in the Father’s sight.

Indeed, Jesus did take upon himself the form of a servant, but he was always materially the Son. He assumed the form of servitude in order to exercise a universal High Priesthood in solidarity with all humanity. The prodigal son intuitively takes this form when he seeks to return to his father’s house. This is the expression of genuine contrition that a son ought to show after he realizes the enormity of his fault. Servitude is a self-inflicted condition after the Fall; it does not belong to the original order of things.

All this has been written to argue against the Federalist theory that God put man under the kind of legal contract under whose terms positive rewards were rendered for services strictly performed (the wages of servitude). Federal theology is a distortion of biblical teaching. It grossly underestimates the significance of the sonship-inheritance dynamic and conceives of humanity’s relation to God and Christ in purely extrinsic legal terms. Filial merit is essentially different than the merit of servitude, which always must fall short in comparison.

Adam never lost his natural status of divine sonship. This status can never be earned or lost; only its blessings can be forfeited through personal choice. Hell is the anguish of those sons of God who, through their own fault, are eternally deprived of their inheritance because they persist in impenitence. They want what they want on their own terms, not the Heavenly Father's.

What Would a Monarchy in America Look Like?

2010-11-08T17:29:00.000-08:00

I commend to the readers here the following articles by John C. Médaille:

On Democracy and Kings

A Real Catholic Monarchy

Monarchy and the American Constitution

John C. Médaille is a father of five, an adjunct Instrutor of theology at the University of Dallas, and a real estate agent in Irving, Texas. He has a web page devoted to "Distributivism and Catholic Social Teaching" and other subjects.

The Patriarchal Theory of the State

2010-11-08T14:51:00.000-08:00

I just came across this article over the weekend and thought UO readers would be interested in reading it. It's one of the finer statements I've read lately from the monarchist point of view.

My own perspective is fundamentally that of the patriarchal theory of the state. My understanding is that Adam was created head of the entire race and that fatherly authority was transmitted to his male offspring. In opposition to the theory that men are created as free and equal individuals, my view is that persons are first established in families and only achieve a degree of autonomy later. This autonomy has to be earned; and there is good and bad autonomy. However, the path of authentic personhood always involves honoring one's parents in obedience to God from whom every paternity in heaven and earth receives its name.

Furthermore, on my theory, society is essentially a network of families in covenant tied together by the bonds of faith, loyalty, mutual care, and blood. The state receives its legitimacy from its participation in the the divine rule of Christ who rules as everlasting Father by the will of his divine Father. To the degree a state departs from the divine pattern is the degree it departs from its taproot in Eden. A state departs from its purpose, i.e., to produce godly seed before the Lord, in direct proportion as it undermines the integrity of the nation's families.

Finally, the basic function of law is to protect the family and govern relationships between kinship groups, not enunciate the rights of individuals in abstract isolation from everything (and everyone!) else. Law should not prefer the abstract individual over the family, for the individual cannot exist without the family. Fathers have high privileges and grave responsibilities under this system that other persons do not, cannot, possess. Justice, in order to be just, must be applied in a way that honors the familial structure of the human race.

Selected Quotations

2010-11-03T20:50:00.000-07:00

"Monarchy is the one system of government where power is exercised for the good of all."

Aristotle, 322-384 BC.

"To be a king and wear a crown is more glorious to them that see it than it is a pleasure to them that bear it."

Queen Elizabeth I.

"They tell us that all Kings are bad; that God never made a King; and that all Kings are very expensive. But, that all Kings are bad cannot be true: because God himself is one of them; he calls himself King of Kings; which not only shows us he is a King, but he has other Kings under him: he is never called King of Republics. The Scripture calls Kings, the Lord’s Anointed; but who ever heard of an anointed Republic?"

Association Papers, London, 1793.

"A priest who is not a monarchist is not worthy to stand at the altar table. The priest who is a republican is always a man of poor faith. God himself anoints the monarch to be head of the kingdom, while the president is elected by the pride of the people. The king stays in power by implementing God’s commandments, while the president does so by pleasing those who rule. The king brings his faithful subjects to God, while the president takes them away from God."

Neomartyr Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kiev, tortured and killed by Bolsheviks on 7th February 1918.

"The monarchical principle is laughed at by vulgar and foolish people in all the suburbs of Europe. It is hated in all the gutters of the world. The reason is simple. It enshrines with a fitting dignity and elaboration the principle of authority as something independent of this or that politician. It places it above attack. It symbolises and consecrates an attitude of mind essential to the happiness of peoples."

D’Alvarez, Storm Over Europe, by Douglas Jerrold (1930), Chapter XII.

"Above the ebb and flow of party strife, the rise and fall of ministries, and individuals, the changes of public opinion or public fortune, the British Monarchy presides, ancient, calm and supreme within its function, over all the treasures that have been saved from the past and all the glories we write in the annals of our country."

Sir Winston Churchill.

"There is nothing about which I am more anxious than my country, and for its sake I am willing to die ten deaths, if that be possible."

Queen Elizabeth I, in 1564.

For more quotations, please visit the quotation page on the Constitutional Monarchy Association website.

More Unpopular Opinions

2010-10-27T18:19:00.000-07:00

1. There are gradations of sin, just as there are gradations of evil.

2. There will be gradations of reward and punishment in the afterlife.

3. Not all sin rises to a level demanding eternal punishment.

4. The curse of death and the curse of the law are not the same thing.

5. Justification at any one point does not include the forgiveness of future sins.

6. Justification is contingent upon personal repentance.

7. Justification can be lost.

8. Future salvation is attained through perseverance.

9. All men will be judged by God on the basis of their works.

Look for an upcoming post, "On the Sinfulness of Sin."

The Convocation Book 0f 1606, i.1

2010-10-10T23:05:00.000-07:00

AMONGST the rest of the titles and attributes of God in the Scriptures, which are common to the blessed Trinity, these following are three, viz. Creator, Lord of lords, and King of kings; which be there applied as well to the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, the second Person in the said blessed Trinity, as to God the Father, and to God the Holy Ghost. Agreeably whereunto, and not otherwise, our chief purpose being to imitate the Scriptures, in setting out and describing the Deity and dignity of our Saviour Christ, by His Almighty power, and universal government of all the world, as heir of all things, and head of His Church; we hold it fit to begin with His Divine power of creation: and thereupon in the sense aforesaid do affirm that He in the beginning did create both heaven and earth; and that amongst the rest of the creatures which He then made, He created our first parents, Adam and Eve, from whose loins mankind is descended.

I Tim. 6: 15
Rev. 19: 16
Joh. 1: 2
Heb. 1: 3,10
Col. 1:16
Prov. 8:22-31

CANON I.

If any man therefore shall affirm with any Pagan, Heretic, Atheist, or any other profane persons, which know not, or [believe] not the Scriptures, either that heaven and earth [had no beginning, or that] the earth was made by angels, or [the Devil; that the world was not] otherwise made by Christ, than [as He was an instrument of] of the Father for the making [of it; or that He did not, as God,] create our said parents, Adam [and Eve, he doth greatly err.

PLACET EIS.].

***

Introducing the Convocation Book of 1606

2010-10-10T22:28:00.000-07:00

John Overall, Bishop of Norwich

Susan Sarandon on her open-ended philosophy of relationships

2010-10-04T17:58:00.000-07:00

From the Telegraph interview:

"They [Sarandon and actor Tim Robbins] never considered marriage. 'I've always liked the idea of choosing to be with somebody,' says Sarandon, who has two sons, Jack and Miles, with Robbins, as well as an older daughter, Eva, 25, from a previous relationship with the director Franco Amurri.

"'I thought that if you didn't get married you wouldn't take each other for granted as easily. I don't know if after twentysomething years that was still true.'

...
"She implies that her relationship with Robbins ran its course. 'You bring people into your life at certain times. Maybe you have a relationship to have children and you realise that it's fulfilled after that point.'

...
"These days she does not take anything for granted. 'What I've realised in my old age is that your relationship with people or with your job has to be a growing organism,' she says.

"'It's not something where you reach a certain point and then you start preserving it. You have to nurture it, you have to stay curious and hungry and foolish. Once you stop doing that you get satisfied and you get stuck.'"

That's some deep wisdom there, Susan. Reeeeeal deep.

The Unpopular Opinionator Returns (Again): A Challenge to PC2K (formerly W2K)

2010-09-30T21:25:00.000-07:00

Today, the following challenge was issued to Darryl Hart over at Old Life Theological Society here. It'll be interesting to see if these questions are substantially addressed or whether they'll elicit the usual handwaving from Hart and Zrimec.

[Words in brackets are not in the original, but are added to clarify and expand the thought. Some original words are ~~crossed out~~ because they are unneccessary or too strong.]

****

Darryl,

I have followed your thoughts on this subject for several years now [Darryl and I had some feisty exchanges over at De Regno Christi back in the day. We are still nominally fellow contributors to the blog].

Allow me to attempt a summary of the Post-Constantinian 2K position [formerly referred to as W2K or R2Kt-- Westminster Two Kingdoms or Radical Two Kingdoms to differentiate the position from the Two Kingdoms views of the magisterial Reformers].

PC2K says:

1) Natural law (apart from special revelation) is a SUFFICIENT guide for establishing earthly justice and peace in the common grace economy.

2) Natural law ~~can ALWAYS~~ [CAN] be rightly used for its natural end (earthly justice and peace) without reference to its divine origin and ultimate purpose.

3) In the interest of preserving freedom of conscience and ecclesiastical purity [and earthly peace] you maintain it is ~~ABSOLUTELY~~ ILLEGITIMATE and undesirable for the common grace state to confess the Lordship of either the biblical God or Jesus Christ.

Is this a fair summarization of your position?

If so, then my responses will be:

1) How do you know?

2) How do you know?

3) How do you know?

I doubt you could appeal to general revelation alone to justify these absolute claims. I’d like to see you or any of your fellow travelers try. Perhaps you’ll appeal to the common intuitions of the majortiy of mankind. Those of us who do not have these intuitions are perhaps abnormal–freaks born with a deficiency of [moral] noetic content every normal person naturally possesses. Or perhaps, we have suppressed the truth in unrighteousness because we’re trying to achieve justification by works. Either way, we have either lost or never possessed what everybody else “just knows.”

However, you do appeal to special revelation to support your views. I’m still waiting for either…

a) Deductive proofs from Scripture that validly demonstrate the above claims; or

b) A historical demonstration that the consistent, overwhelming, teaching of the Western Christian tradition is distinctively PC2K (and not just 2K).

Darryl, absent the demonstrations, why should anyone take seriously subjective biblical interpretations and historical evaluations inspired by private intution?

***

Hart then retreats into his area of specialization (he's a historian) and that he is not being programmatic about... what? PC2K? He says he merely "observe[s] what has happened and where states and churches have been right and wrong."

He says that Calvin's Geneva was wrong to execute Servetus. By what standard does he judge the rightness or wrongness of this action? By natural law? How does natural law inform him that it is wrong to execute a heretic who won't shut up? Did the Israelites go against natural law when they destroyed pagan idolaters? Or, does God contravene the natural law when he commands Israel to destroy certain Canaanite groups and witches for their sincerely performed pagan practices?

Then Hart makes the claim that virtuous pagans can be more moral (over the long-run?) than the biblical patriarchs. He says natural law and general revelation enables him to explain this.

My response is below.

***

I don’t necessarily have a quarrel with the proposition that a given virtuous pagan may be more “moral” than a given biblical exemplar of faith. I just wouldn’t know how we could ascertain this for sure. How does natural law help us here?

You have read and studied the past more than I. History is your field. So what? Richard Dawkins knows more about biology than I do, but I’m not convinced of his evolutionary theories. I don’t know how “programmatic” Dawkins is, but he certainly has a program.

I can appreciate the moral revulsion one feels at the cruel and unusual sorts of punishments/ executions administered in the good ol’ days of Christendom. One of the first books that had a formative influence on me was Foxe’s Book of Martyrs containing lots of lurid woodcut scenes of man’s inhumanity to man. But is the banishment of intransigent heretics really prohibited? Is capital punishment really wrong for those who year-after-year publicly attack the sacral foundations of government authority?

At some point, emotional reactions need to be checked and positive principles need to be articulated.

For PC2K, these principles have been articulated by the likes of Meredith Kline, Michael Horton, and David Vandrunen. The pattern I’ve been seeing are doctrines very much like the three points I’ve laid out above. I think it can be said that these views depend on [or perhaps are integrally connected with] the validity of the social contract theory of the state, a theory that actually fails to account for the diversity, order, and hierarchy [and purpose] actually inherent in nature.

Servetus received his due reward, because it is the king’s duty as father of his people to protect his subjects from all deadly harm, physical and spiritual. I don’t know all the ins-and-outs of Servetus’ trial and execution, but I do know the man was an unrepentant soul who would not desist from publicly propagating his heresy and sedition [Servetus denied infant baptism--thereby resisting the lawful authority of the ecclesiastical authorities].

I deny that any man has the inherent natural right to disturb the peace of society through heresy and sedition.

Servetus is not some kind of martyr. The redemption of Christ and the peace it brings is not available to those who, like Servetus, persist in error. It is only offered to those who repent and turn from their error. The state has the right to protect itself from ~~errors~~ [pernicious doctrines] that threaten its existence [i.e., the Church undergirds the state]. Servetus was a wicked man who received the prescribed penalty established by the lawful authority for defending the commonwealth.

Finally, I don’t know why PC2K secularism deserves preference over the Christendom view, which grounds human government in the divinely established created order as an institution bound to uphold the whole law of God. The Church can still function as an institution that [directly] addresses matters of the spirit and maintains a certain autonomy from the temporal power, as you pointed out [actually, as the Roman Catholic position holds by placing the Church above the state] in your recent post , “Two-Kingdom Tuesday: The Roman Catholic Version.” [link added]

***

I hope UO readers aren't put off too much by the polemical nature of this exchange. The whole point is to forcefully show that Hart and co. have no real justification for their position beyond a tenaciously held liberal sentiment which they confuse for the spirit of Christianity.

Virgin Birth or Virgin Conception?

2010-05-05T06:44:00.000-07:00

It has recently become clear that what I was originally taught about the virign birth within Protestantism should be distinguished from the Catholic faith as belief in the virginal conception alone. The Catholic tradition holds together the virginal conception, the virgin birth, and the perpetual virginity of Our Lady.

I think there's a whole lot more going on here than the Fathers thinking that sexual intercourse was "icky." These are the same Fathers that condemned gnosticism, docetism, and similar heresies that detracted from Christ's full humanity, including his physicality.

The following is from the old Catholic Encyclopedia:

THE virginity of our Blessed Lady was defined under anathema in the third canon of the Lateran Council held in the time of Pope Martin I, A.D. 649. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, as recited in the Mass, expresses belief in Christ "incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary"; the Apostles' Creed professes that Jesus Christ "was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary"; the older form of the same creed uses the expression: "born of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary". These professions show:
•That the body of Jesus Christ was not sent down from Heaven, nor taken from earth as was that of Adam, but that its matter was supplied by Mary;

•that Mary co-operated in the formation of Christ's body as every other mother co-operates in the formation of the body of her child, since otherwise Christ could not be said to be born of Mary just as Eve cannot be said to be born of Adam;

•that the germ in whose development and growth into the Infant Jesus, Mary co-operated, was fecundated not by any human action, but by the Divine power attributed to the Holy Ghost;

•that the supernatural influence of the Holy Ghost extended to the birth of Jesus Christ, not merely preserving Mary's integrity, but also causing Christ's birth or external generation to reflect his eternal birth from the Father in this, that "the Light from Light" proceeded from his mother's womb as a light shed on the world; that the "power of the Most High" passed through the barriers of nature without injuring them; that "the body of the Word" formed by the Holy Ghost penetrated another body after the manner of spirits.

Church Fathers

The perpetual virginity of our Blessed Lady was taught and proposed to our belief not merely by the councils and creeds, but also by the early Fathers. The words of the prophet Isaias (vii, 14) are understood in this sense by

•St. Irenaeus (III, 21; see Eusebius, Church History V.8),

•Origen (Adv. Cels., I, 35),

•Tertullian (Adv. Marcion., III, 13; Adv. Judæos, IX),

•St. Justin (Dialogue with Trypho 84),

•St. John Chrysostom (Hom. v in Matth., n. 3; in Isa., VII, n. 5);

•St. Epiphanius (Hær., xxviii, n. 7),

•Eusebius (Demonstrat. ev., VIII, i),

•Rufinus (Lib. fid., 43),

•St. Basil (in Isa., vii, 14; Hom. in S. Generat. Christi, n. 4, if St. Basil be the author of these two passages),

•St. Jerome and Theodoretus (in Isa., vii, 14),

•St. Isidore (Adv. Judæos, I, x, n. 3),

•St. Ildefonsus (De perpetua virginit. s. Mariæ, iii).

St. Jerome devotes his entire treatise against Helvidius to the perpetual virginity of Our Blessed Lady (see especially nos. 4, 13, 18).

The contrary doctrine is called:

•"madness and blasphemy" by Gennadius (De dogm. eccl., lxix),

•"madness" by Origen (in Luc., h, vii),

•"sacrilege" by St. Ambrose (De instit. virg., V, xxxv),

•"impiety and smacking of atheism" by Philostorgius (VI, 2),

•"perfidy" by St. Bede (hom. v, and xxii),

•"full of blasphemies" by the author of Prædestin. (i, 84),

•"perfidy of the Jews" by Pope Siricius (ep. ix, 3),

•"heresy" by St. Augustine (De Hær. h., lvi).

St. Epiphanius probably excels all others in his invectives against the opponents of Our Lady's virginity (Hær., lxxviii, 1, 11, 23).

A Regency in Israel?

2010-05-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

Michael Wyschogrod argues for the establishment of a regency in the state of Israel in the latest issue of First Things. If you have an online subscription, the article may be read here.

I'll have some thoughts on the idea once I get my copy back from loan. It's so good, I'm giving it out to friends & family to read!

Against Divorce

2010-04-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about marriage and the sin of divorce lately. The popular wisdom is that divorce hurts children. Many couples will stay together in loveless marriages "for the sake of the children." This unselfishness though praiseworthy to an extent, is not the primary reason to preserve a marriage. Even more important than the offspring of marital union is the life of marriage itself: "From the beginning it was not so." Holy matrimony is a participation in the mystery of Christ and his Church (Eph. 5:32). It is a holy thing. The failure of any Christian marriage is therefore destructive of the manifestation of Christ's love in the world.

It appears that in the current crisis of the state of Christian marriage in general husbands are primarily responsible for the failure of their marriages. This failure is largely due the man's neglect of his God-given role as head of his family, the biblical pattern. Husband, act as the head of your home (I Cor. 11:3). Cherish your wife. Do not forsake your vows. Seek the face of the Lord and total submission to him. Emulate the Lord Jesus in all that you do for your family, sacrificing yourself for them in all things, the biblical way.

The woman is not the head of the home. She is not her husband's spiritual counselor or pastor. He does not and should not answer to his wife as if she were. If a man has a problem, he needs to consult a pastor or a priest, and he certainly needs all the fellowship with and support from mature Christian brothers he can get.

St. Peter says, “[W]ives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any one of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior” (I Pet. 3:1-2).

A woman's need to feel loved and spiritually cared for by her husband does not give her license to set herself above him in any authoritative way.

The apostolic instruction is clear: "[if] a woman has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not send her husband away” (I Cor. 7:13). No husband will be perfect, but as long as he asks forgiveness for his faults—seventy times seven in a day—his wife is constrained not only by her marital vows but also by the grace of Christ to forgive and accept him.

It is amazing how many Christian wives wish to divorce their husbands even when lacking serious grounds, such as violent or immoral behavior that constitutes an overriding exception to the principles enunciated above.

Woman came from man and woman is made for man (cf. I Cor. 11:8-9). Why was woman made for man? Because, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18a). Ironically, while woman originates from man, she brings to the male-female union the gift that completes man—the complementarity that enables man to fulfill his original created purpose (Gen. 2:18b). Together as a unit, male and female cooperate together to procreate and cultivate the world for God’s glory (Gen. 1:27-28).

It is through the woman who honors her man that God gives man the stability and the motivation to do the work God has given him to do in the world. This is true of mothers as well as wives.

Married people, do you remember your vows? You know—“for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part”? Are you committed to honoring the Lord through them? Then always remember that the context of Christian marriage is grace. Grace upon grace. Cover one another’s nakedness. Do not subject each other to dissection, analysis and interrogations.

Married people experiencing marriage problems should be accountable to a Christian pastor and take stock of the life of their family as a whole, seeking the Lord’s will together (not apart) in reliance upon the Holy Spirit.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Permit me to suggest the analogy of the “incompetent servant.” The incompetent servant when continually beaten by his master will always be worthless. He will always cower and cringe before his lord. He will always make the same mistakes over and over again, because his incompetence is expected. His master believes he is worthless and the master is always right, so the servant believes he truly is, and always will be, worthless. In the end, the master prefers to administer beatings than receive quality service. In the end, also, the servant prefers to receive beatings than render quality service.

Who is at fault here? Why, both the master and the servant, of course. Neither of them planned for this to happen, but it is much easier for the master (who thinks more highly of his competency than he ought) to administer beatings than manage his staff effectively, working with the actual capabilities of his people. It is also easier for the self-loathing servant, because he doesn’t have to think for himself or produce quality work. And beatings can be a comfort, as long as they continue in their regularity.

This dynamic is characteristic of worldly power relationships. Why? Because, it is in the interest of the powerful to keep the dynamic going. People are so much more easily controlled (and destroyed) when their dignity is already taken from them. The powerful tie heavy burdens on men’s shoulders, but are unwilling to help with so much as a finger (cf. Matt. 23:4). Thus, these kinds of arrangements don’t require real leaders. They don’t require real progress because real effort isn’t required. At the root of it all is pride and laziness.

Christian arrangements of authority should not be like this. This is not the way that Christians should relate to one another. On the night of his betrayal Jesus said to his disciples,

The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called ‘Benefactors.’ But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the least, and the one who rules like the one who serves (Luke 22:25-26).

Here, it would be erroneous to interpret Jesus’ statement as some kind of proto-egalitarian manifesto that negates formal structures of ruler and ruled, of command and obedience. Nowhere does the Scripture advise disobedience to duly established authorities, but always and everywhere submission is enjoined. What Jesus is getting at is the unhealthy dynamic that pervades all human relationships in this sinful world: the hateful cycle of domination and self-pity, of sadism and masochism.

Husbands and wives in the bonds of holy matrimony should not relate to one another as severe masters and incompetent slaves, or even as employers and employees for the purposes of mutual economic exploitation. They do not punch time clocks or follow checklists and procedural formulas. However, there is a proper familial order of headship and submission, of ruler and ruled.

Ironically, there seems to be more unhealthy co-dependency in modern egalitarian “marriages” and live-in relationships than in the older traditional arrangements. An inversion of the proper order that goes under the name “Christian” isn’t Christian at all, but a communist caricature of Christian marriage.

What I’m trying to get at here is that the complementarities of husbandly love & wifely honor (and husbandly honor & wifely love) flow to one another (and evoke the desired response from the other) most naturally and spontaneously when husband and wife each occupy the roles established for them at creation and set forth in the biblical pattern. Contrary to Lennon & McCartney, the love we give is unequal, because different in kind, to the love we take. But this is appropriate, since sacrificial love and honor cooperate together (energized by the Spirit of Grace) to unite in a higher synthesis, a higher unity, in which man and wife will live and flourish. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and this is all made possible in and through Christ’s love for his Church, his bride.

Christ is the head of every man,
And man is the head of a woman,
And God is the head of Christ (I Cor. 11:3).

Husband and wife, for the sake of your marriage and for the sake of your children, embrace the Christian and biblical pattern and way of marriage.

Husband, love and cherish your wife. Wife, honor and obey your husband. Only by performing these things together in obedience to the Lord will you save your marriage.

Sonship not Servitude

2010-03-13T11:33:00.000-08:00

Galatians 4:21-26:

"Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?

"For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar.

"For this Hagar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all."

In his commentary on the epistle lesson for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Melville Scott writes:

"By an allegory taken from the two sons of Abraham, each of whom stood in a different relation to his father, Christians are taught their happy relation to God as His children by grace, and their consequent duty...

"Ishmael owed his slavery to his mother Hagar, the slave-wife of Abraham, a type of the Jewish Church, 'the Jerusalem that now is'--

(1) As wandering in the dreary desert of the Law;
(2) And as only able to give her children a share of her own bondage.

"To the Jews the service of God was a burden grievous to be borne, for God was to them more of a Master than a Heavenly Father...

"Isaac owed his happy freedom to his mother, Sarah, the chosen and beloved wife of Abraham. Sarah, the free mother, whose children are born free, is a figure of the Christian Church: 'the Jerusalem which is above, which is the mother of us all.' As in both cases the position of the mother determined the relation of the child to the father, so the very fact that we belong to the Christian Church by our baptism determines our relation to God and makes us His children. It is because we are members of Christ that we are the children of God and have received the 'one baptism for the remission of sins.' The word covenant practically means relation, or position, and a covenant of grace a relation or position of grace. The word conveys no idea of mutual bargain or condition in either case. We are what God has made us.

"Is the service of sons, which is more than that of slaves. The son submits his will to his father, the slave only his outward conduct to his master. The son gives what the slave withholds, and for this reason we are tempted to prefer slavery; but if he gives more he receives more, for if he must say, 'I am my father's,' he can also say, 'My father is mine.' Hence comes the conscious dignity and liberty, the power of confident prayer and thankful praise. The son serves not for favour but as one in favour, not for wages but as a debtor to infinite love. While the thought of the crown before him gives him joy, his true motive is the Cross behind him."

***

In the state of grace, the Christian no longer lives under the condemnation of Law. So, when a Christian seeks to truly obey the Lord he should never do so to meritoriously obtain divine favor. He already has God's favor, given freely in Jesus.

In the state of grace, the Christian's works of obedience are never evaluated in terms of strict merit, i.e., how they stand on their own, but with respect to the undergirding merits of Christ and the operation of the Spirit working together with his faith. Our Father does not judge acts of Christian obedience as sinful and neither should we. This is to look at Christian obedience in terms of the world as a closed system, alienated from God and the grace of Christ.

Those who continually revert to conceiving their obedience as worthless servitude betray that they lack the Spirit of Sonship.

When Scott says, "The word [covenant] conveys no idea of mutual bargain or condition in either case," this should be understood in the sense that our covenant relationship is not conditioned upon our own meritorious performance as mere servants earning a wage. God, himself, has provided a perfect and sufficient sacrifice. Out of gratitude for this provision we are constrained to obey God, not as servants but as sons, as Scott says, "debtor[s] to infinite love."

Here, I must warn my Reformed Christian brethren that liturgies that situate believers existentially in the place of Ishmael every Sunday morning are doing a disservice to the people of God.

The spiritual cycle of guilt, grace & gratitude may be a good account of Christian experience as far as it goes, but once redeemed, the normal guilt the Christian incurs is a sin against God's fatherly love, not against pure divine justice. The response of gratitude does not and cannot directly lead into a renewed condition of guilt. True gratitude paves the way from grace toward greater grace.

The full weight of God's naked justice is only experienced by those who stand outside the covenant. If your regular experience as a professing Christian is a continual return to the state of being under the wrath of God, you have fallen from grace and need to be restored through the Sacrament of Penance.

It is plain that a real distinction between venial and mortal sin exists. Venial sin temporarily hinders the communication of grace, but mortal sin leads to despair and separation from our heavenly Father.

Penance is essential in order to convert natural attrition (sorrow for sin's consequences) into contrition (sorrow at displeasing the Father). It accomplishes this this by restoring the fallen to the covenant, in that the penitent passes from the state of judgment to the state of forgiveness--the state of being justified--from a state of alienation to a state of communion.

The sacerdotal system of the Catholic Church therefore represents not a return to Sinai, to a fearful ministry of pure Law, but is in fact the necessary means by which the forgiveness and grace of God comes to his sons.

An Important Challenge

2010-02-27T14:37:00.001-08:00

There is only one argument against monarchy that is of any real concern to me. As expressed in this blog post, the monarchy principle supposedly derives from pagan unitarianism and is inconsistent with Christian trinitarianism.

According to the author, "It would seem then that after the revelation of the Holy Trinity... no representation of divine sovereignty in the world-immanent realm is possible. The attempts to produce and, then, theologically justify such representation was, at its core, flawed and predicated on a misunderstanding (or improper emphasis) of God's 'oneness.'"

Really? No representation of divine sovereignty in the world-immanent realm is possible?

Did not Jesus Christ represent divine sovereignty in the world-immanent realm? And, do not bishops and kings represent Christ on earth?

This seems like a bad argument. I'd much appreciate it if anyone can explain how I'm mistaken.

It is most probable that some conceptions of monarchy derive from pagan sources. It may also be true that some conceptions are informed by some Christological error (e.g., the King's two bodies?).

However, at present, I understand that the Father has committed all authority to the Son, and that the Son rules through his representatives in the world-immanent realm.

Also, at present, I am unaware of any principle that precludes Christ's rule through the agencies of popes and/ or emperors.

Who is Carl Schmitt?

2010-02-27T14:15:00.000-08:00

Recently, I have learned of this important political theorist of the last century. UO was visited by "Durendal", the author of the blog Schmittian Jurisprudence, who agrees that "classical liberal and libertarian systems can only produce the nihilism of mechanistic legality."

Providentially, my friend Perry Robinson sent me another link that references Schmitt.

On Monday I received Schmitt's The Concept of the Political and Political Theology from Amazon.

Theoretical Reason vs. Practical Reason

2010-02-13T11:04:00.000-08:00

Let me take capital punishment as a case in point. To observers who pay no attention to the Church’s rationale, it appears that the Catholic Church is moving toward a pacifist theoretical position. This is not the case. The Church will never condemn capital punishment in principle. It can’t. The Church is judging that in the context of our times, i.e., the terrible bloodshed of the last century and the creeping culture of death, there is more danger in capital punishment's widespread use than in its widespread neglect. The Church might be wrong here, but I’d never know it.

In fact, even though I’m a strong proponent of capital punishment, I also advocate a complete restructuring of the justice system, which in turn requires a restructuring of society. However, we don’t live in Andrew’s world; we live in the real one. What I advocate is not really practical at the present. The Church is responding to the world as it actually is. I would completely fail if I somehow obtained power to implement my social policies—a lot of eggs would be broken. Destruction and misery would result. On the other hand, the Church will inevitably succeed in its mission.

I am willing to submit my theoretical reason to the demands of the Church’s practical reason in the present. And I trust that the Church’s practical reason is guided by her theoretical reason (illuminated by divine Tradition).

I also believe my theoretical reason corresponds very closely to the Church's, but am unwilling to grasp at what hasn't been offered. Instead of the revolutionary path, I wait in submission to the established order of things, while retaining hope for a better day--a day when kings will once again render judgment and justice on the earth.

Shouldn't we just let people destroy their lives if they want?

2010-01-25T09:28:00.000-08:00

In speaking to a dear friend of mine yesterday, I encountered this objection to my drug prohibition argument. Of course, I've heard it before. I just don't buy it.

Theoretical libertarians (as opposed to practical libertarians who merely want to downsize government) are opposed in principle to the legitimate and just exercise of government. In the following paragraphs I'll lay out the main reasons why this must be so.

To begin with, we must ask, What is government's proper function?

As a Christian, I accept the authority of special divine revelation. When I read St. Paul in Romans 13:4 to say the king is "an agent of [God's] wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer," I accept this role for government. Indeed, most Christians will admit this role.

What many Christians overlook is the other responsibility government has been given according to the inspired apostle. St. Paul also says, "Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good" (Rom. 13:3b-4a).

From this, I conclude that a governor is essentially an authority figure given a divine mandate to punish the evil and reward the good.

Theoretical libertarians may recognize that government is instituted to keep order and ensure the tranquility of the community. However, what they fail to recognize is that the use of the sword to defend society from external and internal threat is only half of the governor's lawful task.

Government is also instituted to reward the good.

Theoretical libertarians maintain that the punitive function of government is limited to the exercise of defense against physical threat and retributive punishment for external crimes only. These theorists deny that government ought to make moral judgments and argue that government should only respond to external acts.

They are incorrect. Government must take preventitive, even preemptive, measures to deal with problems before they grow too large to deal with. In support of this I cite the "broken window thesis."

"James Q. Wilson and George Kelling developed the 'broken window' thesis. Their thesis suggests that a certain sequence of events can be expected in deteriorating neighborhoods: evidence of decay (broken windows, accumulated trash, deteriorated building exteriors) which remains in the neighborhood for a reasonably long period of time causes people who live and work in the area to feel more vulnerable and to begin to withdraw. They become less willing to intervene to maintain public order (for example, to attempt to break up groups of rowdy teens loitering on street corners) or to address physical signs of deterioration.

"In response to this, some vandals may become bolder and intensify their harassment and vandalism. This makes residents even more fearful and less likely to participate in community upkeep. Offenders now may come in from outside the area, sensing that the neighborhood has become a vulnerable and less risky site for crime.

"'One unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares,' Wilson and Kelling have written, 'and so breaking more windows costs nothing.'"

The broken window thesis may confound correlation with causality at times, but it should be pointed out that criminality is not a mere series of criminal acts, but a lifestyle that progressively degenerates. At some point after certain warning signs appear, the time for intervention has come.

Society is really a social system made of a complex of symbiotic relationships between humans and their physical and social environments. The soul affects the body and the body influences the soul. Groups influence individual choice and vice versa. Environments form options and so determine human choice to an extent. No man is an island. Libertarians are fools to think otherwise.

General disorder, alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual promiscuity and divorce, are all elements of a social eco-system that fosters criminality. This point of view conforms to common sense and is confirmed by the vast majority of scientific social data available.

So no, government should not just let people destroy their lives if they want. They are not just destroying their own lives; they are destroying others' as well. It's not just that I have to personally live around people who make bad choices. My neighborhood deteriorates when these people reproduce. My children must go to school with their children and live in the environment they create.

As a rewarder of good and punisher of evil, government has an interest in suppressing undesirable behavior and encouraging desirable choices. Government has the legitimate function to promote the attainment of and require civic virtue.

In another place, St. Paul describes the purpose of the law:

"[We] know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust" (1 Tim. 1:8-11).

Constitutional proceduralism, i.e., the proceduralist "rule of law" is insufficient. Judgment is necessary for justice. A constitution is a machine, and machines do not judge or produce right decisions.

A major thesis of this blog is that all forms of theoretical libertarianism (including classical liberals' republican constitutionalism) can only produce legal systems. They cannot produce justice systems.

In order to fulfill his purpose as the guarantor of the peace and happiness of society, the governor must be empowered to effectively administer law. For this, he must be above human law in the sense--and to the extent--that he judges what the law says and how to apply it in particular cases.

In order to have a just and effective ministration of law, there must be one who acts as a judge, knowing good from evil, and who chooses the good.

Under Siege

2010-01-23T15:06:00.000-08:00

The UO Knight is under siege. After sallying forth to combat the evil libertarians over the issue of drug legalization, the UO Knight returned home to find his castle beseiged by a drug liberalization Kool-Aid drinker from the UK operating under the alias "Jimbob."

Jimbob has challenged me to read a couple of articles from the mainstream media, and "do some research before typing [my] next response."

Jimbob argues that "the majority of these effects [i.e., the social cost of drugs] are down to prohibition – dealers / gangs / funding terrorism / drug addict crime etc. etc." For Jimbob, drug prohibition is the real problem, not the criminals who disobey the law and supply/ use illegal substances.

This is a patently absurd claim. In 2003, the US Drug Enforcement Administration put out a paper that summarizes "ten top facts on legalization. In this paper, the DEA states, "Six times as many homicides are committed by people under the influence of drugs, as by those who are looking for money to buy drugs. Most drug crimes aren’t committed by people trying to pay for drugs; they’re committed by people on drugs."

This demonstrates that on the criterion of actual crime alone, the use of certain mind-altering substances is the problem. On this basis, a convincing case is made that the public availability of these substances ought to be severely restricted.

In addition to actual crimes committed, I also argue that there are other weighty reasons for keeping drug use criminalized. I maintain that individuals who use drugs are compromised mentally and morally by using these substances.

Because of such undisputable corrupting effects on the citizenry, I argue for establishing personal character reference qualifications as well as IQ and mental health tests to ensure that only competent individuals be allowed into the voting booth.

Jimbob rejects the idea that drugs negatively influence character, intelligence and mental competency. He argues that people who use drugs only "recreationally" are capable of adequately functioning in society.

Well, they may be able to "function," but as I see it the only way our civilization is going to move back in the direction it needs to is for us to rediscover the law and forgiveness of God, abandon our vices, and be concerned for the survival of our families and communities.

According to the paper cited above, "The short-term effects [of marijuana] are... harmful. They include: memory loss, distorted perception, trouble with thinking and problem solving, loss of motor skills, decrease in muscle strength, increased heart rate, and anxiety. Marijuana impacts young people’s mental development, their ability to concentrate in school, and their motivation and initiative to reach goals."

The rejection of drug use, then, even use of more benign drugs such as marijuana, is a necessary condition to begin to aquire the virtues necessary for maintaining civilization.

A few final thoughts on this subject. I have limited time to investigate absurd claims put forth in the name of “science,” whatever that is. Global warming is a fraud perpetrated by so-called science. Scientists are people who have personal dispositions and political points-of-view just like everybody else. Data can be suppressed and/ or cherry-picked.

Journalists aren’t scientists or logicians. Scientific studies usually have a very precise scope and it’s all too easy for non-experts (such as Jimbob) to draw unwarranted conclusions from findings they don’t understand.

Before research should be accepted as science by policy makers it needs to be tested, re-tested, and peer-reviewed. Contrary opinions and findings need to be weighed. Factors such as common sense, prudence, and sage advice (things not easily quantifiable) also have their legitimate part to play in policy-makers' decisions.

The Boston Globe article Jimbob cited, is a joke.

The "findings" of the research cited by the article rank pot higher than solvents and LSD. Also, Tobacco is rated more harmful than LSD, pot, and ecstasy. Finally, alcohol is listed as more harmful than meth! "Findings" such as these, so contrary to common sense perceptions, are unworthy of serious consideration.

Somebody named "truthczar" had this to say about the article:

"The guy makes some SUBJECTIVE assessments, creates a chart, then some reporter finds the article and assumes the chart is hard fact, and prints it. Next some fool politician will try to make public policy based on a reporter's interpretation of some guys chart based on a made up weighted scale of subjective assessments."

Another commenter made the following analysis (which I have modified slightly for the purpose of this post):

The problem with the findings of this research is with the particular combination of variables used to generate this gradation of harmful substances. The variables of physical impact, addictiveness, and societal cost are combined to produce misleading figures. If you are trying to determine the allocation of government resources, why do you care about anything other then the societal impact? And how is addictiveness and physical damage not already factored into societal cost? If you are trying to assess the danger that a drug poses to an individual, shouldn’t you only care about its physical impact and addictiveness?

This ranking doesn’t really tell us anything about the relative harmfulness of these substances. The purpose in combining all three variables is to mislead the public into swallowing the notion that drugs are less harmful than tobacco or alcohol.

This perspective does not take adequate account of the social benefits of tobacco and alcohol, the vast majority of whose users are responsible, law-abiding citizens. In the case of tobacco and alcohol, conventional thinking judges that the benefits far outweigh the costs. Not so with drug use. The evidence is clear that the drug culture spawns stupidity, criminality, and insanity in epidemic proportions.

That's all I have to say on this subject at present.

Opposing libertarians who want to legalize drugs

2010-01-11T20:27:00.000-08:00

No one is holding a gun to force drug dealers to engage in their criminality. They bring violence upon themselves by disobeying the law. The collateral deaths that occur are largely people who are associated with them, or, who have chosen to live near them, and in some sense complicit in the corruption of the community. Of course, children who have no choice suffer. A sad fact of life is that children unjustly suffer the consequences of adult actions.

There have always been gangs and there will always be gangs. Drugs are merely the pretext. The government policy of outlawing drugs does not lead to criminal-on-criminal violence either directly or indirectly. To suggest otherwise is simply ludicrous. If government were the real evil and not the actual individuals who associate together in gangs, then why don’t the gangs grow rich together by cooperating to bring their goods to their loyal paying customers? They could unite their resources and create a black market so huge it would eat the conventional market from the inside out. A true free market would then arise from the ashes.

As with any other war, the drug war can only be won by an absolute determination to utterly annihilate the enemy with overwhelming force.

Lastly, I’ll respond to the charge that drug-warriors hypocritically pursue bloody policies while countenancing rampant drug use in the culture. Aside from the fact that the user is less morally culpable than the pusher, the demand side should be vigorously pursued.

Though unrealistic to expect in the current political climate (as is any competent prosecution of war), users should be regarded as collaborators with an enemy power, and should at least be detained as prisoners of war—if not executed—until the hostilities are over.

Anticipating the objection of those who would say that the drug culture does not warrant the extreme measure of war (i.e., it’s really not that big of a deal), my retort is, they should tell that to Mexico.

A question: do anarcho-libertarians believe in habeas corpus or Miranda rights? If so, Why? And if so, which entity would function as the guarantor of these rights in the anarcho-capitalist paradise?

RE: A NEW HEADER FOR UO

2009-12-05T08:07:00.000-08:00

The Unpopular Opinionator has not converted to Roman Catholicism--not yet anyway. However, I've never been closer to Rome than at the present.

Jesus' Messianic office is both a spiritual and a political office. His Ascension to rule over all things was an inheritance granted once he completed his earthly course of obedience, proving to be simultaneously the faithful Israelite, the faithful son of Adam, and the faithful Son of God.

The Son does not rule according to his divinity over creation by a "providential" reign and as man over a "redemptive" realm. The sphere of redemption encompasses the whole cosmos already, though manifested but partially in the present. We are living in the Age of Faith after all!

The Two Kingdoms conception of Christ's rule is an error derived from a faulty hermeneutical principle, the Law-Gospel distinction. Entirely absent from Scripture is a covenant of pure law. Likewise, a simple promissory covenant is nowhere to be found. Every biblical covenant is qualified by conditions of obedience. Luther was wrong.

The glory of the New Covenant is not that God removed the requirement of obedience as a condition to inherit eternal life. The glory of this new and better covenant is that it imparts the power to obey to all those who trust in Jesus' atoning sacrifice.

What is true for all men, everywhere & at all times, is that if they would come to God they must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Jesus is Lord.

Word of the Day: APHTHARTODOCETISM

2009-10-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

(Greek aphthartos, “incorruptible”), a Christian heresy of the 6th century.

With Aphthartodocetism, the implications of Monophysitism (“Christ had but one nature and that divine”) were brought to a new extreme. This teaching claims that the body of Christ was divine, therefore incorruptible and imperishable. Still, Christ was free to will his sufferings and death voluntarily, which is also what he did.

The Aphthartodocetist doctrine was originally espoused by Julian, bishop of Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum, Turkey). His teaching was strongly opposed by Patriarch Severus of Antioch, who also was also a condemned Monophysite. Severus vigorously challenged Julian on the ground that the doctrine of salvation was meaningless unless Christ’s body was truly human. Their two parties emerged into a schism that would last until the 7th century.

Some historians believe the Byzantine emperor Justinian I proclaimed the new heresy in an edict of 564 and would have imposed it on the Eastern church but for his death the following year.

Aphthartodocetism found acceptance in the Armenian Church and was espoused by John Nelson Darby and other early dispensationalist writers in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Adapted from the online Encyclopedia Britannica and LookLex Encyclopedia entries.

Quotation of the Day

2009-09-25T09:42:00.000-07:00

Over at Blog and Mablog, an astute commenter named Alan had the following to say about Westminster Two Kingdoms (W2K) theology:

"At least the dispensationalists have the virtue of wishing Christ could be king right now-- while (conversely) the Hauerwas/Willimon types refuse the transformational impulse, but insist that though the gospel can't overcome the (evil) world, they're happy to die trying.

"The reformed dispensationalist approach-- c'est la vie-- seems oddly stuck between transforming and resisting the world. Their besetting temptation-- though doubtless not their goal-- is compromise with the world in the "already." Otherwise known as worldliness."

Discussing Norman Shepherd

2009-09-25T08:15:00.000-07:00

For those interested in the on-going debate over justification," Darryl Hart's post "Easy Believism" provoked me to speak out in defense of Norman Shepherd in the comment section. Over the last few weeks, I have been carefully reading and listening to what Shepherd has to say. Consequently, I was able to present a fairly coherent picture of how Shepherd is able to remain true to Luther's insight of sola fide and the broad Reformed Tradition while expanding our understanding of faith and justification in light of biblical eschatology.

Look for a post in the upcoming days based on these comments.

While not following Shepherd in every respect, I believe he is as important as N.T. Wright as an insightful expositor of Scripture. I need to study more on the subject, but it presently appears that Shepherd has been even more successful in maintaining both realities of individual and corporate election/ justification.

In Shepherd's hands, the classical Protestant formulation of justification has been expanded in light of the fifth point of Calvinism, the Perseverance of the Saints, to read:

"Justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, in the way of righteousness alone."

This is a monumental achievement and every bit as significant as Martin Luther's achievement 450 years ago. Perhaps Norman Shepherd is the forerunner of a new Reformation on the horizon. May God grant it!

Tim Gallant Ponders the Land Promises to Israel

2009-09-25T07:21:00.000-07:00

Back in July, Tim wrote a short post that asked some good questions:

1. We know that a whole host of Israelites have savingly believed God over the years, both before and after the advent of Christ.

2. We believe in the resurrection of the body, not an eternal state of disembodied “spirituality.”

3. Correspondingly, we believe in the renovation of the earth, just as we believe in the renovation of the body.

4. Surely a renovated earth would have geography, and since the renovation is a renovation of this earth, it seems at least plausible – nay, overwhelmingly likely – that the new earth will have the land of Canaan.

5. Since everyone has to live somewhere – why wouldn’t believing Israelites live in Palestine? Why should that be thought the least bit “strange”?

Check out Tim's article on the meaning of "all Israel" in Romans 11:26.

I would also add that national Israel is not reprobate. St. Paul makes clear that Israel "did not stumble so as to fall" (Rom. 11:11) and retains in an important sense "the adoption of sons, the covenants,...the promises, etc." (Rom. 9:4).

God's calling, election, and promises cannot fail.

Israel retains retains the title to all the promised blessings found in the OT. If they would pursue them by faith in their Messiah all the blessings would be granted.

As it is now, until Israel acknowledges her Lord Jesus she will never be secure in her own land.

I highly recommend historic premillennialist Barry Horner's fine book, Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must Be Challenged (B&H Academic, 2007), for a thorough treatment of the subject.

The Monarch as Supreme Judge

2009-08-20T17:51:00.000-07:00

"There is a great difference between the 'form' and the 'content' -- or purpose -- of the State. The latter is its essential raison d'etre, its very soul. The former corresponds to the bodily form of a living being. The one can certainly not exist without the other; but in any sane hierarchy of values the soul occupies a higher place than the body.

"The essential purpose of the State, its 'content,' is rooted in natural law. The State is not an end in itself; it exists for the sake of its citizens. It is therefore not the source of all law (a claim that is still far too widely accepted), nor is it all-powerful. Its authority is circumscribed by the rights of its citizens. It is only free to act in those fields that are outside their free initiative. The State is therefore at all times the servant of natural law. Its task is to give practical effect to this law; nothing more.

"If the mission of the State is the practical realization of natural law, the form of government is a means by which the community attempts to achieve this aim. It is not an end in itself...

"There is one more point we must consider before we can answer the question of which form of government will best serve the community in the future. Generally speaking, democratic republics represent a regime dominated by the legislature, while authoritarian regimes are dominated by the executive. The judicial power has not had the primacy for a long time, as we have shown above. It found its earlier expression in the Christian monarchies. It is frequently forgotten that the true ruler has always been the guardian of law and justice. The most ancient monarchs -- the kings of the Bible -- came from the ranks of the judges. St. Louis of France regarded the administration of justice as his noblest task. The same principle can be seen in the many German "Palatinates," since the Count Palatine (Palatinus) was the guardian of law and justice delegated by the King- Emperor. The history of the great medieval monarchies shows that the legislative power of the king -- even of a king as powerful as Charles V -- was severely limited by local autonomies. The same is true of the ruler's executive function. He was not, in the first place, a law-giver or head of the executive; he was a judge. All other functions were subordinate, and were only exercised to the extent necessary to make his judicial function effective.

"The reason for this institutional arrangement is clear. The judge must interpret the meaning of law and justice, and to do this he must be independent. It is essential that he should not owe his position, his function, to any man. The highest judge, at least, must be in this position. This is only possible under a monarchy. For in a republic, even the highest guardian of the law derives his position from some other source, to which he is responsible and on which he remains dependent to some extent. This is not a satisfactory state of affairs. His most important task is not to pass judgment in actual legal disputes, but to stand guard over the purpose of the State and natural law. Above all, it is the task of the supreme judge to see that all legislation is in accordance with the State's fundamental principles, that is, with natural law. The monarch's right to veto legislation passed by parliament is a remnant of this ancient function...

"The hereditary character of the monarchial function finds... [i]ts deepest justification... in the fact that the hereditary ruler owes his position not to one or another social group, but to the will of God alone. That is the true meaning of the frequently misunderstood words, 'by the grace of God,' which always signify a duty and a task. It would be wrong for the ruler by the grace of God to regard himself as an exceptional being. On the contrary, the words, 'by the grace of God,' should remind him that he does not owe his position to his own merits, but must prove his fitness by ceaseless efforts in the cause of justice."

-Archduke Otto von Habsburg, The Social Order of Tomorrow (London: Oswald Wolff, 1958)

Justice and judgment are the habitation of Thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before Thy face.

Psalm 89:14

Prominent Internet Monarchist Baptized into the Faith

2009-05-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

For those who follow monarchy on the web, it is a great joy to note that Mr. Theodore Harvey of Dallas, Texas was baptized and confirmed into the faith on April 11, 2009. He is now a parishioner at the Church of the Incarnation in Dallas, one of the few remaining orthodox parishes in the Episcopal Church.

You may read Mr. Harvey's own announcement of the event here at his blog, Royal World.

Please join me in praying for Theodore's growth in grace as a Christian in the Anglican way.

Mr. Harvey's conversion leads me to consider the apologetic value of monarchism for Christianity. While the Christian faith is essentially trust in Christ and incorporation into His elect people, the Church, and is not necessarily tied to loyalty to an earthly monarch, I see preparatory value in acknowledging and submitting to the divinely-ordained authority of princes as a sign and exercise of godly humility.

The authority of kings does not derive from military might or the acclamation of the people; it rests upon God's sustaining favor alone.

In this day and age, when a man becomes convinced of the right of kings to rule, he is rejecting the primary theories of power that hold sway in our world. Majority rule (democracy) and force (dictatorship) can never establish right. Apart from faith these only signify the rebellious self-will of man.

Rule of law is touted in some sectors of Christianity as the legitimizing principle of government. This is an ahistorical anachronism perpetuated from the Enlightenment. Government preceded codified law. Instead, government exists wherever God has given a prince power and authority to rule. The existence of law implies the existence of a lawgiver and judge. Cosmically, this implies the rule of God. Temporally, it implies the existence of kings who propagate and ajudicate law under God in conformity with God's law.

A man who adopts the popular conceit that he is as much a ruler and judge as anyone else is a man who has not yet learned the humility of Christ. This is where the American spirit comes into direct conflict with the precepts of the Gospel and presents an actual obstacle to divine grace.

As St. Peter admonishes,

"Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;

"Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.

"For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.

"Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.

"Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.

"For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.

"For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:

"Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:

"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

"For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls."

(1 Pet. 2:13-25)

For these reasons I believe genuine submission to earthly authority is congruent and uniquely preparatory to genuine submission to Christ, "who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords" (1 Tim. 6:15).

De Regno Christi Returns

2009-03-30T07:17:00.000-07:00

Dr. Bill Chellis has kindly invited me to continue as a contributor at his excellent group blog De Regno Christi that has recently been re-organized.

It is an honor to be included with several distinguished writers, historians, and theologians in this endeavor. So far, the list of contributors includes:

Gregory Baus, a Reformed Dooyeweerdian philosopher and social thinker;
Dr. Bradley Birzer, Russell Kirk Professor of American Studies History at Hillsdale College and a Roman Catholic; Pastor of Westminster Reformed Presbyterian Church and co-editor of Semper Reformanda;
Dr. Bill Chellis, an Attorney and an ordained Minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church;
Dr. D.G. Hart, an author of many books on modern Protestant history in America,
Davey Henreckson, a "high church Anglyterian" and author of the excellent Theopolitical blog; and
Caleb Stegal, a country lawyer, writer, and former editor of the excellent The New Pantagruel.

Be sure to check out the discussion as I believe we'll soon be systematically examining specific propositions that concern the relation of Christ to culture.

Obama Frees Science from the Shackles of "Political Ideology"

2009-03-13T11:06:00.001-07:00

On March 9th, at a ceremony in the Oval Office, President Obama signed an Executive Order reversing George W. Bush's 2001 ban on funding certain forms of stem cell research.

Here's how the Time article characterized it:

"The sigh of relief in labs across the country was almost audible. In Boston, Douglas Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, gathered his entire staff to listen to Obama's announcement and served cake in celebration. James Thomson, the University of Wisconsin scientist responsible for isolating the first human embryonic stem cells in 1998, flew to Washington at Obama's request to watch the signing in person.

"The President's decision does much more than expand funding for stem-cell research. It heralds a shift in the government's view of science, ushering in an era in which it promises to defend science — and the pursuit of useful treatments — against ideology. 'It is about ensuring that scientific data [are] never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology,' Obama said in his opening statement. (emphasis added)

"Without discounting the moral concerns that some Americans have about using embryos — which many consider to be fully realized human life — for scientific research, Obama said that moral values do not necessarily preclude the study of embryonic stem cells, particularly those obtained from the pool of 400,000 or so embryos currently stored in IVF clinics around the U.S., most of which would have been discarded. 'I believe we have been given the capacity and the will to pursue this research — and the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly,' he said."

The article grudgingly admits that "New techniques in generating stem cells from skin cells may prove in coming years more efficient and reliable than using embryonic stem cells."

But the article goes on to say, "Monday's Executive Order is less about pitting the promise of one type of stem cell against another's and more about re-establishing the authority of science, of ensuring that any and every potentially useful avenue of research will be pursued to its end. As the President noted, the new policy will not guarantee stem-cell treatments for diabetes, Parkinson's or Lou Gehrig's disease. But it does guarantee a commitment to the kind of promising research that this Administration — and many people in the scientific community — believe must be followed." (emphasis added)

We should all be grateful for Time's impartial and "scientific" reporting of the facts.

Is a Constitutional Convention in the offing?

2009-03-12T10:07:00.000-07:00

Back in December there was a World Net Daily article based on a warning issued by Tom DeWeese of the American Policy Center. The article basically states that only two more states need to vote affirming the need for a Constitutional Convention and that our constitutional rights are threatened.

Well, I doubt it. Not that our constitutional rights are threatened--they are--but that the liberal majority would risk the trouble. Having an outdated constitution in place that is only selectively applied is a great asset to the ruling class. They can clothe themselves with the mantle of the venerability and authority of a hallowed system, claiming to be true to the internal logic of a living document, while moving the nation slowly and surely in a progressive direction. Why would liberals want to give this up? So far, it's worked very well for them.

Entelechy

2009-03-11T12:33:00.000-07:00

From the Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia entry

Entelechy (La. entelechia, from Gk. ἐντελέχεια, entelécheia) is a philosophical concept of Aristotle... From én (in), télos (end, or purpose) and échein (to have), Aristotle coined it to signify "having one's end within", therefore, that something's essential potential is being fully actualised.

In Aristotle's Metaphysics, the concept is contrasted with enérgeia. Entelécheia has been seen as a fullness of actualization which requires an ongoing or standing investment of effort in order to persist, as opposed to the energeia which is the activity of actualization not necessarily completed. Often entelechy is associated with form, and potency is associated with material which potentially has the form.

First entelechy is being in full working order (for example, the soul is the first entelechy of the body), and second entelechy is being in action. Motion or change can lead to an entelechy but also themselves can be seen as entelechies. Entelechy has even been seen as in some way perpetually "becoming itself" yet never reaching the goal of that "becoming" (and were it to do so, the entelechy would, by definition, cease to exist).

Something, for example wood, which is itself already actual, complete, and formed in its entelechy as wood, may be potentially something else, for example buildable into a house, and the entelechy of that potential for being built is the building process, the wood's being built into a house. By extension the building process is an entelechy of the wood too, though not of the wood just as wood, but just insofar as it is buildable into a house. The motion or change or process of change is the entelechy of the potentiality as potentiality (when still a potentiality). Once the buildable house is finished, "the buildable is no longer buildable," says Aristotle, and with the cessation of that potentiality for being built comes the cessation of its entelechy, the building process. The house builders move on to the next construction site and the next batch of wood.

Actual things in a sense are processes, so that entelechy and energeia (activeness), though contrastable, tend to extend to the same things. Some processes seem perpetual, and thus sometimes an entelechy seems a becoming which never reaches that becoming's final goal.

An individual's life can in many ways be regarded as beholden to various simultaneous and overlapping entelechies, for example, the life trajectories imposed by biological limitations, our mortality, the norms and expectations of family and/or society, and the individual's ego-ideal. Externally imposed entelechies and fantasized but unrealized entelechies can both be sources of frustration.

Societies can also be said to embody entelechies in their cultures; religious views, collective senses of entitlement, "mission" or "mandate" and even in their very languages. Societies/ cultures sensing that their entelechial trajectory is reaching its terminus (i.e., sensing they are in decline) or that this trajectory has been deflected from its "proper" path by illegitimate forces - either internal or external - may exhibit violently irrational or even self-destructive reactions.

What is Civilization? Part 2

2009-03-10T14:05:00.000-07:00

Civilization Defined (Cont’d.)

As Russ has pointed out, Wal-Mart functions analogously to a city in our civilization, exercising an influence comparable in magnitude to a city such as New York, which contains several times more people (presently about 19 million). And, we are agreed that Wal-Mart is not a civilization for the same reason: Wal-Mart’s scope of activity is limited mainly to the economic sphere. Generally, corporations exist for one reason only: to provide economic profits for their shareholders. Economics may encompass a significant portion of what comprises civilization, but the concerns of civilization are broader.

Russ has emphasized the disparate interests that characterize many civilizations, but I’m arguing here that disparate interests are accidental properties, not essential to what civilization is. His definition has emphasized the differences and left out the commonality that unites people together in the first place. This is the social nature of man and the ultimate end of Society in general. In short, Russ’ definition—inadvertently perhaps—excludes the fact that civilization is essentially a developed form of Society.

Society and Civilization

What is Society then? As a Christian, I offer the following theological definition: Society is the fellowship of men with God. Society in its truest and broadest sense is the union and communion of men with God—and the two Great Commandments (love of God and love of neighbor) are its supreme laws. The eschatological goal of Society as created and superintended by God is the complete interpenetration of Earth by Heaven.

It is the case that many human beings have attempted to build their own societies apart from relationship with God. Yet, because God is inescapable, these attempts can never be wholly successful. The degree of success man has in forming a society excluding God is the degree of success he has in creating hell on earth.

Original Society, as God’s creation, has an intrinsic created purpose. Its completion is a glorified world—Heaven. Its dissolution--Hell. These are two very real "social" realities. At the end of this world’s historical process, all of humanity will be separated into two groups. The children of God will inhabit the one true Society. The children of the Devil will inhabit the Anti-Society, the chaotic darkness of absolute alienation from God as well as from men.

Which brings us back to the common bond necessary for binding individuals into collective unity. Civilization is Society advanced beyond primitive organization. It represents a step toward the perfection of Society despite historically accidental evils and imperfections that may exist. A civilization is a true society not because of, but despite, these flaws. It may be that civilization’s evils and imperfections may come to dominate its historical development. When this is the case, it can truly be said that civilization is tending away from its intrinsic (i.e., essential to created nature) purpose.

To conclude, the health or sickness of Society is relative to its proper end. This must be true of Civilization as well, since civilization is nothing else than a maturation of original Society. Civilization proper aspires to universal and eternal ends, seeking to perpetually (at least, as long as possible!) provide the greatest social good (happiness and security) for the greatest number of people. Therefore, Civilization on this view is not merely a descriptive category but a moral ideal.

The conceptualization of Civilization I’m advancing here obviously originates in the realist metaphysic I generally espouse. The following examples illustrate how this realistic metaphysic works. Communication is more than symbolic expression; symbols must actually signify truth in order to qualify as communication. Similarly, Art is more than a technique of communication; it must actually embody some principle of the Good, the True and the Beautiful. Genuine government embodies dominion, authority, and power. Genuine Society (i.e., that is true to its nature) tends toward the observance and advance of God's reign on earth.

Civilization is not a nominal descriptive category that describes particular features of society, but represents a developed stage toward perfection along the continuum that exists between Heaven and Hell. Civilization, when used properly as an ideal term, is not an arbitrary notion based on some imperfect society that existed once upon a time in history. Civilization, properly conceived, is oriented to the eternal state—the concrete ideal at the end of time that the nations seek and that Christians call New Jerusalem.

The Church's One Foundation

2009-03-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

On January 8, 2009, Richard John Neuhaus, the prominent Lutheran then Catholic churchman and writer was taken home to his Lord. This hymn was sung at his memorial service.

The Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is his new creation by water and the Word.
From heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride;
With his own blood he bought her, and for her life he died.

Elect from every nation, yet one o'er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation, one Lord, one faith, one birth;
One Holy Name she blesses, partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses, with every grace endued.

Though with a scornful wonder we see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping; their cry goes up, "How long?"
And soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song.

Mid toil and tribulation, and tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious, her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious shall be the Church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union with God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won.
O happy ones and holy! Lord, give us grace that we like them,
The meek and lowly, on high may dwell with thee.

***

Requiescat in pace.

2 Peter 3:16

2009-03-07T22:02:00.000-08:00

[Paul] in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things [i.e., of the coming of the Lord]; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

Second to the Lord Jesus, St. Paul is probably the most studied and least understood teacher in all of Scripture. The unlearned and unstable wrest our Lord's statements to say no Christian should ever make judgments, take oaths, defend against aggression, render capital punishment, or use honorific titles. This is the hermeneutic of leftist radicalism: God is against Caesar, therefore rebellion against Christendom--and only against Christendom (!)--is justified.

Likewise, St. Paul is interpreted to dialectically set nature against grace, works against faith, Law against Gospel, and Christ's Mediation against the sacramental means of grace. Further, the Apostle is misconstrued to teach the separation of Jew and Gentile into two peoples of God, secret raptures, and every other effort calculated to tear redemptive grace from the fabric of creation.

These efforts will fail because it is not possible to ultimately deceive God's elect.

Against the Darbyites: The Spirit of Antichrist

2009-03-07T17:18:00.001-08:00

_____,

I, too, have many obligations that would preclude spending the time to discuss at once all the issues that have been raised.

I also apologize for what you took to be a personal attack. (Is it really an apology when one fails to express regret for his offensive manner?) It is too easy to get carried away in the heat of writing. So, actually, I apologize for the counter-offensive manner of my response. At least a conversation has been initiated that has potential to bear fruit. Hopefully, we will be able to shake hands when the matter is concluded (which I hope will not be too soon).

As you well know, the personal is deeply entangled with the issues we’re discussing. It can hardly be surprising that it surfaces in these sorts of interchanges. I do not care to deny that I have a personal stake in discussions about the Brethren. How could I not? I was nurtured in that community for the first twenty-five years of my life. As I see it, the inherent dispositional flaw of Brethren actually did not originate with them and is far more prevalent in society than I realized when I made my original break from them almost fifteen years ago. The problem is deeper and more pervasive, as I will attempt to explain further in this letter.

And surely, ___, I’ve nothing against you personally. Why should I? I think I can count on one hand the number of real conversations we’ve had together, even though we are family. We simply don’t have the personal rapport that gives you the right to come into my “territory” and start blasting without certain social preliminaries. I’m willing to trade body blows with you any time we set the ground rules for the fight as sporting men, not as brawlers.

Some conventions I think we both can accept are:

The Primary appeal is made to God’s will as revealed in Scripture, not the authority of man, not even “spiritual men” (Surprising isn’t it?);
Secondary corroborating appeals may be made to historical evidences (including cultural contexts, opinions of eminent believers, etc.);
An attempt is made to fairly represent the opponent’s motivation and rationale; and
The strictures of Christian charity are to be observed at all times.

Feel free to modify or add to the list as you see fit.

I originally deployed a broad “scatter-shot” response in order to give you a fuller picture of the life-and-worldview I am operating within. There may be some similarities/ commonalities in our systems, and both may be broadly categorized as “Christian.” However, due to the extreme divergence that exists, one side is definitely *more* orthodox and the other is heretical. Yet, the Lord is gracious, and he knows the weakness of our frame, the intention of our hearts, and the extenuating circumstances that obtain. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

Now to respond to some specific points you raised. You said:

1) “It has been an interesting observation, that when individuals move on to other Christian communities, the often open hostility to those who seek to be gathered to the Lord's name alone.”

To begin with, it is hardly unique to defectors from Brethrenism to react strongly against the system they have rejected. It takes an incredible spiritual toll and expense of effort to traverse a paradigm shift. Family and friends are often alienated as a result. It may actually be a change for the worse (e.g., Obama’s platform for change), but you cannot deny the costs involved in such a fundamental transition.

I trust I have never directed an attack against any person for the simple reason that he desires to gather to the Lord’s name alone. Rightly construed, I agree with the sentiment. Just as I do not attack liberals because they want to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, or shelter the homeless I do not attack Brethren for wanting to gather to the Lord’s name alone. It is not what they affirm that I detest, but what they deny.

I appreciate the desire for Christian unity on the part of JND [John Nelson Darby] and the early Brethren. The original motivation is praiseworthy. However, Darby’s principle of unity—separation from evil—was an after-the-fact justification for the original meetings, which were clearly undertaken without divine authority (new revelation) or authentication (miraculous testimony).

Separation from evil (doctrinal or moral) is a purely negative principle. First of all, it assumes the possibility of cleansing one’s self from ALL doctrinally and morally corrupting associations. Do you realize how impossible this is? It means remote, static, unchanging capital “P” Perfection, in other words, total alienation from the company of our fellow men! [And don’t worry, I believe what St. Paul said in 2 Tim. 3:19ff., just not in a rationalistic way—see below.]

Second, to make an attempt at such a thing, does not magically or automatically place one in union with Christ! How could it? Faith (a positive thing) is the divine instrument for that, not our imperfect strivings. The Church, a concrete historical society of redeemed yet sinful people—not the invisible company of all the elect—was established at Pentecost, not in 1830 or whenever it was the Brethren started meeting. All the attendees of those first meetings had previously been baptized into Christ’s fellowship in the form of the existing churches.

Descartes, the great French philosopher, tried to completely eliminate the possibility of error by subjecting everything he knew to radical doubt. He feigned to purify his intellect of all opinions and pay attention to the first thing he knew to be indubitably true. From there he would build a system of indubitable truth—truth that could not be doubted. The attempt to sustain such a project is known as Rationalism in the history of philosophy.

Similarly, Darby thought he had sufficiently purged himself of all evil associations to arrive at the primordially pure association of Christ alone. In the process of doing so, Darby gradually disassociated himself from the actual company of Christ’s people on earth to commune with the solitary “Heavenly Man” a phantasm of the real Christ who is associated with His People, which is a corporate body on earth (“Saul, Saul, Why persecutes thou me?”).

The result of the Brethren defection was the formation of a new sect. And without a Rapture bailout, the historic fruits can be clearly seen. For instance, their highly anticipated expression of visible unity failed to materialize in any stable way. A multitude of small, private, contentious, and homogeneous groups fails to qualify as a public testimony to anything other than failure.

When JND tried to reconcile many years later with his old friend George Mueller, Mueller refused to see him. The moment for reconciliation had long past. Apparently, Darby never truly repented of his schismatic proclivities for he died in separation from his old compatriot and fellow dissident, William Kelly.

2) Again, you wrote: “The struggle of those in the 1830s to break away from the established church was very real and cost many of them everything in this world. Yet they were willing to do it, because they saw that Christ was not contained in the ordinances of men through religious rituals. But was instead operating through each and every believer who names the name of Christ. There is only one mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus. Anyone or system that would interfere with must be rebelled.”

Yes. At the beginning of the 1830’s there were established churches of Christ.

Yes, paradigm shifts are costly. Many religions have produced martyrs... Why do you not accept the authority of the ecumenical councils? The Church at that time was full of men who had suffered torments because of their faithfulness to the Savior. We call them “confessors” because they confessed Christ under duress of physical torture. Orthodox Christians regularly endured persecution in various parts of the world throughout the pre-medieval period. Many of these confessors became popes, bishops, and founders of religious orders.

True, Christ is not contained—as in circumscribed—by what you term “ordinances of men.” God is perfectly free to work alongside normal means he has established. But where has he placed his Name and his promises? Is the Church an ordinance of man? Is ministerial ordination an ordinance of man? Are Baptism and the Eucharist ordinances of man?

Away with this unbelief! The God who created creaturely things, who has a stake in the world he created—after all, Jesus gave his flesh for THE LIFE OF THE WORLD (Jn. 6:51)—employs means to bring his power to bear in the world. Things, created material things, bear His grace. People bear his grace. The love of God radiates through every charitable act performed in His name. This is true of the regular ministry of the church or more informal acts of private Christian charity.

You say that anything that “interferes” with the sole mediation of Christ is to be rebelled against. By “interference” I suppose you mean every person or instrument that is conceived to channel particular graces to individuals. Do you see how faulty this is? Does not the Gospel come except through preachers who have been sent to preach (Rom. 10:14-15)? Did I not learn of Jesus on my mother’s knee? Do I not read a collection of writings that have been preserved and transmitted to me from others? Does not the kindness of Jesus come to me in the form of a cup of cold water offered in His name? Does not the Holy Ghost teach me of Christ? (I.e., The Person of the Holy Ghost is distinct from the Person of the Son.)

What is this rationalistic “mediation” of which you speak? Your conception is some kind of ahistorical, anti-social, anti-material, Gnosticism. The Book of Hebrews expounds what Christ’s Mediation truly means (Heb. 7-10). It means the royal, High-Priestly MINISTRY he undertakes between God, on one hand, and all the men he desires to save, on the other (Cf. 1 Tim. 2:4-6).

It means there is no salvation through any other than Jesus Christ, but it places no limit on the number of agents that participate in His ministry or instruments He may employ to channel the benefits procured by His redemptive Sacrifice.

Faith itself is a specially created instrument or medium for the application of these graces in time!

We are not brains in a vat, receiving direct communications from a Supreme Brain. We are created persons situated in a particular time and place, a particular context. It’s time to accept the fact that the world is fallen, but that God is active and has not abandoned the world, His Creation. It’s time to accept the fact that Christ is perfectly able to sustain His historical Church with all her sins and imperfections till the end, when He shall at last purify her completely of every spot and wrinkle.

3) You said: “You make a charge of Docetism as held by Darbyites. I do not know who you are referring too or precisely what, but regardless, the scripture clearly spells out that Christ is in heaven as a man, i.e. the first born/fruits. We too shall be like him in physical form when we too are present in glory. We shall have a body that is suitable for heaven, both physically and spiritually.”

JND was much too smart to be caught teaching straightforward Docetism. I said his doctrine of Christ tended toward Docetism. And, it should be plain by now what concerns I have about this tendency. I have attached a paper by F.F. Bruce (who was an eminent Open Brethren biblical scholar) entitled “The Humanity of Christ”, originally published in a 1973 publication of the Journal of the Christian Brethren Research Fellowship. The paper will provide you with an overview of the issues involved.

Also, I’m reading a pamphlet by JND entitled, “The Sufferings of Christ”, from which I will be able to demonstrate his heterodoxy...

You... are called to a higher standard through the good name of Christian. You should not disappoint those who were tortured and martyred, the very same who built Christian civilization for your benefit. This Civilization has been under heavy assault from within by the revolutions that began in the 17th Century with the regicide perpetrated under Cromwell. The sexual revolution is but the latest of these assaults. The spirit animating these rebellions, which is none other than the spirit of Antichrist, is that spirit that denies Christ came in the flesh to save the flesh from its corruption (1 Jn. 4:1-6; Jn. 6:51; cf. Jn. 16:33; 17:22-23).

[Here the letter concludes.]

Unique Theological Contributions of Hebrews

2009-03-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

Only Hebrews expounds the NT Church's understanding of Melchizedek.
No other NT writer calls Jesus a priest or titles him a High Priest.
No other NT writer develops the last will and testament character of the New Covenant.

Against the Darbyites: Excerpts in defense of Lent, Church authority, and the Church's indefectibility

2009-03-05T15:15:00.000-08:00

Yes, Lent...it's the forty days of preparation before Easter. It's a penitential season marked by abstinence and fasting for those of us who "regard the day" as our fathers in the faith have done for countless generations.

...I'm glad you're willing to stick around and have a serious conversation, ___. Welcome. I'm surprised Brethren so-called admit the necessity of confession. First John 1:9 prescribes the confession of sin for both forgiveness and purification of sins. I only recall an emphasis on psychological alleviation after initial conversion, since supposedly we've been forgiven for all our sins--even those we haven't yet commited. Once saved, always saved--right? Brethren argue that any post-conversion alienation we experience due to sin is merely psychological since we have been reconciled to God and guaranteed Heaven whether we actually persevere or not.

This is not the biblical view. I believe St. John when he says we confess in order to receive judicial forgiveness and moral purification. I believe the Lord Jesus when He tells us to pray "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." I believe Him when He says only those who love, forgive, and provide restitution will be loved, forgiven, and restored. Without works, faith is dead.

I believe the Bible when it says only those who persevere to the end will be saved. (Of course, I affirm the necessity of grace--the indwelling Holy Spirit's effectual working--for this). I believe the Bible when it says our Lord gave the Apostles authority to remit and retain sins. I believe the Bible when it says the Apostles were commissioned to baptize and disciple the nations. Therefore, I believe there is a priestly, pastoral, ruling and teaching authority in the Church associated with offices that were established from the beginning.

All of these offices exist by virtue of Christ's Royal High Priestly ministry that He exercises perpetually for us. Gifts that are practiced without the authority of an office are out of order. A personal relationship with Jesus outside of a legal covenant structure is an illicit relationship. One cannot have Jesus as his Savior if he does not also accept Him as his Lord (King and Master).

Because of Christ's faithfulness, His Church will not fail. Perhaps parts of it can be cut off, but the whole can never be destroyed. The gates of hell cannot prevail against it. Only those who agree with Korah's rebellious spirit (Jude 11; Num. 16:3) are deluded enough to believe that the entire Church fell away in the apostolic period. The Revelation to St. John (the last NT prophecy to be committed to writing) demonstrates that at least seven churches in Asia had not completely fallen away. St. Paul had already been executed by this time (we know this from Church tradition and only Church tradition). [Explanation: Darbyites believe the Church fell away as a public testimony to the Gospel and the unity of the Body in the apostolic period.]

We possess writings by contemporaries of the Apostles, men that were personally discipled by them and martyred. There is much of value in the writings of the Fathers. We read Holy Scripture in light (especially) of what the Holy Spirit taught them concerning the doctrines of God (the Trinity) and Christ (wholly God and wholly man, without confusion or separation) through the holy scriptures they were given the privelege to preserve, collect, and canonize by ecclesiastical authority.

I am prepared to demonstrate that the faith of the Church Fathers is in full conformity with the original deposit of Scripture, while acceding to the reality that their understanding was imperfect in many areas. It was given to later generations to flesh out the teaching of Scripture on other matters.

Anyway, I wasn't originally referring to the Church Fathers. I was referring to all the fathers in the faith that connect us to the first generation Church through an unbroken line of historic succession.

The Church is not the United States. The United States does not have Christ's guarantee that it will be preserved until the end of time. However, like He prayed for St. Peter, Jesus prays for us that our faith will not fail.

Postscript: Because there is disciplinary authority in the Church to pastor Christian disciples, prescribed feasts and fasts have been observed since the earliest times. The OT church had its own festivals and penitential seasons. The NT church has its correlative observances in light of Christ's coming and accomplished work of redemption. For the Christian, all things (including times) are holy but there is variation between them. Because divine goodness is multifaceted, not all times are the same. For example, Sunday is different from all the other days of the week.

To deny we should ever fast or feast in anticipation/ commemoration of significant redemptive events is basically the error of denying there are appropriate times for communal joy and sorrow. There is a time to mourn and a time to rejoice. To say it's pointless for Christians in general to engage in collective repentance is to say that collective repentance is pointless.

Of course, you Brethren deny the collective integrity of the Church on earth. In fact, anything having to do with material things/ the body is suspect because it's not spiritual enough. Ever heard of Docetism? John Nelson Darby's doctrine of Christ's heavenly humanity is definitely docetic in tendency.

Unfortunately for your theories, fasting is New Testament practice: Jesus, the disciples, and St. Paul all fasted. When was the last time you ever fasted, if ever?

What is Civilization?

2009-03-03T23:43:00.000-08:00

Russ Smith, my friend and fellow parishioner with whom I have debated monarchy in the past, provided an interesting challenge to a conventional use of the term “civilization.” In the good ol’ days, especially before colonialism became a bad thing, terms like “civilization” and “civilized” carried a moral connotation that implicitly judged all other human societies against the superior standard of western Civilization. Russ objects to this sort of Eurocentrism, and wants to reserve the term to a technical use that denotes a particular form of social organization.

A Confusion of Categories?

Russ writes, “the term ‘civilization’ is a description of a particular type of order… this view of civilization demands that the term be value-neutral… The problem with using the term ‘civilized’ in both a descriptive and evaluative sense is that it blurs that distinction between what all civilizations must share and the particulars that set them apart from each other… ‘civilized’ is properly a category of order… [not] a category of justice.”

To be clear, Russ does not object to Eurocentrist language because he is a cultural relativist. He clearly wants to call some civilizations better and others worse. Russ is concerned that “the [moral] standard of evaluation be external to the civilization in question and objective.” I share with Russ this concern that we not conflate the ideal with an imperfect historical instance.

Yet, as a Christian who accepts the biblical revelation, I would not characterize the antitheses between Greek-Barbarian and Jew-Gentile (under the old covenant) the same way. The Greeks were never the chosen people of God, but the Hebrews were. Furthermore, the Jewish order (c. 2000 B.C. - A.D. 70) was the historical instantiation of the Kingdom of God. I would further say that Christian civilization has succeeded OT Jewish civilization as the present social instantiation of God’s Kingdom. In this present phase of the Kingdom, the locus of order has moved from a national religio-political center (Earthly Jerusalem) to a universal religio-political center (Heavenly Jerusalem).

As something of a Christian Platonist, I have no problem with saying that a particular thing can participate in an ideal without being absolutely identical to the ideal itself. As something of a Christian Aristotelian, I can say that something can be in the process of actualizing its potential or achieving its perfection without being perfect. As a Christian who confesses the communion of the saints, I can say that the historic Church Militant is presently identified with the Church Expectant and will on the Last Day become the Church Triumphant, yet there is only one Church.

It may be that the present historic Church is sinful, incomplete and imperfect. The eschatological Church will be spotless and perfect. Without a realistic metaphysic of identity guaranteeing continuity, there would be (at least) three separate churches. However, because there is one Lord who has one Body, there is one Church (Eph. 4:4-5). In Christ all things have their being (Col. 1:17) and the Church being his fullness (Eph. 1:23) is one.

Civilization Defined

Returning to the question at hand, “What is civilization,” Russ has offered a working definition of his value-free notion of civilization. Russ says that civilization is “a way of ordering groups of people that are too large to be managed as individuals.” Developing his thought further, Russ explains that this means that the disparate interests that inevitably arise in a large population must lead to a reduced degree of homogeneity. Consequently, impersonal management techniques must be developed to neutrally arbitrate between the differences. Now, I’m sure Russ does not want to be held too strictly to this definition, and he is free to offer a fuller and more nuanced definition any time he wants.

Because my definition of civilization is assuredly not his, I’d like to briefly consider the four elements of Russ’ proffered definition: large population, disparate interests, reduced homogeneity, and impersonal management technique. Further, I’d like to consider whether these elements are as value free as Russ suggests.

As far as population goes, Russ has indicated that some sort of “civilization barrier” is broken when a population grows larger than a moderately sized town. So, apparently the rules of civilization come into play when we deal with groups composed of several thousands to several hundreds of millions. That’s quite a range!

Last year, Wal-Mart the largest company in the world, employed about 2,055,000 employees. The population of ancient Egypt (c. 2000 B.C.) was this size. Wal-Mart employs people of every age, sex, race, class and religious persuasion. In order to manage their employees, Wal-Mart executives employ impersonal management techniques in the form of human resource policy. So, according to Russ’ definition, it would seem that Wal-Mart is a civilization!

But, of course Russ doesn’t think Wal-Mart is a civilization, and neither do I. The definition we have been considering is incomplete. In addition to a large population and all that comes with it, a particular human society must possess an additional quality that sets it apart as a civilization. This quality must be some general interest or purpose that binds its people into a unity. And this common purpose must be able to trump any special interest that might threaten the integrity of the whole.

(To be continued…)

Conservative Spam

2009-03-03T12:25:00.000-08:00

Last week, I was listening to Dennis Prager discuss the bank bailouts and economic stimulus packages that have been railroaded through Congress lately. During the discussion, one of the studio personnel related a quotation from an 18th century writer by the name of "Tyler."

The quotation basically intimated that all democracies must ultimately fail because voters will eventually discover they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. For obvious reasons, I was intrigued by the quotation and decided to look it up. Maybe Tyler had written other good things.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered "Tyler's" quotation is a conservative urban legend that has circulated by email since the Bush-Gore 2000 presidential race but is actually decades old. The quotation, allegedly from Alexander Tyler's Fall of the Athenian Republic, read:

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts (or "largesse") from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.

According to Wikipedia, the supposed author to whom this quotation is attributed was Alexander Fraser Tytler (d. 1813), a Scottish lawyer and writer who lived at the time our Republic was founded. There is no record that Tytler ever wrote a book entitled The Fall of the Athenian Republic. In reality, however, the quotation is from several sources. Read this article by Loren Collins for more information.

From Wikipedia:

The passage actually comprises two quotations, which didn't begin to appear together until the 1970's. The list beginning "From bondage to spiritual faith" is commonly known as the "Tytler Cycle" or the "Fatal Sequence". Its first known appearance is in a 1943 speech "Industrial Management in a Republic" by H. W. Prentis, president of the Armstrong Cork Company and former president of the National Association of Manufacturers. The quote appears to be original to Prentis. No original author can reliably be determined for the first paragraph.

It is possible that whoever first made the statement [in the first paragraph] was paraphrasing or drawing a conclusion from a different quotation by Tytler. So, what did Alexander Tytler actually say?

The real statement reads:

It is not, perhaps, unreasonable to conclude, that a pure and perfect democracy is a thing not attainable by man, constituted as he is of contending elements of vice and virtue, and ever mainly influenced by the predominant principle of self-interest. It may, indeed, be confidently asserted, that there never was that government called a republic, which was not ultimately ruled by a single will, and, therefore, (however bold may seem the paradox,) virtually and substantially a monarchy.

(From Bartleby's Dictionary of Quotations)

I happen to agree with the substance of both quotations. The apocryphal quotation lacks the authority of a single author, and cannot be considered a prophetic statement about the course of the American experiment.

However, the "Fatal Sequence" seems logical--almost a historical law-- and examples of it are plentiful in history. Also, it would be an useful historical inquiry to determine whether in every historical democracy has degenerated because of loose fiscal policy. Is it the case that the citizenry of democracies will invariably vote for funds to benefit themselves and/ or their own interests without regard for the long term consequences?

Finally, the actual quotation by Tytler, suggesting that in fact no true democracy has ever existed, is an important point. There is no such thing as the "will of the people." There can only be compromise resolutions between whatever interests have representation. If in fact a general will does not exist, what single will actually does rule? Perhaps, the single will is constituted by a succession of overriding impulses that characterize the national mood at particular times [e.g., national self-determination, egalitarianism, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the market, the preservation of the union, democratic populism, civil rights, equal preference satisfaction (i.e., freedom of choice), etc.].

And if no single will actually governs U.S. policy, could it be that we are being led in a direction--toward an end--that has actually been chosen by nobody? Are we so dedicated to a theoretically perfect system of checks and balances that we have accepted a simulacrum of actual government in place of the real thing--concrete authority, principled policy, and just judgment?

Vatican: bishop's apology on Holocaust not enough

2009-02-27T10:25:00.000-08:00

The Vatican requires that Bishop Williamson disavow his views, not "apologize" for causing other people to be offended. But it doesn't matter. About 90% of those who heard the original story will continue in their belief that the Catholic Church has reinstated a Holocaust denier. Why do you suppose this is?

A Muslim woman arrested for arranging the rape of dozens of women in order to recruit suicide bombers

2009-02-21T13:43:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, my friend and fellow parishioner Russ Smith alerted me to the story. There aren't too many stories more horrific than this one.

The Unpopular Opinionator is now officially a practicing Sabbatarian

2009-02-19T13:42:00.000-08:00

It's a Man's Man's Man's World

2009-02-04T10:48:00.000-08:00

On February 16, 1966, James Brown recorded the greatest R&B ballad of all time. The Godfather of Soul's "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" has subsequently been covered by several major popular singers such as Cher, Celine Dion, and Seal. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked it #123 in the magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of all Time. And though the magazine says it was Brown's "abject singing" that made the song's "almost biblically chauvinistic" lyrics sound "genuinely humane," I'd have to say Brown sung the way he did because he believed what he was singing about:

This is a man's world
This is a man's world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing
Without a woman or a girl

You see man made the cars
To take us over the road
Man made the train
To carry the heavy load

Man made the electric lights
To take us out of the dark
Man made the boat for the water
Like Noah made the ark

This is a man's, man's, man's world
But it wouldn’t be nothing
Nothing without a woman or a girl

Man thinks of our little baby girls
And our baby boys
Man makes them happy
'Cause man makes them toys

And after man makes everything,
Everything he can
You know that man makes money
To buy from other man

This is a man's world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing
Not one little thing
Without a woman or a girl

He's lost in the wilderness
He's lost in bitterness
He's lost,
He's lost….

Right now, I'm reading George Gilder's Men and Marriage. The book is an absolute masterpiece; I can't put it down. Here's an extended quotation:

"In the man's desire, conscious or unconscious, to identify and keep his progeny is the beginning of love. In a civilized society, he will not normally be able to claim his children if they are born to several mothers. He must choose a particular woman and submit to her sexual rhythms and social demands if he is to have offspring of his own. His love defines his choice. His need to choose evokes his love. His sexual drive lends energy to his love and his love gives shape, meaning, and continuity to his sexuality. When he selects a specific woman, he in essence defines himself both to himself and to society. Every sex act thereafter celebrates that definition and social engagement.

"Without a durable relationship with a woman, a man's sexual life is a series of brief and temporary exchanges, impelled by a desire to affirm his most rudimentary masculinity. But with love sex becomes refined by selectivity, and other dimensions of personality are exchanged and developed. The man himself is refined, and his sexuality becomes not a mere impulse but a commitment in society, possibly to be fulfilled in the birth of specific children legally and recognizably his. His sex life then can be conceived and experienced as having specific long-term importance like a woman's [i.e., woman naturally bear children while men do not].

"Obviously, the most enduring way to make this commitment is through marriage. Yet, because sexual liberals deny the differences between the sexes, their explanations of why there are marriages and why marriage is needed and desired ignore the central truth of marriage: that it is built on sex roles...

"As a social institution, marriage transcends all individuals. The health of a society, its collective vitality, ultimately resides in its concern for the future, its sense of a connection with generations to come. There is perhaps no more important index of the social condition. It is the very temperature of a community. A community preoccupied with the present, obsessed with an immediate threat or pleasure, is enfevered. A social body, like the human body, can run a very high fever for short periods in order to repel a specific threat or to meet an emergency, a war or domestic crisis. But if it finds itself perpetually enfevered, it begins to run down and can no longer provide for the future. Its social programs can fail to work, its businesses can fail to produce, its laws can become unenforceable. The will and morale and community of its people can founder. A society, apparently working well, can stand impotent before its most important domestic and external threats and opportunities.

"The sense of social vitality and balance does not 'just happen.' In civilized conditions it is love, marriage, and the nurture of children that project a society into the future and make it responsible for posterity... [I]n general it is only through love for specific children that a society evokes long-term commitments from its members.

"That is why the social temperature of single men is so high--why they end up so often being sent to war or jail or other institutions, and why they burn out so young. A society does not run into real trouble, however, until its culture begins to adopt the unmarried male pattern, until the long-term commitments on which any enduring community is based are undermined by an opportunistic public philosophy. The public philosophy of the unmarried male focuses on immediate gratification: 'What did posterity ever do for me?' A society that widely adopts this attitude is in trouble.

"The power of woman springs from her role in overcoming these socially and personally self-defeating ways of men...

"The ideology of the sexual liberationists sees society as a male-dominated construct that exploits women for the convenience of men. In evidence, they cite men's greater earning power, as if economic productivity were a measure of social control rather than of social service. But it is female power, organic and consitutional, that is real--holding sway over the deepest levels of consciousness, sources of happiness, and processes of social survival. Male dominance in the marketplace, on the other hand, is a social artifice maintained not for the dubious benefits it confers on men but for the indispensible benefits it offers the society: inducing men to support rather than disrupt it...

"Any consideration of equality focusing on employment and income, therefore, will miss the real sources of equilibrium between the sexes. These deeper female strengths and male weaknesses are more important than any superficial male dominance because they control the ultimate motives and rewards of our existence. In childbearing, every woman is capable of a feat of creativity and durable accomplishment--permanently and uniquely changing the face of the earth--that only the most extraordinary man can even pretend to duplicate in external activity.

"Women control not the economy of the marketplace but the economy of eros: the life force in our society and our lives. What happens in the inner realm of women finally shapes what happens on our social surfaces, determining the level of happiness, energy, creativity, morality, and solidarity in the nation" (pp. 14-18).

As James Brown sang,

This is a man's world
This is a man's world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing
Without a woman or a girl!

Brown, himself, must have known very well the futility of the pleasure-seeking male life. After all, he made a career out of distilling male lust into music for the dance hall. Perhaps the pathos of Brown's performance arose out of an internal conflict between love and lust, between faith and temptation. But I'm no psychologist, and I know next to nothing about James Brown's life except that he was married four times and probably had several illegitimate children.

The point is not to crap on James Brown, it's to highlight a perennial human problem. You see, when temptation enters Eden and the serpent dangles (no pun intended!) the promise of divinity before her, woman is given a choice. She has a choice to take the fruit or refuse it until she may legitimately possess it. If she is not deceived by the promise of instant godhood (remember, there is a link between sex and spirituality--e.g., marriage is a "mystery" of Christ and the Church) and witholds herself until the proper time, eternal life (i.e., the perpetuation of the human race) is assured. But if she takes the fruit prematurely, disaster is inevitable. What she thinks will be pleasure enjoyed with her man turns instead to her undoing. Man will begin to care more for the fruit than for her. The fruit is actually a distraction from the real thing, for Woman is the authentic meaning of Man's natural life. Woman shall be saved through childbearing, as the apostle says, and man is saved through woman.

The Importance of the Epistle to the Hebrews

2008-11-25T11:44:00.000-08:00

The following paragraphs were adapted from the last of six lessons I recently completed for my parish's Sunday School:

I chose Hebrews for this study because I believe it is the most important book in the NT. For me, it is the key to interpreting the Person and Work of our Savior as found in the Gospels. The Gospels are chronological histories of Jesus’ life on earth. When taking them at face value, it is easy to be lulled into the impression they are just stories about Jesus’ miracles and records of his parables and sayings cobbled haphazardly together. Until we get to Hebrews, we don’t really know that Jesus is the ultimate Priest as well as the perfect Sacrifice. We don’t really know he is a Priest as well as a King in Heaven, or that these offices are combined in the single inheritance he rightfully received as the only begotten Son of God.[1]

The Epistle’s Place in the NT

Along with the Gospels, Hebrews stands as the Christological[2] foundation of the NT. The great epistles that expound the doctrine of Justification (Romans, Galatians and Ephesians) all presuppose the past, present and on-going mediatorial work of the Son. The other epistles, excepting perhaps I John, are all primarily devoted to pastoral or other secondary matters. Acts is, of course, a history of the early Church, a history of the activity of the Holy Spirit sent forth from Christ’s heavenly throne. Revelation is a series of visions of the liturgy of Heaven, of royal judgments and priestly intercessions. Hebrews forms a bridge between the Gospels and Revelation by moving us from cross to throne, from altar to sanctuary, from sacrifice to blessing, and from suffering to glory. It accomplishes this by explaining the logic behind Jesus' filial obedience, humiliation, and subsequent exaltation as the glorified Christ.

The Themes of Hebrews

Furthermore, Hebrews provides the key for understanding how the Christian interpretation of the OT works. The Gospels give many examples of fulfilled prophecy, but Hebrews combines many OT passages together to show not only that but how Jesus fulfills the whole OT history: which includes but is not limited to the sonship of Adam[3], the sonship of Israel (Israel was God’s chosen “son”)[4], the royal sonship of David[5], the Sabbath[6], the ancient priesthoods[7], the covenants[8], the sacrifices[9], and the faith of all preceding generations[10]. Hebrews contains the interpretive key to unlocking all Scripture’s mysteries.

A Spiritual Journey

Finally, to read Hebrews as it is meant to be read is to embark on a spiritual journey, an encounter with God's living word. This journey begins when we realize Jesus is the complete and final revelation of God’s word and the ultimate meaning behind creation (vv. 1:1-2, 10-12). With this understanding we are prepared to perceive the divine Son at the center of God’s Heaven, attended and served by angelic beings (vv. 1:5-2:9). We see also that he shares our human nature with us in order to be a merciful and faithful High Priest on our behalf (1:10-18).

As God’s faithful and obedient Son, Jesus acquired the Sabbath inheritance, the final rest that even such saints as Moses and Joshua were unable to achieve, since they had been mere servants (3:1-4:10). At 4:11ff., the epistle encourages us to “strive to enter the rest” by passing through the double-edged sword (the word of God) that guards the way to Paradise. For, as it says earlier, “those who believe are in the process of entering the rest.”[11]

In the Anglican communion liturgy (1662) after the Absolution and Comfortable Words and before the Proper Preface, we recite the Sursum Corda: “Lift up your hearts! We lift them up to the Lord!” By faith, we ascend to join the angels and archangels to “laud and magnify” the glorious Name. And then, all the prayers are offered to prepare and sanctify the elements of the Eucharistic feast. Spiritually, we are in the heavenly Temple eating the meat of the sacrifices as the priests did long ago in Solomon’s Temple and in Moses’ Tabernacle before that.

Our great High Priest, Jesus, is with us. As Priest after the order of Melchizedek, his priesthood is founded on better promises (than the Levitical order)[12], confirmed with a divine oath[13], and perpetuated in a single immortal life.[14] This new Royal High Priesthood entails a change of covenant (or law), the establishment of the better covenant anticipated by the prophets, the New Covenant.[15] After Jesus offered his all-sufficient and unrepeatable sacrifice, he entered the true Tabernacle of which the earthly Tabernacle was a copy.[16] By contemplating Jesus’ priestly ministry we come to the true meaning of sacrifice. We learn that the Lord is not interested in the blood of bulls and goats, but in faithful obedience to his will. This is the obedience that Christ rendered—complete obedience unto death.[17] In reading the epistle we come to the understanding that the obedience of faith (final perseverance) is required of his followers also.[18] It is only by pursuing the path of faith (for without it, it is impossible to please God[19]) that we will be able to take our place among the cloud of witnesses surrounding the throne of God.

The Epistle to the Hebrews presents a magnificent vision of the divine-human Son and the liturgy of Heaven of which he is the center, exhorting us to press on in faith and obedience in order that we too may inherit the blessing appointed for God's sons.

[1] Cf. Zech. 6:12-13.
[2] I.e., pertaining to the doctrine of Christ
[3] 1:3; 2:5-18; cf. Gen. 1:26; Lk. 3:23-38.
[4] 3:1-5; cf. Ex. 4:21-23, Hos. 11:1; Matt. 2:15.
[5] 1:5; cf. 2 Sam. 7:12-16; Ps. 2:7ff.
[6] 3:7-4:16.
[7] 5:1-10; 7:1-28.
[8] 7:12; 8:6-13; 9:15-17.
[9] 9:23-10:18.
[10] 2:13; 3:6; 5:7; 10:5-9; 12:2.
[11] 4:3.
[12] 6:13-18.
[13] 7:20-22.
[14] 7:23-25.
[15] 7:12; 8:6-13; 9:15-17; cf. Jer. 31:31-37; Ezek. 11:17-20; 36:23-38; 37:21-28.
[16] 10:14-18; 8:2,5; 9:23-25.
[17] 10:5-9; cf. Phil. 2:5-8.
[18] 6:11-12; 10:35-39; 11:6; 12:3-17.
[19] 11:6.

"Employer and Employee" a Perversion of Natural Society

2008-11-19T12:06:00.000-08:00

Tribunus at Roman Christendom had this to say:

Just as the Father serves so does a Christian father and, indeed, a Christian king or master.

Indeed, the relationship between the Father and the Son and between God and His people is the model for the relationship between every master and every servant.

The Christian master is a father to his servant. They obey him and he protects and cares for them. Their bond is a bond of mutual charity, loyalty and fidelity. It is a quasi-familial, paternal relationship, just as the relationship of priest and people is a paternal relationship.

Such was the model of the master-servant relationship that obtained in old Christendom. Think of good King St Wenceslaus fetching food for the poor and warming the feet of his servant or of King St Louis of France or of any of the saintly kings of Christendom.

Nowadays, this relationship - based upon the divine - is mocked, derided and scorned to ridicule and falsely caricatured as a relationship of exploitation, venal peculation and cruelty by the master and of craven, stupid subserviance on the part of the servant.

What a shameless lie!

This, indeed, is what the relationship became when it ceased to be based upon the divine charity and instead became the pedestrian, mundane and loveless relationship of "employer" and employee".

No longer was the relationship familial but merely a cold, sordid relationship of money, exchange, trade and mutual exploitation...

Read the rest of this hard-hitting post which also features many great pictures. I think Tribunus' post should be made into a tract for widespread distribution!

Quote of the Day: Loyalty

2008-11-10T14:07:00.001-08:00

"If loyalty is treated as a personal taste or a means to an end, which is what count as rational motivation in political modernity, it’s just not loyalty."

-Jim Kalb

Who Should be King of the U.S.?

2008-11-10T11:12:00.000-08:00

The monarch should be American. However, there ought to be continuity with our original (British) sovereign, if possible. Therefore, here are two suggestions:

a) the American nearest in blood relation to the House of Hanover. This option has the dual benefit of having one of our own and repairing the breach of the past. Also, such a person might be an "average Joe" who happened to win the lottery of life by merely being related to the Hanovers. This might appeal to the American preference for the long-shot, the under-dog, and the "big chance."

b) a prominent and distinguished American male who will marry the most eligible princess from the houses of either Hanover or Windsor, for the good of the country. (I'd be happy to oblige if absolutely necessary. ;)) Seriously, though, this option has the dual benefit of providing an excellent individual most capable of achieving success and establishing a tie with existing royals.

The "chosen one" (not Obama) needs to be a Christian committed to his religion, Judeo-Christian ethics, classical western virtues, and traditional American liberties rightly construed (freedom of religion, equality before the law, representative government, free markets, etc.).

Finally, there should be a state church that solemnizes official government assemblies in a standard way. The king should be a member of this church and have a function in it appropriate to his national responsibilities. The currently emerging American Anglican Province would be my choice.

What do ya'll think?

From a letter to a dispensationalist friend

2008-11-07T12:41:00.000-08:00

Dear _____,

I think it's great your pastor is taking you through the different end-times views. It shows a mature approach that is willing to open the scripture and allow other believers to challenge us with insights they may have that we never thought of. Basically, my rejection of dispensationalism can be reduced to three main objections:

1) With the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ, there can no longer be animal sacrifices. Furthermore, the whole levitical priesthood and ministry has been replaced by Christ's priesthood and ministry (see Heb. 7-10). Therefore, there can never be a revival of the OT system during a future millennium.

2) Jews and Gentiles have been brought into "one new man", which is the Church or the Body of Christ, through Christ's work of redemption. There is now no more enmity between the two (see Eph. 2:11-22). Therefore, the dispensationalists wrongly teach that there are still (or can ever be again) two peoples of God. Only a reversal of Christ's cross-work could make such a situation thinkable.

3) No matter how many "dispensations" different dispensational writers think there are, the pre-determined pattern is always the same: man is given responsibility, he fails, and judgment must inevitably follow. However, Jesus Christ did not fail. He broke the cycle of human failure and made possible true obedience. This is the promise of the new covenant (Jer. 31 and other passages), that God will pour out his Spirit and give his people hearts of flesh so they will be empowered to render obedience to him. Contrary to Scripture, dispensationalists teach that the new covenant has not been established (Matt. 26:28) and that the gates of hell do in fact prevail against the church (Matt. 16:18)!

Now, I don't know the future. Sin will always be a fact of the human condition until Christ returns. However, it is a lack of faith that says the conversion of culture is impossible. It is also unhistorical. We have already had over a 1000 years of Christendom. The "Dark Ages" is simply propaganda devised by Enlightenment historians. During that period, western Europe outpaced all other civilizations in cultural, scientific, moral, and spiritual development. The problem was, as I see it, that we had so much success that later generations took it for granted and forgot Who's blessing made it all possible. So the last 200 years or so of apostasy, and the last 100 years of the worst bloodshed in human history, may be bringing us back to the realization that the nations must repent if they expect to prosper with God's blessing (Ps.2).

I am hopeful but not certain of what the future may bring. From the human perspective, we must strive to obedient to God's word regardless of the outcome. This means that society as a whole, and not just individuals, are obliged to bow the knee to Jesus, who has been enthroned as King of kings and Lord of lords (Phil. 2:8-11).

One last thought, _____. There is no biblical promise anywhere that Christians will avoid suffering in this world. In fact, we have been told to expect persecution. As far as the judgments that God will pour out on the world, the Israelites were not raptured out of Egypt during the plague judgments. God was able to preserve his people while visiting wrath upon the Egyptians. Similarly, the rapture is not a necessary prerequisite for the Great Tribulation to occur. Of course, I do not deny the future resurrection; I merely differ with my dispensational brethren on the proper sequential arrangment of events. Much more serious are the differences I've outlined [above].

The Synergy of Grace and Congruent Merit

2008-11-05T11:44:00.000-08:00

It is… necessary to establish all virtues, not only chastity and temperance, but also patience, gentleness, charity, humility, and all others. This is not effected in one particular way but in many ways, which differ according to individual disposition. It is sometimes fostered by prayer, meditation, and good works, while a person may sometimes prove himself by enduring hunger, cold, shame, disgrace, and other troubles for love of virtue and truth…

One reason for this fact may be that our Lord Jesus Himself is the supreme Master of this craft and the supreme healer of spiritual sickness, without whom we can do nothing. It is therefore reasonable to require that a man should follow and practice what He teaches and inspires. But a master who can only teach his pupil one lesson has little knowledge to impart, and a doctor who prescribes one medicine for all ailments has little learning. So our Lord Jesus, who is wise and good, reveals His wisdom and goodness to His disciples in different ways, and gives to each soul the particular remedy best suited to its need. A further reason is that if there were one particular way by which a person might come to the perfect love of God, a man might imagine that he could attain it by his own efforts, in the same way that a merchant makes his profit by his own effort. But the love of God cannot be attained in this way, for one who wishes to serve God wisely and love him perfectly must desire God as his sole reward.

But no creature can deserve to possess God through its own unaided efforts, for even if the physical and spiritual exertions of a single man were to equal those of all creation, he would not on that account deserve God as his reward. For God is supreme bliss and infinite goodness, and immeasurably transcends everything that mankind can merit, so that He cannot be won by man’s own efforts, like some material reward.

God is free, and gives Himself to whom He wills and when He wills, and not for any particular achievement or at any particular time. For though a person may do his utmost throughout his life, he can never attain the perfect love of Jesus until the Lord Jesus Himself freely gives it. On the other hand, He gives this love only to those who exert themselves to the utmost, and would do even more if they could.

It seems clear, then, that neither grace alone without full support from the soul, nor a soul’s individual efforts unsupported by grace, can bring it to reformation in feeling—a reformation grounded in perfect love and charity.

But God’s grace allied to man’s efforts fosters the blessed fervor of perfect love in a soul, a grace only granted in its fullness to a soul that is truly humble, and stands in awe of God.

Consequently one who is not humble and zealous cannot attain this reformation in feeling, since one who is not completely humble cannot see himself as he is. For instance, he may do all the good deeds that he can, and he may fast, watch, wear a hair shirt, and practice all kinds of bodily penance; he may perform all the outward works of mercy for his neighbor, or all the inward duties of prayer, contrition, and meditation; but if he rests content with these and relies on them, regarding them so highly that he presumes on his own merits and thinks himself good, gracious, holy, and virtuous, he still lacks humility. Even though he says and thinks that all that he does is due to God’s grace and not to himself, he still lacks humility, because he will not yet renounce all credit for his good deeds, nor make himself truly poor in spirit and know himself to be nothing. And until grace enables a soul to recognize its own nothingness, and, having seen the truth in Jesus, to drop all pretence of personal merit for its good actions, it is not perfectly humble.

What is humility but truthfulness? There is no real difference. For grace enables a humble soul to see that Jesus does everything, and that the soul itself does nothing but allow Jesus to work through it as He wills. But one who is guided solely by human reason and is unaware of any alternative form of guidance finds it very hard—indeed, almost impossible and unreasonable—to do good actions and then to ascribe all merit for them to Jesus and discount his own part. Nevertheless, one who has a spiritual perception of truth knows this to be wholly true and completely reasonable. Indeed, anyone having this perception will never do less good on this account, but will be spurred to a greater and wholehearted activity, both in body and soul. This may be one reason why some people strain and torture their unhappy bodies with harsh penance all their lives, and are constantly reciting prayers, psalms, and other devotions, but never come to feel the love of God in their souls, while others seem to do so in a short time and with less strain. The reason is that the former lack this humility of which I speak.

On the other hand, a person who takes no action at all cannot experience this grace. The idle man thinks to himself, ‘Why should I bother? Why should I pray or meditate, watch or fast? Why should I undertake bodily penance in order to win this grace when it cannot be obtained except by the free gift of grace? I shall continue as I am, a man of the world, and I shall not adopt any of these bodily or spiritual exercises until God gives it. For if He is willing to give it, He does not require me to do anything; and however much or little I do, He will give it me. And if He does not will to give it, I shall never obtain it however hard I try.’

But anyone who adopts this attitude can never be fully reformed, because he deliberately chooses worldly idleness, and renders himself incapable of receiving the gift of grace. He refuses to rouse himself either spiritually to a lasting desire and longing for Jesus, or physically to perform his exterior duties. So he cannot receive this grace.

Therefore one who has no real humility and will not bestir himself either inwardly alone, through deep fervour, lasting desire, and regular prayer and meditation, or else through both inward and outward activities, cannot be spiritually reformed to the likeness of God.

-Walter Hilton, The Ladder of Perfection, ii.21, (Late 14th century spiritual teacher)

The Broad Way of Destruction Contrasted with the Narrow Way Leading to Life

2008-10-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

"The herdist instinct is furthermore not only personal, in the sense that it clamors for a personal collectivism; it creates also a longing and desire for the visual or acoustic contemplation of identitarian or uniformistic phenomena. The true herdist, the man truly dominated by that inferior instinct, will not only rejoice in marching amongst twenty thousand uniformly clad soldiers, all stepping rhythmically in one direction, but he will find an almost equal gratification in contemplating the show from a balcony. He will not only be happy in sitting amidst two hundred other bespectacled businessmen, drinking beer and humming one chant in unison, but the aspect of a skyscraper with a thousand identical windows will probably impress him more than a picture by Botticelli or Zurbarán.

"The herdist is the born enemy of all personal hierarchies as well as of most hierarchies of value. The modern political philosophies and the Industrial Revolution have strengthened the herdist element in all civilized countries; a Parteitag in Nuremberg, the beach of Brighton during a bank holiday, a military parade on the Red Square in Moscow or a subway train during the rush hours in New York afford voluntary or involuntary manifestations of the herdist spirit or the herdist order of our days. It is needless to emphasize that the herdist is a convinced egalitarian, that he has an inveterate suspicion regarding everything original or unique, a hatred for everything beyond his comprehension, a hostile uneasiness for things which are "low" or organically natural. The peasant with his strong personality is no less a target for his contempt and scorn than the "stuffed shirt," the "high-hatted" aristocrat, or the "high-brow" intellectual.

"The ideal dwelling place for the herdist is the city, the megalopolis with its apartment houses, clubs, cinemas, theaters, offices, factories, and restaurants. Here the herdist has ample opportunity to live the life of the masses, to lead an impersonal and lonely existence in a truly dehumanized ant heap, to love and like nobody but himself and perhaps those similar to him.

"This loneliness, this solitude amongst the many, is usually not even mitigated by an awareness of the presence of God. The herdist who tends in the political sphere to be a Leftist — i.e., a national or an international collectivist — feels little attracted by the idea of God's existence who after all is "different" and represents the top of the pyramid of a hierarchic system which the herdist, disbelieving in souls, is unable to accept. The herdist is truly the homme mediocre whom Ernest Hello has described so aptly; he is simply forced to stand for mediocrity because it has as the "medium" (the "fifty-fifty"), the best chance to become the rallying point and the focus for the mass movement, the mass sentiment, or the mass norm...

"The great achievements — sanctity, heroism, holy wisdom, the beatific vision — are not eagerly sought for by the herdist who like the beasts of the field longs to be a "secure" animal (to use an expression of Peter Wust) instead of being proud to remain an "insecure" animal, which man is by nature and in the order of things. Hostile to adventure, which after all was one of the great magnetic powers of the Middle Ages, the herdist moves cautiously in the broad stream of the mediocre masses avoiding all extremes except those in a frenzied mass hysteria. Yet Christianity is an extreme. The yoke of Christ is not a lesser menace to his meager and miserable personality than the iron postulates of the Cross...

["Irving Babbitt in his Rousseau and Romanticism speaks of the high inner qualities of imitation. Yet he speaks distinctly of the imitation of "superiors" (the Imitatio Christi, for instance) and not of the imitation of "equals," which alone fosters the coming into existence of the uniform herd.]

"...of the same Cross which is a flat denial of his shining rule of the "fiftyfifty," and disturbing to all his cautious calculations and plannings. Only the select can be closely confronted with the Absolute without takingflight. Only the saints, but not the "commonsensical" herd, can and will surrender to the "Holy Folly of the Cross." For this reason we have such hatred on the part of the mediocre man, who hates any sort of hierarchy, whether of the saints or of sanctity itself. Sanctity is not only an extraordinary condition but also an adventure. And adventure belongs to the domain of the "Romantic." Adventure is a solitary enterprise, like sanctity, and therefore not congenial to the herd and the herdist."

-Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, The Menace of the Herd (1943), pp. 16-19.

"All Truth is God's Truth" & Catholic Tradition

2008-10-07T12:55:00.000-07:00

The notion of a yawning, unbridgeable, antithetical chasm between all things non-Christian and all things Christian is a serious exaggeration of the truth. On the other hand, the idea that even after the Fall man’s rational powers remain able to discern, explain, and preserve really substantial outlines of truth such that perhaps only by changing a few words and phrases Plato or Aristotle might be thought of as Christians-in-disguise is a serious exaggeration of the truth. Yet, like all great myths, both of these exaggerations have a kergyma of the truth buried deep inside. The pessimistic antithesis idea retains the truth that whatever prisca theologia might actually exist, it always has to be subject to ongoing dialogue with and correction by the final theology, the revelation of God in Christ. The optimistic continuity idea retains the truth that at the end of the day God’s creation does actually reveal something and men are actually able to understand it in more than a trivial manner.

(From Tim Enloe's excellent post "Prisca Theologia and Pia Philosophia" at Evangelical Catholicity, emphasis added.)

Not All Sins are Equal

2008-10-03T15:07:00.000-07:00

ORIGINAL SIN. We therefore acknowledge that there is original sin in all men.

ACTUAL SINS. We acknowledge that all other sins which arise from it are called and truly are sins, no matter by what name they may be called, whether mortal, venial or that which is said to be the sin against the Holy Spirit which is never forgiven (Mark 3:29; I John 5:16). We also confess that sins are not equal; although they arise from the same fountain of corruption and unbelief, some are more serious than others. As the Lord said, it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for the city that rejects the word of the Gospel (Matt. 10:14 f.; 11:20 ff.).

THE SECTS. We therefore condemn all who have taught contrary to this, especially Pelagius and all Pelagians, together with the Jovinians who, with the Stoics, regard all sins as equal. In this whole matter we agree with St. Augustine who derived and defended his view from Holy Scriptures. Moreover, we condemn Florinus and Blastus, against whom Irenaeus wrote, and all who make God the author of sin.

-from The Second Helvetic Confession (1564), Chapter 8

Jim Kalb has a new book

2008-09-11T07:37:00.000-07:00

Interview with James Kalb, author of
The Tyranny of Liberalism

What's this book about?

Liberalism and what to do about it.

What's the message?

Liberalism has won overwhelmingly. It dominates all public discussion and all respectable institutions. Rejecting liberalism today is rejecting what counts as rationality and moral decency. There seems to be no place else to go. That means that conservatism has no idea what it is or what to do. It also means that liberalism—which is basically oppositional—has run through its possibilities.

Sounds a bit like the end of history. What's the problem?

The problem is that liberalism taken straight doesn't work and destroys what does work. It's not possible to maintain social order if you make freedom and equality the highest principles. Their demands increase without limit and they wipe out other things that are needed for a tolerable or even minimally functional way of life. The more dominant liberalism becomes the less possible it is to mitigate the consequences of its basic contradictions. The only serious political question today is how to get beyond it. We all have to rethink, and this book is intended to advance the process.

What do you mean by liberalism? Conservatism?

Liberalism is the belief that equal satisfaction of preferences is the highest social good, and the purpose of politics and morality is converting the world into a sort of machine that brings about that good. Conservatism is resistance to that view for the sake of other goods traditionally recognized:—God, country, family, traditional social relations and morality. Modern thought has no good way to make sense of those goods so insisting on them has come to seem irrational, obstinate, retrograde, and probably malicious.

If liberalism goes, what replaces it?

Recognition that government can't be based directly on clear concepts that apply always and everywhere. Acceptance that people differ in ways that matter and choices must be made. Recognition that some particular understanding of the nature of man and the good life is basic to every social and political order.

And that means ...

Recognition that choices must be made means abandonment of freedom and equality as supreme principles. Acceptance of diversity means decentralization, local initiatives, and fewer attempts to do away with discrimination. Downplaying clear universal concepts means reliance on prudence, established practice, particular negotiated settlements, and general principles we don't fully grasp. And recognition that government is always based on a particular concept of the good means recognizing that government can't be neutral on basic moral and religious issues.

So you reject freedom, equality and tolerance?

No. They're often very good things. Where they work and people like them people should have them. The point is that they can't be supreme principles. Freedom only makes sense, for example, when you know what it's for. That requires some idea of what's good in human life.

How about justice and reason?

Justice and reason aren't found pure. They always have a setting. If you try to make them abstract and content-free, so they're equally acceptable to everyone no matter what his outlook and way of life, they go mad. We need tradition to know what things are and what they mean, so that we can reason about them and deal with them justly.

What's special about this book?

It ignores partisan disputes and deals with basic issues like tradition and scientism and the nature of knowledge and reason. It takes liberalism seriously and asks what it is, why it's so powerful, and what's really wrong with it. And it's willing to reject liberal pieties fundamentally.

Bible 101: Proportional Justice in the Afterlife

2008-09-01T22:18:00.000-07:00

This blog entry is written out of exasperation with the general state of Bible knowledge among Christians who ought to know better.

On punishment:

Luke 12:47-48: "That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows."

Matthew 11:21-24: "Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you."

On reward:

Matthew 5:17-19: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the LAW or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

Luke 19:11-26: "While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. He said: 'A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. 'Put this money to work,' he said, 'until I come back.'

"But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, 'We don't want this man to be our king.' He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.

"The first one came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned ten more.'

"'Well done, my good servant!' his master replied. 'Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.'

"The second came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned five more.'

"His master answered, 'You take charge of five cities.'

"Then another servant came and said, 'Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.'

"His master replied, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? Why then didn't you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?' Then he said to those standing by, 'Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.'

"'Sir,' they said, 'he already has ten!'

"He replied, 'I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me."

1 Corinthians 3:10-15: "By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames."

Gradations of reward and punishment are clearly taught by our Lord and the Apostle Paul. Such gradations also make sense according to reason: God would be unjust to punish a garden-variety sinner the same as someone who tortured babies. This is simple, simple stuff, yet so many people, for whatever reason, can't seem to grasp the basic concept of proportional justice.

People were saved under the Old Covenant the same way they are now, through justification by faith. Justification by faith must not be construed to contradict the biblical teaching of the necessity of works and proportional justice. If a teacher of Christianity presumes to subvert these clear biblical truths, he is a false teacher.

For Fun: A Message from the Queen!!!

2008-08-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour', 'favour', 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise'. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as 'like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let M*crosoft know on your behalf. The M*crosoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then, you're not ready to shoot grouse.

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables.

Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

8. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

9. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

10. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

11. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

12. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

13. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

14. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

15. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

16. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God Save the Queen!

The Perils of Superpowerdom

2008-08-11T20:38:00.000-07:00

America wants to keep Russia isolated by supporting Ukrainian and Georgian autonomy. If Russian power can be hemmed in by converting former Soviet republics into client states of the U.S. under the aegis of NATO, Russia's ability to exert influence over Europe through manipulation of natural gas and oil supplies will be greatly diminished. Russia isn't going to just let that happen. Now there's war in Georgia. Read about it here. Keep your eye on the ball!

Possibly the most important piece you'll read on Solzhenitsyn this week:

2008-08-06T17:27:00.000-07:00

Solzhenitsyn and the Struggle for Russia's Soul

by George Friedman

"There are many people who write history. There are very few who make history through their writings. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who died this week at the age of 89, was one of them. In many ways, Solzhenitsyn laid the intellectual foundations for the fall of Soviet communism. That is well known. But Solzhenitsyn also laid the intellectual foundation for the Russia that is now emerging. That is less well known, and in some ways more important...

"...In the West, he was seen as a hero by all parties. Conservatives saw him as an enemy of communism. Liberals saw him as a champion of human rights. Each invented Solzhenitsyn in their own image. He was given the Nobel Prize for Literature, which immunized him against arrest and certified him as a great writer. Instead of arresting him, the Soviets expelled him, sending him into exile in the United States.

"When he reached Vermont, the reality of who Solzhenitsyn was slowly sank in. Conservatives realized that while he certainly was an enemy of communism and despised Western liberals who made apologies for the Soviets, he also despised Western capitalism just as much. Liberals realized that Solzhenitsyn hated Soviet oppression, but that he also despised their obsession with individual rights, such as the right to unlimited free expression. Solzhenitsyn was nothing like anyone had thought, and he went from being the heroic intellectual to a tiresome crank in no time. Solzhenitsyn attacked the idea that the alternative to communism had to be secular, individualist humanism. He had a much different alternative in mind..."

Read the rest of Friedman's excellent article.

What is Libertarian Paternalism?

2008-08-06T12:25:00.000-07:00

Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein "are the authors of a new book, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (Yale University Press), in which they articulate an approach to designing social and economic policies that incorporates an understanding of people's cognitive limitations.

"They call this governing philosophy "libertarian paternalism." That is not an oxymoron, they insist in their book. Rather it is a corrective to the longstanding assumption of policy makers that the average person is capable of thinking like Albert Einstein, storing as much memory as IBM's Big Blue, and exercising the willpower of Mahatma Gandhi. That is simply not how people are, they say. In reality human beings are lazy, busy, impulsive, inert, and irrational creatures highly susceptible to predictable biases and errors. That's why they can be nudged in socially desirable directions.

"A nudge is thus any noncoercive alteration in the context in which people make decisions. The libertarian paternalism behind it is rooted in Thaler's lifelong fascination with the power of small, seemingly innocuous details — the arrangement of food in a cafeteria, the drawing of a small fly in the bowl of a urinal, a pattern of lines on the road — to influence people's behavior. David Laibson, a professor of economics at Harvard University, says that Thaler's ideas, once a cry in the wilderness, are so influential that "about half of the profession now believes that psychology has a useful role to play in economic modeling, and that number is growing."

"...Take two examples in their book. Studies show that placing fruit at eye level in school cafeterias enhances its popularity by as much as 25 percent. Or consider this stroke of creativity by an economist in Amsterdam charged with cleaning up the restrooms at the Schiphol Airport: He had a fly etched into the wells of urinals, giving male patrons something to aim at. Spillage was reduced by 80 percent. The problems of childhood obesity and foul restrooms are remedied with very little inconvenience to people — or cost. Children remain free to grab that piece of chocolate cake, and there is nothing preventing visitors to Schiphol's restrooms from ignoring the fly and aiming elsewhere. It is merely less likely that either group will do so."

Read the Chronicle of Higher Education's review of their book.

A Great Film

2008-07-31T18:14:00.001-07:00

The Kite Runner

Jim Kalb asks "Why Radical Traditionalism in Politics?"

2008-07-31T08:21:00.000-07:00

Because conservatism as normally understood is not possible in America today. Conservatism stands for loyalty to what is settled. It presumes that one belongs to a culture and civilization that is basically well-founded and coherent, so that it will return to type if a few errors are debunked and excesses suppressed.

None of that makes sense today. All authoritative American institutions are left-liberal in their principles. As such, they are profoundly at odds with the implicit habitual goods fostered by tradition and with any orientation toward the transcendent...

the principles needed today must be radical, because they must be in sharp opposition to the leading principles of public life.

What we need are principles that go deeper and say more than simply announcing that they are "conservative" in some generic sense. They must catch hold of something that is sufficiently fundamental and all-encompassing to ground and provide a standard for social and political life. They must therefore be religious. It is the lack of such principles that has made it impossible for conservatives effectively to contest liberalism.

Further, the principles we need must be sufficiently concrete to give answers, and sufficiently anchored in experience to avoid utopian fanaticism. That means they must be principles supported by some particular political and religious tradition...

Read the rest of his post here.

The family as model of the state

2008-07-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

The family as a model for the organization of the state is a theory of political philosophy. It either explains the structure of certain kinds of state in terms of the structure of the family (as a model or as a claim about the historical growth of the state), or it attempts to justify certain types of state by appeal to the structure of the family. The first writer to use it (certainly in any clear and developed way) was Aristotle, who argued that the natural progression of human beings was from the family via small communities to the polis. Read the rest of the Wikipedia article.

From a letter on Christian political involvement

2008-07-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

Thanks for your thoughts, _____. I'm more and more seeing the rationale for non-participation in the political process. Good men can differ on how best to represent Christ in the political sphere.

However, at what point will such an approach cease protesting worldly power and work to improve life as it actually is in this fallen world? No system is perfect because of sin, so should Christians perpetually relegate themselves to non-political action? In fact, not even ecclesiastical institutions can be free of taint, so should we disband all organized religion?

Now if the author is saying that non-involvement is the most effective strategy in this moment and place, I'd like to hear his reasons. Maybe you could outline his main points for me. For instance, what does "true involvement" mean?

As for hastening (or anticipating) the Kingdom, I guess in the ultimate sense we'd agree only Christ can bring the kingdom to its historical consummation/perfection/fullness. However, in principle the Kingdom is already perfect, redemption being fully accomplished in Christ and in (at least) some of his saints. Kingdom resurrection power is already immanent in the world, vivifying it, and raising the dead to life. So, are we acting in faith in this reality, or do we put limits on what God can do?

Christ transformed the playing rules by pursuing a path of total submission to the Father. This involved putting himself at the mercy of the established political powers, i.e., he was no revolutionary in the ordinary sense of the term. In other words, he transformed political society from the inside out through self-sacrificial love. Christ didn't avoid political influence, but he didn't seek it either. I guess that's the delicate balance for which we all should strive.

Does this mean that Christianity doesn't offer concrete proposals for political action and even how governmental authority should be arranged? I don't think so. Grace doesn't contradict nature; rather, grace calls men back to their true nature while at the same time redeeming that nature. There is a natural order. Christian political thinkers should identify what it consists of, and point the way to its recovery and renewal.

Book Recommendation: In Praise of Prejudice

2008-07-19T20:28:00.000-07:00

Today, the word prejudice has come to seem synonymous with bigotry; therefore the only way a person can establish freedom from bigotry is by claiming to have wiped his mind free from prejudice. English psychiatrist and writer Theodore Dalrymple shows that freeing the mind from prejudice is not only impossible, but entails intellectual, moral and emotional dishonesty. The attempt to eradicate prejudice has several dire consequences for the individual and society as a whole. (information blurb from Google Book Search)

From the Wikipedia entry on Anthony Daniels, a.k.a., "Theodore Dalrymple":

Anthony (A.M.) Daniels (born 1949) is a British writer and retired physician (prison doctor and psychiatrist), who generally uses the pen name Theodore Dalrymple. He has also used three other pen names. In writing under the pseudonym Theodore Dalrymple, Daniels says he "chose a name that sounded suitably dyspeptic, that of a gouty old man looking out of the window of his London club, port in hand, lamenting the degenerating state of the world."

Daniels has written extensively on culture, art, politics, education and medicine drawing upon his experience as a doctor and psychiatrist in Zimbabwe and Tanzania, and more recently at a prison and a public hospital in Birmingham, in central England. He has travelled in many countries in Africa, South America, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere.

Daniels has revealed in his writing that his father was a Communist businessman, while his Jewish mother was born in Germany and came to the United Kingdom as a refugee from the Nazi regime. In 2005 he retired from England to move (with his wife) to France, where he plans to continue writing. His columns frequently appear in The Spectator as well as in City Journal, a magazine published by the Manhattan Institute.

In his commentary, Daniels frequently argues that the so-called "progressive" views prevalent within Western intellectual circles minimize the responsibility of individuals for their own actions and undermine traditional mores, contributing to the formation within rich countries of an underclass afflicted by endemic violence, criminality, sexual promiscuity, welfare dependency, and drug abuse.

He contends that the middle class abandonment of traditional cultural and behavioural aspirations has, by example, fostered routine incivility and ignorance among members of the working class. Occasionally accused of being a pessimist and misanthrope, his defenders praise his persistently conservative philosophy, which they describe as being anti-ideological, sceptical, rational and empiricist.

Here's a choice quotation:

The combination of relativism and antipathy to traditional culture has played a large part in creating the underclass, thus turning Britain from a class into a caste society. The poorest people were deprived both of a sense of cultural hierarchy and of the moral imperative to conform their conduct to any standard whatever. Henceforth what they had and what they did was as good as anything, because all cultures and all cultural artifacts are equal. Aspiration was therefore pointless: and thus they have been as immobilized in their poverty - material, mental, and spiritual - as completely as the damned in Dante's Inferno.

(From the essay, "Uncouth Chic", in "Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes The Underclass", Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 2001.)

___________________________________________

This is the third book by Daniels I've read. One of the best cultural critics I know of, Daniels has produced a short book that argues for a kind of cultural conservativism I've been coming to for a while. There are certain pre-rational commitments, prejudices, if you will, which are absolutely necessary for a healthy society that should rarely, if ever, be questioned.

Daniels shows that prejudices are inescapable, that a prejudice against prejudice is socially harmful, and that some predjudices are necessary preconditions for virtuous living.

He closes his well-written essay with the following paragraph:

It takes judgment to know when prejudice should be maintained and when abandoned. Predjudices are like friendships: they should be kept in good repair, Friends sometimes grow apart, and so sometimes should men from their prejudices; but friendship often grows deeper with age and experience, and so should some prejudices. They are what give men character and hold them together. We cannot do without them.

A Request for UO's Readers

2008-07-19T19:53:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers of this blog,

A while back, Blogger updated its system, and I've just made the switch to a new template. I recommend to all Blogger users that they do the same. The features are much better!

Unfortunately, Blogger only transferred the links I had in place when the whole system changed over (I don't know how many months ago). So, I've got to manually go through all the links, deleting obsolete and adding new ones. This is going to be a laborious process over the next week or so.

While I'm doing this, I'd like to add new links to blogs and sites that you, my faithful readers, think would be worthwhile to add. Please copy your recommended links in the comments section of this post.

Faithfully Yours,

Andrew

Response to Jack: The Necessity of Historical Generalization

2008-07-17T12:06:00.000-07:00

I am grateful for your response, my friend. I’m sure you appreciate the difficulty of handling such a complex subject as this. Thousands of volumes have been written on the subject, and if the Lord leaves us, tens of thousands remain to be written still. I plead your forbearance while I attempt a good faith effort (however limited by my lack of ability) to meet your demands for biblical arguments and concrete historical examples.

As for “high level generalizations”, Russ, it’s hard for me to understand why you don’t want me to state the theoretical presuppositions I’m working with. Historical facts abstracted from a historiographical approach are meaningless. Generalizations are not only inescapable but absolutely essential to the acquisition of knowledge. Otherwise, all that’s left is an undifferentiated mass of uncoordinated data.

Being perfectly willing to submit my presuppositions to analysis, I’m interested in hearing from you how they make sense—or not—of the broad sweep of historical events. Biblical grounds are also important because the divine interpretations of events have been revealed. Since we both recognize Scripture’s authority in these matters we will in time be able to discuss what can be validly inferred from revelation.

What I want from you, Russ, is the biblical rationale for why the ideal of self rule in personal affairs derogates from the ideal of a hierarchically ordered society. Also, why does the sin involved in Israel’s desire for a king take priority over the sanctification of kingship in Christ’s messianic office, a kingship, I emphasize, that is not reserved to Christ alone but shared with his people.

Constantine

What are you trying to say or imply, Russ, when you argue about the historical context for Constantine’s reign? It’s all very well to point out that Diocletian reorganized the empire and that Constantine didn’t forge a completely new order. I never said nor implied differently. What was new about Constantine’s reign was his reliance on the Christian God’s favor for the establishing of his office and the peace of his realm.

So, Constantine didn’t make Christianity the official religion of Rome. So what? Forty years after his death Theodosius did. What benefit can you gain by denying that Constantine accomplished much foundational to the establishment of Christianity in the empire, not to mention ignoring what he accomplished for the Church merely by calling the first ecumenical council?

Roman History

The facts of Roman History can, I believe, be best incorporated into a historical account that compares the relative stability under monarchical rule with the confusion that obtained under popular rule. Allow me to quote the great Robert Filmer to this effect:

A little to manifest the imperfection of popular government, let us but examine the most flourishing democracy that the world hath ever known — I mean that of Rome. First, for the durability: at the most it lasted but four hundred and eighty years; for so long it was from the expulsion of Tarquin to Julius Caesar, whereas both the Assyrian monarchy lasted without interruption at the least twelve hundred years, and the empire of the East continued one thousand four hundred and ninety-five years.

Secondly, For the order of it, during these four hundred and eighty years, there was not any one settled form of government in Rome; for after they had once lost the natural power of kings, they could not find upon what form of government to rest. Their fickleness is an evidence that they found things amiss in every change. At the first they chose two annual consuls instead of kings. Secondly, those did not please them long, but they must have tribunes of the people to defend their liberty. Thirdly, they leave tribunes and consuls, and choose them ten men to make them laws. Fourthly, they call for consuls and tribunes again, sometimes they choose dictators, which were temporary kings, and sometimes military tribunes, who had consular power. All these shiftings caused such notable alteration in the government, as it passeth historians to find out any perfect form of regimen in so much confusion; one while the Senate made laws, another while the people. The dissensions which were daily between the Nobles and the Commons bred those memorable seditions about usury, about marriages, and about magistracy. Also the Grecian, the Apulian, and the Drusian seditions filled the market places, the temples, and the Capitol itself, with blood of the citizens; the Social War was plainly civil; the wars of the slaves, and the other of the fencers; the civil wars of Marius and Sylla, of Cataline, of Cæsar, and Pompey the Triumvirate, of Augustus, Lepidus, and Antonius — all these shed an ocean of blood within Italy and the streets of Rome…

But you will say, yet the Roman empire grew all up under this kind of popular government, and the city became mistress of the world. It is not so; for Rome began her empire under kings, and did perfect it under emperors; it did only increase under that popularity. Her greatest exaltation was under Trajan, as her longest peace had been under Augustus. Even at those times when the Roman victories abroad did amaze the world, then the tragical slaughter of citizens at home deserved commiseration from their vanquished enemies. What though in that age of her popularity she bred many admired captains and commanders — each of which was able to lead an army, though many of them were but ill requited by the people — yet all of them were not able to support her in times of danger; but she was forced in her greatest troubles to create a dictator, who was a king for a time, thereby giving this honourable testimony of monarchy that the last refuge in perils of states is to fly to regal authority. And though Rome's popular estate for a while was miraculously upheld in glory by a greater prudence than her own, yet in a short time, after manifold alterations, she was ruined by her own hands: suis et ipsa Roma viribus mil; for the arms she had prepared to conquer other nations were turned upon herself, and civil contentions at last settled the government again into a monarchy.

(From Patriarcha, 2.11-12)

Please note, Russ, that this quotation from Filmer summarizes a response I would make to your argument that the empire was predicated on the republic's accomplishments, which is itself a generalization. On the contrary, I argue, the peace and longevity of her rule was obtained through the leadership of her emperors. If Rome had remained a republic she would have fallen prey to inward strife and foreign invasion during perilous times sooner rather than later.

What we have here is a contest between two theoretical systems. I regard royal sovereignty as a summum bonum. Alternatively, Russ, you offer popular sovereignty as the ideal. Fine. Let's compare our theories by examining first principles in light of Scripture. Along the way, we can indulge in some historical speculation and have fun while we're at it.

(To be continued…)

From Sir Robert Filmer's PATRIARCHA

2008-07-14T23:19:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER I.

3. I come now to examine that argument which is used by Bellarmine, and is the one and only argument I can find produced by my author for the proof of the natural liberty of the people. It is thus framed: "That God hath given or ordained power, is evident by Scripture; but God hath given it to no particular person, because by nature all men are equal, therefore he hath given power to the people or multitude."

To answer this reason, drawn from the equality of mankind by nature, I will first use the help of Bellarmine himself, whose very words are these: "If many men had been together created out of the earth, they all ought to have been princes over their posterity." In these words we have an evident confession that creation made man prince of his posterity. And indeed not only Adam, but the succeeding patriarchs had, by right of fatherhood, royal authority over their children. Nor dares Bellarmine deny this also. That the patriarchs, saith he, were endowed with kingly power, their deeds do testify; for as Adam was lord of his children, so his children under him had a command and power over their own children, but still with subordination to the first parent, who is lord-paramount over his children's children to all generations, as being the grandfather of his people.

4. I see not then how the children of Adam, or of any man else, can be free from subjection to their parents. And this subjection of children being the fountain of all regal authority, by the ordination of God himself; it follows that civil power not only in general is by divine institution, but even the assignment of it specifically to the eldest parents, which quite takes away that new and common distinction which refers only power universal and absolute to God, but power respective in regard of the special form of government to the choice of the people.

This lordship which Adam by command had over the whole world, and by right descending from him the patriarchs did enjoy, was as large and ample as the absolutest dominion of any monarch which hath been since the creation. For dominion of life and death we find that Judah, the father, pronounced sentence of death against Thamar, his daughter-in-law, for playing the harlot. "Bring her forth," saith he, "that she may be burnt." Touching war, we see that Abraham commanded an army of three hundred and eighteen soldiers of his own family. And Esau met his brother Jacob with four hundred men at arms. For matter of peace, Abraham made a league with Abimelech, and ratified the articles with an oath. These acts of judging in capital crimes, of making war, and concluding peace, are the chiefest marks of "sovereignty" that are found in any monarch.

5. Not only until the Flood, but after it, this patriarchal power did continue, as the very name patriarch doth in part prove. The three sons of Noah had the whole world divided amongst them by their father; for of them was the whole world overspread, according to the benediction given to him and his sons: "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth." Most of the civilest nations of the earth labour to fetch their original from some one of the sons or nephews of Noah, which were scattered abroad after the confusion of Babel. In this dispersion we must certainly find the establishment of regal power throughout the kingdoms of the world.

It is a common opinion that at the confusion of tongues there were seventy-two distinct nations erected, all which were not confused multitudes, without heads or governors, and at liberty to choose what governors or government they pleased, but they were distinct families, which had fathers for rulers over them, whereby it appears that even in the confusion God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority by distributing the diversity of languages according to the diversity of families, for so plainly it appears by the text. First, after the enumeration of the sons of Japhet, the conclusion is: "By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands, every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations." So it is said: "These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations." The like we read: "These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations. These are the families of the sons of Noah after their generations in their nations, and by these were these nations divided in the earth after the Flood."

In this division of the world, some are of opinion that Noah used lots for the distribution of it; others affirm he sailed about the Mediterranean Sea in ten years and, as he went about, appointed to each son his part, and so made the division of the then known world into Asia, Africa, and Europe, according to the number of his sons, the limits of which three parts are all found in that Midland Sea.

6. But howsoever the manner of this division be uncertain, yet it is most certain the division itself was by families from Noah and his children, over which the parents were heads and princes.

Amongst these was Nimrod who, no doubt, as Sir Walter Raleigh affirms, was by good right lord or king over his family; yet against right did he enlarge his empire by seizing violently on the rights of other lords of families; and in this sense he may be said to be the author and first founder of monarchy. And all those that do attribute unto him the original regal power do hold he got it by tyranny or usurpation, and not by any due election of the people or multitude, or by any faction with them.

As this patriarchal power continued in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, even until the Egyptian bondage, so we find it amongst the sons of Ishmael and Esau. It is said, "These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names by their castles and towns, twelve princes of their tribes and families. And these are the names of the dukes that came of Esau, according to their families and their places by their nations."

7. Some, perhaps, may think that these princes and dukes of families were but some petty lords under some greater kings, because the number of them are so many that their particular territories could be but small and not worthy the title of kingdoms; but they must consider that at first kings had no such large dominions as they have nowadays. We find in the tune of Abraham, which was about three hundred years after the Flood, that in a little corner of Asia nine kings at once met in battle, most of which were but kings of cities apiece, with the adjacent territories, as of Sodom, Gomorrha, Shinar, etc. In the same chapter is mention of Melchisedek, king of Salem, which was but the city of Jerusalem. And in the catalogue of the kings of Edom, the names of each king's city is recorded, as the only mark to distinguish their dominions. In the land of Canaan, which was but a small circuit, Joshua destroyed thirty-one kings, and about the same time Adonibesek had seventy kings whose hands and toes he had cut off, and made them feed under his table.[1] A few years after this, thirty-two kings came to Benhadad, king of Syria, and about seventy kings of Greece went to the wars of Troy. Cæsar found more kings in France than there be now princes there, and at his sailing over into this island he found four kings in our county of Kent. These heaps of kings in each nation are an argument their territories were but small, and strongly confirms our assertion that erection of kingdoms came at first only by distinction of families.

By manifest footsteps we may trace this paternal government unto the Israelites coming into Egypt, where the exercise of supreme patriarchal jurisdiction was intermitted because they were in subjection to a stronger prince. After the return of these Israelites out of bondage, God, out of a special care of them, chose Moses and Joshua successively to govern as princes in the place and stead of the supreme fathers; and after them likewise for a time He raised up judges to defend His people in tune of peril. But when God gave the Israelites kings, He re-established the ancient and prime right of lineal succession to paternal government And whensoever He made choice of any special person to be king, He intended that the issue also should have benefit thereof, as being comprehended sufficiently in the person of the father, although the father only was named in the grant.

8. It may seem absurd to maintain that kings now are the fathers of their people, since experience shows the contrary. It is true, all kings be not the natural parents of their subjects, yet they all either are, or are to be reputed, the next heirs to those first progenitors who were at first the natural parents of the whole people, and in their right succeed to the exercise of supreme jurisdiction; and such heirs are not only lords of their own children, but also of their brethren, and all others that were subject to their fathers. And therefore we find that God told Cain of his brother Abel, "His desires shall be subject unto thee, and thou shalt rule over him." Accordingly, when Jacob bought his brother's birthright, Isaac blessed him thus: "Be lord over thy brethren, and let the sons of thy mother bow before thee." [Gen. 4:7]

As long as the first fathers of families lived, the name of patriarchs did aptly belong unto them; but after a few descents, when the true fatherhood itself was extinct, and only the right of the father descends to the true heir, then the title of prince or king was more significant to express the power of him who succeeds only to the right of that fatherhood which his ancestors did naturally enjoy. By this means it comes to pass that many a child, by succeeding a king, hath the right of a father over many a greyheaded multitude, and hath the title of Pater Patriae...

From Bishop Overall's Convocation Book

2008-07-14T22:08:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER II.

To him that shall duly read the Scriptures, it will be plain and evident that the Son of God, having created our first parents, and purposing to multiply their seed into many generations, for the replenishing of the world with their posterity, did give to Adam for his time, and to the rest of the patriarchs and chief fathers successively before the flood, authority, power, and dominion over their children and offspring, to rule and govern them; ordaining by the law of nature, that their said children and offspring (begotten and brought up by them) should fear, reverence, and obey them. Which power and authority before the flood, resting in the patriarchs, and the chief fathers, because it had a very large extent, not only for the education of their said children and offspring, whilst they were young, but likewise for the ordering, ruling, and governing of them afterwards, when they came to men's estate. And for that also, it hath no superior [authority, or power, over, or above] it on earth, appearing in the Scriptures, although it be called neither patriarchal, regal, and imperial, and that we only term it potestas patria; yet, being well considered how far it did reach, we may truly say that it was in a sort potestas regia; as now, in a right and true construction, potestas regia may justly be called potestas patria.

CANON II.

If any man shall therefore affirm that men at the first, without all good education, or civility, ran up and down in woods, and fields, as wild creatures, resting themselves in caves, and dens, and acknowledging no superiority one over another, until they were taught by experience the necessity of government; and that thereupon they chose some amongst themselves to order and rule the rest, giving them power and authority so to do; and that consequently all civil power, jurisdiction, and authority was first derived from the people, and disordered multitude; or either is originally still in them, or else is deduced by their consents naturally from them; and is not God's ordinance originally descending from Him, and depending upon Him, he doth greatly err.

PLACET EIS.

The Ministry of Law

2008-07-10T23:59:00.000-07:00

Over at Theopolitical, Davey Henreckson offers some provocative thoughts on the eschatological role of civil government:

If the civil realm, like the “law,” fills an eschatological role, it doesn’t have to be the antithesis of the spiritual realm. It can serve as the taskmaster to lead us to the beginning and end of all things: Jesus. Paul says in Galatians 3:21, “Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.” The law, therefore, was not meant to give life in itself, but rather to point to the faith of Jesus, our true salvation. But further, abiding by the law directs us toward Christ. The law, and by extension the civil realm, was “sent by [God] to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good,” (pre-)schooling us in the ways of grace.

I have wondered for some time now whether king as God's minister (Rom. 13), should be thought of as the chief deputy of God's Law on the earth. If this is correct, then a case could be made that since the priest is the primary minister of redemptive grace that church and state perform distinct but complementary roles within the New Covenant economy.

St Paul says to Timothy:

We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me. (1 Tim. 1:8-11)

The proper use of the Law is in punishing and restraining sin. During the present age this power has been entrusted to the king, who acts as the agent of God's wrath (Rom. 13:4).

Here perhaps is a hint of the main thrust behind St. Paul's critique of the Law: that the Law in its civil character punishes and condemns, but cannot redeem. Earthly government is insufficiently equipped to produce righteousness and peace. The eternal city cannot be established through political efforts, as demonstrated by Israel's manifest failure, but has to be built "without hands" (Dan. 2:34ff.; cf. Heb. 11:10).

Earthly government can "make nothing perfect," though it can as a harsh taskmaster drive us to Christ. There is a proper use for government, but we must make sure we clearly delimit its role in light of the fact that the principalities and powers were put to shame at the cross (Col. 2:15).

Here, then, is the biblical basis for the institutional separation between church and state.

I challenge all who seek to uphold the Gospel and guard the prerogatives entrusted to the Church to likewise acknowledge and defend the proper role of the king as the supreme deputy of God's Law on earth till Christ returns, when all [earthly] dominion, authority and power will be abolished (1 Cor. 15:24).

Response to the Jack of Clubs: Political Order and Christian Faithfulness, Part 2

2008-07-08T12:41:00.000-07:00

Russ, I apologize for taking so long to get back to you.

Getting back to your original point about solid data being necessary at the beginning of our investigations into truth, I wanted to list a few of the facts I’ve been working with:

· Christian monarchy is an old and venerable tradition, dating from Constantine, and was intrinsic to the first Christendom.

· Social order was preserved in Christian monarchical societies past the Reformation period.

· The modern era, notable for its egalitarian ethos, is simultaneously characterized by iconoclasm, antisacerdotalism, and the decline of religious faith and practice.

· Democracy, civil rights, and free markets have as yet failed to produce a devout citizenry that elects righteous leaders, frames laws to codify divine law, or produce an economy that cultivates the earth for God’s glory.

· Furthermore, there seems to be spiritual, moral, intellectual, and aesthetic decline in each succeeding generation (in both the ruling and working classes).

· Social order has declined to such a degree that less than half of our countrymen recognize the sanctity of human life (created in God’s Image), the fixed nature of human sexuality, the natural order of marriage, or even the existence of good and evil. All these things were taken for granted for nearly two-thousand years in Christian monarchical societies.

· This social disorder is historically linked to the Enlightenment ideals of liberty, equality, fraternity and the Romantic ideal of individual autonomy which are in turn developments of radical Protestant Gnosticism (the rejection of fixed natural order and structure).

Now, back to the meat of your comment:

1. (cont’d.)

Just a quick remark here. I prefer vice-regency to the term vice-gerancy for obvious reasons. Such highlights the biblical idea that man was created to not only “manage” creation as God’s steward, but also to eventually inherit dominion over all created things as God’s king crowned with glory and honor (Ps. 8:4-8).

2. (cont’d.)

a) I do not grant that Authority (the lawful structure of command and obedience) is infinitely malleable; it has a certain form. It was originally granted in the form of Adam’s fatherly headship. And we neglect or subvert this form at great peril.

Tribes, being essentially extended families, have familial authority structures. Ideally, familial heads should exercise their covenant headship and swear fealty to a prominent familial head on behalf of their constituent families.

Aristocracies and oligarchies are basically democratic confederacies of powerful men. I say this because they are arrangements of compromise that fail to realize unified, coherent rule.

Republics attempt to balance the Rule of the Many with the Rule of the One. Such may provide a stable government for a temporary period, as in our United States, but ultimate policy commitments will be made either by presidents (for example, Lincoln and FDR) or judges (a Supreme Court majority) overstepping their constitutional authority and imposing their wills at opportune moments.

A nation must be impelled by the lucidity of One or the confusion of Many. Just as God is not ultimately one and three in an oppositional sense (the Son and Spirit submit to the Father’s will), so unified society has a basic identity and purpose articulated and interpreted by a ruling head. This ruling head being both biologically and spiritually dependent on his predecessors is under natural obligation to honor and preserve the heritage bequeathed to him. There is no more fitting figure for such a role than the Son-Father-King.

[Note: I'm prepending the formula "Father-King" with "Son" here to highlight the related facts that Adam was the original Son of God, that every human father is the son of his father, and that all the baptized are sons of God in Christ, who is the eternal Son of God.]

b) I agree, Russ, that kings can and have been unfaithful. But I do not thereby concede there are four (or more) categories of rulers. Authority is a kind of law; indeed it is the fundamental law. A change in office implies a change in law (cf. Heb. 7:12) God is not worshipped because he commanded it; he is worshipped because he’s God. The force of any law issued is derived from the status of the lawgiver.

Certainly, only one Man can be wholly identified with God, so only the commands of Christ Jesus are perfectly just and wise. Yet, the attempt to divide the form and content of authority is a terrible mistake. Lesser kings who administer Christ’s authority on earth must be respectfully obeyed until their actions wholly subvert the reason for their being.

To reiterate, there are only two categories of rulers: those who govern by imitating the form and manner of God’s rule and those who govern in the form and manner of their own devising, of which there can be infinite variation (oligarchy, aristocracy, democracy, etc.).

Well, Russ, I’m going to have to break off for now. I look forward to any thoughts you have on what I've presented thus far.

Vatican expresses regret over Church of England vote for women bishops

2008-07-08T11:16:00.000-07:00

From Times Online
July 8, 2008

Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

The Vatican expressed “regret” today at the Church of England's move to consecrate women bishops, which threatens to drive traditionalists into the arms of Rome.

Dozens of Anglo-Catholics are now expected to seek refuge in the Roman Catholic Church but most will remain within the Anglican fold and attempt to defeat women bishops at the final vote in about five years.

The Vatican statement, which mirrored that put out when the Synod voted to ordain women priests in 1992, said that last night's move presented a “new obstacle” to reconciliation between the Holy See and the Anglican Communion.

Read the rest of the Times Online article.

Introducing Iron Ink

2008-07-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

Pastor Bret, a minister in the CRC, has done some great work on the errors of W2K, or, what he calls the Radical Two Kingdoms Theology (R2Kt). I hope to be interacting with Pastor Bret on this topic in the near future.

Here's a sample of Pastor Bret's analysis:

The dualism incipient in R2Kt viral thinking creates two different kinds of knowledge. One kind of knowledge is anchored in right reason. A second kind of knowledge anchored in revelation and faith. But in keeping with classical dualism R2Kt viral thinking offers no answer as to how these two kinds of knowledge can be reconciled. When such a situation obtains resolution must be arrived at in one way or another, if even only in an unofficial or pragmatic sense. The possible resolutions, it seems to me, reduce to two. The first possible option was seen in history when the Church was in the ascendancy. Here the ’spiritual’ truths triumphed over the truth of reason. When the state has been in the ascendancy the option has been for the truths of reason to triumph over ’spiritual’ truths.

Note: Radical Two Kingdoms theology (R2Kt) is an older and broader tradition than the specific ideology associated with Westminster Seminary California I refer to as W2K.

Thanks Misty!

2008-07-08T08:05:00.000-07:00

Misty Irons writes from California to let us know her marriage is doing fine, despite the state's legalization of gay marriage. We're relieved. Truly.

What Should the Response of the Church be to Gay Marriage?

2008-06-21T16:14:00.001-07:00

Check out my post and the ensuing discussion over at Evangelical Catholicity.

Interesting Speculation

2008-06-21T16:02:00.000-07:00

Check out Steven Wedgeworth's fascinating thoughts about city spirits. I've just got to get over to his blog more often!

Meditation on the Resurrection

2008-06-21T15:54:00.000-07:00

Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death.
Acts 2:24

Oh, empty tomb of Jesus!
This holds a glory bright
That fills death's shadowed valley
With resurrection light;
Oh mighty love of Jesus!
His feet alone have trod
Earth's heights and depths of sorrow
And made a way to God.

-Author Unknown

David Horowitz on the Party of Treason

2008-06-17T17:17:00.000-07:00

Last night I was riveted by this lecture given by Horowitz in Santa Barbara, CA, earlier this year. The lecture is on the real rationale behind the war in Iraq, the radicalization of the Democrat party, and the ineptitude of the Bush White House's handling of the public case for the war.

In the period between our rapid military conquest of Iraq and the consolidation of order, a time of intense insurgent violence, many liberal media pundits argued for an analogy between Iraq and Vietnam. In the sense of Vietnam being an unwinnable war, I demur. However, in the sense that liberalism undermined the public American will to complete the mission, I concur.

Horowitz explodes several myths about the war: Bill Clinton actually established our foreign policy to remove Saddam. The original rationale for deposing him was based in the fact that he remained in obstinate violation of seventeen UN sanctions. Iraq was not then a sovereign nation; it was on probation since the first Gulf War, under obligation to keep the terms imposed upon it by the victorious coalition forces.

Colin Powell made his overstated WMD case to the UN, after the U.S. congress had already approved the use of force to depose Saddam based on his violations of UN sanctions. The Democrat leadership initially largely supported the war, and only reneged after it became apparent that Howard Dean was the party front runner in early 2003.

Horowitz sharply criticizes the Bush Administration's selling of the war. He contends the rationale should have always been Saddam's demonstrated intent to neither live at peace nor to abide by international law. The WMD and democratization arguments could only be supplemental to the essential reasons for going into Iraq in the first place.

Amazingly, it appears that even now with things going well many conservatives are eager to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory out of the fantasy that America can return to its isolationist foreign policy of the early nineteenth century.